- 24,550
- It/It
- GTP_TheCracker
So a rather late start to 2007's 'season', planned races at Snetterton, the Superprix at Brands Hatch, the Silvertone Classic and a race at Chimey in Belgium never materialized due to a mixture of various holiday commitments and delays in complications from the winter engine rebuild. There was an HSCC meeting at Castle Combe a couple of weekends ago that we had already decided to boycot due to the distance we have to travel and more importantly the local councils imposed draconian sound restrictions.
The car was just about ready, so we were looking for a suitable race to shake it down at. Some enterprising individuals have decided to begin a totally new race meeting concept, to the UK at least, called Powernights - which takes place on a Thursday evening. The series format is to have almost a full day of testing followed by a late afternoon qualifying session and then throw the circuit open to spectators in the evening where they get to watch four separate guest categories race twice. The evening culminates with an awards ceremony and BBQ with music and entertainment. This was ideal for us since the engine and associated pipe work through the car had been replaced since we last raced, almost a year ago, at Spa Francorchamps and it would give us plenty of track time before qualifying to sort out any problems.
The event started in the usual fashion for us of a mad dash attempt to get the car ready and loaded up the day before. Problems with setting up the carbs on the rolling road and issues with a new starter motor not meshing with the flywheel almost ment the race was over even before we loaded the car onto the trailer. However, come 9am on Thursday morning i successfully rendezvoused with car at the gates of Donnington Park - the day was on!
We managed to snag a garage at the top end of the new Donnington pit buildings, unloaded the car and signed on just in time for the first test session for our class at 10am-ish. The way the day would work was that my step-bro and i would each do one of the two races for our class each, sharing the 20 minute qualifying session and talking turns in the three test sessions before hand. My step-bro went out in the car first to start running in the fresh engine limiting it to 6000 revs. He came in after a lap complaining that the car had no brakes. Over the winter the whole interior had been stripped, repainted and generally tarted up a little, this ment all the dashboard controls had been taken out then replaced when painting had finished. Unfortunately the brake-balance controller had been re-setup incorrectly, meaning the previously front biased settings were now rear biased - it took us a while to work this out so we wound the dial almost fully to the front (actually the rear) and sent him back out again thinking that the winter's surface rust would just need cleaning off with a bit of hard braking. 3 or 4 laps latter he was back in the pits - still no brakes. He jumped out and i jumped in, feeling the temperatures around the front and rear wheels it was obvious that the rears were working harder than the fronts, so we dialled it back fully to the front (actually the rear) and i set off down the pit lane. The marshal at the end waved me to stop and lent into the car to inform me that we were over the noise limit, 102db with a circuit limit of 98db!!! - i pleaded with him to let me out on to the track, if only to get some heat into the brakes, he lets me do one lap to get back to the pits
First time down through Craner Curves, braking hard for the Old Hairpin with almost no brakes at all is was quite an experience, one that brought to mind Nigel Mansell's BTCC accident in the 90's where he went off at the Old Hairpin, hitting the old stone bridge supports and totally destroying the car. I finished the lap and headed back into the pits.
Back in the garage we thankfully discovered that the silencer on the exhaust is a repackable item, meaning we can take out the old material and put in some new stuff which would hopefully solve the sound issue. 98db is the limit most circuits impose for trackdays, ie for road-going cars with MOT's etc. Since this was a motor race, sound limits (for most places except Castle Combe) are usually non-existant or much higher. We had a chat with the organisers up in race control where they told us that circuits like Donnington which are situated near towns or villages are usually allowed a certain amount of limit free days in which they can hold events. With the Powernights series being new, they had no days left, so it had to be run with a track day (road car) limit. They also said that they were realistically still likely to be fined £10k for going over this sound limit at some point. The weird thing is Donnington Park is right next door to East Midland Airport, every 5 minutes a commerical airlinner takes off and makes enough noise to drown out the sound of any race car. Every plane that takes off from the airport automatically gets finned £1k - the airlines just shrug it off!!!
By this time the 1st test session is over - we have an less than an hour to drop the cars noise by 4db. We do a few mods to the silencer adding a baffle, but it doesn't make too much difference, so we go on the scrounge for some exhaust packing material, but no body has any. A quick search through the classified section MSA blue book finds us an exhaust manufacturer in the area who can sell us some, unfortunately they're 10 miles away. My step-bro and i jump into my car and race off to find them. It's a good 20 minute dash there, 5 minutes to get the stuff and 20 minutes back. By the time we get back to the paddock my dad's been out and done another 3 or 4 laps to run-in the engine and bed-in the brakes - but still no brakes!. It's getting close to the end of the session so i jump in and take to the track. I was letting the engine run upto 7k now and although they were a bit better, the brakes were still poor. I managed 2 or 3 laps before the flag fell to end the session.
After a quick stop for lunch we had the car back up on jacks and the exhaust off for re-packing the silencer and to weld up a few cracks that had developed over time. We discovered what had happened to the brake-balance controller and wound it back to how it should have been. The brakes were bled too for good measure. We'd changed the engine oil from running-in oil to the normal operating type. I was suited and booted and belted in ready for the next session to begin. I started the car to warm up the fluids a little - but then it happened. It started with a bit of fluid dripping out of the exhaust, then some steam started escaping around the sides of the bonnet. Bonnet off and there it was - water spraying out around sides of the number 4 spark plug. Engine switched off, i get out. Gutted.
It would seem that the head has either cracked or sprung a leak. Most of the Lotus twin-cam heads and blocks are 40+ years old now and the metal has deteriorated and become slightly porous over time. This is especially bad on race engines that have been bored and skimmed and now have little material between the cylinder bores and the water jacket.
Frustration is now setting in. Although the car is actually handling better than it ever has before, i've now managed a grand total of 4 disappointing outings in as many years. Worse still, although the field for our race was small, the car that won, an E-type Jag, was lapping at the sort of pace that we could have expected to run at, had the car not expired
On the plus side i did get chance, if briefly, to reacquaint myself with my lovely flowing local circuit: Donnington Park. We are also down to compete at the Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting at the end of the month and Spa again in the beginning of October.
I did take a few pictures of the event but i'll upload them once i've regained the will to live and can be bothered to do so.
The car was just about ready, so we were looking for a suitable race to shake it down at. Some enterprising individuals have decided to begin a totally new race meeting concept, to the UK at least, called Powernights - which takes place on a Thursday evening. The series format is to have almost a full day of testing followed by a late afternoon qualifying session and then throw the circuit open to spectators in the evening where they get to watch four separate guest categories race twice. The evening culminates with an awards ceremony and BBQ with music and entertainment. This was ideal for us since the engine and associated pipe work through the car had been replaced since we last raced, almost a year ago, at Spa Francorchamps and it would give us plenty of track time before qualifying to sort out any problems.
The event started in the usual fashion for us of a mad dash attempt to get the car ready and loaded up the day before. Problems with setting up the carbs on the rolling road and issues with a new starter motor not meshing with the flywheel almost ment the race was over even before we loaded the car onto the trailer. However, come 9am on Thursday morning i successfully rendezvoused with car at the gates of Donnington Park - the day was on!
We managed to snag a garage at the top end of the new Donnington pit buildings, unloaded the car and signed on just in time for the first test session for our class at 10am-ish. The way the day would work was that my step-bro and i would each do one of the two races for our class each, sharing the 20 minute qualifying session and talking turns in the three test sessions before hand. My step-bro went out in the car first to start running in the fresh engine limiting it to 6000 revs. He came in after a lap complaining that the car had no brakes. Over the winter the whole interior had been stripped, repainted and generally tarted up a little, this ment all the dashboard controls had been taken out then replaced when painting had finished. Unfortunately the brake-balance controller had been re-setup incorrectly, meaning the previously front biased settings were now rear biased - it took us a while to work this out so we wound the dial almost fully to the front (actually the rear) and sent him back out again thinking that the winter's surface rust would just need cleaning off with a bit of hard braking. 3 or 4 laps latter he was back in the pits - still no brakes. He jumped out and i jumped in, feeling the temperatures around the front and rear wheels it was obvious that the rears were working harder than the fronts, so we dialled it back fully to the front (actually the rear) and i set off down the pit lane. The marshal at the end waved me to stop and lent into the car to inform me that we were over the noise limit, 102db with a circuit limit of 98db!!! - i pleaded with him to let me out on to the track, if only to get some heat into the brakes, he lets me do one lap to get back to the pits
First time down through Craner Curves, braking hard for the Old Hairpin with almost no brakes at all is was quite an experience, one that brought to mind Nigel Mansell's BTCC accident in the 90's where he went off at the Old Hairpin, hitting the old stone bridge supports and totally destroying the car. I finished the lap and headed back into the pits.
Back in the garage we thankfully discovered that the silencer on the exhaust is a repackable item, meaning we can take out the old material and put in some new stuff which would hopefully solve the sound issue. 98db is the limit most circuits impose for trackdays, ie for road-going cars with MOT's etc. Since this was a motor race, sound limits (for most places except Castle Combe) are usually non-existant or much higher. We had a chat with the organisers up in race control where they told us that circuits like Donnington which are situated near towns or villages are usually allowed a certain amount of limit free days in which they can hold events. With the Powernights series being new, they had no days left, so it had to be run with a track day (road car) limit. They also said that they were realistically still likely to be fined £10k for going over this sound limit at some point. The weird thing is Donnington Park is right next door to East Midland Airport, every 5 minutes a commerical airlinner takes off and makes enough noise to drown out the sound of any race car. Every plane that takes off from the airport automatically gets finned £1k - the airlines just shrug it off!!!
By this time the 1st test session is over - we have an less than an hour to drop the cars noise by 4db. We do a few mods to the silencer adding a baffle, but it doesn't make too much difference, so we go on the scrounge for some exhaust packing material, but no body has any. A quick search through the classified section MSA blue book finds us an exhaust manufacturer in the area who can sell us some, unfortunately they're 10 miles away. My step-bro and i jump into my car and race off to find them. It's a good 20 minute dash there, 5 minutes to get the stuff and 20 minutes back. By the time we get back to the paddock my dad's been out and done another 3 or 4 laps to run-in the engine and bed-in the brakes - but still no brakes!. It's getting close to the end of the session so i jump in and take to the track. I was letting the engine run upto 7k now and although they were a bit better, the brakes were still poor. I managed 2 or 3 laps before the flag fell to end the session.
After a quick stop for lunch we had the car back up on jacks and the exhaust off for re-packing the silencer and to weld up a few cracks that had developed over time. We discovered what had happened to the brake-balance controller and wound it back to how it should have been. The brakes were bled too for good measure. We'd changed the engine oil from running-in oil to the normal operating type. I was suited and booted and belted in ready for the next session to begin. I started the car to warm up the fluids a little - but then it happened. It started with a bit of fluid dripping out of the exhaust, then some steam started escaping around the sides of the bonnet. Bonnet off and there it was - water spraying out around sides of the number 4 spark plug. Engine switched off, i get out. Gutted.
It would seem that the head has either cracked or sprung a leak. Most of the Lotus twin-cam heads and blocks are 40+ years old now and the metal has deteriorated and become slightly porous over time. This is especially bad on race engines that have been bored and skimmed and now have little material between the cylinder bores and the water jacket.
Frustration is now setting in. Although the car is actually handling better than it ever has before, i've now managed a grand total of 4 disappointing outings in as many years. Worse still, although the field for our race was small, the car that won, an E-type Jag, was lapping at the sort of pace that we could have expected to run at, had the car not expired
On the plus side i did get chance, if briefly, to reacquaint myself with my lovely flowing local circuit: Donnington Park. We are also down to compete at the Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting at the end of the month and Spa again in the beginning of October.
I did take a few pictures of the event but i'll upload them once i've regained the will to live and can be bothered to do so.
Better luck next time, and great write-up of a disappointing day...
the engines. It might be something as simple as a blown head gasket.
- certainly more so than any of the saloon cars in the game. I guess its a low grip issue.
