Track Day Oulton Park 21st Jan

[Ray]

My RX-4\'s first outing at Oulton Park was a success!
Nothing fell off and I didn\'t blow it up, although the car did keep buzzing at me...what revs is the buzzer supposed to start at?

I\'ve uploaded some piccies to http://www.classicmazda.co.uk/graphics/OP_060121.html.

It was very useful and highlighted some areas I need to look at:

Rear brakes need bleeding.. is there normally any problem with bleeding FC or FD rear callipers?

Front needs more camber, and stiffening...it did get some roll understeer when pushed very hard...although it didn\'t understeer as much as I thought it would. Generally very impressed and it\'s certainly a lot less twitchy than a 3.

5th gear noisy...but I can live with that.

I only used it in the morning session, thought it would be a good idea to give it a good check over, whilst it was still in one piece. So for the afternoon we went and picked up dad\'s RX-3 race car and gave that a good run out.

Ray

[Carl]

Looking really good Ray.
You have done a real nice job on the resto.
The rev buzzer should come in at around 6500 rpm,with 7000 being the redline.
I guess that with anolgue rev counters Mazda would have had it come in early cos the rev counter would be still trying to catch up with the engine that probably was doing 7000rpm when it was still reading around 6500 rpm.
Regards
Carl

[shaunwil]

Thats one cool car. Oulton park is a really good track. If your not busy on the 2nd monday of the month we get together at mascarat manor at J21 on M6 at about 8pm.

Shaun

[MikeLMR]

looks spot on  :Thumbs-up

how much camber did you end up with by fitting those spacers on the bottom of the struts ?

With rx7 struts in the 323 and the strut tops fully over it\'s still pretty much at zero

[Ray]

Hi Mike,

I never finished making the spacers,...so it\'s similar to your 323, about zero. I was surprised how well it did handle at that. The spacers for the struts and for the anti-roll bar are on my todo list, and probably brackets to mount twin anti-roll bars, rather than stiffening the front springs any more. I\'ll leave the back alone, that really stuck well.

The car just needs a complete check now just to see if anything\'s come loose or has been binding.... then I\'m very tempted to get it tested and use it on the road... :driving

Ray

[Carl]

The car just needs a complete check now just to see if anything\'s come loose or has been binding.... then I\'m very tempted to get it tested and use it on the road... :driving

Ray

And bring it down to Newbury on the 18th of Feb!
Regards
Carl

[mullins]

Good to see it tearing it up on the track Ray!

Are you using the RX-7 struts like Mike?  

I used slotted lower mounts on my last RX-3 to increase camber (don\'t know if it messes up track or anything else though).  I also had to increase castor to stop it tracking all over the road so maybe the two are related? You probably know a lot more than me about suspension settings so I\'m sure you\'ll suss it easily!  

What brakes are you running on the front?

 :Thumbs-up

[Ray]

Good to see it tearing it up on the track Ray!

Are you using the RX-7 struts like Mike?  

I used slotted lower mounts on my last RX-3 to increase camber (don\'t know if it messes up track or anything else though).  I also had to increase castor to stop it tracking all over the road so maybe the two are related? You probably know a lot more than me about suspension settings so I\'m sure you\'ll suss it easily!  

What brakes are you running on the front?

 :Thumbs-up

Using S2 struts same as Mike, but with RX-4 hubs, BMW 320 discs and MX-6 callipers.

Rear is using FC callipers (non-vented from US car) and Fiesta discs.

Offset spacers under the strut should sort out the camber and put the bottom arm at a better angle, I just need to get my act together and get them made. I didn\'t want to redrill the crossmember because I wanted to keep it within Classic Touring Car regulations in case I decide to race it later.

I don\'t want to go too mad with camber, a couple of degrees would be OK and as you suggest a touch more castor at the same time should keep it from wandering.

Ray

[MikeLMR]

The spacer under the strut won\'t change the caster though will it ? (I\'m thinking now as I\'ve already spaced my ARB to get more caster)  If you could post some piccies of your home made spacer I\'d be very interested Ray ... might have to break out the 4 jaw chuck and have a go at turning some offset spigots on a chunk of metal.

[Ray]

Mike,

My Blocks are 2 chunks of metal at the moment

However, checkout this page, this what I want to make
http://www.battleversion.com/rca_blocks.htm

Regarding the caster, you\'re right the blocks won\'t affect that unless you driill the extra holes offset forward or back..it\'ll be clearer when you look at the link above. I was going to do the same as you and adjust the caster with the ARB in conjunction with a racing beat anti-dive kit (see attachment), but I was waiting to get a bigger order together, because of the Racing Beat overseas delivery charges.

I hope this helps.

PS When will you have the camber blocks ready, I could be your first order  :evillaugh

Ray

[mullins]

I had blocks like those ones in the link. I thought they would cure my wandering but they didn\'t really make much difference. I did know at the time that they were mainly for bumpsteer (which I didn\'t really have) but I thought I\'d give them a try anyway!

Also one note of caution - those blocks didn\'t fit inside my 13 inch wheels and were quite close on my 15s as well!!!

[MikeLMR]

I just ordered a set of caster blocks from Racing Beat ... they were more expensive then I thought they would be ... but they do fit nicely and come with all the right bits

hmmmm best have a look and see what clearance I have to my rims on the front ... that could limit things a little !

[Martiny]

Good work Ray. Hope you enjoyed your track session. The handling is surprisingly good on these old cars in spite of the simple setup, and vague steering!

Hope to see you and Dave at a race this year , or at Carl\'s on 18 Feb!  :-)

[clive]

Hi Ray,

Very pleased to see you out enjoying yourself in your RX-4, after all of the hard work and the many hours you put in building this car litteraly from the shell upwards  :Thumbs-up  

[mullins]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Mazda-rx3-Camber-Plate-Kit-RX-RX3-ReSpeed_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ6755QQitemZ4607858454QQrdZ1