Hello

Just quick note on my day at Brands on Thursday, £150 open pit lane, misty start to tee shirts by 12.00

I was a bit worried about restrictive overtaking on straights only, but in reality everything was fine, apart from a couple of tatty 328 BMW's I had the cheapest car there, loads of Caterham's both R300 and R400 plus a pair of Busa radicals and a Busa Turbo Caterham with inboard front suspension...

Turbo blade power rocks, the only car faster than me was the Busa turbo Caterham, on a par with the radicals on acceleration then pulled away on Brabham straight, they topped out at ~120mph, I hit the rev limiter 2/3rds way down the pits so ~130mph, 11,500 rpm with 3.14 diff and slicks.

Simply drove by all the other cars out there so no frustrations on being bulked.

The track is absolutely superb, as you drop down from paddock hill bend to Harewood hill when you get it right you really feel the car load up as you hit the bottom of the slope, Druids is a slow in then slide the back out gently as you yomp down to Graham Hill bend. You can really attack this as plenty of space to slide across to the cobbles, flat out in 5th before braking a little for Surtees ~100mph then slowing down for McLaren (its very tempting to hit this fast but you muck up clearways), hugging the bend in 4th , rear gently sliding out ~110mph through Clark curve grab 5th then staying close to the pit wall getting into 6th as you start to go by the pits.

Car is running 7 PSI of inter-cooled boost on a completely standard 919 blade engine and weighs a lardy 430kg….

I got the Turbo from Scootz, it’s an Aerodyne variable vane tricky thing, no lag and 7PSI from 4000 rpm. This is a great bit of kit, no oil pipes of extra cooling to worry about, megasquirted with 954 blade TB’s.

I spent a fair bit of time setting up the corner weights and got some free tuition just before and after lunch, 250lb springs front 220lb rear same track both ends tyres 16.5 PSI hot… they gain 3 – 4 PSI from cold so a few laps required to get to speed. Instructor described my car as a quick bit of kit, 2 up slows it down!

Unable to video as my SD recorder kept locking up, switched to record to my Laptop but once on the track it reported hard disc errors and bombed out. Looking on Ebay there are now some HD SD DVR’s 30FPS for £70 so will get one of those for next time.

For your £150 you can have two drivers and two passengers at no extra cost, so if 4 people get together it could be a really cheap day out.

Only downside, the rich brigade were all a bit clicky, overheard the radical chap telling someone the basic kit starts at £50k + £5000 for the engine.. makes my £3,500 locost look pretty good value, God knows what the turbo Caterham cost, the manifold was a work of art, huge separate wastegate and expensive ECU plugged into his laptop.

Cheers Mark

Hey Mark,

Nice write up, brands is a great track. I think i may have seen you on your way there, at the M25 Junction 3 Roundabout at about 8.15?

[Edited on 31/10/09 by Project7]

Not me I,m afraid, I went across country as south of Brands. There were around 25 Caterhams, two or three were silver/black so must have been one of them.

Regards Mark

enjoyed reading that mate.

Is the turbo a new install? How did you got about setting it up? I imagine a megasquirt map for a turbo fireblade lump is hard to come by!

Mapped with a wideband sensor, and used Megatune viewer to build a map from logged data.

You just run the WB output back into megasquirt, drive gently and use the software to build a map and keep repeating driving harder each time. I was quoted ~£300 to put on a rolling road, I would rather do a couple of track days, just guess the initial values keeping it rich so as not to overcook things.

Alternative is to use autotune which is built into megasquirt, had good results with this as well.

Once you get going it really is that simple.

Regards Mark

After reading that, i want to get mine to brands now

Glad you enjoyed it Mark and put those slicks to good use (bloody great aren't they).

Slicks are indeed great, able to carry loads of speed through the bends as as it steps out of line easy to opposite steer and bring back, they still have loads of life left as well.

Just been searching youtube for someone else's video of the day, and it was not a caterham turbo but a DAX that was faster than me, however not surprised as it was this one dax_rush_mc, holds the 0 - 100 - 0 record 350 BHP... so was hugely expensive so got that bit right!!!

I cannot wait to go again, just need the weather to improve.

Regards Mark

We are looking to go on the 19th but will wait until last knockings to book whilst watching the weather forecast after our drowning in France.

Ping me nearer the day, if weather is good I will come as well.

Cheers Mark

Hi


Was the car a silver colour with red stripes,

if so was duncans car

video here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wxdu9vE0RM

has over 400+ bhp @ wheels not holeshot racing though it was done by geoff page racing,

he is a good friend of mine and as we all know a very capable driver,

cheers

sean