johnfelstead

The week leading up to my trip to the ring was rather hectic. I had to replace the Radiator in the car as it had decided to spring a rather large leak. Whilst at it I thought I may as well uprate the spec to the best possible as my temps were always a little on the high side when driving on track. I decided to have a copy made but using the core from an F1 Radiator, in 4-row form so I removed the current rad and shipped it to Radtec to be copied. I wanted to retain all my ducting to make the install neat and help keep the heat away from the intercooler, which is mounted behind the radiator but ducted to from under the car. A design I am going to revisit as its fairly inefficient.

Whilst the radiator was out of the car I decided to install a front anti-roll bar kit to give me a more stable track car. As my car is rather a rare model of Westfield (Zei220 Cosworth Turbo) and has completely different bodywork to any other version to make it type approved. (My Westie is one of a handful that is classed as a fully type approved for Europe production car) of course the ARB kit didn’t fit straight on. Not a big issue but just adds more time to the job.

I had to cut away part of the front bodywork and modify the alloy mountings slightly. My main concern was to not make a dogs dinner of the bodywork and I am pretty chuffed with the way I managed to make the changes without removing more than was absolutely necessary. I don’t think anyone could tell it wasn’t always meant to be that way. I had to drill the front bottom wishbones and mount the lower rose joint links, easy stuff. So I now had a very smart front ARB that is fully adjustable and fully rose jointed.

I then had some work to do at the rear of the car, some sod had sat on my rear bodywork and broken the rivets through the bodywork that mount it to the chassis. It was a bit of poor design work from Westfield anyway so I decided to make up some much stronger mountings for this with spreader plates to stop the same thing happening again. I didn’t realize it at the time but some extra damage had been done by this idiot breaking my bodywork. I discovered what when I got to the ring.

I made up some new number plate mount brackets also as these broke when said person put their *** on my motor, wish I knew who it was. Grrrrrrr……

I then did my usual pre-track checks and changes. New oil and filter, new plugs, clean the air filter, check the brake pads, check the engine mounts, oil levels and so on. All easy but time consuming stuff. I wanted to replace my windscreen, I have 2 huge cracks in it from stones hitting it at 155MPH. Westfield had non in stock, and I am still waiting for that right now.

I was now expecting my radiator to be manufactured and ready for shipping, when I called to check it was shipped out on time they told me they hadn’t started it yet as they didn’t have a big enough batch of rads to pass through the vacuum welding machine. This was Wednesday lunchtime! They said they would ship my old one back so I could use that. Not an option as it had a hole in it chaps! Oops!

Anyway, after a rather frantic hour they pulled off a miracle and found the prototype radiator they had made for the factory 400BHP Westfield V8 car some years ago. It was in copper so a bit heavy (understatement of the year) but is was good for 400BHP and importantly, it was the same dimensions as my original alloy rad in all the important areas. Big relief! That was shipped to me to arrive Thursday, which it did at 5pm. I was getting a bit worried at that point I can tell you.

I left work and got started on installing the radiator, I had to make a few small mods to the ducts but nothing too tricky, I was surprised how easy a task it was, I expected a nightmare. So by 9pm on Thursday night I had a Westfield again. As a sensible precaution I decided to give it a shakedown run so popped up the road to do a little testing. I got about half a mile and was passing a car when I went from 1.5BAR boost to nothing, 330BHP to 80BHP instantly. Made for an *** twitching moment that did with oncoming traffic.

My first thought was, what the hell could that be? Cant be a split hose, as I had no hissing, I haven’t lost the turbo, as I have no screeching sounds or oil smoke. A new experience for me. So I pulled over and stripped the hoses off the Turbo. Oh Bollox, what’s that black rubber jamming my compressor wheel solid? What had happened was the rubber ring that mounts the air filter to the piping had failed, got ingested into the turbo and been eaten alive by the turbine compressor that would have been spinning at 75,000 rpm. I pulled the remains out and amazingly it span freely. All the blades were bent though so it was one knackered turbo. I popped the hoses back on after checking for debris on both inlet and outlet and in the intercooler and tootled home rather depressed. I was at work in the morning then due to leave for the ring at 1pm. How the hell do I deal with this one now? Any sane person would have gone to bed and forgotten about the trip, not me though. First thing I did on Friday morning was pick up the phone and start finding out what my options were.

I called the guys at the Turbo Shop in Daventry (01327310311) who had made my hybrid turbo to ask if they had any in stock. They didn’t, as they make most to customer spec. I explained my problem and they said why don’t you drive down, we will repair your turbo while you wait. I said I had to work the morning and cant get there till 3pm to which they said don’t worry, we will stay for you. You cant ask for more than that, brilliant service.

So I did my work, went back home, finished loading the plastic pig then headed for Daventry, driving the whole way off boost, as I was worried the turbo was now out of balance and would destroy itself. I arrived in Daventry at 3.15pm, let it cool for 10 minutes then set to removing it from the engine. It was still Hot as hell so it was not a fun task, even with my high temperature gloves on. I also had 2 of the 3 exhaust flange studs strip, which was just what I didn’t need. I gave the turbo to the Turbo Shop Engineers at 3.50pm, pretty quick removal of a red-hot turbo that was.

The turbo shop guys got stuck in and did a cracking job of the recon. They replaced the compressor blade, put a new bearing in, replaced the knackered studs in the exhaust housing; they had to helicoil one of the threads and retap the other. Put it all back together then balanced the assembly on the balance machine, less than half a gram out of balance at 75,000 rpm, good stuff.

I got the turbo back an hour later, cost me £125 plus VAT, service at a good price, what more could you ask for. I am very grateful to the guys at the Turbo Shop. They normally go home early on a Friday so they went out of their way to help me out.

I spent the next 45 minutes refitting the turbo, I took my time over that just to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes or damage anything, the guys from the turbo shop were long gone. Lucky buggers were in the pub no doubt. I left their workshops at 6pm and headed south to Dover. The boost setting was low, just 1 BAR but I couldn’t be bothered to start playing with that, 1 BAR was plenty for cruising with.

I arrived in Dover at 8.45 and was told the next ferry was 9.45, the 9.15 was full up. I asked if they could not squeeze me on, I am only little you know. They said they would see what they could do. I expected nothing to come from that.

Going into the holding area I came up behind a rather gorgeous Ultima Spider, I thought that must be john who is going to the ring. He headed for the 9:15 ferry though so we didn’t get to say hello.

Anyway, at 9:10 some guy came up and said to me, get it started, you’re on that one. Hurrah, I saved 30 mins. Well, they squeezed me on all right, my little Westie was the last car on, its bum near to the rear end of the ferry as they would allow. Good stuff.

The sailing was a good one, I had a bite to eat and a 10 minute snooze, I was feeling tired out. The ferry arrived in Calais and as I was the last car on I expected a long wait. What I noticed they were doing was unloading the cars in rows from left to right so I reversed up a bit (not a lot of room for that) and sneaked down the side of all the cars in front of me, bit tight that was too! And was one of the first off the ferry. I think a few were not amused. LOL

I then dug out my directions, filled up with fuel and headed off for Belgium. 120 miles later I went into the first service area after a good run at a steady 110MPH, the roads were empty. Just as I was braking on the slip road I hit the pothole from hell, I just didn’t see it coming. All I saw then was this huge yellow blur fly 30 foot up in the air followed by a clatter of steel and fiberglass as it hit the ground behind me. Bollox, there goes my nearside front mudguard and bracket. The shock sheered the bracket clean off and the wheel launched it. It was so badly damaged there wasn’t a hope in hell of fixing it so I picked up the pieces from the carriageway and dumped them in my car. I put the remnants of the mudguard on top of my spare wheel, which I sit in the passenger seat for good weight distribution when on my own.

OK, off I pop again less one mudguard, a sad sight. Much of the same again, filled up in another 100 miles and carried on at a steady 110-120MPH. The instructions John Reeves had given me were great, spot on with mileage and junctions so I was finding navigating myself real easy.

Around the 250-mile mark I had a very hairy moment though. I was doing around 120MPH when I hit the bump from hell. It was one of the joins between a bridge and the main highway and the step was just HUGE. Being pitch black I didn’t see it coming. When I hit this the whole car got launched in the air for a good 40 feet, it had a little bit of sideways action on it too. So I found myself putting opposite lock on, mid air at 120MPH with one hand and using the other to catch my already knackered mudguard that was trying to take off from on top of my spare wheel with the other. God knows why I wanted to save that piece of junk, just a reflex reaction. Lets just say I nearly did an Askew and needed new undies, I crapped myself.

Anyway, I survived that little (yeh right) moment and continued on, eyes on stalks looking for another nasty bugger in the next mile or 2. I eventually left the motorway network and headed onto the fun cross-country roads. The problem I now had was I had forgotten one fundamental thing about navigating at night (I should know better after all my rally navigating recently in the dark). You need to be able to read the instructions. It was now very dark, no lighting on the roads and no light in my Westie, I couldn’t read a thing. What I ended up doing was memorizing the next few junctions then jumping out the car, reading the next few in the headlights then off I would go again. Sounding more and more like a Monty Python sketch isn’t it? I only missed one junction, which had changed a little since the instructions were written anyway, I realized it pretty quickly too so no harm done there.

I finally arrived in Nurburg at 4.30am, I was bolloxed. The guys said they would wait for me in the Bar so I headed straight there and parked up. I walked into a rather dark pub to find a right bunch of sorry looking souls, all smashed out of their brains, one of the funniest things I have seen in ages. I got the usual “Felstead” cry from my late arrivals at the ring and settled into a pint or 2 with the gang. We left the bar at 5.15am! It was light outside now. I then had to fight off the pissed up buggers from trying out my driving seat, trying to explain they can do that some other time; I want to go to bed.

So I tootled up the high street in Nurburg, parked up and unloaded the plastic pig, put the tonua cover on and headed for my room. I had seen the forecast was for rain in the afternoon so I fancied driving in the morning dry so I set my alarm for 7:30am and jumped into bed.

What felt like 5 minutes later the alarm went off and I thought, sod that for a game of soldiers, went back to sleep and woke at 10:30am. I then stripped the remaining bits of bracket from the front upright that made up the mudguard bracket and removed the still intact offside mudguard so it wouldn’t look odd and attract attention from unwanted admirers. I also had a good look round the suspension in daylight, that was a vicious impact last night. No cracks or signs of stress so I warmed the car up and headed off towards the circuit, I adjusted the turbo waste gate too so the boost was now a nice 1.6BAR peak and 1.4BAR sustained. Damn it’s quick when you wind it up.

I go straight past the track entrance and fill up at the petrol station then drive into the track, one Jeremy Clarkson was blocking the entrance with his camera crew so I gave them a friendly get out of the way type of grin and parked up in the car park.

A few seconds later I noticed fuel under the car; it was dripping from the tank. Oh Bollox. Obviously you can’t drive with a fuel leak and you certainly can’t go on the ring with a leak and put others at risk so I had to find the problem and if possible fix it. I jumped back in the car, drove back to the hotel where there was plenty of room and no one walking around with cigarettes or hot cars passing by and set to stripping the rear bodywork off the car. I have to admit I was a little pissed off at this point. Anyway, having ripped the rear end of my car apart I had full access to my fuel tank and could see the problem. Basically there is a small breather pipe that attaches to the fuel filler to allow it to breath when it is being filled. When my rear bodywork had been sat on this had been pushed down and a crack had developed around the welding on this fitting. Just a hairline crack but big enough to allow a small amount of fuel out under pressure.

I am a fairly resourceful sod and having been rallying a long time I tend to carry equipment and parts that can get you out of the mire. I simply removed the filler from the car, cleaned round the fitting that was cracked, mixed some liquid metal and applied this around the crack, making sure there was plenty there to seal it properly plus be strong enough to be well over the top for safety. I let that set for half an hour so I went and watched the last 30 minutes of F1 qualifying on the TV in my room. Went back outside and checked it was now set fully. Reassembled the rear end and went for a 10 mile run on the roads around the ring, just be be doubly sure I had done a proper job of the fix. Safety of others on the ring is my main priority and I would never take a car on track I considered at risk. I was happy the fix was safe and strong so headed back to the circuit.

Just as I arrived, guess what? It pissed it down and it was not going to stop! Well, there was no way in hell I wasn’t going to drive on track so I resigned myself to getting a bit wet. Almost without exception all the cars and bikes parked up and the drivers congregated in the Restaurant. So I headed off for the track, I got plenty of stares of disbelief from the assembled masses under the restaurant deck; I went through the barriers and headed off for my first lap of the circuit in a monsoon. It was pretty hilarious actually, driving up to the barriers the water from my front tyres which now had no mudguards remember was landing right on top of my head like a shower. I found it hilarious; I think most just thought I was mad.

I took it sort of easy, still had plenty of wheelspin in every gear but I was just playing and trying to work out where the grip was in the wet round there. I soon learned that off line the grip is massive, online in places it’s like ice. I did another lap for good measure, following the ring Taxi in the process, which was fun. In places he was quicker than me, I just couldn’t put the power down on my tyres but in others I caught back up so we ended that lap as we started it, just a few car lengths apart. I enjoyed that lap a great deal.

I was still a little down though as I wanted to have a go at bettering my lap time and had missed out on the chance in the morning due to my problems. I was also semi wet so feeling a bit miserable.

It was just at that moment that John Reeves came to my rescue and asked me if I fancied sitting with him for a lap in his Arial Atom. I said yes, of course and strapped myself in. So off we popped in the rain in this little frame on wheels. I don’t know if john was taking it easy or its his normal style but he was very smooth, complete opposite of my Westie in the wet, no problems with traction or occasional understeer, it just went where it was pointed. I was surprised when he pulled off the track and said go on then, have a drive. So we swapped over and I set off to do the second half of the lap. I was pleasantly surprised by the grip this thing had, huge amount more than mine. It felt a bit odd, I didn’t feel at home but I could see how fast this car would be with a decent power plant. I think it is running too much toe out on the front for the ring, too darty; it would be great for a smoother track though. It should be quite something. I fancy a go when its got the 300BHP engine installed for sure.

Heading down the final pit straight we had the mother off all hail storms, we both got absolutely saturated from head to toe. One of the funniest things I have seen on track, we were just laughing like mad at how ridiculous we were. Thanks for the drive John, it was a lot of fun and really cheered me up.

So we came into the carpark, jumped out at which point I thought there was no way I could ever get any wetter so lets make the most of it.

I then spent the rest of the day taking some obviously insane people out on track with me, I did a lap behind John in the Atom and found that real hard work to stay with (I had to stay with him because he had Claudia in the car, enough said), I could kill that thing in the dry, in the wet though I just couldn’t use the power I have and just about stayed with him. I passed him on the final straight though of course.

I took Lauren’s (one of the ringers) around for a lap; I have a lot of time for Lauren’s, real good guy who loves the ring. He seemed to enjoy the peculiar lines I was taking in the wet and we had a chat about that afterwards. I found on some corners the grip was HUGE if you stayed well off the racing line, it was much faster than if we had taken the corners in the normal fashion. I wasn’t doing this on the hard braking areas as I didn’t want to push braking to the limits anyway in those conditions as my tyres have a nasty habit of breaking traction rather abruptly, especially with my Indycar carbon metallic front pads I run, they do ****** in the wet.

He said I gave him the biggest unintentional slide he had ever had on the ring, (that must have been a good one ) just before the mini Karousel. I must admit it was a bit of a sphincter moment for me too; the thing just lit the rear tyres up and snapped viciously to the left heading for the barriers, fun but a little close for comfort too.

I ended the day with one of the last laps on track before it closed at 7:20pm. I was the last to leave the car park and get back to the hotel. Brilliant day. I taught myself an awful lot about driving a powerful RWD car in the wet on low grip tyres. Great fun.

I arrived back at the hotel to see most of the gang heading off to the Bar so I unloaded all my stuff, jumped in the shower for a quick scrub, that dried me out a bit. Then it was off down to the Bar for some evening banter/food and drink.

I have to say, I haven’t laughed so much in ages. I was staying sober because I wanted an early start on track as I planned to be leaving at 12 midday Sunday. Everyone else however was giving it large. I got to meet some great people for the first time too; I had been so busy during the day I didn’t even notice half of the gang was there.

Highlight of the night for me was seeing Stef seriously embarrassed for the first time I can remember. He had brought along his friend Tash who was an absolute scream. She makes a great Catwalk Model of plastic table clothes I would say. Sandy and Tash’s rendition of the commitments “wait till the midnight hour” was top notch, Her Karate kid Cray kick impressions were hilarious but the piste de resistance (is that right Sandy ) was her Gorilla impressions when describing the underarm hygiene of a German Female. I may be a bit guilty for her finding out if that stereotype was actually true or not, sorry Stef LOL, it was worth the glass of white wine mate. I most definitely wasn’t responsible for the lower region inquiries though.

The gang then went onto the tequila and vodka shots at which point I sensibly but sadly said my goodnights. I would have loved to stay but I had some serious driving to do in the morning and had to be capable.

I arrived at the track at 8.30am to find one or 2 of the hard core drivers there, it was already filling up with bikers which I love to see on track but at the same time make me nervous sometimes.

I gave my car a quick check over again, I have a little routine before I ever go out on track, bit like a pre-flight safety check I used to do many years ago when flying gliders. I popped my helmet on and off on track in the dry for the first time in the dry this trip. Now there was a novelty. I did a sighting lap just to check the place out and get a feel for my car with the front ARB for the first time in the dry. Going down the foxhole was pretty undrivable, the road there I find very rough and the harmonics in the front ARB and dampers were giving me such bad vibrations I couldn’t see where I was going. It was just on that one section of track I had this problem. I carried on through the lap and was catching bikes at a hell of a rate; I wasn’t even trying hard.

The car felt good in the whole and I enjoyed the lap immensely. When I parked up this English rider on an R1 came over and had a chat, apparently I had past him at a hell of a rate and he just couldn’t keep up. He looked pretty stunned when I told him that was my sighting lap. I said I would give him a run later but I never did see him again, shame because I like giving the bikers a run, they do seem to appreciate my Westie, especially its acceleration and corner speed.

I made a few minor changes to the front shock setting and then took it for another lap, bingo, much, much better turn in and no oscillations down the foxhole. I could now drive the car as I wanted with nice neutral balance and power oversteer whenever I wanted it.

I spent all morning giving passenger rides; everyone seemed to enjoy their runs. I timed just 3 laps, all under 8 minutes 20, and my best being 8 minutes 15 with Sandy in the car, my last lap of the weekend.

In the whole the bikers were great at getting out of the way, I had a couple that just wouldn’t have it that I was faster. It took me from the braking zone of arenburg to the entry to the Karussell to get one guy on a GSXR750 to move over. I was out accelerating him out of all the corners but I wasn’t sure he had seen me so I just sat behind as he took the racing line. I don’t want to be responsible for a biker getting hurt so I would rather take the cautious approach if unsure. Going up the hill towards the Karussell I gained enough of a traction advantage to pass him on acceleration and cleared him on entry to the Karussell. I simply left him behind then at a hell of a rate.

I don’t understand guys like this, either he didn’t see me for miles in which case he needs to slow down so he can have some capacity to look around him or he was just being stubborn, which is stupid because he is in more danger from me making a mistake and hitting him than if he just let me pass and clear off, I was obviously faster than him because I caught him. I dunno? Maybe someone can explain that to me because I don’t understand it?

Some of the lap highlights for me were getting airborne over Pflanzgarten2 with harj in the car and landing sideways with the rear wheels spinning. I think he **** himself. Passing Ben Lovejoy two laps on the run into Adenauer-Forst round the outside and clearing off into the distance with plenty of sideways slides, the 2nd was a cracker, totally sideways with the rear left wheel right up the curbing, it felt great, Ben enjoyed the view too. Passing the stunning looking Porsche GT2, all £120,000 of it right infront of the big spectator area at Brunnchen. I was told that the driver looked rather pissed off. LOL and of course my last lap with Sandy in the car, my best to date of 8 mins 15 seconds with plenty of traffic.

I had slightly overrun my 12 o’clock curfew; I was having too much fun on track. I eventually set off for home at 3pm so I was already 3 hours behind schedule. I then realised I had forgotten one rather important detail. Directions how to get home.

I decided to retrace my route that I had done in complete darkness, using the directions backwards. I did a great job of this until I got to Prum, just a few miles from the motorway to Belgium. Could I find the right road, could I hell. I was like a demented bee buzzing up and down the roads around Prum trying to work out where the hell to go. I went into Prum town center but the only maps on sale (I didn’t have a map, doh!) were of internal Germany, the rest of the planet didn’t exist to this town, so I took a look at what looked like the rightish direction, it was west and slightly south on the maps so I decided to head that way and take it from there. That place I headed for was Luxembourg, Luxembourg for god’s sake!! I have no idea what I was thinking, I blame sunstroke. so anyway, I ended up in Luxembourg town center and got some very odd looks I can tell you. What’s up, haven’t you seen a Westfield loaded up with spares before? LOL

I eventually found a map with other parts of Europe on it and discovered just how far out I was, bloody hell, I was heading for Australia for god’s sake. I managed to find the motorway out of the city center eventually and resigned myself to a long slog back up north to join the E42. Basically I lost 2 hours and did an extra 150 miles ontop of the 300 I should have done to get to Calais. I was being burned to a cinder and knackered by the time I arrived in Calais. I got there at 9.45pm, fortunately I only waited 30 minutes for the ferry to sail. I then had a 70-minute crossing where I failed miserably to get some sleep but at least I had a bite to eat.

On landing back in blighty it was just a case of cruise home at a steady 95MPH and try to stay alert. Red Bull sure does kick ***, I had a tonne of that stuff. It was amazing to feel the power increase in my car as the night closed in, the colder it got the faster my car got, it was very noticeable. I really need to sort my chargecooling out; I am giving away serious amounts of power on a hot day right now.

Anyway, I arrived home at just after 3am on Monday morning; the car hadn’t missed a beat all journey. It really is an amazing piece of kit, as a cross country tourer it’s pretty remarkable, the engine torque and power/weight make it just astonishing in traffic if some ******* doesn’t want to cooperate, your past them in a split second.

I then posted a quick review of my weekend then went to bed around 3:45am. I was back up for work at 7:45am. That was a hard first day at work, I was shattered.

Would I do it again? Absolutely, I must be mad.

Thanks to everyone I met on the trip, it was very memorable and a huge amount of fun, I had the odd challenge to overcome but that’s the price you sometimes have to pay for running something a bit different. I don’t think you can buy something for the same money that would perform like my Westie though. Cracking piece of kit.

ChrisB

ChrisB.

jjones

nice one john,

interesting reading!!

good job you have a little mechanical know how!

Gerg2

There goes another mousewheel

Great read John

Jza

Nice story John,

Do you ever get actually overtaken by anything when you are there? I get the impression from your text that you dont. Whats it like really?

Jza

DavidBrown

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by johnfelstead:
<B>depends what the thesis is on?

If it's about mental illnesses in the 21st centuary, be my guest. LOL[/quote]

Had I read it, it'd been the 22nd century by the time I'd finished.

Was it any good ?

mutant_matt

John,

Another great novel!!!

Isn't it about time you started bringing spare parts along with you??? I would say for starters you should carry a spare Turbo (Hybrided of course ), Charge Cooler, Radiator, several sets of Mudguards and brackets and possibly, a co-driver!!!

Perhaps you need a support vehicle?

Matt

JayDee

Brilliant stuff

Much appreciated and quite inspirational, even to an old git like me

JD

rsquire

People,People People,,

Puleeeeeese you do not understand.. He doesn't need a support Vehicle

The truth is...... * drum roll*

The car is flown in courtesy of Airlift International.....

John is delivered to the track in his LearJet to Cologne and the Helicoptered in to a discreet ( ie 10 miles away) distance from the Ring..

There he stands under an open shower for 45 minutes to create the "World Famous Westfield look"

The rest, of course, is down to the driver

Why on earth do you think that he arrives after you and then leaves before you.. ??????

And why do you think that other than track time, he carries no passengers on these intercontinental jaunts..??????

Richard

The_Gza

John,

I have to say that your novels are one of the absolute highlights of ScoobyNet

Roll on the next instalment

Cheers,

The_Gza

Mossman

Great read John!
It amazes me just how technical some people are and I am seriously impressed!

All the best,

Mossman

Robertio

iTrader: (1)

Nice novel John, how about creating the worlds first 5 door Westie? more space for your spares

MarkCSC

Yer bonkers, but it makes a great story
I am so going to have to go to the ring when I get my new car.

Mark

Lunchie

Great read John.

My mate's got a Superlight R. Those and the Westie's just kick everyone's ***. After being in one makes you think you're driving a Justy...

Lunchie

johnfelstead

cheers chaps.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>good job you have a little mechanical know how!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Just a little. LOL

Gastro

John,

Great post - and very interesting ! You really are a nutter.........
By the way - any chance I could copy this and print it off - so that I can pad out my thesis

Gastro

johnfelstead

depends what the thesis is on?

If it's about mental illnesses in the 21st centuary, be my guest. LOL

DocJock

Nice one John ...

shame that driving had to interrupt your repairs

DJ

johnfelstead

On my first trip to the Ring last October there were plenty of bikes and the odd car that passed me. Stef was going a fair bit quicker than me back then.

I had a problem with my engine at the time at the top end but the main reason was due to the fact i didnt know where i was going.

When your driving a car like a Westfield its much more dificult to see where you are going as you are so low down and looking through a small window. There is a rather large piilar right in your field of view for turning into the corners also. Learning a new track is quite a tricky exercise. Learning a track with so many blind crests is incredibly dificult.

I am also of the school of thought that says drive within your comfortable limits and build your speed. It doesnt bother me in the slightest to see people pass me as i know eventually i will be quicker, i might live a little longer with that kind of thinking in such a vulnerable car too.

On my second trip at Easter i had made a couple of changes to the suspension specifically from what i learned first visit. I raised the ride height 1" and softened the spring rates, having new dampers made to match the spring rates. The ring is very bumpy in places and on my first trip the car was just too stiffly sprung. I altered the front toe also specifically for the ring. I normally run a little toe out on the front on UK tracks to improve turn in, this didnt work at the ring, it was just too darty on the bumps to be safe. I also raised the exhaust an inch on top of the ride height increase just to make sure it was OK through the Karusell. The compresion in that section is just incredible.

I also got to the bottom of my engine problems, i found the turbo was a defective build, the clearances were to pot so at high revs it just didnt flow properly. I also had a phase sensor down, this switched the engine into limp home mode so i was seriously down on power on my first ring trip as featured in the CK1 video.

Nothing passed me on my second trip over at easter, not a single car or bike. I let Stef pass me for some video footage for the new CK1 video on our convoy run but that doesnt count as i slowed for a while to let him do that.

Stefs quickest lap was a 8min 17 seconds, mine was an 8min 22 seconds. I didnt get a clear run, not sure about Stef but either way they are both quick lap times. 8:17 in an Impreza is pretty incredible. I knew i had plenty more time to find from the track, i am far from on the limit right now i believe.

My last trip over this weekend only one thing passed me in 2 days and that was the Arial Atom when we did a lap together in a monsoon. Jon passed me right at the start of the lap and i followed in his wheeltracks for the entire lap until the final straight where i just powered past him. That was one of the hardest driven laps i have done to date round there, i found it very hard to stay with the Atom, i had wheelspin everywhere.

I am not talking crap when i say the superbikes hold me up, they really do. Ask anyone who has sat with me round there and they will tell you how it is.

There isnt a shadow of a doubt that my car could do sub 8 minute laps, even 2 up with an 18 stone passenger if i had a clean run with no trafic.

When i get my charge temps down it's going to be insane round there. I am way down on power right now.

Richard, your mixing the two of us up M8. LOL

Thanks for the kind words chaps, glad you enjoy the read.

Stevie

John,

Put me down for your first sub 8 minute lap with an 18 stone passenger.

The most worrying part of the 8.19 last weekend was about half way round. There was no way I could take my eyes off the track to look at the stopwatch; I just had this horrible feeling that you you would not have been a happy bunny if I had failed to start the damn thing. Glad I had!!

Awesome mate, awesome.