So we decided to enter the turbo bug in it's first race weekend. After a couple of test/tune events we felt comfortable enough to take it out and do a sprint race.

On Friday I was worried about the ambient temperatures as we currently have a heatwave coming across South Africa, but on Saturday morning it was overcast and the ambient temperatures have dropped from 34'c (93.2'f) to around 25'c (77'f).

Qualifying went pretty well, did one warm up lap, one lap with traffic and the third lap was clean. As soon as I saw the lap time I knew it was good enough for the race and circulated back to the pits to save the tyres. Lap time 1:12,6, 8th overall on the grid and 3rd in class B.

Race 1, Lined up and went around for the running start. My plan was to run high boost on the start, 10psi and then switch back to low boost 7psi once I'm out the serious traffic. Up to turn 2 it was so bunched up that the high boost did not help much... but from turn 2 to turn 4 was awesome. Pulled about 4 cars on the turbo mini and passed the 330i bmw around the outside of turn 3.

Man it's nice to have torque. Lol. I'm normally on the receiving end of this trick when we race the n/a car. (BTW, that Honda is running a K24 turboed engine). Started in 8th overall and got up to 4th overall.

From there it was pretty boring, I could not really get away from the 330i bmw, but had enough to stay in front (I still could use high boost if needed).... until... on the exit of turn 4 the one drive shaft broke. It almost caught me out big time. Thank you lock diff. I managed to get the car back to the pits and had to retire.

The oil temperature went up to 82'c (180.6'f) max and egt 720'c (1328'f) max. So the temperatures seem pretty good. The intake air temp after the inter cooler might need a little work, I saw just over 60'c (140'f) there. But otherwise engine side all is fine. I've already got a pretty big inter cooler with water sprayers... so water / meth injection might be the next thing to do.

I still had an awesome time. It's so different racing against expensive new generation cars... I'll be back.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1uh88PzvbY

Picture

Hi

Good work. Have you a got really tall 1st gear or is that a really tight corner? Can you get E85 fuel where you are? It really helps with cooling.

What sort of inter cooler are you using, where is it mounted?

Steve

The 1st gear is pretty tall.

2.06 1st
1.611 2nd
1.26 3rd
0.93 4th
3.875 FD

At this stage I'm running M50. We can go E85 or E100.

The intercooler is mounted on top of the gearbox nose cone. It's an air to air intercooler that is fed from the rear windows with a electric fan and water sprayers. 1st prize might be an water/air cooler... but I really do not want to complicate things more by having to fit radiators etc.

Thanks for sharing, looks like great fun.
Awesome the bug is running so well.

yeehaa, love your footage.....shes got some ballz.....

Great work. I love when old cars, especially vw's overtake newer cars

Kev

Go to e85 youl love it, what ever horses and torque your running now will increase by at least 25% will put even bigger smile on dial and cooler running temps both oil and intake charge but be carefull mashing the pedal will turn it around even in top gear

The turbo bug is back together... this time with cromoly shafts.

I have also ordered an AEM water meth kit to help with the intake temps. More boost coming soon.

Awesome fun mate, is this the type 4 turbo engine?

No, it's the type 1 2176cc. My twin turbo type 4 car is still storage untill we get all our other projects finished.