Posted by On Friday 24th August I headed off to Motorsport Vision’s Bedford Autodrome for a track day and a How Fast? session. In contrast to a normal track day where timing is forbidden How Fast? is run with the aim of getting the fastest time on the leader board. The day was sold out in advance and contained a nice selection of cars, including a fairly large number of hot hatches, although respect has to go to the guy tracking his Audi A8.
Now for the positives… Having replaced the springs, dampers, added a much stiffer rear anti-roll bar and had the geometry set for track work the handing has been transformed. During initial turn in there is more feel through the steering and I feel I can place the car where I want. The car is now much more adjustable in the corners even at the limit, my instructor was quite impressive that I managed to save a fairly big slide which took two attempts to get under control. Who says you can’t have fun with front wheel drive? I was able to be much more aggressive on the throttle than previously easily managing well over 100mph in 4th along the back straight (for reference VMAX on Brands Hatch GP was 91mph).
Now the negatives… Accelerating out of the pits on my final session before heading for fuel and my How Fast? session I noticed the tell tale rasp that told me the exhaust was starting to leak. Sticking with it I did a few more laps but every time I used wide open throttle the noise was getting worse until I got shown the naughty boy’s noise board. Returning to the paddock area I managed to borrow some tools hoping to re-clamp the exhaust and fix the problem. I was loosening one of the u-bolts when it decided to shear off bringing an end to my day.
Having already had issues at Brands Hatch of a similar nature I decided to fix the problem once and for all, I’ve got a Janspeed manifold and Milltek cat-back system on order. This combination should give me a bit more power (the stock manifold is very restrictive) and keep the noise in check.
I spent Saturday morning stripping off the entire exhaust system ready for the new parts, as you can see it’s definitely seen better days but hardly surprising after 10 years on the car.
The silencer was starting to blow anyway as you can see by the amount of exhaust gum I’d used to seal it. I guess a replacement isn’t such a bad idea!
Although I could be frustrated by the lack of track time the improvements in handling from the first outing have left me wanting more! It’s fair to say that I didn’t really enjoy my first track day, lack of confidence and being mugged by a succession of racing cars wasn’t much fun. Yesterday the car more than held it’s own and was so much more fun to drive.