Donington Trackday Report: 30/05/08
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In my usual style, got to Donington Park around 7am, to 'set up shop', got a pit aside ben21 (VS), signed on in 'advanced' session at 7:45am, as it was a sessioned day, had our briefing at 8:30am and things got underway at 9am with the first session (novice for 20mins, then intermediate from 20past, till 20to, then advanced, 20to, to the hour)
First time out with my new rear 450lb rear springs in situ, and first session was mega wet due to standing water over the previous night, so I came armed with my Rainsports, I also bought my 888s along just in case...
First lap out, with Michelle as passenger... we had realised I'd not altered my suspension back from Curborough Sprint which means the rears were on 24 out of 28 clicks hard, along with 450lb springs, and the fronts on 20... along with the too hard shockers, my rear end was still wayyyy too low creating understeer in abundance.
Almost got wiped out by a Carrera which overtook me going down the Craner Curves, but I was holding him, and the other 2x GT3 RS Porsches up... so I came in a little miffed... oh well, opening session, 6 more to do...
I knew exactly what needed to be done in order to get it back to handling as it should, so we raised the rear 15mm, softened the rear shocks down to 9clicks out of 28, as I now have the 450lb'ers at the back to help out, I left the front heigh alone, but softened them down to 10 clicks.
Went back out the hour later, 10:40am, this time with Rob Hirst as passenger, and it was a complete transformed car, the changes we made really brought out the rear spring poundage advantages, knocking around six seconds of our lap time, which was corking... still on the Rainsports at this point, however it was damp, but with a dry racing line - so I made the decision that for the next session to arm the car with 888s, however on the last but one lap, I noticed my oil pressure gauge had gone off the scale (full max, not full min) so not wanting to risk anything we came in, to find the wire to the sender had got caught and ripped in half, so replaced the wiring, and whilst the car was up - put the 888s on
On the 11:40am session, I took out Michelle again, with exactly same setup as the previous session however with added 888s with tyre pressures of 23 (cold) at front, and 17 (cold) at rear, it was another blinding session - apart from when I started to get hesitation coming out of corners... again (previously at Donny I was getting this, pre-swirl pot), very odd, as my swirl pot is in place, it says I have half a tank left (i should have clicked at this point, that no way would I have got 3 sessions (read 1 hour at nigh 7k rpm) from 17quids worth of petrol) so we came in from that session early, and went across to the onsite petrol station that was selling Super for less than garages do @ £1.20 a litre... bargain... told him to fill up the tank, expecting to pay around £10-12, seeing as I had half a tank left... up up up it went... £36 please... ahhhh, so my gauge is reading dodgy, and I was out of fuel, hence the hesitation... so back to a full tank
Session before lunch, 12:40pm, ben21 was passenger, only slight adjustment that now the track was drying out, was to stiffen the suspension a little bit, was I was getting quite a bit of body roll, but not too much to hinder the traction, so I raised the clicks allround by 4, and a full tank of fuel... all hesitation gone - awesome lap...
1pm - 2pm - stopped for lunch, was absolutely knacked
Session after lunch, 2:40pm, nova ian as passenger, again, left the car untouched, but just upped the stiffness of the suspension again by 3 clicks allround, so rears were now on 15, and fronts on 16, I also upped the tyre pressures of the 888s as Mike had noticed how much they were rolling under the lip of the rim under hard cornering, so I did, and it made an improvement... less squealage, more speed
Session number 5, 3:40pm, again - left all suspension alone, however I felt the brakes had been taking a battering going from 130mph down to 30mph in the space of a hundred yards or so every lap
I only had 1 session after that left, I decided to give it a miss as I'd already had a fantastic day... what bothers me is... my fuel gauge has always read accurate, and I got home (40 miles) without a problem on the fuel that was left, and my facet is still quiet, which means its still pumping fuel from my tank, upto my swirl pot...
Oh well - any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... maybe my standard Nova GSi fuel pump can only take 4.5bar / 62psi for so long?
Thanks for reading... vids will be done over the weekend
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