I was down at Brands Hatch with our Impreza a few weeks ago when mid afternoon the turbo let go. After the longest journey of my entire life (or so it seemed) we eventually got dropped off at home on the back of a transporter.

New turbo fitted, back out on track at Donnington at first round of Time Attack and hey presto, pop goes the engine, majour big end failure. The crank had numerous signs of having been run dry so it seems running the car on Dunlop DZ02G track rubber at Brands in the dry had led to oil surge which took out the turbo and started the damage on the cransk and bearings.

The half session at Donny finished off the damage started at Brands.

The engines now back together and will be fitted with a Cosworth sump plate next week along with an oil cooler, a raft of gauges (including oil pressure!), wide band, det detector and catch tank.

Fingers crossed it holds together this time!

Supposed to be the reliable one is this Scooby. Bloody cars, theyll bankrupt me completely one day

Wish me luck, I get the car back from Richard Henry Motorsport tommorrow. He woulnt let me take it today and insisted on putting some miles on it himself first! Doesnt trust me or 'sumfink.

 

lol fairplay to you! You must have more money than sense! I would love to track my car but wouldn't want to abuse it incase it went bang like yours! Hope it is all fixed and running well

 

As I say, the Impreza is the baby of the bunch, the V8 Skyline and 200SX are the real track cars. Sadly when the turbo goes followed by engine theres little choice but to fix it, cant have it sat doing nothing

Luckily I get to quantify the expense under the labels 'testing', 'development', 'promotion', 'shakedow', 'practice' etc. I just pick one and chuck that in the mix as justification

I do have to see how well bits work if we are going to sell them, theres only one way to test them really hard and thats to get them on track. That it happens to be a hoot is just a huge added bonus Apart from when the cars break, then its really really annoying!

 

Im so jealous of you

 

Im still working, started at 5am, its not all sunshine and greener grass this side of the fence

 

Atleast you enjoy what you do though....if I knew, what I know now I would have seriously got in to importing-tuning-mapping cars when I left school......bit to late now!

 

Very true, dont get me wrong, Im not complaining Its just not all track days and fun, theres two sides to the coin. For example I currently have bills outstanding for goods on their way from just 4 suppliers amounting to £191k and they all want payment NOW! I dont know how I dont have an ulcer, its like juggling cats sometimes!