First Trackday

[ibakes]

Had my first track day last Saturday at Goodwood and enjoyed every minute of it. I managed to get on to a 5 car day with my car passing the noise test at 100dB. The instructor took me around the track to start off with to show me the lines to take and slowly got faster and faster, it was the first time I’ve been a passenger in the car and hat off to my missus for always sitting there.

The car was great, and easily out performed what I was able to do in it, only had the back end twitch once when I came out of the chicane trying to overtake a 205 who wouldn’t let me pass.

I even had a superlight Cateringvan driver say how nice my car looked

The only problem I had was with back pressure pushing out oil from me Pinto, I must have lost about 5 litres of oil in to my catchtank through out the 80 miles I did on track. I have had this problem for a while now but thought I had sorted it as I’ve had no problems whilst on the road. The engine was rebuilt just under 2000 miles ago but had the problem before that, and I’m thinking its just duff and I should get a new one.

Only thing is I don’t particularly want another Pinto and I don’t want to spend lots of money, so I’m just asking for any other preferences, I’ve seen THIS which may be an option or any other thoughts anyone else may have for a good price i.e. XE…. Turbo…

I realise that with most other options that I may somehow have to fix or get fixed the existing exhaust and carb holes but at the mo I would rather have something I didn’t have to worry about.

Thanks

Andy

[DAVE O]

Andy,

I'd get at least an RAC type roll bar first and then it's got to be a VX XE    

[ibakes]

Yeah the RAC bar will be part of my shopping list  

[Guest]

Goodwood let you on track in short sleeves................. pit lane marshal wants shooting for even thingking of letting you on track like that .

Cover your arms for your own good old chap , its a big no no and even worse as you have no side screens.

[John Loudon - Sponsorship Liaison]

I'm glad you enjoyed yiourself, but I'm surprised they let you out with bare arms  

To overcome your oil problem, I've seen people plumb catch tanks in so that the oil enters via the top of the tank from the rocker cover and has another pipe at the bottom of the tank connected back into the crankcase so the oil eventually finds its way back in. An old water expansion tank should do the trick of something like an Astra. Long term, Iguess the piston rings need sorting.

John

[Toby Mack]

if you change the engine don't forget to budget for exhaust manifold (£250?), inlet manifold (£100, possibly lots more), sump (anything up to £350?), engine mounts etc etc. It is quite scarey what people pay to change an engine!

That sort of money should get your pinto sorted by someone who knows what they are doing.

but if you do want to go that route and minimise hacking of the body then the duratech is the obvious choice as the exhaust is on the right side.

[ibakes]

I did have long sleeves on with trousers (bl**** boiling) just the wind kept pushin me sleeves back up (did keep pulling them down just not for this photo, have to tape em next time). I know you can pick up the inlet and exhaust manifold second hand but also know they are few and far between, may be best to try and get one off a scrappy and swap the parts and save for the upgrade later on, unless a duratec pops up.

May have a think about plumbing it back into the block, just the amount of oil pushed out was worrying me.

[Blatman]

Plumb the breather like a crossflow, block to cam cover, cam cover to catch tank, keeping the two cam cover ports as far apart as is practical. At some point, I'm looking to plumb the Cossie this way...

[Matt Seabrook]

Plumb the breather like a crossflow, block to cam cover, cam cover to catch tank, keeping the two cam cover ports as far apart as is practical. At some point, I'm looking to plumb the Cossie this way...

The Vx is already done like that as well  

[conibear]

ibrakes, where is the oil venting to your catchtank from??

Is it crank or cam cover?

If cam cover then engine could be ok, but please let us know how it is plumbed before you decide what action to take.

I see you live in gods pasture land, a very good Pinto man is not far away from you

[ibakes]

From the past experiences before I had the catchtank fitted the oil came from the cam cover so I'm guessing its the same now.

Both the block and the cam cover are plumed straight in to the catch tank, with the pipe from the block going straight up past the carbs.

I took out the valve for the block breather which seemed to help out as I had not lost hardly any oil when on the road but pushed out quite a bit the other day.

Thanks for you help

Andy

[conibear]

Andy, the engine will be fine. The cam cover with the vent location needs to be modified. It was not originally designed for oil being throwm about as it would whilst on track.

If the vent/fill port is standard or on the corner or side of the cam cover, then only use that port for filling purposes. i.e. a good plug cap would suffice with NO venting possible. Then locate a new vent port in the centre area of the cam cover directly above the middle cam bearing housing, internally secure a plate over this new orifice, but make sure you don't seal it off completely. This plate would prevent oil directly travelling up the new vent hole and exiting the engine. Then tee the new vent pipe to the crank one and route to catch tank. Job done, worked for me without any oil loss  Oh try to encourage any oil to return back into crankcase breather.

Ian

[ibakes]

I have a burton cam cover fitted with the filler cap on the top at the back, there is no splash plate under the filler cap so you can see the end bearing and last lobe. And the filler cap has a tube connected to the catch tank.

I brought the engine as a recon and had it sitting for a while while building the rest of the car, on the way back from the SVA it pushed a load of oil out so I had it rebuilt again (by my brother who has his own garage) but still having the trouble.  

I'm hoping to pop up to the Surry meet on Tuesday if you will be there for a natter?

[Blatman]

I'm hoping to pop up to the Surry meet on Tuesday if you will be there for a natter?

If it's nice weather, all sorts of people may turn up

[ibakes]

Partly cloudy

looking good at the moment