SlideWize – 23/02/2013

Another great slidewize event, plenty of fun in the skid sessions and some good competition in the timed events. Had a lot of fun with hand brake initiated drifts and rev limiter smashing peg leg exits.
I struggled a lot with front end understeer, which is attributed to sub-par front tires and probably and excessive amount of front camber on my current track alignment. Going to run my R888’s next time, adjust my camber back to some more street sensible and probably drop a 50kg bag of sand into the frunk to give the front end of the car some weight for traction!

Bunch of photos I snap during the day.
























Sunday was followed up with the QLD MR2 Cruise through the Samford Valley and then up Mt Mee for some thrilling scenic driving. Dom and myself detoured from the pack and hit up the Campbells Pocket Rally Stage before joining the rest of the group at Kilcoy for lunch. I separated from the cruise to head home while everyone else did the western loop back to Brisbane, however 40km from home, the TrackDub developed a really bad electrical problem. At first it was like the ignition was breaking down, and throttling caused the motor to die, while a couple of the dash gauges fluttered around all over the shop in a retarded fashion. I could start the motor, get it to run for 5-10 seconds before it would struggle to idle or conk out. $200 later, it was tow tracked home, where I couldn’t get the motor to fire up. So I drove it up the drive way using the starter motor, and then a little after that, I couldn’t even get the motor to crank over, I just get nothing when the key is turned. However, with the epic amounts of rain that is currently falling and no space in the garage, it looks like it will be a week or two before I can start tracking down what the hell is going on.

My initial thoughts are, the regulator in the alternator has **** itself and was unleashing 20+ volt spikes into the ECU, which would make it shut down, I could also explain my gauges going nuts and my inverter throwing under/over voltage warning beeps everywhere. Other ideas are that there are is some damaged wiring loom that is shorting and has melted, causing some unknown damage to other things. This break down comes at a semi-convient time, simply because in the next few weeks the motor will be dropped so I can install the new 6 speed gearbox and LSD, so I can take this opportunity to do both jobs at once.