Donnington Oulton double header

[Ferg]

A little moment at Donny yesterday

Nice catch!!

[Stu160]

A fantastic day a Oulton, liking the video Donald, lots of action at the chicane. ...
I was very nervous about taking the V6 out on a wet slippery , and risky track such as Oulton...but my fears were misplaced, it was epic. I never pushed the car, or took any risks all day, however, the car was just so quick, what an awesome machine. Its taken me a while to bond with the car, but yesterday has really cleared my mind, it is very very good.

I did get the wetsuit and car cover Doug, i think i may need the wetsuit tomorrow at Crail for the 100 mile challenge.

thanks for laps in your car at Donny Donald, really liked it, great fun.highlight of my day for sure

Stu

[Simon82]

How did you get on with the michelins Stu in the dry?
Be interested to hear how you got on with them

[Stu160]

Hi Simon

Got on fine, they seemed to have lots of grip, and looked good after a couple of hard dry sessions. Looks like they will last very well.
Wet grip, and feel was very good.

Stu

[Ferg]

It was a great couple of days up to about 4pm on the Friday. First time at Donington and it was very very wet. I enjoyed the track and was beginning to gel with the Exige as to date I had not done more than a handful of laps at the last two track days before something broke. Conscious we had another day to do I was taking it easy but still got a black flag for noise. This kind of killed the day as I was having to short shift out of the corners near the noise test points. But by the end of the day I was enjoying the car and getting a bit braver. Above everything it had survived a track day! Hooray.....

Intermission that saw us go to a Chinese which I subsequently threw up again....nice.

Oulton was again very wet in the morning and specifically the chicanes section that seemed to have something down on it as it was like ice. Happy to be back on a track I had done before I could push further. Great fun and I think me and the old Exige became friends.

The track started to dry in the afternoon. The car was running great. I then took two Px's out and thought that the extra weight was affecting the power above 6k rpm. With it being close to time to go home I thought I' do one more run to enjoy the car myself and put into practice some of the pointers from Mr G. But again the power was reduced. I started to worry so thought I'd bring it in. I never made it to the pits. Red flag and the pull of shame.

Supported by the SE collective we set about trying to diagnose. Although in hindsight we should have trusted our first thought that it sounded like the compression wasn't correct. We went through everything, and kept thinking that there wasn't enough fuel smell. This turned out to be a red herring. So after admitting defeat I phoned the AA who were happy to come to the circuit, but the circuit closed at 6pm. D, Stu and Mike pushed me out to the entrance over that large hill for which I was very grateful. AA said they would be there at 5.30.

The AA turned up at 9pm once it was pitch black outside. A top chap from a local garage spent an hour going through all the stuff we had done but with some very nice diagnostic tools. We tried all sorts. And then finally as a last gasp we thought about checking whether one of the vernier pulleys had moved. On getting the cambelt cover open we found that the belt as completely loose. ARSE. Thats was that, time for recovery. Thankfully the first driver made sure it was clear in the system that the car was very low.

The recovery truck turned up at 1.30am. I had gone to sleep and woke up very cold so was glad of a warm truck cab. The car went on the truck but only just and subsequently started a night of 30-40 minutes each time getting the car carefully on and off different trucks. It took three legs to get home in torrential rain. A family of ducks even walked past the car at Tebay services.

I got home at 9.30am on Saturday knackered and soaked. I should have put two and two together and realised I could have taken it directly to CMC at that time of day but my brain wasn't working. I'll work out how to do that later. The driver kindly deposited the car directly into my garage which saved lots of mucking about. After a few phone calls it was time for bed....

Great trip, sh*t ending. Time will tell if there's permanent damage. I'm going to take the 'Stronger, Better, Faster' approach to any repairs.

[Sanjøy]

Time for a beer.

[robin]

It would be best to take the "check the bolts are done up" approach to any repairs The verniers might not have enough adjustment on them to allow enough timing slip to cause serious valve-piston interference, thus you might get away with a few bent valves, or even none. That's assuming it was the adjuster bolts that were loose - if the centre bolt has come adrift then I think valve-piston contact is inevitable.

Cheers,
Robin

[Ferg]

Yep, bolt tightening first of course but trying to stay positive / look on the bright side

Verniers were fine. Belt loose but not damaged. We won't know until it's been tightened up and compression tested.

[BigD]

Potentially a broken tensioner?

[Ferg]

Potentially a broken tensioner?

Looks that way.

[robin]

Sorry - I misread your post (must wear glasses) - I thought you had said bolt was loose, not belt was loose. The belt being loose could be the tensioner or the bottom pulley. Either way you're very unlikely to have escaped substantial piston/valve contact. You could still get away with new valves but remember to replace the valve guides also - sometimes they are damaged when the valve stem bends and IMHO it's not worth the risk of doing all that work and not replace them.

Depending on what's damaged I may have some spares which would be cheaper than buying new.

Cheers,
Robin

[tut]

Just ordered your Xmas present Ferg.....



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252150974538? ... rmvSB=true

tut (sorry )

[Ferg]

:lol I had made a joke regarding grenades the day before. Unfortunate

[tut]

I still have your light Ferg so will pass it on to one of the guys on Sunday from Aberdeen.

No problem though in posting it if you want it earlier.

tut

[Ferg]

Thanks Tut, I'll drop you a PM.

This picture sums up Donny. Very wet.



And heres a wee vid from Oulton Park. Still taking it easy and don't really reach speed until half way through but having fun. Plenty slippy out there on ZZRs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMeWgC-6e_A