Punknoodle's ST185

Punknoodle

New member
Well two events down for the year so I thought I'd do another update here. Tuning went well - I was quite surprised with the boost response. I was expecting to take a little bit of a hit in terms of response due to the larger size of the PTE5858, but due to the appropriate sizing of the exhaust housing, great manifold design, no restrictions in the exhaust, modern ball bearing turbo design and great tuning, the response is pretty much exactly the same as the old CT20B turbo. It makes 550Nm of torque and it holds strong. Peak power on low boost is around 200awkw, and on high boost is around 235awkw. I could have pushed harder as there was more room in the fueling, but I wanted to try and keep as reliable as possible. The engine could also take more timing now as the turbo is running more efficient than the old unit, so that helps with spool.


Lining up at pit exit for Round 1 of QLD Time Attack QR Series

I've had two events so far, one at Queensland Raceway and one at Lakeside. Car has performed fairly well so far, temps are good. I thought I had an engine knocking issue but it just turned out to be a broken bracket on the exhaust which was making a noise. I've since found an issue where high boost wasn't actually high boost, it was actually marginally higher than low boost. It was a simple issue with the trim input wiring - it needed a pull up resistor - so high boost was actually still setting about 50% boost trim. This is now fixed, so looking forward to getting back out and trying high boost.


Big smile in behind my helmet, trust me!

I ended up 2nd in class at QR, 0.5s off doing a "Holy Grail" laptime (which earns you a cool sticker to put on the car because it's a great achievement) on low boost. Keen to see how it goes on high boost. It was a pretty hot day too, grip was fairly low. At Lakeside I was a little off the pace - I managed to better the laptime I set there last year, but grip was very low and the car just didn't feel hooked up. Still, it was a good day, Lakeside is such a good track, every lap is a thrill.


GT4 vs GT-Four in the same shot, I love this shot!

Coming up in a little over a week is the Japanese Nationals Time Attack event, out at QR. Super keen to get out there with full boost, but also looking forward to playing with my new toy... I couldn't help myself and bought myself a Motec C125 Race Logger. This unit does full on board data logging, GPS, G-Force sensors, colour display etc.


View from my on board camera of the new dash


A sample of the data collected by the dash, in Motec i2 Data Analysis software


I added my own personal touch for the welcome screen :D

Below are some more pictures from the year. As always, for more detail, on board videos etc, check out my facebook page "Duke's Racecar Engineering" or my instagram, @thedukeofwinsor







On Board Lap of Clubman
 

Punknoodle

New member
Unfortunately Japanese Nationals didn't go to plan today. First turn of the flying first lap of the first session and I stuffed it up. Went in way too hot for the cold tires, lost it and put it deep in to the gravel trap.





Felt like a real rookie sitting in the gravel waiting to get towed out. I'd been looking forward to this event for a while and for it to finish so early was heartbreaking.

I ended up peeling 2 tires off the beads while going sideways in the gravel, very lucky it didn't roll. Got towed out, got all 4 tired unmounted and remounted, but one was damaged so I was unable to continue. I emptied all of the gravel out of the car and loaded it back on to the trailer. Once I got it home, I cleaned it and put it up on stands to assess the damage.

It still runs and drives straight, I don't think I've done any mechanical damage but I'm yet to go crawling under the car. Cosmetically though, the left side of the car has a lot of scuffing at low level from the gravel. The wheels all look really scratched up and I cracked my wing mirror glass from the stones pelting it. The good thing is though that the splitter held on nice and strong even filled up with all that gravel. It shows that I've built it strong enough.

I also need to replace all 4 tires. I was thinking that this event was going to be the last event for this set as at the last event they felt average. Looking at them now, they feel pretty hard. Apparently these AR1s are fairly limited for heat cycles and I think they've had it. Goes a long way to explaining why the grip was so poor, especially because they were cold. It was still totally my fault - I shouldn't have gone in so hot until I'd experimented with the grip of the car.



It's not quite the data I was hoping to get from the weekend, however it was quite interesting to look at my spin. It shows an approach of 190kph, on the brakes, then rolled in to the turn at around 160kph. I got sideways at around 150kph, tried to catch it by loading on some opposite lock and giving it some throttle as you can see from the data. At this point I was at around 1.2 lateral Gs. The rear kept on coming around though, and at this point I was out of lock without switching my hands on the wheel. I've never done this before but I did it out of desperation. The car gripped but by then the wheels were pointing the wrong way and it flicked me the wrong way. I spun, went in to the gravel backwards at around 125kph and around 2 lateral Gs. I then spun a further 180 degrees and stopped about 2m from the concrete barrier.

Looking back, I maybe should have held the wheel in my normal grip and held the lock I had. I'm confident I was coming off anyway, it was coming around too quick and there was no grip, but it may have had a better outcome. In saying that, it could have bit the gravel even more sideways than it did and rolled, so who knows. It's easy to look back in critique your reaction after the fact, but in the car, feeling what you are and having a very short amount of time to react, it's a little different.

At the end of the day, it's lesson learnt and a good result that I didn't roll or hit the fence. Looking forward to getting back out there again once I replace the tires and give the car a good check over.

Anyway, here's the in car footage. At least the new Motec C125 dash looks on point!
https://youtu.be/teY9Ng61dP8
 

CMS-GT4

Active member
You've got the right attitude. Put it all back together, and try again. It sucks to have to deal with the damage, and scuffing a beautiful car, but in the end its living its life to the fullest and its going to get experience marks along the way.
 

Punknoodle

New member
Thanks mate, yeah 100%. It's very rare to see a racecar without any battle scars on it, at the end of the day if you are going to be pushing at the limit, which you need to do to make it worthwhile, these things are going to happen. All part of the sport we love :)
 

Punknoodle

New member
It's been some time since my last update, so I'll write up a bit of a recap on what happened in 2019. Waaaaaay more detail and photos on my Facebook page "Duke's Racecar Engineering" and Instagram "@thedukeofwinsor".

I competed in the following round of the QLD Time Attack series, and finally posted a sub 59 second lap of Sprint, which earned my place in the 'Holy Grail' club - with cool gold sticker to go with it. I got a sheet of carbon fibre, cut it to size, stuck on the sticker then applied a few coats of clear. I think it looks pretty good.


As well as the Time Attack series, I also took the opportunity to enter in to the Leyburn Historic Sprints. This event is held in the small country town of Leyburn, where the first Australian Grand Prix was held. It runs on the town streets and had a huge entry list and crowd. I really enjoyed the event and the car performed faultlessly the entire weekend.




I did a couple more rounds of Time Attack and decided to enter the car in to the King of QR event. During this event, the car started behaving poorly. It was leaking coolant and the clutch felt awful. I decided to park it and investigate the issues and get the car sorted for the the final round of QLD Time Attack, as I was on track to finish 2nd in class for the year.

Unfortunately it wasn't to be. I found a crack in the block (near the water pump) and so the car was over and out for the year.

So, since then, I've decided to rebuild car again, but this time, take my time and do it properly. So I've stripped all of the wiring from the car, fuse boxes, fluid hard lines, pedals, power steering etc from the car. I'll be doing a complete motorsport spec rewire, using drive by wire throttle, new Motec ECU and Motec PDM. Pedals will be floor mounted pedal box with individual front and rear brake masters and balance bar. Obviously a new engine too, but that will come later.

Steering rack has been manualised and I've fitted the column from a Toyota 86 to the car, so now I have electric assisted power steering as opposed to hydraulic.


Obviously I have a ton of work ahead of me but I'll keep working away on each area as I can (next is the pedal box and hydraulic lines). I'm building the car to WTAC Clubsprint rules and intend on being the first GT-Four to compete in WTAC.
 
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