Meeting One Review - 53a

What a roller coaster few weeks, from the last update nothing has been going my way and when all looked to be lost a dim light at the end of the tunnel appeared (at around 2pm Saturday afternoon). In that update the car looked like it was almost ready to go, but I had to wait a few days for the oil that I ordered to arrive, then I squashed one of the packs completely with the hoist (all 5 liters wasted), the ignition system packed up, and then to top it all off the dog ripped apart the spa pool cover.

So the hunt began for a new ignition and just adding to my luck the Electromotive HPX units are not being made any more, and when I did find a new one the supplier wanted a premium for the unit and wouldn't budge off the price so needless to say they missed out on the sale. Now as the Toyota was designed post WWII it doesn't have a distributor in the old sense and with not wanting to go back in time I bit the bullet and purchased a new XDI ignition from HRP (Hampton Racing Products). Of course this was done late Friday afternoon leaving me just Saturday morning to install the new unit, and to quote Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear, "How hard can it be?". Well as it turned out a bit more than I expected. But the end result was that at around 2pm Saturday afternoon the engine fired up. Thankfully Dad, Wayne and Dave were on hand to help finish off the few small other jobs.

So with a big sigh of relief the car drove outside for the first time, body bolted on, seat belts, new padding, and up into the trailer all with about 20 minutes to spare. At this point I'd just like to say thanks to all those people who have helped us all out over the off season and getting the car ready for saturday.

Finally at the track and just a couple of minor issues to clear up, otherwise all was good. Someone mentioned to me about doing a setup on the car, to which my response was a bit of a laugh and "the shocks all went back on the same corners didn't they?". Truth be told I was just to run down to worry and with only 6 cars, a new ignition, and a couple of untested additions I decided to just start off the back anyway in case something went horribly wrong.

Race 1
Starting from the back, the car bogged down heaps off the line, and after almost forgetting to change gear I nearly got fair enough up beside 61a (Tim) to attempt to half spin him. But the engine had a huge flat spot between 5000 and 6200rpm which meant I lost all pushing power. Settling down I tried to remember how to get the car around the track, and basically I was completely inconsistent. With the edge of the engine flat spot being my normal revs exiting the turns I was struggling and by the time I got the engine cleared and revving I'd already lost 1/4 of the straight, multiplied by 2 straights and that's a big distance lost each lap. The race was cut short to 6 laps from 8, which meant that it was over really fast and as a result my water temp had only just cracked 70 degrees and oil temp was at 80, so pretty much the engine was still running cold. As luck would have it, up ahead I could see that 417a (Rose) had gone really wide out of turn 1, meaning that if I kept a tighter line I might pick a place and I managed to keep ahead to the finish.

Race 2
Starting from the back, once again the car bogged down heaps off the line. The only difference between this race and the first was that I had dropped the rear tire pressures by a couple of degrees and I tried a couple of different lines around the turns. Once again as luck would have it I past 61a sitting by the pit gate, don't know what happened but woohoo not last again.

Race 3
For the opening night there was double points on hand and I think a trophy up for grabs. So a quick check up on the points showed 16a (Aaron) just a couple of point clear of 73a (Bryce). So I thought that if I had the chance to hold him up I'd try which might let Bryce get the couple of extra points he would need. They had both decided to start from the back of the last race and with no one wanting to grid up I headed down to start off grid one, with 61a starting on the outside. While waiting, I started looking around and happened to glance in the mirror to see 73a rolling down into grid 4 behind 61a and 16a rolling down to line up behind me. Well not to look a gift horse in the mouth here was my chance to help out Bryce. I knew 61a would take off from the start so I came off the gas and started pumping the brakes as hard as I could. The green flag went up, all the engines around me started to roar and my right foot went even harder down on the brakes. I kept the car in gear and clutch in just in case he went to shoot around, but Aaron seemed intent on pushing. Oh I'll point out that, Dam the car has some grunt and sounds really good at full roar. Half way through turn 1 I put the car in neutral and came off the clutch (can't afford to burn that out at the moment). I felt the car starting to turn and so not to spin I relaxed the brake pressure slightly. Onto the back straight and back on with full pressure, I could see up ahead the others had a big lead and I was hoping that Bryce was somewhere near the front. Just then I could feel that Aaron was going to the outside but before I could rev the engine and get it in gear he had gone. So I headed off also, I put a couple of laps in before coming out of pit bend there was a huge cloud of dust and coming out of it was Bryce, so that meant there was not really much chance of Bryce wining the race anymore. I continued to circulate until the end of the race, still dealing with the engine loosing power out of the turns but the main result was finishing all 3 races on the first night which I don't think I've achieved before.

Unfortunately the diff has cracked again and leaking oil quite badly, but of course that will put the car out of action for a couple of weeks and at the moment with car numbers low I'd rather run the car to keep the class numbers up a little and keep my fingers crossed that the diff doesn't break in half. Perhaps in the next couple of weeks Dad and Wayne will have the new car finished which could take my spot on the grid so I can repair the diff.

If we can jimmy the diff together for another week I'll up the ignition timing and change the diff gears to see if we can clear the flat spot in the rev range.

Catch ya.....MadPhil
(Next time I'll try and pack the camera first)