At the end of the weekend's racing at Oulton I hauled my car over to Performance Turbo Systems of Luton to have a DTAFast P8Pro management system fitted. The idea was to give them a week to remove the old system, fit the new system and get it mapped up ready for racing. The plan quickly went wrong though, as part of the initial analysis they recorded the map provided by the original system and in the process found that I was running dangerously low of fuel pressure at high revs.
A new plan was formed - in addition to all the work they had to do a swirl pot and a second fuel pump would be fitted. Throw in the inevitable delays and yet more additional work as I opted to replace the dashboard (the tacho had been fried at Oulton - the third one in 8 races) with an integrated digital unit and the car was only just finished in time for me to bring it home on Saturday night - that is the night before the race, a whole week later than expected.
Paul, the engineer handling the work on the car had informed me that they had terrible trouble with the engine overheating while they performed power runs but this was as expected since the airflow over the car was non-existant and it doesn't have a radiator fan.
The final results were a little disappointing. Peak boost is now 0.95bar with the system holding a steady 0.8bar boost for most of the rev range. Torque is up by 20lbft and power just 12bhp. A large part of the problem is that the injectors are maxxed out which given the spec would indicate a fault with the injectors themselves.
To make things more interesting there was a huge fire on Friday night at a nearby tyre depot at home and the entire area was evacuated. Getting the trailer out and collecting all the gear I needed for the race was rather interesting!
Sunday looked like it would be a good day in the end though - I had more power, noticibly more torque and it had turned out dry afterall. Silverstone national circuit is just made for turbo cars with it's slow corners and long straights. I expected to do well here. The problems started once the car was off the trailer though, firing it up blew a fuse and after much aggravation we traced it to the isolator switch. The low power ignition cutout had melted internally and was no longer making contact so all the power was being drawn through a shortcircuit instead... The fused circuit was initially bypassed with a high power fuse and everything seemed fine - right up until I entered the second corner on my first lap out in practice when the high power fuse just blew.
After being dragged back to the pits we just bypassed the switch altogether and realised that the low power ignition switch was being used to feed the two fuel pumps and the water pump - all of which have high current demands, especially the water pump! There will be words said to the people responsible for wiring these in as it is a fundamentally stupid mistake to make. More fool me for trusting them to do the job properly and not checking it all over myself. Double fool me for not thinking through what happened next.
The clerk of the course kindly allowed me to start from the back of the grid rather than waste the entire day (as far as I was concerned) and finally we were allowed out. This was the first time I've ever had the opportunity to try and force my way through slower cars that I would have outqualified (in fact my best lap time of the day would have put me way up the field and ahead of Terry Di Francesco who has put in some very, very good laptimes at all of the circuits we visited thus far). The first couple of laps were shaky as the rear tyres struggled to warm up as I was baulked by the Road Saloons but at the end of the second lap I had the grip and stability I needed to attack. They quickly got eaten up with the slicks and turbo torque making passing them through and out of corners a no brainer. Ironically it was the first of the Golfs that made my life difficult as it was at that point that the Primeras made their first pass on us and rather than risk a three/four was pile-up I just backed off and let them go. It made for a good battle though with the ultimate passing maneuver taking 3 corners to set up and position the Golf where I needed him.
I think this is probably the first race yet when I have really had plenty of opponents to play with - some just fodder to get in the way, some more challenging and some to chase and really push my abilities. To say I enjoyed it would be something of an understatement.
At about mid-distance though the new dashboard (which had been playing up all through the race) switched to a permanent temperature warning. The water was hitting 120degC at some of the corners and only dropping down to about 100degC when it got the airflow it needed. This eventually turned into a continual 120degC with 5 minutes to go. I opted to back off somewhat and try and let the turbo cool down but to no avail. Fortunately it never exceeded 120degC so there was hope that the engine would be ok if a little cooked at the edges. Those last 5 minutes seemed to last forever and I was very grateful when the chequered flag came out. The last lap was taken very carefully indeed with no throttle where possible yet trying to keep the speed up for the necessary air flow. Just as I came around the last corner through there was big puff of smoke from the front and I lost all electrics. Clutch went straight down and into neutral and I had just enough momentum to make the pit lane and pull off to the side.
Getting out of the car there was no more smoke at the front but plenty of steam at the back, 99% of it was from the water overflow pipe but there was a telltale whisp from the exhaust. With the engine so hot it is quite likely that the seals on the turbo will be toasted now as there was no more waterflow to keep it cooling. It is quite possible that the cylinder head is now warped as well for the same reason.
Back in the pits the reason for the failure was immediately apparent. The wire that feeds the now bypassed low power isolator switch had been handling current way above its capacity and had burned clean through. As I said earlier - double fool me!
The final results were good though out of the 21 starters I had passed 7 and 2 more had fallen off - unfortunately one of them was the car I was chasing down. So 9 cars dismissed in the first 10 minutes of the race and I was remarkably close to lapping the tail end of the race when the water temperature warning finally persuaded me to back off.
It looks like the Anglesey double header will be cancelled now which gives me four weeks to get everything repaired and maybe even improved!
See the results page for the current scores.
