Elvington Trackday

[roger001]

Went to Elvington Airfield to give the beastie a first run, the verdict some good bits some bad.

1st bad bit, did three laps then started misfiring then stopped out on the circuit, got a tow back - sods law the rotor arm had broken, drove home and back to pick up a spare, which took about a hour.

Good bits

Straight line stability much improved. (increased rear toe in)
Brakes - Fantastic.
Noise, I've missed it! 95dB @4000 rpm
Accelleration - again Ive missed It, kept pace with a cateram Blackbird.

Bad bits
Electrics, kept blowing the fuse in the ECU circuit.
Handling, marked turn in oversteer, unable to carry any speed into fast turns, Geometry need a bit of trial and error I guess. Either that or I've forgotten how quickly it turns in.

Overall verdict - work to be done.

Have posted a couple of pics in the photo gallery

[rutthenut]

Roger,

Glad to see you've made further progress (should I be glad about that???).

Colour scheme looks nice and bright, but I could point out that you seem to have made a similar 'mistake' to me when layout out the paint scheme! You have put white squares on the doors, but not on the front panel anywhere!

I did this because I originally only anticipated doing sprint or hillclimb events with the car, but circuit racing needs the number on the nose as well. This has meant putting on various pieces of white vinyl to mount the race number. The louvre panel can be a real pain for this as well, especially if any of the scrutineers aren't happy with the size of the numbers in use, or the space around them if you put the vinyl above or below the panel.

My solution for this year was to register with a single-digit number in the championship (although I liked using number 77) and then only a small square or roundel is needed on the nose, which is much easier to fit. Why I didn't do that before, I'll never know.


Did you do any track-day outings with your car before these modifications, or are you comparing it with road behaviour (and settings) as well as your 33 racer?

Turn-in changes probably have a lot to do with stiffening-up the front end, as I always found that far too soft for track use. You might even find that the front spoiler is helping as well, either for stability or possibly front end grip. What do you think?

[roger001]

re the front number background, I ran out of time putting it all back together as I only got it back from the paint shop on Tuesday, and work got in the way, I'm still pondering where to put the front number, the side ones were simple and as I had 10 mins left I did them. the headlights however are a longer job so that got left for another day.

As regard handling the spoiler/front undertray seems to have made a great improvement in straight line stability, no wandering at all at speeds of up to 100+. there are several factors affecting the turn in I think, firstly I'm used to a Front Wheel drive 33 on slicks which needs a very positive turn in to avoid understeer, second geometry was a rough and ready set up using the parallel strings method with 1mm toe in both front and rear, so more accurate set up / varying toe / camber angles should improve things, also the suface was not ideal being mixed concrete/ and patchy tarmac on old road tyres.

Plenty of food for thought, but must pin down the fuse blowing trait first.

[rutthenut]

Originally posted by roger001
re the front number background ... I'm still pondering where to put the front number, the side ones were simple and as I had 10 mins left I did them.

Sorry, I thought you'd had the door squares painted on.
Still awkward finding space for a rectangle large enough to double digits, without overlapping the louvres somewhat.

Made worse with my paint scheme as I didn't want to go over the wheelarch 'eyebrows'. Ended up putting the roundel behind the headlamp, but couldn't do that so easily with double figures.

Re ecu fuse blowing - I guess this is better than having no fuses at all, watching the ecu go up in smoke!