Britcar British Endurance Championship Round 4 - Thruxton
Discussion
So we are at the 4th round of the Britcar British Endurance Championship this weekend which is at Thruxton, and it looks like the race is going to be a wet one! Could be interesting, as the car has not seen the wet before...though we feel the car should suit the track.
Also made some updates to the car for this race which should improve its performance too.
A timetable of the event can be found here:
http://britcar24hr.co.uk/cms/e107_plugins/content/...
And live timing can be found here:
http://www.tsl-timing.com/?loc=club&season=201...
We also had a few people ask us for some pictures of our engine bay, particularly the exhausts, so here is a little taster:
Jonny
Also made some updates to the car for this race which should improve its performance too.
A timetable of the event can be found here:
http://britcar24hr.co.uk/cms/e107_plugins/content/...
And live timing can be found here:
http://www.tsl-timing.com/?loc=club&season=201...
We also had a few people ask us for some pictures of our engine bay, particularly the exhausts, so here is a little taster:
Jonny
dB is 105 :-)
The fuelling system was redesigned - we still kept the external pumps (LP and HP) but we converted it to a single, larger tank and this allowed us to remove a significant proportion of the plumbing as well as make some modifications to the breather system for easier refuelling.
The fuelling system was redesigned - we still kept the external pumps (LP and HP) but we converted it to a single, larger tank and this allowed us to remove a significant proportion of the plumbing as well as make some modifications to the breather system for easier refuelling.
So an update from the weekend. We went out in the Practice session on Saturday which was drive, with myself having never been to Thruxton and our second driver having never driven the car before - both us went out just to familiarise ourselves with things, so had a good 'safe' session in which some people were giving themselves some problems.
The Qualifying session on the Saturday afternoon was dry - I went out first and got stuck behind a Ferrari for my couple of quick laps, which held me back to a 1:18.6, which had me sitting in 4th at that time, though there was about 1.5 seconds to be gained from a clear track. I pitted for a driver change and three cars went slightly quicker than my time knocking us down to seventh. Our second driver, Jamie Smyth, was just about to go out with everything up to temperature when there was a red flag due to an incident with one of the production cars. There was a bit of a delay before he got to go out, but there was a fair amount of traffic on track and he didn't manage to get a clear track to better our time, with the short qualification session being made shorter by the stoppage, we ended up 8th on the grid.
Overnight the heavens opened - and it was relentless. The car has never been driven in the wet so we took a best guess at the setup and hit the track for morning warm-up. The car was very quick and was faultless, being right on the pace, however visibility was terrible so both myself and Jamie held back so that we did not make the same mistake as a couple of the other drivers out there, one of which blew up and the other found the outfield!
We were confident for the race, and spent a long time taping over everything that could get wet and drying the car. I took the first stint, and headed out to the grid, however on the second warm-up lap, the wipers started to slow and the car just died at Church, which is about as far from the pits as I could be. I check all the fuses and all the connections were dry and they seemed fine. We got towed to the pits and jump started the car, and it ran for a few minutes in the pits no problem. I set off again and the car did around 300 metres on the track and died again. After a long run back we jump started it again, and the same story. We had to call it a day then, which was very frustrating and the race was incident packed and cut short by an hour due to the dangerous conditions.
It turns out the cutoff switch we have was leaking badly, and the alternator flooded so as soon as the battery depleted we could not run, which wasn't very long with wipers, lights, fog lights, demister etc running. A very frustrating end to a weekend in which we were right up at the pointy end again., but on the plus side, more lessons learned.
One thing that was amazing was just how much water gets into the car - through all the holes such as steering column, holes for clam release cables, doors seals etc, and how much water pours in when you open the doors.
Unfortunately there are no videos as there was literally no visibility and the camera misted up - looking at a grey screen was very boring!
More development work over the summer and great next round at Snetterton on 14th August are in order.
Jonny
The Qualifying session on the Saturday afternoon was dry - I went out first and got stuck behind a Ferrari for my couple of quick laps, which held me back to a 1:18.6, which had me sitting in 4th at that time, though there was about 1.5 seconds to be gained from a clear track. I pitted for a driver change and three cars went slightly quicker than my time knocking us down to seventh. Our second driver, Jamie Smyth, was just about to go out with everything up to temperature when there was a red flag due to an incident with one of the production cars. There was a bit of a delay before he got to go out, but there was a fair amount of traffic on track and he didn't manage to get a clear track to better our time, with the short qualification session being made shorter by the stoppage, we ended up 8th on the grid.
Overnight the heavens opened - and it was relentless. The car has never been driven in the wet so we took a best guess at the setup and hit the track for morning warm-up. The car was very quick and was faultless, being right on the pace, however visibility was terrible so both myself and Jamie held back so that we did not make the same mistake as a couple of the other drivers out there, one of which blew up and the other found the outfield!
We were confident for the race, and spent a long time taping over everything that could get wet and drying the car. I took the first stint, and headed out to the grid, however on the second warm-up lap, the wipers started to slow and the car just died at Church, which is about as far from the pits as I could be. I check all the fuses and all the connections were dry and they seemed fine. We got towed to the pits and jump started the car, and it ran for a few minutes in the pits no problem. I set off again and the car did around 300 metres on the track and died again. After a long run back we jump started it again, and the same story. We had to call it a day then, which was very frustrating and the race was incident packed and cut short by an hour due to the dangerous conditions.
It turns out the cutoff switch we have was leaking badly, and the alternator flooded so as soon as the battery depleted we could not run, which wasn't very long with wipers, lights, fog lights, demister etc running. A very frustrating end to a weekend in which we were right up at the pointy end again., but on the plus side, more lessons learned.
One thing that was amazing was just how much water gets into the car - through all the holes such as steering column, holes for clam release cables, doors seals etc, and how much water pours in when you open the doors.
Unfortunately there are no videos as there was literally no visibility and the camera misted up - looking at a grey screen was very boring!
More development work over the summer and great next round at Snetterton on 14th August are in order.
Jonny
deadscoob said:
Yep fair play to you. You're competing against cars with 5+ years development and huge factory budgets.
Water ingress is an interesting problem to solve I think.
Don't give up, won't be long before it's sorted and you're fighting for podium places.
As long as we have the budget we won't be giving up - it's not in our vocabulary!Water ingress is an interesting problem to solve I think.
Don't give up, won't be long before it's sorted and you're fighting for podium places.
The car is fast and the best part is there is a lot more to come, so its just a matter of time...
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