GW 200 CUP (clubsport->racecar->v2)
- Thread starter LiamP
- Start date
LiamP
Paid Member
Couldn’t help myself and wrapped the spoiler, for £15 worth of Ali I think it looks good, suits the car shape.
LiamP
Paid Member
Fastest semi slick you can buy in both wet and dry IMO
LiamP
Paid Member
Silverstone International Round 8/9/10
Missed the Saturday qualifying / race 8 and joined for the Sunday, arrived nice and early for a quick chat with the Clerk to confirm I could do the mandatory 3 laps with Club Enduro. She had no issue but only wanted me to do the 3 laps and then come in which was slightly annoying as I was hoping for some more time to test all the changes:
Practice
I could immediately tell the car was different, under braking it was if the entire weight of the car was on the front tyres and I had zero understeer, it would literally go anywhere I wanted it to. Not sure I have ever made a change that has had such an impact on the way the car handled, the balance had completely shifted to the front. I prefer a car to handle like this but obviously not with such minimal testing of how it would behave once things started getting ‘race warm’
The rear dampers were still set to 4 clicks from hard so relatively stiff (max 12) so I bumped this up to 6 and adjusted the pressures to try and calm things down. I only had 30 minutes before the race so thought about raising or even removing the splitter but removing front end grip seemed counter intuitive.
Race 9
I was starting P26 with 7 Class B cars in front, the plan was to try and get to the back of the main pack by the end of the race so I stood a good chance in Race 10.
Car felt more stable on the green flag lap, focussed on getting the rears warm as I didn’t want any surprises going into turn 1. Got a reasonable start and just started picking off the slower Class C as I got used to the car and track. By lap 4 I was up 13 positions and could see the class b’s battling ~4s up ahead.
The front grip I had was giving me a huge advantage into the two complexes where I was able to get turned and on the power so much quicker than anyone else. Had some great racing with another Clio and 2 civics, due to an unlucky retirement from the white Clio (slave failure) I eventually finished in P7 / P3 Class, 19 positions gained over the 15 minutes.
P3 Class 1:19.600
Race 10
Car felt much more predictable at the rear but softened the rears another click and reset pressures for the next race. The front felt a bit uneven under braking but I believe that was due to the uneven pressure left/right.
Got a good start and was behind a civic and the fast BMW from Combe, I knew the car had the potential to be faster than both so started pushing the civic into making mistakes. Things just started to get spicy when my clutch disappeared on lap 4, first DNF of the season.
DNF 1:18.966
Frustrating not to finish Race 10 as the civic eventually lost 4th gear so I probably would have got P2 and maybe given the BMW a race. Never got a clean lap as I was too busy racing but the optimal was low 18’s, a day of testing and the car would easily get into 17’s.
I don’t have any other data from Silverstone but vmax on the back straight was 120mph, this is roughly 1 mph faster than Snetterton on a straight which is shorter and has lower starting speed. This looks to confirm that the spoiler has made a difference in drag and the car felt just as stable or even more stable than with the wing in the fast corners. I still think I am down on power vs the rest of the pack, I have an advantage at corner exit due to my low weight but the civics start to pull a gap at the end of the straights and they are supposedly slightly lower BHP/T.
Overall I can’t complain as I had no over heating issues and the new setup is showing some serious potential, probably need to get a test day sorted once I find the time to change the clutch.
Next race is 27th September at Oulton Park, 4hr mission for me but it’s a track I really want to do so contemplating a Friday trip up for a test afternoon and race on the Saturday. Off to Snetterton tomorrow evening for night qualifying and then a 24 race in a 2CV, which should be interesting!
Missed the Saturday qualifying / race 8 and joined for the Sunday, arrived nice and early for a quick chat with the Clerk to confirm I could do the mandatory 3 laps with Club Enduro. She had no issue but only wanted me to do the 3 laps and then come in which was slightly annoying as I was hoping for some more time to test all the changes:
- New radiator
- Radiator surround
- Bumper modifications
- New rear spoiler
- Splitter v2
- Gearbox oil
Practice
I could immediately tell the car was different, under braking it was if the entire weight of the car was on the front tyres and I had zero understeer, it would literally go anywhere I wanted it to. Not sure I have ever made a change that has had such an impact on the way the car handled, the balance had completely shifted to the front. I prefer a car to handle like this but obviously not with such minimal testing of how it would behave once things started getting ‘race warm’
The rear dampers were still set to 4 clicks from hard so relatively stiff (max 12) so I bumped this up to 6 and adjusted the pressures to try and calm things down. I only had 30 minutes before the race so thought about raising or even removing the splitter but removing front end grip seemed counter intuitive.
Race 9
I was starting P26 with 7 Class B cars in front, the plan was to try and get to the back of the main pack by the end of the race so I stood a good chance in Race 10.
Car felt more stable on the green flag lap, focussed on getting the rears warm as I didn’t want any surprises going into turn 1. Got a reasonable start and just started picking off the slower Class C as I got used to the car and track. By lap 4 I was up 13 positions and could see the class b’s battling ~4s up ahead.
The front grip I had was giving me a huge advantage into the two complexes where I was able to get turned and on the power so much quicker than anyone else. Had some great racing with another Clio and 2 civics, due to an unlucky retirement from the white Clio (slave failure) I eventually finished in P7 / P3 Class, 19 positions gained over the 15 minutes.
P3 Class 1:19.600
Race 10
Car felt much more predictable at the rear but softened the rears another click and reset pressures for the next race. The front felt a bit uneven under braking but I believe that was due to the uneven pressure left/right.
Got a good start and was behind a civic and the fast BMW from Combe, I knew the car had the potential to be faster than both so started pushing the civic into making mistakes. Things just started to get spicy when my clutch disappeared on lap 4, first DNF of the season.
DNF 1:18.966
Frustrating not to finish Race 10 as the civic eventually lost 4th gear so I probably would have got P2 and maybe given the BMW a race. Never got a clean lap as I was too busy racing but the optimal was low 18’s, a day of testing and the car would easily get into 17’s.
I don’t have any other data from Silverstone but vmax on the back straight was 120mph, this is roughly 1 mph faster than Snetterton on a straight which is shorter and has lower starting speed. This looks to confirm that the spoiler has made a difference in drag and the car felt just as stable or even more stable than with the wing in the fast corners. I still think I am down on power vs the rest of the pack, I have an advantage at corner exit due to my low weight but the civics start to pull a gap at the end of the straights and they are supposedly slightly lower BHP/T.
Overall I can’t complain as I had no over heating issues and the new setup is showing some serious potential, probably need to get a test day sorted once I find the time to change the clutch.
Next race is 27th September at Oulton Park, 4hr mission for me but it’s a track I really want to do so contemplating a Friday trip up for a test afternoon and race on the Saturday. Off to Snetterton tomorrow evening for night qualifying and then a 24 race in a 2CV, which should be interesting!
RSRowe
Paid Member
Great update!
I'd say the test day at Oulton is definitely worthwhile. It's my local and having been a fair few times, I thought I was pretty handy round there until I had some tuition.
I'd say the test day at Oulton is definitely worthwhile. It's my local and having been a fair few times, I thought I was pretty handy round there until I had some tuition.
LiamP
Paid Member
Yeah I would certainly want some time on the track as it looks super technical, a lot more interesting than what we have down here.
LiamP
Paid Member
LiamP
Paid Member
Been a bit rubbish with updates recently, anyway obviously had the clutch to change after Silverstone DNF so decided to take the entire front end off.
The reason is because with the longer driveshafts and AST top mounts it’s not possible to remove the engine or box without taking the shafts off which won’t come out without removing the hubs. To try and limit unwanted geo changes I now take the hub off and leave the coilovers on the car. I wish I didn’t have to do this as it takes up a lot of time on both stripping and torquing back up.
This is what the clutch looked like..
Confident that the ‘clutch slip’ wasn’t an issue previously I took the opportunity to switch back to the lightweight flywheel. I nice 1.7kg weight reduction on the rotating assembly.
I noticed the offside gearbox seal was damaged so replaced that whilst it was off. I really didn’t enjoy putting the box back on, ended up using the engine crane to try and save my back.
The starter shield was also damaged during extraction, a bit of aluminium and it was as good as new.
Few hours to put everything back together, bleed brakes, clutch and coolant.
Here you can see the profile of my splitter, for those interested it weighs 8.4kg, 12mm ply + the aluminium brackets.
I raised the splitter one notch which took it from 65mm to 80mm at its lowest, this was to try and reduce its sensitivity under braking. 65mm is low enough that it’s touching the track under heavy braking which is pointing to the springs/dampers not ideally setup where I am already only 2 clicks from hard on the front.
Wanting some confidence on the alignment I setup a very dodgy string kit at a cost of about £20. I didn’t have any intensions of changing the setup based on this but I wanted to see if anything obvious had been adjusted that might need sorting at Oulton Park.
Amazingly it gave some decent results with 1mm toe in on the rear and about 1mm toe out on the front which was good enough for me. A proper string kit is on the list of things to buy.
My top instrument screen decided to stop working but pulling it all apart and putting it back in has seemed to fix it for now.
This was completed last Thursday, drove out of the shed and onto the trailer for Oulton Park on Friday/Saturday, TBC.
The reason is because with the longer driveshafts and AST top mounts it’s not possible to remove the engine or box without taking the shafts off which won’t come out without removing the hubs. To try and limit unwanted geo changes I now take the hub off and leave the coilovers on the car. I wish I didn’t have to do this as it takes up a lot of time on both stripping and torquing back up.
This is what the clutch looked like..
Confident that the ‘clutch slip’ wasn’t an issue previously I took the opportunity to switch back to the lightweight flywheel. I nice 1.7kg weight reduction on the rotating assembly.
I noticed the offside gearbox seal was damaged so replaced that whilst it was off. I really didn’t enjoy putting the box back on, ended up using the engine crane to try and save my back.
The starter shield was also damaged during extraction, a bit of aluminium and it was as good as new.
Few hours to put everything back together, bleed brakes, clutch and coolant.
Here you can see the profile of my splitter, for those interested it weighs 8.4kg, 12mm ply + the aluminium brackets.
I raised the splitter one notch which took it from 65mm to 80mm at its lowest, this was to try and reduce its sensitivity under braking. 65mm is low enough that it’s touching the track under heavy braking which is pointing to the springs/dampers not ideally setup where I am already only 2 clicks from hard on the front.
Wanting some confidence on the alignment I setup a very dodgy string kit at a cost of about £20. I didn’t have any intensions of changing the setup based on this but I wanted to see if anything obvious had been adjusted that might need sorting at Oulton Park.
Amazingly it gave some decent results with 1mm toe in on the rear and about 1mm toe out on the front which was good enough for me. A proper string kit is on the list of things to buy.
My top instrument screen decided to stop working but pulling it all apart and putting it back in has seemed to fix it for now.
This was completed last Thursday, drove out of the shed and onto the trailer for Oulton Park on Friday/Saturday, TBC.
LiamP
Paid Member
Yeah I tried that, the issue seems to be with the top mounts there is just hardly any movement, from memory it was about 10mm from being able to get out of the hub.
