Yeah bit of a bad afternoon! On the first lap of the race I was crunching into 3rd so was having to clutch down and then let the revs drop before engaging as rev matching wasn't helping. This also developed onto 4th gear aswell. I thought when I was out there it was just the syncro's, I considered coming in and retiring it after the first lap but the car was mint other than the gear selection so I wanted to carry on. Quite a few cars got past me as I tried to settle into a rhythm of driving round the problem but then after a while managed to start closing on them. As I was catching Tony I had a big lockup the second I got on the brakes at Shell and couldn't do anything to avoid hitting him, I tried just turning in but it wasn't happening. My sincere apologies to Tony for the damage I have caused would never of wanted it to happen and I feel dreadful. I'm glad he managed to get going again and finish the race.
I managed to limp it to the end of the race with a pretty horrific handling car but anyway. The headlight was just dangling from the loom smashed to bits so that got launched straight in the bin! The front chassis leg looks to of been pushed over to the eye and also there are cracks on the seam sealer to suggest its moved, the wheel it fooked, something is bent on the steering, subframe is kinked, bonnet mount points have moved and the end part of the chassis is pushed in. It will all straighten up just need to get it on a jig shouldn't take long. Just need to get a couple of new panels. The cause of the gearbox issue was then found to be the gearbox casing has cracked again and it has really gone badly this time. The gear oil was all over the engine bay, NSF wheel and tyre and also under the car on the rear beam and the exhaust. Looking at the rear facing camera the lockup started off just with the NSF so i'm presuming where the oil was on the tyre hasn't helped along with the lack of engine braking.
Got to take some positives though as the car was really on form today and a good time in quail still with a fair bit on the table so bodes really well for the car once we have more of a fine tune with the new settings on the car. I also apparently won most entertaining driver of Quali as voted for by the marshals I think they just liked watching the drifting or gravel action at Druids
I ended up winning a set of mintex brake pads so happy days.
After seeing the damage I was pretty resigned to the fact of not doing Donington but while driving home was having a bit of a change of heart and Chip and Lesley then offered to come over tonight and help me get the engine and box back out. So that is what we did
Started off with a compression test as I did feel a sudden dip in power in the afternoon of testing yesterday and sure enough I was about 10psi down of cylinder 2 than before the weekend. I also said to chip it had blown the dipstick out and straight away he said pistons/ring damage
Engine and box out and then Chip did a leak down test on the engine and cylinder 3 is really pushing through the pistons/rings so not only does it need alot of other bits but now either needs a new engine or a refresh of this one. Pretty certain i'm not going to be able to afford to get it ready for Donington so I guess thats it for the year. Fairly disappointing really with the potential the car has I think but thats life and thats racing.
List of bits needed that I don't have if anyone has anything?:
Front Wing
N/S headlight
Front bumper (Inc top grill)
PMS Wishbone
Subframe
Either an engine or a headset and a piston
JC5 130 gearbox
15" OZ ultraleggera (They don't sell them separately from what I can see)
Thanks for reading and I'll try and do a bit more of a write up with the video's from the day soon