All in all it turned out to be quite a successful and productive day for us at Snetterton on March 12th 2010. The aim of the day was to shakedown the new fuel injection system and engine, and iron out the faults that were very likely to occur. Of course, it would have been nice to have had no problems, but at least we can sort everything out now and go to Brands confident of good reliability.

The day started with a noise test, which we only just passed – first thing on the to-do list is repack the exhaust again (but with the silencer filling looser or tighter?!).  However, we were at least through, and could get on with the rest of the day…

The first session was just an exploratory one, with an installation lap followed by a quick check-over. The weather was not on our side, and the track was quite damp, meaning the wets had to go on. Fortunately it was the perfect chance to see how the car behaved with low grip, particularly its response to throttle during corner exits, where wheelspin can be so costly to laptime.  All temps and pressures seemed to be doing as they should, and nothing obvious was wrong with the car at the check, so I was sent out to do a few more laps.  However, a couple of laps later the throttle cable snapped – a threaded end fitting that was crimped onto the cable (by a reputable but now out of business cable manufacturer) had caused a stress-raiser, and it had failed at this point. Totally out of our control unlike the Mallory failure last year.

Potentially that could have been the end of the day, but a quick trip home (this is why we test locally!) to get some more cable and some aircraft crimps and sleeves, left over from one of Martins home built aircraft projects, meant we were able to effect a quick repair to get us through the day. The result of that is we are already in the process of redesigning not only the cable but also the throttle mechanism in such a way that failures are much less likely, but also more easily fixed if they do occur.

The downside is that we missed the rest of the first session and all of the second morning session performing the repair – during which time we also checked over the rest of the car to make sure all was as it should be.

After a quick lunch (yummy – sausages!) I was back out.  It had dried now, so the Silverstone Tyres slicks were the only sensible way to go.  Not ideal tyres, but good enough for testing on I suppose.  The first few laps were spent getting everything up to temperature, but it wasn’t happening very quickly. On such a cold day the engine was being overcooled (even more than normal), so I came in to get some tape put over the sidepod intakes. Back out again doing some more laps, and the temperatures were getting very high, so I came in to have a bit of the tape removed.  Whilst this was being done we also checked a few other bits and bobs on the car, so I switched off to stop it from boiling over.

The drama began when I was being started up to go back out – it wouldn’t start. Maybe it was our jump battery? We tried someone else’s, but it still didn’t. So we got the battery out of our trailer – still nothing.  Then we connected all three batteries at once (plus the one in the car) and it made no difference. The car would barely crank over. Seized engine? Knackered starter motor?  Checks, checks and more checks were made until a small earthing wire was found to be a bit loose. Tightening it made all the difference, and it fired back up again.  With only 5 minutes of the session to go, we felt it was wise to check a few other things over, bleed the clutch a bit (it was getting a bit soft), and generally take our time.

An hour later the 4th and final session was started, and we went out to build on what we’d already achieved. I tried to run the session as a race simulation, so I make sure my pace was good, and I chased laptimes a bit. I even did a practice start (we had permission from the Clerk of the Course, but the guy at the end of the pitlane didn’t know that and got a bit upset). Things were going well, so we did another long run after a bit of a chat in the pitlane.

At the end of the session I came in a few laps early as oil temperatures were creeping up, but that isn’t something that concerns us greatly at this stage.

Sure we have a few things to do in the meantime, but Brands is building up to being a competitive outing for us… Only time will tell of course, and I still haven’t seen an entry list (with two weeks to go that isn’t surprising), but I will be shocked if anyone else can match our pace on the day.

I can’t wait to get on track at Brands and see what happens…