My damaged sidepipe...

750hp · #1 (**permalink**) 05-02-2004, 12:05 AM

OK, before Les gets on here shooting off a fanciful story about my misadventure at the Powercruise event held at Qld Raceway, here's what really happened.....

While accelerating down the main straight, the car broke traction at around 140kph. It's happened before, but this time the motor buzzed to the rev limiter within the blink of an eye. Max rpm in top gear equals about 185mph tyre speed, so you can understand that things got ugly pretty quickly.

I spin off the track and hit one of those big water barriers that was positioned about a metre from the concrete wall. I pulled up what felt like inches from the wall (less than a metre anyway !), but the barrier had glanced the sidepipe - pushing it onto the bodywork for the length of the pipe. The barrier then hit the front wheel/tyre, which flung it over the front of the car. Luckily I was driving the car with the lift-off front removed or there would have been some nasty panel damage.

It's definitely time to fit those wheel speed sensors and get the Motec Traction Control working...

750hp · #2 (**permalink**) 05-02-2004, 12:11 AM

....and here's the car just before it happened. You can see why no front panels were damaged

Rebel1 · #3 (**permalink**) 05-02-2004, 04:14 AM

DAMN Craig!!....You mean I wasted a couple of hours dreaming up some weird story to tell.

My story was gonna sound a whole lot better than yours.

Party pooper you

John A. Simpson · #4 (**permalink**) 05-02-2004, 01:47 PM

I've been watching the build up of your car, beautiful work. What are you running for mufflers?

WILDAC · #5 (**permalink**) 05-02-2004, 01:53 PM

Congratulations Craig,
On your first battle scar

Go hard or go home is what i say!

Cheers Robo

PCC · #6 (**permalink**) 05-03-2004, 03:20 PM

Craig,

Trust you were OK after your spin off.

Those plastic water barrels can do quite a bit of damage, so you were lucky to come off only some lower body damage.

I know a good paint sprayer if you need a hand

Acrylic or 2-Pac, whichever

With the front off, you're Cobra looks to have more plumbing than a Bunnings Superstore!

Well done mate - catch up soon.

750hp · #7 (**permalink**) 05-07-2004, 07:22 PM

John - A friend of mine made the entire exhaust system a while back. I originally had just a 3.5" perforated pipe inside a 5" outer pipe with that really fine glass packing that the new trucks are using in their exhaust systems. This was supposed to be the good gear, but I melted the packing the first time I took the car to a racetrack. End result was the sound of open pipes and 130+ decibels at around 2500rpm !!!

I kept the 5" outer pipe and 3.5" perf pipe, but had a 2" pipe fitted inside with a spiral welded around it, kinda like a traditional "Lobak" muffler, but with stainless packing outside the 3.5" pipe as well. Sounds confusing, and it's definitely restricted the exhaust flow. It has made the exhaust nice and quiet while I'm idling around. It still makes a nice sound when you get on it though

PCC - the mention of Bunnings plumbing reminds me of Reptyl's PVC intake invention. I'm glad he went with metal in the end !!!

Robo - the body on this car was on my last Cobra. If you want to see a serious battle scar when the car was in it's previous guise, have a dig through my gallery ....

Les - I wouldn't have owned up to my off-track excursion if it wasn't for your taunting about posting something on here about it !!!