Track Day - Blyton

Blyton Track Day - 29th June 2013

When I received the email from GD at the start if the year suggesting a GD Track Day at the end of June I jumped at the chance. After all it was months away and my car would have been on the road for a while by the time it came around... How wrong could I have been??

Despite committing several man hours to the project, including a few days off work to spend the whole day working on the car, I was still miles form being ready at the start of June.

The most difficult task to complete was probably the engine wiring and trying to figure out the engine loom connections. I called in a local garage we use at work and asked for their help (the owner has previously built a Dax Rush so has some relevant experience) but his comments were "I'd love to help, but I couldn't begin to estimate how long it would take and if you think you are getting that on the track by the end of the month you are having a laugh!!!"

Whilst this was extremely frustrating, I was determined nt to be beaten and Ali and I got our heads together and put a project plan together, detailed the must do's to get the car mobile for Blyton.

At 530pm on Friday 28th June 2013, my car, the car I have built (with Ali) in my garage finally moved for the first time under it's own power. I hope to upload the video of this here soon :)

Unfortunately the joy was short-lived. The throttle was sticking as we hadn't got a proper return spring set-up and it had started raining heavily making the trailer really slippy. The next problem was trying to drive up the wet ramps and finding out that the exhausts were going to smash into the floor as there was insufficient clearance.

Some hours later, after adjusting the suspension as high as we could without having a proper adjuster spanner, putting some timber under the trailer ramps and after several failed attempts to get the car on the trailer (including a near miss with it falling off when the ramps collapsed) we finally got it loaded and covered with a tarp and set off at abnout 815pm for a 3 hour drive to Blyton.

15 minutes up the road the tarp started ripping and it was clear that it would have to come off, so a roadside stop saw to that and fortunately no more rain came down on the way up north.

We finally arrived at about 1130 and set about putting up the tent. Again not a straight forward task for a non-camper in the dark.

The car was off loaded and put in the hanger overnight and we had a chat with Andy from GD and a couple of the other owners about some of the problems we still had with running the car and got some good advice.

The next morning we were up early and had the car up on stands by 800am and set to work on final jobs before taking the car on the track. At 1130 we ran the car to the site entrance and back made. Andy made some tweaks to the carb and we got our first laps in just before lunch and WOW what an experience. Even keeping RPM below 4000 and not flooring it the car was awesome.

A few technical glitches were uncovered during the shakedown:-
  • Fan - set up as pushers not pullers and blades need to have orientation switched
  • Water and Oil Temp - gauges reading really high. Need to check if accurate and check voltage stabiliser
  • Throttle return spring - need a proper set up
  • Carb set up - need to talk to Ken at EDA about idle issues
  • Clutch - started slipping so need to look at adjusting
  • Road wheels - rubbing on inner arches need to be adjusted
  • Brakes - need bedding in
  • Mirrors - driving without them was a nightmare
All in all a great weekend, glad we made the effort and glad we got the car on the track and got in some useful driving time.

Was also really nice to meet Ryan Flook who's blog has been invaluable to me in my build, Tim who has bought Simon's red Cobra and has promised to share some useful info re iron block build accessory suppliers.



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