It pulls awesomely! What is the current spec of the car? If you don't mind me asking? I'm slowly setting up the corsa for track days, gotten it not to bad. Need tosee semi's tyre pressure and camber now.

Your car must be at like 800kg now?

Really nice setup you have there!

How much was the car in stock form? How is the motor now feeling? Starting to loosen up now?

Here are some pics of the engine bay now...

Well there's you problem right there! That fan will never be able to cope with cooling the engine properly when you are not driving fast enough. It needs a shroud in the first place to pull air through the whole radiator and the OE fan I can guarantee will move more air than that piece of chinese trash.

Also try and build some scoops around the sides and bottom of the radiator's front to direct more airflow through it instead of past it's sides.

Do you still use the VVT? Usually with the open throttles you can hear the switch off point at high rpm, but in these clips its a bit busy to hear properly.

What an awesome event!

I had a mixed-bag of a day. Me and my co-driver managed to finish the 2-Hour without any real issue - a victory in any endurance race. I'm especially proud of the finish because the car still needs lots of attention to make it properly reliable. In practice and in quali, the car's oil temp was sitting between 120 and 150 on the guage, which is way too high. We boxed in our oil cooler bu cutting the bumper and then boxing it in with cardboard and gaffer tape. We also moved our oil temp sensor from under the exhaust manifold by the oil filter to inside the block. This saw the oil temps fall to an ideal of 115 degrees! Water temp sat just under 80 degrees for the entire race thanks to a 76 degree thermostat and Nissan Sentra 200STI radiator.

In my stint (the first hour of the endurance), I had a massive off in T3 on Lap 1. I got stuck in the kitty-litter and the marshals had to tow me out with a Land Rover so I could rejoin the race. We had put some random Silverstone Semi-slick tyres on the rear for the race and they proved to be my downfall for my whole session. I could not push the car at all and had to guard so drastically against snap-oversteer that I just gave up trying to be fast and concentrated on getting to the 1 hour mark so my co-driver could take over. I was properly frustrated. I just got out of the fast cars' way completely most of the time, no use keeping them up at all. I instructed the pit-crew at the change to put on the older Dunlop semi-slicks for the next hour, as the Silverstones were horrible. He luckily managed to enjoy the car at its 'best'.

The car needs to get its dampening settings changed on the shocks. In some parts of the track it was really rough - through clubhouse and the esses, I was literally bouncing off the seat. See the video to see what I mean! That unsettled the car immensely. I managed to spin it 360 in the esses during the race after I tried my normal line with the shit tyres.

We drove the whole race with engine-mounts that were deteriorating at a rapid pace. The rear engine mount had broken off ahead of the race - literally took a piece of the gearbox casing with it, so no chance of repair. The CVs were tapping against the crossmember throughout the race.

All in all, it was epic fun to drive the car and to finish the race!

My friends who took their Alfa GTV out, managed to knock 5 seconds off the car's previous best time of 2:12 and did 2:07 and 2:08s in the race. Completely different suspension setup than before and reworked motor. Very ballsy driving. Unfortunately, the car started overheating after their pitstop and the motor said no more 10 mins from the end - the head gasket had gone and water was pouring out the exhaust and the carbs

Here is an onboard lap during practice -

Some pics the SO took:

Very nice dude! A perfect result considering!!!

So a little update!

I'll be racing in the Phakisa 2-Hour Endurance Race this weekend at Phakisa Raceway in Welkom.

We've spent this whole week sorting out issues on the car post Kyalami:

- Replaced the discs
- Redid CVs
- New wheelstuds in the front
- Had to make a new engine mount to work on the back of the motor as the other mount broke out of the gearbox and destroyed itself. Still have to test if our make-shift plan is going to work.
- Replaced front engine mount
- Fixed oil-leak thanks to crack in sump.

Still have to do a few things, but hopefully the car is good for the race on Saturday! We'll be going down tomorrow to practice.

It was quite a whack weekend!

Friday morning while driving to the track, the rear strap holding the race car on the trailer snapped. I felt a tug-tug motion and thought the straps may have loosened a bit or the trailer's wheelbearings were shot. Slowed down from 130km/h and the moment I touched the brake the whole race car came forward, slamming into the back of my Honda FR-V. Ballas. Lucky for me the damage on the Honda is nothing more than 2 small scratches. The trailer's hitch caught the Toyota by a slot in the crossmember running under the motor! 2 Free-Staters in their Hilux bakkies pulled over and helped us pull the car back onto the trailer. We strapped it down with a spare strap my friends who were ahead of us brought.





When we got to the track we prepped for practice. I had to bed brakes in as I replaced the front discs, so laps would be done slowly. I had never been on the track and just did some sightings in the session. When I pulled in, the make-shift engine-mount we made had broken out of the gearbox which meant all three bolt-holes into the gearbox casing were now unusable. Parked the car and slept on the problem.

Race day I went to Welkom to go buy a few things to remedy the engine mount issue. After a few hours of struggling I took the car for a spin down to the gate and the real maak-plan plan seemed to work! Qualifying was the first time I could drive the track at speed. And man oh man! What an epic epic track Phakisa is! Gloriously fast and flowing. Loved every minute of it, but was still learning how to get round fast. My gearbox is too long, and we figured out my rear shocks are stuffed, so when I turn into a corner hard, as I should, the rear starts bouncing uncontrollably on the 90kg springs. I had to adjust lines to suit the gearbox and deter the rear from bouncing.

Here are the last 2 laps of quali -

I qualified 22nd out of 32 cars with a 2:08 while my friend's Alfa started 18th with a 2:06.5. The start of the race was safe and clean and I managed to hold my position through T1 and down to the corner after the kink. Then my gearbox ratios meant I had no drive out of the corner and had a car or two overtake me down to the hairpin. Kept it together for the next lap then someone dropped fuel (I think) going through the one corner after the hairpin and loads of people went off, including me. Luckily just straight off the track and was able to rejoin by keeping foot down.



I lost more places there and I don't even know where I was lying at that stage. I just kept on going and within the next few laps I managed to catch and pass 5 or 6 cars (all who qualified ahead of me). I was up to 17th last time I checked my pit-board.

Just as I was getting into a rhythm it all went south. Going into the first of the 2 corners going onto the back-straight, I was flat-out in 3rd gear at about 7600rpm when it felt like someone drove into me from behind. Car's rear stepped suddenly and nose was barreling to the inside wall. Luckily I caught the slide, but the car kept kicking out like crazy for no apparent reason. All the way down the back-straight I tried to get the car to go straight, but was literally drifting it left to right the whole time. I heard a noise left-rear but it didn't sound like a popped tyre (which is what I thought it was at that stage). I managed to get the car to the pits without spinning out - it was damn hard work, even at crawling speed the car wanted to swop ends.

In the pits I got out the car and was greeted by this:



The whole disc and hub assembly had broken off. The hub holding the studs spin around the axle and the front part of the disc came off clean. No wonder the bloody thing stepped so badly!

So that was the end of my race, 26 mins into the 2-Hour.

Ended up being the fuel man for my friend's Alfa who ended up finishing 11th. He had a 3 minute long unplanned stop early in the race after his exhaust bracket broke. He got a fastest laptime of 2:02.4 with the 98whp Alfa GTV!





All in all it was a great weekend!

Now I have to find the complete hub assembly for the car, and the local parts shop only has the hub bearing kit... Ai.

Pity about not being able to finish but damn, this looks like fun!
My last open track event was way back in 2006.

I took the car to Midvaal Raceway this last weekend for a friend's bachelors. We drove the whole of Saturday, slept over in the pits and then did two more sessions the next morning. I took my car, and 3 friends took theirs - a full Alfa Romeo 2.0 GTV race car, an Alfa Romeo GT Junior race car and a Lotus 7 with a 4AGZE in.

It was insane amounts of fun, and we had some nice dices with eachother. I played around with some suspension settings to try and get rid of the rear hopping round corners, but our adjustment just made it worse - ridiculously so, see the video below!

I struggled my ass off to find rear discs for the car and had to use an old hub found in a friend's garage as I could not source a hub for the car. I have to go look for them again. I only put the hub and disc on the car Saturday morning before leaving for the track...

Managed to get some decently quick times with the car and had my friend who drives the GTV also take it round. I managed to beat him by 0.04s! I did a 1:21.19 and he did a 1:21.23.

Here are some videos:





Some pics of the cars:

Very very cool pictures!!!

I entered into the last race of the year for the 111 Series at Zwartkops this weekend after finally sorting out the bouncing problem last weekend during a track day at Z. The car ran faultless on a scorching hot day. The oil temp went up to around 130 degrees on Sunday after about 8 laps of flat-out driving. Which is still fine apparently.

Yesterday during practice the car ran bearings again and the temperature sat on 130. WTF? The oil pressure never dropped under 4.5-5 bar on the track, sump is baffled properly, head restrictor is in place and the water temp sits at 70 degrees doesn't matter how hot it is outside.

Why would it run bearings for absolutely nothing?? The car has been running with not engine issues whatsoever since the rebuild, and now suddenly it just dies. I can't be rebuilding the motor every few races. What is the solution? We built this motor properly, and it just broke. Why?

Which bearing did it run?

There is one other trick which ensures more oil gets to the big-ends. You have to buy two sets of main bearings though, so that you fit grooved bearings in the caps and block. I know the NDC sets come like this already. The normal bearings has a groove only in the block side and a full flat bearing in the cap. This means there is a very small period when the two oil holes in the crank's main journal transitions over the bearing halves when full oil pressure doesn't get to the big-ends. With the groove right around it gets full pressure all the time.

Then also you take the oil pressure regulator out, it has a little circlip that holds it's spring in. Take it out and fit a thin washer(about 0.5mm to 1mm) in the pressure release valve, this causes the oil pressure to be slightly higher than factory. It doesn't increase oil volume, but the higher pressure sure helps.

That oil temperature is a bit high to my liking too. I never managed to get the Datsun's oil temp over 105C even after repeated runs up to 200+ and buggering around accelerating all the time. I know a track race is a bit different, so it might get hotter, but that's to hot to my liking. Have you perhaps got an oil cooler on the car? Where do you take the oil temperature?

Last question, what oil are you running in the engine?