Hi guys, thought worth putting a thread up, hopefully it is of some interest. The idea was to get back to circuit racing in something that wasn't a BMW and ideally Japanese, something that was rear wheel drive and didn't cost a fortune (initially). I love doing trackdays, racing etc but I also love the build and the story of getting there.
TLM is Team Lizard Motorsport, we went on a similar journey with much success with Abbey Motorsport in about 2008 - 2017 ish and I am hoping to pick Mark's considerable brain again when it comes to this build.
End goal, (maybe 2 years out) - is Endurance racing, Britcar hopefully, so at the moment the regs for that require slicks and about 310bhp per tonne at the fly wheel, the slight nuance here being that it will need to do that at the redline for 90 minutes, more on that later.
Step 1, find a CAT S car with a straight chassis, no rust and in a state that we could use it for trackdays whilst the team and I learn the car and how it hangs together.
Enter the Tango edition GT86 with questionable mods
Car found, quick test drive and was fine, deal done with a very pleasant sales guy and we were off home.
Immediately on arrival we ripped the rear window louvres off, left it for 2 days and then couldnt wait any longer and started removing things
Team forgot how seats work
The eagle eyed among you might clock the Lava Orange 911 in the background which is incredibly close colour wise to this Orange Edition 86 (at least some of the panels...)
Next, after some googling and getting an itchy mouse button I ordered an oil pickup and a cusco baffle from Fensport, appreciate there is some speculation on the baffle so we will need to keep a close eye on that and it may come back out.
Offered up the baffle and the killer b pickup
Spent what felt like 7000 hours cleaning the mating point on the sump and then the same on the engine side, I was determined to get all the glue off, which from factory was about 2cm into the sump in places and some of it stuck in the stock pickup... great.
After sorting that out, putting it together and then realising there was a slight weep from the crush washer, which we had replaced but not with an OEM part we decided to get a new HKS filter and washer and 10 Litres of fresh oil.
Whilst stripping the car we found a light up starry headlining, set to orange of course which looked like it must have been a mission for the previous owner to sort out! unsure what to do with that now but open to suggestions, can change the colour too!
Job 2 was inspect the car properly, look for any coolant issues or other things that might need sorting before it did it's first trackday.
Immediately found that the brakes were a bit on the edge for me, so we braided the front and back lines and swapped the fluid to Castrol rbf, the pads and discs will need doing but the we are in a circle of pain with brakes at the moment.
GKTech in Australia have managed to produce a kit to convert the GT86 to 114.3 pcd and the wheel bearing can apparently take some serious punishment - so a set of those are on route, when they arrive we will then make a decision on an AP Brake kit (probably CP9440) and an appropriate wheel (id like to stick with 17" and 8.5 to 9j) so we can run 245 slicks in a square setup, we then need to swap the suspension!!! lots to do...
That is all a bit further down the line though.
Next I was keen to get the stock car on track and see how she handles,
I am a nerd by trade so am obsessed with data, im keen to log everything we do so, on some advice from Mark@Abbey we ordered the AIM Solo DL v2 and Smarty Cam from Ebay and have now configured that with the GT86's ecu, the idea being that we will end up with an Oil pressure switch we can wire into the CAN sensor and start alerting/recording on any issues.
This is road view just showing RPM/Speed/Engine Temp/Oil Temp
Overlay for the camera using a mix of ECU channels and inbuilt GPS channels from AIM, speed, rpm, gear, throttle position, track map, best time, current time, difference to best. Brake is in PSI and I havent got a read of what maximum PSI is in the car so I cant create the math channel to convert it to % yet, but will do later.
Journey from my parents house to home, got to hit those apexes....
https://flic.kr/p/2soKtWN
More to come, obviously the FA20 wont be the engine we use for racing, discussions ongoing on that point
TLM is Team Lizard Motorsport, we went on a similar journey with much success with Abbey Motorsport in about 2008 - 2017 ish and I am hoping to pick Mark's considerable brain again when it comes to this build.
End goal, (maybe 2 years out) - is Endurance racing, Britcar hopefully, so at the moment the regs for that require slicks and about 310bhp per tonne at the fly wheel, the slight nuance here being that it will need to do that at the redline for 90 minutes, more on that later.
Step 1, find a CAT S car with a straight chassis, no rust and in a state that we could use it for trackdays whilst the team and I learn the car and how it hangs together.
Enter the Tango edition GT86 with questionable mods
Car found, quick test drive and was fine, deal done with a very pleasant sales guy and we were off home.
Immediately on arrival we ripped the rear window louvres off, left it for 2 days and then couldnt wait any longer and started removing things
Team forgot how seats work
The eagle eyed among you might clock the Lava Orange 911 in the background which is incredibly close colour wise to this Orange Edition 86 (at least some of the panels...)
Next, after some googling and getting an itchy mouse button I ordered an oil pickup and a cusco baffle from Fensport, appreciate there is some speculation on the baffle so we will need to keep a close eye on that and it may come back out.
Offered up the baffle and the killer b pickup
Spent what felt like 7000 hours cleaning the mating point on the sump and then the same on the engine side, I was determined to get all the glue off, which from factory was about 2cm into the sump in places and some of it stuck in the stock pickup... great.
After sorting that out, putting it together and then realising there was a slight weep from the crush washer, which we had replaced but not with an OEM part we decided to get a new HKS filter and washer and 10 Litres of fresh oil.
Whilst stripping the car we found a light up starry headlining, set to orange of course which looked like it must have been a mission for the previous owner to sort out! unsure what to do with that now but open to suggestions, can change the colour too!
Job 2 was inspect the car properly, look for any coolant issues or other things that might need sorting before it did it's first trackday.
Immediately found that the brakes were a bit on the edge for me, so we braided the front and back lines and swapped the fluid to Castrol rbf, the pads and discs will need doing but the we are in a circle of pain with brakes at the moment.
GKTech in Australia have managed to produce a kit to convert the GT86 to 114.3 pcd and the wheel bearing can apparently take some serious punishment - so a set of those are on route, when they arrive we will then make a decision on an AP Brake kit (probably CP9440) and an appropriate wheel (id like to stick with 17" and 8.5 to 9j) so we can run 245 slicks in a square setup, we then need to swap the suspension!!! lots to do...
That is all a bit further down the line though.
Next I was keen to get the stock car on track and see how she handles,
I am a nerd by trade so am obsessed with data, im keen to log everything we do so, on some advice from Mark@Abbey we ordered the AIM Solo DL v2 and Smarty Cam from Ebay and have now configured that with the GT86's ecu, the idea being that we will end up with an Oil pressure switch we can wire into the CAN sensor and start alerting/recording on any issues.
This is road view just showing RPM/Speed/Engine Temp/Oil Temp
Overlay for the camera using a mix of ECU channels and inbuilt GPS channels from AIM, speed, rpm, gear, throttle position, track map, best time, current time, difference to best. Brake is in PSI and I havent got a read of what maximum PSI is in the car so I cant create the math channel to convert it to % yet, but will do later.
Journey from my parents house to home, got to hit those apexes....
https://flic.kr/p/2soKtWN
More to come, obviously the FA20 wont be the engine we use for racing, discussions ongoing on that point
