Sams Polo 3.0

[JTop]

Sam the Polo looks amazing
If you have templates for a sump those would be awesome, I'd be after doing one up for the hopefully inexpensive big build

As for close calls. It's becoming ridiculous. I'm always trying to avoid peak hour wherever I go since the last Polo. Can't win getting anywhere quickly when people are unnecessarily braking, changing lanes slowly and running red lights... And as you mentioned. MOBILE PHONES. like leave that alone until you get to where you want, pull over or have a headunit capable of doing voice to text...

[sambb]

Thanks mate. First time I've actually washed it was to head down to Wakefield. I'd just gotten the spare bonnet sprayed which ended up being the best panel on the car so then of course I had to give it a wash to even it all up plus both my mates who were going to the track are known car polishers.
Quite a few things to get on top of (for reliablility) before the next track outing. I need to get a new coolant hose kit onto it (preferably samco or the like), fit up the baffled sump, wire up the oil pressure 'idiot light', get the oil temp gauge into this car, get the 20% E85 blend tune done just to get the engine temps down a bit (ok for more power too) and also move the oil filter somewhere better. The car had a remote fuel filter on it but it sits way too low actually protruding from the underbody tray and is likely to clout something, so I'll have to relocate that at some point. All the filter, remote filter take off and oil cooler gear is weeping oil from the fittings so I'm going to piss off all that stuff and start again with -AN pushlock hose.
The rims I have are super good quality but are waaay too heavy for my kind of circuit work. They are tarmac rally rims and so are built too tough for what I need. They are worth some coin so I'm in two minds if I should stay with 16's or just make the jump to 17's.
And when I was reshimming the rear end, low and behold the TT brakes use the exact same brake pad as the Polo. So I'm suspending heavier vented rears, bigger calipers and bigger carriers and so despite being big and heavy, the only advantage they give is that they MAY run a bit cooler than Polo solid discs. But I seriously doubt it. So I'm thinking in the interest of getting rear unspprung weight down, I will just put my complete old beam back in.
Jan I have a scale photocopy of the templates. I'll post them down to you. Like I said they are literally where someone has traced out their actual plates so they arent spot on especially once you jigsaw them etc. they do need file fitting and lots of fiddling. You'll need an off the car sump to get it all correct before fitting it.

[JTop]

I haven't seen any solid silicone coolant kits around for a while
I've sold most of my spares, massive demand suddenly arrived haha

Those wheels are mint though, but totally understand the weight troubles. I've got the BBS LM's and the Team Dynamics. I want to see which is better on the track before I say anything

Ah mint, so they're actual paper templates. I'll throw some $ your way if you could, would be perfect!
Already have an entire engine in pieces. just waiting for the pistons to arrive so can start getting the bottom end sorted
Have an AGU head which I idealised to completely rebuild. BUT after talking to Nash, who's also running bigturbski he's straight convincing me to grab another bjx head. Lucky one popped up at the local wrecker. need to go ASAP! Got my gravituned vband tubular exhaust mani too from the UK the other day. I'll do a budget run because there are lots of small things to spend on soooooo yeah. Then maybe go all out when I'm working full time.

Just changing the oil fittings? I need to get a thermostatic sandwich plate too. What are those fitting and hose specs?

[sambb]

The samco kits are available out of the UK but are like 140 pounds excl delivery which is total BS. If I cant find someone sitting on one locally then i'll just take a box of pipes with me from one of my spare engines to the track because for sure something will split 3 hours from home at some point.
yeah the oil cooler setup on this car retains the heat exchanger but then the sandwich plate isnt thermostated. You'd think they'd cancel one another out because one heats the oil and the other then is constantly cooling it again from the moment the car is started. So at the least I'd like to swap in my 'stated plate so that I at least get the benefits of the quicker warm up from the exchanger. If you run heat exchanger + sandwich plate then there's not enough room really for a full size oil filter. There are shorter stubbier oil filters that could fit on the end of the exchanger/sandwich stack but not sure I'd trust something so small to do the job. So this car uses a remote filter take off. Nothing wrong with that except for the million dollars in overpriced AN fittings needed if you are doing it from scratch and its way harder than you'd think to package all that around alternators, the AC compressor, radiator/radiator hoses etc and getting it to and from your cooler. A total headf%$k actually and then once its all in, unless you do/undo it in a certain order, there's no way of checking/servicing it easily and I dont really want to get stuck with that at the track. Thinking about it, for simplicities sake I might even ditch the whole lot and just run the 'stated sandwich plate and a non remote filter like the old car had and just have two AN lines running to/from the sandwich plate. Just way less to go wrong and helps with access in the engine bay. On the last car, provided the oil cooler is blanked off when you are not on the track, the oil temps stay high enough for oil health in public driving. The system is 5/8th ID = 10/16 therefore AN10 (dash 10) hoses and fittings. I now just use dash 10 pushlock hose and pushlock -AN fittings. For me that way you know that if there's any weeping it cant be coming from the hose -> fitting join. It can only be coming from the actual threaded fitting, and you know that a pushlock hose can never come off due to assembly error - if your threaded fitting is tight then you're good. Just be aware that some of those british Mocal plates use BSPP (parrallel threaded british pipe threads that need special washers to seal). If you put NPT fittings in those they will leak. Also its the right time to think about drilling and taping a plate for an oil pressure sender or switch before you install it because there's limited space down there to locate that kind of stuff after installlation.

ill try to remember tomorrow to post the templates to you.

[Sydneykid]

When using a remote filter I use a fitting that has provision for temperature and pressure sensors. Choose the applicable "IN" and then use the other for the oil pressure sensor, the temp sensor goes in the small hole. Saves having fittings in the sump etc.



Cheers
Gary

[Sydneykid]

What do you need in -10 fittings? I buy dash fittings in bulk from Speedflow in the US. Until you do a final assembly on a race car you never know exactly what fittings you will need. The stock accumulates over time and to be truthful I don't know exactly what's there, I just grab the box full and start working on the plumbing on the car. Send me a list and I will see what I can find.

Cheers
Gary

[sambb]

Thanks Gary. No If I go back to deleting the heat exchanger and just running a thermostated sandwich plate (just to simplify everything) I should be alright for dash 10 parts. I'll drill n tap a 1/8th NPT ports into the plate. Also the plate I have is thermostated at 80 degrees which is a tad too low. Mocal dont actually do a higher rated stat for that plate which is a shame. The thermostat part is removable so I was thinking I'd look at shiming its spring with washers or finding a stronger spring at work and testing it in hot water to get it to crack at 90 degrees. If I can achieve that I'll feel better about deleting the oil/water heat exchanger.

[h100vw]

I run the 80 degree stat in my sandwich plate. I'm not aware of it causing any dramas. I dont monitor oil temps to be truthful. Deleted the heat exchanger to keep a full size filter. Been like that for donkeys

[sambb]

yeah the same setup worked well for me too Gav but after watching oil temps and surprised by the amount of water that can come from a crankcase on the last car, I'll try it out with a hotter stat this time.
On that setup on the last car I had an oil temp gauge and found that in say 20 degree ambient weather it'd take only a minute or two longer for the oil to get to 90 degrees than with the heat exchanger present and no cooler. That was in commuter type driving and that was fine by me. Where it was showed up though, was a cold night doing the same. I could leave work and drive 45km home and the oil would struggle to get to 70 and then ages after that it would park itself at 80 (the stat setting) and stay there. The cooler obviously was better at stripping heat out of the oil than than the motor was at putting heat into it in those conditions so it remained 20 degrees off where the oil needs to be. So I basically blanked off the fog light facia completely and the oil would then get to 100 degrees (perfect) in traffic and 90 on a cold cruise, which was ok with me.
The 80 degree temps are just too low. I found that out when I fit my catch can with clear hoses initially just to see what was going on. The hoses were just full of condensation on those cold night cruises without the oil cooler blanked off. There was so much water in them it was a bit crazy. That was when I learnt that unless the oil gets more or less to 95-100 degrees then it wont boil off the water that invariably ends up in the sump. If you run too cool and never do that then you are potentially filling the bottom of the sump with a layer of water that will just get bigger and bigger. When I blanked the cooler and the oil temps were higher the lines didnt have nearly as much condensation in them - you'd either find a bit of moisture in the catch can instead or nothing at all, I assume because what had collected there had either evaporated out of the can or the water as proper vapour had run right through back into the TIP. Also the new car has an oil cooler thats about 30% bigger than my old one which is even more reason to hold oil flow away from the cooler until its actually required.

[sambb]

After dissecting some of the pics taken of my car at Wakefield I have some setup questions. Heres the car in slow corners:

both pics taken at the hairpin coming onto the straight. Not sure if its the nature of the beast in a corner like that but she has a fair bit of roll onto the outside front.

here's the car in fast corners:

thats through the turn 1 kink and into turn 2 and the last one looks like the right hander coming onto the back straight. Roll looking ok, composed and tyre camber angles looking pretty good for a daily'd car.

The slow corner pics made me think I should have gone to stiff on the front bar. But then the fast corner pics made me think that isnt the case. I'm thinking maybe all I needed was more front end bump damping to help support the front outside corner in the short duration/big damper movement hairpin corner? The front end generally felt very good which is why I didnt go front stiffer on the day. I had ZERO rear end grip so was chasing things there with tyre pressures, reducing bump/rebound on that end - but maybe yeah more front end stiffness would have solved it all.

Then there's this pic and I dont know what to make of it. Heading down the hill towards the fish hook. I think its exaggerated by the fact that I'm right up on the kurb but whereas my tyre geametry looks really good in all the other pics, here it looks like I'm running out of neg camber.


settings for the day were:

front neg camber -2.5
pos caster 7.75
toe out 3mm
31 psi 225/45/16 A050 mediums
rear neg camber 2.25
toe out 3.0-3.5mm (toe plate measured)
29-31psi 225/45/16 A050 mediums

Because the car was actually really planted through turn 1 ->2 and under brakes into the fishhook and hairpin I'm not worried that the tailiness was rear toe induced. The day was freezing and my rears were noticeable cool getting back into the pits if I stopped mid session. The rear end issues went away by lap 4/5 which I think supports that. Also my cold tyre runs at the Bathurst hillclimbs were similar. I didnt have any such problem as SMSP Gardiner circuit 4 weeks earlier in 25 degree heat (versus 1-9 degrees!) so I do think the car/me struggles on a very cold track /cold rears with rear end grip. I think a pair of rear softs is the way forward with that just like on the last car.
I'm hearing that AR1's despite generally being pretty turd do have a couple of things going for them. They work well with a bit of tyre slip and they also get to whatever is their grip window very quickly. Since finding soft compound A050 in 16's 2nd hand is near impossible, and I could never afford them new from Levens, I'm going to try a pair of AR1's on the back. Hopefully they'll be my hillclimb and freezing circuit rear end solution.
All in all because of my rear grip issues I didnt get below 1:11 flat (iphone racechrono pro) . That sucked given that I ran a 1:10.3 there (natsoft) first time I ever went to a circuit. BUT i was making mistakes every single lap because I was fighting the car like crazy and I'm bouyed by the fact that when racechrono stitched together my best sectors in the 2nd last session (warmer track) I had a 1:09.18, so I know the time is in it.

[sambb]

and I was on pretty beat up tyres:

[Sydneykid]

Lots of questions, responses in no particular order;

It looks like you got maximum value out of those tyres, time for newer ones.

The less tread a tyre has the slower it warms up, the increase in skin temperature is mostly generated by the movement and resulting internal friction in the tread. Simplistically a "bald" tyre is going to take longer to warm up than a new tyre with full tread. Also a tyre that has been through more heat cycles has inevitably "hardened" up some.

Centre of tread blisters are usually caused by too high a tyre pressure, off centre blisters by not enough or too much camber. "Balder" tyres are more susceptible to blisters, something A050's are know for. We try to never go over 30 psi hot.

Faster warm up is one reason why we often run a smaller tyre on the rear, the 205 gets up to temp faster than the 225 (eg; good to go after 1 warm up lap and 1 race lap at WP).

I know that you know that -2.5 degree camber is not enough, we run -4.25 on the LHS front at WP and that's with much higher damper and spring rates. But for you that's an unavoidable road car compromise. What will help is if you lower the rear roll centre, that will reduce the diagonal weight transfer onto the outside front. It also will help a bit with rear tyre warm up, because you are "leaving" more weight on the rear.

I agree rear "softs" would be good for hillclimbs, where instantaneous warm up is desirable. But for track days they will overheat quickly and after a few laps they will be throw away. On the time attack cars we put a new set of softs on every 3 runs, that's about 9 to 10 laps.


Hope that helps
Cheers
Gary

[sambb]

yeah I've never blistered a tyre before but can see how easily it can happen once they get really thin. I had to switch LF with LR throughout the day just to keep the car going and the blister happened on the RF even though it was probably my best tyre and never went above 31 psi.
Ok well if you reckon a soft will have chunks coming off it even in those conditions after 5 laps, then i'll definitely give rear 205/45/16 yoko mediums a try. Justin contacted me last night and said he'll have a look at what he's got after this weekend which is cool of him.
Yeah I definitely think going lower on the rear will be a big help. I didnt have mid corner understeer which suggests more or less that I had enough rear neg camber. It was more on turn in so a lower rear seems the go. Thats why I'd asked you the other day about changing out the overly long MCA rears so I can lower further without getting into the stops. MCA hasnt gotten back to me yet regarding a shorter damper but once I get a price from them I'll be able to make a decision RE re valved B8's or another pair of theirs.
I know I need more front neg. Rear too it seems. Its amazing how what looks like way too much on the street disappears on the track. I cant get any more front neg for now. The tops are diagonally in as far back as they'll go, the subframes are as far forward and out as they'll go and the ball joints are too. I could reposition the tops for more camber, maybe 3 degrees max, but then I'd loose a degree or so of caster and I think biasing the caster like I am now is the better option.
So I'll lower the rear more. I wouldnt lower the front more as the high roll centre and caster seem to working together to be hold what little neg camber I do have in there until the bitter end. That means that with the lower rear its going to a very odd looking car on the track , but it works so I'm fine with that.
thanks Gary

[sambb]

Yaris GR after crash images - YouTube

This new GR Yaris rolled somewhere in the world recently. Check out how far the roof came down onto the drivers head. After putting in the race seat I sit very low and have way more free height above my head which I thought was a bit of a plus for safety, but seeing this I think thats pretty naive.

[simon k]

I was thinking about getting a seat and harness with a harness bar, but then I found this article...
Harness bars without rollbars, and a trackday organizer's thoughts on them. — tracktuned

The club president's son headbutted the tyre wall at our last track day, he popped it up on 2 wheels, rode on 2 wheels for a bit then met the wall. Note the way the roof has neatly shaped around the cage