Pembrey Testing

I decided in the end with Pembrey being so close to home and being relatively cheap compared to most of the circuits we go to that I’d be a mug not to do a bit of testing. I booked the afternoon session for the relative bargain of £105. It was quite odd packing all the stuff in the motorhome then having just a 40 minute journey to the circuit. It had been raining on and off all morning but the forecast for the afternoon was better. When I got there I was given a parking plan only to find the bit I was supposed to park in was completely jam packed so I parked where I could find a space.

I got the car off the trainler and swapped the wheels for the ‘wets’. Of course they’re still fairly useless in the wet but probably aquaplane a bit less. I signed on then went and got changed. Of course the weather forecast was wrong and although it had looked brighter it was drizzling when we went out. I’ve done a couple of trackdays here before so do know my way round but it’s all different in the wet and of course testing is very different from a trackday. It was pretty slippery, especially exiting the Hatchets and Brooklands hairpins. The other cars were mostly Ginettas and it was clear their tyres cope with rain better than ours. I suvived the session without any major dramas although my fastest lap was only 1:21. Fastest lap times when RGB were last here in 2006 were 1:02 but of course that was in the dry. I was getting a bit more grip towards the end of the session and felt I could lean on the tyres a bit more – of course the more you push them the more the heat up and you get a bit more grip.

As usual in the wet I was soaked, the water all comes over the sidepod onto your right arm and leg. I’d forgotten what it was like to have ‘Fury Foot’ – a bit like trench foot but wetter. While I’d put a bit more air in the tyres than normal I’d left the suspension alone and I decided to soften everything off. So as well as checking nothing was falling off (which it wasn’t) I took 6 clicks off all 4 dampers and softened off the ARB as much as it would go. The oil leak was sorted – having an floor in the engine bay makes it very easy to see if you’ve got a leak or not.

The weather brightened up a bit. Then started raining again just as we went out for the second session. It was still very wet with poor visibility but I was delighted to find that I could really feel a difference in the car. I could definitely feel that it was softer, with more feel for what was going on and was a bit more progressive. Of course it was still all over the place on the power out of the hairpins but that was quite good fun rather than being alarming. The Ginettas were still quicker than me but I managed to narrow the gap a bit and could stick with them for a bit longer. I didn’t get any very clear laps and only improved my lap time a little bit to a shorter 1:21 but more importantly I’d gained a bit more confidence.

Back in the paddock my spanner check revealed no problems and all the car needed was fuel. I had some new neighbours, both were driving 250 karts and one had a very swanky motorhome with ‘European Champion’ blazoned all over it. He reckoned his FL round here in the dry was 55 seconds!! Although there were still a few spots of rain the final session was definitely a bit less wet. There was nowehre near a dry line but visibility was better. I was now quicker than the slower Ginettas and the couple of Westfields altohugh the latter were sporting novice crosses. I discovered I had quite a lot more power than the Ginettas (who are all on control engines) and even when the faster ones passed me on bends I had to hold back behind them down the straights. We did have a brief red flag when 2 Ginettas simultaneously decided to do a bit of farming but we got back out again for a few laps. By now I really was enjoying myself, reflected in lap times in the low 1:19s.

I gave the car a bit of a clean up, swapped back to my dry set of wheels and went through my spanner check again finding nothing awry. I packed everything up and headed home for the evening. The forecast’s better for tomorrow, dry and sunny and quite a bit warmer. Still no idea what I’m racing against as I haven’t seen any kind of start sheet.

Birkett Testing

Not a lot happened in the week leading up to the Birkett. The car was ready but I was constantly worried about the engine – until I ran it in anger there was no way of knowing whether my bits of clutch plate swilling around in the oil had done any damage or not. The indications were that it was probably OK, but until you get it under full load and up near the redline you can’t be certain.

I rang up on the Monday about the clutch springs that never arrived from Hayabusa Central and the guy I spoke to seemed a bit vague but unsurprised, it seems it is or was the same company as Big CC Racing and indeed the former URL now resolves to the latter. He said he’d stick some in the post for me. He also said they do 2 types, short ones and long ones, I said what it was for and what problems I’d had and he said he’s stick the longer ones in. These duly arrived on Thursday, too late to fit of course, but I’ll get them in over the winter. Here’s a pic of the 3 different sets of springs – the one on the left is the Suzuki original, the middle one is the old ‘heavy duty’ spring that I suspect caused the problem in the first place, and the one on the right is the new one from Big CC Racing. I reckon that’ll do it! I might need to get down the gym though as the pedal could be a whole heap harder work. He also sent me a ‘ramp ring’ which I think is some device to limit the slipper action of the clutch.

I had to leave early on Friday morning and got to Silverstone just before 9am. I parked up with a few of the RGB guys and got the car off the trailer, signed on etc. The weather was brightening but the track was clearly still going to be damp from overnight rain. I left my ‘dry’ tyres on as the forecast was bad for Saturday and I wanted to save the ‘wets’. The first session was at 10.25 and the track was indeed still rather wet. I always take the first couple of laps very steady anyway, and I’d never driven this circuit before so I was being extra cautious. As I turned into the Abbey hairpin it turned out to be a little tighter than I expected so I had to just tweak the steering wheel a bit more, I didn’t expect a problem as I really was going very slowly but the car just spun! I hadn’t stalled and the MR2 behind missed me easily so I just got on my way again. The surface was very greasy so it was a good opportunity to take a few steady laps and see how the engine was. On the 3rd lap we got red flagged as a brace of MR2s went off at Abbey into the kitty litter so we lost 10 minutes or so of the session sitting in pit lane. By now it was clear that none of the conrods had exited the crankcase and all seemed well, the clutch was now fine.

After the restart I went a little quicker and towards the end the line was getting a bit drier. My fastest lap was a 1:57 which is pretty slow but as I pulled up behind the motorhome back in the paddock I was pretty elated that I’d come in after a full session without a single issue – the car seemed to be handling OK, the engine hadn’t grenaded, clutch and gearbox were working great, she seemed to be pulling fine and the dash and video were working properly. A step forward and promising start to the weekend

I checked over the car, the only thing I found was 3 of the front prop bolts had loosened slightly, so I tightened those and repainted them. The next session was at 13.05 and by now it was sunny and the track was more or less dry. And much more fun! I started to gain a bit more confidence and was quite enjoying myself – it was pretty busy and although our RGB cars were quicker than the MR2s, Locosts etc. there were some very quick cars out there. There was what looked like a Caparo who was quite happy to go up the inside of me into Abbey while one of the slick shod touring car-alikes went round the outside. Unfortunately the Caparo had his come-uppance as 2 laps later he was in the gravel trap there and the session was red flagged. My last flying lap was a 1:40.

After the restart I got a couple of 1:39s in but because of the traffic was confident there was quite a bit more to come. The car became very noisy and I was fairly confident the exhaust manifold had broken again. I thought it was nearly the end of the session and decided to come in before I did any more damage. Sure enough the rest of the guys were in a couple of minutes later. I hadn’t planned to go out in the third session anyway so I now had the rest of the afternoon to go over the car and get the exhaust fixed if I could. I found Andy Bates who just said to bring the manifold over, near his truck was George Polley’s truck so I grabbed their trolley and headed back to pit lane to get my rears off and over for some new rubber – the left rear was well past its sell by date. Once the manifold was cool enough I got that over to Andy, collected my wheels from Polley and stuck them on. By the time I got back Andy had finished welding the manifold and I refitted that. While the silencer was off I thought I might as well check the packing to find there was almost none of it left. The stainless wool had all migrated down to the far end of the can and had clearly done no good at all. Once that was packed and refitted I check over the rest of the car to find no problems at all. By 3.30 I was done and dusted and ready for Saturday.

Here’s a vid with a few clips from the first session and first half of the second session testing – sadly I hit the wrong switch at the end of the second half of the last session so lost all that.

Andy Cunningham went out for my last test session, there was no point me going out again and just a risk something would happen to the car. I signed on for Saturday’s race then my brother Andy arrived so he and I went over with the car to get it scrutineered. Once that was done we could relax for the evening with a barbecue and a few beers with Austen and the rest of the team. The weather forecast for Saturday was pretty awful but there was nothing any of us could do about that! I was just pleased to have the car fully functioning.

Cadwell Testing

Maybe it was a good omen. For a while I’ve been thinking of investing in a couple of travel mugs for having coffee on the move in the motorhome. Also I wanted to replace my aging but trusted road atlas that’s been missing for a year or two. I don’t always trust TomTom and it’s sometimes nice to just have a hard copy of a map in front of you. Lo and behold, at Strensham Services on the M5 they had their travel mugs on offer at £1.99 and road atlases at £4.99. Bargains!

We got to Cadwell and parked up with the other RGBers. I went and signed on and had almost an hour before our first session. It was really windy but had been dry since we got out of Wales. The sky didn’t look terribly safe though. My first concern was the noise test – at all the MSV venues you have to noise test before going out, so I got the car warmed up and trundled over there. The scrutineer asked for 6.75k rpm so I duly obliged with fingers crossed. His mate with the meter nodded and said OK – 98dB! Well pleased as it means I don’t need to worry about tomorrow with such a comfortable margin.

By the time we got out at 1.50 it had started to rain. Although a lovely circuit, Cadwell’s pretty scary even n the dry but very scary in the wet. Fortunately there weren’t many of us out so I could just concentrate on remembering my way round – I did a trackday in the Westfield a few years ago and I did a session and a bit before the Muffett diff let go last summer.. The marshals had the ‘slippery surface’ flags out at Hall Bends and even going as slowly as I was (trust me, I was going slowly!) the car was sliding about in the middle section there. I gradually gained confidence and a bit of speed and it dried out a bit but it was odd, it was raining on and off and because of the high winds it seemed to be drying out quite quickly, but it was different each time you came round. The lap timing beacon wasn’t working for me so I had no idea of lap times but David later said my best was about 1:55.

What was most important was that the car was working great – clutch was fine but it had bags more power. Clearly the new injection pump etc. was making a difference. I suspect the fuel pump was putting out low pressure.

The second session was great, sunny, dry and again uncrowded so I got up to speed a bit more. It’s a complex circuit and a few of the corners are both high speed and quite technical so loads of room for improvement. At least this time I was able to actually concentrate on the driving rather than having to drive around a problem. Afterwards David said he’d timed me at 1:45 which was pleasing. I’ll need to go faster but I can see loads of areas where I can gain chunks of time with a bit more time in the seat on dry track. It was a novelty to just be able to refuel the car and give her a quick wash before the next session. No oily hands, no crawling about underneath her etc.

The third session was wet again but I was able to go faster than first time round and even started catching a couple of people and was able to hold onto the faster cars for much longer than before. It was still a bit scary but I was getting more confident and getting more of a handle on the grip levels. The last lap was dry but then the chequered flag came out. As I came down Gooseneck the engine cut out. I coasted down as far as the turn into the Mountain and tried to start it but to no avail. I ended up using my new shiny tow loop and getting towed back to the paddock.

We looked under the bonnet to find the wires to the brake light switch and brake fluid reservoir had got caught up in the steering column and were shorting. It seemed likely to be the cause of the problem, probably by inducing a voltage drop that upset the ECU. It was a straightforward fix. I spent an hour or two just fettling minor things getting the car ready for tomorrow and covering her up for the evening then it was time for a relaxing beer, some nosh and an evening of paddock banter. What a difference from Brands!

A testing day at Brands Hatch

After a fairly long but uneventful journey and a decent night’s kip in the motorhome in the Brands Paddock we woke up to blue skies and a lovely sunny day. After the signing on and noise test I drove the car back from the pit garage to the paddock where the motorhome was parked. Brands is slightly odd in that the paddock is actually outside the track while of course the pit garages are alongside the pit straight on the inside. There are tunnels between the two but with a max height on the exit of 2.2m it’s a no no for motorhomes. So we were effectively based in the paddock despite having a pit garage for the day. It was obvious on the way back that the speedo wasn’t working. Which also meant no gear indicator and no meaningful data logging.

So the first job on the car was replacing the speedo sensor. On the way back up for the first session all was well again – speedo and gear indicator working nicely. So off I went out on track for the first session. At just under 1.2 miles Brands Hatch Indy is a short circuit but it certainly packs plenty in! Lots of contours, some interesting corners and Paddock Hill Bend spooked me just like I knew it would! For those who’ve never driven here in the FuryBusa I was coming into it in 5th gear at probably about 110mph, you’re coming up to a brow with some marker boards, you know there’s a right hand corner coming up but you can’t see it. You know it’s off camber over the brow with a big dip followed by a big compression. And a huge gravel trap all along the outside. So brain is saying to get on the brakes early. And you realise you’ve scrubbed off loads of speed and get to the brow to find you haven’t reached the corner yet. So back on the power before the apex. I think I got to do it twice before the session was red flagged.

After a short wait we went out again and I was slowly finding my way round when after a couple of laps I found I had no clutch. The clutch was working fine, my pedal however wasn’t. It was offering minimal resistance to my foot and not disengaging at all. So I limped my way back round the circuit to the pits, let David know what the problem was and made my way back to the paddock. First thoughts were that my newly installed bolt had probably fallen out again. On lifting the bonnet I was pleased to find that wasn’t the case. I decided to try bleeding the clutch and discovered there was lots of air in the system. After bleeding it all was back to normal. By now of course the session had finished although it had been red flagged again almost immediately after I came off so in fact having done a total of about 6 or 7 laps I only really missed 1 or 2.

The second session came along and off I went, trying to go a bit quicker. Trouble was that just as my tyres started to come up to temperature the clutch went AWOL again So back to the paddock again. This time I just hopped out of the car, bled the clutch and managed to hop back in again before the 30 minute session ended. It was great. For a whole 2 laps. Then no clutch again.

Time to call in Andy Bates. I really didn’t believe I hadn’t bled it properly, so air was finding its way into the system and apparently only once the engine got hot. We pulled the clutch slave cylinder off, had a good look at it, decided it looked OK with no signs of a leak or any cracks etc. We stuck it all back together, re-bled it and I was just about ready in time to get out for the first session of the afternoon. All was fine until lap 3 when I again had no clutch. I decided to carry on regardless as I really needed firstly to get to know the circuit a bit and secondly to give the newly rebuilt car a bit more of a shakedown. I managed to get down to 56 seconds despite not having a clutch. The upshifts are of course fine, also the change down form 5th to 4th for Paddock Hill Bend always seemed to slot in smoothly but the shifts down from 4th to 3rd at Druids and on the transition from Surtees to Clearways were very unsettling. In both corners you’re changing down as you’re hard on the brakes and turning in. You just have to keep pressure on the shift paddle until it eventually decides to slot in. Not terribly sympathetic to the gearbox but I really needed to get some laps in. I managed to stay out for most of the session, I did come in once to check my tyre pressures after losing the rear end both on the way into and on the power on the way out of Druids but Paul’s helper had mistakenly tidied my stuff up out of the garage and taken it back down to the paddock (Paul had unfortunately hit mechanical gremlins in the first session). So I got David to give me a push to get me rolling and went out to complete the session.

Back in the paddock the next step was to replace the master cylinder. Phil Alcock helpfully provided a spare and I managed to swap it over and re-bleed the system in about 40 minutes. Sadly the problem recurred but I again completed the session. This time David took the tyre pressure gauge up to the pits and I came in half way through and sure enough the rears were at 23.5 psi. David dropped them to 22 which was probably still a little higher than optimal. I carried on going till the end of the session but never really got a lap together and my best lap was again 56 seconds.

A frustrating day, and I still didn’t know what the problem was, but on the plus side the car was driving fine, nicely balanced with nice turn in, no obvious tendency towards either under or oversteer. And I suppose I’ve learned the new skill of driving the car without a clutch! David and I nipped off to Fisher’s 30-odd miles away to pick up the new bonnet that I now don’t really need while Andy planned to make up a new clutch hose on the basis that we’ve looked at the slave which seems fine, we’ve replaced the master cylinder, so all that’s left of the system is the hose. Hopefully it’ll be OK in qualifying tomorrow, if not we’ll then have 4 hours to try to make a Honda slaver cylinder fit …