158.48 mph with a slipping clutch!

[Permanent grin]

Fo those that were unable to attend or did not get to hear, this is a summary of the Jap Show Finale weekend and my car.

The weekend began with a RWYB session on the Saturday and despite our best efforts and intentions to be ready for the off at 9.30 am it was more like 12.30 pm by the time I and the car were ready! Romain also had to call in at Andy Robinson's to collect a make do pipe to replace a leacking return pipe from the y piece to the FPR which had split.

I finally got to run my new drag wheels and tyres with side exit exhausts! The car produced 1057.1 BHP and 1015 ftlbs of torque on the dyno in the week leading up to this event.

The first run was a gentle roll out of the hole at 2-3k rpm and then going gently to full thottle, this was due to the tyres being brand new, not heat cycled, a 2" taller sidewall than last year and 2" narrower. So in other words I had no idea how they would behave with 225 BHP extra power over last year!

The 60' was surprisingly a 1.8xx and produced 122 mph at the 1/8th and 142 mph at the 1000'. Oddly the car only made another 6 mph by the 1/4 mile to yield a 9.9 second pass at 148 mph! Confusingly low terminal which I put down to tyre slip.

The next pass saw me miss a gear and abort the run.

The 3rd pass I launched in 1st, grabbed 2nd but there was nothing there. I had enough speed though to coast the rest of the 1/4 and complete a 22 second pass!

Upon investigation the clutch slave cylinder had blown a seal and cracked the piston in it! :shock: This was something we should have paid more attention to why it had happened in retrospect.

Fixed with another slave cylinder in double quick time by Ben, I went back to the fire up lane but had to shut off quickly as we saw smoke from under the bonnet! Fire extinguisher at the ready the bonnet was lifted, no fire! We could see it was coming from low down behind the engine but couldn't see exactly where from, so back to the pits. Sure there was some clutch fluid that could have been getting onto the exhaust but this was more. I had MELTED a PU engine mount - game over for the day.

After much deliberation and hesitation of putting such a big ask on Ben to travel 100+ miles back to the workshop, work overnight and travel back in the morning another 100+ miles, I asked him and he agreed. HUGE thanks.

He worked with Johnno and Justin until 4.30 am to remove the gearbox, lift the engine fit the old solid mount rear and put it all back together.

The car arrived back trackside by 10.20 am. In the meantime, I had run the red car to set a qualification time, a fairly slow for me 13.0 at 105 mph, but it meant I qualified.

Between 10.20 am, we unloaded the white car, changed its wheels, warmed it up, hoofed it up to Scrutineering only to find the scrutineer all the way down the other end at Race Control! Argh! Some of the other officials busily checked the car for safety whilst Amos meandered back to sign it off.

I raced down the fire up lane with Ben alongside, who nearly pooed his pants due to a distinct lack of faith in my lightweight Brakeman Revolution brakes,. After demonstrating just how effective they were at stopping the car was left a little surprised to say the least. I have to admit, that did leave a smile on my face!

We had made it to the start line with about 10 seconds to spare.

After going up onto the limiter for around a second (not letting the boost build) I side stepped the clutch and off we went. 1.67 60', 4.42 330', 6.62 @ 118.25 mph 1/8th, 8.39 @ 136.87 mph 1000' and a 9.87 @ 158.48 mph 1/4. What I can tell you is the car will go a lot faster as the clutch was slipping in all 4 gears! You can especially hear it in Jaitch's youtube video.

Either way it was enough to qualify in 3rd and take the highest qualifying JDS terminal of the day. Dave Greenhalgh did manage an 8.38 @ 160 mph but as his cage is only good to 8.50 the run was non-qualifying.

158.48 mph is a new European terminal speed record and I believe only 2 people worldwide have gone faster with a 3S, Matt Monett and Nelson Bernard. Watch this space, I'm only just getting started!

Most cars running these kind of terminals tend to put on 30-32 mph between the 1/8 - the 1/4 mile, mine put on 40.23 mph!

The writing was on the wall though as that slipping clutch led to another slave cylinder failure in the final round of qualifying. Another quick change of the cylinder but unfortunately the clutch plates were welded together / to the flywheel and weren't disengaging meaning I couldn't select any gears and the car moved off if started in gear. Also whilst trying to separate the clutch I think we spiked the ECU.

End of racing and the season.

I finished 3rd in the Championship but take an awful lot of new knowledge from this season. I also, in 2 outings beat last year's personal best 6 times having run 5 9 second passes.

God, I can't wait to drive it again, especially on the road!

How my side exits sound

Santa Pod. Andre + GTO leaving the pits - YouTube

9.8 seconds @ 158 mph

Santa Pod GTO 9.8 at 158 mph - YouTube

Slow motion 9.8 second pass








André

[Turbo Beast]

Haha Sweet man! A 9.8 in the bag!!! Congrats!

[2fnloud]

How successful would you say that the T-case cover has been? any plans to tear that down in the off season and inspect the gears?

[Greg E]

Amazing!! Awesome work!

[HellBringer]

Congrats -- That's some serious MPH! Once you get the clutch issues sorted you've got the right combination for 8's -- now you just have to drive it to it..!

[CoopKill]

Congrats! Any thoughts on the slave failures?

[Unlogic]

Congratulations, your really pushing this platform!

[fullracegt]

That's awesome! Can't wait to see the car at 100% keep up the good work!

[Permanent grin]

We didn't run the TC cover as we are making a minor alteration before running it.

Coop, I think what may have been going on with the slaves is the twin plate carbon was slipping, creating a lot of carbon dust that was getting really hot and sticking the plates to the flywheel surface, meaning the slave was having to experience much harsher conditions than it normally would to operate the clutch.

HB, I am so excited for next year, especially knowing what I have planned!

I managed to get hold of a competitors timing slip to compare with mine. He ran 8.8 @ 157 mph. I lost 0.33 secs in the 60' with my 1.67; I was down 0.7 @ 330', 1.08 @ 1/8, 1.01 @ 1000' and 1.03 @ 1/4.

Speed wise at 1/8 he was 128.41, 143.91 @ 1000', 157.93 @ 1/4. Mine was 118.25, 136.87 and 158.48. So I out accelerated him by 10 mph in the 2nd 1/8, 6 mph in the final 320'.

The 60' is a given, new tyres, new grip levels to learn, new pressures, suspension geometry changes all need to be worked on and this requires more seat time, period. The other 0.75 seconds that I lost against him was all in the 330'. As he runs either a dog or sequential (can't remember which) I firmly believe this loss and more was purely down to speed of shifting. I feel that if the paddle shift works as expected and works in other cars we could feasibly look at saving 0.3-0.4 seconds per shift.

André

[kywhitelightning]

Coop, I think what may have been going on with the slaves is the twin plate carbon was slipping, creating a lot of carbon dust that was getting really hot and sticking the plates to the flywheel surface, meaning the slave was having to experience much harsher conditions than it normally would to operate the clutch.

André

Huh? I'm having a hard time digesting this theaory. Could you elaborate a little as to how the slave cylinder is experiencing harsher conditions? Once the clutch pedal is released the slave cylinder should fully retract and really shouldn't be contacting the fork very hard. Are you saying the fork is pushing the rod further into the bore than normal?

Jeff