Clive's 400 BHP Super GT RX-8 Race Car

[boosted]

great vid...it flys! 9.53!!! well held that man!

[re japi]

One of the ideas behind all this whole project is to show people the "Rotary" and hopefully destroy a few myths along the way, this started sooner than expected !

7am Race day morning, the race organiser approaches me and immediately says , so why are these RX-8\'s engines no good and so unreliable (wow there was an excellent start to the day)

I quickly explained that the biggest reliability problems came from the ignition coils hurting the engines and not the engine itself and left it at that :Hammer:Hammer

Yesterday  I had a call from the same guy who told me that he now wanted more info on how to actually look at buying an RX-8 as he will now look to go back racing in his own series with one.

We can now put this down to another successfully I have poisoned to the way of the Rotary   :Thumbsup!:D

Yes, that kind of ignorance really :censored::censored::censored::censored:es me off! Especially here where noone knows anything about rotarys but they think they do. All they know is that few NSU´s have blew up and they base their knowledge to that fact. Really gets my blood to boil... :reallymad

Anyways, good job Clive and crew! And thanks for vid Casey :Thumbs-up

[Martin Price]

Good to meet you on Sunday Clive and glad you got your car going better for the races. You were very brave racing at Donington having never driven a lap there. In my opinion it\'s a circuit that\'s track knowledge critical to get a good lap time as there are so may corners that flow into each other.
I had the pleasure of starting a Nippon race from the back of the grid last time they were there. I was in my Scoob which is now sold. It was a great car which I miss but I\'m hoping my RX8 will fill the gap and then some!!!
Here\'s my video from the back of the grid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxvzt3i-6IU

Cheers Martin

[exiled-viking]

well worth bumming a lift from pete to watch clive and well done mate good day out:Thumbsup!

[boosted]

I found your vid looking for vids of Clive....i watched it and thought oh my god that things flies! and blokes a nutter lol!  This the same dark blue new age scoob i seen at combe without the spoiler?

[Martin Price]

It was standard STI engine and turbo running more boost making it around 350bhp.
On that day it\'s was the 5th fastest in the Nippon race down straight. I raced it in SuperGT but two cars in 300bhp class were faster down straight.
If you look carefully on start you can see Andy\'s Swift (who Clive had a battle with)stranded on the line after stalling. He was very lucky not to get collected!

[DaveCollins]

Clive - I am really pleased to see you had a successful first race day after all of the hard work you and others have put in over the months and years to get to this point.  I hope you were able to enjoy the day even if only in retrospect as seems to happen with many race days when you are caught up in the heat of the moment during the day.  I look forward to a chance to see the car in action at a future event and hope the incremental improvements you can make after each track experience end up producing a truly competitive car to show everyone what rotaries are still capable of.

Dave

[clive]

Thanks for the comments Guys and good to catch up with you Martin even if only briefly.


Well today has been a huge revelation !:2Confused

I have often said that on track/
"you can only go as fast as the car will let you go"
 
Today I found out why the car was so damn slow into and then off of corners :o

I took the car into TDI for a suspension check and explained that I felt as I said in another post that I felt the geometry was totally wrong on the car which led me to essentially just trying to keep out of the way of other cars in the corners:Hammer.


Turns out that for once in my life I was right !!!

As soon as we lifted the car and looked up we found that the long rear link bar from sub frame to  upright was bent like a banana,  causing severe  toe out on the side I wanted to corner on most of the time, no ideas when and how this was bent along the way.


This also means that as the suspension went up n down all the geometry was moving through the wrong angles on that corner.

(btw YOU NEVER BUT NEVER HAVE TOE OUT ON ANY CAR AS IT MAKES A CAR DANGEROUSLY UNSTABLE )!!

Moving to the driver’s rear, this had toe in so something moved here as well.

The guys at TDI told me they really did not know how I ever got it around the track period and that they were sure many would have just parked the car and done with !!!

Really great to know why I was so slow and my suspicion of wrong geometry set was right as I would have been real worried had we found nothing wrong  

Trouble is the suspension was changed and aligned over a year ago and much has happened with the car since  but now we have a way forward plus we will have wider 265 rubber on the back for next time;)


(Below is not a picture of my car but just to show you where the long bent link bar is located.)

[Casey]

Great news, in that there is a clear reason for your handling problems last Sunday! I hope it turns out to be easy to fix...

[shaunwil]

Blimey, that definitely wouldn\'t help !

Is it like the one that always got bent on the 4 arm linkage on the 1st gen ? Maybe it would be worth seeing if somebody could make you an uprated version machined out of billet aluminium.

Shaun

[rote8]

Great diagnostics on your part, you said it felt \'loose\' at the back, I\'m surprised you managed to keep it on the black stuff at all with that set up.

[clive]

Thanks Ray,

You never know , maybe just maybe , next time out I may even get to drive the car rather than it driving me :rolleyes:

[seanp]

A bad workman always blames his tools

Seriously Clive - great work in keeping it on the road - never mind making up the places in the race. I really want to make it to one of them, but afraid the next two I cannot

Best of luck in the next races - I hope this manages to improve your times significantly

[Grant Monkhouse]

:eekWe\'ll that sure would effect the cars cornering ability:eek:eek:eek:eek

Now that has been sorted, when you hitting the dyno for enough power too out drag that Datsun on the straights?

[clive]

A bad workman always blames his tools

I fully agree, but don\'t worry I have the book of excuses fully primed and ready to go:Viking