In preparation for Donington i decided i wanted to remove the power steering to improve how the car drove/felt and obviously save some weight.
After a while of trying to wiggle this out it was a massive relief to see it.
It wasn't such a bad job just tight on space, the car felt a million times better to drive and so much more alive. with alot more feedback through the wheel. defiantly recommended.
Whilst i was down there i made up a heater matrix bypass hose as i plan to remove the matrix in future and whilst i had the space i thought id do it now.
I also stuck in a smaller hose to act as a resistor to avoid the car over heating.
In a attempt to solve the fuel surge a 255 in tank pump was bought this has seemed to cure the problem as my fuelling at Donington was spot on, although when fitting it i managed to snap the little fuel level sender panel so i had no idea how much fuel i used or how low i ran the car.
I also bought some impact sockets for the wheels a torque wrench so i know im not over tightening the wheel bolts.
I was now ready for donington the weather looked hit and miss but over all i couldn't complain when it did rain i was in the garage and only experienced a light shower once.
The day started slippery, getting heat into the tyres was hard work and the first hour on track was great fun when the car got out of shape.
After the first hour it dried nicely and i started to get some decent laps in with my confidence in the car growing, the track drying and all the time really getting to grips with the car i felt rather quick. (i was probably quite slow lol)
The morning went fine, the last stint before dinner i had my mum out with me shes never been the type who was into cars but she jumped at the chance to come out, which i was surprised about.
Luckily she loved it and had a grin on her face as big as mine.
A lap before we went in the car felt a little unstable and felt to be pulling right so we jumped into the pits for a check up.
Loose rear wishbone mounts where thought to be the problem and found my cv boot had again fallen off. so i re packed the uj joint and tightened the mounts and we thought it was ready for the afternoon.
we joined the cue for the track and went to pull out the car pulled to the right alot worse than before so i got it back to the garage and it was making a horrid noise. another check over showed the uj joint bearings to be shot probably due to be ran dry from the morning sessions and strangely a calliper rubbing on the top of the disk. *sigh*
A phone call to the local motor factors showed they only had one drive shaft and it wasnt the the right one we shot to mine picked a spare and got back to the track. the car ended up sorted and driving better than ever but it was too late. if i found the problem before dinner id of had a hour left but i didn't
lesson learnt and luckily not a totally wasted day. still great fun all in all.
Some pics my dad took..
the grin on my mums face lol