Estoril Experience Day - The 2nd Track Day

As the first one, on the 7th February, this post will be split into the 4 legs. This time I found less pictures of the car online but I have on-board video. Car went to the track again on top of a recovery vehicle. All happened as last time. Took with me the jerrycan and the bag of tools. Left the jerrycan hidden away on the track parking lot and was going to take the bag on the passenger seat but a very nice person offered to keep it for me every time I headed to the track.

1st Leg

I was anxious to go so I was the third on the row to enter. Which is not very smart since I usually let everyone that comes pass by so that I have clean rear mirrors.

When on the track, all was going OK. Except for the fact that my fidling with the Digidash did not fix the RPM showing wrong numbers that are too high. And now, instead of erratic gears, it always displays 1st, neutral or clutch...

The wheel alignment and putting my head down made doing speed on the straight a lot easier. Still felt odd trying to shift into 6th on the straight. After a couple of laps, and after sliding a bit exiting a bend and having my first "brown trousers" moment of the day, I lost gears. Meaning, I could not shift down and had trouble shifting up. Went to the pit stop. Then was able to shift again, went back on track just to limp back to the pits. Gave up and went to the parking lot.

I had to fix the issue or would lose the whole day. First hunch was something with the gear linkage. But all seemed tight. Then looked into the clutch cable. It was coming loose... Tightened the bolts that held it in place on the engine block. Tested on the parking lot going up to 3rd and back to 1st and it was great. Decided to tighten a bit more, tested, it was slipping and failing. Undid some again, 3rd test and all is good again. I was ready for the 2nd leg!

2nd Leg

Went on track happy and all went perfectly. Fixing the clutch cable also fixed my issues getting 6th gear. The car was wonderful! I was trying to push for a new best lap but on the other hand I'm always afraid of going to fast on bends (has to do with my only crash while driving on the road) and I'm still building up confidence on the car. Spun going into the chicane once but didn't get trapped on the sand trap, so not much time lost.

3rd Leg

Third leg went great too. Made my best lap as the first full one. I think I could have done a lot better if I was not so worried about being in the way of faster cars and afraid of going around bends. I still have to get my head around how much better this car is cornering than anything else I have driven so far.

Session was red-flagged and we all went to the pits while the stewards removed 3 cars from sand traps. We were then allowed to go back on the track for a couple more laps.

It was a bit crowded by then, providing this nice photo

I cut the leg's video to have one of just the fastest lap, in all it's (lack of) glory

4th Leg

The last leg was not as fun as the previous ones. After a lap my engine would sometimes stop (noticeable by a shudder and lots of blinking on the Digidash while it rebooted) followed by a loud bang on the exhaust. I stopped on the pit lane to see if there was any visibly loose cable. There was none. But the battery is held in place by an aluminium bracer I made and the nut that held it down was missing. Probably the battery was moving and one of the leads was either touching the aluminium or the engine block. Either way, that shorted the circuit and caused the shut-down. I had no nuts with me so I headed back on the track to get the best out of the remaining time. This I could only fix at home.

Conclusion And Next Steps

The wheel alignment and putting less pressure on the tires gave me a better handling. Properly tightening the clutch cable gave me flawless gear changes. The car is going great and I'm holding it back. The cutting issue may make me look into different ways to keep the battery in place while keeping it easy to remove.

The Digidash display of RPM and current gear is still not working and it seems worse than before I fiddled with it. Since I had no idea on RPM, I did the track day gearing up when I felt the engine cutting, far from optimal.

The software I use on my mobile, RaceChrono Pro, tells me that, although my best lap was 2m52s, my optimal lap, meaning, the sum of the best time in each sector, would be 2m42s. I'm pretty sure I could do even less than that. I'll work towards it. Just a couple of nice words towards RaceChrono Pro for Android and my SJCAM SJ4000 that was used to do the filming.

I'm now going to work towards getting the car road legal, so this blog will be slow (although not completely halted) for a couple of months.