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.
LiamP
Paid Member
Left Friday morning for a 4 hour drive up to Oulton, arrived in time to sign on for the afternoon testing session. 2 sessions, each 35 minutes, complete waste of money.
First session lasted 20 minutes before a red which drained the remainder of the 35 minute session, 8 laps completed. Track felt considerably thinner than the videos I had watched and was much bumpier than I expected especially on the braking points. The car also felt very loose through the first 3 corners, I had zero confidence on the brakes or corner entry. Rear pressures had risen to 33 which might explain some of the oversteer but I was really struggling with rear grip.
Second session was just as bad with a red after 2 laps and then a 20 minute delay before another 4 laps. This basically gave me no real time to settle in or see if the car felt better with the rear pressures dropped. In total 14 laps of which 2 were completed under a red and a best time of 02:05.0, not ideal.
Spent the evening with a beer and a few others who had arrived whilst trying to decide how to tame the car. Opted to drop the rear dampers 3 clicks and hope that it was tyre temperature / pressure related. One thing to mention is that I am still using the same set of AO52’s I purchased at round 1 ie. they have had a fair amount of action.
Qualifying
Rained lightly all morning but wasn’t wet / wet, however I softened things off further to what I ran at Brands when it was wet. Red flag on lap 2, safety car for 4 laps and then a single flying lap meant no one really set a lap time. Somehow managed P3 in class with a terrible 2:09, Yan from the Clio sport championship set a very impressive 2:03, really putting me on the back foot.
Race 1
Pretty standard race, kept P3 but didn’t have the pace to put pressure on P2.
Race 2
Terrible start where I changed up from 1st too early meant I lost a position by T1 and then flapped around for the first two laps. Found some confidence in the car and started pushing, every lap I was taking 1/2s off my best before setting fastest lap / lap record with a 1:59.55 which is 5/6s faster than I was doing on the Friday on a much slower track.
Caught up with P3 and a great battle but just didn’t have the track experience to make a move stick.
On paper not a great weekend however it was probably the one I have enjoyed the most, was a real challenge to learn the track and to get some confidence and set fastest lap really topped the weekend off for me.
Silverstone National finale in 3 weeks which I want to try and race at even though I have actually won the Class B championship!
First session lasted 20 minutes before a red which drained the remainder of the 35 minute session, 8 laps completed. Track felt considerably thinner than the videos I had watched and was much bumpier than I expected especially on the braking points. The car also felt very loose through the first 3 corners, I had zero confidence on the brakes or corner entry. Rear pressures had risen to 33 which might explain some of the oversteer but I was really struggling with rear grip.
Second session was just as bad with a red after 2 laps and then a 20 minute delay before another 4 laps. This basically gave me no real time to settle in or see if the car felt better with the rear pressures dropped. In total 14 laps of which 2 were completed under a red and a best time of 02:05.0, not ideal.
Spent the evening with a beer and a few others who had arrived whilst trying to decide how to tame the car. Opted to drop the rear dampers 3 clicks and hope that it was tyre temperature / pressure related. One thing to mention is that I am still using the same set of AO52’s I purchased at round 1 ie. they have had a fair amount of action.
Qualifying
Rained lightly all morning but wasn’t wet / wet, however I softened things off further to what I ran at Brands when it was wet. Red flag on lap 2, safety car for 4 laps and then a single flying lap meant no one really set a lap time. Somehow managed P3 in class with a terrible 2:09, Yan from the Clio sport championship set a very impressive 2:03, really putting me on the back foot.
Race 1
Pretty standard race, kept P3 but didn’t have the pace to put pressure on P2.
Race 2
Terrible start where I changed up from 1st too early meant I lost a position by T1 and then flapped around for the first two laps. Found some confidence in the car and started pushing, every lap I was taking 1/2s off my best before setting fastest lap / lap record with a 1:59.55 which is 5/6s faster than I was doing on the Friday on a much slower track.
Caught up with P3 and a great battle but just didn’t have the track experience to make a move stick.
On paper not a great weekend however it was probably the one I have enjoyed the most, was a real challenge to learn the track and to get some confidence and set fastest lap really topped the weekend off for me.
Silverstone National finale in 3 weeks which I want to try and race at even though I have actually won the Class B championship!
LiamP
Paid Member
Cheers, the track just felt right in the Clio by the end of the weekend, need to make another visit!
LiamP
Paid Member
Bit late on this, few weeks before the final at Silverstone I decided I wanted to fix an oil leak.
At first I thought it was from the VVT seal or maybe the bolts but I could see it leaking heavily at the rear of the cam cover, 1 hour later and it looked like this..
You can see the leak was from the cam cover and was pretty bad, journals and cams looked very good considering the age of this engine.
All cleaned up, resealed and timed up, something I decided to do a few days before the final, very satisfying working on this car now, everything comes off and everything has its place.
Silverstone National
The series has got more competitive as the year has gone on, 13 cars signed up for Class B which is great!
First time on the National circuit and didn't do a great job, struggled with the track and the front tyres, trying to get a set of AO52's to last a year probably wasn't the best idea.
P4 Class 1:08.696
Most of us were separated by about 5 tenths however there was a very suspicious Civic who took pole (more on this later)
Race 1
Got a mega start in R1 due to a near spin slowing most down, at one point I was in P4 having started P11, got into the zone and just tried to be as consistent as possible knowing there was a Civic behind that was much faster. A safety car slowed things down but kept P1 in class for the race, this was very satisfying. Especially when the talk in the paddock was that the 'fast' civic was actually running a Civic Cup map at around 245BHP, so should have been in Class A, all for a plastic trophy.
P1 Class 1:07.757
Race 2
Terrible start due to missing 2nd gear, lost 4 positions and a chunk of time, slowly took a few back but ran out of time due to another safety car. Front tyres where just completely gone by this point.
P3 Class 1:08.035
Haven't touched the car since, was hoping by the end of the year I would know what I wanted to do but tbh I have no idea, insta poll was interesting...
At first I thought it was from the VVT seal or maybe the bolts but I could see it leaking heavily at the rear of the cam cover, 1 hour later and it looked like this..
You can see the leak was from the cam cover and was pretty bad, journals and cams looked very good considering the age of this engine.
All cleaned up, resealed and timed up, something I decided to do a few days before the final, very satisfying working on this car now, everything comes off and everything has its place.
Silverstone National
The series has got more competitive as the year has gone on, 13 cars signed up for Class B which is great!
First time on the National circuit and didn't do a great job, struggled with the track and the front tyres, trying to get a set of AO52's to last a year probably wasn't the best idea.
P4 Class 1:08.696
Most of us were separated by about 5 tenths however there was a very suspicious Civic who took pole (more on this later)
Race 1
Got a mega start in R1 due to a near spin slowing most down, at one point I was in P4 having started P11, got into the zone and just tried to be as consistent as possible knowing there was a Civic behind that was much faster. A safety car slowed things down but kept P1 in class for the race, this was very satisfying. Especially when the talk in the paddock was that the 'fast' civic was actually running a Civic Cup map at around 245BHP, so should have been in Class A, all for a plastic trophy.
P1 Class 1:07.757
Race 2
Terrible start due to missing 2nd gear, lost 4 positions and a chunk of time, slowly took a few back but ran out of time due to another safety car. Front tyres where just completely gone by this point.
P3 Class 1:08.035
Haven't touched the car since, was hoping by the end of the year I would know what I wanted to do but tbh I have no idea, insta poll was interesting...
Helpimonfire
Paid Member
LiamP
Paid Member
Yeah I was thinking about this the other day, would be a challenge to build it for longer races, only thing that puts me off is the requirement for support on pit stops etc.
