Lloydies Track car shakedown

[Lloydie38]

2nd April 2006 - Shakedown Trackday
The track day on Sunday 2nd April at the ISle of Man Jurby circuit was the shakedown day and with a 8am sign on as it was a morning only session finishing at 1pm . The weather was wet, but that was an advantage.... With my old road tyres on I just wanted to push the car and see how it handled without worrying about wrecking some new tyres.

Cars out playing were: 2 Caterhams, a Westfield, Noble, Alpha ?, Sierra rally car, Honda Prelude, 2 MX5's, 2 Mitsubishi Evos and that was it! (some people just don't like the rain!!)

The track was run anti-clockwise with some new coned turns and shicanes. The wet track was fine until a heavy downpour leftsome standing water for 5 mins or so which a Caterham hit at 120MPH and had a few rotations but didn't hit anything -nice one Andy

After a few laps in the E30 it was soon noticble that the lack of LSD was causing some unwanted behavour to the car. On going into the sharper of the bends as the car started to slide the inside rear wheel was lifting and spinning causing speed to be reduced and then the spinning wheel would come down and grip on the track causing the car to sharply pull to the other side. It was OK, just a bit unsettling at first so an 3:91 LSD is a must now! Mid morning I had a pal of mine ride in with me, Dave has had quite a bit of rallying experiece and also is in the process of making one E30 325 rally car from 3 doner cars. It was really useful to have someone sitting in that knew considerably more than me on getting the most out of a car on the track the best gear to be in and the right lines etc, I think though that saying to me "If you touch that brake pedal I'll punch you" was a bit harsh!!

In total I did 84 laps of the 1.5 mile course!! The car was sweet apart from the front plastic splitter that met with a cone but it clipped back on no problems. The sound from the straight through exhaust was awesome (104 decibels) on approaching the other cars they told me after all they could hear was this roar behind them - Massive grin factor all day long

All in all a really good day and I throughly enjoyed myself dicing with the MX5 driven by Richard 'Milky' Quayle (Winner of the TT). As he said, what else can you spend £60 on that gives you this much fun?

Pictures to follow that I'll post on my site.
Cheers
Ian

[Geeman]

Sounds like you had great fun AND learned something from the day.

£60 is a bargain!

I take it you've booked another session already!

[Lloydie38]

Oh yes - Next month - Need an LSD though to make things smoother and to aid the drifting

[Jon_Bmw]

Hey sounds cool, I love trackdays, can't get enough of them.

I like the comment about punching you if you braked, i think it was the opposite for me when i was borrowing my brothers car and i wasn't braking!

104 decibels is a bit concerning if you are planning to run the car over here though, as most places have maximum readings of 98-101 db. But i'm not sure that you are going to be bringing it over here??

[Lloydie38]

'...A bit noisy..' yea I know but it sounds totally supurb but I will have to make changes when I get to bring in to the UK, hopefully this summer. I'm looking at doing a hill climb here but I think it's too noisy for that too

As for the in car co drivers advice there were lots of
'..get your foot off the brake you pussy..'
'....not yet, not yet...right, brake NOW...'
'...c'mon, c'mon, get stuck in Lloydie you can have that caterham...'

It was good to have someone sat in with loads of rally experience on tarmac and gravel and, I think I learnt a lot and found what I am capable of (improving) and what the car is capable of too. Throughly recommend getting someone in the know to come out with you on the track - an instructor or similar, as at the level I'm at (done 7 track days ) it really improved me and gave me more confidence in my own basic ability.

[Lloydie38]

Pictures on site see WWW logo below to log on.

The proper pics with no watermark coming along soon...

Ian

[m3ben05]

Am i missing something......... cant see the link?

[e30-320i]

www in white box at bottom of post

[m3ben05]

I must be blind or theres something wrong with my computer - i cant see a white box at all! Never mind

[Lloydie38]

Have a look at link: http://whitetrack325i.webeden.co.uk/

Cheers

Ian

[stevetigger]

I must be blind or theres something wrong with my computer - i cant see a white box at all! Never mind

[Lloydie38]

I'm glad you did that and not me

[m-dtech]

how do you find the OMP RS seats ?

are they comfortable ?

[Lloydie38]

I chose the OMP RS seats as a pal of mine had them in his 325sport and they are slightly bigger than standard so I've been told, he also crashed the 325 sport into a stone wall at 110mph during a rally and the seat and harnesses stood up to it (nice of him to test them too eh??! )

I'm really pleased with them and they have the fitting for the 5 point harnesses. Dave who sat in on the track day commented on how supportive they were.

So if your a 14 1/2 stone fat boy like me, get em bought

[agent006]

So if your a 14 1/2 stone fat boy like me, get em bought

However, if you're 16 stone, get a set of recaros. Or lose 2 stone like me, to be able to get into your OMP RS.

[Lloydie38]

Good on yer fella!! 16 stone

I forgot to mention about the E30 325 sport that he crashed, without doubt if he'd been is something French and front wheal drive then it would have been goodnight The transmission tunnel buckled, the speedo, rev clocks etc all popped out, Dave broke his back (it's OK now) but the E30 saved his life with the aid of a safety devices cage.

Anyway got to go to catch the chippy - -I have a 21Lbs target to hit

[JimmyC]

Cobra Evolution or the GT for the wider rear end

Very very good seat and Cobra now do a side mount to bolt straight into an e30

[Lloydie38]

The straight forward 'side mount' is a bonus as I had to alter the standard OMP ones to fit, but the OMP RS seats were £160 and the brackets were £23, I don't know what the comparison in price is?

HOT NEWS - I now have a LSD on it's way (once the cheque clears ) thanks to the Jon from the Zone I can't wait to get it and get it fitted ready for the track day at the begining of May -Saturday 6th May to be exact. By that time I'm hoping to get the cage in and the chip too - all help permitted from Fastdave

I can't wait for all the track days this summer and hope to do Anglesey in North Wales - -Anyone been there in a 325i? How does it handle as from looking on line it;s a tight and twisty track ....Can't wait, Anglesey's my old stomping ground - Rhosneigr which is 3 miles from the track so I'll be able to have a few beers in the Sandymount after Anyone fancy a meet there in July time??