Red Devil mkII - The Journey Continues

[seangti]

Had some track time at Queensland Raceway on the weekend, unfortunately an intercooler pipe blew off on the 3rd lap, but that was enough to get a feel for the car. The power and brakes are sweet, so much braking power from the Brembo brakes. Was pulling over -1g, whereas with the standard gear maxes at around -0.9g. That’s quite a difference. Accelerating, again is an extra couple of 10th’s in terms of g’s. I’m yet to run any acceleration times, but 80-120km/h is low to mid 3’s for 3rd gear.

Cornering, now that was interesting, in short it was nervous and unbalanced compared to my other car. Corner speed was down compared to the silver car too. I had adjusted the rear way bar to have it on medium, leaving the front on soft. I think I could run the rear on hard. It was nervous under brakes and mid corner, lacking feel. All of which I was aware of having had a steer at lakeside some months back. I put it done to the FK AK coilovers, I feel they are under damped, resulting in a pogo / porpoise effect. I’ve now ordered H&R coilovers.

RE Coilovers, I’ve had a preference for the H&R’s for some time, they use a monotube, inverted bilstein strut so I know quality is top notch. They aren’t rebound or damper adjustable, just height. I had also been looking at KW V3’s and KW Clubsports. If sourcing the gear locally, the price was much the same for H&R and KW’s, in which case I’d have gone KW Clubsports. But I’ve chosen to import the H&R’s, which are roughly half the price to sourcing locally. I’d have preferred to source locally, but the price difference was too much. The KW’s sourced in Europe versus local are only marginally cheaper. For all the negative comments of the H&R’s about firm ride, I’ve found as positive’s for my application. Lacking the adjustability isn’t so much an issue, as I can make minor adjustments with the swaybars. Plus the price difference covers a set of semi slicks, so my logic is H&R’s with semi slicks would result in better lap times than KW’s on street tyres.

That’s my rant, suspension should be here in 3 weeks.

[team_v]

Shame you only got a few laps in but hopefully you can give it a burl at Lakeside in July with the new suspension.

Does the red devil currently run Federal 595 RSR's?

[seangti]

Shame you only got a few laps in but hopefully you can give it a burl at Lakeside in July with the new suspension.

Does the red devil currently run Federal 595 RSR's?

Yes and yes.

[team_v]

Yes and yes.

So what semislicks would you be looking at getting?
I have heard the Advan Neova AD08R's are a pretty decent tyre.

[seangti]

So what semislicks would you be looking at getting?
I have heard the Advan Neova AD08R's are a pretty decent tyre.

Yup, a near certainty is the new yokohama's AD08's from the research amd feedback I've come across. Price wise for the 17" isn't unreasonable either. Alan (Granturismo) spoke highly of them after last weekends HUGE culling of his PB at lakeside. With suspension and tyres, I'm expecting at least 64's lap at lakeside in this car. I got 66.0 in the silver one on semi's so can't see it being a stretch.

[VWindahouse]

Hey mate, did you adjust the front sway to soft from what is was on?

[VWindahouse]

Shame you only got a few laps in but hopefully you can give it a burl at Lakeside in July with the new suspension.

Does the red devil currently run Federal 595 RSR's?

Only has the 595 EVO's at the moment Clay, the one's below the RSR Semi's. So Sean should see a massive improvement with the Advans

[seangti]

Hey mate, did you adjust the front sway to soft from what is was on?

I've just learned that I've been quite wrong for quite some time. Specifically relating to sway bar settings on this occasion, I had thought that the greater the leverage the stiffer the setting, which is wrong.

So the front is on hard (closest to the bar), rear is on medium. I'd recalled you saying it was set on hard, but when I looked at on saturday morning I thought, nope, that's soft, cool.

That means all this time I thought my silver car had been set on hard, but is in fact soft. Epic.

[VWindahouse]

Lol easy mistake to make mate. I'm glad we figured it out now though before your officially timed laps coming up.

Would have been really fun for you at QR being back to front on Saturday

[seangti]

Some goodies turned up for Red Devil





Ordered from Orange Tuning in Germany, couldn't speak highly enough of their communication and how quickly it arrive. Hopefully fit em over the coming week. Can't wait.

I'll probably have a mechanic mate do the install, any special tools required or tips to share before we start? I didn't bother doing the suspension in the silver car, it started with good intention, jacked it up, took the wheel off, looked aimlessly for a few minutes and had a beer instead

RE other updates, it's throwing engine codes. I'd bought a Vag Com cable off ebay, and in my haste didn't realise they only worked on Windows XP systems, who the hell still runs XP?? Anyway, going to try load a copy of XP as a virtual drive today to see if it'll work. Again, the seller has been very good in his communication, I hadn't read all the details to see it was for XP, though all the non-genuine cables seem to be XP. As for the code, I'm not sure yet, still drives fine. I threw a code when I picked up it which Gav cleared, was something like an "02 sensor slow to react".

I'm also looking at quieting the exhaust, around town its fine (pretty fricken cool actually, what a ball tearer), but on the highway it drones, in all honesty I wear earplugs, lol. I'm sure my body age is twice my real age. Open to input on ideas RE the exhaust drone at highway speeds, other environments is fine. I want to head to wakefield in a few months, but 1100kms with the drone...

I haven't done any form of timed runs yet, probably done barely 3-400kms in the car. Trying to get to a dyno day in the next few weeks, perhaps try drags when some mates head out - though have low expectations of myself. Will get some km's once the above stuff is sorted. Happy laps on the 12th, if all goes well, Lakeside timeattack on 20th for a more serious shakedown. Will still run the federal 595 tyres.