Engine woes

I've been to three track days in the last 5 months, and i've done all of about 10 laps.

Unfortunately, that hose I mentioned a couple of posts back has been a chronic problem. First time I gave it the benefit of the doubt, but when I replaced the hose, I had the exact same problem. Exhaust gets hot, melts hole in pipe, car runs like crap.

For a permanent fix, I got Autosport to have a look as part of the general service. Greg wrapped the pipe in heat tape and put a heat shield over it too. I guess it just wasn't to be - the heat shield didn't do it's job, and within 15mins, the pipe had a hole in it again. Day over.

I was pretty peeved with the whole thing by this stage. People had suggested a couple of solutions, one of which involved welding a pipe to the compressor to remove the silicone pipe entirely. Greg opted to rotate the turbo housing around 45 degrees or so to create a gap between the two, and add another heat shield to keep the heat off the area. The final result can be seen in the pics.

I'm a bit over spending money on track days for no result, so I think they'll take a back seat for the next while. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the car and try to stop it sucking funds from my wallet for a while.

Tunes

Got sick of driving around with no music, so I installed an MP3 head unit and some 6 inch speakers in the parcel shelf.

Fully sick!

Circuit Club Track Day: Wakefield, 13th June 2011

Monday was my first visit back to the track since my crash and unfortunately, it wasn't a triumphant return. About three laps into my second session, I heard a pressurised air sound (a bit like a blowoff valve) under throttle and immediately lost power. The culprit was later found to be a cracked silicone hose where the air leaves the compressor.

The track was very damp at the start of the day, and I had no confidence to push on cold semi slicks. Although I only did about 10 laps, I caught a few slides and got a chance to remember the lines and stuff, so not a complete waste of time. My fastest lap for the day? A whopping 1:33, and dead last! Only one way to go from there :)

Was great to finally make it to the track with Reedy too. He was making light work of some "favoured" competition in his MPS. Great car!

Pictures!

Because I have a bad habit of losing cameras, i've been a bit lazy with taking photos of the new(est) Silvia. After a quick wash, I took the car to a quiet street in Canterbury and took a couple of pics of how the car looks at present. Needs wider wheels at the rear :)

Back on the road

I've had the car back a couple of weeks now, and all is well. I can't wait to hit the track again, but the wallet says otherwise. For now, it's just great to have a car back.

Greg has done an amazing job re-assembling the car. Very few dramas to report. About three weeks after I picked it up, I took it back to Autosport and he ironed out the last of the bugs. Couldn't be happier.

The new turbo installation also meant that the car needed to be retuned. Yavuz at Unigroup Engineering looked after the car, and I think the results speak for themselves:

Based on airflow meter readings, Yavuz says the turbo can flow up to 250rwkw of air, but at the moment, the exhaust is restricting flow and so he's had to keep the boost conservative to prevent knock. It's most likely the cat restricting flow, so i'll look into extracting that extra potential power down the track.