Prism7guy's track car

[Prism7guy]

I've not updated this thread for a while so i'll just give a brief update, mostly pictures.

I had issues with the locknuts vibrating loose on the wishbones, causing some knocking noises, i had tried spring washers which were a waste of time. In the end i decided to resort to a couple of tacks to hold the nuts in place.


Next up, i decided to measure what sort of bump steer i was getting as the car would turn in much more once i'd loaded the suspension up when turning into a corner meaning i'd have to let off some lock to compensate. Theres more info on how i did this in the project thread on the gti6 forum, it'll take too long to explain it from scratch here, although for anyone interested there are several useful sources on the internet to read up on if it does interest you.




Above is basically just plots in different colours for the various sizes of spacer used between the upright and the track rod end, after a lot of trial and error i decided to go for a 4mm spacer with my setup as there is very little bump steer at this setting.


The new spacers.

The new settings are a big improvement over what i had previously.

Next issue was oil weeping from the take off area. As you can see below the design of the 'charger bracket meant it was difficult to nip up the take off plate, so i made a new mount that sits between that plate and the 'charger, it also means it's much easier to secure the 'charger down now as trying to get your fingers in to the back of that plate to hold a nyloc in place was a nightmare, the new bracket has been drilled, tapped and helicoiled so i just need to put a bolt through the 'charger and screw it into the helicoil now.
I also ordered new jic fittings which came with the correct size dowty seals, which i'd been struggling to source elsewhere. Since doing this there are no more signs of oil weeping out.





The next issue was the single skin bonnet flapping about at higher speeds. I bought some aluminium flat bar, spent a few hours slowly bending it into the correct profile (harder than it sounds!). After that i bonded them on with some epoxy resin.



I also bought a fresh set of tyres, Nankang AR-1's. I'm very impressed with them especially for the price, and i'll choose these over R888's from now on.



I took the car to Cadwell for a trackday, it performed pretty well all day.



The only real issue was one of the aluminium strips coming off the bonnet, so i remedied this when i got home by bonding some extra kevlar over them. Much stiffer now!




After the successful day at Cadwell i took the car to the nurburgring for a long weekend.









Unfortunately the weather was pretty terrible all weekend, and on the rare occasions that it did dry out a little there would be a rush of people going round and inevitably several crashes causing the track to close for another few hours, in which time it would rain again and start of the vicious cycle.

The two best laps that i managed are linked below, the top one is a 9:10BTG with three yellow flags, i also slow down for a corner which had had a fluid spill on it a few minutes earlier when i was passengering in a mates car, so i thought it best to take steady just incase it was still slippy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k_by1gWAB0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnVe-KzwmK4

The video above was my final lap of the weekend, as you may be able to hear early on i had some issues.
Two of the bolts that hold the supercharger bracket to the engine bracket sheared, causing the 'charger to twist on the two remaining bolts. This caused the pulley damper setup to rub on the inner wing as it slowly destroyed itself.







I didnt have any spares for this with me (although i did have a spare 'charger haha), so i fitted a short aux belt just to run the alternator, removed some of the boost pipework and stuck the air filter on the throttle body so i could run it n/a to get me home, which it did.

Since then i've made a start on making the new damper parts and made a couple of design improvements too, this time i'm using two pieces of aluminium flat which have been drilled, tapped and helicoiled to make use of the six mounting holes in the engine bracket, which are now using high tensile bolts to hold it, and also using high tensile bolts to hold the supercharger bracket down to these spacers. The previous setup just used long stainless bolts and four tubular spacers relying on the clamp force to keep everything in place.
I also made a spare of each damper component too, just incase i have more bad luck in the future!







And finally i made a small bracket that sits under the inlet manifold to hold a coolant hose securely out of the way of any harm, that hose runs from the thermostat take-off to the header tank.

That's the car up to date for now i think, i'm just waiting for some more high tensile bolts to arrive so i can finish mounting the 'charger and reconnect the boost pipes.
This winters job will be to buy a plate diff and look at re routing the boost pipe between the intercooler and throttle body. I might even fit a smaller 'charger pulley and get it remapped depending on whether funds allow.