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Will be interesting to see how competitive you are after a few more races. I wonder whether the 'cheque book racing' effect may be quite large? Paddock chats will tell you I'm sure!
Donington is a track that we've tested on many times before, so hopefully, we'll be more competitive than we were at Brands Hatch and Cadwell Park. With only 4 braking zones (Redgate, Old Hairpin, McLeans, and the Esses) the circuit is pretty much flat-to-the-floor all the way around - in our car at least. I know where I can make up time, need to carry more speed through Redgate and Coppice. That should improve my lap times somewhat.
Once again, we've booked testing on Friday to help us dial into the circuit. At the time of posting there are three other cars entered in our class - a Pug 106, a BMW Compact, and a Toyota MR2.
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
Interestingly, Turbo'd MX5 race cars don't seem to be a thing - at least on the UK club scene - most drivers seem to prefer a NA build.
Both the pink and blue MX5s from Cadwell Park have enough power to readline in 5th gear, so we've decided to follow suit with our 2020 plans.
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
Nick started removing the box at 12:30 pm and it took us 11 hours to do the replacement. Having never done one before and doing it on the floor made the whole thing difficult, but we managed it and learned so much in the process.
The race was the most fun I've ever had in the car, I finally felt that I'd got on top of it and was on the limit. Both Nick and I set identical fastest laps so clearly, we're pushing it as hard as it will go. We finished in last place on the road but 32/41 cars owing to retirements and DQs. I'm not disappointed because that was as fast as the car would go. You can see the yellow Puma and orange 106 just drive past us despite both being the same weight as us.
Next steps? The next two races are power tracks - Snetterton and Silverstone - so we've got to do something soon. We've decided to get the standalone ECU and a custom tune done very soon to get the most out of the engine as clearly, our setup isnt optimized.
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
The cage certainly stiffens up the car, especially considering it doesn't have a roof. You really notice how much chassis 'twist' the car used to have which is completely eliminated now. We've actually had to soften the dampers off to make the car more compliant over the curbs and bumps.
Our next race is at Snetterton on 12th October, come down!
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
We've never driven Snetterton before, so once again have booked Friday testing to learn the track and get dialled in. I'm particularly looking forward to the long, sweeping corners of Riches, Palmer, Williams, and Coram.
We decided to finally invest in a standalone ECU, the Motorsport Electronics ME221 and book a tuning day at MX5 specialists Skuzzle Motorsport.
We started with a baseline run using the stock ECU to see what power the car made (at the wheels, not crank) and got 89.8bhp at 5700rpm. After that, the power dropped off considerably. At the pre-season test day at Donington, we were measured at 74.1bhp at the wheels. So the high-lift cams gave us an extra 16bhp - not bad.
Nick (Skuzzle) noted that the car was running VERY rich throughout the rev range, especially above 5000rpm where we needed the power most.
Fitting the ME221 and a basic tune gave us a 6bhp increase but created more power at the top and the power band went on for longer. A quick timing adjustment and tuning refinement allowed the car to finally reach its potential - 103.3bhp at 7000rpm and a huge increase compared to stock. In a race car, we want all of our power between 5000-7000rpm, as that's the range that gear changes drop you into. We estimate now that our flywheel BHP is around 130bhp, over 15bhp more than we started the season with and now at the class limit of 145bhp/tonne.
Put simply, we now have more power for longer - yes!
Pink is ME221 basic tune
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
The bushes weren't the worst part of the whole job but removing all of the camber/suspension bolts that had snapped in half whilst lying on my back, underneath the car, enduring flakes of rust dropping into my eyes every minute.
Nick is such a knowledgable chap, we couldn't get the ME221 to connect to a laptop and he worked out that physically disconnecting the TPS connector under the bonnet (the ECU is meant to do this electrically) it suddenly activated the USB connection - incredible.
Quite remarkable to see a tune being done on a Dyno, having to adjust fueling and spark at every throttle position for every point in the rev range. He even showed me in real-time what effect static timing changes had on the idle and harmonic vibrations - this did show up that our engine mounts are knackered so we will be replacing those on Monday.
What else? Oh yeah, going to replace both the gearbox and diff oils with new stuff, just in case we're getting any losses through the drivetrain owing to crap/dirty oil.
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
Incidentally, the Class D lap record is 2:21 so being 14 seconds off that pace was quite disheartening until we saw everyone else's lap times and realized that the track was just very slow. Noone got near that time at all.
Drove out onto the track, managed one flying lap before I noticed a big change in engine note. The car was still pulling great so thought maybe we'd just cracked the exhaust (we had - see below) but looking in the mirror I saw a massive plume of smoke coming from the rear of the car. It was thick, white, and turned the entire track into a winter's foggy day. I drove around to the nearest Fire Marshall post and pulled over. Thankfully no fire could be seen but lots of coolant leaking out at the rear of the engine block. Obviously, we'd blown the head gasket and both coolant and oil were getting into the combustion chamber causing the smoke.
Next is up Silverstone GP on Sunday 27th October so we've got two weeks to get the head skimmed and back on the car.
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
At least you had a better time of it than Dan Cammish...
https://www.pistonheads.com/news/motorsport/btcc-2019-finale---time-for-coffee-/41116
Also chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them.
Also chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them.
Firstly, the stock manifold is very short - only 8" or so - and the downpipe is a separate unit. The manifold+downpipe assembly bolts to the side of the bell housing so it all moves/vibrates as one unit. These aftermarket one-piece units cannot attach to the bell housing so sit separately. Fitting stiffer engine and exhaust mounts are supposed to stop excessive movement and therefore prevent the cracking happening, but we've been through three so far despite doing all of that.
We can run an electric water pump if we want, but quite expensive.
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk