Sunday, July 20, 2008

Team Orange gets the Blues!



The e12 stayed in the shed this weekend awaiting it's new brake package, so it was off to Eastern Creek with Bel's e21. We'd spent quite some effort in tidying the e21 up since last time out. It had a new tail-shaft, centre bearing, rear wheel bearings, lower front springs, adjustable camber plates, new steering tie-rod, plus a re-upholstered rear seat top and rear parcel shelf. All up, she was looking pretty good.

The first turn however was a complete shock! With the lower front and 3 degrees of camber, the turn in was amazing. The rear however had gone to the dogs! There was absolutely no grip at the back and it spun up the inside wheel with the slightest application of throttle. It had plenty of straight line speed, but she was so slow out of the corners the terminal velocity was lower than the 4 cylinder e12!

Some fiddling of the tyre pressures helped a bit and familiarity helped work out the best way around the corners. My times improved from 2:18 in the first session (where I think I was in shock!) to 2:10 in the afternoon session. While not all that quick (5 seconds slower than the e12) it was an absolute hoot once I got used to it. The quickest way was to keep as much speed as possible into the corner and let the front end drag it around. Once past the apex, I could get some gently throttle on and start accelerating. The "fast in" method lead to some interesting lift-off oversteer moments when I'd over done it. Going past the turn two apex sideways was probably not my fastest lap.

Some lower springs for the back are definitely on the cards before Wakefield.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Team Orange Road Trip


Team Orange headed to Winton in Victoria for the 4th round of the Supersprint Championship contested with the BMWCCV. It was a cold Winton that greeted Bel on Saturday when she headed out for the driver training sessions. There were some good runs with continuous improvement all day. I got a few rides with other drivers and then a sneaky drive in the last session which gave me a good idea of what I was in for on Sunday.

Sunday was slightly warmer, but still cold. Luckily, the rain held off and the sun came out. The e12 was going wonderfully and the times fell from 1:57 to 1:55 to 1:54. Some tweaking of the tyre pressures got rid of some slight understeer and a quick bleed of the brakes brought them back nicely. Sadly, the pads cried "enough" after the first afternoon session and I tore the rubber rushing to get the new ones in. We missed the last sessions, but it was still a wonderful weekend away. It was unfortunate that there were no other cars in class B, but a win is a win either way!
New Tyres - Different Class


The e12 headed to Eastern Creek to meet up with its new R spec Toyo Poxes R888 race tyres. An amazing difference it was too. Although it had been 2 years since the e12 did a proper time at Eastern Creek, it was 11 seconds faster! The new tyres probably accounted for 4 of these seconds.


Another first in class for the e12 and we ended up ahead of some much faster machinery (an e46 M3 for one!).