Cheburator

Just come back from my first trip to the Nurburgring in the GT with the new Leda suspension and race seats/harnesses fitted. The car worked well, but more on that later...

The Leda set-up was so good that I was having oil pressure drops in some tight corners. I saw oil pressure drop from 5+bar at 5500rpm to 4bar on a tight uphil right hander. The drop was very short lived - 3 to 4 secs max. What was interesting is that I saw the same drop on a uphil left-right S-bend a bit further down the track. I tried to go through the same corners in lower gear, thus dropping the revs to around 4000rpm, but yet again I saw my oil pressure gauge flicker to 4 from 5+ bar. Everywhere else, the needle was pegged at 5+ bar at anything over 2000rpm. I am running Mobil 1 15W-50 Motorsport and the oil level was 3/4 full on the dip stick mark...

Is it time for an accusump, as at present I am backing off at certain places as I am worried about granading the 2/6 bearing?

Thanks,

Alex

SwayBar

Firstly, congrats on having the priviledge of driving at the Nurburgring!

Do you have the track memorized? I always thought if I ever get to go, I will make sure to memorize it by first playing PS2 Gran Turismo 4(?) for however long it takes to do so. That way, I'd be able to hit the track running, and knowing what's up ahead after each and every corner.

If you are going to be driving your car on a track, you should at the very least install an Accusump.

We just got back from PCA Chicago's 3-day DE event at Road America:

http://www.roadamerica.com/2006/imag...a_map_2006.pdf

In the Carousel which is a big, fast, right-hander (84 mph at the apex which occurs approx 2/3's through it), my oil pressure would drop from 95 psi to 50 psi throughout the entire corner, and that's with an Accusump and a Chevy-drilled crank. I hate to think what could have happened without the Accusump.

As a result, this winter, one of my jobs will be to drop the oil-pan and install new rod-bearings and inspect the 'old' ones. Jean-Louis (..2:32.00) and Agnes' (..2:43.xx) Euro have been running an Accusump too and never had a bearing-related problem.

Cheburator

I know the track inside out - I have done more than 200+ laps on it... Judging by your post, I should get the accusump pretty quickly if I was to continue with the GT rather than my VW Golf Mk2 GTI 16v...

Thanks,

Alex

Mrmerlin

Hi I would recommend that you read the thread Crank scraper/windage tray at road america from Carl Fausett

drnick

i have just walked in the door from the same trip to the ring with alex, he took me for a very fast lap and oh my god!!!!! i drive fast all the time im a compulsive speeder, 120 130 140 not a prob but this was something else, yes alex definitely knows the ring really really well...

SwayBar

What were the lap times?

slate blue

Yes what were those lap times? From memory 8.43 was the official factory time for the CS. I'm sure Alex has better for us!

drnick

i dont know about lap times but it was bloody quick, the second pic is of me after the flying lap with alex. its an amazing place and its impossible to do justice to the experience with words.

drnick

heres a few more pics...

the ring is difficult to imagine and the only video game ive seen didnt come even fractionaly close. the experience is so vivid and intense, the track is really long like three regular tracks or more and it goes up and down over 1000 feet. some of the downhill sections are frighteningly fast. it has so many bends its untrue and so many of them happen after blind crests! there are a couple of ramps where the car will become light or even airborne, you have to know this track really well to go round it and not die. on saturday i think there were a couple who didnt make it... a truly fast lap is very memorable.

i was incredibly lucky to have great company for my first visit, as you can tell from the pics! but aside from the camraderie it felt a privelege to have both alex and matt as my own co pilots to guide me through some fast laps. we were lucky with the weather and even though it was really busy with all variety of machine going round some slower and some fast, it was fantastic.

arriving there for the first time to the carpark on a saturday morning is a bit like motorsport ****, you simply cant believe all these amazing exotic (and some not so) cars, and the best bit is that its all set up - you just pay a small toll and off you go. all kinds of people from all over are there, all loving cars. by the mid afternoon there were lotus ferrari and porsches etc. parked all the way up and down the road outside and filling the field across from the track.

drnick

a few things came to my attention whilst driving at the ring, the first was that im scraping my splitter a lot and i think the front springs could be stiffer, also the 235/30/18 tyres mounted on 8" by 50mm offset front wheels foul the arches under compression in corners. i weighed the car when i got back at a local weigh station, full of gas it came in at 1490kg.

my question is what size of spring should i put in there now? currently i have 550/350 hypercoils front/rear, how much difference will going up 100 lb make or should i make it 150lb (at the front)?

how do i roll the front arches to gain more clearance for the tyre? the amount of rubbing was really minimal considering, whats the best way of crimping back the inner fender lip on the front??

i also want to take more weight out from it but having done the easier and more obvious bits its getting more time consuming for the amount of weight saved. i dont think i will be removing the sound deadening yet to save me on the longer road journeys. it would be nice if there was a headlamp conversion kit that i liked the look of to get rid of the stock flip forward lights (even though they really look great), also a carbon/glass rear hatch would be nice... but realisitcaly im going to be looking hard to make smaller and smaller gains i think - sounds a bit painstaking!

Cheburator

Dude, I told you - Ledas with 800 / 525 is the way to go. On the way back from the Ring I had the fronts wound down to 50% stiffness (12 clicks) and the rears to 37.5% (9 clicks). Eli commented that the ride was firm, but pleasant. Kinda felt like a new car. If Eli is comfortable, then you should be even more so, because the Recaros are much nicer than my Cobra Monaco S...

I think that's where things strart getting interesting... Strosek will still do the headlight conversion kit for a reasonable price info@strosek.de or try calling them direct on +49 8 806 1491. You can see the prices and what the parts look like here http://www.aetperformance.com/strose...es/Page368.htm

Alex

slate blue

Hi you guys, thanks for the pics too Nick, well done. Nick as to weight savings I think you have done really well at 1490 with fuel. That is really good when you consider that you have that heavy GTS motor, remember the 2 valver is 20 kgs lighter to start with and mine will be another 10 kgs off that again, unless I have made another simple mistake again? Maybe I should go and give myself an uppercut just in case.

drnick

had a good chat with the guys at leda as two way ajustable suspension is definitely the way forward. i think that alex is probably about right with the spring rates although i might try slightly softer anyway, either 700-750 on the front as a starting point. the ring is an amazing place and im definitely going back. in terms of further weight savings a list is coming together which includes the front and rear bumpers, all the emissions stuff, the cruise stuff, the extra layer inside the roof from the sunroof... i didnt realise the GTS engine was that much heavier??! greg, glad you liked the pics!

Vilhuer

Pics of your cars taken by one of the Finns are in here:
http://www.invaliidiapina.org/ringi0...s/IMG_1323.htm
http://www.invaliidiapina.org/ringi0...s/IMG_1269.htm

Thumbnails of pics from few cameras are here:
http://www.invaliidiapina.org/ringi06/
More pics later.

If you want to try to find yourselves from gate webcam pics you can go through these folders:
http://www.alanara.fi/Possu/Ringi/
Each folder contains stored webcam pics of one day saved each minute between 08.00-20.00 German time. By going to each ddmm/ folder and selecting 'start slideshow' at bottom of the page it will display all 720 pics for selected date in 2 second interval. One example from last Sunday 8:20AM:


Front end is bit difficult to roll as entire fender tends to try to flex instead of just area one wants to change. UK is full of places which restore classic cars. They should know how to do it with minimal damage to aluminium.

Engine dry weight for S/S2 engine is 261 kg and for GTS 266 kg. Numbers are from yearly 'Service Info Tech' documents. Either GTS engine weight doesn't include same auxiliaries as S or 16V heads are surprisingly heavy.

SwayBar

Since it looks like you're going to be spending some money on suspension hardware, I would also put some front wheels on there where you can get more tire up front which will provide a much larger footprint for both cornering and braking, not to mention a coolness-factor that's off the charts.

If you go with a 10" rim with 8.5" backspacing (..90 mm offset), you can then tuck at least a 285mm tire up under your fender (..maybe even a 305) without sheetmetal mods. Best of all, you'll have an additional 2.36" of tire per side.