We then spent some time having the car re-mapped again. Whilst the fuelling was good we managed to improve the mid-range torque and the consistency of power all the way to the red line.
From our pre season track day we knew we had to change the front brakes. Easy enough until we found the caliper bolt thread was stripped. We had this on another car - so luckily had the Timesert kit to redrill an insert.
Lastly, we fitted rear adjustable tow arms making the rear alignment much easier to do and independent of the camber.
Brands Hatch:
The meeting was changed from a single day to a full weekend at short notice which caused some last minute re-planning.
As usual this event was a full grid of a mix of Porsches and V8's from the Bernie's series.
Qualifying:
I went to assembly really early (the GT Cup cars had garages so it wasn't in use) so got out onto track in the first few cars of the 46 strong grid.
This meant is got some pretty clear laps early on and set a decent time, a second faster than i'd ever been. A couple of laps later I got the last corner right and shaved another half a second off.
Over the next few laps I was up on the splits by another half a second but traffic later in the lap prevented me realising the gain.
Very happy regardless and starting P2 in class, 18th on a maximum 46 car grid.
Race 1:
We had to reduce tyre pressures due to overheating in qualifying and the ambient temperature was up in the 20s now. The green flag lap was sketchy, to say the least. Like driving on marshmellows! But as we formed up 2 by 2 for the rolling start they were miraculously up to temp!
I got a great start making a couple of places into Paddock Hill and chose to go wide round the outside of druids; following the fast 911-964, as it tends to concertina around the inside.
This backfired as I was pushed too wide, got on the marbles and lost the back-end. I corrected the slide but lost 5 places as a result. 3 porsches and 2 V8s. I managed to overtake a couple on the back straight and settled into a queue of Porsches trying to get past as couple of V8's.
I was confident that once we'd cleared them I would be faster and get the cars in front. We got one and lap times improved instantly - just one more.
Going into the back section, I changed down to 4th gear and it wouldn't engage. Nor at the next attempt, and a third - even double clutching and rev matching. I went straight to 5th instead and set my fastest lap of the race having cleared the V8 Corvette. I'll be fine!
Until 3rd gear wouldn't go in either. An absolute Disaster. I decided not to pit on the assumption it was the gear linkage, and finishing as high as possible was important. I was now losing nearly 10 seconds a lap and several places every lap. Blue flags were being waved at me (embarrassing) where I changed fom 2nd to 5th. So I had to just keep out of of the way and limp it home in 29th position.
Race 2:
Well it never happened for us. We had to pack up and go home for the first time in a very long time.
On investigating the gearbox issue back in the pits, the linkage was fine but 3rd and 4th would only engage occasionally. Most likely the selector fork mechanism for 3/4 inside the gearbox has failed.
Two weeks after the event, we have sourced a used gearbox and after two attempts and a whole set of new clutch components we are good to go.
It takes us approx 12 hours to strip the rear of the car, remove and refit the gearbox whilst it's on axel stands. The tricky part as with all gearboxes is aligning the splined output shaft with the splines on the clutch plate. Once this is good (usually after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing) it just slides on and bolt it up.
The next round at Snetterton is now just a few days away.
