Preparing
for this National Meet, if you can call it preparing, has been an absolute
nightmare. Not only for me but mainly for Leon. He has hardly had
a moment's peace since I realised that my nearly 12 year old baby was showing
some signs of middle age.
It all started when I got back from my two years "holiday" in the UK. Even though my friend Raymond was taking special care of my CRX, I have a feeling that he was driving it a little bit more that once a week like he was suppose to. Considering the other car parked in the driveway was an old Suzuki Sierra 4WD, I'm sure that there were more than a few special occasions that required a more up-market car.
The first list of repairs/replacements was 4 new Z rated tyres, 2 new front Koni shock absorbers, 2 new DBA drilled and slotted front disk rotors and a set of Bendix Ultimate brake pads. That little list cost me nearly $2000. But of course when you are pressed for time things are never that simple. As the club was preparing to have a sprint day at Queensland Raceway in March, I needed these things fixed in time for that. Unfortunately the only 205/45/ZR16 Goodyear F1 tyres in Queensland were in Townsville and of course the only time I need the trains running is during the monsoon season in full flood. That was the first problem. Next was the phone call I receive from Mario at Goodyear Loganholme informing me that there were no Koni shocks in the country and that they wouldn't be here until April. I also had to go to at least 7 or 8 different shops to get my brake pads, with prices ranging up to $142 and they still had to be sent up from the Bendix factory in Sydney.
By the end of all this, I got the last set of DBA rotors in the factory, the shocks were found in and sent up from Melbourne and after two visits to Goodyear, 3 of my tyres came from Townsville and one from the Gold Coast. And all this was just 2 days before we went to Willowbank. It was worth all the pain and heartache and with a couple of 20 litre cans of Racing Fuel 100 in the car I went off to the track.
During the first session I was being a little cautious as I had never been on this track before and I wasn't sure how the car would perform and handle with its new equipment. Even though I drove straight on at the left handed on my second lap I had little need to be concerned. My new brakes, tyres and shocks were fantastic. I was able to brake from about 175km/h on the back straight down to 70km/h at about 100m from the corner. My lap times dropped from the 1:44's in the first session to the 1:37's by the final session. It did look as though Michele was being even more cautious than me as I lapped her twice in the first session but it was good to see her go faster in the later sessions as I only lapped her once in each of those. [Editor: Who's counting? And at least I had brakes on the way home!] I was later to pay the price for all this fun.
As I drove away I was to experience the most dramatic brake fade I had even seen before. The only thing that stopped the pedal was the firewall. I had absolutely no brakes. An inspection of the brake fluid the next night gave an indication as to why. The fluid had been completely cooked. Instead of the clear stuff that had been there the morning before, there was this brown muddy-looking mess. I thought for a second that maybe I was having too much fun on the track but then I realised that it wasn't possible. Leon's suggestion was to replace the fluid with DOT 5 silicone brake fluid which has a much higher boiling point. Which is not a problem if you can find the stuff. Leon tried several places before Slacks Creek Brake & Clutch came to the rescue at $67 for one litre. I was then told by Honda that the silicone fluid would break down my Honda brake lines and that I would have to replace them with a steel-braided Teflon coated brake line.
Of course, nothing I try to do to improve my car is ever simple. I then found out that steel- braided Teflon coated brake lines are illegal on road cars and can only go on off-road or racecars. So I have had to leave the Honda lines in. They also suggest that you replace the rubber seals and O-rings in the master cylinder, but of course you can't just buy the seals, you have to buy the whole master cylinder piston kit. Sounds expensive? Well that's what I thought. To Leon's & my surprise it was actually reasonably priced at about $35. The brakes have now been fixed and I will have to wait until Calder Park to find out if they will work without boiling.
Well I am back from Melbourne now and will regale my tales of woe in the next issue. Stay tuned!
