What did you do to your Polo today?

[h100vw]

Compared inlet temperatures before and after my bodgy JustJap inter cooler and was surprised. Before, on a 40 deg day, inlet temp would just keep climbing when driving along, settling down around 58 deg. Now with FMIC, it sits on around 42, goes up when you stop and quickly drops again when you get moving. Pretty pleased actually


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I think if you can get within 10 degrees of ambient under load you have a winner.

What's also important though is the pressure drop across the core. Hard to measure although for a while I ran 2 boost gauges, one on the outlet of the turbo, the other on the inlet manifold.

Was about 3psi, using one gauge in BAR the other in PSI was probably not the best way to go!..

Gavin

[Blue9N3]

Pressure drop should be ok particularly since I used a 3" thick core. (I don't advise anyone else to do a 3" core again!)


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[sambb]

More what I did on the weekend than what I did today. Ran in rounds 1 and 2 of the NSW hillclimb championship at Panorama. I competed in the road registered over 2.5L class. A Pulsar sss turbo and I were the two smallest effective capacity cars in the road reg over 2.5L field of 24 cars.
Saturday was "the esses" where you start on Conrod and run backwards up through forest elbow, the dipper and up and over skyline. I managed 9th with a 33.66. Had problems with bogging down on the uphill start killing my times until I got brave enough to run with TC off and then went as second and a bit faster.
Low point of that day was a horrible crash where an M3 went straight backwards into the wall below skyline. When you go up the hill the wrong way the walls aren't aligned nicely and basically face you so the stakes are pretty high. My first run was delayed by an hour as they cut him out and got him off to hospital in a pretty bad way. High point was that I got through it without that happening to me and realising that I was actually going to be in the mix at such a high horsepower hillclimb.
Day 2 was "mountain straight" where you start at the top of the crest on mountain straight that leads into Griffins bend, and then you run up to Mcphillamy park. To say I was **** scared of this day is an understatement. Ever corner/apex is either blind because of the walls or blind because its on the other side of a crest. I was fine going up hill through the cutting and through reid park, but suliman park to mcphillamy was just insane. The speeds are ridiculous, I was constantly fighting a rear end that was getting light over the crests and always fighting the instinct to lift off. Before the start of my second run I was more nervous than the first because I knew that I had to do it all again and try to go faster! I managed a 57.54 that gave me 10th in class, so to beat the like of xr6 turbos, SSV's, an OPC astra, XR8, R33, clubsport R8 was so satisfying for a little shopping trolley that was just on some mediums and front and rear antiroll bars.
Low point was seeing a Lola open wheeler powered by an indycar buick motor hit the wall at the finish line and then do a nigel mansell at Adelaide all the way over to skyline (about 600m away) where he hit he wall. Those cars will do over 250km/h across the top of the mountain! That was the very first thing I saw that morning that had me more than a little grounded.
High point was turning into Griffins off the straight, initially thinking that I had overcooked it but ending up in a nice controlled 4 wheel slide out to the far ripple strip. I carried so much speed up to the cutting on that run and was 2 seconds quicker than anything else I did that day. That corner (and the priviledge of experiencing that track) was singularly the most exhilarating moment of my life.
I finished the weekend with a combined 10th in class, 50th overall out of 95+ entries of which about 65 were dedicated race cars.

If anyone wants to get into the nsw hillclimbs or do Panorama next year PM me and i'll help you out with what you need to do.

[seangti]

That's an awesome read Sam. I'll hit you up next time I'm likely to drive down and see what events may be able to book end my journey. I need to man up for some of these hill climbs events, not much margin for error hey.

[sambb]

I've never done track work so I can't really comment on it to be honest. It was definitely a major step up to be doing middle of third gear speeds over the top with no braking and just regulating the throttle to be quick - you would be way more comfortable with that kind of thing from your track experience for sure. For me though on wafty stock dampers and stock springs it was pretty hair raising. Bars kept the car flat but the poor damping control of the high COG could really be felt. Most of the hillclimbs I've done eg Huntley have say one really fast 3rd gear corner which you can get right but a whole sequence of corners that are all blind like day 2 was intimidating.
A lot of the guys that do track work say they really rate the hill climbs because of the pressure and adrenalin of it. They say that on the track you can find the limit because you get multiple looks at corners and can get everything up to temp and build a rythm. But in a hillclimb you've got to be nearly on the limit but never over it or your into a tree/wall/embankment and doing that on cold brakes, cold tyres and only 5 shots at it. Often your first look at the course is on your first run or youtube. Guys were even learning the esses on playstation. At Huntley once, it started raining at the top of the hill while I was lined up so I went up not knowing where the track was going to switch to wet. You get minimal seat time for basically a whole day out though, but I think you'd love it.
I'm pretty keen to do some track stuff for that reason now. For instance my glory moment at griffins bend was me basically thinking that I'd gone in way too hot, only to find that it was spot on and I just couldn't repeat that on the fourth run. The actual limit was just much further away than I was willing to go with all the concrete around me, so I probably need some track stuff to know just how far I can push the tyres when they are stone cold and on low pressures etc. without the bigger consequences.
I was on 205/50/15 yoko A050's mediums. To be honest, for my horsepower level I think I was still maybe a little over tyred. eg I only had 1 extra psi in the fronts by the top so they were still basically stone cold at the finish line. I reckon soft compound 195's might even be better - lighter, probably more grip instantly by virtue of the compound and more inclined to heat quicker. All this i'll have to work out.
For any Sydney guys, there is a 'come and try day' as part of the Huntley april 10 multi club hillclimb. You can get a 1 day L2S cams license and have a crack. Not sure if i'll be at that one (i'll try), but you can go to the Wollongong sporting car club page to get the details. Its an old coal road that goes through the trees up the escarpment and the staging area is down in some paddocks where horses are trying to eat your gear through the fence. Its very grass roots and a real community atmosphere. worth a look.

[sambb]

A few cars from the hillclimb field - all from very different classes obviously! Check out that open wheeler. It has an ex F1 Judd V8 (that was in one of Adrian Newey's early cars and did a French GP) in a Dallara F3 chassis. Looks like a bit of lift going over a crest or is that HP keeping the fronts in the air afterwards.....sick! Oh and a cool little hatch too

[Wiffle]

I didn't realise there was a hillclimb at Huntley. It's not far from me, so think I might have to check it out!

[sambb]

I think its WSCC.com/net/org - one of those. There's a creek reserve /picnic ground at the end of the road before the big uphill. Its a public road so if you go and find it you can drive up there and you'll see the tyre walls, Armco, embankments and marshalls towers. The club brings in food tents and demountables, gets the road closed etc for the events. I think someone lives at the top so when you get up there the best thing is to loop around to the left on the dirt road which brings you back around to "the kink" on tarmac again. When events are on its cool that you can do your run and then park up there and watch the rest of your class come up after you through that crazy corner.
I'd call the club contact. Normally you need a L2S speed CAMS license with full cotton clothing, extinguisher, helmet, numbers/decals, tow hooks but being a come and try you may not need all that. L2S licensed people can go in the car with you so you could ask about that too - maybe they could do a run with you to point out the lines.

Wollongong Sporting Car Club - The home of Huntley hillclimb found it.

[Wiffle]

Thanks Sam, I'm on to it!

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[rgvlee]

Popped a new battery in. Unfortunately not a super duper lightweight one that'll have to wait when I've got a bit more time to muck around with it. As it's my daily I just did a like for like.
Cranks over with gusto now!