I'm not sure where to even begin with this update! So much has happened since I last posted, way too many downs and a few ups. Logically though, let's start with the power test...

So having got the new engine in we took the car for its dyno at TDI. Dyno went reasonably well however the car was running quite lean so need to get that mapped out. Unfortunately when we pushed the car back we noticed a large pool of oil which was coming from the flywheel area. The rear main seal had perished. Great. We only had 6 days to get it fixed before we were to test at Rockingham so time definitely was not on our side. I must admit, I was pretty downbeat at this point. 7 weekends straight of working on the car was getting a little frustrating and the darn thing just would not make things easy.

The day after the dyno test we pulled the gearbox out, not the most fun job but we got it done. That 6 speed box is a heavy b**ch! Also sorted the fibreglass bonnet to have two sets of aerocatches so we can remove it and not have hinges.

During the week I bought a new clutch, fork bushes and rear main seal. Work began to refit it all on Thursday evening at about 4pm. After a bit of slow progress lining the box up, we finally had the car on the trailer and loaded up at 1:30am. During that time we also took out the power steering pump, aux belt idler and tensioner and fitted the replacement belt that just goes round the crank pulley and alternator.

Finally we get to testing. 5x 20 minute sessions, the first one being just a simple bed in session with all the changes. First session went really well, car performed faultlessly. Obviously we were reasonably far off the pace but not to worry, early days. The remaining sessions we upped the pace and ended with a fairly competitive time of around the 1m:51s mark. I was a little uncomfortable in the car with the brake pedal and it cost me about 1s a lap but hopefully we can fix that.

On to race day, exciting stuff. I was pretty anxious having screwed up at Snet and being slightly unhappy with the brakes but time to get on with it. We qualified 17th out of 31 which wasn't too bad however we were 3s off the class leader. Unfortunately we really struggled without an LSD at the track so had to do our best. Quali was also faultless with several good clean runs in.

The race itself was fantastic. A great start and a proficient pitstop contributed with us finishing 9th on our debut! The opening few laps were hectic battling several other fairly evenly matched cars. The second stint was a little more relaxed and just a case of holding off a Mondeo ST220 to make sure we had a top 10 finish (we crossed the line 10th but someone further up the field got a penalty).

All in all, a great weekend. Little bit of work to do on the brakes and to get the map adjusted but otherwise awesome.

Few photos from the weekend are below. Videos to follow when I can sort them out.







Oh yea, our air filter fell off and got run over during testing. Straightened it out and put it back on the car



Missing PAS pump and replacement aux belt:

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Rallye Race Car

Full (ish) race video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUff0GdKM8Y

Highlights video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1r5229OTnE

Couple of late braking moments ending up on the grass

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Rallye Race Car

I have thought about it but too lazy to do it myself :p

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Rallye Race Car

Another weekend, another race. On Saturday we raced at Cadwell for the first time and, once again, the car decided to not play nice!

We left home at about 5:30am on the Friday morning to get up to the circuit in time for the afternoon's testing. For those that don't know, Cadwell is literally in the middle of no where, it's like someone played a bas**rdised game of spin the globe and put your finger on it to decide where to build this circuit. Anyway, after a 4 and a bit hour journey we finally arrived and started unloading. As normal I took the car around the paddock to check everything was ok but I noticed a loud banging noise when coming on and off power aggressively. In all honesty we had heard it before at Rockingham but had completely forgotten about it, oops.

The knocking turned out to be because the top solid mount had pretty much destroyed the chassis, as is kind of expected. The issue being that the nut the mount bolts in to had play to the mount could move around. We solved this by getting another nut on the bottom and managing to do that up to apply enough pressure to the original nut to stop it moving around. With that problem it was on to testing!

Testing itself was in changeable conditions. We had 3 sessions so I was out first, we split the second between my brother and I and he had the last session. My first session was very wet which made it tricky to get a read on how to really carry speed around the circuit. That being said it was awesome fun and I love driving the car in wet conditions! No idea if I'm any good at it but it was loads of fun My fastest laptime in that second was around 2m 03secs. The middle session was drier but still damp meaning we could get down to the 2 minute mark. Unfortunately not all went to plan when my brother had a small spin! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzWjH5x6IFQ&feature=youtu.be
The final session was back to being wet again. Things went much smoother and my brother managed a few fairly incredible 2min 01secs lap times!



In the morning of the race we noticed that the suspension was very soft at the rear of the car. I wound the adjusters up on the shocks and that seemed to stiffen it up again so we went out for quali. My brother went out first and set a 1m 49secs lap time as the track was bone dry. Unfortunately we noticed that the softness had come back again but there was nothing we could do in the session. I then went out and did a 1m 48secs which put us 12th on the grid (of 28) and 6th in class (of 10) which we were reasonably happy with.

With the car back in the paddock we looked at fixing the rear shocks again but the adjusters had stopped doing anything and seemed to be defaulting to their softest settings. There was nothing we could do so we pushed the arches out a little to stop the tyres rubbing and went out for the race.

The race itself was so much fun. I had a titanic battle with several Clios including overtaking someone around the outside of the turn 1 and going side by side in to the first corner after the mountain. We made a small bit of contact going in to the Gooseneck which was interesting! Rather than describe it all, worth watching the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPzjHDH68CY

Few highlights in the video:
- First lap
- Few laps after the safety car comes in at 8min 30secs
- Contact with a Clio at 13mins
- Finally overtook the lap after the contact
- Exciting moment with a Mini at 35min 30secs

So, we need to fix the engine mount, get some new shocks and remove the steering lock (brought up during scrutineering).

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Rallye Race Car

Nice update, i love Cadwell park!

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Goldie the track car.

Thanks guys!

The bounce wasn't as noticeable in the car for most of the lap but in certain parts it wasn't fun. The handling wasn't that bad but difficult to know what it could have been like. We have a minimum pitstop time so a lot of it is just sat there!

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Rallye Race Car

I'm going to speak to Gaz about getting the shocks fixed and possible re-valved in preparation for bigger TBs in the future.

Most important thing for me in terms of confidence is getting the pedals sorted as they are so far apart I'm struggling to heel and toe accurately so am not happy on the brakes.

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Rallye Race Car

Plan is to try and get a wider pedal cover or something to bring them together. Got to take the steering column out anyway to remove the steering lock so will sort the pedals while I'm there.

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Rallye Race Car

There's a set of Gaz rears on ebay at the mo... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PEUGEOT-205-306-REAR-GAZ-ADJUSTABLE-SHOCKS-GTI6-GTI-6-XSI-HDI-1-6-1-9-DIMMA-/171372828938?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item27e69dd90a

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"Talking about badgers is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" Steve McBadger

Transversa aurigatio transcurro arvae.

Absolutely cracking weekend at Brands GP. We didn't test at the circuit so had never driven the GP loop before, so that was all quite new. We've done a few laps on the Indy before so at least we knew half of the track!

Having fixed the steering lock, rear calipers and fitted a catch tank in the run up to the race we were feeling fairly confident that there would be no issues with the car. We arrived at the circuit on Friday afternoon to set everything up and get ready. Sleeping in a tent on the back of the trailer is never particularly fun though!

We had no issues with scrutineering and the driver's briefing was as uninteresting as always. Finally we could get out on track for qualifying and the track was awesome! The GP part is so flowing it's incredible to drive. Qualifying went really well and we found that we were much faster than a lot of others out on the loop. We qualified 2nd in class and 24th overall, our best qualifying by far! Although we did have to have a quick visit to the stewards about exceeding the track limits, oops

On to the race. It was a 44 car grid and we were slap bang in the middle so it was always going to be intense going in to the first corner. I was determined to make a decent start after not getting a great one at Cadwell, luckily that was the case this time. I only lost one space to a RWD BMW which was unsurprising. Turn 1 was also surprisingly good and I had a lot of space to keep places. The first few laps were spent trying to defend cars that were faster than me in a straight line which was a bit rubbish but there's nothing I could do. Things eventually spaced out and I could start to put some decent laps in to start closing down the gap to the pack in front. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time before coming in to pit but then it was my brother's turn to take the wheel.

We had a perfectly timed pitstop which put him out 2nd in class and hunting down 1st very quickly. After 2 laps we had taken the class lead with 20 minutes to go but one of the Clios was bearing down fast. Ben tried his hardest but with 2 laps to go, the Clio jumped us. We ended up coming second which was a disappointment but if you're disappointed with second then it's been a good day!

Then the car blew it's rad, oh well. Still got a trophy

Few photos from the day:











And the full race video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_pHJlNy3pE

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Rallye Race Car

Time for proper dampers

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need a part number? get on here - http://public.servicebox.peugeot.com

Bring on the Trumpets.

Jealous of the track time mate. Wish I had the stones!

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CLUB BLACK RALLYE


||B8s||60-70mm drop||Black Partner Steels||P1 VTS Rack||Refurbed Beam||Hybrid ARB||VTS Torsion Bar||

Nicely done Dan, take it the diff made a good difference?!

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Oulton Park in a BTCC 306 vid 1
Oulton Park in a BTCC 306 vid 2
Lap of the 'ring