The Mid Night Club Wangan Run Touge Monster FD RX-7 RZ!
Discussion
Slowly making a little bit of progress on things, driving conditions today were too perfect to ignore so I took the car out for a little bit of boost testing. I'd noticed a little bit of boost fluctuation when the controller was holding max boost last time I had the car out. I realised I had to try to balance the target boost setting and the controller solenoid duty to smooth this out, it turned out that this was relatively simple to do (I put the duty up and the target down) and soon had it sorted. This then gave me a chance to increase the boost a little bit and see how the map handled it. I found a completely clear straight road and set out on a few third gear pulls. I took the boost up from 12psi to 13.5psi (0.94kg cm3) and watched my AFRs and knock reading and the car took it like a champ.
At 13.5psi I'm somewhere around 380-400hp at the *wheels* (so well over 400bhp) based off what I've seen people pulling on the dyno with the same turbo on a stock port engine. This is now higher than it was when I first tested the car when I bought it when it was boosting way too high for the available fuelling but my injector upgrade means that now I'm only hitting 69% injector duty and AFRs are super safe ~10.0 AFR at max power/torque. The engine in the car has never felt this strong before and it's got me itching to go and do some quarter mile runs.
In other news the car isn't looking now too bad since I spent a mad afternoon a few weeks ago fixing the bumper. I really hate fibreglass bumpers now, I'm reasonably proficient at fixing them but being so prone to cracking and the general effort required to get a good fit is getting boring. I took a pic in the sun this afternoon and the car looks stunning in my eyes
Brake overhaul and chassis changes are next on the list maybe with some exhaust mods to make it more drivable day to day.
At 13.5psi I'm somewhere around 380-400hp at the *wheels* (so well over 400bhp) based off what I've seen people pulling on the dyno with the same turbo on a stock port engine. This is now higher than it was when I first tested the car when I bought it when it was boosting way too high for the available fuelling but my injector upgrade means that now I'm only hitting 69% injector duty and AFRs are super safe ~10.0 AFR at max power/torque. The engine in the car has never felt this strong before and it's got me itching to go and do some quarter mile runs.
In other news the car isn't looking now too bad since I spent a mad afternoon a few weeks ago fixing the bumper. I really hate fibreglass bumpers now, I'm reasonably proficient at fixing them but being so prone to cracking and the general effort required to get a good fit is getting boring. I took a pic in the sun this afternoon and the car looks stunning in my eyes
Brake overhaul and chassis changes are next on the list maybe with some exhaust mods to make it more drivable day to day.
Oh I forgot something else that I've been up to!
I found out that there has been some open source development around the ecu interface exposed by the datalogit box/cable I've been using for mapping. There's a big long thread on rx7club about it: https://www.rx7club.com/power-fc-forum-47/new-powe...
The software runs on a raspberrypi instead of my tuning laptop and lets me view ecu output in realtime (like how modern cars can connect to obd2 with phone based dashes etc.) but it can be dressed up with fancy graphics and interfaced with a touchscreen so I tried it out (I picked up the touchscreen of ~£22 during an Amazon flash sale and the case was about £8, the Pi is ~£30).
I made a video here:
https://youtu.be/7s19_Zdjyao
I found out that there has been some open source development around the ecu interface exposed by the datalogit box/cable I've been using for mapping. There's a big long thread on rx7club about it: https://www.rx7club.com/power-fc-forum-47/new-powe...
The software runs on a raspberrypi instead of my tuning laptop and lets me view ecu output in realtime (like how modern cars can connect to obd2 with phone based dashes etc.) but it can be dressed up with fancy graphics and interfaced with a touchscreen so I tried it out (I picked up the touchscreen of ~£22 during an Amazon flash sale and the case was about £8, the Pi is ~£30).
I made a video here:
https://youtu.be/7s19_Zdjyao
I really need to sort my brakes! I did some research. Initially I'd been led to believe (by the previous owner) that my front brakes are modified Brembos from a Mitsubishi Evo 6-9 but after looking at some of them it's definitely not the case. My brakes are in fact a purpose built RX-7 Brembo BBK based on the Ferrari F40 caliper design. I've found them for sale a few places and they're not cheap! I've already ordered Dixcel discs for the rear since the 314mm RZ / Spirit R size is not easy to get hold of from anyone else.
My calipers are good and I've bought some replacement Brembo pads for ~£40 but it's the rotors that are harder to get hold of. The best deal I've found is ~£480 for a pair delivered and that's getting the Dixcel parts from RHDJapan. I expect I'll probably order some soon. I actually took a bit of a gamble and tried some Nissan discs but sadly the offset/depth is wrong (they were only £80) - I'm still wondering if there's a way to adjust the position of my caliper to make them work???
In other news I've been researching the coilovers that came on my car - this is same set and once again pricey kit:
I've come to the realisation that they're just too harsh for the road and since I only manage to spend about 0.5% of my time driving on track I need a more streetable setup.
So here's the latest lot of new parts:
Another bumper (more on that in a minute), a big box there at the back, some brake pads, an oil filter, the Nissan spec discs.
This is the big box:
My new street suspension courtesy of BC Racing. They seem to be universally well reviewed and ever increasing in popularity. I opted for the softest spring setup (8kg/6kg front to rear) which is about half of the current Quantum Racing setup. The BC Racing kit also has rubber top mount bushings rather than clunky pillowballs. Ride height is also independent of spring pre-load. Not bad for about £700. I'm now in two minds about the Quantum Racing kit since it's such high quality - do I get them refurbed and keep them for track days or do I sell them to someone who can make better use of them than me? I guess I'll have to see how much I like the BC Racing stuff before I decide.
In other news I found someone selling the same wheels as mine andI love the colour so I think I want mine to be refurbed in the same colour as this:
So here's an up to date pic of the car:
If you look closely underneath the number plate you'll see the bumper is currently being held together with gaffer tape since I re-cracked the bumper on a curb after fixing it following the cone strike at Llandow. I've had enough of fibreglass - it's s
t! I tried to buy a polyurethane bumper but noone in Europe stocks them and importing from the US will cost about £400 in postage and taxes. So I'm taking one last punt with a new old stock never fitted before brand name manufacturer fibreglass one that only cost me £80 delivered. Much to my surprise this one seems a reasonable fit and lines up with the bonnet better than the previous three I've had. Gotta prep and paint it now.
And finally a new Motamec steering wheel since the last unbranded Chinese one was just a but too flimsy for my liking:
My calipers are good and I've bought some replacement Brembo pads for ~£40 but it's the rotors that are harder to get hold of. The best deal I've found is ~£480 for a pair delivered and that's getting the Dixcel parts from RHDJapan. I expect I'll probably order some soon. I actually took a bit of a gamble and tried some Nissan discs but sadly the offset/depth is wrong (they were only £80) - I'm still wondering if there's a way to adjust the position of my caliper to make them work???
In other news I've been researching the coilovers that came on my car - this is same set and once again pricey kit:
I've come to the realisation that they're just too harsh for the road and since I only manage to spend about 0.5% of my time driving on track I need a more streetable setup.
So here's the latest lot of new parts:
Another bumper (more on that in a minute), a big box there at the back, some brake pads, an oil filter, the Nissan spec discs.
This is the big box:
My new street suspension courtesy of BC Racing. They seem to be universally well reviewed and ever increasing in popularity. I opted for the softest spring setup (8kg/6kg front to rear) which is about half of the current Quantum Racing setup. The BC Racing kit also has rubber top mount bushings rather than clunky pillowballs. Ride height is also independent of spring pre-load. Not bad for about £700. I'm now in two minds about the Quantum Racing kit since it's such high quality - do I get them refurbed and keep them for track days or do I sell them to someone who can make better use of them than me? I guess I'll have to see how much I like the BC Racing stuff before I decide.
In other news I found someone selling the same wheels as mine andI love the colour so I think I want mine to be refurbed in the same colour as this:
So here's an up to date pic of the car:
If you look closely underneath the number plate you'll see the bumper is currently being held together with gaffer tape since I re-cracked the bumper on a curb after fixing it following the cone strike at Llandow. I've had enough of fibreglass - it's s
t! I tried to buy a polyurethane bumper but noone in Europe stocks them and importing from the US will cost about £400 in postage and taxes. So I'm taking one last punt with a new old stock never fitted before brand name manufacturer fibreglass one that only cost me £80 delivered. Much to my surprise this one seems a reasonable fit and lines up with the bonnet better than the previous three I've had. Gotta prep and paint it now.And finally a new Motamec steering wheel since the last unbranded Chinese one was just a but too flimsy for my liking:
InitialDave said:
While more expensive than a one piece OEM type disc, I'd think that you'd be able to get a disc and bell combination that would do what you need? Worth digging through the catalogues of people like AP?
Yes I'm definitely interested in 2-piece replacements, these are the cheapest I've found (that i'll most likely buy):https://www.rhdjapan.com/dixcel-brake-rotor-2-piec...
Car's looking great and that bumper does look a lot better aligned than the previous one, should look spot on when painted
I think the next thing I'd be up grading is the timbers supporting all that stuff in your garage loft
looks like those three 4x2"'s have a fair old bend on! and right above your pride and joy 
I think the next thing I'd be up grading is the timbers supporting all that stuff in your garage loft
looks like those three 4x2"'s have a fair old bend on! and right above your pride and joy Quick update on the slow progress with the car, it's been sat in the garage on axle stands for a while waiting for me to work on the bumper and suspension. I waited for a break in the rain to finally paint the bumper. Conditions for painting were entirely sub-optimal, I painted with rattle cans out in the garden, outside temp was about 7C with a slight wind and in the dark! But seeing as how this is fourth time I've painted an RX-7 bumper with rattle-cans I got a better result than my previous attempts. This is how it looks before wet sanding and cutting / polishing:
Colour match looks pretty much spot on and I think I've slathered enough lacquer on there that I'll have something to cut back to a reasonable shine.
Colour match looks pretty much spot on and I think I've slathered enough lacquer on there that I'll have something to cut back to a reasonable shine.
Bumper is on, still not wetsanded or polished but it looks surprisingly ok for a rattlecan job, but now it's time for a coilover install!
Here's the new shiny stuff:
Getting the old coilovers off on the front took me too long and was a bit of a ballache despite there only being six bolts each side, I think it was about 3 hours to remove them with quite a bit of swearing even with a breaker bar and air tools.
Comparing the new and old front struts you can see one of the reasons I like the new BC Racing kit is that the spring pre-load is independent of the height adjustment. I set the new coilovers to be approximately 1cm longer than the Quantum Racing kit to account for the lower spring rates.
Fitting the rears was pretty painless in comparison to the fronts and I recruited a friend to help so overall we were left with this in each corner
BCs have this very accessible damping adjustment, I set mine to the middle (15 clicks) and thought that would be a great place to start
Yes the engine bay looks filthy, covered in dust and crap from sitting in the garage too long
After a quick oil change she was back on her wheels again for the first time in a while!
And so on to the big reveal
I'm really happy with the way she looks now, a fitting bumper makes a huge difference! The ride height is spot on for me too. A first tentative drive on the new suspension resulted in some smiles! It's a lot less crashy and much more streetable now on softer springs and since the top mounts have changed from noisy pillowballs to rubber, they're much quieter too. I think I might continue this process of making the car more civilised, I really think it's going to allow me to use and enjoy it a lot more so that will likely mean some exhaust work in the coming months. I've still got brakes on my list - I'm waiting on parts from Japan. just got some new (overly) expensive spark plugs to help mitigate against high rpm ignition break-up now I'm running more boost so I'll chuck them in soon. Then I've got my MOT later this week.
Oh I almost forgot! I managed to screw-up my sidelights and indicators by leaving the old bumper out in the woodshed too long - the copper connectors have furred up with oxidation so I've got them bathing in a cup of lemon juice then they're going back in with new LED bulbs later!
Here's the new shiny stuff:
Getting the old coilovers off on the front took me too long and was a bit of a ballache despite there only being six bolts each side, I think it was about 3 hours to remove them with quite a bit of swearing even with a breaker bar and air tools.
Comparing the new and old front struts you can see one of the reasons I like the new BC Racing kit is that the spring pre-load is independent of the height adjustment. I set the new coilovers to be approximately 1cm longer than the Quantum Racing kit to account for the lower spring rates.
Fitting the rears was pretty painless in comparison to the fronts and I recruited a friend to help so overall we were left with this in each corner
BCs have this very accessible damping adjustment, I set mine to the middle (15 clicks) and thought that would be a great place to start
Yes the engine bay looks filthy, covered in dust and crap from sitting in the garage too long
After a quick oil change she was back on her wheels again for the first time in a while!
And so on to the big reveal
I'm really happy with the way she looks now, a fitting bumper makes a huge difference! The ride height is spot on for me too. A first tentative drive on the new suspension resulted in some smiles! It's a lot less crashy and much more streetable now on softer springs and since the top mounts have changed from noisy pillowballs to rubber, they're much quieter too. I think I might continue this process of making the car more civilised, I really think it's going to allow me to use and enjoy it a lot more so that will likely mean some exhaust work in the coming months. I've still got brakes on my list - I'm waiting on parts from Japan. just got some new (overly) expensive spark plugs to help mitigate against high rpm ignition break-up now I'm running more boost so I'll chuck them in soon. Then I've got my MOT later this week.
Oh I almost forgot! I managed to screw-up my sidelights and indicators by leaving the old bumper out in the woodshed too long - the copper connectors have furred up with oxidation so I've got them bathing in a cup of lemon juice then they're going back in with new LED bulbs later!
Quick update - changed out my spark plugs, not a bad job, probably took about half an hour. Plugs were reasonably accessible under the intake elbow.
Looking at the old plugs there's a bit of carbon build-up on the leading plugs from running rich and some wear on the electrodes but otherwise nothing too bad but worth changing out since I haven't done it before.
MOT tomorrow!
Looking at the old plugs there's a bit of carbon build-up on the leading plugs from running rich and some wear on the electrodes but otherwise nothing too bad but worth changing out since I haven't done it before.
MOT tomorrow!
So yesterday was the nail-biting MOT! Thankfully since the car barely did 2000 miles in the last year there was nothing major to deal with. I did end up getting two new front tyres since camber had worn out the inner edge of my drivers side tyre. I went for a couple of Goodyear Eagle F1s which were a good price.
New spark plugs seemed to run absolutely fine, maybe a barely detectable improvement in idle although that could be down to weather? I'll see when I get a chance to drive the car on a more spirited run.
Can't wait to clean it up and do some driving now.
New spark plugs seemed to run absolutely fine, maybe a barely detectable improvement in idle although that could be down to weather? I'll see when I get a chance to drive the car on a more spirited run.
Can't wait to clean it up and do some driving now.
I think it's about time we talked power numbers.
Here's the car as it stands today, still not shiny or clean and riding high on those oh so comfortable BC Racing coilovers.
A few weeks back I found a fascinating video describing a process whereby ECU datalogging can be used to estimate the power a car puts down on the road given some precise measurements for weight, wheel radius and gearing. A brilliant developer had wrapped up the whole set of equations into an application that pumps our dyno graphs as a result.
The video is here on the CarPassionChannel on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz7NBbFBQ9Y
The application is called Virtual Dyno and I'm surprised it doesn't get more exposure as it takes all the hassle out of this process. You can download the application here: https://barnhill.bitbucket.io/
If you're interested in testimonials and validation of Virtual Dyno there are some great examples here: https://innovativetuning.wordpress.com/our-experim...
I checked the compatibility of Virtual Dyno and found that it was already compatible with the logs produced by the FC-Edit application I use on a laptop connected to my APEXi Power FC ECU so I was good to go.
So to today, finally the ground was dry and it wasn't too cold so I decided that a Wednesday lunchtime might afford me some opportunities for some full throttle pulls at my local 'empty private test track'.
I found a piece of 'track' that was clear, straight, well-sighted and not on a slope and made several 3rd gear pulls from 40mph to 90mph, trying to stay at full throttle the entire time. Maybe it's because I haven't driven the car in a long time or maybe because the new spark plugs have cleared a bit of ignition break-up in the high rev range but today the car pulled cleaner, harder and more intensely than ever before all the way up to about 7500rpm, the torque was so consistent across the whole powerband - I could *feel* that it was. These full throttle pulls were no joke, I think I made 3 'good' passes where I didn't lift early or whatever but every time I couldn't tear my eyes from the road or look at any instruments but I had been logging the whole time. I actually couldn't wait to get home and see what Virtual Dyno made of my logs.
As I said before, Virtual Dyno is compatible with my log files and it even had a ready made profile for my car, I just had to slightly adjust the weight, wheel radius and final drive to match my exact model and mods which took all of about a minute.
I had to trim my log to include only the full throttle pull (otherwise all the other parts of the drive overlap the graph) but that was simple in notepad++. Generally Virtual Dyno also measures throttle opening and defaults to graphing only those sections but either I was too chicken to keep my foot in the whole time (most likely) or my TPS logging isn't perfect.
So here's my curve:
The curve gives a peak power figure of 374rwhp as if measured on a DynoJet dyno. Based on the assumption of a 15% drivetrain loss this give a bragging figure of 430bhp.
The torque curve and boost curve (ignore units - boost peaks at 14psi/0.965bar by converting the logged figures) are fascinating to me. Boost reaches 7psi by about 4000rpm and maxes at 14psi by 5000rpm and then stays rock solid all the way up to 7500rpm. Torque (that I can confirm because of the feel) was very flat and consistent in that range too. Max torque was 300lbft at the wheels and likely about 340lbft at the crank.
Other figures of interest are the AFR which was about 11.4:1 in the low rev range, reaching about 10.5:1 at 7500rpm. If you're not used to rotaries this might seem ridiculously rich but this is just how they like it (the 11:1 at idle might make you cough tho...). Water temp didn't budge from 75C and intake temps didn't budge from 21C - the V-mount setup does a tremendous job cooling the 13B.
Overall I'm very pleased. I've put in a good amount of time learning how to map and tune the car so having a respectable number to go with it is a great badge. I can honestly say the car is absolutely running the best it's ever been, it's a big step away from when I bought it.
I currently have an HKS 'silent hi-power' cat-back exhaust sat in the garage waiting to go on the car, hopefully allowing the volume to drop several more dB before my next track outing at the Castle Combe Spring Action Day at the end of March. I'm still waiting for my rear discs to come in from Japan and still contemplating spending 600 quid on new discs for the front. Once those are done I'll go to town on cleaning the car up and making it a little shinier and then try to enjoy it more than last year.
Here's the car as it stands today, still not shiny or clean and riding high on those oh so comfortable BC Racing coilovers.
A few weeks back I found a fascinating video describing a process whereby ECU datalogging can be used to estimate the power a car puts down on the road given some precise measurements for weight, wheel radius and gearing. A brilliant developer had wrapped up the whole set of equations into an application that pumps our dyno graphs as a result.
The video is here on the CarPassionChannel on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz7NBbFBQ9Y
The application is called Virtual Dyno and I'm surprised it doesn't get more exposure as it takes all the hassle out of this process. You can download the application here: https://barnhill.bitbucket.io/
If you're interested in testimonials and validation of Virtual Dyno there are some great examples here: https://innovativetuning.wordpress.com/our-experim...
I checked the compatibility of Virtual Dyno and found that it was already compatible with the logs produced by the FC-Edit application I use on a laptop connected to my APEXi Power FC ECU so I was good to go.
So to today, finally the ground was dry and it wasn't too cold so I decided that a Wednesday lunchtime might afford me some opportunities for some full throttle pulls at my local 'empty private test track'.
I found a piece of 'track' that was clear, straight, well-sighted and not on a slope and made several 3rd gear pulls from 40mph to 90mph, trying to stay at full throttle the entire time. Maybe it's because I haven't driven the car in a long time or maybe because the new spark plugs have cleared a bit of ignition break-up in the high rev range but today the car pulled cleaner, harder and more intensely than ever before all the way up to about 7500rpm, the torque was so consistent across the whole powerband - I could *feel* that it was. These full throttle pulls were no joke, I think I made 3 'good' passes where I didn't lift early or whatever but every time I couldn't tear my eyes from the road or look at any instruments but I had been logging the whole time. I actually couldn't wait to get home and see what Virtual Dyno made of my logs.
As I said before, Virtual Dyno is compatible with my log files and it even had a ready made profile for my car, I just had to slightly adjust the weight, wheel radius and final drive to match my exact model and mods which took all of about a minute.
I had to trim my log to include only the full throttle pull (otherwise all the other parts of the drive overlap the graph) but that was simple in notepad++. Generally Virtual Dyno also measures throttle opening and defaults to graphing only those sections but either I was too chicken to keep my foot in the whole time (most likely) or my TPS logging isn't perfect.
So here's my curve:
The curve gives a peak power figure of 374rwhp as if measured on a DynoJet dyno. Based on the assumption of a 15% drivetrain loss this give a bragging figure of 430bhp.
The torque curve and boost curve (ignore units - boost peaks at 14psi/0.965bar by converting the logged figures) are fascinating to me. Boost reaches 7psi by about 4000rpm and maxes at 14psi by 5000rpm and then stays rock solid all the way up to 7500rpm. Torque (that I can confirm because of the feel) was very flat and consistent in that range too. Max torque was 300lbft at the wheels and likely about 340lbft at the crank.
Other figures of interest are the AFR which was about 11.4:1 in the low rev range, reaching about 10.5:1 at 7500rpm. If you're not used to rotaries this might seem ridiculously rich but this is just how they like it (the 11:1 at idle might make you cough tho...). Water temp didn't budge from 75C and intake temps didn't budge from 21C - the V-mount setup does a tremendous job cooling the 13B.
Overall I'm very pleased. I've put in a good amount of time learning how to map and tune the car so having a respectable number to go with it is a great badge. I can honestly say the car is absolutely running the best it's ever been, it's a big step away from when I bought it.
I currently have an HKS 'silent hi-power' cat-back exhaust sat in the garage waiting to go on the car, hopefully allowing the volume to drop several more dB before my next track outing at the Castle Combe Spring Action Day at the end of March. I'm still waiting for my rear discs to come in from Japan and still contemplating spending 600 quid on new discs for the front. Once those are done I'll go to town on cleaning the car up and making it a little shinier and then try to enjoy it more than last year.
Quick update!
Car is on the road, got a three day trip to Surrey/Hampshire next week so that will give the car a little workout.
So I cleaned it and went to my normal spot for some pics:
Now I have some final parts in for my 2019 season upgrades and maintenance:
This is the HKS Silent HiPower cat-back exhaust section. It should be pretty quiet in the greater scheme of modified FDs. I also have an TGS Tuning silenced mid-pipe on it's way - should be here Monday!
Other parts are brakes. I bit the bullet and bought some replacement front rotors from Sumo Power. They are Girodisc grooved/vented and are a direct replacement for my Brembo rotors:
And finally after ordering in October I have some rear discs too! These are the Dixcel 314mm RZ fitment discs that don't seem to be available anywhere. I got them through Essex Rotary who couldn't apologise enough for the delay as their Japanese supplier went very quiet for a long time.
I might be going to the Haynes meet tomorrow - might see some of you there!
Car is on the road, got a three day trip to Surrey/Hampshire next week so that will give the car a little workout.
So I cleaned it and went to my normal spot for some pics:
Now I have some final parts in for my 2019 season upgrades and maintenance:
This is the HKS Silent HiPower cat-back exhaust section. It should be pretty quiet in the greater scheme of modified FDs. I also have an TGS Tuning silenced mid-pipe on it's way - should be here Monday!
Other parts are brakes. I bit the bullet and bought some replacement front rotors from Sumo Power. They are Girodisc grooved/vented and are a direct replacement for my Brembo rotors:
And finally after ordering in October I have some rear discs too! These are the Dixcel 314mm RZ fitment discs that don't seem to be available anywhere. I got them through Essex Rotary who couldn't apologise enough for the delay as their Japanese supplier went very quiet for a long time.
I might be going to the Haynes meet tomorrow - might see some of you there!
Had a couple of busy car days last week, installing the previously mentioned exhaust and brakes
2-piece brake rotors were something I'd not dealt with before but the old ones came apart easily and the new rotors were a direct fit as promised.
Driver's side front was a right pig! We couldn't get one of the new pads to sit right and the first time we got it in it completely jammed. After that we filed down the edges of the pad and tried to clean the caliper as much as possible but it still took hours longer than it should have to get it to fit right.
Rears were pretty straightforward in comparison, here's a before and after:
I didn't get many pics of the exhaust, it did take me a few goes to line it all up without leaks working under the car in the garage. Here's the system before it went on the car next to the one I had just taken off:
Annoyingly the bung for the wideband o2 sensor on the new exhaust is in exactly the wrong place and the installing the sensor there would interfere with my gearbox brace. I need to rethink the position or use the bung on the downpipe next to the turbo where the stock sensor goes at the risk of frying my sensor or at least shortening its life.
With the work done I got the car cleanish and prepped a bit for Spring Action Day at Castle Combe
Then it was up early on Saturday morning to convoy there in the fog (this might be the only road rolling shot I have of the car?)
The first couple of hours of the show were a blur trying to work out where I needed to go for sound testing (yes - the new exhaust easily passed Combe's noise test!), drivers' briefing and the queue for the track but eventually I got on there - my first time on Castle Combe.
Obviously I was a little apprehensive - lots of new stuff since I last went on track - new front tyres, new coilovers, new brakes all round. I forgot to set my dampers to 'stiff' before rolling out and the new BC Racing coils felt totally different from my old Quantums - loads of grip there but soft springs meant a lot of suspension travel. The big disappointment was the brakes - only having had the motorway drive up to bed them in a bit they weren't ready for the track and didn't have the bite I needed to feel confident and because they weren't bedded fully they faded pretty quickly. The session was prematurely halted after about 10 mins when someone spun off so I took that as my opportunity to leave before I ran out of brakes. I'm hoping the short track session will have sped up the bedding in process and the bite will return soon. Thankfully the brake judder I had at Llandow last year has disappeared completely with the new setup. I consider it overall to be a good track session since I went out, came in and didn't break myself or the car!
After that I enjoyed a lovely day in the sun looking at all the show cars and watching the cars on track. I left a little earlier than the rest of my club but convoyed with a Mk4 Supra that I met on the M5, all the way back to Exeter! We had a couple of spirited pulls and this exposed an aspect of my tuning I hadn't considered yet - On the motorway I was doing pulls in 4th gear and I saw my boost rise to 1.13bar or 16psi, during my tuning pulls in 3rd the engine load and wastegate only boosted to 0.96bar. The car pulled *hard* at 16psi (probably 450bhp since I was making 430bhp at 14psi) but I think I might want to dial that out with my boost control settings for the sake of the engine.
2-piece brake rotors were something I'd not dealt with before but the old ones came apart easily and the new rotors were a direct fit as promised.
Driver's side front was a right pig! We couldn't get one of the new pads to sit right and the first time we got it in it completely jammed. After that we filed down the edges of the pad and tried to clean the caliper as much as possible but it still took hours longer than it should have to get it to fit right.
Rears were pretty straightforward in comparison, here's a before and after:
I didn't get many pics of the exhaust, it did take me a few goes to line it all up without leaks working under the car in the garage. Here's the system before it went on the car next to the one I had just taken off:
Annoyingly the bung for the wideband o2 sensor on the new exhaust is in exactly the wrong place and the installing the sensor there would interfere with my gearbox brace. I need to rethink the position or use the bung on the downpipe next to the turbo where the stock sensor goes at the risk of frying my sensor or at least shortening its life.
With the work done I got the car cleanish and prepped a bit for Spring Action Day at Castle Combe
Then it was up early on Saturday morning to convoy there in the fog (this might be the only road rolling shot I have of the car?)
The first couple of hours of the show were a blur trying to work out where I needed to go for sound testing (yes - the new exhaust easily passed Combe's noise test!), drivers' briefing and the queue for the track but eventually I got on there - my first time on Castle Combe.
Obviously I was a little apprehensive - lots of new stuff since I last went on track - new front tyres, new coilovers, new brakes all round. I forgot to set my dampers to 'stiff' before rolling out and the new BC Racing coils felt totally different from my old Quantums - loads of grip there but soft springs meant a lot of suspension travel. The big disappointment was the brakes - only having had the motorway drive up to bed them in a bit they weren't ready for the track and didn't have the bite I needed to feel confident and because they weren't bedded fully they faded pretty quickly. The session was prematurely halted after about 10 mins when someone spun off so I took that as my opportunity to leave before I ran out of brakes. I'm hoping the short track session will have sped up the bedding in process and the bite will return soon. Thankfully the brake judder I had at Llandow last year has disappeared completely with the new setup. I consider it overall to be a good track session since I went out, came in and didn't break myself or the car!
After that I enjoyed a lovely day in the sun looking at all the show cars and watching the cars on track. I left a little earlier than the rest of my club but convoyed with a Mk4 Supra that I met on the M5, all the way back to Exeter! We had a couple of spirited pulls and this exposed an aspect of my tuning I hadn't considered yet - On the motorway I was doing pulls in 4th gear and I saw my boost rise to 1.13bar or 16psi, during my tuning pulls in 3rd the engine load and wastegate only boosted to 0.96bar. The car pulled *hard* at 16psi (probably 450bhp since I was making 430bhp at 14psi) but I think I might want to dial that out with my boost control settings for the sake of the engine.
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff