#25 3000GT - Upgrades, fizzle-pop, Brands and Mallory

**Steve Lawtey** · 08-07-2013, 10:45 AM

Last year (Mark's rookie season) saw the car start off with a fairly solid 436 BHP, but that was the limit of the stock engine and a fair bit off the agreed power limit for the heavyweight GTO/GTs in SuperGT. As the season progressed the GT started smoking more and more on over-run, and a dyno session pre-Silverstone saw the car only putting out 370-odd BHP. The engine simply wasn't up to delivering flat-out power for 15-20 minutes at a time, so Mark decided to go the well-trodden route of a forged rebuild over winter. The crank in his stock motor had picked up some scoring so that was scrapped, and the valve guides were well worn so we fished about in my stock of spare heads to find a pair of used ones with nearly new guides. New 3SX/Ross forged pistons for stock bores were ordered, a new stock crank was sourced, ARP main studs, Clevite bearings, turbos rebuilt and fresh serviceable items throughout the engine. The machining was carried out by a local company that had done the work on my own block many moons ago, they skimmed and hot tanked the heads, cut the valves and seats, align honed and hot tanked the block, static end-to-end balanced the rods, weight matched the pistons and then handed the part assembled block over to have the crank dynamically balanced.

The other main area of concern was the stock brake set-up. ABS problems at Brands were solved by pulling the main fuse to the hydraulic unit to disable it, in qualifying at Silverstone cracked front discs nearly ended the day early until my brakes were swapped over from my splodey-gearbox-dead-goat, and in the last outing of 2012 at Cadwell Mark had to retire from race 1 with complete pad failure. A set of K-Sport 330mm 8-pot front brakes were ordered to alleviate these problems, but the 8 week lead time became 12, then 16 weeks. This impacted on the start of the 2013 season in which we'd decided to alternate the racing between us, pit-crewing for each other in turn, so I took the first three meetings at Snetterton, Rockingham and Castle Combe. Whilst working on the brakes, and with the engine out of the way, the stock ABS unit which had been disabled was removed along with the stock bias valve and replaced with an adjustable unit directly plumbed in.

During last season Mark had complained of a notchy gear change, so whilst his box was out we stripped it down and checked it over. Comparing synchro clearances to the spare boxes we had, we decided to build up a spare box with a fresh output shaft and new seals. This would be fitted with a fresh lightweight flywheel and 6-puck cerametallic sprung clutch courtesy of some sponsorship from Competition Clutch (via Eurospec).

The only other changes to the car were the addition of a carbon GT wing at the rear to replace the factory standard "active aero" spoiler, the fitment of a plywood splitter with aluminium air dam up front, and a set of nylon lower control arm bushes.

With all this work complete Mark booked Brands Hatch for his first round of the 2013 Nippon and also booked a full day of testing there on the day before. That gave us the Thursday to get an early start on the road down to Eurospec in Guildford before running in the engine on the dyno, oil change, final tune, oil change and then set geometry before heading to Brands. That was the plan anyway....

**Steve Lawtey** · 08-07-2013, 10:47 AM

What actually happened was, shortly after running in on mineral and switching the engine to synthetic, Romain was doing some baseline dyno pulls, when he shut off the engine and coasted it down. Dave and Mark were at the far end of the workshop swapping tyres around on rims and I was in the engine build setting up to degree in the cams on Ben's ~960 BHP drag GTO engine. We wondered down to the dyno where Romain, Ben and Mark were deep in thought. This didn't look good. Starting up the engine and there was a slight rattle on the over-run - loose cambelt? Collapsed hydraulic lifter? Spat cam follower? Surely not the big ends?! We set about pulling the covers off to check the cambelt, when that looked OK we took the rocker covers off to check the cam train. Still nothing, so with lots of rags in engine bay the engine was started and revved - nothing from the top end, the rattle must be deeper in the engine. We pushed the car forward onto the dyno ramps and dropped the oil - only a slight silver tinge to it, not the usual "silver Hammerite" appearance of a failed bottom end - perhaps we'd caught it early enough to just re-shell? Onto the ramp and time to start pulling the sump off for a proper inspection;

With the underneath of the car stripped off (starter motor, turbo drains, downpipe, transfer case, chassis member) we pulled the sump to reveal our worst fears, number 4 rod had spun the big end and taken the crank out with it;

It was mid-afternoon and the mood was at a massive low - all that time and money had just died within a few hours of running, with no explanation as to why. Mark took his phone and went for a walk around the block, returning teary eyed having told his wife that the 2013 season was over before it had begun and we would be home later that night. In the mean time we'd busied ourselves looking for parts, for ideas, even a glimpse of inspiration would do.

The required inspiration came in the form of a dead early model twin turbo GTO engine sat on a pallet abandoned behind Romain's UK Time Attack CRX. Mark Callister (co-founder of Eurospec) started pulling bits off it to diagnose the state of it, whilst Ben rang around former staff to see if anyone knew the history of the engine. It was quickly apparent that the bottom end had gone on this too, but Ben had a rescue plan. Emerging from the used parts store at the back he produced a reground early model crank with matching bearings, telling us "this crank doesn't come with any warranty, in fact it comes with a health warning - you all know the risks associated with reground Mitsubishi cranks!". Indeed, for whatever reason Mitsu cranks that have been reground have a tendency to spin bearings in no time at all, so much so that the only reason this regrind hadn't been binned like the other one they used to have on stock, was because Ben had forgotten it was in the stores. To further add to the risk, this was the early crank (commonly referred to as the "cast crank") which is known to be weaker than the later model version. Shall we add more risk? Let's fit it in an unknown 2-bolt block (for the un-initiated, that's the weaker one with half the clamping force on the crank main journals), with used stock pistons, old rings, reused headgaskets, flushed instead of replaced oil cooler and an oil pump that no-one knows what the condition is.

"F*#k it, let's do it"

With testing on the Friday a definite no-go, Mark started to ring around other Track Attack competitors to offer his place at Brands, but everyone we had numbers for was either already booked on, or had other plans for the day. Jason West being a local lad dropped in to say hello and see what was occurring - I don't think he shared our belief that we could get the car on track for Saturday!

Mark Callister started working on the replacement engine whilst Dave, Mark and me began pulling the engine;

With the engine on the deck it was time for foods. Now for those of you who haven't been to Eurospec, it's a social place to be. Through the day it's customers' cars, and in the evening it's team and customer driver race cars. All the guys who help Eurospec in the pits venture down to lend a hand and share a laugh, often into the wee small hours. Tonight spirits were raised by Jason Bird (customer driver of the UK Time Attack Evo), who did the Domino's pizza run into town.

Not only that, but Jason offered us the spare rooms back at his house. 1am we knocked it on the head for the night, replacement engine part assembled and dead engine removed. Back to Jason's for a shower and a few hours sleep.

**Steve Lawtey** · 08-07-2013, 10:48 AM

Friday, 9 AM. Bright and breezy, and laden with Red Bull, Monster, Costa coffees and chocolate brownies, it was time for the real work to begin. We now had less than 24 hours remaining to build the engine, fit it, run it in, tune it, set geometry, load the car, transport to Brands, and get on to the track for an early qualifying slot. As the annoying little meercat would say - "simples"! The dead engine started coming apart, at each stage having to work out which bits we needed to transplant and which bits would be returning home in a box. Meanwhile the heads came off the donor engine, only for us to find that not only had the crank died, but something had gone through the top end. Just what we needed, another stumbling block;

3 of the pistons were poorly, two had damaged ring lands which had nipped the compression rings. These are what's known in the business as "ashtrays". The hunt was on again through the boxes of expired engine parts in the back of the workshop. Two healthy stock TT pistons were located complete with good rods - these would have to do. The third poorly piston in the donor engine was given a rework consisting of rough b#stard file, emery and a hammer. This really was turning into a "scrapheap challenge" engine. By 4 pm the engine was built;

...and by 6 pm all the bolt-ons were done ready to lift her into the car;

8 pm and the engine was in;

11 pm and the final wiring modifications were done (the early model engine uses different sensors which needed splicing in);

At just gone midnight (race day!) we were ready to fill it with fluids and fire her up. No-one was holding out much hope, but lo and behold she purred like a kitten. The relief was short lived though as Ben shouted to Mark to kill the engine. Oil was running steadily out of the cambelt covers - whatever it was under there would not be an easy fix. Mark climbed down from the car and thanked everyone for their hard work, and that maybe it just wasn't to be. I looked at Dave and Ben - could we still do it? We'd give it a go! On our orders, Mark was told to go and get sleep ready for racing later in the day. Hadley (full-time electrician and part-time Eurospec pit-crew) offered Mark his spare bed for the night, so off they went and left us to it. It didn't take long to diagnose the leak was coming from the oil pump crank seal, so cambelt off and replacement was the order of the night. The normal way of doing this is to remove lots of bits and remove the pump - we improvised with a few self tapper screws and some mole grips to get the leaky bugger off, then located the last seal left in the parts bin to fit back in. Retimed and running again, the car was ready for geo whilst the mineral oil bedded things in at tick-over. It was 4:30 before the car saw the dyno;

Now, maybe it was sleep deprivation, or caffeine overdose, but we had a silly idea at this point. When the decision had been made to get the car to Brands on a stock, cobbled together engine, Mark had spoken to Steve Vince and asked to be dropped a class from SuperGT to GT300 - there was no point trying to run more than stock power through an engine that we had no faith in. With this in mind the question was raised "300 BHP class limit doesn't limit the torque, does it?". The ViPec standalone ECU system controls boost, so we upped the boost pressure in the lower revs to give more torque, maintaining a maximum of 290-odd BHP across the rev range. Peak torque was made at ~3000 RPM, delivering ~400 lbft for a short torque band. Mark was going to have to learn to drive this thing like a turbo diesel

.

Mark and Hadley returned to the workshop at 6:30, we were just loading up the GT ready to leave. Sat nav said we would make it to Brands just in time for scrutineering and sign-on - Game On!!! Of course, Ben had worked the night with us, surely it was time for him to take a break? Ha, no chance, Ben jumped in the Eurospec van and hitched up Bob's 300ZX ready to haul it up to Santa Pod for a day of drag racing and setting up the new nitrous system. There really is no glamour in motorsport.

**Steve Lawtey** · 08-07-2013, 10:49 AM

With all the formalities out of the way at Brands it was time for Mark to get his gear on and head out for qualifying. We'd done what we could up to this point, now it was time for Mark to see what he could do with the car. Knowing that the only test the car had seen was up and down the car park and paddock, we played it safe, and perhaps kidding ourselves that in a 15 minute qualifying session we would be able to fix issues in the pit lane, we loaded up the car with a jack and a selection of tools. It was whilst unloading the car for us to make our way into the pit lane, that we realised we hadn't dropped the tyre pressures - they were still at 40 PSI all round, instead of the normal cold pressures of 21-23 PSI. With that in mind, and no time to sort them, we told Mark to take it easy. Not only did he have to learn the engine torque curve, fresh gearbox, new clutch, new brakes, different bias, new aero - but he would have to do all this whilst monitoring the engine sensors and driving on silly hard tyres!

With a few cars pulling into the pits through qualifying with technical faults, and some retiring, we considered ourselves lucky that the car managed the whole session without any issues. Mark qualified 9th overall in a grid of 33 cars, back of the pack in the GT300 class. Still, this wasn't important, we'd got the car to the track and put it in the top ten for the race 1 start.

Back in the paddock it was time to sort the tyre pressures, check the car over and then a quick sleep in the Discovery - after all I'd had a grand total of 7 hours sleep in the past 36 hours.

In race 1 Mark got off the line fairly well before being boxed in with nowhere to go. Mark settled in to a scrap fending off Robbie Durant's Imprezza for the first half of the race. Robbie made a move stick and Mark dropped a place, now chasing the Scooby who was in 7th place. A bit late braking in lap 12 saw Mark take a trip into the gravel at Clearways, but as always the 4wd system helped him recover back to the black stuff. Now with an 11 second gap to Robbie in front, but with 10 seconds in hand to the 9th place Swift of Andy McLennan, Mark settled in to finish the race. A couple of retirements up front lifted Mark to 7th on the track, and as he was about to get lapped by the leading Skyline of Jim Janicki, the chequered flag came out. Now at this point, a tired Mark did what most would do on seeing the chequered flag, stopped racing and coasted around to the pit entrance - the race was over, right? Wrong, and from the stands we were shouting in vain for Mark to carry on around the track - he wasn't lapped when the flag was shown to the leader alongside him, so he still had to finish the race. Unfortunately this resulted in a DNF, what should have been a 7th place overall and 4th in GT300. Oh well, live and learn. At least the car was still in one piece, to our amazement!

Race 2, and instead of starting on row 4, Mark was towards the back of the grid in 23rd place - alongside Jason Jesse in the Toyota Celica GT4. We knew it was going to be a busy race start, with the GT having so much torque and traction off the lights it normally gets into the first bend ahead of faster lapping cars, this time Mark would have to find a route through the traffic to stand any chance. From the stands we could only hope that Mark would latch on to the experienced Jason Jesse and follow his lead through the pack - sure enough it went to plan and by the end of the first la Mark had gained 10 places up to 13th, and by the end of lap two he was in 9th place on the track. Mark settled in to a battle chasing down Kevin Middleton's MX5 in front, whilst fending off Lee Bennett-Neil's Integra behind. A mistake on the last lap from Kev Middleton let Mark and Lee through and Mark finished 7th overall, 3rd in GT300.

Now at this point we did something mean. We hid the timing sheets from Mark and told him he was 4th in class, but we were all just happy the car was still running. Meanwhile we had a quiet word with Steve Vince, asking if he still had any of the piston/rod trophies for class positions in his car. It came as a complete surprise when Mark found out his true finishing position, accompanied with a very fitting trophy considering the struggles to get the car on the grid;

What should have happened now, was muchos beer and celebrations. What actually happened was a couple of cans, an attempt at reviving ourselves with the most expensive vodka Red Bull's I've known (from the Kentagon paddock bar), before admitting defeat and hitting the sack for a long sleep. Sunday saw a steady drive home, before later in the week starting the process of dissecting the dead engine to find out what went wrong;

**Steve Lawtey** · 08-07-2013, 10:49 AM

With that out of the way, it was time to get #25 ready for Mallory Park. Other than a check over, check for any other gravel we'd missed in the paddock, and a tweak to the design of the front splitter, it was all ready to go.

In between times though, there was a small matter of a score to settle with my own GTO at Elvington. The previous year we'd both entered for Ten Of The Best (a competition held on an airfield testing 1/4 mile drags, standing kilometre top speed and a coned handling circuit), but the day before the event my gearbox let go in flames at Silverstone and I'd had to pull out. My entry had carried forward thanks to the organiser Dave Naxton, and we met up again with the whole crew from Eurospec who were supplying pit crew duties for a whole bunch of customer and team cars. We took the opportunity to thank the crew with their staple diet, with added kick;

Huge thanks to Ben, Hadley, Jonno and Adam - as well as all the other guys down there who didn't make it to Elvington.

So, on to Mallory Park for Mark's second venture in the 2013 Nippon. Mark hadn't raced here before, as we'd dropped the 2012 Mallory round from our calendar due to the short time between rounds (it was 2 weeks after Silverstone and 3 weeks before Cadwell). Mark had tested the car here before however, the week before the 2012 season opener, so knew his way around to an extent. Naturally though, things didn't go exactly to plan, and by the first services on the motorway down, we ended up like this;

The Discovery had returned to an on-going issue with a check-engine light and loss of power. We think it's the turbo actuator arm, a cheap fix but 12 hours of labour at a dealership, so something that Mark's been limping it through. This time however it was being persistent, and we gave it one last chance with a trailer-less thrash to clear its throat. Between that and adopting a different driving style (part-throttle, lower gear, higher revs) we got to Mallory in plenty of time. It now seems Mark has to drive the race car like a turbo diesel, and drive the tow vehicle like a race car!

Qualifying went well, this time he went out with the correct pressures in the tyres. Knowing that the car had grunt in short lower gear bursts, but would be lacking top end on the straights, Mark took opportunity when the yellow flags were out for Richard's dead Scooby, to practice defensive lines - something that would help in the races. Time sheets were duly released and we were impressed to see Mark on the 2nd row of the grid, 4th out of 23 starters.

Race 1 saw the (by now, more common) start for the AWD GT, as it launched forward and took the holeshot to lead into turn 1. This lead was held for the first lap and a half until Adam Lockwood's 200SX powered inside of him on the exit from Gerrards and into the lead on the back straight. A couple of turns later and Mark got mugged by Jim Janicki stuffing it up the inside into the hairpin, and at the same time Jason Jesse sticking it the long way around to go outide of him. 4th place, but with some breathing room back to Gareth Newton's Pulsar. Throughout the duration of the race we could see Gareth closing the gap to Mark, and traffic in the way wasn't helping things. Mark held on though, and on the last lap Jason Jesse retired his slowing Celica to the pits, leaving Mark to cross the line in 3rd to collect his first ever podium finish;

The weather forecast had predicted showers around the time of race 2, and we had the car ready for a tyre swap. Black clouds were looming, and then it started raining, just as the first call for the Nippon Race 2 to assemble came over the tannoy. We took the plunge and started to swap to wets (Federal 595 RS-R), but as we finished one side the rain stopped and sun started to shine overhead. We changed our minds, the track would dry in the 20 minutes or so until lights out, dry tyres back on (Federal FZ201).

As we fired the car up and sent Mark to holding, the thunder was rumbling over the village, was this going to be the right move, or a disaster?! Looking around the cars in holding, the split between those opting for wets, and those opting was drys was quite even - we'd have to see what happened. 2 green flag laps were announced, giving drivers extra time on the short circuit to clear some water, explore the grip and get tyres up to temperature. The holeshot wasn't as good this time round, and whilst Mark powered past Adam's 200SX as it scrabbled for traction at the rear wheels, Jim's Skyline got the drop on him to take the lead. Gareth's Pulsar also made full use of the 4wd to get around Adam Lockwood, and would spend the early stages of the race fending off the green 200SX, leaving Mark to try and pull some much needed advantage. Eventually Adam got the better of Gareth and started chasing mark down for 2nd place. Meanwhile Mark was slowly starting to close in on Jim up front, it was anyone's guess which of the podium places Mark was in with a shout for this time. Eventually though, braking late and deep into Gerrards, Mark lost the back of the GT on the damp track and went off onto the grass, letting adam storm by to secure 2nd place. The race finished closer than race 1, but in the same podium order. A double podium, an excellent result for Mark, the car, and most of all, the engine now dubbed "Scrappy-Doo";

Next round - Cadwell. Both cars will be out together for the only time this season, and with it being local we'll be well supported with friends and family. Last time out I managed a pair of podium 3rd places at Cadwell, and on the back of Mark's pair of podium 3rds at Mallory, this should make for some interesting racing 8-)