Road legal at last

Colerne, near Bath, Saturday 28th July. (Not *too* far from you, ISTR)

YKIMS.

Yes it does make a lot of sense, but need to get the car working properly first. It's not quite ready for a track day and neither am I! The way I see my current list of jobs are as follows: Front brake pads need doing soon, the rear shoes soon after General service (oil, filters etc) Fix speedo Fit stereo Fix rear e/w Fix oil pressure gauge Possibly get a tune up (car was stalling as I pulled up into my road/driveway, plus smelling of fuel a bit after flooring it) Sort out a new dash cover

So nothing major, but stuff I'd like to get sorted out.

no fair i wants a V8 :(

Easy to sort that little list in time!

As for you, personally, not feeling 'ready', then all I can say is 'pussy'.

I was a bit worried about doing it - but after 20 mins. out there with an instructor, I think I did pretty well.

Well that may come into it, but that wasn't what i really meant - should have said my wallet's not ready!

Although saying that my motorclub is talking about organising a track day so I may actually end up doing one sooner rather than later!!

Airfield days are cheap compared with track days.

Castle Combe is £189, Colerne is £119.

Colerne is one of the more expensive airfield days, but I'll pay the 30 quid premium to do it on a Saturday. Plus, it's a quick circuit with decent corners and a very good quality surface.

You ever tried driving a SD1 in anger on standard suspension?

It's not on standard suspension :)

No problem. Speaking as someone who has had 3 of them, and at present has an SD1 Vitesse, the SD1 in all it's varieties is a well balanced car. Quite drama free even at it's limits. Mike.

By that comment it suggests the one you drove had clapped Nivomats.

Certainly sounds like he hasn't driven one that was in good condition. Std ones were good, but the Vitesse is a different animal altogether. The lower and stiffer suspension on the Vitesse, transforms a good roadholding car into an excellent one. On a dry road I have never reached the limit of it's cornering capability. On one particular bend I used to drive regularly, a couple of 2600's I'd owned previously, were just beginning to lose it at 70mph. On the same bend at 90mph in the Vitesse, it showed no signs of being near it's limit, but at that sort of speed I was too chicken to push it any further to find out what that limit actually was. IMO it's more sure footed than any of my subsequent cars, and that includes

2 Celica GT4's, my E34 with it's M-Tech suspension, and a std E39. Conclusion. Conor is talking nonsense. Mike.

Yes. I found the Vitesse just too low and firmly sprung for my everyday use which is what the EFI got when I first had it. But a standard height car on good tyres and with good shocks still handles pretty well - with the proviso you have to be careful about applying the power out of certain corners on a slippery surface due to the design of the rear suspension. But then no different from most RWD cars of that era, except probably Jaguar. And a damn sight better than a Capri. ;-)

First of all: a more compliant suspension gives more body roll, les confidence under "sporty" cornering. It will tell far in advance that the limit is coming. Typical values for a road car are 0.9 G cornering

A firmer suspension and geometry modification will lower the cars (CoG down), be stiffer and induce less roll. It feels more planted but at (or better just over) the limit it will snap. Typical "sport suspension" on normal streetcars = 0.95 G cornering.

0.05 G on 0.9 G is about 5%, but it reality you will go closer to the limit on a sportsuspension than on a normal"comfort" suspension, hence the subjectif feeling.

The only way of realy knowing is the circelrace: a circle on a parkingarea, diameter 50 m, and circling with the car at it max allowable speed. A professionnal driver will do laptimes within 0.01 sec.

Comparing suspension form one car to another (make) on different raods, other weatherconditions, tires, loadconfiguration is imho view impossible but who am I?

A trackcar, with as only mod (to the normal streetcar) suspension, geometry and tires, will corner at 0.99- 1.05G and will better laptimes on a typical 4km circuit to about 10 sec.

Oh yes: somebody who on open roads uses his suspension to the limit, will not drive very long. Garantied.

Tom De Moor Tom De Moor

That would suggest that there is little difference between the cornering capability of a std SD1 to that of the Vitesse version, which is not my impression at all. I'm sure there is a big difference between a std SD1 and a Vitesse, which apart from being lower with stiffer springs and shocks, has harder suspension bushes.

In over a decade of driving the Vitesse I never had it snap in normal driving. Even on wet roads, the breakaway was quite progressive. Obviously I could deliberately provoke it, but accelerating out of a bend, it was easy to feel the backend starting to step out. At that point it was easy to hold it in a slight drift, or just ease off on the accelerator to bring it back into line. IMO it is a very easy car to drive on the limit on wet roads. On dry roads, at least for me, it's not easy at all. :-) One day I'd like to take it on a track, and really find out.

Typical "sport suspension" on

In general I would agree, but after driving different cars for a few thousand miles over the same roads, one does get to know how each behaves in similar conditions. Same corners, road surfaces, weather conditions etc.

Again I would agree, but it does help if one knows where that limit is. In the Vitesse, I know that even when I'm driving reasonably fast, it's still well within it's capabilities. In general the car is capable of going faster than I'm comfortable with, except for the odd occasion when road conditions allow. Mike.

I only had one V8 - the rest were 2600's. It wasn't in exactly mint condition.

Unless you measure it, it stays an impression.

Again: you feel a big difference because on the normal suspension the car gets instable, rolls a lot, so you get scared and back off. On the sport suspension you feel in control closer to the limit.

All that can be true but what does it prove?

Most bikers who haven't crashed in a decade, haven't even been near to the limit. Most who went near the limit, crashed though some crashed but once.

I say again: those who regulary go to the limits of the suspension on open roads, get caught out quite rapidely.

Tom De Moor

So Tom Walkinshaw was wasting his time developing the SD1 suspension for track use? In it's day it was extremely successful in it's class. Obviously I can't quantify the difference between the Vitesse and a std car, but what I can say, is that there is more than a marginal difference between the two.

How do you know I'm not making allowances for softer suspension and body roll? I've been driving long enough to know that body roll is not a good indication of how well a car holds the road. My Celica GT4 rolled quite a lot under hard cornering. but it held the road well, as I found out at Castle Combe on a track day a few years ago. There's more than body roll differentiating a std SD1 from a Vitesse. Mike.