TNT Racing XR4x4 - Time Attack 2009
After 6 hours at the tuners the car is now in a worst state than we we took it there 
We started by checking the intercooler for cracks or leaks however this meant disconnecting the oil pipes from the oil cooler which is attached to the intercooler. Then removing both coolers after which the oil cooler had to be taken off the intercooler before that could be tested.
To cut a long story short the car has got to back on wednesday to have the following done
1. Valve springs changed
2. Rocker shafts x2 checked and possibly changed
3. Wastegate re-set
4. Tick over and fuelling adjusted
5. Tappets set
That should see us through silverstone.
Then after silverstone it's the heads off and replace the inlet and exhaust valves and check the cam for signs of wear. Plus try and start on some of the planned upgrades.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the engine it's just a case of age catching up with the old girl. Simple wear and tear
We started by checking the intercooler for cracks or leaks however this meant disconnecting the oil pipes from the oil cooler which is attached to the intercooler. Then removing both coolers after which the oil cooler had to be taken off the intercooler before that could be tested.To cut a long story short the car has got to back on wednesday to have the following done
1. Valve springs changed
2. Rocker shafts x2 checked and possibly changed
3. Wastegate re-set
4. Tick over and fuelling adjusted
5. Tappets set
That should see us through silverstone.
Then after silverstone it's the heads off and replace the inlet and exhaust valves and check the cam for signs of wear. Plus try and start on some of the planned upgrades.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the engine it's just a case of age catching up with the old girl. Simple wear and tear
I think you've hit the nail on the head Paul. It's a relatively old car and without regular and thorough work, things will keep breaking (and normally when you've just fitted new bits around the old bits 
)
I think you prudence in missing KH and waiting for Silverstone in two weeks was a wise decision. Keep us updated and hope to see you two there in a fortnight.
)I think you prudence in missing KH and waiting for Silverstone in two weeks was a wise decision. Keep us updated and hope to see you two there in a fortnight.
Got home from work this morning packed all the bits into the car and waited for Alan to turn up. We were going to tow the car with a tow bar the 40 miles over to TopBoss. Not the first time we've had to do this 
Thank god Al's had the fueling sorted out on his GT, the last time we did this he nearly killed me with the fumes :sick:
We finally got to TopBoss 1hr 45min later after a nice steady journey, Fitz and Steve were already there waiting for us. I had to leave Alan there with the car as I had to get back home for some much needed sleep.
Alan finally got back here at 4.30 with the look of a 4 yr old at christmas on his face
The only job left to be done is to have the boost set on the dyno but Alan is very happy with the way the car feels at the moment.
The downside is that there is a problem which at the moment we are unable to pinpoint. The Tappets are tightening up they are fine whilst out on track but the problem seems to occur when we leave the car standing for a period of time. The plan at the moment is that after every round the car will go back to Fitz to have the tappets checked.
We will find the root cause in the meantime lets get out there and have some fun
Thank god Al's had the fueling sorted out on his GT, the last time we did this he nearly killed me with the fumes :sick:
We finally got to TopBoss 1hr 45min later after a nice steady journey, Fitz and Steve were already there waiting for us. I had to leave Alan there with the car as I had to get back home for some much needed sleep.
Alan finally got back here at 4.30 with the look of a 4 yr old at christmas on his face
The only job left to be done is to have the boost set on the dyno but Alan is very happy with the way the car feels at the moment.
The downside is that there is a problem which at the moment we are unable to pinpoint. The Tappets are tightening up they are fine whilst out on track but the problem seems to occur when we leave the car standing for a period of time. The plan at the moment is that after every round the car will go back to Fitz to have the tappets checked.
We will find the root cause in the meantime lets get out there and have some fun
Silverstone report
An early start on saturday to get the car ready. I got home from work at 06.30 and Bart turned up at 07.30. We had a bit of running around to do first thing before starting on the car, It's amazing how just a few minor jobs can end up taking the best part of the day :roll:
Sunday morning an an early start up at 05.00 the plan was to get the cars all packed and I would set of 15 minutes before Alan as I had to pick up Wayne (Alan's brother - mechanic) and Lee (Alan's cousin - photographer). 10 minutes after leaving I realised that I had left my wallet at home :roll: A quick call to Alan and thankfully he was still there so was able to pick it up for me. We met up at Corley service station and headed off towards silverstone.
As we arrived at the circuit we got a fair few bemused looks from jap car owners :lol:
Warm up session - and only 10 mins. This turned out to be too short for us and Alan wasn't able to get enough heat into the front tyres. However he still managed to post a time of 1:16.299 placing him 11th in group B . We were very happy with this as inspite of the car being down on power Alan was very confident that he could improve his time by a fair bit. The only incident for us was that a nut that holds the undrtray on had undone itself causing the undertray to flap :oops: We decided to remove it remove it.
Practice Session - Things were looking good for this session we had a plan as to how we were going to run this session, Team tactics Things were going to plan until an Evo lost his front splitter and the Saab which was following it smashed straight into it. Session stopped.
The track marshalls did a fantastic job with cleaning the debris from the track so quickly. Even though it only took them a couple of minutes Alan still had to pit. The temps had risen a bit so we took the opportunity to check things over all was well. At this point everyone was back out on track, I had been keeping an eye on the runners as I wanted to release Alan into clear air. This was crucial to Alan getting a good lap time as straight line speed we struggle but Alan makes the time up through the bends. I called Alan forward as I was waiting for 3 cars to come onto the main straight unfortunatley he misread my signal and went straight out into traffic
Alan soon found himself behind Dave with the lexus is350 and after a couple of laps Alan decided to pass Dave coming into Maggotts. As Alan did not have his lights on Dave checked his mirrors saw Alan behind him and started to move to the left before the long right hander. At this point Alan had already stuck the nose of the car in Daves space :roll: Alan hit the breaks and moved to the left putting 2 wheels on the grass as he already on the kerb. At this point the offside wheels were now also on the kerb so Alan just thought feck it and carried straight on bouncing over the kerb :roll: ...Kids
Things were still going well and Alan had taken another second off his lap time, then it happened - The Evo crash.
As Alan exited Luffield he saw the evo coming up behind no lights but he knew that this driver was pushing hard as he had seen him on more than one occassion put two wheels on the grass. Alan moved over to give him the apex i.e the start of the pit wall. However like several other drivers he wasn't using this line instead he was staying out wide coming into Woodcote. He drifted wide and got all four wheels onto the grass at this point Alan was still on the right hand side of the track.
Watching from the pit wall I thought the evo was going to hit the pit wall right in front of Alan.
Alan's view - I saw the evo drift onto the grass as we got onto the start finish straight then he started to loose the backend of the car. The next thing I remember is looking to my left and seeing the front of the evo coming straight at me My only thought was "Shit this is going to hurt".
Then I heard the sound of the impact and as I looked in my rear view mirror I could see the Evo sliding down the pitwall backwards.
Thank god the driver was ok.
When he came in he was visably shaken by what had happened, but was also confident that he could still improve his time by a fair bit.
Qualifing - This was it and we were ready.........Nooooooooo. the car wouldn't start :evil: We worked frantically trying evrything to get tbe car started but no joy. It turned out that when Alan went grass tracking a wire from the starter motor had pulled out of the clip but also that the starter motor was fried.......Session over :evil:
Alan was fuming mad and stormed off into the pit garage. Understanderbly so
We finally managed to get the car started but as we couldn't turn it off we had to make an early departure. Sorry for not saying goodbye to people and well done to everyone.
Still what a fantastic day this is motorsport and shit happens roll on oulton park
Sunday morning an an early start up at 05.00 the plan was to get the cars all packed and I would set of 15 minutes before Alan as I had to pick up Wayne (Alan's brother - mechanic) and Lee (Alan's cousin - photographer). 10 minutes after leaving I realised that I had left my wallet at home :roll: A quick call to Alan and thankfully he was still there so was able to pick it up for me. We met up at Corley service station and headed off towards silverstone.
As we arrived at the circuit we got a fair few bemused looks from jap car owners :lol:
Warm up session - and only 10 mins.
This turned out to be too short for us and Alan wasn't able to get enough heat into the front tyres. However he still managed to post a time of 1:16.299 placing him 11th in group B . We were very happy with this as inspite of the car being down on power Alan was very confident that he could improve his time by a fair bit. The only incident for us was that a nut that holds the undrtray on had undone itself causing the undertray to flap :oops: We decided to remove it remove it.Practice Session - Things were looking good for this session we had a plan as to how we were going to run this session, Team tactics
Things were going to plan until an Evo lost his front splitter and the Saab which was following it smashed straight into it. Session stopped.The track marshalls did a fantastic job with cleaning the debris from the track so quickly. Even though it only took them a couple of minutes Alan still had to pit. The temps had risen a bit so we took the opportunity to check things over all was well. At this point everyone was back out on track, I had been keeping an eye on the runners as I wanted to release Alan into clear air. This was crucial to Alan getting a good lap time as straight line speed we struggle but Alan makes the time up through the bends. I called Alan forward as I was waiting for 3 cars to come onto the main straight unfortunatley he misread my signal and went straight out into traffic
Alan soon found himself behind Dave with the lexus is350 and after a couple of laps Alan decided to pass Dave coming into Maggotts. As Alan did not have his lights on Dave checked his mirrors saw Alan behind him and started to move to the left before the long right hander. At this point Alan had already stuck the nose of the car in Daves space :roll: Alan hit the breaks and moved to the left putting 2 wheels on the grass as he already on the kerb. At this point the offside wheels were now also on the kerb so Alan just thought feck it and carried straight on bouncing over the kerb :roll: ...Kids
Things were still going well and Alan had taken another second off his lap time, then it happened - The Evo crash.
As Alan exited Luffield he saw the evo coming up behind no lights but he knew that this driver was pushing hard as he had seen him on more than one occassion put two wheels on the grass. Alan moved over to give him the apex i.e the start of the pit wall. However like several other drivers he wasn't using this line instead he was staying out wide coming into Woodcote. He drifted wide and got all four wheels onto the grass at this point Alan was still on the right hand side of the track.
Watching from the pit wall I thought the evo was going to hit the pit wall right in front of Alan.
Alan's view - I saw the evo drift onto the grass as we got onto the start finish straight then he started to loose the backend of the car. The next thing I remember is looking to my left and seeing the front of the evo coming straight at me
My only thought was "Shit this is going to hurt".Then I heard the sound of the impact and as I looked in my rear view mirror I could see the Evo sliding down the pitwall backwards.
Thank god the driver was ok.
When he came in he was visably shaken by what had happened, but was also confident that he could still improve his time by a fair bit.
Qualifing - This was it and we were ready.........Nooooooooo. the car wouldn't start :evil: We worked frantically trying evrything to get tbe car started but no joy. It turned out that when Alan went grass tracking a wire from the starter motor had pulled out of the clip but also that the starter motor was fried.......Session over :evil:
Alan was fuming mad and stormed off into the pit garage. Understanderbly so
We finally managed to get the car started but as we couldn't turn it off we had to make an early departure. Sorry for not saying goodbye to people and well done to everyone.
Still what a fantastic day this is motorsport and shit happens roll on oulton park