Sam's build thread

[metalhead]

Well f$&#. Fuel pump just died on my way home from work.

[sambb]

Oh bugger man. You've got a few days to sort it though so hopefully you'll be good.

[sambb]

I sorted the weeping oil leak on the Mocal sandwich plate. It uses BSP fittings and it turned out that a swap from BSP tapered thread to BSP parallel was all that was needed. The fittings use "Dowty" seals, something I haven't used before. I was just going to use crush washers so I'm lucky I was put onto them by a fitter at work and after a trip to Enzed they said that's precisely what was needed. No leaks now so the whole oil cooler saga is finished now pretty much other than maybe changing the sandwich plate thermostat at some stage.

sweet sweet virgin yoko rubber. Heat treated and scrubbed and ready to go on sundays hill.

Had a look at the Audi TT/S3 inlet mani and was surprised to see that its actually quite a bit bigger. Doesn't have the tapered log shape to it of the stock one and seems to have a bigger plenum volume. I'm thinking first up that I might try that XR6 turbo air to air IC first with the TT inlet. The IC inlet and outlet will need a bit of welding to re orient the entries but it'll be virtually a no cost (just effort) mod and if the air to air doesn't float my bost then at least I'm half way ready to doing a water to air.

[simon k]

it is quite a bit fatter... same TB?

[sambb]

yep exact bolt up. The fuel rail, return and coolant pipes, TB basically everything bolt up. I think i'll have to make a little bracket to support the dipstick. The brake booster path can come straight down the drivers side and I can probably buy the S3/TT OEM part for that which will tidy things up too.

[sambb]

Well the last round of the NSW State Hillclimb Championships is done. Had a small field this time mostly because a lot of the classes (including ours) had been decided a while back so there were a few no shows. I was against a junior in an SS, a pretty seasoned hillclimber in a new SS and Andrew in the vette. Basically the young guy in the commodore was on fire and untouchable and did a mid 26 which is real fast. He's been making the cuts in the junior programmes which lead to an Toyota 86 Cup drive, getting lots of coaching etc and has come on massively this year. Home track helps (I did smash him at South circuit though ha ha) but he was on another level and got first. I thought I was ok for second but the other commodore got past me by 3/10ths on the last run which sucked but ultimately my target was the 27's and I nearly got there (28.03s) so cant be too unhappy on an outright power track with only 2 real corners.
Positives of the day were that for a hillclimb, 215 medium fronts seem to outgrip 195 softs as fronts, and that running whats left of my 195 softs on the rear wasn't a bad pairing. The car was uncharacteristically loose on corner entry into the first corner of the esses but I think that had more to do with generally poor rough road riding from the suspension than anything else. To have not had any big moments on what to me is the scariest fastest place you could run at was a plus and I think it'll be a great setup for rallysprints and tight hillclimbs in the future.
Negatives were watching a guy (my previous nemesis who moved to Imp prod) have a truly massive off at the fastest part of the track. He'd gone through 'the fork' the narrow kink right bend between Armco and tyre wall but got crossed up. He may have over corrected but a mate of mine who was there at the fork in the spectator area said that he just kept the slipper into it as though he was confident he could drive out of it - problem was the tail went back out to the right as he left the road that way. Luckily it was the tail of his car and not his door that went into the tree (you'll see the tree in an upcoming vid) which then spun him back around the other way and he fired off backwards over the tyres and through the trees on the left of the track. Andrew and I who had completed our runs were puffing our way back up the hill to get back to our cars when we heard the slide, the crunch and then looked up to see his car in full airborne flight sailing like a UFO through the trees. It was literally jaw dropping followed by '**** that could have killed him'. The crews were onto it asap. He'd given the thumbs up and was trying to bail from the car because he was worried that he'd be spilling fuel but the ambos kept him in the car for a while to check him before he got out under his own steam. He'd actually made the switch to Imp Prod so that he could be caged, seat, harness, hans because he'd always said that road reg was getting too dangerous since we basically aren't allowed any safety gear. To put that in perspective on the lower horsepower tracks a lot of us in road reg class have been going quicker than him and other imp prod cars this year (extra weight and less wings are his problem apparently), but he made the right call that's for sure. To this moment after seeing him literally flying airborne through the trees I don't know how he walked away from it and am not sure that the same could be said for me if it was my car that did it. It was Mega and rattled me for sure. It is different when you know the guy in the car too. I cant say it affected my subsequent runs but it'll take a bit of forgetting.
Anyway his car is basically dead, he is alive and we all now want cages!
Second negative was my cars inability to ride the rutted track surface well. My first run was diabolical, just plain scary. Going through the kink it felt like the car was just sailing from the top of one bump to the next and I had very little feel as to what was going on with the fronts. I should have been getting through flat but had to lift a bit before turning in on each run - I got deeper and deeper but flat stick and just steering it through wasn't on today. It was pretty loose on corner entry into the esses so I took two clicks out of the rears and one out of the fronts (thinking I'd soften it overall and go a bit more on the back at the same time). I dropped the tyres down to 28 psi all round rather than my usual 29 front 30 rear as the run is just so fast that no temp rise was actually happening. This helped on the second run (improved by 1.5 sec), but after the big crash and being stuck at the top till they cleared him meant that the third run was on stone cold tyres again. I didn't want to add another suspension change to a third variable so left everything where it was and went up again. By then though we only had one run left due to all the delays so I left it again for the 4th run. If I'd had the 2 more runs we had expected at the start of the day I'd have made more changes but as it was it was very jittery over what is admittedly a ****e surface and just wasn't inspiring enough confidence for me to really go for it. Like I said I was bummed I didn't crack the 27's but for me I have to do it all in the corners and given the crash etc it was probably too risky to throw it in any harder than I was when I didn't feel 100% comfortable. So I need to work out (with 1 way adjustable damping) what I should have been doing there. I opted to soften off thinking excess bump was the issue, but possibly I needed to go the other way (more clicks in) so that I had better rebound to control the springs better over the bumps,ripples, depressions. Still not sure?

[sambb]

here's my vid of my last run. Note how bumpy it is, how narrow it is through the fork and the tree on the inside as you go through the fork. Vids never do justice to how full on this place is - looks like a sunday drive when I watch it back, but anyway here it is:

YouTube

P.S I want more power

[simon k]

ouch... trees and hills are scary... I don't think hillclimbs are for me - I'd love to go rallying one day but it'll be in something under-powered and well-caged, but for now, motorkhana in a nice wide open area or circuit with runoff areas

you don't need more power, you need to start racing down hills instead of up them - double your power right there

[metalhead]

Great work Sam. I was 100% affected on my later runs by seeing Geoff, but it was a good day anyway. As you say, super exciting but scary track, wish I'd got another couple of runs at it.

A few pics of your car popped up on Facebook from here:
Huntley Hillclimb NSW Championships Sunday 16/9/2018









And here: %26__tn__%3DEH-R%26cached_data%3Dfalse%26ftid%3D&mdf=1]Facebook



And yeh, ouch.

[sambb]

my mate that was up at the spectator area was saying after run 1 that someone was going to have a big off - like there was something in the air. He said everyone was just going for it having big moments etc. Where I really noticed the lack of grunt was coming out of the esses. Through the second corner I'd be feeding it in as early as I could within reason (the road cambers off to a ditch on the right and sort of sucks you in if you understeer) but it somehow (for a Ko3s!) felt like it was under the turbo a bit and wouldn't rip up that last bit. Definitely a K03 hybrid or K04 track.