2006 Deep Black Track Shed BudgetBoltOnBuild

burrellbloke said:

The joys of the new engine.

I am glad to hear the car is still running well.

How many track days have you done this year?

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Not sure if I'm honest. More than I expected but less than I'd like. I think that sums it up

Really enjoyed bullying this Megane all day. He was quick in a straight line but anyone can go quick in a straight line...

Oulton Park.

Car survived. Did some laps, didn't crash. I'll take that as a win.

Got to keep an eye on the oil level with this new engine, it seems to use more than my old one however it's not a cause for concern. I ended the day when the oil level had dropped to the minimum and I realised I'd brought every fluid with me except more oil. Oops! Decent day though, I've been trying to trail brake and that seems to be working, I've just got to have more confidence in the car because it's way more capable than I am!

No real updates to the car in all honesty. It hasn't been touched since Oulton, fired it up and drove it onto the trailer to go around Blyton for the day.

Mucky pup. The widebody Clio in the background has a built K20 with a big turbo on it, sadly he was having boost issues. It was a Javelin run day and it was busy, very busy.

Really good day though, enjoyed the morning, had a quick afternoon session then the heavens opened. I really couldn't be bothered to change wheels and I was knackered after a really poor nights sleep so called it a day around 2.30.

In other news the Mondeo is retiring from use as a tow car. Introducing the new one.


2009 BMW X5, it's the Xdrive35d so 282bhp as standard, this has been mapped and apparently puts out 346bhp and the torque is capped at 700nm to save the gearbox. It moves well for a 2.2t bus!
My old E61 was known as the BST (big silver twat), this is also going to be known as BST. (Bigger Silverish Tank... Until something breaks, then the T will be substituted...)

There we go. Easy update!

Booked on for an evening session at Snetterton on the 14th so it was time to knock all the bird poo and dust off the old girl
Comes up alright, still no show pony though!


In other news I changed the wheels on the X5 and generally tidied it up, it's had some... "tasteful" mods in the past so it's been put back to standard, including the original (style) wheels which I managed to pick up for £200. It's odd to say that the ride has improved after changing to 20" wheels until you see that it was on 21" rims!
The stack of wheels is almost as tall as the Clio!
Clio 7.5j with a 225 tyre at the bottom, X5 rear 11.5j wheel with a 315 tyre at the top. Lots of meat on that!

So there we go. The X5 is how I want it, just a few maintenance bits to do, need 4 new tyres on the trailer ideally as they're starting to crack a little but that'll happen in time for the trip to Knockhill!

Did some work on the old girl today. Trackday booked for Tuesday so the smart play was to spend some time and get it ready a few weeks in advance. The exact thing I didn't do. The plan was discs and pads all round, service, free up the coilovers and a general check over, I was going to lift my seat up a touch too. All I managed was the front brakes and as I was warned (but didn't listen), the drilled discs have cracked more than I'm comfortable with!

All the way around, front and rear, the cracks are EVERYWHERE. So they've been replaced with a set of Brembo HC blank discs. Front pads have plenty of life in them and being CL RC6, they're expensive so I'm not wanting to bin them off just yet. There's a little bit of material crumbling off but I have a set of Mintex F2R in the spares box for a lunchtime change if needed.


Tyres were swapped front to rear too, the Direzzas are about done now, fronts you can barely feel the tread lines on the inside third, rears have about 2mm left so they went on the front, hopefully they'll last the day, if not the PS4's will go on for the last bit of the day!

Car survived a day of abuse at Snetterton on Tuesday. 2 different drivers, 70+ litres of fuel, a litre of oil, a set of tyres and brake pads and around 200 miles on track. What a machine!


First 3 pics are being driven by my mate Rich, who has only really driven his Corvette on track and this was his first time driving a FWD hatch on track. As expected he absolutely loved it. Took loads of passengers around and the car was faultless.

Roll on prep for Knockhill!

Knockhill.

Let me open by saying this...
What. A. Track! If you ever get the chance to go up there, do it. Honestly it's one of the funnest circuits I've had the pleasure of driving and I'm sad that it's 8 hours each way to get there!

Prep was slow in the run up to heading up to Knockhill, as can be expected, life and weather all got in the way so it was a mad rush on Friday to get the car checked over ready to load up on Saturday and head to Scotland on the Sunday. Luckily the weather was glorious on Friday so I could get the car serviced and make sure I had enough brake pad left to do at least the first day. It was then that I realised this is the first service on the new engine since fitting it in September last year!

As to be expected, the usual Renault filter placement left oil everywhere and as expected, it was easier like all jobs to take the front bumper off.

A rather fitting memory popped up on Friday too.
Saturday was spent loading the trusty X5 with all the tools and spares I may need, including an extra set of wheels that I bought for this very reason. Only Laguna Silverstones but it turns out they were definitely needed, I threw on a set of MRFs that have been in the garage for a while and loaded them up.

The journey up on Sunday was pretty uneventful other than having to go the wrong direction to begin with to return a new GoPro I'd bought as it was dead already. Replaced it with a DJI Osmo Action 4 and I'm glad I did, cracking little bit of kit. But I digress.
Parked up and chatted to a couple of guys who were staying in the paddock, real nice guys and we went for a quick walk to the middle of the track to see the extent of the elevation changes. Now, let me tell you, if you've never been to Knockhill before, you wouldn't believe how steep some parts of the track really are!

View ain't bad either.

Monday morning we were greeted by a beautiful day, blue skies and it got up to around 23 degrees, perfect trackday weather! My mate lives about 25 minutes away and he races in the SMRC Scottish Fiestas so he came down for the day to use it as a testing session.


As to be expected the plucky little Clio just kept going and going and going. There were only a few words in the briefing about kerbs to avoid, the rest of the time we were told to use as much of the painted flat kerbs as possible. Very different attitude than English (MSV) tracks.
"Avoid the kerb at the top of the chicane"

Doesn't look like much on the screen grab but I can assure you it felt absolutely wild! I kept clipping the chicane kerbs more and more until...
Took a little too much on the left which moved the car towards the big sausage kerb and there was a bit of a slide, a bit of pee and also some poo. Genuinely thought I was going off into the tyres but somehow saved it.
170+ laps later and we were done for the day. Started the day doing a 68 second lap and finished up doing a 63.7. My aim was to be within 2 seconds of my mates best lap and I managed that (just!). His fastest lap in his Fiesta has been a 61.8 and that was a quali lap that put him on pole.

Spent the evening swapping wheels as the Direzzas were toast.

Alignment is all over the place but I never got a chance to sort that out.

Lovely cold cider while I got the wheels and front pads swapped. The CL RC6 have lasted really well and I think I got my moneys worth...

Even managed to cook the colour off them! A set of Mintex F2R went in after @RSRowe suggested them to me multiple times.

Treated to a multitude of colours in the sky, the scenery really is something else.

First time in about 8 years since I've had silver wheels on the car and I now think I need to change all my wheel colours to silver.

Day 2 rolled around and the weather was slightly different...

It had been heavy rain from around 4am and the track was pretty soggy, the saving grace (oddly) being the windy conditions which did dry the track fairly quickly. Being day 2 of the Opentrack double header meant we were running the reverse circuit too so everything I'd learnt the day before had all basically gone out the window. The track was wet when we went out for sighting laps but you could see some patches drying pretty quickly. Came back in and decided what to do with tyres, ended up staying on the MRF after watching a few cars going round at near-full chat on A052s and R888Rs.
First session on the reverse circuit in drying conditions, track was still pretty greasy so it took about 10 minutes to get enough heat into the tyres and to kinda learn where you could and couldn't touch the painted kerbs.

We'd been told that you'd be doing similar lap times on the reverse track as we were doing the day before on the clockwise track, the weather looked to stop that but very quickly the track dried up with the help of the sun appearing and cars going around. It was super quiet with only 28 cars booked for day 2, at least 3 of those were broken and 2 didn't show up on the day.

Sadly the photographer was a bit pants and every time I came round he was standing there on his phone or scanning through his photos so I didn't get as many 2 wheeling photos as I'd have liked. Especially on day 1.



Ended the day with a slight off which ended up with a cone being obliterated. I'd basically run out of fuel by this point and the weather was threatening to get very nasty so I called it a day at lunchtime.


Totals for the 2 days...
The X5 did close to 900 miles, averaged 57mph and 24mpg consuming 2 tanks of diesel.
The Clio did 300 track miles, 2 tanks of fuel plus 2 jerry cans, 1 set of brake pads, 1 set of tyres (properly this time) and the only casualties were some paint damage from the marker cone and I think the last landing coming out of Duffus Dip has damaged a rear wheel bearing.

Will I go to Knockhill again? You're damn right I will!

burrellbloke said:

It looks like you had a great time form the videos.

I have never been to Knockhill but I have driven past it twice in the past 12 months. Knockhill is on my "to do list" and if I ever get a tow vehicle it might make doing Knockhill more realistic.

Your Direzzas look proper knackered.

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Yeah they weren't looking too sharp after Snetterton but they still had a little bit of tread left so they were getting used.

If you ever get the chance to go, do it, it's up there already as a favourite track, it's fast and technical with several bits that need some serious commitment. 10/10 would go again.