Trackday Troubles - Blown Intercooler Hose

I was lucky enough to attend the Macquarie Racing trackday at Wakefield park, was a fantastic day. I had planned to shake down the car after the clutch install and with the previous overheating issues that I had experienced.

The first session the temps were around 24deg with little to no wind, the car performed well with temps very stable after 8 laps at around 1:04 second mark. It was just me and two other cars out of the track, I came back in to check on things and the tyre pressures.

The second session I wanted to continue to check the car and if all was OK I would duck out at lunch time and put on the 3 spare tyres I have had sitting around for about 5years, not the best to set times on but with the rears now without tread I needed to change them over. Unfortunately about the 3^rd lap in the intercooler hose blew, trying all of the shops in Goulburn I was not able to get a replacement 2in to 3in 90deg elbow silicone joiner.

Driver & Isolation decals

Apex racing delivered a Isolation decal, also picked up a driver name decal and race numbers for the door to replace the old magnetic numbers.

6point Harness and New Velo seat

I had purchased a new seat for the car back a number of years ago whilst at WTA and never got around to actually fitting it, has been sitting in the garage ever since and thought it was time to fit it to the car and at the same time replace my current Willans 4point harness which is very old and I am finding that I am submarining in the seat when driving around the track.

I picked up a new harness which is a sabelt 6point harness from V-Sport yesterday to fix the submarining issue, the added bonus of this harness will be that it will allow me to use a Hans device in the future when funds permit.

The crotch strap on the Sabelt harness is fitted over the hoop that was installed under the seat originally when the cage was installed, it is then attached to two eyelets with a square place underneath towards the back of the seat on the floor. When fitting the eyelets I miss judged the holes and ended up drilling into the chassis frame so had to drill another hole which was disappointing.

When it came time to then fit the new seat I could not actually get it into the car with the Bride rail attached to it so had to remove the seat rail to get it through the door and cage into position. One the seat was in position and the rail mounted to the vehicle when I tried to fit the seat to the rail the seats side head protection fouled on the roll cage.

I will need to get some custom mounts made up to install the seat lower in the car so that I can fit the seat in without fouling on the cage.

Lithiumax battery

I picked up a new Lithium battery today from Lithiumax. 450cca and weights 2kg, comes with a nice little trickle charger and a fantastic neat mount. Price is reasonable as well at $459.

First test and it works really well with a very strong cranking ability.

ECU heat and vibration reduction

A friend recommended i get some isolation mounts to avoid having issues with the ECU, the theory is that vibration and heat kill ECU's quiet quick so it is ideal to mount them in locations that avoid these areas. 

Using these isolation mounts i can fix the vibrations coming through from the chassis and also it increases the gap between the transmission tunnel and the ecu so improves the heat shielding.

Rear bar removal

The rear bar set up has been worrying me a little as even with the sheet and air stakes i reckon it catches a lot of air down the straight. I removed the rear bar and think i might try and run the car without it next time with the aim of lessening drag.

Lithium battery

After sitting at the workshop for a couple of weeks and then trying to start the previous battery i had been using died, i tried to charge it back up but it started to get really hot and would not fully charge. I think it might have lost a cell.

I purchased a new lithium battery recently after talking with a couple of the guys and it arrived very quickly, it was only 0.8kg so super lightweight. Unfortunately after installing i found it was simply too small for my vehicle as it would not start it without adding in an additional jump start battery.

The Lithium battery i thought was 12ah which was close to what i was using before but found it was actually 4ah, also the CCA was 195 and it probably needs closer to 400 to start the car

Remember to tighten those wheel nuts

After picking up the car from ASR this morning who sorted the clutch install and machining of the input shaft for the clutch. I got 5min down the road and saw the trailer wheel bouncing off into the bushes, cars swerving to miss it.
Andrew brought up some wheel studs for me which was nice bit ended that the studs were stripped and that I needed to get new studs. NRMA came out and the nice guy offered to go down the road to get some new studs which we promptly installed and in was on my way.

Towing Weight Check - Race Car & Trailer

For those towing with there cars it pays to check things out. Got mine weighted today and with nothing in the car (I usually have a lot of tools etc) and nothing in the cruiser but a full tank it was the following.  Remembering that my trailer is 2000kg max total weight
On Ball Weight

• 1820kg trailer (ATM)
• 3200kg car (GVM)

Off Ball Weight

• 1990kg Trailer (ATM)
• 3030kg Car (GVM)
• 5020kg Total (GCM)
• Ball weight 170kg

Leaves 10kg to play with on the trailer (not sure if I even have a full tank in the Nissan)