RAF Marham

[menostig]

My brother Simon (in his hillclimb 1986 911) and I (in 360 bhp Ultima Sport) had a truly fantastic day today at RAF Marham. 4 x 30 min sessions on a ~4mile track. With 2 glider flights too (pulling 0-60 in <3s on the winch) acting as the icing on the cake.

Ultima proved a solid, reliable and effective track car. Totally absorbing. I could feel grip at both ends changing and could steer on the throttle after a fashion. My brother was well impressed with the oversteering and harness-testing brakes.

One bit of advice, the ground-hoovering snout ended up pebble-dashed and needs a bit of a respray now. This despite them sweeping the night before. So, to avoid this either just tape it (it was the vertical bit upto the bottom of the light cowlings) or don't go out in the first session. Because attrition removed lots of traffic in later sessions, and much of the dust was gone too, so more space and less of a grit-wash.

I half-spun twice while trying to induce big oversteer. Very amusing.

Bargain day at £40 the track-time and £30 the gliders.

Oh yeah and oil pressure and temperature were absolutely fine despite lack of oil cooler and accusump.

Rog.

[gtr-gaz]

Hi Roger, glad to hear you had a good day! I think everyone who owns an Ultima should take it to at least one track day. They are just so much fun.

You had the best day of the two, weather wise. It was damp today with a bit of light rain in the early afternoon. A lot of others suffered pebbledashing as well, especially the Noble and TVR's.

I had a pretty good day myself and I was only watching. Highlight of my day was a couple of laps in MG Mark's 45 year old MGA Can that man drive!!

It was good to see a couple of Ultimas there today. Peterpsg and Rich.F. Both had problems and were not on track much, sorry to say.
Nice to meet you though Peter. Glad you were able to sort out the oil leak! I didn't get a chance to meet Rich though, he spent most of the day trying to get a puncture repaired, I think?

A couple of pics of Peters' car

[pb3]

I was sorry to miss out as well. I got 10 miles into my journey before stopping to check over things to find (after quite a fault finding session at the side of the road) that one spark plug was dead and another doing very little. If only I had had one more day with the new injection system I would have probably made it.

The only upside would appear that I don't have to repair all those stone chips, I guess that is what holed you rad last year Gary?

[sjcross]

I'm sure that Rich.F will pop along to explain fully why he wasn't on track that much, but in brief he had to make it to a family celebration at lunchtime so was only able to do the first session in the morning, and managed to get back for the final session.

Combined with a tyre pressure problem on one of the front wheels, I think it is possible to draw one of two conclusions:

1. Rich is extremely dedicated to driving the car as intended.

or

2. Rich is a little bit bonkers

Was a good day out, hope everyone else enjoyed it.

Sam

(Fiat Coupe driver and Team Rich.F Pitcrew!!! )

[peterpsg]

gtr-gaz said:

Nice to meet you though Pete.

Likewise Gary, pity most of the time was spent head scratching under the rear clip!

Rich eventually made it back, but by then I'd missed the tight left hander in one of the twisties and scooped a bit of dirt up, so I had no chance to go 'head-to-head'!

Only a very small chunk taken out of the front edge, mostly due to the large amount of masking tape that I had applied to everything in sight!

gtr-gaz said:

Glad you were able to sort out the oil leak!

, It helps if you tighten all the hoses up - can't believe I missed that one!

Still, only a 'small' leak, and nothing an extra few litres of oil couldn't fix once all was tight!

The real pain was the exhaust clamp that broke off (frozen thread - after moving the muffler to get at said oil hose), still 2 decent jubilee water hose clips makes a good temporary fix!

Big thanks to the guy who let me have them and the man with the oil funnel!

[Rich.f]

Yup! As Sam said, had my Nan's 80th to go to , fortunatly I managed to get a run in the morning before heading off. Sorry I missed you Gary, but you were right, I did have a bit of a tyre problem after the first sesion came in and the front right was totaly flat. We pumped it up to 20psi, went to dinner which was a 80 mile round trip (with roast in the middle - yummm) and the tyre was fine. On return to Marham I was then able to have another 25 minute sesion which was great fun, but when we came into the pits we found the tyre totaly flat again! (which is a bit worying as there weren't any real indications of the problem while driving, nor to the cause of the problem when I checked it). I pumped it up drove home and still it is ok! any sugestions?
Marham is definatly a good track for Ultima's with the long straight, I managed to get 185 mph on the speedo which I think is about 160 ish.
It was good to meet you Peter - I think you would have had me in a head to head with the extra bhp, glad you were able to run, will you be doing another track day?
Sorry to hear of your problems Phil, it would have been good to see a few more Ultima's there!
Certainly have to say thanks to Mark, Gary and those involved for organising a great day .

Richard.

[MG Mark]

Rich.f said:

I did have a bit of a tyre problem after the first sesion came in and the front right was totaly flat. We pumped it up to 20psi, went to dinner which was a 80 mile round trip (with roast in the middle - yummm) and the tyre was fine. On return to Marham I was then able to have another 25 minute sesion which was great fun, but when we came into the pits we found the tyre totaly flat again! (which is a bit worying as there weren't any real indications of the problem while driving, nor to the cause of the problem when I checked it). I pumped it up drove home and still it is ok! any sugestions?

Rich,

Thanks for your kind words - it was fun and it was very good to see you using your gorgeous machine in the spirited way that you did - I have seen one picture already showing you doing so, and a nice one it is too. A few thoughts on your tyre issue from a mere classic car owner, whose mount does not approach the dizzy speeds your chariot achieves. Firstly, I presume it was the same tyre (or at least on the same side of the car) on both sessions. Secondly, do you increase the pressures when running on a track? Much of the surface you were on has comparatively high grip levels, which would not be replicated in normal road use, and probably not even on a race circuit - therefore, one logical possibility is relatively high lateral loadings which could break the tyre bead seal to the rim allowing the air to escape, effectively giving you a slow puncture, particularly if you are running pressures as low as 20psi. The picture I referred to reveals a surprising amount of front body roll and the inside front wheel partially off the ground (how do I get a picture attached to a post - then you can see what I mean). If my SWAG (scientific wild arsed guess) is vaguely accurate, a solution may be to stiffen the roll bar(s) and raise the tyre pressures further when on a track.

MG Mark

[peterpsg]

Hi Rich, it was good to meet you as well.

I hope to do some more day's this year, it just depends on what the state of the car is at the time !!! (Preferably nice wide & easyish tracks like Marham!)

Rich.f said:

Tyre - any sugestions?

If it only happened after driving at hi speed, perhaps the tyre is pulling away from the rim or the valve is leaking under the G loads, thus letting the air out? Maybe take the tyre to the local tyre specialist and get them to reseal the rim etc & check it over.

Rich.f said:

I managed to get 185 mph on the speedo which I think is about 160 ish.

Are all the speedo's that inaccurate?

I was bouncing off my rev limiter at ~6.5ish when I have a 7000 rpm chip in the MSD unit, so might have to check a few things over...

Maybe we could nick a gatso (or scamera van) for the next trackday and set it up on the main straigt!

[gtr-gaz]

MG Mark has asked me to put this photo up

[MG Mark]

peterpsg said:

Are all the speedo's that inaccurate? I was bouncing off my rev limiter at ~6.5ish when I have a 7000 rpm chip in the MSD unit, so might have to check a few things over...

If your speedo is inaccurate (and most of them are the higher up the speed scale you go), physically measure the rolling circumference of your tyre, calculate that together with your rpm, gear and final drive ratios and that will give you a more accurate speed related to each gear and revs rather than the less accurate speedo drives (unless you are using programmed SPA gauges which sense driveshaft rotations electronically)

MG Mark

[menostig]

My speedo under-reads by 5-10% according to my GPS. At constant speed I believe the GPS.

[gtr-gaz]

pb3 said:

I was sorry to miss out as well. I got 10 miles into my journey before stopping to check over things to find (after quite a fault finding session at the side of the road) that one spark plug was dead and another doing very little. If only I had had one more day with the new injection system I would have probably made it. The only upside would appear that I don't have to repair all those stone chips, I guess that is what holed you rad last year Gary?

Bad luck Phil! Hope you get it sorted by the weekend
Simon had problems as well and was unable to make it

Not sure if my rad was holed at Marham or not. I was driving it around for a couple of weeks after that and didn't notice any coolant loss.

[YIIHAA]

menostig said:

My speedo under-reads by 5-10% according to my GPS. At constant speed I believe the GPS.

The factory Ultima gauges can be set for a number of pulses per mile, so for a given tyre circumference you should be able to get it bang on. I know mine reads 100% accurate (at least in the 0-100 range I have compared it with GPS)

As for the MSD rev limiter, I find that mine always limits 200-300RPM lower than the crystal you have in it. It is probably something to do with the fact that it tries to soft limit, i.e. cut out only 1 or two cylinders, which at speed may be enough to mean you don't hit the limit. I have a 6500RPM crystal in mine, which cuts in at around 6200.

[Rich.f]

Hello

I will take the tyre to a local specialist to get it checked out, if only to get it re-sealed. The fault may be down to the extra grip but I would have expected the same of the other side - perhaps there is a fault that makes it worse on the drivers side ??!?

As for the speedo, this was a problem raised during the SVA test which took an hour to resolve, then for some reason, after leaving the centre, the reading was about 20% out. When it went back to Ultima they checked it out, re-set it and now it reads approx. 10% over compared with my GPS but on a long journey with the GPS the milage recorded is the same.

Nice picture Mark, I will definately be getting the CD.

Richard

[steve_d]

I have the earlier factory rims and have continual problems with them losing pressure.
I have lost 2 tyres to this problem. One of them, N/S front, went down on the M25 and I was unaware of it at 70+mph and only noticed it when slowing down behind traffic. At the same time as feeling it I also smelt the rubber burn.
When I inspected it the inner wall had a split I could put my hand into. The split ran around over half the diameter.

I'm now running fronts at 18psi and rears at 25psi.
My rears will also rotate on the rim.

I have it in mind to turn them into coffee tables.

Pi$$ed off or what?

Steve