2006 Impreza STi "Time Attack" - RaceDynamix

[dynamix]

All done, clean, polished, fueled and ready with a day to spare

Will get some good pics from Cadwell and some video from outside the car - didnt have time to organise in car video vbox unfortunately. Maybe for the last round...

A nice chilled out day tomorrow with just loading the car onto the trailer to do.

After a month and a half of work on it and all the various setbacks it is really good to be in this position

[Thomo no 11]

best of luck for the races Dunc cant wait to see the videos mate

[dynamix]

I love Cadwell.

First off huge thanks to Julian for giving up his weekend to help and to do all the little jobs (and slightly bigger jobs) that need doing on race day. Always there, willing and able to get stuck in to make it right. Also to Steve for pitlane assistance through the day. Lots of other thank yous to just get there in the first place:

Mark @ Lateral for engine parts
Paul @ Zen for engine building guidance and expert geometry set up
Steve Darley for bringing down fuel for the day for me and saving a space in the paddock
Daz Davies for his help during the day

Anyway, the day itself... we arrived fashionably late but just in time for scrutineering, signing on and briefing. A quick check over and it was out for the first warm up session. Julian and Steve headed down to the pit lane (the first of many trips down there laden with tools and part of a new fitness regine with that hill !). Running on low boost and on the 50% methanol mix, the car worked great til it popped a hose off behind the bumper (bound to happen) but a quick pit lane fix and I was back out to shakedown the car.

All was working beautifully and it felt planted to the road. I came out with the fastest time in club pro despite being held up on my flying laps and was generally pleased. Although most people arent on it fully on it in warm up, it was good to give it some beans to make sure the little gremlins were ironed out. After all it had only done 350 miles on the new engine !

Back to the paddock after the session and another nut and bolt check and prep for the practice session. Mostly it is hoses and dry sump belt set up for me in this but also a quick look at datalogs to see if anything nasty was happening. All was good and ready for practice.

Practice and car was good from the off then went uber lean half way through the session - really felt like the car was holding back. Looking at the logs it was running at just over lambda 1 at full boost !! hmmmm VERY lean and not good but was only doing it intermittently. Still came out with the 2nd fastest club pro time so again was pleased but yet to really nail coppice and charlies 1 right.

Lots of head scratching, checking injectors, wiring, hoses and then a change of fuel for qualifying to Sunoco Race E85 and it was fingers crossed that it was a problem with my saturday afternoon map for methanol.

A quick bleed of the brakes and re-attach the exhaust that had come undone lol and we were good to go



Qualifying was split into 2 groups to give us more space on track - this worked well and it was possible to get a full flying lap without getting held up. A great idea but should have been done in the final too (or instead) because the traffic in that was silly.

Car felt stronger on the E85 even though still not running full boost quite yet or full ignition timing ( i had taken a couple of degrees of timing out as a safety precaution to the lean running - a token gesture I know but it set my mind at rest)

This session ended with a 1.36.5 and 3rd place. My best qualifying position this year. With still more in the car and me for the final I felt good.



What seemed like days later we were out for the final - this time instead of 10 cars out - there were 16 and although that isnt many cars compared to track days, when there is such a mixture of speeds when cars are on full speed laps and 'cool down laps' at a far slower pace than was dictated in the briefing - meeting cars at the wrong part of the track is inevitable and impossible to judge a space big enough for a full flying lap.

So the first flying lap had to be the one. It was slightly cooler now and there was oil / cement down on the track from the previous session into braking at park and into chris curve braking too so tyres werent working right from the start of the first lap so had to go for a couple of hot ones. The first was fine and second better but not quite good enough so went for a 3rd full hot lap as the tyres felt good still and I hadnt hit my target time. I dipped into the 1.36's but not as quick as I had hoped and a missed gear in the mountain section cost me. Looking at sector times though it was still a quick sector.



A couple of slower laps to recoup and back on it again ... met Mr Lloyd in the evo halfway round chris curve and had to overtake at full power around the outside mid way through - a bit butt clenching but it had killed the potential for that lap anyway so time for another and again met someone halfway through the gooseneck again ruined lap. At this point I was in 3rd place but just at the death on the last lap Martin Byford pulled ahead of me to take the podium slot by 0.1 seconds.



I didnt know til I came into the paddock and saw Julian and Steve.

Never mind - I had a ball, beat some old adversaries and came away with a car in one piece ready for the next outing this weekend at TOTB.

To qualify 3rd and to finish 4th was a great result and my best yet in club pro.

Superb day !

Thanks to everyone that popped over to say hi during the day

[dynamix]

New Zen dry sump tank installed:



This sits behind the driveshaft/cv joint at the bottom and is very secure in that location giving clearance to a strut brace, starter motor and everything else. An inspirational use of space IMO.

[Micktype WR1]

Well, you've given me another good read this lazy Mon BHols pm.
Good luck with TOTB Duncan.

[IAN]

Yeah +1 great read and good result and all the best for TOTB Duncan

[dynamix]

TOTB was 3 weeks ago

[dynamix]

I had a ball yesterday at Cadwell. It has to be my favourite circuit in the UK i think.

Rain on the approach to the circuit didnt bode well for a grippy start to the day but I was desperate to try out the recent improvements and bug test and get a head start on prep for next year's TA.

The idea for the day was to trial the aero and make sure the engine is spot on after the top end rebuild I did on saturday.

Plan was to run on low boost (1.6 bar) and 25% meth mix as it seemed a waste running race fuel in amongst all the track day traffic of cadwell. As much as I love the place track day traffic there can be a nightmare. I also removed the Nitrous bottle and left it at home to save me from temptation LOL



After a 'one lap and come in' to check bolts etc I was tiptoeing around the first session as the track was very greasy but felt surprisingly at ease with the car through the sections of the track that i was losing time at in TA in august so started upping the pace.



Even on 2 year old 888's with 1mm of tread the car felt good in the wet and as it started to dry out and a dry line appear (even though it wasnt the fast line in places lol) I could fully push on and get some heat in the tyres and test the feel of the car mid corners.



I have to say I really liked how it felt and am very pleased with these initial aero mods. Some people may have seen just how pleased from my facebook status during the day



As far as the car in general was concerned, there were a couple of minor gremlins that appeared during the day causing me to stop on track...

1. the wire from oil pressure sender to ecu came loose so the ecu thought it saw zero oil pressure and killed the engine. Brilliant engine safety feature of syvecs ecu (if you set it up that way) but it was a tad embarassing lol. Quick reseat of the plug and all was good.

2. the drive by wire mechanism decided it would flip over the allowable error margin and subsequently switch off the throttle mechanism. Again embaressing and annoying aswell as red flagging the session cos it happened to stop the car in a dangerous place.



The car restarted again in both cases and drove off the track under its own power to enable me to debug in the paddock and head back out for some flying laps and give some passenger laps which we arent allowed to do in TA now due to MSA rules I think Rachel was a little scared as she asked me to drop her back into the paddock quite quickly LOL. Julian enjoyed his laps and was very good to see him having a great day.



Great day all in all and superb to see some old friends I hadnt seen for a while at the most picturesque track in the UK

The only downside is that this is the first track day i have done with the car in its current form and it feels very out of place on a track day now... or at least it did yesterday

[POESY]

The only downside is that this is the first track day i have done with the car in its current form and it feels very out of place on a track day now... or at least it did yesterday

That would be because its a racing car...no??!! Bit like when you see people turn up with radicals and junos to a trackday...pointless really.