West London RC

Just got back from my first day
outdoors with the 416, and the second time with 5cell mod (ok, weedy
5cell mod, what with a 4.5, but hey, I'm learning!).

Started off with a setup close to Viktor's reedy race one, except put
on Blue/Yellow springs, as I thought the lower traction of a cold,
damp UK summer morning might warrent it...

Had two runs in practice. First run, felt good, but was pushing badly
through the 180 sweeper off the end of the straight. Brought the car
in, and raised the rear roll centre up with 0.5mm of shims under the
blocks.

Next run, much better, car pushing much less, and the rear more mobile.
Seem to lose a little corner speed versus some other cars, so back in
again, and changed over to white/blue springs for the first round of
Q.

Now that was more like it. Despite the track being a little green due
to the light rain shower in the previous heat (!!), car felt planted,
straight from the off. Managed to get a reasonably clean run in, and
just missed out on a 17lapper by about 0.7 of a second... in
comparison, Olly Jefferies and Ben Cosgrove did 19's... so not too
unhappy given first time in mod to be in that position!

Was noted by a fellow driver that the rear looked to be rolling a bit
much, so for the 2nd round, I moved the rear shocks out one hole (from
3-4). Certainly felt better again next run, although was getting a
little interesting with rain starting to fall at the end. Kept the car
on track, but didn't improve, but was happily the 2nd fastest car in
the heat.

By now the weather was really starting to turn, ended up for the forth
run hurridly finding some blue tack, and bolting on the wet tyres, as
the track was really wet from another rain shower. Made no other
changes, and yet the car was easily the quickest on track. Caught the
first placed driver, overtook cleanly, then pulled away... simply
amazing. Actually, tell a lie, I did make a setup change, and that was
to put on 1mm of wheel spacers, simply to get the wet tyre wheels to
clear the wishbones!

Unfortunately my speedo decided not to like moisture, so I pulled it
off before causing anymore damage. Thankfully, it's running ok again
now, so hopefully nothing long term has resulted....

And that was the end of my day, decided not to risk it anymore (as the
weather couldn't make it's mind up), so packed up and came home. But
overall, very happy, as I now know:

a) the car works at Wet London

b) it works in the wet and dry!

c) I've got no issues with runtime on the batts (I'll solve that
when I get the 3.5 this week)

d) I seemingly can drive mod fairly compently.