MrLizard Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 (edited) 350z on the Donington GP loop! It has been a few late afternoons and a bit of a baptism of fire lately with the Z. I had decided in my infinite wisdom that it made sense to try and work on the car at my house rather than store it with Abbey as I have been struggling with getting work done on the car living so far away - most of the work being cosmetic simple stuff. So recently we have: Fitted new Seibon carbon wings (nightmare) Fitted flush aero catches (nightmare with cherry on top) Changed the rear lexan screen (had to drill out about 30 bolts) Change the seating position and runners (known pain in the ass) Re-gas the fire extinguisher (gave it to lifeline - this was easy) change the harnesses (fitments different) Get the MXL data dash connection working! (arrrrrrghhh!) Also in amongst this I have brought some pork and proposed to the mrs Britcar has always been a dream of mine, since seeing RJN running their 350z back in 2005 at the 24hour race. Abbey rocked up Wednesday evening and then it was a quick stop over at Holiday Inn (dont have their scrambled egg(?) ) and then onto Donington for the morning breifing. Except there is no breifing at a test day or any scrutineering really, they just assume you know what your doing, which fortunately Mark did I thought I would take a walk up and down the pit lane as i always seem to get attacked by nerves before a proper test day... well my nerves were calmed when I saw the following: GT3 Ginetta LMP2 car F3 cars assorted v12 Mantra GT4 Aston GT4 Ferrari 458 1998 Clio 2.0 So its going to be a day of checking mirrors Car having just been setup to now run slicks, trying a slightly softer setting and working our way back in pit road about to go out on a brand new set of dunlop soft slicks chatting about setups and looking at lap times Some of the other things on track These things move like nothing else on the track, braking so late with so much grip - most of them were fair with space apart from one idiot but still no one colided New member of the team Simon who is obsessed with redbull Making some adjustment to setup Ensuring that the slicks dont ruin the guys from Dunlop had suggested that we make sure the car is in the air when not moving for longer than a few minutes when the tyres are hot. Initially I struggled to get the tyres to turn on, though im guessing that was the gel coat and the lack of pressure, when they did come on the car just came alive - laptimes immediately dropped and the pressures on the tyres shot up. Mark made some adjustments in the pits and dropped the pressures, we tried disconnecting the ARB's to see whether we were going in the right direction The car was getting slightly quicker but most of the time needed to come from me really. I kept pushing and the car felt good, the brakes got up to temperature - with the grip and the AP's we were gaining a lot of time on the brakes. As the car got better however I was getting more tired and started becoming less smooth, turning into Coppice I got the car a bit too sideways which happened to coincide with the esc snatching the front left brake to try and straighten it up which sent me wide and through the gravel, i kept the wheels spinning in 4th with my foot pinned to the floor and got out but having jumped through the air I was fairly certain we had caused some damage. Team set to work on the car straight away and although collecting a lot of stones I hadnt caused too much damage other than to the underside of the splitter and my pride The rest of the session saw the car have a few other issues where we saw the car dropping the Oil pressure below a set threshold on the dash and putting the car into limp mode and at the same corner after resolving the oil pressure we saw a fuel pressure sensor get triggered, a little look and it seemed we had broke one of the two fuel pumps. For those that know Donny the first corner is a series so I was going into it in 3rd, then still turning into 4th, still turning into 5th before dropping into craners which meant all the fuel/oil was being pushed to the left of the car whilst i was flat to the floor... Mark worked some trickery with the ECU and brimmed the tank to try and allow the car to get past the issues and we were off again. Some data from the dash This is showing wheel spin on corner entry/exit Fuel pressure Oil pressure GPS Speed around the lap Also proud to announce that we have a new sponsor for next year - more details shortly Big Thanks to Abbey Motorsport for all the support! Ta Steve Edited June 17, 2016 by MrLizard 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kieran O'Quick Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 Interesting read. Car looks great. When/where are you racing next? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrLizard Posted June 17, 2016 Author Share Posted June 17, 2016 Hi Kieran, next race is Oulton I think but we may practice before, I shall let you know, free sausage or bacon batch for all support =) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veilside z Posted June 18, 2016 Share Posted June 18, 2016 Great post buddy. Good luck with the future outings. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martybhoy Posted June 19, 2016 Share Posted June 19, 2016 Really enjoyed reading that. Look forward to more updates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrLizard Posted June 19, 2016 Author Share Posted June 19, 2016 Thanks guys will keep you posted =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Banz Posted June 19, 2016 Share Posted June 19, 2016 GT3 Ginetta LMP2 car F3 cars assorted v12 Mantra GT4 Aston GT4 Ferrari 458 1998 Clio 2.0 So its going to be a day of checking mirrors Sorry for being ignorant, but what does it mean? Are you saying that they are much slower or faster than you? My guess is that 350z won't have any chance against those cars? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrLizard Posted June 20, 2016 Author Share Posted June 20, 2016 GT3 Ginetta LMP2 car F3 cars assorted v12 Mantra GT4 Aston GT4 Ferrari 458 1998 Clio 2.0 So its going to be a day of checking mirrors Sorry for being ignorant, but what does it mean? Are you saying that they are much slower or faster than you? My guess is that 350z won't have any chance against those cars? Mostly they are much quicker, though I would have been disappointed if we hadn't had a fight with the Seat/BMW/Mini/Clio etc Turned out that in the corners we were on par with most things (that weren't aero monsters) got a good few laps behind the Aston GT4 car and it obviously had the legs in a straight line but wasn't up to much in the twisties There is a lot to be said for setup and balls, having said that we are in the process of fitting a sequential box and a built engine - My aim is to be in class 3 endurance which would be with the ASton's/Ginetta gt4 etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djtimo Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 Great write up mate! Need some details on the slicks if you can? Have you upgraded wheel studs/bearings?? Any issues running slicks part from oil/fuel starve?? Last thing... when are you at oulton mate, I'm 30 mins away ill come down and see you/the car Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrLizard Posted June 21, 2016 Author Share Posted June 21, 2016 hey tim, will let you know when we are at Oulton - looking forward to that as not raced there before We haven't done an awful lot to take the slicks - we have replaced the front wheel bearings recently and as you can see we swapped wheels to something a bit stronger than the rota's we had before. slicks were 265 all round, ran the setup square with 10" rims on all corners. It battered the clutch though and it was more important to heel toe as well, even if you get the gear shift going up spot on it was still slipping the clutch slightly between 3/4th. Keep your eye on that with the torq your running 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shooze Posted August 10, 2016 Share Posted August 10, 2016 What spoiler are you running bud? Looks fantastic! Id love to get this serious with my Z! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrLizard Posted August 11, 2016 Author Share Posted August 11, 2016 Hi Shooze - its the ings+1 spoiler in carbon, they used to be silly money but not as bad now if you can find one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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