Mr Fox's Puma

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Took the car to Snetterton (300 circuit) on Monday - Evening session. Wanted to see how the car performed on much faster corners than Brands indy circuit (not saying paddock hill bend isn't fast but the car squats so much and finds grip it wouldn't have otherwise on exit it's not a fair test)

Started tracktime later than expected but no red flags meant the session kept going, I was expecting to see a guy called 'Howard (he posted the event on the puma track day fb group)' in another silver puma with orange bits but he didn't turn up. Had people come up to car while in the paddock to share their love/admiration for it. I hadn't made any further changes since my last outing but did play with front/rear tyre psi combinations. I found 25 front and 35 rear (it was a hot day) created a great balance in reducing understeer and encouraging enough oversteer to rotate the car effectively in tight bends.

I also never tried trail-braking before so my first few attempts were shocking but my god when it worked did the nose dive into the apex! will be continuing to practice that on my next outing.

Also had a free 20 min tuition session (good old opentrack!) had a guy named 'Will' who loved the way it drove, I realised a fair few bad habits I have and will be mindful of them next time round. First (and one that made the most difference) was I don't open the steering up early enough after apexing (in order to effectively use all the track on exit) this also means I'm not on full power early as I can be! I'm overbraking (kinda knew that) and there's too long a gap between coming off the power and onto the brakes. Aside from those things he was happy and nailed some corners 'perfectly' including Williams, Nelson, Murrays and Hamilton. I'm still finding Riches and Oggies different to pin down but that's the kind of thing that keeps you out there!

Oh and I found the car handled better with the instructor in it and don't believe this was due to potentially balancing the car better but from the side-on-shot I can see this is closer to all round ride height before weight loss (especially the rear including spare tyre/all fabrics/brackets/sound deadening ect) so reckon I'll try lowering the suspension a tad to compensate.





Oh and did I say it was hot?? This was after 1 x 30 min session, photo courtesy of the onsite toilet cubicles! lol

 
Had my best trackday at Snetterton 300 on 28th Feb and it was down to the new track width I was running up front.

It was my first test after fitting my peugeot fitment Pro Race 1.2's 7J 15ET and removing the 15mm hubcentric spacers from behind the oem puma F1 wheels I had in the front (but keeping the F1's in the rear with the 30mm FRP spacers).

This made the ratio front and back extremely close to the oem ratios (front was a tiny extra wide) so ran overall +63mm front and +60mm rear (previously +30mm front and +60mm rear).

I went on about this on the puma track day FB group but this simple change transformed my lap times, entry/mid and exit corner speed and I'd never experience such little understeer and overall balance even from before altering track width at all.

(it needs to be said though I am obviously more experienced on track now than all those years ago when it was standard wheelbase so I lot of it maybe because I simply know about lines/weight transfers/trail braking ect)

I paid for a tuition session and the instructor commented on just how well balanced he thought the car was.

There was a new C1 out there being driven brilliantly, there's photos on the javalin flickr photography page (free the access) where you can see it often cocking a rear wheel lol

My worst corner where I know I can gain more time was Nelson and the first corner Riches (hard to brake late and scrub off not too much speed after the straight reaching 100mph. However I thought I pretty much got the rest pinned down. Likely be back at Brands Indy next unless there's a few people wanting to arrange a day at a more northern track with a stay over.

Thanks to the docs at 'Pumashacked' for servicing the checking the car over before the day.

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Hi. Car looks good! You say you are running overall +63 front. But the et15 wheels are +20 each compared to oem so totally +40. Have you done anything else?
 
Wild E. Coyote said:
What are those thingies on the roof? Some vortex generators?

Yeah they are vortex generators, ideally they need to placed a bit further back up the roof to meet the area the air separates from the panel, they need to placed at the point of separation to keep the air flow attached to roof line.

They basically generate high energy air which helps stick the flow to the panel/bodywork and increases the attached flow. They work best when combined with a rear wing. The Evo's that had them as standard would use them to help condition the flow of air to the rear wing.
 
siju said:
Hi. Car looks good! You say you are running overall +63 front. But the et15 wheels are +20 each compared to oem so totally +40. Have you done anything else?

they are 7j (not 6j) combined with the 19+ mm in offset (15 compared to 34) makes an overall additional track width increase of 63mm. I used an online offset tyre calculator to check but can't remember which.

Hi, wild, yes as Jay mentioned vortex generators I've actually been planning on moving them much more forward to the separation zone (little behind the B pillars) and perhaps colour coding them to the body
 

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