A bit of a late race report, however, better late than never!
We never knew how we would get on this weekend. We knew the engine had been mapped at Emerald M3D LTD a few weeks before, but the turbo ran out of puff at 19psi, so only made 240bhp. We were happy with this knowing that the head was 100% stock, not ported in any way with standard valves and cams. Also we knew the competition had been adding power and had done plenty of testing.
We arrived at Fastest Mini in the World Race 5th & 6th Aug 2023 Brands Hatch late Friday afternoon, setup what would be our home for the weekend. We where located in the bottom paddock. Sadly this separated us from a lot of our mates who managed to get into the garages. After a couple of small gins, and we settled in for the night. We awoke Saturday morning for some testing to find the weather forecast spot on and indeed water was falling from the sky. This wasn’t ideal, This was the first time I’ve taken the mini on track this year, and the first time trying the new A+5 engine from Ascaso Engineering now it’s got the one piece crank fitted. I headed out onto the track (Huge thanks to Owens Fabrication for sponsoring our test session) to give everything a test. Immediately it was evident there wasn’t a lot a grip out there, so I wasn’t going to learn much. I was able to determine the engine felt strong, and the new twin plate clutch system was working perfectly, light pedal, lots of control, and no slip! I wasn’t going to miss the weight of the double grey diaphragm I use to use!! Engine temps were too cool, so we taped up 50% of the water radiator, and 75% of the oil cooler. Engine was still cooler and than ideal, but it was safe. The car struggled with understeer, and I couldn’t get the back of the car to rotate on the corners. I guess this was due to the rear of the car being too soft, so decided to stiffen the rear roll bar, which improved things and now I felt I could put the car anywhere I wanted. Time to check over the car, and have a few gins with mates.
Sunday Morning… Race day!! Fastest Mini in the world (FMITW) were called up first for qualifying, expecting the track to be green after rain all day Saturday I took it easy for a few laps, After around 6 laps, I could feel the power had dropped off, and I could hear I had a boost leak. I headed for the pitlane where my awesome mates were there to help out. After around 30 seconds the boost pipe was located which had popped off, 14mm socket, and a little push and I was instructed to head out back on track. I selected first gear and headed out…. But no drive?? I tried all the gears, but nothing. A few short naughty words later and we got towed back to the pits where we quickly started to investigate what the issue was. We had qualified P7 which wasn’t too bad.
We suspected either a pinion fault or drop gears. We decided, that the flywheel and drop gears were much easier to get to so we started to strip this end of the engine. We pulled the flywheel off, which was easier than normal due to the splines on the crank, No fretting just a gentle pop! and she was off. Sadly flywheel, clutch and drop gears all looked fine. So we moved our attention to the gearbox. A few mins of pulling parts off and found the pinion had indeed come off. A cheap fix, but not the easiest of parts to get to. So sadly, despite our best efforts we were not going to be ready for the first race.
Race 2, we head up to the collection area super early fit some new tyres, and watch the miglia race, (and try to distract myself). Before I know it, it’s time to get strapped into the car. Team Prep talk from Jon Flanigan aka princess, and I’m out on track, weaving around trying to get the release agent from the new tyres and get some heat into them. We had a rolling start, starting last (as I didn’t start race1) I could hardly see the lights, but made a fair start passing 6 cars on the first lap, and started to get in the grove. Everything felt great. By lap two I was missing the turbo boost I use to have, yet still had the traction control light flashing at me leaving most of the corners. A few more laps in and things started to go a little pear shaped. The exhaust note got louder, and the turbo lag increased, I was losing the punch out of he corners. Then I felt my feet where all slippery, something was leaking on to them, then the clutch went really light and wasn’t really doing anything. Trying to save the gearbox, I was missing gearchanges, trying to get to the end. The car filled with smoke, and I felt a huge amount of heat by my feet. I kept looking down to see what the issue was but I couldn’t see anything. So I did what any other racer would do….Keep going! I dropped back one place due to the dodgy gear / clutch issues, but I was chuffed to bits to finish 4th in class with all things considered. Driving into pit lane after the race, stopping outside garage 9 quickly saw the issue…
The external wastegate had snapped away from the exhaust manifold, causing the lag, the wastegate pipe had then shifted to touch the clutch slave cylinder, and boiled the fluid, out all over my feet.
New larger turbo, and new manifold and ported head and some cams for good measure and we should be back at the sharp end of things!
Huge thanks to everyone who’s helped. Ascasso & Gary Surman for a mega engine and clutch setup and sponsoring tyres, Mini Spares for continuous ongoing support, Emerald for the mapping, Endaf Owens at Owens fabrication for a perfect chassis, Jon for the help on the spanners and pep talks. Curley Ukltd for the Carbon mods, Peter Hills, Ian Fraser, Sam Summerhayes, Josh Collins, Stuart Wright, Anton Trivett,Jac Owens, Dave Edgecombe all helped me massively either on the day or the build-up to the weekend.Ed Sacco Mum, Dad Dave Lyons and kids for letting me ignore them for weeks while I got Tiffany (the mini) and Trixie (the Camper) ready for the weekend.
And finally my lovely / naughty wife Sarah Leigh Lyons, who I feel I’ve not seen for weeks, and has put up with so much mess in the house, workshop and drive. She’s my biggest fan and I know it. She knows when to bring tea, coffee, bacon or gin, she equally knows when to say nothing and keep away from me. Even flashed her boobs at me after the race. Perfect wife and best friend. I love you all, thanks guys. Mega Team effort. Jimnet Motorsport
If anyone is able to help out with a new larger turbo, please get in touch. We are looking for a supplier who we can work with to supply turbos for all the kits when we sell the engines.
Here is some in car video
And here is the race :
And here is the photo gallery
