I took last week off work (big deal for a contractor!) to finish putting the engine together.
I just managed it in time to fire it up and load the car onto the trailer behind my mates Chevy dayvan 'Thunderbird 2' on Thursday to make the drive from Barrow to Broseley arriving at 11pm at the bed and breakfast where a very welcome 4 poster bed awaited me.
The Friday was to be spent with Dale Bladen at Bailey Performance. He has mapped my car before and has good experience with a few fellow TVRs we know and love.
He knows Megasquirt inside out and his attention to detail is second to none. So at 10 am we pulled the car off the trailer and first job was to make the Odyssey battery fit. Dale made up some extensions for the cables to the battery mounts and i modified the battery plinth i made in the boot. Dale then set about the important stuff updating the MS2 software and started the mapping procedure.
On the first power run we saw 287bhp with the power curve climbing nicely to 5000 then struggling to climb much further all the way to the 6100 rpm limiter.
Dale made a few tweaks, and upped the advance from 28 to 36 degress and we saw 297.7 bhp but with the same shape curve.
I suspected mid range torque to be much improved but Dale had a gizmo fail so we couldnt get a reading.
The car was put back onto the trailer then i had to reverse the rig from the tight yard. Took me a few attempts and held the local traffic up for 5 minutes but then i was away. I drove to Preston Friday night with the intention of taking the car off the trailer at the Premier Inn and attend the Preston Cruise to get my first NSCC qualifying points. I arrived after 9pm and the big bed and bath at the premier were too tempting. Besides it was cold and wet out so i missed te visit to the cruise.
Saturday morning after a great nights sleep i went to Preston rail station and picked up Ben (Tonys younger lad) and we headed to York arriving very early so a trip to the local boozer for a bite to eat till the gates opened.
Sunday looked promising but i knew the track would take a while to warm and provide the grip being the first day of the year. I ran the car for the initial run on the street tyres (Rainsport 3's) and took it very easy to make sure the car was running ok. The time was 13.0 @ 110. This was within 3 mph of my best NA terminals so confirmed my thoughts on the increased torque.
I had a new pair of drag tyres that i bought from Nick (OrangeSC). These are 10.5" MT Street ETs but not the stiffer sidewall Radials i used previously. I decided to run without gas and see if i could get close or beat my 12.41 best. On my 3rd attempt i ran 12.52 @ 110.5 with only a 1.99 to 60 foot. So there id definately a sub 12.4 in there with a better launch.
I was running in NSCC and for the first few rounds didnt require any nitrous. I only brought the same bottles i used at the last round last year so was low and also never bothered to heat the bottles. This has a big effect on the power to be provided and would run a much richer mixture. I was happy to run like this as its safer on the engine. Somehow i ended up in the final with a lot of the other racers having first day troubles and dropping like flies. I was in the final against Russ Pursley in his Chevy powered 9 second Dutton. So i opened up the bottles and lined up with the thought to hitting full throttle as soon as i saw the third amber on the tree. The plan worked as i has a .6 reaction time to over a full second from Russ and also ran my best ever 60 foot time of 1.67. We both ran 7.1 to the 1/8th but Russ was now travelling at 108 to my 98.7 and catching. We crossed the line neck and neck and none of us could have guessed who the winner was. Russ beat my by just 1 thousandth of a second!
Then..... all hell broke loose for me. My car suddenly turned left and headed off the tarmac into the rough kicking up all sorts of dust and debris as i bounced through still doing over 120 mph. I tried to gently steer the car back to the track and did not dare touch the brakes. But my skills failed me as the car then went out of control and span to the right back across track doing a bum clenching 540 in clouds of tyre smoke until i finally stopped with the rear wheels on the grass and me looking back up the track from where i just had the ride of my life. The roof panel popped off the car mid spin so i raised a hand to let people know i was ok as the fire angine and ambulance raced towards me.
I felt fine but apparently my eyes were on stalks and my heart rate was still 127 while being checked and questioned in the ambulance. The radiator had broke its bobbin mounts and was caked in grass and debris and there was some dmage to the body under the front but i refitted the retrieved roof, fire it up and drove back to the pits to be greeted to the NSCC guys giving me a round of applause.
Pics etc to follow.
Waiting at the gate
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