Snetterton - CSCC final race of 2014

The final race of the year was at Snetterton, and after a wet qualifying the race was dry! 

 

After a few good battles we finished 1st in Class to take the overall season victory for 2014 for the CSCC Modern Classics!

We also raced in the New Millenium race which will be a new class for 2015

Brake upgrade to Tarox!

Whilst the stopping power of the 4 pot Brembo GT Senior kit was good with the fully floating race disks etc. they finally overheated and warped the disks, plus melted the rubber seals etc. 

Time to go even bigger on the brakes and with the advice from the kind people at Tarox UK we have now fitted the Tarox 6 pot calliper kit on the front which also now matches our Tarox rear brake kit.

  Brambo vs Tarox

 Here you can see the difference in the pad surface area

 4 pot vs 6 pot

 Easy acess for changing the pads and bleeding

 Took less than an hour to fit the including new braded lines etc.

Forge Action Day

The TT was on track at the Forge Motorsports Action day @ Castle Combe!

Here's the link to the photos: <here>

Forge Oil Catch Tank

One of the known issues with the 1.8T VAG engine is that is vents excessive oil vapor from the crank case back into the air intake. This oil vapor not only reduces the engine efficiency but slowly clogs up the intercooler etc.
Also if you fill the oil level past 50% on the hatched area on the dip stick this can get really bad!

Recently I slightly overfilled the TT and this resulted in spewing oil out of the crank case vent into the air intake and ultimately killed the MAF and soaked the air filter in think oil - you have been warned!

There is a simple solution and that is an oil catch tank, Forge Motorsport make one specifically for the TT that fits snugly into the engine bay (The shiny silver cylinder):

This helps remove the oil form the air and stores it in the little tank, this will need emptying every now and then, if you are racing after every race weekend.

Silverstone and Donington

We had a great race at Silverstone with the 750MC, after a poor qualifying (because I didn't know the Intonational Track), we made up 10 places to finish 16th:




There were Flames at Donington with the CSCC:

New TT Race Car Wing

As the TT has got faster and faster we are starting to stuggle with rear downforce in high speed corners!

Simple Solution a big carbon fiber wing:

We also removed the rear 18Kg steel counter weight hiding under the rear bumper (Audi you should be ashamed).

Class win at Anglesey

We had a good race at Anglesey with the CSCC:

Note the addition of a chin spoiler/splitter and the TTS look rear spoiler! 

We also carbon fiber vinyl wrapped the rear valance.

New Forge Race Intercooler

Whilst our original front mounted intercooler was an improvement on the OEM side mounted ones it was really designed for road use, for racing we needed a much bigger one!

We opted for the Forge Motorsports Race intercooler:

At the same time we added an oil cooler too.

We have now raced a couple of times using the race intercooler and the power difference is amazing!

Even though the charge pipe is too hot to touch the intercooler exit pipe is stone cold to the touch!

Silverstone May 2014

For our first race of the season we raced at Silverstone with the 750MC in the Cartek Roadsports series.

We still hadn't had chance to see if the new fuel pump had cured the fuel delivery issues so it was straight into the deep end.

For qualifying we had an intermittent issue with the turbo pressure and ultimately the turbo control valve feed pipe split, but not before we had managed to put in a respectable quali time.
Assuming that this was the issue we temporally fixed the pipe that had split at one end  (buy cutting off the end) and it was race time.

Unfortunately the split pipe was masking another fault that was a dodgy N75 turbo control valve. So for the first half of the race we had intermittent turbo power. Then half way through it suddenly started working properly and we were 4s per lap faster. Unfortunately this was to little to late but at least we finished the race and enjoyed driving TTRS flat out around Silverstone.

We have since replaced the N75 Valve (to the brown one mounted upside down )and also uprated the feed pipes to the diverter valve and the with silicone ones from Forge.

Read the full report in TrackDriver Magazine

Bosch 044 Secondary Fuel Pump

Highlighted at our recent dyno testing at Shark Performance it appears that the injectors were wide open at 5000 rpm. This was causing the engine to run lean (not good) and ultimately shut down and loose power, we were using 550cc Bosch uprated injectors so this should happen. Time for a secondary race fuel pump!

It's a bit of an overkill but we went for the industry standard Bosch 044 as used in BTCC race cars etc. on the TT in fits neatly where the fuel filter sits and you can relocate the fuel filter in-line just before the fuel rail.

The secret here is to get a set of adapters from Badger 5 that fit the standard TT fuel connectors!

We also fitted a race fuel filter while we were at it:

 We used a 100A slave relay off the ignition wiring to supply the high current to the pump and heavy duty wiring.

Fuel pump in it's new home. It is quite noisy and would be too loud for a road car but in the tract you can't hear it what with your helmet and all of the other noise!

In our next race @ Silverstone it worked perfectly and had cured the problem!

Forge MAP Pipe

At a recent race at Donington the MAP sensor (Manifold Absolute Pressure) went down. Usually it's a five minute job to change, however the plastic pipe it goes into has captive nuts and they were just spinning so we couldn't get the old one off! Frustrating since we had a spare.

So we decided to fit a metal MAP pipe from Forge and while we were at it re-route the intercooler pipes a bit to make it even more accessible (made possible because we have a smaller race battery):

You can get these from: www.forgemotorsport.co.uk

Bedford Autodrome Track Day

We had a nice day out with TTEvents at Bedford Autodrome:

New Hi-Flow Exhaust Manifold

During the final test session at Donington our tinpot exhaust manifold cracked. This was the weakest link since just about everything has had been uprated.

Here's what the old cast iron one looks like:

Apparently this is one of the main flow restrictions on the 1.8T engine.

Here's what the new hi-flow one from Badger 5 looks like made out high quality of cast stainless steel:

This was then ported and matched to the turbo hot side that was also ported:

Here you can see how much smaller the turbo hot side is and also that it's not concentric!

The turbo hot side now ported.

Thanks to Badger 5 for their help and advice and also PTR who worked through the night to get it ready for our next race!

 

Ginetta Media Day 2014

We had a great day at Silverstone with Ginetta testing their new GRDC Ginetta Club car.

Even came home with some Silverware! (Fastest 'Virtual' Racer on the Sim)

Testing @ Donington

We had a test day at Donington with the 750MC.
It was a wet and greasy start but brightened up later for a good day out on track - the first of the season!

Shark Performance Custom Remap

The TT was back over at Shark for a full custom remap following the fitting of the new turbo and exhaust.
Yet another jump in performance but we still have some fuel delivery issues above 5000 rpm - Time for a bigger fuel pump - me thinks :)

TT Milltek 3" race exhaust system

The TT got a new 3" de-cat race exhaust system from Millteksports today!

This was the first of it's kind and our TT was used as the template for more to come - yes you can buy one too!

Not only does this dramatically increase the air flow but it also sounds awesome!

It's also 10Kg lighter than the OEM exhaust!