Vince's Stuff: I finally got to do some laps on a track!

RSX at Calabogie

It took a while, but I finally got to do some laps on a track. I had the coilovers installed on the RSX a couple of weeks ago and decided to take the car to ICAR on Tuesday May 19th to try it out. I had not yet bought or installed track tires, but I was content to just drive on the all-season tires that came with the car. I left early to beat the traffic heading north, but still managed to get stuck in it in Laval. Worse yet, the water temperature began to climb in the traffic jam. I pulled off the highway and headed to a close-by Canadian Tire where I bled the radiator and headed back out on the road... this did not make me confident that the car would stay cool on the track, and it was over 25 degrees outside. Anyway, I arrived a bit before the track opened and was surprised to see Honda employees there with a lovely first generation Integra built into a replica of a 1980's IMSA race car. I chatted with the Honda employee and he told me about the nut and bolt restoration. The car even had period correct 14-inch Mugen wheels. They also had an early NSX on hand. I think their presence had something to do with the F1 weekend, as I heard Lance Stroll (whose team uses Honda engines) say he had been to Mirabel to drive some cars in the days before the F1 race. Little did I know that seeing these cars would be the highlight of my evening... After buying my lap ticket, I went out to the car and started it. I noticed I had no power steering and the alternator light was on. I parked and looked under the hood and saw that the serpentine belt was broken. This meant no power steering or alternator or water pump. Not only could I not get in any laps, I would not even be able to drive home. I packed up, and drove down the street to a propane business and called a tow truck from there (in case the towing company refused to come get a car at a track, which had happened to me before). I waited about 90 minutes for the tow truck, watching track cars drive by to and from the track. The first attempt to drive the RSX on track was a bust.

I ordered a serpentine belt from Carl and when came the time to install it, I simply could not get it on. I even bought a special flat long wrench to ease the tension on the tensioner, but it tool all my strength to get the belt on. When I started the car, it sounded terrible. The first culprit was the a/c compressor pulley, which was starting and stopping (probably what caused the belt to fail). I needed the car to go to the race school at Calabogie so I decided to buy a shorter belt and bypass the a/c pulley. I did some research online and ordered the proper belt on Amazon for next day delivery. When the belt arrived, I installed it easily (thanks to my special wrench). Unfortunately, the power steering pump was now making a lot of noise and the assist was spotty. I decided to bring the car to Calabogie anyway, even with the semi-functional power steering.

The drive to the track was actually quite pleasant. I was comfortable in the race seat and listened to podcasts in the relatively quiet interior. The school itself went very smoothly. Looking at the weather forecast, I realized that my only chance to get some laps on a dry track would be Saturday at lunch. I headed out right at the beginning of the lunch break, and on my sighting lap, there was still one worker on track tending to something. He was not happy to see a car on track. I went into the pits and waited for the official go-ahead to head back out. The car felt fine from the start. The all-season tires squealed, a lot, but there was decent grip on the brand new pavement. I managed to do a session over 20 minutes long. I was keeping a close eye on the water temperature and it was creeping up slowly. At one point, I was caught by Oktay in his new Subaru BRZ Ts, and after I waived him by, I was able to mostly follow him as I shaved 4 seconds off my previous best lap (yes I drive faster when I'm chasing someone!). I decided that good lap (2:45 flat) would be my last and came into the pits. I have video of the lap, which is not great, because the camera's view is partially blocked by the rear-view mirror. I have ordered an extension arm for my GoPro mount to get a better view in the future. The car worked well on track. The handling was good, so was the power. The performance seems not too far off of the BRZ, which is a brand new "budget" sports car, so that's encouraging.

Since I got back from the school, I ordered and changed the radiator and the power steering pump. When I moved the hood latch out of the way to install the radiator, I accidentally unhooked the end of the hood release cable. When I closed the hood, there was no way to open it again. I spent 3 hours trying tricks from YouTube videos and swearing until after midnight trying to manually release the catch with a metal rod. The next day, I finally managed after almost 2 more hours. What a nasty job! When I called JS about it, he told me that when his release cable broke, he just cut the latch and now uses hood pins! Anyway, all this was finished only last night. The one thing left to do is install the track tires I picked up from Carl yesterday and the car should be ready to try again on track.

The Friday before the race school, my friend Henri and I went to the F1 practice day. We had fantastic seats right in front of the Ferrari pits. The weather was perfect, sunny but not hot. I decided to take my bike so I could get out of there quickly and I was surprised to see that there was literally only one other bike in the bicycle parking area (there seemed to be room for more than 100)! Anyway, I texted Henri when I got home, and he was almost home too, having taken the metro. In all I probably saved 5 minutes.

I still haven't been to the country house so I still haven't taken the M3 out of the barn. I also found out that the air conditioning on the Subaru does not work. One bit of good news: JS managed to fix the yellow Civic by tightening a loose bolt at the bottom of the front left shock, and changing both tie rod ends for RSX ones. I picked it up yesterday and it drives just fine. It sure feels slow after driving the RSX in the past few days. I guess it's time to put up an ad to sell it!