RAF Coltishall Charity Trackday

August/September 2006

Many thanks chaps for bunging me the images!

The RAF Coltishall organised two day trackday

The track was fast with interesting twiddly bits, the surface was smooth and grippy, (cue one new set of Yoko 48s!), the marshalling was spot on, the food was good and exceptional value..., in fact the general organisation of the event was probably the best I've seen. Add that to the fact that the two days raised £10,000'ish for local organisations (as the base is being decommissioned), that surely must be good.

©Google Earth.

The event was a two day trackday - and as Brighton is not exactly around the corner from Norwich we decided to trailer the car, (thanks to Steve R for the loan - again), up on the Wednesday and leave both it and the trailer in a rather large hanger on the base while we luxuriated in an Hotel. Organised this with the Squadron Leader in charge of the event, so just had to get there well before 1800hrs to sort it out.

Got there after a simple dice with death on Motorways and 'A' roads populated with lorry drivers to whom 'a wing mirror' is "An abomination unto the LORD and so shall never be used" - or so it seems... oh, and drivers on cell phones weaving from lane to lane with gay abandon, huge fun.

We were met at the gate and lead to the hanger we would call home for two days... Boy are they flippin big! Said hello to Squadron Leader Jason Hughes... and as there was a last briefing for the marshals just about to start we had a chat with the chap (Max) who had helped design the course, using a rather raughty Lotus Exige. Unloaded the car from the trailer and started it up - just to make sure, well, you never know... and then sat and waited for the meeting to finish so we could get squared away, get to the Hotel and relax - all rather pleasant.

After about 20 minutes or so, Max came out and innocently asked if our car was fueled... and if it was "would we mind" doing a couple of laps behind him in the 'pace car'. "Would we mind"? Ha! Are we not this land's people... Strong in body and mind? We are? Thank goodness for that... Well OK then, what are you waiting for?

Got the car ready and offered to take one of the RAF chaps out, bolted him and m'self in the car and off we went... 20 minutes later we were back in the pit area, The brakes smelled hot, the tyres were gently smoldering, I was grinning, my passenger Ben was grinning.. even through the pain inflicted by only wearing a short sleeved shirt and finding out what a house goes through when it's pebble dashed! The track looked to be a good'un and the car seemed to enjoy itself.

Sorted out the car/trailer - the car looked very very small and all alone in the middle of that huge space - and went and found our hotel. Trev, Richard and James met us later that evening for a meal and a few beers - all very civilised.

Got to the base in time the next morning, sorted out Val™s Cyberman Seat™, checked the car over, said hi to RAF guys and went to the drivers briefing. All straight forward, concise and to the point.

The groups for the day/s were by top geared speed and motorcycles, so all the Westys (Richard/James and Nigel/Grant in 2.0L Zetecs and Trev in a Duratec) were in Orange Group - which meant we got to go out first - result! The first session was done behind another Lotus pace car but was spoiled a bit by the lead 'customer' car, (a Robin Hood), who couldn't/wouldn't keep up with the pace car, and as there was no overtaking in this session we really didn't get to see where the car should be on the track at speed... still, it was a nice drive. On subsequent sessions several of us actually lapped him... Twice!

The second group (including such cars as Scoobys, BMWs etc etc) went, then the bikes. In no time at all it was our go again and this session was much better!  Think we were the second car out(?) and after a one lap tyre/brake warming session... We let the car have its head. Oh boy is this car quick, we actually out dragged a 400bhp Cobra down the main straight... So there is a "Substitute for cubes", it's called a Turboblade :-)

...Erm, you V8 chaps don't know where I live do you?

The handling seemed just about there after all my Heath Robinson type adjustments, the clutch held up and the temps didn't get above 80 - 85°C ... Pretty darn good.

The next session was raining and so we chickened out and only did two laps before admitting a soggy defeat... However, the Yoko 48Ms are very grippy and while I was not pushing the car, we weren't exactly going slow.

Lunch! And a visit from Radio Norwich - I ended up doing an interview, (Trev, we need to have a chat about how that came about young man!), which apparently went out in the evening news - cool. The first session after lunch was also filmed by ITN (Anglia) and all of the Surrey Westys were on the news clip that evening - Fame, fame at last! I even managed to get a copy from Anglia TV.

The track was wet but drying, so we started out relaxed and got quicker and quicker as it dried. By the end of the session we were again running at about 80% of what the car ended up doing. Val™ did the next session, and as this was only the second time she'd ever driven the car it was an exceptional effort. We went out last (after she'd had a word with Al, the minx) and for the first half of the session the cars in front were leaving us behind and the cars that started first were lapping us, but as the session progressed, her confidence in what the car/she could do increased to the point where we were easily catching the car cars ahead of us and her braking into the chicanes was getting nail bitingly late. Oddly the raw acceleration of the car is a totally different experience when sitting in the passenger seat... and she did a lot of that :-)

The next two sessions were all dry and bright and the car flew.

End of the day and all of us were knackered but happy. The timings for each session were 'to the second' with not an inch wasted.

We met Nigel's 'gang', Trev, Richard and James in the Hotel bar for drinky'poos, then staggered along to the pub for a rather fun evening that included a meal... and drinks of course! Slept well but twitched a bit in my dreams :-)

Next day the same briefing/sighting lap system was used but with a three second gap between starting cars off, (was six with less cars the day before)... The sighting lap was wet but not the down pour of yesterday and Val™ did this and the next session, which was drying. You could tell she had got the hang of the car by the very late breaking into all of the chicanes, and boy was it late! She was faultless up and down changing and was getting quicker lap on lap - even got it sideways and calmly slid it around the corner and onto the straight at one point - a great effort!

The rest of the sessions were dry and indeed sunny for the most part, the organisation was as impeccable as the day before and the car was going mind alteringly well.

Took out another of the RAF chaps in the afternoon and gave the car a bit of a spanking... Hit 124mph (clock and GPS) on the half mile main 'straight', drifted around the 180° hairpin rather nicely and just clipped the exit point that lead onto the HUGE main runway... four wheel drifted out slightly (just wandering over the white line) and then lined m'self up for the first chicane. Left the braking late and scooted through and into a blind'ish right hand curve then twitch the car left to clip the exit point to line up for the next chicane.

Next into a right then on to a mini straight with a fiddly chicane at the end... a left, double apex right into the last chicane and re-cross the runway. Into a long drifty right and trail brake pretty hard for the first of two box chicanes which were separated by a gloriously drifty right curve... Then back onto the main straight. Did this one or two times more than most other cars before we were given the checkered flag.

Got back to the pits and looked across at my passenger... He was sitting quite still, staring front and not saying anything. I got a bit worried that I'd gone a bit too far with the car, unclipped m'self, took my crash helmet off then unbuckled my passenger. He slowly took his crash hat off and I hesitantly asked him if he was fine and was the ride OK... He looked at me with HUGE eyes and yelled "Fu*kin' AWESOME!"

He he he, best 'thank you' imaginable that was... My work here is done :-)

Apparently one of the RAF chaps was keeping unofficial times and, on the first day the car was quicker than anything else by 2 seconds a lap and on the Friday the only thing that got near was a Ferrari 360 CS (that ate his very expensive carbon brakes!)... Now that can't be bad.

Just thought I'd put that bit in bold/red :-))))) Emphasis don't cha'know.

Having said that, Trev in his Duratec was irritating quick and maybe a tad faster in the slower corners (anti roll bars are the next mod 'cause we can't be having with that!). I'd drop him off in the fast corners/straights and he'd gain in the box chicanes/slower stuff - an interesting comparison as he was on the same (but wider) tyres.

However, I was driving two up to his one up for all but one session... But I'm not looking for excuses, oh no...

Did I mention that the W/I packed up (with a blocked jet) for all of the afternoon sessions on day 2, so I was down on power? Did I, did I? 

Mind you, I think the lad's a bit of a hooligan anyway and needs watching :-)

I did have a couple of 'moment's though...

The one session I got out on my own around lap two I was just coming up on another couple of Westys when my visor had a splash of liquid all over it. It was like when the TinTop Muppet in front 'cleans' their front screen..., except that when I wiped it off it just smeared. "Blimey, it's oil" and "Hope it's not mine" were two thoughts that fought for attention in my mind, (as I frantically cleared the visor), so a quick check of the Ts&Ps - which looked fine - and we continued, admittedly a tad more cautiously.

Just cleared the last chicane to re-cross the runway and totally lost grip on the rear n/s wheel, caught it and 1 or 2 seconds later it went again. Only just caught the second one and then eased off before the fast approaching corner into the first box chicane, as I really didn't know whether the tyre would grip or if the car now had a problem. By this time I'd caught up to the next couple of cars and just as we entered the last 'leg' of the first box the lead Westy spun out...

Checked the idiot lights and gauges again for the next couple of minutes, all seemed fine and the car was gripping again so off we went. Finished the session, climbed out and my mouth went very very dry... The whole of the rear of the car had a thin coating of oil all over it! From the aeroscreen back to the rollbar. I only calmed down went I saw the nose cone also had the same sheen of oil too... So it wasn't mine!

Turns out one of the Westys, (not a Surrey car), had clumped his sump (probably on the first runway crossing) causing it to leak, then maybe holed it on the second crossing and dumped the slick of oil I ran over. He actually spun in the chicane in his own lubricant. Not a nice thing to happen, poor chap.

And another fun time when the rollcaged Golf, that really didn't want to let me through, went waaay too fast into the last chicane just before you re-crossed the runway, out braked himself and just ran straight through it! Hit the barrier thingy that made up the chicane (one of those 6' x 3' placcy red or white Motorway barriers) and launched it skyward! I got to play "dodge the big red nasty plastic falling barrier thingy" game while I got though and passed the Golf. Boy it didn't half go up in the air a long way :-)

So, to the car... Which did 250+ track miles over the two days and averaged 10MPG.

1. The handling is spot on ('needed' ARBs not withstanding), no hint of understeer when pushing manically into corners and trailing the brake in the slower stuff gave no hint of tail swapping oversteer, just a progressive slew as the weight shifted that was arrested with a twitch of opposite lock on 'corner' exit - mostly done in the slow'ish box chicanes to get the car straight and flat so you could get the power down 'early'. You could induce oversteer with the throttle through a corner or in corner exit, but so what? Well balanced for that track I feel... Really inspired confidence to push hard and was 'honest' in the feed-back it gave.

    

As an illustration of the effect of ARBs - The car on the right is far more 'upright' through the corner.

Me	Trev roughly in the same position

Images © Nigel Jones 2006

2. Braking... was progressing with plenty of feel for what was happening, (I only locked the fronts up once in the whole two days). The peddle was fine through out, with heat in the brakes not being an issue, the Green Stuff pads worked very well. Indeed, I think I could have left the braking points later than I was by big margin.

3. The Engine.... Well, the engine is fan-flippin-tastic. On the main straight, (which was in fact two quarter mile straights linked by a very nice kink), I kept getting too excited and forgetting to change into 6th - and we'd still arrive at the braking point doing over 110mph (two up for the most part)! It pulls from very low down and just keeps pulling way past the rev limiter I guess. The amount of torque it was producing was stunning. On the rare occasions that I stayed calm and stopped grinning like an idiot (I.E. changed into top) the car managed to gross over 120mph, again by the clock and GPS. Plus the fact that out dragging a 400bhp V8 does tend to put a smirk on your face.

4. The Clutch was perfect... I'd installed the softer springs (twice the rate of the Honda/Barnett/EBC jobs) a while ago and the lockup was sporting one washer/pawl... This did the job with no hint of slippage for the whole two days. I've since removed the clutch for a quick check... and all the frictions are around 3mm (with a 2.6 service limit and a 2.9/3.1'ish nominal), several of the plains had slight bluing which was easily removed with some 800grit W&D and the springs are the same length as when they were installed (and no, I'm not telling you what that was). I did find that I had broken a weld on the clutch end cable bracket re-enforcement, such was the weight going on the mech!

5. The Cooling was spot on... Day one was cooler than day two... and I wasn't really pushing the car too hard, and the temps didn't get over 85°C. Day two was a lot warmer, (and I was pushing the car harder), but the temps stayed under 90°C until the W/I jet blocked and then crept up to 95°C and only stayed there in the high revs/low speed parts of the circuit, they dropped quickly back to 85 - 90°C in the faster sections of the circuit. Amazing how much cooling was provided by the water injection (around 7 to 10°C)! Think I'll reinstall the 0.5mm jet and do some tests.

6. The Tyres... were frankly amazing, wet or dry. In the wet the level of grip was stunning, but in the dry I never really found out how good they were...  Well if you don't count all the 'chirping' they were doing mid corner and exit..., But I was no where near the limits for the most part under braking... A confidence thing I feel, given that the chicanes were a "get through or hit things" deal. I've ordered another set of 48s, but will keep this set and bung them on a cheap (if I can find such a mythical item) set of steels that will do for track events.

7. My 'Trackday Nose' did sterling work, had two very impressive dents in the pretty gold grill, (by events end), which was black by last thing on day one. I could also hear the Ali chin skimming the ground in the hard braking zones by mid-day two... He he he. The radiator was trying to eat it's way out of the cone on the right side, so when I do a somewhat better job with GRP over the winter, I'll put a bulge where the top corners of the rad are.

8. In Conclusion: The car is flippin' fast, it handles like a dream, it's well balanced and honest with feed-back under acceleration, braking and cornering being spot on - can't really ask for more...  And in all seriousness, all but one of the sessions I did was two up and yet the car 'managed rather well' to say the least!

So, to the 'niggles'... But thankfully there were few.

1. The turbo oil feed pipe weeped under high pressure, so you had the smell of burning oil in the slow bits and a bit of smoke. I've never been that impressed with the fitting, cough, "Holeshot", cough. Think Automotive have since made me up a far better fitting - Service Plus from them.

2. The magnificent oil rail I made - also weeped, damn it... It turns out it had two pin prick holes in the pipe fitting welds that probably squirted about half a cup full of oil into the engine bay over the two days... But boy did it make a mess. Oil hose as replacement until I can get some stainless in the right size bent up.

3. In my excitement, after checking the clutch before the event... I'd forgotten to refit the gear selector shaft extension fitting, (lock-up clutch = clutch cover spacer = gear selector shaft extension), so on day two on the second to last session the car would be fine... and then the shaft would move forward and leave you with no means to change up/down and stuck in what ever the previous gear to the attempted change was. Me stuuupid! A solid testament to the design and strength of the Fireblade engine that day one and nearly all of day two were fine!

4. The water injection packed up for the last two sessions on day two... Blocked jet. The really really annoying thing was I was going to change the jet over from the 0.4mm for a 0.5mm - but time was pushing on and I never had the chance. It meant that I was down on 'omph' when the turbo was boosting at max and frankly, the difference is astounding. Water temps were elevated and the expected 'push' when the injection was due to come on was indeed noticeable.

5. The car ate a set of Yoko 48M's... The rears I'm particularly proud of. Admittedly they'd been on the car for a year and a half, but even so :-)

6. That was it!

So, all in all, think I'll hang on to the car for a while yet... I was only overtaken twice in the whole two days: Once by a four wheel drive thingy in the belting rain... And I let a Lotus Sunbeam slicked tarmac rally car through, as he seemed a 'bit too keen for his own good', then tailed him until he span off. So, all in all I think I'd be hard pushed to find another project that was as good as this one :-)))))

To the Track event...

My thanks goes to the RAF, Jason and his team did a remarkable job over the two days, the organisation was faultless, the guys were friendly, interested & approachable and the circuit was superb, (apart from the abrasive diamond like dust on the track... Stripped the paint off the wing mirror extensions!). To top it off, they raised all that money for local organisations... Pretty damn good.

Can you do another one please?

Index...

Our (slightly out of focus for some reason) images:

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Nigel's images:

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Bob's images 1:

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Alan's images:

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The other Surrey attendees:

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