2024-08-01 Ultimate Show Car @ Santapod
Going to Santapod from thursday to sun, the morning started off wet
Gathered with TeamWhiteCustom at the Wetherby services
It soon got really sunny warm and we had some food & drink at a pub near santapod
Entering santapod we lined up at our camp site
The mornings were foggy but cleared into a blazing clear sky by midday
Spotted some Micras at the show
The rave partys at night with my car friends whilst abit drunk was amazing & fun
We did some light painting at night
At the show they had a dyno for £50.
The last time she was dynoed with 421 headers was 2009 and alot has changed so I was curious to see what her current setup runs like
Watching from the outside, she has a very deep bass exhaust note.
They only ran 2 out of 3 runs and didn't take it upto 7200rpm redline cos the gearbox was leaking badly underneath
The result was 87hp (could've reached 90hp if they redlined it imo)
and 81ftlb torque.
I converted the units & lined up my 421 header dyno graph (
RED) with this current setup (
BLUE) and considering it's a different dyno, conditions, fuel, mapping, etc she seems to have lost some power. Maybe the standard manifold with primary cat & larger exhaust is choking her & losing scavenging compared to the old janspeed 421 header & exhaust system with decat?
(note: later I found the throttle cable was too loose & wasn't fully opening WOT)
Our club admin had some spare dragstrip tickets and gave em to me for a go
I emptied the car, dropped front tyre pressure, forgot to stiffen the dampers & went for the 1st drag run.
It went ok, the wheel probably spun too much causing lots of hopping on the grippy surface.
She did a 17.46s run @ 76.58mph
Later in the day before the RWYB session closed I brought my friend along for our 2nd run but this time the wheel once again hopped like crazy during the launch and something went bang
From onboard you can hear the driveshaft snap & flapping around before dropping off
Oh bugger, but she's still moving forward due to her new LSD
Stopped over to look underneath and oh, the snapped shaft was luckily still resting on top of the control arm rather than falling on the track
The LSD was still able to drive the drivers wheel forward but can't reverse.
So my options to get home were:
*try find a spare 1.3 driveshaft - unlikely on a weekend with poor signal
*phone for breakdown trailer recovery - probably won't accept her from a dragstrip or will take hours of waiting
*slowly nurse her home with a single driving wheel with my club convoy - quickest & cheapest way
We secured the loose shaft with zipties & exhaust clamp to stop it flapping around at high speed or lose more gear oil
Driving home on 1 wheel with 1.5way diff was weird.
It's like a moped centrifugal clutch whereby the LSD only locks & drives forward when accelerating or going uphill (although it pulls heavily to the left) but soon as I lift the throttle/coast, it detaches & freewheels without touching the clutch
After 200 miles she was home
At the show brought a gift for her
Looks bit spicier without the dull tyre valve