16th Sept Race -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well we were back racing again yesterday after a 2 race gap whilst modding and upping the spec of the ibiza. It always seems no matter how long you give yourself to get the jobs done it always ends up to the 11th hour & rushing about. Same here this time. Collected the car from Custom Code/JBS on friday evening, getting home at 10pm the night before the race. Not much time to go over the motor and check anything out other than on race morning itself, which is usually a bit hectic. A few hose issues (popping off) were niggling on the way home, with tired jubilee clips not being up to the job of the higher boost levels. 1st thing when we got to Combe before scrutineering was change the known dodgy hose connections which had plagued the journey home for some mikalor (type) clamps from merlin motorsport. (ker-ching$$). Off we go out for quali, sat behind keith murray a4 so was hoping for a good comparison of the new found power i have.... as soon as we go on the gas, keiths boost hose to his throttle body blows off so he pulls to the side... DOH! so I go on the gas and................ bugger me, where's my silly boost gone?? eh? This was going to be fun... my cosmic boost was not coming... barely getting to 20psi before dropping up and down from 10psi to 15psi to 20psi and misfiring on full chat as well. Damn! so much for qualifying with new power & boost. Slower and less powerful than before. The meeting was an MG meeting, with a bunch of "older, more oil dropping cars" should I say... boy was the track oiled up. Well slippery as I discovered several times, cars going off all over, me on the lock stops several times when it snatched mid corner. Aside from the power hike, the suspension was very different this time also, and this was the first time driven in anger, so no real idea what it would be like, or time to get used to it. 10mins quali is not a place to test. Anyhows its seemed ok, but I need to learn it. Its an improvement from previous and not too bad over the bumps despite the high poundage I am now running at the rears, with the fronts down a little on last time. Lots of grip in the tyres, but me too chicken to expore it on the day. Need more seat time in a stable package to get into the groove. I think now we have a good base tho suspension setup wise. We will have to see. Upshot of quali with the weird missing and erratic boost was P19! with a tardy 1m22s lap time. Oh well, race will be interesting from back there. Missing boost was traced down to of all things the vacuum pipe to the DV... which I know James told me to clip, but we had forgotten in the rush. Wired the hose to the DV with the loan of Mark Harrisons tools (thankyou) and drove off out of the circuit to see if all was back... and Woohoo, yep. sorted. Cosmic boost was back. During the break between quali and our race (10.30am quali, 3.30pm race) we proceeded to buy a shed load of mikalor clamps to replace all the jubliee clips I had (old and new) just to ensure the hoses were as tight as we could get em. Many thanks to Tony & Nige for obliging is crawling around over and under the motor in doing this whilst I ran back & forth to Merlin exchanging clamps for correct sizes as we moved thru the system pipework. Race time... out on the grid, back in 19th, great view of the start lights from back there, lol. I still always think its so closely packed on the grid, I am surprised we dont all crash off the start line. 5 lights count up then OFF, we go... I make an average start loosing out one place immediately to a pug 205 who had traction where I was spinning up.. Into quarry, boy is it busy... easing onto the gas, pass a couple out of quarry from sheer grunt, tiptoe thru chicane, again thru old paddock, pass a couple more into tower, and settle into a bit of space, chasing down the cars in front. more of the same, laps go by I blast past the cars in front, now I have power... not 100% power as the n75 valve clearly seems to not like trying to control this turbo... fluctuating boost levels throught the race, but higher (and silly high at times) so power was there. More than a few cars were blowing up, dropping oil, **** it ws slippery from quarry thru to tower, not knowing where there was or was'nt grip. A white focus was dead & oily smokey, as was a metro just further down by old paddock. It was dawning on me that I could smell burning, but I could'nt work out if it was the dead smoking focus/metro's I was passing or something closer to home... We were running driver to pits phone (bluetooth earpiece) so as I drove by I shouted over if they could see anything on fire on my car, as I could smell burning.. they could'nt hear me so another lap and me shouting down the phone, "I can smell burning, am i on fire boys!" - "no" was their reply... The cabin looked a bit hazy inside, so something was definately amiss. Still blatting on and now in P8 chasing the 2 in front... more smoke inside the car now, definately me and it smelt bad.. 2 cars in front easy meat at the rate I was catching........ smoke in the cabin worse, window down to clear it, my left foot feeling hot too.. can easily catch the 2 in front and pass em I know, smoke... thinks.... race or catch fire.... [sensible pill kicks in] Damn... I pull in on next lap into pits. We had got up to P8 from P19 in 6 laps with plenty more to be had... but common sense prevailed.. I pull into the pits and the guys pop the bonnet up looking for flames/fire, but nothing obvious other than a milding glowing turbo housing (1st time I have seen it glow at all), but smoke inside was continuing... We though maybe it was the inner cv gaiter which looked like it was spitting out some grease onto the DP perhaps, but nothing looked alight as we could see. I said drop the hood, I'm getting back out there to at least finish and get my signature, so back in, belt back up, and head back out driving past the red light at the end of the pitlane.. ****, did I just do that? oh ho.... check mirrors, cars approaching I stay slow and on my side of blend line, but I cocked up and should'nt have run the red light.. Off I proceed, and continue for a lap and chequered one greets me on the next.. oh well a finish, and an additional spare lap to cool things off from heat soaking. When I pull back in, a marshall hands me a still smoldering piece of sound proofing stuff with silver backing which had fallen off the bottom of my car when I had pulled into the pits earlier.. Its the stuff the car has by the bulkhead close the the DP area.. Hmmm well closer look there will confirm that I think. More heatshielding/wrap req'd. (nothing on DP is wrapped at the mo) I return to the paddock and Tony tells me I ran the red light and the official wrote it down and went running off to tell someone. Woops.. couple of minutes later, I get called to clerk of the course.. Oh dear! Up with the clerk, he calls me into a room and I say to him "I ran the red light at the end of the pits did'nt I", "yes" he says, "yea I am a complete tw@t for doing that", "yes" he says, "saves me telling you that" he says. lol. I told him I was a bit distracted from thinking I was on fire, but it was no excuse and was sorry.. "you wont be doing that again then will you" he said, to which I obviously said "nope" & "sorry again". Thats fine and off I went... and got my signature and no endorsement either. Phew! Well the result was dead last, lol, but the cars performance was step changed. Qualify well and race trim, it bodes very well for a great last race in a few weeks time. The cars scarey.... acceleration and traction is superb, despite the power its running, so I am pleased the spec I came up with has met with a tractable race car on road tyres. Some fiddling to be done on heat management, N75 or other boost control valves which can cope with my boost levels and we're now able to compete I think with the best of classB cars. Not the complete package as handling remains worse than the top cars, my own driving remains under parr in not knowing or feeling confident in it yet, but for now I will stop the suspension fiddling, and try to get more seat time to hone the driving to the package. Its a base now I think to consolodate on for a bit. I have to say big thankyou to Custom Code/JBS, James, Kev et al, nige, tony for all their help before and on the day. I cant do it on my own, so big thanks from me. Overall well pleased, ok not with the result, but better to not have lost the car from fire (I was thinking of poor Paul's scoob when it cought on fire a few races ago when mine was smoking) so consider myself lucky. cheers folks. see you next time Bill
excellent report.. can sense how frantic it must of been getting everything ready. sounds like you were going well bill. definitely seems to of given you that bit of an edge jumping from p19 to p8. how many more rounds are there to go, if any?
very good report bill , must have been a hard choice deciding to burn the car or come in lol , thats some big balls you have lol . sounds like the car is a real contender now .
I've been dismantlng bits today to have a look see.. saw a small water leak when I got home.... boy do I feel better I stopped when I did now. Water pipes to turbo have melted with one just hanging on by its finger nails from popping off. This is past 3 layers of heat insulation, all of which are burnt. going to re-route them the other way now. Phew.. could have been costly. N75 valve cant cope with >2bar boost pressures so if anyone knows of another option I can use with stock management could you let me know? Thinking something like the japs use on their big power cars maybe? One more round to go... Off on holiday for a week, which will leave me only a week to fix the stuff I have seen to far. think the DP gasket is starting to blow... not sure.. little faffy on way home. Cars drivability is good considering the power its developing. Its mind adjusting performance.. and scares the bejezus out of me. (whilst I am laughing like an eejit)-mental, but fun. totally different level of acceleration to before. got x2 more mods to go on yet, 75mm throttle body on new larger single plenum manifold, and some special custom grind catcams. I dont want to push the rev limiter any higher on the valve gear I am running... still hydro lifters, but race springs & valves. Not convinced the turbo has run out of puff, more than we're cutting it off to preserve (hopefully) the motor. One more round to go. in I think 2-3 weeks time. If anyone has pics of it.... its flames are apparently even bigger now, lol
Fascinating stuff Bill... seems the car is really progressing! What kind of power are you pushing out of it now?
Great report and interesting to read. Have you thought about the Boost control soleniods that the old UR Quattro's use? Apparently quite a few of the 1.8T tuners resort to using the race version valve from the old UR Quattro's for high power apps. About 45 from either VW or Audi. These old Audi's ran silly power as you know but not sure if this is a 100% solution though. Maybe give Dialynx (sp) a call to see what they recommend? Gurds
Good read Bill, and I totally agree there is never enough time to get anything done. Who needs a job eh? Pah! Bodes well though - and comment about good grip interesting. Maybe the front is rolling a little more, running with the contours, picking up the grip. Pre-reading the above report, with the power levels I'd thought there could be marginal traction issues tbh.
the power plot on the dyno shows its deliver as progressive (yea brutal in its qty I know) but the way its rolls in and in and on seems to make the best of it. happy with the delivery considering the volume.
Additional heat shielding-a-plenty is required by sounds of it now Bill. Maybe a jacket around the turbo if you haven't already got one? Then you would have to be careful where all that heat inside will be going, heat wrap all the system? It must be chuffing marvelous to whisp by the slower machinery with all that power, pick them off as and when you want. Certainly sounds as though it has the pace now (and you're wanting to do more to the engine!?). What does all the chassis spec consist of? And what are those race spec poundage springs like on the road? Found these on the uk-mkivs forum posted by joenitro:
Great write up, Bill! Once you have the car working fully, surely you'll be contending the lead! 19th to 8th in a car you had to get to know all over again, and not withstanding other issues on top of that speaks for itself really! I love the way your car is perfectly road legal. Nearly 500bhp in a fully race prepped Ibiza . Bet the local McDonalds Massive love you!
They do - especially with the Badger Pimp-Daddy Window Tints (tm) They just look confused when he pulls up with a whistle and a whoosh, opens the door, and Terry Wogan blasts out of the ICE (8-track AND Wireless!)
I think 'da ice' had to be lost during a Badger weight saving excercise earlier in the year, shame. Keep at it Bill, no one can say you don't try!
does anyone else get a mental image of a Badger doing star jumps and step aerobics? Or is that just me... Very promising result Bill - and good work for avoiding the red mist and coming in to check out the car
Does your image have him in a Pink Leotard like Mr Motivator...? If not then we ain't sharing the same image.
