My RS2'd RB van

[Joe#]

I was properly gobsmacked when I found out it was standard, just goes to show that having a car you dont care about is worth about 5mph more on every apex! Lol.


Yeah cadwell is very technical and that makes it very rewarding when you feel like you have put a decentish lap in.
@lesley struggled a bit with lack of bravery early in the day but she got quicker as we went on and she went out with an instructor on her last session who had her just lifting not braking for Coppice apparently which is a hell of an improvement from earlier in the day where she was wanting to do it at about 60mph, I had her upto about 70-75 when I was in the car with her, but he had her doing it at around 85, which is pretty committed

Haha! Yeah, some people must have some big balls, especially when it's not worth a lot of money.

It sounds great, hopefully I'll do it some time this year.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Haha! Yeah, some people must have some big balls, especially when it's not worth a lot of money.

It sounds great, hopefully I'll do it some time this year.

Funniest thing was when I was talking to him and I said "Loved your line into park corner where you turned in so much later than the turn-in cone, you really pulled from me, so the next lap I tried the same thing and it definitely works better"
(cones were set for bikes which tend to turn in sooner as it was 2/3rds of the sessions were bike that day)

His reply:
"Found that out by accident when I braked and I couldnt turn in where I wanted to as the brakes were fading so bad"

FLOL

 

[Chip-mk1]

Looks great. Looks like you've got a decent amount of camber on the front?

3.5 degrees, the RSR tyres seem to really like it.


We're getting lazy these days and instead of taking the RSR as wets and then a dry set of either 888/A048/MSPC we end up taking just the RSR and not bothering with tyre changes. Didnt even take any tools (other than a bar to check wheel nuts), just drove it there, hammered it all day and came home.

Had a bolt on the engine mount work slightly loose and had to borrow a socket from Chi to do it up, thats how lazy we are getting in this car for not bothering with tools and spares.

Nearly standard car FTW, lol.

 

[Martin.]

Effortless motorsport lol

 

[richjwilliams]

pics look great mate, im going to look into a day in april hopefully

 

[Chip-mk1]

Effortless motorsport lol

Yeah, its not the quickest or best handling car out there, but it does seem to be good at just turning up, having a good day and driving home all in comfort and without issues which counts for a lot.

Its perfectly fulfilling its roll as the banker car that we can rely on if I dont have the more complicated ones ready and we want to do a trackday.


I am now expecting after temping fate that much to return home and find the roof has fallen of course!



One thing I am a little dissapointed with though is how good the Cooksport springs and cup shocks as a combination clearly were.

Took them off and replaced with with a set of front KW Variant 2 coilovers which arent exactly a budget option, and from now doing both Cadwell and Bedford on the KW, I honestly cant tell the bloody difference when I drive it compared to on the old setup which cost pennies! It literally feels exactly the same to me!

 

[Chi]

I was hoping you'd take your jack so I didn't bother changing wheels or doing pressures.. 23 psi this morning lol

 

[Chip-mk1]

pics look great mate, im going to look into a day in april hopefully

I am hoping to get to cadwell another few times this year, I think its possibly my favorite track currently when taking into account stuff like ease of getting to as well as just the track itself. (ie spa and the ring for example suck in that respect)

 

[Chip-mk1]

I was hoping you'd take your jack so I didn't bother changing wheels or doing pressures.. 23 psi this morning lol

I didnt even check the tyre pressures TBH, they are still how they were set at bedford, lol.

I think when you are learning a track its less critical to get every single mph of apex speed anyway
(unless you drive a rover)

 

[Tony Hunter]

Looks like Les enjoyed herself.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Looks like Les enjoyed herself.

Yes mate she did, especially with the instructor, the guy we hired is very experienced (cheif instructor at snet) and he really helped her.

She was SO much faster with him in the car, and I mean at LEAST 10 seconds a lap!

So hopefully now she wont get so intimidated if we do a day there with quick people as the time before this we went there she had a bit of a poor day cause people kept coming up behind her and she is always very good at following the rules and moving over and backing off to let them past etc, but it was such a busy day with so many fast cars out, that she spent almost the whole time off line, as once you start slowing more people catch you etc, its a viscious circle and she is a bit too courteous if anything, always more worried about messing up other peoples laps than messing up her own.
Now she is quick enough to keep with the traffic though she can hopefully start to really learn the place properly.

 

[ben lee]

chip what camber do you run on the back?

3.5 degrees, the RSR tyres seem to really like it.


We're getting lazy these days and instead of taking the RSR as wets and then a dry set of either 888/A048/MSPC we end up taking just the RSR and not bothering with tyre changes. Didnt even take any tools (other than a bar to check wheel nuts), just drove it there, hammered it all day and came home.

Had a bolt on the engine mount work slightly loose and had to borrow a socket from Chi to do it up, thats how lazy we are getting in this car for not bothering with tools and spares.

Nearly standard car FTW, lol.

 

[Chip-mk1]

chip what camber do you run on the back?

On those pics its stock, but I have since ordered some 1 degree shims from Pure, so will be fitting those before the next trackday, along with tweaking the rear toe with a shim as well as the beam isnt very even.

 

[NorthloopCup]

Cadwell is an absolutely epic circuit in a Clio or on a bike. Most certainly favours the brave too.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Some pics from bedford last friday.

No more trackdays now for it till our ring trip next month.

 

[Martin.]

How did the car do? Perform well against the other attendees?

 

[Chip-mk1]

How did the car do? Perform well against the other attendees?

At the beginning I think most things were passing @lesley as she took a while to get upto pace that evening, she's getting her confidence back after being in a couple of spins and also seeing the state of the mk1 after I binned it but she likes to still start gentle and build up when we do trackdays where as Im very much a "first lap hero" by comparison, lol, but by the end she was holding her own pretty well and passing more than was passing her, and when I drove it I dont think I got passed by more than a few cars at all and was going by quite a few, so yeah I would say it was doing ok at least, but a lot of the cars there were more track focussed so it was never going to set the world alight.

Its by no means a fast track car, but its a road car first and a track car second so will always have that compromise as our list of things it needs to do is prioritised kind of like this:
Be reliable as a daily
Be comfortable as a daily (including needing rear seats and aircon)
Be economical
Handle well
Stop well
Go quickly


Ive got a few ideas on what to do to improve it on track whilst not detracting from it on the road, I actually really enjoy the challenge of this project of making a reasonable track car without compromising it on the road.

The next items I would like to try are:
Engine rebuild to same spec but fresh as I know its down on power purely due to engine wear (it breathes quite heavily compared to her last engine)
Roll centre kit to improve the feel of it on turn in without compromising road manners
Possibly slightly firmer front springs, but I really need to be careful with that as like I said im not allowed to ruin it on the road
Whiteline rear ARB but only if we do up the front spring rate slightly as I dont want to take away its current neutrality in the bends and make it all rear-endy
Quaiffe diff
4 pot brakes (I know I can make the standard brakes work well enough on track with racey pads but they they lose road manners)

 

[Martin.]

Sounds like some good plans for a 'road' car.. More than most people do to their track cars haha!

Roll centre kit and quaiffe I can't even afford for my 'track' toy lol! 4 pots are next on the list for me but will be a while yet I assume.

Your RB certainly looks good on circuit though.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Sounds like some good plans for a 'road' car.. More than most people do to their track cars haha!

Well its a long term project so it can evolve slowly over time ,you have to remember that essentially we have been building it for 3 years+ now as a lot of the aquiring parts started on the 172 shell we had before!

Roll centre kit and quaiffe I can't even afford for my 'track' toy lol! 4 pots are next on the list for me but will be a while yet I assume.

Ive got a spare quaiffe diff'ed gearbox on the shelf at home anyway so dont need to spend out on that, just need to lend this car my spare one, roll centre kit I will have to buy specifically for it though.

Your RB certainly looks good on circuit though.

Thanks mate, we both love how it looks



PS

Even when I have made all those changes, it will still get dry humped by a standard cup with a load of weight stripped out of it I suspect!
Thats the one thing I cant do anything about, the weight!

 

[Cub.]

Some good photos of it on track.

Looks to be hustling along fine.

 

[Martin.]

Even when I have made all those changes, it will still get dry humped by a standard cup with a load of weight stripped out of it I suspect!
Thats the one thing I cant do anything about, the weight!

I'm not so sure. You'd be able to take and carry much more speed into corners and right through the exits.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Some good photos of it on track.

Looks to be hustling along fine.

Thanks.

By the end of the day she was carrying some monster speed into the first lefthander after the chicane by kind of ignoring the "track limits" rules on the kerbs and really catching people through that section, but on the straights most things were either a match or quicker!

Great fun though, and thats all we went there for so mission accomplished!

Plus we had epic buddies burgers after with George and his mate to really finish the evening off nicely!

(after a minor glitch of having to recover someons megane off the circuit grounds for them so they could call their breakdown cover to take them home)

 

[Chip-mk1]

I'm not so sure. You'd be able to take and carry much more speed into corners and right through the exits.

Im not so sure mate, weight has a BIG impact on corner apex speeds.

Bluetooth, leather, and aircon is never going to compete with a stripped out car over a track really.

But Im quite happy with it not being the fastest thing on track when I know we have the least compromised ride among all the clios on the way home afterwards, at my age thats worth a lot at the end of a long day, lol.

 

[Martin.]

Im not so sure mate, weight has a BIG impact on corner apex speeds.

Bluetooth, leather, and aircon is never going to compete with a stripped out car over a track really.

But Im quite happy with it not being the fastest thing on track when I know we have the least compromised ride among all the clios on the way home afterwards, at my age thats worth a lot at the end of a long day, lol.

I know what you mean, I couldn't stand driving mine home from trackdays lol and it's not even that extreme. I'm just a tart when it comes to long journeys.

Surely there's not enough weight saving from seats and trims etc to make up for an improved bump steer kit and diff through da twisties.

 

[Chip-mk1]

I know what you mean, I couldn't stand driving mine home from trackdays lol and it's not even that extreme. I'm just a tart when it comes to long journeys.

Surely there's not enough weight saving from seats and trims etc to make up for an improved bump steer kit and diff through da twisties.

Thing is if you do things like plastic instead of glass you are altering the roll centre anway as you are taking weight out from high up.

On a wet day then once the diff is in then I should think this would be quicker than even a very light standard cup, but in the dry the diff is less useful as its not really got enough power to need a diff in anything other than very right corners, lol.

 

[NorthloopCup]

I know what you mean, I couldn't stand driving mine home from trackdays lol and it's not even that extreme. I'm just a tart when it comes to long journeys.

Surely there's not enough weight saving from seats and trims etc to make up for an improved bump steer kit and diff through da twisties.

Yeah you'd be surprised at just how much weight removal on these cars does make mate. I've upset a fair amount of exotica in what's essentially a stripped out cup.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Yeah you'd be surprised at just how much weight removal on these cars does make mate. I've upset a fair amount of exotica in what's essentially a stripped out cup.

Exactly, your car is a minute quicker than ours round the ring, I'll give you 30 seconds for commitment, but the other 30 seconds is just cause mine had over a quarter of a tonne of man meat (me and james) in it and no weight removed.

 

[Tony Hunter]

Looks like Les was enjoying it, getting a bit of a lean on. Good to see.

 

[Martin.]

Yeah you'd be surprised at just how much weight removal on these cars does make mate. I've upset a fair amount of exotica in what's essentially a stripped out cup.

You're also a very good peddler though

 

[NorthloopCup]

You're also a very good peddler though

Lol! Thanks!

 

[Chip-mk1]

Mark/@northloopcup, this is the scenic shifter mod I was on about by the way:

Sits the lever a little higher up. (level with head unit basically) So less distance to go to and from the wheel.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Hmm, image not working for some reason, not sure what is up with photobucket today worked fine on facebook!

 

[NorthloopCup]

Hmm, image not working for some reason, not sure what is up with photobucket today worked fine on facebook!

Yeah it's working mate. I'll have to have a feel of yours (ooh er!) and see what I think to it. I don't dislike the original setup tbh.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Doesnt really feel any different, just means you dont have to move your hand quite as far to get to it.
I reckon it will save me almost a calorie per lap at the ring, and when you are trying to stay at the peak of physical perfection for a sumo career like me then every little helps.

 

[McGherkin]

Does it not have a longer throw?

 

[NorthloopCup]

Doesnt really feel any different, just means you dont have to move your hand quite as far to get to it.
I reckon it will save me almost a calorie per lap at the ring, and when you are trying to stay at the peak of physical perfection for a sumo career like me then every little helps.

Yeah I can see what your saying mate. I'm quite fast moving my hands about due to my superhuman wanking abilities. Lol

 

[Chip-mk1]

Does it not have a longer throw?

No, it does the same as the pure one in terms of moving the pivot point so that the distance your hand moves relative to the distance the arm under the car moves is still the same.

 

[barnesautos]

No, it does the same as the pure one in terms of moving the pivot point so that the distance your hand moves relative to the distance the arm under the car moves is still the same.

This looks like a cheap conversion chip .
Similar leverage as pure but without the rattling

 

[Chip-mk1]

This looks like a cheap conversion chip .
Similar leverage as pure but without the rattling 

Yeah its a nice option if you want it to still look factory.

The pure one removes more play though.

 

[NorthloopCup]

Yeah its a nice option if you want it to still look factory.

The pure one removes more play though.

Add a Yanoo kit to the scenic one though and your moving in the right direction.