A great day all round at Castle Coombe yesterday!
The main objective was to give Nick Penfold's ex Slick 50 Mk1 a shake down ready for the forthcoming Brands Hatch GP meeting of the VAG trophy, and when Nick said "bring yr crash helmet"..well..it would have been rude not to!
Nick and Tim had already been out by the time I got there, or I should say splashed my way there...good ol' British weather!
After putting a stopwatch on both cars from the pit wall it was evident there was little in it, but what would a rusty old hillclimber make out of it..
Nick very kindly left the belts slack for me..
..so I was swiftly in and strapped up ready for the off. The engine fires up with no drama now...a far cry from when we first got involved with the car. We built up a bottom end earlier in the year to get Nick out on a semi-sponsored deal using Jon Wright's ex hillclimb bottom end with a freshen up and a bit of JMR re-engineering. .with Nick's old slick 50 head & Jon's old Newman 296 cam, this made 124hp at the wheels on AP Motorsport's rollers.
Out on track in the wet, I forgot how bumpy Castle Coombe is!...or at least it was for now!
The engine pulls strong to 7000, but it's best work is done by around 6,800...peak was 6,500 on the rollers but hanging on well to 7.
After a fair few laps behind the wheel. .Tim's vids later will show all!...along with the fact I WAS in front the whole session...Eh Tim!....lol...I figured I better not either wear the engine out or park it in the barriers...it was slippery!...and brought the car back in...along with a plan to do something with the suspension.
Whilst it was possible to put in consistent lap times, it was hard work. After working out where the damper settings were I took 2 clicks off the front & 3 off the rear...the springs looked fairly small in diameter so shouldn't be causing the twitching ride...and I remembered from deep in the old memory bank some of the slick 50 cars used to be set up with soft springs but firm dampers.
Nick went back out on the revised settings and returned to pronounce "Im racing it like that at brands"!....it was much more drivable and predictable now.
I also got a few laps in out in Tim's red rocket!...this is simply a great car!....good balance & compliance from the budget suspension, good brakes, and decent grunt from it's similar power to Nick's, all be it 1900 version. The power band felt the same in terms of speed on track, but the engine feels a bit gruntier. .helped no doubt by the bigger lung capacity & next step up cam....it's well worth the asking price too!...and will make a great trackday car for either a novice or an old hand.
It was a great day out, and for me shows how you can have some track enjoyment without 300hp. Nothing came past during my seat time...did it Tim!...and I could catch and pass everything on track, from road going Porsches to track based specials from Westfield & Radical. .yep...both pulled over and waved me through when they saw and old Mk1 Golf homing in on them!...even the current Castle Coombe saloon champ Peugeot 106 with 220hp and an awesome chassis (I know the guys well who engineered the car) succumbed to 8v Golf power!