Zwartkops Raceway, 13 January 2013, Super TraxDay, 05H45.
A unique day in many ways. Fossa making her first track appearance with no branding on her bonnet or boot!
Fitting "Organ pipe"
We had a new freeflow exhaust system fitted to Fossa with a difference. Just after the front freeflow box the balance of the system can be removed and, what I call an organ pipe, a short pipe can be fitted that exit towards the back of the rear door. It sounds brilliant. Db’s are limited at TraxDay and racing events. The proof is in the pudding and we borrowed a proper db meter from Zwartkops, took Fossa to an open area and took a reading. 109.3 Db! This is borderline clearance for races but too high for TraxDays which carry a 93 db limit.
Back down and replace the full system.
Fitting her semi slicks
Following advise being new, we reduced our cold pressure from 250KPa to 230 KPa. Actually, as low as 190 KPa was recommended. On our first outing on her semi slicks during December 2012 the semi’s look quite promising for a long life …… for some or other reason I can see us on road tires again in the future. Even at a claimed “very abrasive” Midvaal Raceway our dated road tires lasted better. We did much reduced laps compared to our December visit and had so much tire degradation that we had to to swop the left front and rear tires. By day end, we have the same wear of the “new” left front! Not happy! Zwartkops Raceway have just received a re coating of the track which gives very good traction even on cold tires. Baffles the mind.
GoPro: First roof mounted GoPro footage can be seen here. Not bad but not without it’s challenges. Battery life, connecting via bluetooth …… frustrating
Next our new “kit”,
Front
and the back
And then yet another first track side experience. On starting Fossa, suddenly smoke started coming from the bonnet as if a cable has overheated. Chris – Roach jumped out, grabbed the small fire extinguisher while I jumped out and opened the bonnet to find the carburetor on fire. A quick spray had the fire out. It appears that the carburetor flooded and dropped some fuel onto the distributor. First obvious damage, the vacuum advance pipe and a paint bubbled bonnet / hood. We do however suspect possible damage to her plug leads as she started misfiring afterwards.
Leaning tower of Fossa
just in case you missed it, a repeat of the leaning tower of Fossa
The ultimate purpose of the day, test the exhaust system and see if we can improve on our times. No success there, coming in with an approximate average of 1:37 and a best of 1:35.15 on our penultimate lap.
The immediate future? Been a hectic day. Maybe Piston Ring Club – 20 January. Tired today and some repairs to do, see what the time and funding allows. Then the international events the first two weekends of February ……..