Silverstone Grand Prix---Mon 7th Mar 2011

[johnsy]

Im all booked again, here's hoping there's no adverse weather this time!

Iv just got one of those cheap dv cam's off ebay so ill attempt to get some footage, and plenty pics of course

id pull my hair out with excitement if i had any!

 

[johnsy]

Well its the eve of my first Trackday of the year. Car is running sweet, and is all packed and brimmed with fuel for the 500+ mile round trip,
iv bought a cheap DV cam,so hopefully ill have a couple of vids, and a few pictures to post up on tuesday,

This is the first time out since all the modifications so will be interesting to see how the car feels and reacts at the limit, still on road tyres unfortunatly, but im gonna do a couple timed laps once im happy with the set-up,iv got tyre pressures and damper settings to play with,

watch this space!

 

[johnsy]

Silverstone Grand Prix
Courtesy of
http://www.rmatrackdays.co.uk/​

Well yesterday I awoke at 3am and set off for Towcester, picking my little brother up on the way, 4 hours later (225mile) we arrived at silverstone,rubbing our hands together at the thought of tearing round an F1 track. I spent a good 30 mins checking the car over,fitted my headlight duct,adjusted the front camber and damper rate , tyre pressures etc etc...
Signing on 8:00
Signing of the usual disclaimer forms, picked up my novice sticker lol.
　
Drivers Briefing 8:30
Clearly by know id realised this was gonna be a posh mans Trackday, judging by the car porn in the parking lott and the huge trucks that had turned up, not to mention the pit crews and people in racing suits! The briefing was basically to say this was more of a testing day rather than a TD parsay, No scruiteneering, overtaking on any side , only being my second TD not sure if this is the norm.

The Experience:-
Having never been around silverstone before i was keen to get out there and learn the track as early as possible, i think i was on my second lap trying a little too hard i managed to make the car swap ends coming out of stowe,probably didnt take the correct line on the way in and carrying to much speed . that was the first of the 3 spins of the day, 2nd was at the same corner in the morning too but that i put down to trying to follow a caterham through that corner lol,
Now this is a very long(3.6mile) and fast circuit , i was starting to think whats gonna brake first, i kept a keen eye on oil temps and pressure,and found that unless i kept it over half full of fuel i was getting what can only be discribed as launch control noises followed by no power while cornering aggresivly, i put this down to fuel surge/starvation, once topped up this went away, so i think a swirl pot may be next on the never ending list of mods, After of course iv replaced the downpipe which decided it was all a little to much, and started blowing from both ends, not sure how much this affected the performance but the car did nt feel 100%. A bit of a downer but i did nt drive all the way down here for a little thing like that to end my day,
i think there was only about 4 cars i got the better of all day, but then again 2 of them turned me inside out in the corners( caterhams), The one that i mostly remebered was a race prepared Aplha 147 GTA, after talking to the driver and checking the car out, i was told it weigh a mere 1200kg with driver and was only knocking out approx 240bhp, so not so much a kill but a very nice racing car the little R got the better of on a number of occasions.
later on in the afternoon we were overtaken by what can only be described as a spitfire noise, as it didnt stick around long enough to get a good look at it, i had my suspisions but headed to the pits to get a good look,

after finding the Merc and exploring more garages we found a couple more very nice racing cars that had been running rings round us all day!

By now we'd probably done about 20 laps and with fuel dwindling and fatigue setting in, i decided the next set of laps would be the last of the day , all strapped in car sounding like a tractor, we headed back out on track, full of confidence ,happy with my lines and speed pushing hard for that perfect lap, we approached Abbey. Now all day id been trying to carry as much speed as possible through Abbey into the arena , but i overcooked it a little lol
the lat time i looked at the speedo we were doing 110mph just before you turn in for the apex, maybe dabbed the brakes a little before turning in, we made it through abbey using both kurbs a little too much over correction to the oversteer followed by 3 very violent tight spins, we'd managed to stay on the track and not end up in the kitty litter or the wall, and was very thankfull the M3 behind us had backed off not followed us.we laughed our way back to the pits, Time to go home!

i learnt a few things about my car and my self, hopefully i can improve both for the next trackday at cadwell on the 30th March

more pictures..........

 

[johnsy]

check out the better pictures here http://www.fresh-orange.co.uk/ look under rma silverstone 7th, if its nit a direct link

 

[pulsarboby]

fantastic and interesting write up dan
how did you get on with the new setup compared to cadwell last time?

glad you had a good day and car and yourself came home in one piece, certainly was some very expensive motors there and people with big bucks to spend on them also
well done fella, now roll on cadwell8)

 

[fubar andy]

LOL mixing it up with the big boys :thumb:

Good to see you having a blast.

Some big money there that day, makes you feel very small when you put out your Halfords tool box :lol:

Good pics too.

 

[John]

Werent you a bit disapointed when you turned up and it was all stupidly fast cars that you had no chance of keeping up with?

Still sounds like a good laugh though!

 

[johnsy]

Bob the brakes were fantastic, loads of confidence in the late braking especially into stowe, copse and vale, kept up with some of the big boys in that respect, grip levels were nt grate, The khumo's have proven to be very durable but dont like getting hot, had all the dampers on there hardest settings in the end with tyre pressures about 32-33 (hot) maybe should of tried em harder,

Theres was a couple of occasions where id just ben out gunned down the straight by a ferrari or a porche, and i felt i could of got some respect back in the twisties but i could nt apply the power with because of the fuel surge, cornes in question where Vale-club, Arena and brooklands, also experienced loss of power in 4th about 5k half way up the pit straight, i thought this might be heat as it only happened after about 2-3 laps was a bit like hitting the rev limiter,it would just cut all power,
i never experienced either of these problems at cadwell,

Things to address

i dont think my rad fans were working
need a new DP or a new flexi welded
swirl pot / although a full tank at cadwell lasted all day at cadwell!
camber tool
lighter wheels tyres
better tyres
and the list goes on...........

 

[johnsy]

Andy i should of took a photo off my tool kit lol it was all in carrier bags lol, rolson axle stands, clarke jack ........

John:- NO WAY! fella was a once in a life time oportunity, it opened my eyes up to how fast some of these cars are. you think your R' is quick till you get fooked over by a M5 or gt3rs .Im pretty sure most of them were using it as a shake down for the upcoming season. plus its not often you see 2 ferrari GTO's in the same car park,

i forgot to mention i got 1 hours tuition by the company director son, he was 19 and did nt know wht he was getting into lol....... he was very impressed with the car,also commented on my driving but ill take that with a pinch of salt,

 

[johnsy]

This is the first vid iv uploaded hope it works,

 

[bob the builder]

nice write up chap, like all the pics.
fancy doing silverstone maybe next year, but by the looks of it i need a faster car lol.

 

[williams]

sounds like you didnt fun. didnt think you'd get fuel surge on half a tank, you'll need another fuel pump if your fitting a swirl pot aswell.

 

[johnsy]

iv got some on board footage but its amatuer at best ill try upload it, got one of the high speed spin, but i guess the camera took a fit when it happened, got just efore and just after bt no piroet, i was looking forward to reliving it lol

here's one from the pit wall with the R' init



let me know if theywork, iv never up loaded video before.


im not the best at stringing sentences to gether,but if your happy so am i

 

[johnsy]

had loads of fun marc, learnt a lot to.

@ cadwell i never experienced fuel surge, but there's no long fast corners like at silverstone, its unreal how fast a track it is, id love to see a F1 car goround there it would defi belief

 

[johnsy]

never managed to come across this r26r on track, but im pretty sure it was quick

nice wheels

there was a matt black track prep'd astra vxr i would of liked to got in amongst but my car decided to have a spazz coming out of arena onto the straight before brooklands, and he just sailed right past while i waited for the R to catch its breath lol

i erm took the car over to my garage to sort out the rear left side camber, and pull the downpipe off .i cut the flexi off to find the inside flexi had sheard off at both ends

both flexis are goosed lol no pun intended soi either need another dp or pull my finger out and source a flexi section, and a long one at that ,i think the short one snapped as there was nt enough flex to absorb the torque/movement

threw a bucket of water over it to

also gave it a little wash

 

[pulsarboby]

yeah as you rightly said dan....silverstone is a very fast track with long sweeping bends and thats when your more than likely gonna get surge issues as opposed to just a few short lefthanders at cadwell, also the track is much wider which allows you to take the bends that much faster and use the whole width of track which keeps the fuel lodged firmly on the right hand side of the tank and away from the pump.....can be a real engine killer so you need to get that sorted as you know!

a lot of them cars you never had a bat in hells chance of staying with tbh.....its a whole different ball game to the hotted up saxos etc lol
this is what makes me laugh with the ''youve been RRRd'' page on the other site, no disrespect but people who have taken out gt3's, ferraris etc are living in cloud cuckoo land if they genuinely think the gtir is a faster car:lol::lol: the only reason they may have beaten them type of motors is if the other driver lets them....on the track 'as the old saying goes' when the flag drops the bullshit stops and how true that is

think i may have a goose dp in good nick if you need one

 

[johnsy]

im already starting to think summit along the lines of this would be more fun and certainly faster than the R'. probably easier to work on too!
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/2578209.htm

this trackday bug has definetly sunk its teeth in a little deeper! im not really sure where i go from here.........a lottery win perhaps.......

But Im looking forward to cadwell park in 4 weeks,i know it'll be a different story, plus i kinda know the track in my head already which is a major plus.just need to get all the little probs sorted before then, gonna try strip a little more weight out the car too,lighter wheels would be a major bonus too!

 

[pulsarboby]

thats a cheap motor there dan but tbh you would be better going for what i got 'megabusa by westfield, its 150kg lighter so is much faster and very very scary, i may still take that to cadwell if the weathers good

 

[johnsy]

i like scary! look forward to that if you bring it......

 

[johnsy]

here's some on board footage, you can here the car struggling for fuel in the corner's, this camera was only £13 and for some reason it filmed in 2 min burst but there in sequence, Enjoy!







right at the very end of the last vid you'll witness the start of the oversteer/spin i described going through abbey at around 100mph, gutted it didntrecord the whole thing!

ignore the date and time, have nt yet sussd how to change it