Track Day Report
Originally booked the day with the intent of taking both the Elise and the Four but the weather gods decided to be unkind and I had to leave the Elise at base
It stayed dry until I arrived at the circuit but as soon as the drivers briefing finished it was raining cats and dogs, boy was I glad I'd taken the Four. It was real rally weather.
Main objective for the day was to try my latest cooling mod to see if had cured the 'problem' of pumping out Mr T's expensive red coolant from the expansion tank. The Koyo ally rad comes with a 0.9bar cap which is the same rating as the stock rad cap. The size is the same as the intercooler cap so I swapped the 1.5bar TRD cap from the intercooler to the rad.
After three sessions mostly in cool wet conditions the standard temp gauge hadn't moved above 'normal' but the expansion tank had filled and there were signs of coolant spillage in the vicinity. The MoTeC logs downloaded at the end of the day show that temps never exceeded 90deg on track. Steve suggested the extra capacity of the Koyo (approx double the standard rad) may have exceeded the capacity of the stock plastic expansion tank when it expands under hard driving conditions. We also observed that the coolant in the expansion tank DOES siphon back into the rad as it cools. Quite how this happens we are not sure.
I am now looking at pricing a swirl tank, expansion tank and hoses to replicate our friends from Chatteris setup.
Driving wise, it was pretty successful. The only faster cars were mainly fully prepped race cars running race wets. There was a Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale being driven at impossible speed practicing for the Britcar 24hr race in a couple of weeks time. I left the car on KYB damper setting 2 (mild soft) and the ARB was set to full hard. As the track dried out later in the afternoon the levels of grip seemed to reduce
but I suspect this was because I was possibly driving harder 
. A Porsche 911 Turbo was only really able to break away down the Hangar straight. Round the twisties we were right on its tail.I suspect in the dry it would be a different story but once I get the new wheels and tyres sorted we will be back up there.
Casualties on the day were a Porsche 911, Mazda MX5 and Ginetta? all due to the drivers running out of talent on the wet track
Next outing will be Bookatrack Goodwood on 29/09/05 where I should have my wideband AFR installed and, hopefully, the MXL dash/datalogger
