Lapping @ AMP, NS - July 24, 2011

[Scott McIntyre]

I've been slacking on my event reports, so I'll try to catch up.

This event was my first outing in the Talon this season. I had spent the whole preceding Saturday working on the car, trying to finish some stuff up, which spilled over to Sunday morning (details posted here). So I didn't make it to the track until the afternoon sessions.

I arrived, swapped on my brand new Goodyear race tires and my race brake pads. For tire pressures, I stuck with what I had used with my old Kumho V710s, which was 30 psi / 28 psi.

Also worth noting is that I was only running wastegate pressure for boost. I had switched from a manual boost controller to ECMLinks's boost control logic and had yet to tune it. So I had it set to zero for safety (plus I had it low during my clutch break-in).

My engine tune was still the same from last year, but I was now running 100% water injection versus a 50/50 meth mix. So this meant that the engine was running quite lean in boost (13:1 AFR) but it was low boost and I was getting no knock.

When I hit the track for the first time, the tires were very greasy. They'd easily break loose powering out of the turn 2. But that is to be expected as the tire mold release agent wears off. I only did about 3 laps before coming back in.

The tires were still pretty greasy for my second session, and the coolant temps were raising alarmingly fast. They got up to 245°F at one point. So I had to cut the session short to let the car cool down.

I had probably got about a dozen laps in total at this point. As I was preparing to go out for another session, I decided to check my oil level and found that my dip stick was missing! In it's place a bunch of white goo. My exhaust manifold had cracked and was blowing hot exhaust around my dip stick & rad fan shroud. Again, the details were posted here.

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So that was the end of my day. I let the car cool down until my melted dip stick hardened, then I very gingerly drove the car home.

Great start to the season.

Here's a short clip from day, driving in traffic. This was before I learned that I need to turn down the camera's exposure setting for in-car stuff, so the external view is kinda washed out.

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[DSMReviver]

What exhaust manifold is that?

 

[Scott McIntyre]

What exhaust manifold is that?

It's an FP DSM Race Manifold. Here's a few more pics after I removed it from the car:

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[black_gst]

Damn Scott, you mentiond this to me awhile back, thats a nasty crack, I got a metal handle dipstick from mitsu, im sure it was for a 6 bolt, but im not sure if they revised them all or not. Those plastic ones usually break eventually.

 

[Scott McIntyre]

I got a metal handle dipstick from mitsu, im sure it was for a 6 bolt, but im not sure if they revised them all or not. Those plastic ones usually break eventually.

This was actually the second dipstick handle I've melted. The first one happened when the dip stick popped out, sprayed oil on the manifold and caught fire.

That's when I added the spring (seen above) to the dip stick tube to keep it from popping out again.

However, this time (as you suggested) I got a metal 1G dip stick. Comparing the metal 1G and plastic 2G dip sticks, they appear to be virtually identical in length & markings, so they should be interchangeable.

 

[rdgsdsm]

not to hate on FP, but i had 1 that cracked in the exact same place. other then that, sounds really fun.

 

[DSMReviver]

Im suprised

 

[DSMReviver]

I didn't think FP manifold would crack. This is the first time ive seen it happened.

 

[BIGBLAZE79]

That looked like a blast. You know that track pretty good by the looks of it.

 

[Scott McIntyre]

That looked like a blast. You know that track pretty good by the looks of it.

Yes, it's great fun! Even more so when you're not preoccupied with mechanical gremlins.

But yeah, I've spent a lot of time running around that track over the years. It's not a particularly fast track, but is very challenging / technical. I love all the elevation changes.

Best thing is that it's only 45 minutes from my house. The next closest road course is Circuit Mont-Tremblant in Quebec, which is 15 hours from me. And then there's Mosport which is 20 hours away.