Sam's build thread

[sambb]

Just fitted these rose jointed solid RARB droplinks that I'd made a while ago. Will hopefully help get the rear end responding a bit quicker on the track.

[rgvlee]

Did you find the standard droplinks (that come with the rarb) flexed?

[sambb]

I was jacking up each side of the rear beam a while back to get a gauge on how much the beam flexed with and without the bar and when I was doing that you could see that the rubber bushes would squish a bit before moving. In a way that would make it a bit like a progressive rate bar. In all honesty on the street it may just add a bit more NVH. On the track though when I'm on the limit hopefully it'll make everything flex as one, not with the beam having to move a certain amount before the bar starts to kick in with it. It all adds up. A mate of mine recently fitted full roll correction hubs to his clio W172 that have rose jointed tie rods and ball joints. Its gone from feeling like my car to literally feeling like a go kart the feedback is that good. Horrendous on the street but amazing on the limit.

[kaanage]

You can get polyurethane ball joint type replacements for the LCA bush for some cars which has a similar effect on the front end (horrendous on the street but amazing on the limit). I don't think they are available for the Polo, though
http://www.powerflex.co.uk/UserFiles...s/PF-BL013.pdf

[sambb]

Got a bit of a report from the Tamworth round of the NSW State Hillclimb Championship that was on sunday 16/7. We left Sydney at dawn for the 5 hour journey up there with the plan being that we'd arrive, get ourselves set up and scrutineered and then do Saturday practice. I'm glad I at least grabbed the umbrella cos on the way up the forecast 5mm of rain turned into nearly 2cm of deluge. We went straight to the track but ended up just catching up with familiar faces - no one too keen to start jacking up cars in a bog. When the rain broke at about midday we started to get keen though.
Attachment 29826Attachment 29827
Because of the conditions and the fact that race days forecast was for dry conditions, none of the open wheelers were willing to risk it so it was only tin tops and road registered cars that were venturing out. We plugged around and around learning the track because neither my mate or I had ever been to the circuit. It was funny because everyone was actually struggling to go quicker as it became patchy and greasy compared to full wet. It was only later that one of the locals said that the track has more grip when wet than when patchy but then grips up again when fully dry and that all the mud being dragged onto the track was a factor too. We wanted to save our tyres so sat out the back end of practice.
Attachment 29828 What had us absolutely stoked was that the 3 hatchbacks in our little crew (mine, a clio W172 and a CRX) were all in touch with the practice leader a current model Nissan GTR. He's at the front of the Whiteline tarmac rally sprints and won the last round of the hillclimb championship at Grafton (beating all the open wheelers) http://hillclimbnsw.com/report-2017-...ton-hillclimb/ It was the first time a road reg car has won overall. Other than the top guy in my class turning up and splitting us in his mental clubsport, the hatch backs were going pretty well and having an awesome time sliding around on our muddy rear tyres.
On race day the pits were atrocious and we were faced with a bog from all the trailers coming in throughout the night as the rest of the field arrived. We had no way of getting from our bays to the track unless we drove through the mud and staged up with caked on tyres with near freezing mud on them. We had water bottles, our clothes and I even used a hose clamp to carve the mud off prior to heading out. It was borderline dangerous in the first part of the day but it was the same for everyone. Luckily this is about the only track on the calendar that has runoff and it not even a hillclimb as the elevation rises precisely 1m over what is really a qualifying sprint lap.
So the guy in the HSV Clubsport is my nemesis. He's the 3 time champ in my class and on the tight tracks where my measily 240hp is less of a disadvantage we are always neck a neck but he always manages to just get me. His thing has plate lsd, willwoods and massive brakes, a ground up built NA 6litre etc etc. He's actually going into improved production next year so that he doesn't have to carry around his folder of engineers certificates that make him protest proof for our class.
We had an awesome battle. I was leading for the first two runs, on the third I posted my fasted time of day while he had an excursion at the end of the straight. I figured that would be my big chance and that if I could go out and improve again on my fourth run that he'd be looking at too much of a gap to get me and headf**k himself and cave. Well the only person to do that was me. I overdrove the car and went slower on my forth run and he went out and beat my fastest time by 1/10th. So like always we went into the fifth and final run neck a neck, him the iceman and me feeling like I'd maybe thrown it away but pretty sure that if I just nailed the start and could control the understeer I was starting to get on the last couple of runs, that I could improve. I drove a clean run but it wasn't enough. The track had gotten hot and the day had warmed up and despite a really clean lap it wasn't enough. I hadn't improved which gave him the win regardless of what happened to him. He didn't go quicker either. I was disappointed yeah but I wasn't raging - it was basically my fault for squandering the fourth run so you live and learn. It was nice anyway - we shook hands as he came through into the pits and he said how much he'd loved the fight and that we're on for the next round which is my home track at Ringwood.

here's a vid of what I think was my quickest run: NSW state hillclimb 2017 Tamworth - YouTube

So here's the result. A long trip home. Nearly a 900km round trip for a $12 trophy. Lots of time to think about whats next for the car. The last two rounds of the championship are similar tight tracks but on proper hills. I'm not going to worry about the turbo and instead am going to sort the handling. Now that the LSD is getting corner speeds up its starting to show up how soft the car is. It's sweet in the wet and in the cold morning runs but once I really start leaning on it when grip is high I always struggle to improve my times when mister HSV starts breathing down my neck. My mates in the clio and CRX were flying. The CRX beat everyone in road reg with only 1600cc in a very focused car proving that handling and left foot braking is where its at. So I just got off the phone with Josh from MCA who is sorting a new gen of coilovers for our car with revised front stut droplink mounts that will be sold as X series spec. He says they should be ready within 2 weeks which leaves only 2 weeks to fit them and get them sorted before the next event. It'll be tight but that's what HSV boy is driving me to!!

result sheet isn't out yet but i'll post it here and in the tracking thread when its available.

PS a set of bilstein B8's, H&R springs and weitec springs will be up for sale in a couple of weeks! so PM me if you're interested - cash is always nice!!

[sambb]

This is the next hillclimb I want to do that's out that way. Looks as hairy as Huntley/Dapto but for longer:

Gunnedah Hillclimb 2017 - YouTube

wouldn't be beating any V8's there though.

[metalhead]

Nice work! I ran Tamworth for the trichallenge a couple of months back, and the conditions were similar. What times were you guys running?

[sambb]

To be honest I cant remember and never got a pic. I was pretty deflated when I saw that I hadn't improved on my last run and probably just walked away kicking a can. I can't find the clubs results anywhere so I'm waiting for the www.hillclimbnsw.com site to update with the new report. Brisby in the Clubsport said he hadn't improved on his last run so I think we finished roughly at 37.7 ish for me and 37.6 ish for him. The little CRX did a 37.500 which was a whisker off the track record for his class and pretty mental when you think about it. He's a legend that guy - Its Graham Orr from MGCCN. He was in one of those formula ford young driver F1 aspiration programs in the UK and drove for Honda in and around Australia. He shares lots of info, lets you know what he's noticing re setup changes or what the track is doing. It was a mega drive from him.

[sambb]

These are just pre lim photos that I found. 1st in road reg >2.5L was 37.75 and I was 2nd with 37.89, so he got me by a bit more than I'd thought @ 0.14sec. In the road reg classes if you take out the Nissan GTR, only one 4WD got past us which is always satisfying.

[metalhead]

Bloody hell, I ran a 42.52 and thought I was doing alright! On the upside, I beat Glen Mason back in May, he ran a second faster at the state round than he did back in May, so presumably the tracks was a bit quicker. And I do think I'm getting a little more out of the car now. But that's very impressive, well done!