Listerofsmeg

Hopefully this wont contravene any rules, but if it does then apologies and please remove it!

I have just put up a facebook face that will be dedicated to my season next year in the UK Time Attack series. Hopefully this appeals to a few of my friends from across the pond too! Hopefully we can see what a bargain basement Honda with a turbo strapped to it can do against some other, more expensive machinery!

Like and Share!

I have previous run in Time Attack so this isnt a completely new game to me but I genuinely hope that this car actually represents a realistic challenge in its class.

To give a brief spec:
B18 Turbo (Garrett 60-1) - low blow, but responsive
EK9 Cams
EK9 box with plated diff (also a stock s9b box as backup)
Fully adjustable coilovers, with a variety of springs
Fully stripped
Lexan windows
Built to MSA spec
Front Aero (still working on the rear)
ITR quickrack and rollbars
Yoko A048 225/45/16 rubber
car weighing ~950-970kgs (2100lbs) with me in it running ~360-380hp

Im looking forward to it already!!

So you can follow the development and progress by going to that link and liking the page All videos will be posted there from any trackdays, drag days, and time attack events that I get myself to. With (hopefully) full dash overlay for the full effect!

Thanks for your support!!! :D

Listerofsmeg

Thanks for the likes guys! Good to see there are some of you who are interested in what we're doing over here too!

flip_nl

No problem, be sure to like my dutch (over the small pond ) time-attack project aswell

Listerofsmeg

I will do that for sure when i am at home!

Who will be lucky number 100 like!

Listerofsmeg

Realised that i had not updated this thread with my progress.

A few changes have been made to the car, and the weight target i had set was WAY off. i finally got the car weighed at the weekend and with me in it, it came in at 1105kgs!!! 995kgs without (yes i am not light...)

Anyway, here is my race report from this last weekend, which was round 2 of the UK Time Attack series, at Knockhill Circuit in Scotland.

Well.....what a weekend.

Collected the car and drove up on Friday, the journey taking 9 hours due to shitty traffic on the M6, arrived just after midnight absolutely shattered.

Saturday morning I headed straight to get the alignment done on the car to make sure she was shooting straight and true, then headed straight to the track. Unpacked and set up for the day. I had set myself the target of (assuming it was dry) to dip under 60 seconds as id never driven the track before.

The weather on Saturday was pretty good, dry and cool, so when the time came to have a little go on the track all was well. I had not driven the car since the engine was built and tuned on the Thursday last week so clearly the only course of action was to blat it straight out of the pitlane. I did around 6 or 7 laps and then had a bit of an 'off' and mowed a little bit of the knockhill greenery. Came in to the pits and was pulling large clumps of grass out from the splitter for about 15 minutes.

Once that was done I headed straight back out again and just pounded round for a while until I felt like coming back in. All was well, engine was sweet, and was getting used to the circuit a little bit. So after about 20 minutes of actually being on the track I was posting 60-61 second laps, which I was pretty happy with. Went out again and then pulled back in after 3 more laps as I heard a "blow" from somewhere in the exhaust. Turned out that the turbo to manifold gasket had gone walkies along with 2 of the bolts holding them together!!! so we decided to call it a day and packed up for the night and went back to the hotel.

Race day:
Sunday greeted us with mist and rain, when we got to the circuit at 7.30 you couldnt see the track from the paddock.....this was not good.

First session, this went very well for me, despite the drizzle and already wet surface I managed to post the quickest FWD time of 1:05.59 and was 4th overall behind an Evo and 2 Subarus. If only the day ended now ;o)

Second session, not so good. The bolts holding the turbo to the manifold had rattled loose AGAIN (not sure why, it hadn't happened before and now twice in as many days), so this meant that I had gone from quickest FWD to 2nd slowest, I only did one lap of "trying" in this session and pulled back in. We managed to obtain another gasket and some better bolts (this time using exhaust paste as a threadlock) and patched her up again....we also noticed that the boost solenoid had disconnected! so not only did we have a huge blow from the exhaust but also only 0.5bar boost as well....

Qualifying, with the car now fixed and back up to full power it was time to head back out, knocking that a good qualifying performance would of course net me a few points (as it did at silverstone). I finished up 2nd in class with a 1:05.73 just 0.12 behind Marc Donnelly's brilliant escort, gutted I didn't just push a little bit harder as there was grip available
Qualifying Video:

Final, so, having qualified 2nd I had high hopes of a good finish. The weather was drying out though, ironically something that I didnt want as I knew that a few of the other guys were much better in the dry, and so, sadly for me it proved. Ending the session in 4th place, with a time of 59.451, so I did achieve my target of breaking 60 seconds....just gutted that I didnt get on the podium this time round. Annoyingly as you will see in the video, I had to slow down a little on the previous lap to my best one which may have made the difference.....
Final Vid here:

What this does mean though is that, due to the strong qualifying effort I am up to 3rd in the overall Championship after 2 rounds. Hopefully at Snetterton it will get even better

Hope you like the videos....

Listerofsmeg

Well another round done, and the car is still in one piece and performing very well.

When we arrived at Snetterton we were greeting with heavy rain which is exactly what you need....honest! The outlook was that it would clear up around lunchtime and that we could potentially have a dry afternoon...

Warmup session:
The car had been pretty much left alone as i thought it best to just go out and see what grip was available before making any adjustments. Having said that though i really should have softened the suspension all round on the dampers as i had left them in "dry" setup, rock hard mode!! As a result the car was VERY slidey, which im sure was entertaining to watch but didnt make for great laptimes! I ended the session with 1.45.073, good enough for 5th in class and i must admit, a little better than i was expecting, given that i just wheelspan out of every corner due to too much boost in 3rd. The standings made for interesting reading as the 2 least powerful cars topped the timing in class, kudos to them!



Practice session:
The rain was still falling although it had backed off a little so there was less standing water but nonetheless still very slippery! For whatever reason i decided to just soften the suspension and leave everything else the same and see what happened. I was also trying to see at what point when applying the brakes would the wheels simply "lock up". As the tyres were still pretty much brand new the front end still wanted to wash out, and also as i had left the boost in 3rd still getting out of the corners was a cautious affair (almost every bend was a 3rd gear exit!). The end result however was an improvement of 4.5 seconds to end the session with 1.40.658, which dropped me to 6th in class.



Practice Video:

Qualifying:
Ok, so this time i had learned my lesson, even though the track had largely dries out i took boost out of 3rd and 4th gears to try and ensure that i had traction on the exits of the corner. Knowing that a good qualifying performance was generally what was holding me up in the overall standings anyway i felt that it was important to try and hard as i dared, even with reduced power for a time. I managed to put in 5 laps before the session was halted to do Stewart Summers rolling his Saxo in the final bend. Thankfully all ok, however as we pulled in to the pits and had figured out what from the laps i had already done i had put myself 3rd with a 1.28.085. The session then reopened with 10 minutes left to get a time in. We put the boost back in and stiffened the suspension up again but while waiting in the pitlane it started to rain again, so i decided to pull back in to the garage, figuring that it was unlikely anybody would put in any quicker times. WRONG. At the last gasp, Marc Donnelly in his excellent MK3 Escort, pipped me in to 3rd, with a 1.27.930, gutting....however i was only 1 second back and the track was drying out more and more.....



Video:

Final:
The rain had topped and the track was now fully dry, so it was now or never in terms of getting a good lap out of the car. I decided that i had to be uber confident on the brakes and just try and carry more speed through 'every' corner. The car behaved brilliantly, and responded to everything i asked of it. I was now braking much later in to the first corner, and at the end of the back straight, saving me masses of time over what i was doing previously. I did a couple of quick laps of 1.23.7 and 1.23.8 before backing off to make myself some room, i then managed a 1.23.267 but even with this i missed 4th on the final straight which would have surely given me a 1.22!. I decided to then let the car cool for another 2 laps before attacking again, however due to a couple of accidents on the circuit the session was red flagged again and it was game over. So i came in, knowing that the time i had just done had beaten the previous lap record so i knew i had to be there or thereabouts. Little did i know just how close it was!



Final Video, fastest lap

So i ended the day in 3rd place, my first podium! (hopefully not the last), but the times were just so close that im kicking myself for missing that gear! the winning time by Will Watson was 1.23.101 with Adam Joned in his TDI North prepped EP3 2nd with 1.23.265, 2 THOUSANDTHS of a seconds quicker, which is a couple of inches over the 2 mile course.....amazing stuff.

As you can see from this breakdown of optimal lap times, if i had managed to hook up 4th gear it could have been different, my optimal being 1.23.081 which would have just pipped Will. Next time!!



I will take away one conciliation though, i was the quickest FWD car down the back straight speed track by nearly 5.5mph :D



So overall, a good result, my first podium, and if ive done my calculations maintained 3rd overall in the championship. bring on the next one

Listerofsmeg

Next outing in 2 1/2 weeks at a track ive never done before.....should be interesting.

Then a few more upgrades in time for round 5