Well.. a Weekend of mixed emotions thats for sure. Expectations and Ambitions for the weekend were to bring the car back in one piece, with any "result" being a bonus. 2 years away from racing following the ground up rebuilt and business expansion, made for me being extremely rusty, and essentially unaquainted in what feels like a completely different ibiza to the one I 'vaguely' remember from 2007 when I last raced successfully. One trackday 3 weeks ago, to shake down the reassembled engine, was in the main data logging the engine, and not attacking the track as such, that said someone who was timing me, reported I was in the 1m16s range, which was promising. Race day Start: Monday Quali for us was just around 11am, so a leasurely start to the day thankfully.. Out we trot for quali, and I am following mark wyatts astra and kevin birds leon, and some other cars.. Picking up the pace to try and stick with mark as my yardstick, quickly showed he was not pushing so hard initially or I had more speed... as keeping up was'nt a problem and in fact I appeared to be faster.. Hmmm I decided to pass and just chase anything that was in front, so passed Mark and set off to reel in Kevins LCR.. which happened quickly too.. Hmmmm they must be warming up or something.. I keep lapping, getting more aquainted with the cars handlign and power delivery, and for the first few laps glimse my lap board and see 1m22, 1m19 then I forget to look and the guys stopped the timing as the stopwatch "stopped" working.. Head down I just drive as fast as I can, and explore where I think I can go faster, and where I have gone too fast.. Braking was an issue with frequent lock ups up front.. (my bias valves were rears off, so I would try and add some rears... but during quali could'nt reach them top adjust.. doh!) On one of the latter laps, approaching tower, I exit tower towards the outside of the track and "Woosh" the whole car side steps onto the grass in a sudden slide... at which point, my race 'rusty' brain recalls vaguely seeing a flag being waved (thought it was yellow, not yellow/red stripe) but then glance in front of me on the grass some 100yds ahead, an expired smokey yellow MG ZR.. Brain then recalls seeing a plume of smoke @ tower as I exited old paddock.. duh! Jeez I was rusty at this game! Lucky escape the car slide square onto the grass and did'nt swap ends.. Whew! Next lap round is much slower into Tower to try and see the oil, and find a line which misses it.. following lap try a differetn tighter line and popping the ns onto the inside curbs/grass.. and still have full traction (plate diff rocks!), following lap then push harder and this turned out to be my fastest lap of the session.. lap 11. chequered flag is out.. and coastdown and return to pit lane in readyness for the usual 1st meeting of the year "meet the drivers" over lunch.. What was very apparent tho is all was not well in the turbo dept as it sounded like it was blowing badly.. We make our excuses to the organisers and duck out of the meet the drivers thing and return to the paddock for essential repairs.. what had happened was the turbo's hotside clamp bolts to chra were backing out of the housing and the turbo was coming apart.. eh?!?! tony and paul leap into action to tighten them back up. not easy given everything is cooking hot. one bolt is awol.. We also decide to check the brakes given the lockups I was having, and what started as bleeding soon turned into fitting new pads, as unkown to me they were near to backplate and completely gone.. EAK! New pads fitted but not bedded in... bugger.. not good, and not clever. fingers crossed. People start coming up to me and saying P2 eh! "not expecting much" eh? as I disbelieve I am anythign other than at best in the top 6-8 cars.. Official timing comes out and bugger me.. P2 overall, 1st in class, and on front row next to the only class A evo.. Ha.. was'nt expecting that. more later..
... continued Onto the race.. turbo bolted back together again (bar one bolt which went awol), new pads, but not bedded in at all we form onto the grid.. This was weird.. no one in front of me at all.. just the Evo of brian cox next to me. lined up behind me there was garry prebbles tomcat rover (fast) and mark wyatts astra (fast).. Hmm.. green flag lap, need to try and introduce mr DS3000 to Mr 330mm disk... not good.. arrive back round to grid with a pedal which kinda works ok(ish) thinking to myself as the rest of the 30+ cars form into their grid positions, dont stall, dont stall... dont FFS stall 30 sec board shown on gantry.. I raise revs to 5000rpm ish red lights start coming on, 1,2,3,4,5, then OFF ease out the clutch and we move fwd, then boost builds rapidly and spin spin spin, grab second, manic wheel spin, grab 3rd, more manic wheel spin.. damn.. wyatt cruises up to my righ, evo ahead of us slightly, quick glance to look for prebbs and he's a short distance back but not close enough to worry about for the moment.. Damn, lost p1 in class already.. concentrate.. coming out of quarry behind wyatt and i could stay with him easily and ease up to his side under power without issue.. OK, thinks to myself.. its not a lost cause.. he's passable. We round end of lap and I ease next to wyatt up avon rise but not enough for me to make it stick (I bottled under braking). Sticking to wyatts astra for the rest of the lap was good fun as aside from initial exit from bobbies where I was slightly off boost, I could ease up behind him comfortably.. concentrate again, must stick close enough round camp to get a good run up to avon rise/quarry... full chat no lift and I catch and pass the astra and make a gap to get the thing stopped in time for quarry.. the move sticks. yay.. BUT as soon as I think good, now chase down the evo, I enter the esses too quick and exit sideways.. rear end sliding out right and me on full power and as much arm twisted right hand lock as I could mustre.. you know when you have a 'moment' which feels like its going on for an age? Well this sideways slide was one of those.. It seemed like an age before the front end dragged me straight and I could unwide the lock grab 4th and chase the evo round old paddock.. hehe, it was actually good fun.. powwrsliding a fwd car - nutts head down now, glance in mirror and wyatts astra is a fair bit back from me now, as I imagine he backed off thinking I had lost it at the esses, but I carried on full chat, albeit 45 degrees to the tracks direction, LOL Chasing down the evo was now my main aim.. I could drive away from wyatt who had prebbs behind him to occupy him. Keeping with the evo was'nt too bad, loosing out under exit from corners where I would spin up, but reeling in down the straights, and a match under braking which is a big improvment... Or so I thought... Next lap approaching tower I grab 5th and full throttle for once.. its rides over sn undulation slightly and spins up giving me a wiggle under power... christ that scared me... then that fraction of a second too late on the brakes with too much speed, and lockup fronts.. damn.. ease off the pedal, still locked... damn damn damn... end of tower corner looms... off the brakes and turn the wheels, chirp chirp chirp goes the tortured tyres as I miss the apec by a country mile.. but thankfully make the corner.. DOH! idiot.. EVO is now ahead some extra yards. the chase continues.. I glance at the rearview mirror to see where the rest were, and 100+ yards or more so all good there.. At this point I see I am trailing smoke.. Hmm, not a good sign, pass the next lap and see 6 laps gone, 6 to go. 1/2 distance... Keep pressing on.. It becomes more evident the cars gettign laggier and coming out of the chicanes in particularly bobbies, that I am loosing time hand over fist, and with every ensuing lap (lapping cars all along since lap 4) the smoke is getting worse.. the EVO's too far ahead now, and I cant keep pace, and now look to be sliding back towards wyatts astra.. oh ho! smoke from the car and an ever increasing lag and exhaust blowing noise is allowing wyatt to reel me in, and with some unfavourable back markers getting in the way at times, I loose more ground to wyatt, but then he too encounters an unfavourable lapped car and it breaks even.. He's faster than me now tho for sure.. In a another lap he's with me, and exiting tower he's right up me chuff, and I know I am a "beached whale" off boost and mega laggy out of here... so try 2nd gear instead of the usual 3rd.. Wrong move.. manic wheel spin, car slide right onto grasscrete and slightly beyond.. (did I mention a plate diff rocks! ) Now wyatts along side of me and its a drag race to camp corner.. which now on boost I go ahead, and exit camp and sprint up to avon rise pulling away under power once its spooled up.. Up into quarry, all good, marks right there, into the esses, a little out of shape, but pulls out of it and grab 4th early thru old paddock, and approach tower.. Wyatts right behind me just 2-3 cars lengths behind.. I enter tower and just on the apex the engine dies, cuts out, then bang and I am facing the infield, on opposite lock full power to drag it round, and realise the engine is not running on many cylinders at all.. and its cut out... I dip the clutch, straighten it out in the infield, press the start button to get it going again, but its not responding.... I coast to a halt and smoke bellow out of the raised rear of the bonnet.. DAMN!.. last lap, 2 corners from the end and it choses now to die... FFS I flop out of the car, pop the bonnet in case I am on fire, and although there was the odd plume of flame as oil dripped off the now hanging off turbo hotside, onto the very hot manifold, it was not "too bad" - The fire marshalls quickly came across armed with their extinguishers but we just kept an eye on the now deminishing oil dripping as the smoke slowly reduced. I see mark wyatts cruise by and thumbsup to him as he passes on his cool down lap.. so Near, so Close, but No Cigar! Emotions are truely mixed now.. Gutted without question to stop and DNF when I had a P2 overall and Class win on its 1st race back.. BUT, as the old addage/cliche says, to finsih first, first you have to finish. I've been here before.. lol I get towed back to the paddock and meet the equally gutted team of tony, paul, jan, and supporters on the day like Gary Bocking (thanks for the pics btw) and reflect and review whats occured. the turbo had indeed undone a lot this time and the hotside was now angled to the chra, and the turbo would spin by hand but the turbine was clearly rubbing on the housing.. DOH!.. another GT35 hotside ruined. ker-ching $ the disks were mullared.. worked well, but my non bedding in caused the pads to run very abrasive and have grooved the disk faces severely.. bin job me thinks tony removed the turbo whilst @ the circuit which does'nt take long now with it being top mounted, and we find the oil drain pipe just under the turbo had fractured and this was the oil leak/smoke most likely. the turbine wheel however is smaller than it used ot be having been machined down by rubbing on the exhaust housing. Damn. Mark wyatt pops round to me and appologises for tipping me off, but I said not his fault I slowed all of a sudden when my engine cut out, and thanked him for a really enjoyable clean race.. It was good fun. So, in reflection, a gutting end without doubt, but some nice warm feeling that the car is on the pace. if not potentially setting the pace, when its running properly. I only ran 1.5bar boost for the meeting so its now near its full power potential, and despite the overweight, phat b'stad old git behind the wheel, it could have so easily won the class on its first race back. So all in all... good and bad.. but very much n the pace. Many thanks to those supporing the Badger5 team, including forge Motorsport and Silicon Hoses dot Com, to Tony and Paul for their continued help in and around badger5 and the badgerwagen.. and not lleaset to my dear wife, Jan, who is always there for me, despite not seeing much of me most of the time whilst I work all hours. I could not do this without such support, and I cant thank you guys enough, but will try.. THANK YOU SO MUCH-YOU'RE STARS till next time.. (engine apart time now and investigate whats been occuring. ) thanks for reading regards bill
Great write-up. I saw the qualifying and was hoping you'd grab a top result. What's a 'chra' ? One for the abbrev list! Do you think issues are restricted to the turbo / oil feed, or have parts of the fan gone through the engine? Hopefully not if it's hotside? Is it taxed and MOT'd again btw?
Great report, Bill. Sorry to hear about the non-finish, but sounds like it has great potential for the rest of the season. Have you seen the Loctite thread?
Here's the thread but I don't think anything has come up that temp resistant. Possibly some useful info here, but I see you were posting on the thread anyway.
Hmmm.... 900 degrees.... way back in 1993 when I worked on the land rover diesel line, the exhaust manifolds were assembled with super glue (with many hilarious 'hand stuck to manifold' results). I've a feeling that was just to hold them during assembly, but it might be worth a look.
I had forgotten that thread.. I spoke with Mark from Owens yesterday @ Combe, and he said they locwire the turbo bolts on motorsport use... except for the leon racing also had its same turbo bolts back out also.. Mark was goign to kick proverbial today for whoever built that turbo up. CHRA is centre housing rotating assembly.. (I think) - middle bit - lol
Great account of your race. CHRA yes your explaination is correct. Will add to the abbrv. hall of fame list.
Well done Bill, sounds like you had a lot of fun! Sounds like another GT35 core required? Doh! Exact same problem i gad with my bolts coming loose on the hot side, some locking tabs from Owens sorted the problem ever since Shame you didnt finish the race, sounds like you could have won it!
epic. a really good read. amazing to hear how on pace the whole experience was. fingers crossed for the next one
great write up Bill, P2 on the grid is a wicked result!!!! I am sure you will bounce back soon. Good luck fella
sounds promising, sorry to hear about your bolt issues. Definitely wire-lock the new ones. Chris should have some example pics from a Rolls Royce RB211 that he took during the open day at my work, in the mean time: and buy some of these:
thanks for the info and kind words.. motor is sick.. removed the plugs last night and #3 has been hit.. and piston crown is dented.. so dropped valve is likely what happened. Full supertech valvegear, all new, in this brand new head, so I am not happy at all. I reviewed the datalog off the ecu, and the majority of the race I was changing up at high 7krpms max, with a few excursions to 8600rpm - total engine run time since reassembly has been 20 hours! - Not impressed, and not happy. Head comes off tonight to confirm the carnage. I really need another AGU/ADR head now.. Please!
i did wonder what the plugs would look like after the race whilst reading that yesterday. didnt imagine that though :S do you have a link to a race calander? if its local to me at any point id love to pop along and have a nosey
plugs on cyl 1,2,4 were all fine, present and correct #3 looks like some one has attacked it with a hammer and smacked the earth into the plug
