Laurie's First Track Day Car

[BenH]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

Very tidy, I've had musings of one of them. Really seem quite cheap for what you get.

[tonka666]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

Liking the brand loyalty omegas are pretty decent easy enough to work on too don't know much about the 2.2 dirt burner mind you.

[easytrans]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

Liking the brand loyalty omegas are pretty decent easy enough to work on too don't know much about the 2.2 dirt burner mind you.

Apparently its the same engine as in the Frontier and a chain drive camshaft so no nasty belts to look after ! has good write up so time will tell.

Well it had to be a VX didn't it

L.

[Harvey]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

I miss our old Omega estate Very nice motor you have there, they cost peanuts to buy now and you get a whole lot of car for the money. If you haven't randomly tried it you'll get a standard width and height door in the rear laying flat so perfect for sleeping in at Blyton.

Cracking work on the GTE. They feel and look so much better when painted on the inside

[gte 16v]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

Very nice motor Laurie, the cars you can get quite cheaply these day's amaze me, and you can sleep in it too, nice.

[DarrenH]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

the 'mega' looks like a good buy. has it got all the self levlling business? Would be useful for when theres allot on the tail board

[easytrans]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

the 'mega' looks like a good buy. has it got all the self levlling business? Would be useful for when theres allot on the tail board

Not sure what its got been too busy to do little more than jump in while its dark and out again after dark :-(

Apparently towbar arrived today so I'll know a little more about it at the weekend work permitting

It drives nice to station and back I know that not sure its as fun as the Daewoo Matiz though' less white knuckle cornering :-D

Sat. Morning will run it down Kent to black magic's to grab a pair of seats' so another bonding session with the power of diesel

L.

[DarrenH]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

cool! I would offer you to swing by for a bacon sarnie and a tea, but i'm posting this from greece :-p

[easytrans]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

cool! I would offer you to swing by for a bacon sarnie and a tea, but i'm posting this from greece :-p

Would have loved to and thanks, but I'd be a bit rushed anyway .... So we expect to see you with a tan AND some Greek tricks for the car then?

L.

[easytrans]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

So I managed to fit the basic towbar parts to the Omega on Friday night, then early Saturday morning I slid down to Kent to pick up a pair of seats from BlackMagic's mum's place.

And between work and more work throughout the weekend I managed to wire the Omega trailer wiring, test loaded the car onto trailer and a quick whiz around the block to see all was okay, and then quickly fitted the seats in the astra and started putting the padding back in ....

Still need to sort out tools, spares and stuff (oh and load the car both on the trailer and with stuff). then hopefully have everything ready to head to work (Norwich) early Friday ready for a head start after work, though the route up the coast from Norwich is not that good and probably not any quicker than from home (but it saves riding the train home for 19:00 and having a late start) ......

Anyway, a couple of pictures today ......







Getting excited now and if we can have weather like today then that would be a bonus ...

Laurie.

[easytrans]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

Well I had a really fun day at Blyton park a couple of weeks ago and the sweet little car ran a treat and gave me a really good day of driving almost trouble free.

I drove up on Friday evening and the Omega pulled like a train and is as stable as anything, best towing unit I've driven in a while. I arrived at the gate of the circuit around 20:00 just in time to spin around with Paul and Harvey to a meal down in the town before heading back to Blyton for the night. I bedded down in the Omega around midnight and had a reasonable nights sleep. After waking around 06:00 I headed for the showers and freshened up ready for the days fun.

Darren turned up quite early after a hell of a long mornings drive from Kent and I was impressed with his little 1.6 auto's performance throughout the day.

Having been here at Blyton before it was not difficult to learn the track again (though last visit I was in the 16v on road tyres, so this was like chalk and cheese from back then).



Darren had a driving session in my car too and I trust he enjoyed it ...



I do have some in-car footage (though a bit noisy as my camera seems a bit to solid mounted and I think it picks up the vibration from the cage) but when I get chance I'll try and edit and put it up on Utube no idea when that will be though still too busy and running around with work that I'm sure I will disappear up my own bum at this rate!

So onto the only issues I had during the day, one was I picked up a good "Clonk!" when changing direction and that was just the rear exhaust had slipped off the rubber hanger so a couple of burns to my hand and a piece of security wire and it was sorted (heavy old box and putting my toes on the curbs didn't help but it stayed in place the rest of the day). Second, I already had a rather long brake pedal as I never did get all the air bled out, but by 16:30 I was really running out of brakes (the pad ware light had been on for a few laps by this time) and as the tank was also getting low I was just calling it a day and when pulling into the pits the brakes were grinding a little :*)

So I pulled straight onto the trailer and could see that the O/S disk pad had worn out and even managed to go squidgy and forced its self out ....

Its only been today I found a little time to get into the barn and do a little work on the car, I'd ordered a couple of sets of pads last week along with some service parts for the Omega so that was the first job ......

I popped off the front wheels and it was clear I'd gotten my monies worth out of the pads (though I had obviously cooked them) ...









The disk did not suffer too much and is quite smooth though it looks a little blue
.


Anyway ... new pads in and a spanner check on this side complete....
.


The nearside pads were almost as good and well done (should we say?) ....
.


I think I've gotten almost as much as I can out of these Yoko's (these were a couple of the old Paul-Rallymarshal cast off's I bought and have also done well considering how I abused them),





I still have the other two that will do another trackday and the Dunlop rears will do another also, but I had to flip over one of the Yoko's as it was on the wrong way around and needed reseating anyway ......



Perfect on the bubble balancer ....



Bought myself this during the week for two reasons ... 1, to vac test the Omega induction (as I get a P0400 - Exhaust Gas Recirculation Flow Malfunction at times on tick-over and she drops into limp mode until you pick up the rev's again) and 2, to bleed out the Astra brakes once and for all ... and it worked a treat so far for item 2





Nothing changed much at the rear brakes and the leading edge is still getting the brunt of the ware though the floating adjuster seems to be working as expected ???



Well after bleeding out at all four corners I have a lovely firm brake pedal. I still have the pad warning light on but that may be because I have lost a sensor as it fell apart due to age and probably the heat. Not sure if I need to just disconnect or if I need to reset something to put that out (or just remove the bulb lol ).


I've decided to squeeze in one more trackday before the end of the year and its a trip back to where it all started for me in a MK2 back in 1987.... at Donnington park.

That should stretch her little legs

Just hope the weather is good at the end of Nov.

Meanwhile, despite a little flutter where I was tempted to let the "16v" go to a new home; I was so undecided I I had to say "no not now" and I'm about to clear the bike barn enough to put her up on the wheel dolly's and slew her away for winter .

Well thanks for looking ......

Laurie.

[DarrenH]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

your car went really well thanks for the go in the drivers seat really impressed with the fizzy little 1.8 and the car is nicely balanced, it felt very familiar behind the wheel, reminded me of my first 16v harvey and paul have put a fly in the ointment though, having coilovers really gives you some diversity with spring poundages which the sticky tyres need, not sure i want to spend that much though (compared to £free, thats in the garage)

the pad wear sensors are sacrificial so if the light comes on it means you've warn the pads (of course) but also warn through the actual sensor and gone open circuit, so you have to replace it or bridge the ends at the connector behind the headlight to get the check control off

p.s love love love donington still my favourite track to date. when we did it it was full old GP circuit with the funky melbourne spur.

[1800turbogte]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

Nice update Laurie, the pics of the car on track look awesome

Chris

[easytrans]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

your car went really well thanks for the go in the drivers seat really impressed with the fizzy little 1.8 and the car is nicely balanced, it felt very familiar behind the wheel, reminded me of my first 16v harvey and paul have put a fly in the ointment though, having coilovers really gives you some diversity with spring poundages which the sticky tyres need, not sure i want to spend that much though (compared to £free, thats in the garage)

the pad wear sensors are sacrificial so if the light comes on it means you've warn the pads (of course) but also warn through the actual sensor and gone open circuit, so you have to replace it or bridge the ends at the connector behind the headlight to get the check control off

p.s love love love donington still my favourite track to date. when we did it it was full old GP circuit with the funky melbourne spur.

Yeah I'm wondering if I should stiffen the shocks a little as it does dip somewhat through the twists (though I suspect the damping is on the upstroke with my shocks so it will be stiffer springs needed) but I may play with making it harder on the rear with a twist or so of the adjuster and play around at Donny.

Nice update Laurie, the pics of the car on track look awesome

Chris

Cheers Chris.

L.

[BenH]

Re: Laurie's First Track Day Car

Yeah the Konis are rebound adjustable, I found if you set them too high then they can pack down over small frequent ripples