Wakefield Park Track Day - Friday 25th of November!!

[RONA]

^^ Is your car still borked from the last day or did you bother to fix it instead of dropping the 5s in.

[Roundy]

would you believe still borked??

Can-not be fucked to pull the intercooler off and back on for that stupid farken hose.

Buying a block of land is what has really slowed the progress, $$$ tied up in the deposit there for another 2 weeks or so.

Almost got all the bits to put it back together though...i think.

[tir33d]

seem to remember unlimited budget and time to get that motor built, that was before your last track day (think that may have been when you blew mine up). That was over 3 months ago, you work as slow as you drive.

[YLD-16L]

Big thanks to Garth for organising today, was fun sliding around.

Hopefully it's dry for the next one!

[Draven]

dude with the LS1 280 - tell your mate he looks like Noddy getting around in that thing, with his melon hanging out the top

[GUN METAL]

so while you guys were getting loose on a nice slippery track i was at work in a 4 hour meeting

more vids please

[Brendan]

Woo for 4 hour meetings...

Thanks for organising the day Garth. It all went very smoothly and weren't any problems.

Car was fairly reliable during the day which was nice. 2 stopages... one for a loose screw in the ball joint of the gear stick that stopped me getting in to 1st, 3rd or 5th... and one for two bolts on the left rear suspension i obviously forgot to do up... lol.

Sorry I didn't get many pictures this time. Was busy driving, checking the car and the rain wasnt great for photos.

[simmosideways]

Here's a small clip from my phone to give you an idea on how slippery it was out there:


Also I ran out and got a few quick photos.. forgot my tripod at home.. fairly difficult when you have ~450mm of zoom but nonetheless here are some random shots from the short period of time I was there.

[BlackSupra]

Well apart from bending a guard and losing some rubber the car remains mechanically sound after finalising assembly at 1am and bleeding the coolant after the drivers briefing!

Didn't run too many laps due to my little adventure and the constant drizzle however it was more laps than Vito + GT's cars combined so always looking for bright side.

Key takeouts:

- Power delivery not suited for a wet track
- Tail end now much lighter and unsettled
- New brakes are great
- As previously mentioned - still beat work

Garth - thanks for organising the day!

[JET93T]

First of all a big thanks to Garth for organising the day out yesterday! I had an absolute blast out there, even though the weather was pretty ordinary and just worsened throught the afternoon! All in all but im very happy with the car, brakes and suspension can do with abit more work but that will come in time and will be ready for the next toymods trackday in 2012!

Cheers Lee

[trdee]

Oh geez, here goes.


Thursday arvo
- Car is running fine on the way to work, although I have noticed that the car has had some intermittent starting problems in the last few days. Think it's either fouled plugs or unconfigured cold cranking settings and think no more of it. Turn up at brooks road after work without issue.

- Waiting 11 billion years as usual for garth to turn up, so decide to go down the road and top up the fuel tank and jerry can. As I pull into the servo I notice a new whiney noise from the engine bay... hope it isnt anything serious and stop the car to fill up. Have a cursory look in the engine bay, check I'm not pissing out oil/belts are tight.. ok not much else i can do here.

- Pull out from servo, notice my volt gauge is reading much lower than normal.... no wai, that whiney noise plus low voltage says one thing to me; alternator on its way out. WTF!! OF ALL DAYS!!!! CMON MAN!!...


- The car still seems to be running ok and nothing dimming/cutting out with water to air pump running, headlights, wipers, stereo etc....im over an hour away from home now so theres not much point turning back anyway so decide to push on.

- Make it almost 100km down the road to the usual servo stop. Car wont start again. plug the laptop in and it's reading 10-11V, crank and it drops to 6V. Fuck.... Get damo's jumper pack on it and it starts up again. Sweet. Not much further to goulburn now anyway, hopefully I can limp it there

- Limp along the rest of the way, coming up to the last stretch before the goulburn exit and I notice the dash lights dimming, volt gauge falling, wideband O2 goes into error mode.... I am on the phone at this point warning garth that the car is about to shit itself and get ready to pull over when/if it happens. Im praying to all the car gods to get my to the goulburn exit where I can then coast downhill all the way into town pretty much...

- NOPE! Car cuts out halfway up the very last hill before the goulburn exit... Garth and mark were both with me and pull over with me and get their hazards on in front and behind me as my car doesnt even have enough juice for that anymore. Pop the bonnet and get damo's jumper pack out again. Notice one of the battery terminals is loose. Nip it up only very mildly and the thread snaps off clean with the face of the battery....... i'm almost in hysterics at this point.

- Garth then has the gun idea to connect the jumper pack directly to the terminals to replace the battery. Ok then, hook it up, switch jumper pack on. Not enough juice left in it to start the car after it was used at the servo. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. Get on the phone to bardin to see if he can come down with the battery out of brendan's car, and then garth suggest we roll start the adub and see if the car will run on its own... Only thing is the car is halway up a hill.

- Fuck it, grab reverse and garth and mark push the car backwards down the highway, pop clutch, car splutters, pops and comes to life! ZOMG!!! I get moving immediately and bail the fuck out of there before a truck flattens me and limp it the rest of the way to the sheep station with the jumper pack providing juuust enough juice to get me there. Arrive at the pelo at something like 1am.. fuck it, it's cold, dark and raining. leave the car and go inside and smash a shit tonne of beer.

Friday
- Get up in the morning, pretty sure the alternator is carked at this point although it is weird that the car went so far on the battery and also on the jumper pack after that. Decide the first course of action to be to go to the local wreckers and see if they have a 4age alternator and then head into town and get another battery so I can start the car and drive it over to the track where I can work on it in the pits instead of the mud at the pelican and properly diagnose exactly what is going on... before I leave lenjiman comes up to me and asks whilst im there If I can get a U-clip for his shifter linkages, as his went walkabout and now he can't select gears.

- Go to wreckers with finney driving his car, ask for alternator. Guy says sure no worries we have a couple corollas here come back in an hour and we will have one for you. Ask for U-clip, wrecker looks at me funny and then goes "yeah no worries". At the same time, Garth calls me. "Hey mate can you ask the wreckers if they have a spare passenger side driveshaft for my rolla? I busted another shaft", ask the wrecker about this too and now I am getting some seriously weird looks. I guess asking for three completely unrelated random items all from a '92 corolla would look a bit weird.....

- Go into town to get another battery since i fucked the terminal on mine the night before, and now also to get garth some more gearbox oil for when he needs to change his driveshaft. He tells me to get nothing but penrite 75-90. No worries... Go to supercheap, get battery, go to oil aisle. The only compatible oils they have are nulon 75-90 and castrol VMX80. Fucksake, call garth, no answer. He was out on the track doing laps in Damo's beemer. FFS!@!!!

- Go back to the wreckers, the guy had forgot whether I wanted a manual or auto driveshaft but said he took a punt and assumed manual. No worries, look at driveshaft, rusted to fuck.... Guy says he will go grab one out of another car and come back later. Ok no worries, ask about alternator. Wrecker points to an alternator on the desk... its a 4AFE alternator, thus not any use to me. At this point I was like ;



- Look around in desperation, spot an alternator which looks very similar to a 4AGE alternator sitting in a wheelbarrow. Point it out and the wrecker says it's an SV21 unit. HRMMM. Tell him ill be back later to grab said alternator and the driveshaft when he gets it out and head back to the pelican to try start the car and get it to the pits with the new battery.

- Go to pelican, go to swap battery in... posts are juuuuuust too small for the terminals. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. Go back to goulburn, get battery with bigger posts. Come back and try start the car with the new battery. Still wont start. Check plugs and they are fouled. FFS (also found my oil leak at this point, it's the cam cover seals..)

- Swap plugs, try start car, new battery is now also flat. fuck my life.. Try roll start it, wheels simply lock up in the mud at the pelican and I am quickly out of room. The ground is too muddy for finney and I alone to push the car back up the hill so we go back to WP and get Garth (who now tells me nulon 75-90 will do) and wiso and ryan to help us. Push it back up the hill, juuuust get it roll-started. Quickly limp it over to the pits at wakefield and ryan cracks out the multi, alternator is showing 10-12V, so it's sorta kinda charging but not really. Huzzah! Problem confirmed.

- Pull alternator with the help of wiso. As I'm doing this I switch the battery isolator off, only to find that the battery isolator doesnt isolate my alternator when the power cable starts arcing on the firewall almost burning wiso... FUCK! (just checked with blake and the master switch kills the charge circuit but the alternator has its own separate isolator using a circuit breaker behind the seat, d'oh! ) Disconnect battery completely and continue. Find that the brushes in them are worn out (there's yer problem......), go to wreckers with wiso. Wreckers are closed for lunch. Once again, I'm like


- Go to town instead, get lunch, get Garth's gearbox oil, get subway. go back to wreckers once theyre open again, grab much better looking driveshaft, compare my alternator to SV21 alternator. Charging post is in the opposite side, but otherwise it looks identical. Sweet, take shaft and alt.

- Go back to pitlane, it is now about 2:30pm. Chuck oil and driveshaft at Garth and then the race is on for the both of us to get our cars sorted before the end of the day. Swap my rectifier board over to the new alternator (GZE system is external reg, SV21 is internal) and then proceed to spend half an hour bashing the siezed slide pin in the lower alternator mount out far enough so i can slide the new alt in.

- FINALLY get the alternator in, battery has juuust enough charge to start the car. Car starts, instantly the volts gauge is back to normal, ecu reading 14.5V. HAPPY TIMES!! It is now 3:20, track closes at 3:30.

- Throw EVERYTHING (i thought, but actually i had forgot damo's jumper pack behind my seat, which then annoyingly clunked around for the entire time i was out there) out of the car, no time to make a new battery mount so brendan (i think) drops it in the bottom of the frunk and braces it with my box of fluids lol. Get my helmet and shit on and jump in the car and head out on the track and have 6 of some of the most exhilirating laps I have ever done at wakefield. With the new alignment settings the car is supremely controllable (for an adub....) and the turbo is simply HILARIOUS!! I was constantly fighting the car to keep it in a straight line, even getting wheelspin shifting into third on the main straight as the turbo spun back up onto full boost boost. The fishook was now a double oversteer corner. Once on initial power out due to low speed/wet/steering lock, and then the second time after it had already been corrected and was coming back onto line and then the turbo would finally spool up and instantly send me 45deg to the track again. The car was bullshit quick, easily getting into 4th on the main straight even though I was only pottering out of turn ten at like 30kmh thanks to my bald ass semislicks. After 6 or so laps the alternator belt started slipping (wasnt tensioned enough in my haste to get out there) and I decided to call it a day before I broke something else. I came back into the pits with a grin from ear to ear, and got well sloshed to celebrate at the pelican afterwards.

Saturday
- Woke up, hungover as fuck, jump in car. Starts, idles, and then takes me all the way from goulburn to sydney on only half a tank of fuel and without a single other issue to mention.


I dont know if I am the luckiest or unluckiest person in the world, considering all the problems I had, yet still being able to drive the car to and from the track on my own....


THE END

[Brendan]

Bananaman in the MR2 showing it was a bit slippery.

[wagonist]

Another great day out done and dusted. The track being wet & cold first up meant trying to drive in anything resembling a line was difficult. Getting heat into the rear tyres was pretty much impossible, and resulted in several spins and a black flag before 9am...
Was probably not the best day to be trying out a stiffer rear sway bar...

Pity about the weather, but the 1 hour in the middle of the day where a dry line appeared was great.

Ended up having to give up just after lunch (when the heavens opened up again) with battery troubles.
The alternator belt was squealing like a pig, but even after tightening, the battery wasn't getting charged up.
So, like Vito (I told him not to touch my car), looks like I'm up for a replacement alternator, but hopefully not a new battery.

[Brendan]

[Cuzzo]

Ahhhh...that was a gt40 at the end?