bobgenie

The trouble is I want to be fast enough to worry the 4x4 big boys lol. I think the only way I could do that would be to focus on the just one discipline and that's less fun. Or do what Mark did and drive his GTO and his GTR :-) Did you get a ribbing from your boys for teaming up with us?

I meant top three in each group :-)

The times weren't bad TBH what with cross winds, head winds, and the rest. But I was trying various new parts some of which didn't work and some that did. The ones that didn't work we took off and the one that did (softer springs) caused other problems. But I'm being hard on myself as in reality the car did very well and looking at the results only Andy Forrest, Simon Norris, and me were placed in all three disciplines. Two of the four finalists in RWD only did the quarter mile and the Dax Rush didn't do the flyer. It makes it a lot easier if you don't do all three so I'm going to stop beating myself up and enjoy the moment :)

He gave him a five second start. And still beat him lol. That's a great car been around a long time and well sorted. Was the only car that competed on level terms with Andy Forest. Like Pete said where else would that happen? In modified car land it's on a par with racing around a track with BTCC cars :) bloody brilliant!

I'd like to say thank you and well done to all the team and I thought you all did brilliantly well. There were some really good times being done and most of you reminded me of myself four years ago when I did it all for the first time too :) For myself so many problems with my car and the hard work necessary to just keep it running took the shine off of it all but in the end I'm proud that I got some half decent times and some silverware. My first time at TOTB I remember it well and I turned up with a seriously fast full weight road car and made the final of the handling. No other zeds in sight and here we are this year with 8 cars competing and TWO cars in the handling final!!! Well done Danny (Keano) you were impressive mate :)

many thanks for joining the team and thanks for the video :) It's around 700at the hubs and yes it did lose that drag lol

Yes James I was going to pick your brains a little later in the week if that's OK :)

At last some pix from Japshow. You may have seen the video and here are the photos. The Civic is driven by Amy Bradley who is a well known drag competitor so to have matched her time on a head to head was pretty good I think.

An update on the build as quite a lot has happened over the past few weeks. Now that TOTB is out of the way I will be taking stock and deciding on where we go from here. TOTB didn't go fantastically well and I had a lot of issues to deal with. We installed the Infiniti ECU but it's so new they haven't written much software for it so in reality it was less flexible than the series 2 :( However we installed and ran with NOS but this was used to reduce lag rather than increase power and it did the job well. In fact over a dozen runs we were hitting just over 700 at the hubs in extremely hot weather so sorted. Then I decided to install softer springs at the rear which made sense because of the weight loss. And while the car was excellent at high speed corners it was dire at slow speed and tight bends/hairpins etc so pretty rubbish for TOTB or sprints. I replaced the exiting 6kg springs with 5kg which should help to improve the grip for TOTB. Next job was some sensible geo setup and I got this done in Northampton on a state of the art laser facility (state of the art prices too). Finally AME installed full throttle shift and some electronic gismos which they believed would improve times on the quarter. This was against my personal wishes however I was happy to 'give it a go' and help to develop the concept. So when we turned up at TOTB on Saturday morning it was with a totally different setup from any previous and I wanted to test a bit more than normal to get it right. After a couple of pretty slow laps on Saturday morning it was clear the traction was much better. Unfortunately it was so good that I was suffering oil surge! I initially thought that I had blown the engine as there was loads of smoke from the right exhaust. After a few checks it was clear that it was simply surge and I decided to stop doing handling as I didn't want to do any damage. So onto the quarter mile and more problems. I don't use launch or traction control and like to do the work myself. Dan had installed a switch on the clutch which enables me to hold the throttle pinned and the revs drop to around 5000 revs. This enables me to change gear but stops the turbos from losing boost. Unfortunately this prevented me from doing a burnout as every time I tried it was dropping to the lower revs and bogging. Not only that this same limit prevented me from launching correctly and most of the early runs saw me trying various different ways to overcome the issues. I did manage to cope with the full throttle shift but it wasn't really my cup of tea. So I told Craig to remove everything and went out again and tried to suss out the different suspension as again I was getting a different response with the softer springs. I ended the day not knowing my head from my ass :) On Sunday I let them re-install the switch to give it one last go but after aborting my first two runs it was clear I had to go back to the drawing board and removed all the electronics again. I managed to knock out a half decent quarter(enough to get me into the finals anyway) and did a single top speed run just to get one on the board. A pretty respectable 164 mph which was my theoretical maximum anyway :) On to the handling and I had decided to drive it a bit different from my normal style to try and prevent oil surge. Rather than make maximum traction I tried to get the wheels spinning to get the corners and this seemed to work. In fact it wasn't until the shootout that I experienced some oil surge issues but they were minor. Handling wise the car is amazing but unfortunately I wasn't able to fully exploit this due to the oil surge. Only a second behind Justin who is a pretty decent drifter and has a very well sorted car so it's not all bad. So for now I am going to try and get some seat time in the car without changing it too much as this will help to improve times greatly. I'm not sure what the next stage will be I won't be trying to make it any faster until I can sort out the oil surge. So perhaps I can simply start to enjoy driving it rather than building it :) Some photos later :) On the up side I managed to get on the bottom step of the podium for all three disciplines which is a pretty tall order and apart from me only Andy Forrest, Simon Norris, and Steve Darley achieved that (though they did it a lot quicker)!!! Doing well in all three disciplines is tough on car and driver so survival was important. Perhaps next year I can drive it to its full potential.

I was struggling with decent times and was trying some new things. Yesterday I managed an 11.59 and today my best was 11.64 in the head to head eliminator.

First and foremost a great turnout by the boys today and some excellent first runs I was impressed by all. I think I spoke to everyone but if I didn't apologies I was having a bad weekend :-) Of course we beat the GTO team hands down both days but they took it graciously lol. Unfortunately we didn't win a team trophy but was close. Despite my ups and downs I managed to get on the bottom step of the podium for the top speed, quarter mile, and handling so three trophies to put on the mantelpiece :-) I am staying at Petes tonight as didn't fancy the long drive home tonight.

He did brilliant and I'm hoping he does even better tomorrow :-)

I'm already here :)

Exactly right :) I have never used launch and won't for this event but never say never I say :)

Just checking reliability. Still not perfect and will probably take a further 6 months but it will do for now. Going out for a little run this morning to check a few potential electronic issues and then on the road. Might pop into Pete's for a coffee if he'll have me :)

nearly there :)

Now that's the way to do it :-)

B Yes that's what I will be doing :-)

Yes we thought about it and even thought about a gearbox swap but I've decided to go with what we've got. I think once TOTB is over I will try a TT diff as I think we've got enough power to improve times but we shall see :)

Great stuff we need all the help we can get :) I am still trying to get the handling right and it's taking some time but slowly getting there. We have installed softer springs on the rear to try and get more grip on the handling course but probably gone a bit too soft. One big problem is that I thought the top speed would be a top ten banker but the new PPG fifth gear is 10% lower ratio. Add the NA ratio diff and I'll be lucky to hit 170 :( I'm going to pump the tyres up that might help lol. Let's hope the weather holds out :)

Great stuff we need all the help we can get :) I am still trying to get the handling right and it's taking some time but slowly getting there. We have installed softer springs on the rear to try and get more grip on the handling course but probably gone a bit too soft. One big problem is that I thought the top speed would be a top ten banker but the new PPG fifth gear is 10% lower ratio. Add the NA ratio diff and I'll be lucky to hit 170 :( I'm going to pump the tyres up that might help lol. Let's hope the weather holds out :)

Guys you should all have received an email from Dave Naxton by now and if you haven't please check your junk mail and/or send an email to Dave on dpnvaleting@btinternet.com and make sure you are properly entered. I know they like to wait till the last minute but in previous year each entrant could look at their entry online and this option has disappeared hence Dave's emails. Any real problems let me know and I will call him. Ian has also asked about pit passes. Each entrant has a ticket for a genuine support vehicle. I am using mine but if anyone is not using theirs it would be good to let these go to the members who are helping the team on the day. So if anyone has one spare can they indicate this on here and any support workers who require one can get in touch :) - - - Updated - - - ooops :)

Guys you should all have received an email from Dave Naxton by now and if you haven't please check your junk mail and/or send an email to Dave on dpnvaleting@btinternet.com and make sure you are properly entered. I know they like to wait till the last minute but in previous year each entrant could look at their entry online and this option has disappeared hence Dave's emails. Any real problems let me know and I will call him. Ian has also asked about pit passes. Each entrant has a ticket for a genuine support vehicle. I am using mine but if anyone is not using theirs it would be good to let these go to the members who are helping the team on the day. So if anyone has one spare can they indicate this on here and any support workers who require one can get in touch :)

Yes it seems that they are having problems with their website and have suffered a few gremlins. I will keep an eye on things. Tom it might be easier to call Dave by phone mate.

Apologies Keano missed you off the list. The problem with using an iPhone to do my internet :-) Bobgenie - registered Paulzx - registered Slickpete - registered Iangreenfield - registered Tomfromthenorth - registered Dicky96 - registered Keano -registered