Silverstone 24hr
Discussion
3Dee said:
What a great shame it is not on tv!!!
Try this http://www.ustream.tv/channel/silverstone-britcar-...Can't see it on my iPad at the mo as flash
TangoGTR said:
3Dee said:
What a great shame it is not on tv!!!
Try this http://www.ustream.tv/channel/silverstone-britcar-...Can't see it on my iPad at the mo as flash
Great weekend of motor sport, with Britcar 24hr race, F1 in Singapore and my local motor sport event the Kop Hill Climb. Currently on watch on board my ship (in port)with every screen on the bridge showing Britcar - Ustream - brilliant it works! Plus Twitter updates from MacGracing, facebook and MacGracing website and a sprinkling of F1 and KopHill updates on other screens. Feet up on the bridge with a constant supply of tea - Heaven. Still wish I was at Silverstone!
Hi Bluesatin we met an eon ago at the open day in your Black Ultima and you made an eventful departure from the event! An Ultima GTR was missing from the Kop Hill Exotic Division.. Regular hill climb circuit for me in my CatR500, everyone thinks its a straight line blasts but its a test of shock absorbers and driver control becauase of the road underlations IMHO! assuming it a road and not a local stream, lol! Very easy to end up in the bush or a 4ft oak tree truck! I give my motor head Cousin John a regular run up the hill to give him his fix a few times year as he is almost next door neighbour to the event! Still watching MacGracing... best watch on ship I've had for a while!
Check out the MacG Racing FB page for the whole story!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/MacG-Racing/16075831...
http://www.facebook.com/pages/MacG-Racing/16075831...
What an extraordinary weekend....
We fitted a new engine ready for the event, and we headed out in practice on Thursday in order to run the engine in. The morning session was spent with the new drivers running in the engine and familiarising themselves with the circuit, whilst we tested the new Proshift system which was fitted to the car.
The morning session went smoothly, although we found that the existing ignition cut was interfering with the Proshift and causing some issues. We went out in the afternoon session to start building up speed - however on our first run, we had a failure of the new engine round Beckett's. The rod bolts had sheared and put a rod through the side of the case - luckily the heatshielding we have in place protected the tank from and puncturing too!
We disassembled the car and cleaned up the mess whilst a new engine was sourced. This was fitted overnight (it was slightly different to the standard LS7 as it had a different sump) so we had a few issues connecting up oil sensors, however this eventually went in and we fired her up halfway through the warmup session. We ran the engine in in qualifying (which was cut short by a broken oil rad) and in night qualifying (in which the engine chewed the drive belt). The root cause of the belt issue was that the main pulley crank bolt had come loose and mis-aligned the pulley, throwing it off. This was retorqued and the car sent back out, but the bolt came loose again, thankfully not throwing a belt the second time.
The bolt was retorqued and some last minute checks were completed prior to warmup on Saturday morning - in just three laps the bolt had come loose again, and we found that the box was jumping out of 5th gear. An inspection in side the box showed that the 5th gear dog had been chewed when the Proshift and our existing shift had interfered with each other, so we change the transmission oil and headed out to the grid.
On the way to the grid the bolt had come loose again (no more than 1 minutes running) so after the gridwalk, we pushed the car back to the pit and spot welded the bolt to the crank pulley - needless to say it then lasted all race!
Nigel started from the pitlane as a result of the spot welding, and quickly went from 37th up to 10th in the first hour or so. About an hour in we had reports of him losing drive. The car was towed back, and it was found that both sets of driveshaft bolts had sheared simultaneously. We replaced the bolts (after eventually getting them out!) and also spot welded the driveshaft adaptors to the stub shafts, and headed back out, 2 hours down after 3 hours or so.
The car behaved faultlessly as night fell, when one of the drivers was caught out into Luffield by some glare, and hit the wall on the outside of the track. The car was brought in, everything looked in tact, so some bodywork was patched up and the car sent back out.
About 30 minutes later we had reports of the backend becoming unstable - the car was brought into the pits, and it was found that the rear bearing, which had suffered the blow against the wall, had failed. The upright was changed in about 30 minutes and we were back out on circuit.
We continued without any major issues during the night - we had a slight off at about 4am due to driver error, which caused us to lose about 10 minutes as a brake duct was repaired and the grass cleaned out of the radiator and ducting. We were making up ground on the opposition at this point as the attrition started to creep up on our opponents, when disaster struck at 6am. The new rear bearing, on the side which had taken the blow to the wall had failed again, and we had no spares.
The only option was a call to Ted - we waited as short a time as possible (to not be too antisocial on a Sunday morning!) luckily he was awake (or woken?!) at 7:30, so we went and collected a new upright, which was brought back, fitted to the car and we were back out at 11:30. A massive 6 hrs lost for the sake of 1 bearing - lesson learnt! We completed a few more laps when the rain came - and it really did come down. We changed to wets just at the right time, within minutes the track was flooded, and lap times fell through the floor. With the dry setup on the car was very twitchy, however Gerald was making good progress.
Suddenly a message 'low oil pressure' came up on the dash - Gerald brought the car in, and it was found to be a faulty sensor (which had expired in the rain) so after 20 minutes or so Nigel was sent back out. A faultless stint from Nigel, and we cam in and disconnected the anti roll bars in order to improve the handling in the wet. Finally the race finished, we were down in 29th place but we had made it across the finish line without 'resting' the car as most of the teams had.
Many lessons learnt - more spares required, stronger driveshaft mounting bolts, better lights, and we got a reasonable wet weather setup out of the weekend too!
Thanks to everyone for their support and help throughout the event, especially Ted who provided us with the upright at short notice on Sunday morning, and PTR exhausts who made us an exhaust system which passed even the most stringent noise tests, when most competitors were black flagged at some point or other.
Oh yes...and the exciting news is, that thanks to TORA (The Online Racing Association) we now have the MacG Racing Ultima GTR modelled up in Forza 4 on the Xbox - available online...
More photos available here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.536159843...
Some video to come soon too!
Jonny
We fitted a new engine ready for the event, and we headed out in practice on Thursday in order to run the engine in. The morning session was spent with the new drivers running in the engine and familiarising themselves with the circuit, whilst we tested the new Proshift system which was fitted to the car.
The morning session went smoothly, although we found that the existing ignition cut was interfering with the Proshift and causing some issues. We went out in the afternoon session to start building up speed - however on our first run, we had a failure of the new engine round Beckett's. The rod bolts had sheared and put a rod through the side of the case - luckily the heatshielding we have in place protected the tank from and puncturing too!
We disassembled the car and cleaned up the mess whilst a new engine was sourced. This was fitted overnight (it was slightly different to the standard LS7 as it had a different sump) so we had a few issues connecting up oil sensors, however this eventually went in and we fired her up halfway through the warmup session. We ran the engine in in qualifying (which was cut short by a broken oil rad) and in night qualifying (in which the engine chewed the drive belt). The root cause of the belt issue was that the main pulley crank bolt had come loose and mis-aligned the pulley, throwing it off. This was retorqued and the car sent back out, but the bolt came loose again, thankfully not throwing a belt the second time.
The bolt was retorqued and some last minute checks were completed prior to warmup on Saturday morning - in just three laps the bolt had come loose again, and we found that the box was jumping out of 5th gear. An inspection in side the box showed that the 5th gear dog had been chewed when the Proshift and our existing shift had interfered with each other, so we change the transmission oil and headed out to the grid.
On the way to the grid the bolt had come loose again (no more than 1 minutes running) so after the gridwalk, we pushed the car back to the pit and spot welded the bolt to the crank pulley - needless to say it then lasted all race!
Nigel started from the pitlane as a result of the spot welding, and quickly went from 37th up to 10th in the first hour or so. About an hour in we had reports of him losing drive. The car was towed back, and it was found that both sets of driveshaft bolts had sheared simultaneously. We replaced the bolts (after eventually getting them out!) and also spot welded the driveshaft adaptors to the stub shafts, and headed back out, 2 hours down after 3 hours or so.
The car behaved faultlessly as night fell, when one of the drivers was caught out into Luffield by some glare, and hit the wall on the outside of the track. The car was brought in, everything looked in tact, so some bodywork was patched up and the car sent back out.
About 30 minutes later we had reports of the backend becoming unstable - the car was brought into the pits, and it was found that the rear bearing, which had suffered the blow against the wall, had failed. The upright was changed in about 30 minutes and we were back out on circuit.
We continued without any major issues during the night - we had a slight off at about 4am due to driver error, which caused us to lose about 10 minutes as a brake duct was repaired and the grass cleaned out of the radiator and ducting. We were making up ground on the opposition at this point as the attrition started to creep up on our opponents, when disaster struck at 6am. The new rear bearing, on the side which had taken the blow to the wall had failed again, and we had no spares.
The only option was a call to Ted - we waited as short a time as possible (to not be too antisocial on a Sunday morning!) luckily he was awake (or woken?!) at 7:30, so we went and collected a new upright, which was brought back, fitted to the car and we were back out at 11:30. A massive 6 hrs lost for the sake of 1 bearing - lesson learnt! We completed a few more laps when the rain came - and it really did come down. We changed to wets just at the right time, within minutes the track was flooded, and lap times fell through the floor. With the dry setup on the car was very twitchy, however Gerald was making good progress.
Suddenly a message 'low oil pressure' came up on the dash - Gerald brought the car in, and it was found to be a faulty sensor (which had expired in the rain) so after 20 minutes or so Nigel was sent back out. A faultless stint from Nigel, and we cam in and disconnected the anti roll bars in order to improve the handling in the wet. Finally the race finished, we were down in 29th place but we had made it across the finish line without 'resting' the car as most of the teams had.
Many lessons learnt - more spares required, stronger driveshaft mounting bolts, better lights, and we got a reasonable wet weather setup out of the weekend too!
Thanks to everyone for their support and help throughout the event, especially Ted who provided us with the upright at short notice on Sunday morning, and PTR exhausts who made us an exhaust system which passed even the most stringent noise tests, when most competitors were black flagged at some point or other.
Oh yes...and the exciting news is, that thanks to TORA (The Online Racing Association) we now have the MacG Racing Ultima GTR modelled up in Forza 4 on the Xbox - available online...
More photos available here:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.536159843...
Some video to come soon too!
Jonny
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