347-dis

Very nice mate cars coming along well

Tom's

Thanks, it's getting there. With any luck I should be on track next month for a bit of testing.

Tom's

Hi all,

Sorry for the lack of updates, the racing for this season has started and to be honest, the car and I are not getting on at all!

I raced last weekend, at Cadwell park and the few weeks leading up to the race were extremely busy with tidying a few bits and bobs up on the car.

I eventually ran out of time and had to go into the race weekend blind, having done no testing! What a mistake this turned out to be!

Saturday morning came around and I loaded the car up, ready for the 80 mile drive to Cadwell.



Having got there, we then had to wait in a field until our paddock area was clear for us to take over from the Saturdays racers. Whilst we waited, we decided to go and get scrutineering out of the way.....most nervous part of the weekend haha!



Having set up we had a communal chilli and then settle down for the night.....just as some of the Saturdays racers were returning from the pub and decided to get the worlds loudest stereo on in their fancy RV.

I got up on Sunday morning, in a foul mood and wanting yo go home, let alone race. As I had a few mates and the wife helping me out, they managed to convince me to go out and qualify. Qualifying immediately showed that I should have done some testing. I'm not entirely sure why yet but my abs light came on and the car....well, kept trying to kill me! Every time I got hard or the brakes, especially if I trailed them or left footed them a bit into a corner, they'd lock and try to spin the car!

I decided to drive around the problem and then a lap later I blew a boost pipe.....qualifying over and in 8th.....

No real matter, I thought, I'll get to about top 3 off the start line....wrong!

Having returned to the pits, I set about sorting the boost pipe and a few little other bits, including brimming the tank ready for the 40min race in the afternoon. Luckily everything was cold as after I had reached the top of the filler neck I could strongly smell petrol..... A look under the car revealed that I had managed to crack the filler neck, probably whilst fitting the rs diff.

I went out on Sunday afternoon for the race and quite frankly shouldn't have bothered.

On the start line I engaged launch control, as the red lights came on. They went off and the car lurched forward followed by a lot of revs and not much else. I immidiatly pulled to 1 side, so as to not get rear ended, and changed up through the gears and try for forwards motion. In 4th it finally started to pick up speed. My initial thought had been a breakage but now it was apparent that my clutch had given up.

I decided that I would limp around and pit in for the race. However, half way around the lap, my clutch started to bite. Not enough to be competitive, but enough to have a tussle with a few of the slower cars and a bit of fun.

So that decided, I ploughed on, over taking a few back markers and getting to mid table. The compulsory pit window opened after 15 mins and I decided to get it out of the way and have my car checked over during the 1 min stop. All was fine so I cracked back on. The next lap, 2 Raf guys unfortunately had a big coming together which bought out the safety car! That meant all of the guys who had a lap advantage managed to keep it!

I carried on nevertheless and had a good time, having a bit of a jostle with a lotus esprit, until an over zealous "guest driver" decided that his BMW compact brakes weren't as good as he thought so used me to get around the corner!

No real harm done, only a scuffed bumper and wheel. Most annoying thing was the complete lack of sportsmanship after the race just a stupid look and smarmy face. Safe to say that he won't be driving in the championship again!

Last problem of the weekend....we were kept on parc ferme, for a while, so I turned the car off for a bit. Upon trying to restart, nothing. No power what's so ever to the car.

I've had a brief look at it and I think it might be an alternator problem. I thought it might be a cut off switch problem but I've taken that out and still getting it. As soon as I connect the live to the car loom it goes from 12v to .06v. If anyone had any ideas please let me know.

Anyway, here are a few action shots.











So that was pretty much my disasterous weekend of racing at Cadwell park. All that was left to do was load the car up and go home to lick my wounds.



Current list of breakages:
New clutch
Poss new alternator
New fuel filler neck
Do away with abs and run rs bias valve
More seat time

I think that's ended this years racing before it even started. Real shame as I had planned to do spa and snetteron (my home track).

Thanks for reading.

BBYEvo82003

Very clean!

TWM Performance

iTrader: (3)

Corners flatter than that Esprit!

- Renato

BPAuto

iTrader: (10)

Great update! Sorry to hear about your racing woes, it always makes for a rough time when you are plagued with bugs. But you'll get it sorted and be back up and flying for the next event! Keep at it!!

NJ9MR

iTrader: (56)

Don't worry about it...You'll do better next time. You're just working out the 'bugs' for now...At least you were out there!

Sil'vr-Boi6

iTrader: (26)

Great job, your TME is gorgeous, I really like the way you write; Brief and concise. My writing is more like, "one time at band camp..." -it likes fluidity & conjuction overall. Ever thought of starting a youtube channel?

Tom's

Thanks guys, the car will get there 1 day.

I'd really like to compete at snetterton in sept, as it's my local and favourite track.

If I could get this electrical problem sorted, I'm sure I'd get much more motivation to go spend some more money and get the rest of the car sorted.

I'm really starting to draw a blank on it tho.....

Google hasn't really revealed anything and I'm starting to think that I may have to lose my DIY ethos and hand the car over to a pro.

I've thought about doing YouTube stuff, but I'm a complete novice when it comes to editing - that's why you won't see many videos of the car full stop on YouTube.

Tom

Tom's

Little bit of news - the cars alive again!

When I got shunted, in the last race, I think it partly dislodged the earth.....which was on the bolt that holds the rear bumper on!

Thanks go out to a guy over on the MLR for suggesting it was a ghost earth, something I'd never heard of.

I would have been chasing around for fuses, relays and short circuits for weeks, I should think!

Now to get on with buying some new bits.....

Ashwnkr

Impressive.

harry wilson

Love the thread !