Red Devil mkII - The Journey Continues

[seangti]

As mentioned above, I'm in the process of pulling the turbo off to get it rebuilt. Had been leaking oil around it from somewhere and occasionally blowing white smoke. Just got a few bolts remaining for it to be out. For the most part, the job has been really quite straight forward, just time consuming and a few phone calls and supervision from Gavin. I don't typically enjoy doing mechanical work, but has been fine so far.

Before wakefield I ordered a new set of semi slicks, Kumho V70A in medium compound, 215/45/17. The price was too good to not snap em up. I had expected to chop my current tyres more at wakefield, but that circuit seems to be much more gentle on tyres than the qld circuits, so will get another day or two from the current tyres. I did however chomp my brake pads, so replaced with A1RM's, from the 100km i did a week ago, they feel amazing.

Here's a pic from on the way to wakefield.

[Water Boy]

Gav is pretty clued up on the turbo rebuilds. I guess you'll send yours down to the Goldcoast to for a rebuild?

It would be really good to get all the trackday VW guys together one time for a fang but its always tricky with $$$, work and time.... maybe next year.

[Machine]

Unfortunately not anymore. Would LOVE to run that track as I didnt when i was down in March. It was on the agenda to go, but currently pulling the turbo off as its got a gremlin inside. I may come for a look depending on my work movements, but will be rollin in a rental car. Will re-aim for later in the year.

You'd be my hero if you took a rental car out onto the track!

[seangti]

Gav is pretty clued up on the turbo rebuilds. I guess you'll send yours down to the Goldcoast to for a rebuild?

It would be really good to get all the trackday VW guys together one time for a fang but its always tricky with $$$, work and time.... maybe next year.

yeah absolutely RE getting all the VW's together. My time will come Fortunately my employer has an office south of Sydney which I spend quite a bit of time at, so anything in or around Sydney I have a reasonable level of flexibility.

And yup, will be taking it back to Billet Turbo's for their diagnostic/rectification. It's undone now, but proving a little difficult to pull it out between the firewall and engine. Will try again tonight when I can get a hand with it.

[seangti]

You'd be my hero if you took a rental car out onto the track!

Sounds like a good idea for a bucks party, or baby shower....

[Machine]

Sounds like a good idea for a bucks party, or baby shower....

Let's do both!

[seangti]

I did timeattack at lakeside yesterday in my daily polo while the red ones off the road. Had an absolutely hoot and got awesome (IMO) lap times given the level of modification. When I last tracked this car at lakeside in March last year with the same/current tyres and no mods done since, I did a 66.0s lap, at the time I thought was pretty good. Yesterday I was lapping consistently in high 64sec, with a best 64.77sec. I've spent quite some time today looking over all my lap data, surprisingly I was much smoother under braking in this car than the red one. The transition between brake and accelerator was much better (I won't bore with that data unless asked). My speeds in the slower corners are only marginally down, cornering forces are mostly comparable, mid corner speeds in the silver car were similar and occasionally better, and my speed coming into hungry was also comparable at around the ~170kph. I've found it really interesting to compare the two cars, both feel and from a data perspective. The red one is faster, more fun but also more challenging and certainly more track oriented, but I wasn't left overly shorthanded with the lesser modded one.

By comparison, the best I've done so far in the red polo is a 63.1sec. I'm confident that I'll be in the 62's with more time in the car, and some work on my braking. And finding the apex of hungry hey Gavin

Comparison of Lap times and other data


Comparison of Sectors of best laps - though my fastest lap in the red polo aren't my sectors bests. I was lapping more consistent in the silver polo than I have in the red. I think that mostly due to the challenge of power down in the red one, whereas the silver car can sit on the floor boards more



And AWESOME photo's by Tracktuned Media. Huge thanks for sharing.






I know I've waffled on here - sorta sorry, but I love this stuff. Plus I hope to look back on this thread in years to come as a bit of a diary... you know when kids are screaming, I'm driving a minivan and wondering what I did with my life. haha.

[h100vw]

It was the only corner I could really see without walking for miles. So maybe you are getting those others wrong too? I wonder if some on track footage from a following car would be helpful for refine lines??

It was cool to see all three of you picking up PBs.

Gavin

[nat225]

you have done the silver car a 'driver mod' since March last year

[grandturismo]

Congrats on the days results Sean.
Your braking data is interesting to me.
Are there any significant differences in the braking setup between the two cars?
The silver Polo must handle well too, do you feel the differences in setup is money well spent?

[Water Boy]

Enjoy this thread very much!

[louis19]

Really cool to see the comparisons in a total break down, seems like the only real area the red polo has the larger time gain is coming onto the straight as to be expected.

Like you'd already know sometimes more power isn't the key to fast lap times, until your conditioned to the car and understand how and when to apply power, braking, proper lines etc, more power in the wrong hands generally leads to overshooting corners, ending up on the wrong lines and overall actually being slower then if your in a slower car making less mistakes and sticking to the lines. I've raced R/C cars for years, from 1/8th Gas buggies through to 1/10 electric on road cars, and it's the exact same concept. It's only the guys who are more experienced and know how to utilise the power, that then become faster when controlling a higher powered car.

Also people underestimate the ability to produce consistent laps one after the other. Of course you have to be fast aswell but so many times in R/C racing you would see guys with the fastest overall laps for the day but near the back end of the pack overall because they have just done a one hit wonder lap, but then every other lap is 3-4 seconds slower, which over the time of a 10 minute race adds up to nearly a whole extra lap of time.

That bit over 1 sec time difference between the two cars per lap to people may not seem like a lot considering the two cars different mods and power etc but when you get to the pointy end of competition even 0.1 of a second is a lot per lap. Imagine if you were to for argument sake, put the two head to head in a proper race of something like 50 laps, that 1 second difference would nearly accumulate to a whole minute ahead, which in the scheme of thing is a lot. Anyways I won't go on to much.


Off the times in your silver one you can see your driving ability is there, and you know your lines well. It will just be a matter of time before your in the 62's in the red one. Also congrats on beating your PB

[seangti]

hi, cheers for the responses.

Gavin, I didn't record this one, though my lines are typically very similar to Nat's, and Alan's. I think we're all running very similar now, though it's about refining and finding those 10ths. Which is also why I've started looking at distance travelled per lap, as 10metres at 170kph (47.2 metres per second) is 0.211 seconds. Gotta find them 10ths.

Alan, regarding brakes. The silver polo is standard calipers with DBA T2 rotors front and rear with Bendix pads on the front and remsa on the rear. They certainly look and feel worse for wear today. The red polo has Brembo's front with 320mm T2 rotor's, rears are off upsized and vented (250mm) with braided lines, remsa pads front and rear I think. The red polo feels much stronger under brakes. Now it has QFM A1RM's, I'm expecting better performance.

I wasn't sure how best to illustrate the differences, so have tried a screen shot with overlay straight from the Gtech software.
Points A: braking. Longitudinal force is braking (-ve g's) and acceleration (+ve g's). The black lines and data are from the silver polo, the red for the red. This one graph is actually some of my better braking in the red car. Note the y-axis is for time, rather than distance, so it will be skewed a bit due to speed. Anyway, at the "A", you can see the red line isn't as progressive/linear as the black. I'm having 2 go's under braking. I'm guessing that I'm out braking myself, so letting off, than getting back on the brakes (albeit very marginally in this graph). I'm also braking harder (more g's) in the silver car. It's the same at the second "A", but more evident.

Point B: I'm looking at how progressing that line is as I get back on the throttle. This in accelerating out of Hungry. I have to run 4th gear in the red polo as it's wheel spun, the silver car is 3rd gear, but not full throttle as that'll spin a bit too. But the line is much more progressing. I'm also interested in the lateral acceleration (turning), which the black line is also much smoother.

Pont C: This is the turn at the bus stop, just as you tip in under the bridge. Surprisingly, the speed between both cars is essentially identical at just over 150kph. As is peak speed coming into Hungry at ~170kph. The red line (red car), gets there sooner, and post corner accelerates much quicker, but peak cornering speeds/loads are very similar. On this lap in this corner, I'm also braking harder in the silver car at -0.86g's compared to maxing the red car at -0.7g's.

Given the red car has much more chassis tweaking; bushes, shims, camber/castor kit, corner weighted, coilovers, lots of bracing, I'm really quite surprised how close the data appears. In terms of feel, the red car is better, front end feel in the corners is better, braking feels better, but it doesn't look like I'm getting all that out of the car yet. In Karousel and Eastern Loop, there's nothing in it, if anything I'm doing better in the silver car... I wonder if it's just needing more time in the red one to get a handle on the power, or is it too much power with an open diff...




Louis, thanks for the your input mate. It's hard to put chasing 10th's into perspective until your doing it hey. Will we see you out there?

[Machine]

I want this data analysis for my laps! How much to hire you, Sean?

[seangti]

I want this data analysis for my laps! How much to hire you, Sean?

You can't afford me, pal [emoji3]

It's yours when its not mine, though the vbox software is more detailed and would save a lot of time from having to collate data in excel.