Sam's build thread

[sambb]

selling my Ultra Racing front lower underbody chassis/suspension brace.
VW POLO MK4 - FRONT LOWER BAR (4 Point)
the ad is in the parts for sale section.

[sambb]

Round 3 of the NSW hillclimbs tomorrow at Canberra. My car had been pulling a bit of timing on its bosch ev14 550cc injector tune in the summers heat so I decided I'd get some water injection happening for this round to try to combat heat soak.


So basically I used a punch set at work to knock a hole in the inlet hose for the bung fitting that houses an Aquamist 50cc/min @ 80psi nozzle. The water reservoir is on the passenger side of the boot in that little void with the fire extinguisher mount? if that's what it is. I swapped out the rubber strap for a proper tie down strap and the plastic container which holds the distilled water is rock solid and holds plenty for such a tiny nozzle. The pump is mounted in the wheel well and fits neatly in there without fouling on the tyre. The power to the pump is run in cabin but the water lines are run through the chassis rail that houses the fuel lines. It uses a bulkhead fitting to get the water through into the wheel well and in the engine bay pops up where the fuel lines do. The water is controlled using an LPG liquid lock off solenoid and is triggered by an adjustable pressure switch for 11psi. The nozzle position tried to take into account the way that the airflow will wrap around the inlet pipe and hopefully lines up the throttle body for a nice straight shot into the plenum.
From speaking to my tuner, the way the bosch ME7.5 timing/knock control works it is always trying to run a threshold amount of timing. It'll look at inlet air temps, load conditions, engine temps, EGT calcs etc and work out from that what it should be doing with timing, even relative to the maps that are in there. Apparently 1.8T tuners have found that spraying water pre throttle body drops the air temps as seen by the inlet temp sensor at the throttle body which then makes the system feel more secure to push the envelope with timing. I ran the exact same system on my last car and could do a 3rd gear pull with up to 4.5 degrees timing pull all through the log and then switch water injection on and repeat and literally find no timing pull at all. I could add up to 2 lemmiwinks holistic timing increment (2 X 0.75 degrees) for the same timing pull in the logs, so it does work - not only at convincing the ECU to run more advance, but by making that possible without timing pull because of the anti knock properties of plain water if its getting into the combustion chamber still as droplets.
Other improvement for the car/me is an RPM 6 point harness. I got the crotch strap all set up last night and it felt seriously safe. I must say the 3 inch shoulder straps on the 4 pointer that Metalhead lent me were far more comfortable than the 2in straps (intended for a HANS device) on this 6 pointer - they really can be felt over your collar bones, but I'll probably sort a HANS device soon enough so I can live with that.
So all ready to go tomorrow. Its going to be 25 degrees and sunny so should be a good day to give the car a bit of a caning. Bummed I didn't get down to do practice today as I haven't been there for 2 years, but I'm sure it'll all come back to me during the red mist first run.

[teamshaw]

Good luck mate. I should be out a after lunch to check it out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sambb]

Class win!!! ha super stoked. nearly five years of trying and finally a state class win against all those V8 goobas (sorry Andrew). And when I finally get to win the bigger of the 12 dollar trophies its not even a trophy but a bottle of red wine - kids cant take that to show and tell!
Did a 47.50 from memory. Funny thing is on run one, my water injection bung in the inlet hose blew out on the third corner like a gunshot and I veered straight back into the pits. Lucky I had my spare pipe on hand but then only had 3 runs to do the job in and I hadn't been there in 1/1/2 years and still hadn't completed one lap, not even a sighter so I honestly held no hopes at that point. But the car was just a weapon, handling amazingly and the times kept dropping. I got it on my last run by dropping half a second. Relief more than anything. My wife asked if i'll now back off a bit and do more work on the house.....

PS - basically I have to thank Gary for this and the other results I've had lately. The car isn't anymore powerful than it was 3 years ago, the only changes have been chassis hardware/setting tweaks guided by Gary and that has been all the difference. I owe you sir.

[sambb]

http://entry.sdmahillclimb.com/WebDisplayBoard.php

this is the web timing board from the day. Road reg is off to the right. From the look of it my start line and 1st splits were more or less on par with the VX and GTS so I must have stayed in touch with them in the faster stuff too which I didn't expect. I only got 1st place by a tenth and 0.17 sec separated the top 3 cars which is pretty mental and why I love hillclimbs.

[abreut]

Awesome work Sam! Quite a bit of competition in that class too. Well done.

[Sydneykid]

I only offered the advice Sam, you listened and then executed, both the mechanicals and then driving it. We had a pretty good weekend at Eastern Creek, finished every session, no mechanical dramas (there's a first), sponsorship is a bit slow coming through this year so we ran "compromised" tyres on the front on Saturday and then on the rear on Sunday. Still managed 3 x 2nd places in U2L and 7th outright out of 46 cars, so not too shabby. Round 2 at Wakefield the last weekend in May, so I have time to find a bit more speed

There's one pretty decent 225/40/16 that you should be able to use, the other 3 are way too "compromised". We'll keep it as a spare and then when there are half decent pair I'll let you know.

Well done
Cheers
Gary

[metalhead]

Well done Sam, nailed it! I still think you need to have a run at the Championship now though, must be in with a pretty good shot after the first 3 rounds...? I definitely plan to be at Kempsey.

[simon k]

good job!!

[sambb]

Thanks peoples. Yeah Andrew I must admit that when I opened my eyes this morning I was thinking I must be in a decent spot in the standings and this'd be the year to have a tilt in the whole championship. The fact that they let you drop one round and count your best 7 of 8 means also that I could either drop Grafton (too far) or Huntley (not enough grunt and not big enough testicles). Problem its the worse possible year for state travel with family time/money/house being the stopper.
The dub nats at south circuit has been announced for May 25th so I would like to have the new box/diff in for that and try and drop my times there (are you coming down for it Arno?) and Wakefield is calling. If I can get accepted I want to do the Australian Hillclimb title round at Mountain straight in sep/oct or whenever that is on. I've never done Bathurst twice in one year and to have a run while its still pretty fresh in my mind would be good. And of course Ringwood state cos I love the mix of cars there hatches, commondores, vettes, M3, 200sx's etc etc You just never know where you're going to be there.
And thanks again Gary. I've loved working on Polo 2.0 and doing it properly with the kind of advice that people pay lots of money for. And thanks for keeping an eye out on the tyre front. Yeah I may have to go to 16's soon. Bigger brakes are probably in the future mostly cos I'd like to have a crack at getting Audi TT spindles onto the car as probably the last big ticket thing to do for the handling and that will necessitate 16's again so that would be great. I'll have a squiz at when the next IPRA round is one at Eastern Ck and see if I'm off. The kids loved that last time.