My Track Toy

[Cossie1]

Ok so Oulton Park trackday was last friday, so on Monday last week I fixed the passenger seat (turned out the bolt that mounted the runner to the frame had pulled though (with the washer), I had to use small allen key bolts and washers when I mounted them, as I wanted to retain the slider function, however the only fix I could do, was to use a large thick washer and bigger bolt, this fixed it a treat, but the seat will no longer slide.

 

Anyway Wednesday I changed the 2 front tyres over, from the knackered Federal 595 RS-R's and fitted a pair of hard compound V70a's that Clive kindly donated to me a while back and I drained the water out of the catch can (from condensation).

 

So the car was all ready, which meant I just needed to wash it on Thursday afteroon and load it up friday morning.

 

So friday 6am, I go out to the car, with my helmet, camera, long sleeve top and a towel to dry the floor as it was heavy rain on thursday night (as it turned out it wasn't wet, which was nice), made the mistake of putting the keys on the passenger seat, and when I closed the door, it locked itself :peek:

 

So had to wake the mrs to get the spare key, which pleased her no end lol.

 

Anyway finally got into the car, and loaded it up, went and got fuel and was on the road by 6.15am.

 

Oulton Park is about 120 miles from me and all was going well, but after a long period of 50mph average speed camera's, I put my foot down to get back upto 70mph and noticed a knocking noise coming from somewhere, it sounded like something hitting the bottom of the car under the drivers seat.

So I pulled over onto the hard shoulder and got out to check, but couldn't see anything wrong, nothing seemed loose or to be hanging down under the car, so I set off again, once over 50mph it started knocking again, and banging under the car, felt very odd. So I pulled over again and checked under the front, just incase the engine tray was flapping about, but once again all seemed fine.

I set off again, and it seemed once I got to 75mph it went quiet except when going over the odd bump in the motorway, so I thought maybe a top mount has come loose (still using those stupid silver project things), but couldn't workout why I would feel it under the seat, so then I thought maybe the rear arb had come loose and was banging against the rear beam and thats why I could feel it.

 

So I pulled over at the services and got out again, it was raining heavy, but I did the best I could to look all around, under the front, sides and rear of the car, but really couldn't see anything obvious, by this point, I was 40 miles from Oulton Park and 80 miles from home. I figured I have breakdown cover anyway, so i'll try to get it to Oulton and atleast then I can jack it up propperly and have a good look about. Needless to say I kept it as close to 75mph as I could as it was quiet at that speed and didn't knock.

 

Once off the motorway, in stop start traffic it was making a horrendous noise and felt really nasty, but felt like it was coming from the n/s/f (I did think driveshaft, but I couldn't feel it in the steering), then I thought ahh maybe it's the dogbone mount or engine / gearbox mount, so I pulled into a petrol station and had another good look around under the front and in the engine bay, but once again all seemed good (I did notice the oil catch can was breathing a little, which was odd as the only time it had breathed before was after over filling it with oil when the baffled sump was fitted).

Anyway I managed to limp it to Oulton and pulling into the carpark the car felt and sounded like it was ready to be dropped off at the scrapyard it really was that bad. I made it just intime for the breifing (didn't have time to sign on even).

 

After the breifing I put the car into Jamie's garage (cheers again mate), and jacked the rear up, n/s/r wheel span fine, as did the o/s/r, however when holding it 3 & 9 and 12 & 6 positions the wobble on it was crazy, so found the problem, rear wheel bearing failure.

 

So a quick look on my phone and ECP had 1 in stock 13 miles away, so gave them a call and they agreed to deliver it to me, but said I'd just missed the van, and that the next van wouldn't leave until 11am, so it wouldn't get to me until after 12pm, anyway I ordered it and waited.

 

So I went out for a passenger ride with Jamie to pass a bit of time, and then stood around in the garage, then I decided i'd give the mrs a call to see if she was ok, so got my phone out of my pocket and swiftly dropped it on the floor, obviously it landed screen side down, and smashed the screen (iPhone 6) as you can imagine this pleased me no end, and I felt the day was just getting better and better.

 

Someone did point out these things come in 3's, and in my mind i'd already had 2 so knowing my luck i'd get out on track at some point and then proceed to stack it

 

Anyway the track closed at 12 for lunch and about 12:15 ECP arrived with my wheel bearing (well it's a complete hub), and it was the correct part :clap:

 

The old hub came off pretty easily, except the inner race, that didn't want to come off, all we had was a large screwdriver and a small pry bar which had just the wrong angle on it, to get any force or leverage on the inner race, I was also warned to be careful not to damage the abs sensor (I said I wasn't bothered as I turn the asr off anyway, and i'm not a fan of abs, but they said it could cause other issue's if it was damaged), so I was extra careful not to disturb / damage it. Anyway luckily a guy on the other side of the garage had a large chissel which he lent me. I was struggling with it though, so Paul (a friend of Jamie's offered to have a go at it), and after a few mins he managed to get the inner race off. But the abs sensor got damaged lol ( was bent to 1 side, with a crack in it and 1 small piece left where it should be), I figured it's best to leave it as it is now, than to try and bend it back into place as it will probably snap off completly.

 

So the new hub went on easily, and the disc, caliper and wheel was bolted back on.

A quick clean up and something to eat, then I went and que'd up to be 1st out on track after lunch, so I could get a few quiet laps in to make sure the car was good.

 

So 1pm and the green light is on, I head out onto the track and was amazed to see the abs light stayed off, I couldn't hear any knocking (although with a helmet on it and the noise from the rain it would have been hard to hear it anyway) or feel any banging.

So I did a couple of easy laps (forgot to put the camera on), an Evo 7 came up behind me, so I pulled over to let him passed, about 5 seconds later he aquaplaned right infront of me, and ended up facing the barrier in the middle of the track, thankfully I missed him (and then remembered to turn the camera on lol).

 

So the first session was done and the car was ok, I was running on Vredstein road tyres on the front (didn't fit the V70a's to drive up with as the weather was bad I didn't want to risk it as they are close to legal limit anyway), but I still had the 595 RS'R's on the rear after Combe last month.

Before I went back out, I checked the car over again, and found the catch tank had sprayed some oil out again :( so I removed it and cleaned it out, there was some residue in the bottom of it that was all creamy and nasty looking, so I cleaned it all out with some brake cleaner and refitted it.

I decided not to fit the V70's as they were hard compound they would never have got any temp into them, I was going to fit the other Vred road tyres to the rear that I bought up with me, but as the car felt good in the 1st session I left it as it was.

 

So I headed out for the 2nd session.

 

First 2 laps were great, it was very wet out there, got to the 1st corner and the back end came round on me, putting my 90° to the track, I kept my foot in and managed to catch it, but got a bit of a tank slapper on, it flicked the other way, managed to catch it again, but it flicked back again, I caught it the 3rd time, but it just flicked me back the other way again, this time putting the rear wheels onto the grass which dragged back towards the barrier backwards, I still had my foot flat to the floor on the throttle, which flicked the front round, but it pulled it round too far, which then meant it pulled the front onto the grass too, at which point I got onto the brakes, the car was sliding on the grass, still heading for the barrier, and started to bounce (never good on wet grass), so I let the brakes off again to allow the wheels to rotate whilst still trying to steer out of it, the car flicked around and now I was heading towards the barrier facing forwards, I was pumping the brake pedal again now, and steering towards the track, but still sliding towards the barrier, left foot on the clutch pedal, right foot pumping the brake pedal, steering left and still heading for the barrier, at the last minute I grabbed the handbrake and the car stopped missing the barrier with the o/s/f wing / wheel by mm's :peek: amazingly the engine was still running so i just dropped the clutch and got back onto the black stuff.

It all sounds really dramatic, but in the car I found it pretty funny, I really don't know how I missed the barrier as i'm sure I couldn't have got my finger in the gap between the front wheel / wing and the barrier (no idea how close the rear or n/s quarter panel got).

 

I got black flagged after the little adventure, so had to stop in the pitlane, and was waiting ages so switched the camera off, annoyingly this deleted the lap, as I hadn't crossed the start / finish line so I lost the video of it..

 

I got told by race control to take it easy and warned that they were now watching me (I swear they thought I did it deliberatly lol).

 

Back in the pits, I got out and the car was covered in mud and grass (looked great) lol

 

Quick check over, comfirmed I didn't touch anything, all wheels pointing the right way, no large chuncks of mud in the wheels, so I headed straight back out.

 

The rear end got loose a few times on the same corner (but managed to save it everytime thankfully), there was alot of standing water on the corner all afternoon, and due to the conditions it was impossible to get any heat into the RSR's on the rear, so as soon as they hit the standing water the car would slide (great fun though).

 

The car ran great all afternoon, I managed to warp the front discs somehow (really not sure how due to the cold temps and lower speeds than normal) but I was getting alot of judder under braking by the end of the day), but other than that, no further issue's, the catch can had also stopped breathing too (and yes there was still oil in the engine lol), so only thing I can think, is that when I refitted it on Wednesday after cleaning it out, I managed to pinch a hose causing back pressure.

 

So I guess the 3 lots of bad luck in the end were locking the keys in the car at 6am, the wheelbearing failure on the way to Oulton and then dropping my iPhone 6 and smashing the screen.

 

I guess all things considered it could have been a worse day than it turned out to be (still ****ed at breaking my phone tho).

 

Anyway enough waffling on and dramatic descriptions, here are the vids I did manage to get and some pics.

 

 

 

[Cossie1]

 

[Cossie1]

 

[Cossie1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[#1radioman]

I have really enjoyed watching your vids and must admit that I would love to do that in my Octy vrs 2001 but swmbo would kill me if I spent her gin allowance on my car! you give the impression that you really enjoy yourself, it must be great, now where's that lottery ticket?