MKII Golf GTI Racer
Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 12:37 pm
Before I say anything I must just thank Ian Hudson from PC&AT Hudson. I'd be completely lost without his fountain of VW knowledge and all his help 24 hours a day. I've also got to say a big thanks to Grame from Jason Cooper Racing for letting me invade the garage and steal armfuls of metal and diesel!
Its taken long enough to do and as Cadwell approaches I thought it was about time to post up a bit about the Golf. I apologise for the lack of images of the car actually being worked on, I wasn't allowed to use the camera with "manky" hands.
I had owned H814HOY for 5 years and took it off the road in September 2005. I'd been involved in oval racing since I was 15, helping to build and maintain a Superstox for a friend ans was finally tempted on track in Feb 06 on the Scoobycity tackday organised by Stu.
The car was pretty much standard at this point, the rear seats had been removed to accomodate the harness, the engine was standard altough the chassis was fully poly-bushed with AVO springs and Boge turbo gas shocks. After that, I was hooked and attended every trackday and Airfield day I could.
In November plans were announced for a new one make race series for MKII Golfs backed up by the 750MC and aimed at drivers on a budget. I promptly registered and things suddenly started to get expensive!
The 1st set of jobs consisted of removing most of the modifications I had added in the year:
Removing Brake Ducts
Swapping the 16v Hubs, removing 280mm discs and preping & fitting new 8v hubs, calipers and carriers.
From the initial flick through the rules it became clear that handling rather than power was (I hope) going to be the key to success. With that in mind I made a quick phone call to Ian Gardener of IG Racing and asked him to sort out a set of shocks and springs for me. Ian has a background in F1 and provided our World Championship winning shockers so in my mind he was the man for the job.
Over the year i'd manage to lay my hands on a mutilated 6-point Saftey Devices cage I bodged into the car in a rush for Snett in May. The MSA wouldn't like it alot so I took over the garage for the weekend and with the help of Grame, Jason and Darren we mutilated the cage a little further and added some of our own touches.
The fire extinguisher was also plumbed in and the seat was welded in at Woody's with his stick welder (bloody arc eye!)
IG Racing came up trumps and my "special"
set of Gaz shocks arrived just in time for the BP trackday in Feb. Big Stig (Jason) was having fun in the wet giving me a hand with the setup.............and picking up the NSF wheel after it came off on the Revett straight. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR NUTS! We had an oil surge problem in the afternoon and after a quick call to Chopper at HCD he knocked up some cardboard templates for sump baffles.
The next day the car was trailerd to Mallory to get the once over on the saftey front from the 750MC with no apparent issues. A bit of tweeking and tidying up was done in the next few months as our attentioned focused on running JC's and SC's Supers.
There was a test day organised by the 750MC in May and along with a couple of '07 BTCC cars the Golf hit the track. It was brilliant fun being able to dice with other cars and overtake aggresivley rather than the "after you old boy" style on the trackdays i'd attended :twisted:
The day was pleasing despite my nerves at the start of the day, the Toyo engineer couldn't believe how well we were getting the tyres to work and we managed 2nd fastest Golf overall and fastest in class
The next time the golf hits the track will be on the 28th of June to try and learn Cadwell in an afternoon!
Then its:
1st July Cadwell Park (Full)
29th July Brands (Indy)
18th August Silverstone (National)
30th September Snetterton
14th October Mallory Park
Its taken long enough to do and as Cadwell approaches I thought it was about time to post up a bit about the Golf. I apologise for the lack of images of the car actually being worked on, I wasn't allowed to use the camera with "manky" hands.
I had owned H814HOY for 5 years and took it off the road in September 2005. I'd been involved in oval racing since I was 15, helping to build and maintain a Superstox for a friend ans was finally tempted on track in Feb 06 on the Scoobycity tackday organised by Stu.
The car was pretty much standard at this point, the rear seats had been removed to accomodate the harness, the engine was standard altough the chassis was fully poly-bushed with AVO springs and Boge turbo gas shocks. After that, I was hooked and attended every trackday and Airfield day I could.
In November plans were announced for a new one make race series for MKII Golfs backed up by the 750MC and aimed at drivers on a budget. I promptly registered and things suddenly started to get expensive!
The 1st set of jobs consisted of removing most of the modifications I had added in the year:
Removing Brake Ducts
Swapping the 16v Hubs, removing 280mm discs and preping & fitting new 8v hubs, calipers and carriers.
From the initial flick through the rules it became clear that handling rather than power was (I hope) going to be the key to success. With that in mind I made a quick phone call to Ian Gardener of IG Racing and asked him to sort out a set of shocks and springs for me. Ian has a background in F1 and provided our World Championship winning shockers so in my mind he was the man for the job.
Over the year i'd manage to lay my hands on a mutilated 6-point Saftey Devices cage I bodged into the car in a rush for Snett in May. The MSA wouldn't like it alot so I took over the garage for the weekend and with the help of Grame, Jason and Darren we mutilated the cage a little further and added some of our own touches.
The fire extinguisher was also plumbed in and the seat was welded in at Woody's with his stick welder (bloody arc eye!)
IG Racing came up trumps and my "special"
set of Gaz shocks arrived just in time for the BP trackday in Feb. Big Stig (Jason) was having fun in the wet giving me a hand with the setup.............and picking up the NSF wheel after it came off on the Revett straight. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR NUTS! We had an oil surge problem in the afternoon and after a quick call to Chopper at HCD he knocked up some cardboard templates for sump baffles.The next day the car was trailerd to Mallory to get the once over on the saftey front from the 750MC with no apparent issues. A bit of tweeking and tidying up was done in the next few months as our attentioned focused on running JC's and SC's Supers.
There was a test day organised by the 750MC in May and along with a couple of '07 BTCC cars the Golf hit the track. It was brilliant fun being able to dice with other cars and overtake aggresivley rather than the "after you old boy" style on the trackdays i'd attended :twisted:
The day was pleasing despite my nerves at the start of the day, the Toyo engineer couldn't believe how well we were getting the tyres to work and we managed 2nd fastest Golf overall and fastest in class
The next time the golf hits the track will be on the 28th of June to try and learn Cadwell in an afternoon!
Then its:
1st July Cadwell Park (Full)
29th July Brands (Indy)
18th August Silverstone (National)
30th September Snetterton
14th October Mallory Park
