Track days

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Ade
Can tell where the 480 was built
Posts: 337
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:25 pm
Location: Northants

Track days

Post by Ade » Tue May 09, 2017 9:52 pm

Here's some upcoming dates for Bedford and Rockingham over the next few months-

Rockingham-

Thursday evenings- (£85)
6th July
3rd Aug
7th Sep

Sundays- (full day, circa £200)
20th Aug
24th Sep


Bedford-

Monday evenings- (£109)
12th June
10th July

Saturdays- (£169 and £199 respectively)
1st and 15th July

If you want any more info just shout :)

Thoughts....?
O.C. 480 D.

Martin Mc
480 Rookie
Posts: 457
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 11:57 am

Re: Track days

Post by Martin Mc » Tue May 09, 2017 10:07 pm

Haha - sadly the 'S' monster couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, so a track day would probably be just an opportunity for flash types to whizz by laughing at me!

I still love her to bits though (the 'Extra-marital car' as Maeve calls her) :)

On a side note, Ade, you mentioned at Derwent Dam when I had the bonnet up due to my hot starting problem, that there was a quick fix for some seals on the injection end of things at the fuel rail - I think you said you had a few of these seals knocking about and that is was a (relatively) simple job to fit them, even for a hamfisted bodge-it-yourself merchant like myself. I would like to sort out the hot starting (or more accurately non-starting) issue - can you advise, oh shoe-horner of great mechanical mysteries into 480 cavities?

Cheers!

Martin
1991 ES White / 1995 ES Red / 1995 ES Red / 1994 S Black / 1995 Celebration Red / 1994 S Paris Blue / 1995 Celebration (again!) Red - Currently free of all extramarital cars, wrench-loose and fancy free :)

Ade
Can tell where the 480 was built
Posts: 337
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:25 pm
Location: Northants

Re: Track days

Post by Ade » Wed May 10, 2017 12:32 pm

I've got some injector seals for you, pm me your address and I'll pop them in the post. There are 8 in total, one at either end of each injector but you'll find it's the 4 on the bottom (in the head) that will be fubar'd so I'll send you 4, the ones to the rail should be fine and if they weren't you'd know about it because you'd be smelling petrol as they would allow pressurised fuel to leak from the rail. The bottom ones in the head are the ones that can cause mysterious problems as they will allow unmetered air directly into the inlet ports. It may not be the cause of your issue but they are easy to do (I'm going up to the workshop in a bit so I'll take the fuel rail out of my spare turbo engine and take pics and post them up, your's isn't turbo I know but should be very similar in principle) and in this case, free :hopping: so why not.... certainly can't hurt. You may find it runs a bit sweeter anyway, even if it doesn't solve your issue, 20 odd year old injector seals are never going to be in great fettle after all... Mine had taken on a square profile and gone all crispy :lol: Keep your eyes out for a 'how to' on injector seals... :)

ps. When you take the rail out, have a look at the top seals and if they do look a bit 'shaky' then just holler and I'll send you some more but I would suspect they're fine :wink:
O.C. 480 D.

Martin Mc
480 Rookie
Posts: 457
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 11:57 am

Re: Track days

Post by Martin Mc » Wed May 10, 2017 4:54 pm

Many thanks Ade! PM sent.

I'll let you know how I get on - perhaps a 'how not to fit injector seals' thread!! :)

Cheers!

Martin
1991 ES White / 1995 ES Red / 1995 ES Red / 1994 S Black / 1995 Celebration Red / 1994 S Paris Blue / 1995 Celebration (again!) Red - Currently free of all extramarital cars, wrench-loose and fancy free :)

Rachel
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1567
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2006 2:21 pm
Location: Bucks

Re: Track days

Post by Rachel » Wed May 10, 2017 5:41 pm

Very interested Ade, pretty flexible on dates too. What's involved?? Never done a track day before.
'95 Storm Grey 323 Manual Turbo, Richmod
----------------------------------------------------------
'95 Flame Red Celeb, Nos.191, 2 litre, LPG, used to be Adams ;) SOLD
'95 Vase Green Turbo~ Vanessa~ 'Serendipity' manual, Richmod. RIP
'90 Light Blue 480 Turbo auto....RIP
'68 VW Type 3 1.6 auto Lotus White,Swedish import. SOLD
Audi 80 coupe Gold...pimp my ride! RIP
'76 Bug, Ocean Blue, lowered, Empi wheels.RIP
'72 Bay window VW Camper 1600 twinport. Sold

Ade
Can tell where the 480 was built
Posts: 337
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:25 pm
Location: Northants

Re: Track days

Post by Ade » Wed May 10, 2017 9:31 pm

Rachel wrote:Re: Track days
by Rachel » Wed May 10, 2017 5:41 pm

Very interested Ade, pretty flexible on dates too. What's involved?? Never done a track day before.
I'm sorry my first post wasn't very informative and rather brusque, I had written a much better one but because I'd been doing it on and off between other things, by the time I hit 'submit', my login had timed out and I lost the bloody lot :badmood: Hence the short, to the point replacement :lol:

Anyway, track days :D Your first one eh? What a car to do it in, you have a nice track driving 480 and I promise you it'll be quick if you drive it well :wink: I wasn't so fortunate my first time but always wanted to take the 480 on track ever since I bought it and although unfortunately I never did it in my beloved blue one, the running gear has lived on to kick ass another day in this rescued one and has now had all the work and done the business, as will the old 480 one day with the Saab powertrain and you just know that's going to rule the circuit, playing with the big boys ;)

So, onto business... All the aforementioned sessions are what's known as 'open pit lane' format, which means that once track time commences, you are free to go out and come in as you please, you can spend as much or as little time on track as you want. Trackdays are not, by their nature, competitive and timing and blatant racing are not permitted, although a little cat and mouse action is inevitable and great fun if kept in the right spirit. Everyone is there to have fun, there are normally rules about not overtaking during corners and such to keep it as safe as possible, overtaking is normally by consent of the driver in front and on a straight, if someone's been hanging off your bumper for a while, it's time to let them past. All this type of stuff will be explained in a briefing beforehand anyway.

You turn up an hour or two before you go out and register, produce your driving licence, sign a disclaimer and then onto briefing. There will normally be an opportunity to rent a garage in the pits, if there were two or more of us then this wouldn't cost much between us and we would have somewhere to leave things. I will certainly have some tools and may bring some different wheels too and you don't want unnecessary weight or clutter in the car so having a basecamp garage is a good thing. Strip the boot out and leave it all in the garage as well, added lightness = speed ;)

Before going out on circuit there will usually be a few sighting laps at a steady pace behind a lead car to get your eye and your racing line in, after that, you're good to go :D Go and burn some rubber :hopping: It's addictive and although the 480 is not going to be the fastest car out there, nor will it disappoint, it's gonna surprise a lot of people and your gonna have great fun doing it, the handling of a lowered 480 on track is sublime, lovely balance and still predictable and manageable on the edge of grip.

The most important thing to ensure that it is a fun day, apart from not crashing :nuts: , is to make sure the car is well prepared to receive a bloody good hiding :twisted:

The last thing you want is car trouble, especially if you're driving home in it :(


A major service should be carried out beforehand, a good quality 15w40 fully synthetic oil such as that used in the VAG 1.9TDI engine would be ideal. I read something in the books that James brought along that confirmed this was the right thing to do for "extreme driving applications" or something like that...

Gear oil wouldn't hurt if it hasn't been done for a while and the level should be checked.

Spark plugs and ignition system should be tip top, as should all other critical systems such as cooling. An easy win here is to take the nosecone off and jet wash the intercooler and the rad out so you get maximum efficiency from them while they're not caked in crap. A flush out of the cooling system and new coolant wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Fuel should ideally be 98RON or higher, you know, like Vpower. The expensive stuff :lol: This will reduce the risk of knock when the engine is operating near its limits. Don't mix it with regular juice, drive it empty then put a full tank of super juice in :wink:

Brake fluid should be renewed and the brakes well bled, pads and discs should have a decent amount of meat on them, perfect world, get some nice expensive high spec ones but it just depends how far you want to go, be warned though, my solid discs cooked pretty quick out there despite being drilled and grooved and on fresh fluid although your later vented ones will be better I daresay, the car will be more than capable of outdriving its brakes if you push it hard enough. You have been warned :lol:

The only other thing to mention really I think is crankcase breathing. This is important. I fell victim to complacency with the breather setup on my engine and did not consider the ramifications of it's failure :cry:

We all know the breather setups are fragile on these cars but mine had never caused any problem and so I had never really paid it any heed so it was just totally off my radar until I realised that my newly rebuilt engine was pissing oil everywhere. I do believe that the cam cover gasket has been the weak link and seems to be the main source of oil, hopefully the pressure escaped through here and the other seals and gaskets survived. I need to get a new one soon and then see if any more oil comes back :?

With hindsight, the thing to do is to do what I've done as a temporary fix after the event, before you bollocks up the valve and then replace the working valve afterwards, which is to say, remove the valve on the oil separator, plug the hose to the manifold (this way boost pressure can't go near the crankcase) and reroute the breathing permanently to the compressor intake. You can put it back to normal afterwards or better still, uprate it somehow. In normal operation this valve allows breathing direct to the manifold during vacuum conditions, light load, idling etc. and reroutes it to the turbo intake in boost conditions, so as not to pressurise the crankcase.

The disadvantage of this is that you get more oil deposits in the inlet tract when breathing is like this, hence why, under vacuum (which in normal driving is a lot of the time) it puts the breathing straight to the manifold, no oil in the rest of the tract. When on track, most of your time will (or bloody ought to :twisted: ) be spent under boost conditions and so, in normal operation, the valve should breath the crankcase to the compressor intake anyway, so take it out the equation so as not to damage it and oil seals in the process and temporarily divert the breathing solely to compressor inlet for your time on track.

Good tyres will help, be prepared to lose A LOT of rubber off them, especially if we go for a full day, spare set of wheels is never a bad shout on a track day.

Finally and most importantly of all, make sure it's shiny ;)

I am happy to help or advise with any car preparations before a track day meet and could also offer to host a 'workshop meet' before the event if there was any interest, I'm sure I can find room for one or two extra 480's for a few hours so we can play with them :)

Almost forgot! Helmets! Mandatory! Motorcycle helmet is fine, that's what I use, if you haven't got or can't borrow one, you'll be able to hire one on the day for about £20.
O.C. 480 D.

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jamescarruthers
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 2501
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2003 3:19 pm
Location: Cambridge

Re: Track days

Post by jamescarruthers » Wed May 10, 2017 10:19 pm

Hi Ade, have you seen the upgrade mentioned on here for the recirc valve?

http://www.volvo-480-europe.org/forum/v ... lit=recirc

What's your opinion on it?
1987 Volvo 480 ES, 507274, 217 - Red (Ness)
2006 Citroen C6 Exclusive 3.0 petrol/LPG
2008 Mini Cooper convertible (Mau)

Previous 480's:
J123 CFU -- ES
J449 MNL -- ES auto
D864 CPV -- ES
L691 JFC -- Turbo
F70 MNR -- ES
H858 FGV -- Turbo auto
E981 KHM -- ES (509849)

Ade
Can tell where the 480 was built
Posts: 337
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:25 pm
Location: Northants

Re: Track days

Post by Ade » Thu May 11, 2017 9:53 am

Of course, yeah, the old 710N upgrade, that'll do it :)

Need to do this myself now as my inlet tract is getting a bit oily, what with it breathing to compressor inlet all the time
O.C. 480 D.

Rachel
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1567
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2006 2:21 pm
Location: Bucks

Re: Track days

Post by Rachel » Thu May 11, 2017 3:04 pm

Wow, thanks Ade for all the info! Interesting read! Sounds like a lot of fun - but although I want to have a bit of fun I don't want to totally rag my 480! I don't want to hurt it!! I have driven round Silerstone before in a Renault Megan sport and then a Ferrari F430 (I think) was awesome fun, so I have had a tiny bit of experience, but not in my beloved 480. Can you drive with a passenger?

How many are interested?

:hopping:
'95 Storm Grey 323 Manual Turbo, Richmod
----------------------------------------------------------
'95 Flame Red Celeb, Nos.191, 2 litre, LPG, used to be Adams ;) SOLD
'95 Vase Green Turbo~ Vanessa~ 'Serendipity' manual, Richmod. RIP
'90 Light Blue 480 Turbo auto....RIP
'68 VW Type 3 1.6 auto Lotus White,Swedish import. SOLD
Audi 80 coupe Gold...pimp my ride! RIP
'76 Bug, Ocean Blue, lowered, Empi wheels.RIP
'72 Bay window VW Camper 1600 twinport. Sold

User avatar
dragonflyjewels
480 Is my middle name
Posts: 1584
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2010 10:38 am
Location: Norfolk

Re: Track days

Post by dragonflyjewels » Thu May 11, 2017 5:54 pm

Al is definitely keen, and the prep workshop beforehand would be greatly appreciated - his turbo has a very snaggy gearbox so undoubtedly needs the oil changed. He's still up to his neck in work on our building project so difficult to make time, especially when he hasn't been under the bonnet long enough to work out what's where and how to get to it. Your expertise would be a real bonus, but like Rachel he wouldn't want to spoil Eva - she is very low mileage and lovely condition.
Sylvia

Snazzy - 1993 Paris Blue ES red dipstick 2.0i bought 2001
Lethal Lily - 1991 White Turbo
Paris the Unicorn - 1991 Paris Edition
hubby has
Sven - 1994 Racing Green GT
Evil Eva - 1992 Paris Blue Turbo

no previous 480s - can't bear to sell any

Ade
Can tell where the 480 was built
Posts: 337
Joined: Tue Feb 28, 2012 3:25 pm
Location: Northants

Re: Track days

Post by Ade » Thu May 11, 2017 9:34 pm

dragonflyjewels wrote:but like Rachel he wouldn't want to spoil Eva - she is very low mileage and lovely condition.
Rachel wrote: but although I want to have a bit of fun I don't want to totally rag my 480!
Herein lies the reason for good preparation of the car beforehand, if the car is properly prepared you can drive hard without ruining it. Obviously wear rates of all mechanical components are going to be increased when track driving as opposed to normal driving and tyres and brakes will definitely suffer, a common analogy is that 100 miles on track (going hard) = 1000 miles normal driving. I'm not sure how this conclusion was reached, by whom, or which sort of wear we're talking about, but it seems reasonable and is a sort of fair, if very broad way of looking at it I think.

Forgetting about consumables like tyres and brakes (for which the 10:1 ratio is actually quite conservative :eek: ) and concentrating on the bits that it matters to look after, reducing the amount of negative impact that hard driving will have on the powertrain is all about ensuring you've got fresh, good quality engine oil and gear oil and that cooling is up to scratch (not a problem with the 480 I don't think but a flush and change of coolant can't hurt). If in a good state of maintenance, a days thrashing is nothing for these engines and gearboxes, trust me :wink: I have seen the evidence inside my cylinder bores after 150K miles, 90K of which I put on it and a lot of it not kindly either but always with regular maintenance. The honing marks were still clearly visible, indicating minimal cylinder wear. Good solid engines these are that will go on and on with the right care. I didn't touch the bottom end, didn't need it, just gave the head mucho TLC ;)

In terms of suspension and steering wear, obviously it's not going to do it any favours but all the components that will take the beating are things that will, eventually, be replaced anyway but it should do it no short-medium term harm. I'm talking bushes and joints (stuff that it fails MOTS on :lol: ). Just means you might fail a year sooner than you otherwise would have done on something like a track rod end :rofl:

The other biggest factor in terms of general mechanical sympathy is to drive the car well, keep it all silky smooth, you'll be faster this way anyway.


Ultimately it's up to you how hard you want to drive your car and how much love you want to give it beforehand and the more maintenance you do, the less harm will be done to your car if you can't resist the urge to really give it some. Believe me, I had the same thoughts as you, "be nice to the car", but once you're out there it not easy to hold back, these cars beg to be driven! You'd have probably cringed at the way I was thrashing mine around Rockingham :shock: I did feel for her but I couldn't resist :twisted: The car doesn't feel any the worse for it though, just oily as you know, hence the dire warnings about breathing. If heeded, you will avoid this problem and this was the only problem I had. I need to do my cam cover gasket before another track day really... new gasket that was too :badmood:
Rachel wrote:Can you drive with a passenger?
Yes, they have to have a helmet too though. The price is for one car and a driver, there's no charge to take passengers out but if someone else wants to drive there is an additional driver fee. It's normally about £30.
dragonflyjewels wrote:Al is definitely keen, and the prep workshop beforehand would be greatly appreciated - his turbo has a very snaggy gearbox so undoubtedly needs the oil changed.
Definitely oil change in order if the box doesn't feel good, just the sort of preventive maintenance I'm talking about. Use it as an opportunity to get the car up to scratch and you'll enjoy it all the more :wink: Happy to assist with anything I can, I'd enjoy 'race prepping' some 480 turbos. Awesome :hopping:
O.C. 480 D.

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