Well done up updating all the photos etc is a cracking read just shame photobucket has killed off a lot of build like this for the rest of us to read

Thanks mate. I've not been on an organised day there yet, i'd heard that they were cracking down on roll cages years ago which is why i fitted the padding. To be honest there's that many cars trying to get on track that they don't really seem to check the cars unless there is something very obviously wrong with it. There's always plenty of caged and much more track focused cars there whenever i've been and they get on no problem. The only time i've witnessed people not being allowed on is when they were sat in the car parks with loud exhausts revving them needlessly.

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Goldie the track car.

Thanks mate. I've not been on an organised day there yet, i'd heard that they were cracking down on roll cages years ago which is why i fitted the padding. To be honest there's that many cars trying to get on track that they don't really seem to check the cars unless there is something very obviously wrong with it. There's always plenty of caged and much more track focused cars there whenever i've been and they get on no problem. The only time i've witnessed people not being allowed on is when they were sat in the car parks with loud exhausts revving them needlessly.

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Goldie the track car.

Magnificent rolled beading Sir, I doff my cap to you..

Mapping done.

IMG_0749 by Steve Count, on Flickr

IMG_0759 by Steve Count, on Flickr

IMG_0761 by Steve Count, on Flickr

The green lines are the boost and power curve from the initial mapping session a couple of years ago, quite clever how they we're saved then the new setup overlaid over to show the difference.

Quick video of a power run for anyone that's interested.
Clicky

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Goldie the track car.

Me too

IMG_0750 by Steve Count, on Flickr

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Goldie the track car.

I'm going to have to sit and catch up on this whole post....!

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Smarty

My lil toy:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martincurtisphotography/sets/72157640014140786/

Brilliant work love seeing custom bits like this

Took goldie to the Nurburgring a couple of weeks ago. It was pretty warm there so we struggled with temp's a bit. The first evening of TF the coolant gauge reached the red marker before i decided to back off and cool down for the rest of the lap.
With that in mind the number plate was removed to reveal the previous cut outs that i did last year to air with air getting to the radiator.

IMG_1241 by Steve Count, on Flickr

The polyurethane coupler on the supercharger also decided it had had enough. Luckily i carry spares so fitted the new one at the end of the evening ready for the next day.

IMG_1229 by Steve Count, on Flickr

The next evening we headed back down to TF, and once again i managed to get the needle into the red, so backed off and called it a day. The next step was to buy a saw and chop out the middle section of the bumper, apply a bit of duct tape to give the air a slightly smoother path through the bumper and also remove the grille. Behind the grille is part of an aluminium shroud which i'd made to basically catch any air which went up and try to force it through the radiator by boxing it in, but with the grille removed i reshaped it to face upwards and make use of the extra air flow provided by having no grille in place.

IMG_1253 by Steve Count, on Flickr

The next night i went out and everything had paid off, the coolant needle would only get up to around 100c, which is hotter than i'd have liked but nothing i can't live with. In fairness the outside temperature was reading low-mid 30's which was half the battle.

I managed to lose a window going down foxhole too, there was no warning just a wobble noise then it disappeared. I managed to retrieve it later on, and was surprised how well it fared considering it must have come out somewhere in the region of 125mph and i watched a tractor drive over it too

IMG_1244 by Steve Count, on Flickr

IMG_1246 by Steve Count, on Flickr

The next day i spent a couple of hours looking for a replacement piece of plastic. It seems most Germans like to fit windows with registered numbers, and wanted mega money and several weeks wait for some to be made but eventually i discovered a plastic sheet wholesaler type place about 30 mins away. I gave the guy my broken window, he drew round it and cut it to size/shape for me for a very reasonable 30 euros.

IMG_1254 by Steve Count, on Flickr

Eventually the trackday came around, goldie seemed to attract a fair amount of attention considering the carpark was full of all sorts of exotica from Ferrari's to GT3RS' to M3's and even a Nascar!

IMG_1299 by Steve Count, on Flickr

racetracker_4883779_72552 by Steve Count, on Flickr

racetracker_4902718_72553 by Steve Count, on Flickr

Unfortunately the fun had to end at some point though

IMG_1308 by Steve Count, on Flickr

I joined the Bongard club
Upon inspection the throttle cable had started to fray where it comes out of the outer sheath by the pedal, then when i went for a heel-toe downshift it decided to jam up and hold the throttle wide open. It happened as i blipped the throttle down-changing to 5th on a pretty fast section which wasn't ideal, but somehow i managed to keep it on the track and park it safely out of the way. Scared the crap out of me though!

Video of said incident.

And for those who are interested, here's my quickest lap of the trip.
8:07 BTG

That's about it for now, got plenty of little niggles on the car that need sorting, and hopefully do something proper with the cooling setup so i don't have the same issues in the future.

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Goldie the track car.

I've been doing a bit of tinkering the last few days again getting the car ready for the year ahead.

The polyurethane supercharger couplers that i've been making all seem to be failing in the same way, so i've decided to try making a couple out of abs to see if they prove to be more durable.
20190328_125953 by Steve Count, on Flickr

The dowels are also ovaling the holes in the aluminium parts of the coupler, then coming out which i suspect is part of why the polyurethane part was cracking. I'm currently using the spare pair of aluminium couplers on the car so the originals had the dowel holes re-drilled undersize so the new dowels can be pressed in and hopefully stay put.
20190328_130008 by Steve Count, on Flickr

Next up i drained all the old oil, new filter and fresh oil. Takes more than 5 litres to fill everything back up from empty these days. I'm also moving from the ATE typ 200 stuff that gsf sells to Motul RBF660. I managed to boil the old fluid last year on the 'ring when stuck behind someone and using the brakes slightly more than i normally would, so hopefully this will help combat that issue in the future.
20190328_131517 by Steve Count, on Flickr

I also replaced the big Bosch fuel filter that sits between the high pressure pump and the rail but i didn't get any pictures of that. Still on the list is the smaller filter that sits between the tank and the lift pump, its just a cheap clear plastic one which i forgot about until i saw it when doing the bigger one. It's seen better days so that will be replaced once the new one arrives in the post next week.

When draining the oil coolers i had the bumper off and noticed that i've almost ripped the bumper off the height setting bit since the tyre occasionally rubs the bumper. I cleaned down the areas around the mounting points and lathered them up with some epoxy resin, hopefully they'll hold together a bit longer now.
20190329_143809 by Steve Count, on Flickr

The braided oil line has been chaffing on the header tank a little too, it's worn a small notch into the corner so i've cut a bit of rubber hose and slid it over the braided hose and tie wrapped it in place to offer a bit of protection to the header tank.
20190329_183112 by Steve Count, on Flickr

The volt meter i fitted last year was just bodged in place by a bit of duct tape and bent ally sheet, i decided to make the whole affair a bit better but didn't get round to fitting it as i was waiting for the paint to dry, but basically it's just a piece of aluminium with a hole cut in it for the gauge that will self tapper to the bottom centre part of the dash. I'll get a photo of it once it's fitted.

The last thing i did was tweak the cold start settings in the S40, it really doesn't like to stay running immediately after starting, i suspect it was heavily over fueling as it stinks and chucks loads of black crap out of the exhaust, and the wideband sits at 10 which is as rich as it will read, but i'm not sure if this isnt helped by the fact that it isn't up to temperature itself which could throw off the reading slightly. It seems slightly better now i've leaned it out slightly, and once the coolant is above 30c the wideband tells me it's around 12:1 and the idle seems more stable. Still some tweaks to do to get it better but it's a start for now.

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Goldie the track car.

Yeah i wanted to do that but it didn't jump out at me how to tweak the advance for cold starts like the fuel enrichment map did. I'll get the laptop back out one evening this week if i get chance and see what i can find.
I don't think it helps that the little Powervamp is on it's last legs so i suspect the spark isn't as strong as it could be when cranking over too, it starts so much easier when i've got the jump leads on to a decent battery.

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Goldie the track car.

Ahh, thanks for that, i'll give that a try and get back to you. I was tweaking the fuel/turns startup map.
What do you reckon, just do it in 2-3 degree increments until it idles nicely?

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Goldie the track car.

Right, had another hour on the car tonight.

The original start fuelling map looked like this:
20190401_174258 by Steve Count, on Flickr

And the water temp compensation map looked like this:
20190401_174316 by Steve Count, on Flickr

This is how the start fuelling map looks now after a bit of tweaking the other day:
20190401_170041 by Steve Count, on Flickr

It was struggling to start still, so i played with the water temp compensation map a bit, giving some advance seemed to improve it a little as expected.

It was occasionally firing but not to the stage of getting started, then the battery decided it had had enough. I got the jump leads out to a proper battery and it cranked much faster and similar happened, with the occasional fire then nothing.

I decided to pull the plugs and they were pretty wet and carboned up, so i put a fresh set in.
The old plugs were gapped to 0.8mm, and the new ones i put in were the same.
20190401_172438 by Steve Count, on Flickr

With the new plugs in it started so much easier, so i kept tweaking the water temp compensation table and ended up with this:
20190401_173919 by Steve Count, on Flickr

It seemed happy to idle at that but if i tap the accelerator slightly it seems to hesitate a little before revving up.

I got the wideband reading to lean out to around 12-13 compared to how it was from the cold start (11c when first started, i called it a day at 30c as it seems happy to run from then onwards)
Here is the new volt meter gauge holder showing the wideband readout when the coolant had got to ~28c from memory.
20190401_173924 by Steve Count, on Flickr

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Goldie the track car.