Red Devil mkII - The Journey Continues

[team_v]

170 at the front wheels with the stock manifold and a safe level tune is pretty decent.

[seangti]

170 at the front wheels with the stock manifold and a safe level tune is pretty decent.

Yup, will see Gavin about increasing the fueling giving the way it'll be driving. More fuel will help manage the EGT's. That could have contributed to the cracking of the ATP manifold. Just some final tweaking.

Hopefully the car is now sorted for a hassle free run for next years timeattack. Now to save funds for tyres and perhaps changing brake pads to something more track oriented. Considering Performance Friction Pads. My mechanic rates em very highly, runs em all their track and rally cars. Than to learn how to drive

[seangti]

Starting to gear up for the 2015 TimeAttack season after a quiet couple of months. Only done a few things on the car and barely driven it due to work and personal travels... I had a "moment" at Wakefield last year when under brakes, while the mechanic was looking at something else he saw evidence of my issue - residual brake fluid around the caliper. So under a heavy brake application, it leaked from the banjo bolt. Consequently, fronts calipers were overhauled and had to replace the rears (bin job). The rears calipers are from a VW Bora V5 AWD as the rotors are larger than standard.

I've also replaced the front sway bar links with some Whiteline HD links, this was doe to a knocking noise I was experiencing. Only did this last week and in the 50kms I've driven, no more knocks. These are adjustable length links, but essentially the same length as standard links, which are about 1 inch longer to what was in there - I'm not sure how changing the length and subsquent angle of the sway bar will influence the front end behaviour. Eitherway, the car is higher than it was when the shorter links went on, which from recollection is what necessitated the requirement for the shorter links.

I'm going to toy with rear sway bar settings and the rear wing, going more aggressive with both. Run the sway bar harder to aid turn in and exit on the slower corners, with the hope that increasing the angle of attack of the wing will combat the tendency to oversteer at speed. I've been doing quite a bit of research into aerodynamics, this stuff is truly addictive.


This years plan/committment:
- General Practice at QR in January for a shake down
- Timeattack Lakeside Round 1 commences 7th March
- Timeattack Wakefield 30th March (booked)
- VW Nationals at Wakefield in May (probable)

The only only foreseeale mod at the moment is some fabrication work to the pedal area to allow for heel-toeing.

[team_v]

So no flat underbody work or big lip like the pro racers?

Shame about the brakes.
I assume that you have braided lines on it?

[seangti]

So no flat underbody work or big lip like the pro racers?

Shame about the brakes.
I assume that you have braided lines on it?

There is a fellow member who's having Andrew Brilliant design some aero panels and having it built locally. Do a google or youtube search on him, he's quite the guru of aerodynamics. Can't wait to see the results, though the CAD work I've seen is phenominal. The price may put hold to that idea for me. We're talking chassis mounted and reinforced aero producing 300kgs+ of downforce on a hatch back. Andrew is the aerodynamasist behind APR Performance, the design of the wing on the car and provides computational fluid dynamic calculations to demonstrate wing performance. I now better understand and appreciate the path that Anthony was following.

Re the brakes, the issue was around the banjo bolt and the mounting of the brake lines to the caliper. The lines are braided and all sweet. I will be looking into a more track oriented pad in the next few months, along with having to replace the tyres, another set of semi's is most likely. I won't have new tyres for Wakefield in March which I'll use to learn the track, but will have new tyres for Nationals where I'll have a more serious crack at a lap time.

[seangti]

In prepartation of driving to Goulburn, I hought I'd try quieten the exhaust a bit, though got told there's not much that can be done without being restrictive. 2 resonators and the canon muffler. As I track it, they didn't support the dual pass muffler idea. Sounds like earmuffs or man up... ear muffs it is

Did a happy laps at QR this morning with the Toyota 86 club, was a good morning to get some heat into everything. It all ran well. Blew off the large pipe that plumbs in the DV, damn butterfly clip. But all good, got a tow back to pits, vice grips and 5secs later was all sorted. So will replace that butterfly clip with a jubilee. As per murphy's law, I carry jubilee clips, but only the sizes that are just too small, or too big. Got another happy laps in a fortnight, than timeattack and wakefield in March

[Jmac]

You can make 1 jubilee by joining 2. Done it plenty of times

[seangti]

Lakeside TimeAttack kicks off again tomorrow, to say i'm excited is an understatement. Yehaa, long off season.

The car has been running well lately. In putting on the semi-slicks I noticed the front brake pads getting a little low (ok, at least 1/3 wear left), so have ordered some QFM A1RM pads. As the remsa's have been fine to date, I think going up a notch is reasonable without going to an outright track pad as yet.

I'm quietly ambitious about lap times for this season. On the current set-up/tyres, I'm hoping to drop my lap time by 0.5-0.8 of a second. From a 63.1 to a low-mid 62. From my GPS data, there's half a second available from eastern loop to the start/finish line, just gotta commit and get the right line for the last turn onto the straight. I don't see much gain elsewhere, my sectors are otherwise very consistent, but have noticed some inconsistency in that final sector. I don't plan on going for a PB tomorrow, but will see how it all feels when I'm out there. Priority is for a safe and reliable season.

Also amped about Wakefield at the end of the month. I'm going to practice wakefield on an RFactor simulator next weekend. Bit of track time before the real thing will hopefully slightly lessen the learning curve.

[Paazuzu]

Good luck Sean! Hope it all goes well mate.

[seangti]

Good luck Sean! Hope it all goes well mate.

It all went really well today. 4 sessions of "carbon cleansing" and no hint of a niggle.

Best lap of a 1:03.36 (my PB is 1:03.1), but given it was 31+degrees all morning and full tank of a fuel, I'm very happy with that. Having the rear sway bar on hard was all good too, had a few little slides, but generally happy with the balance. Lap times weren't as consistent as other occasions which I'm putting down mostly to heat soak more than anything. Had a hoot.

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