Long Live the Pig

A much needed update to the story of the little engine that could:

The dead pig was sold to a friend of Nicks who promptly carried out some surgery on the top end and low and behold she spluttered back into life to lap again.

Fast forward a couple of months and Nick is now the sole custodian of the car and currently crafting her into his own unique track pig. Some pictures to show you the amazing transformation are below, its not subtle, it's not classy but by god it's striking:


As you can see the colour has been changed to Matt Black and some additional graphics have been added to give it that racing car look. Late last night Nick was spraying some wheels he managed to secure from eBay to finish the pig of perfectly, with the new motto:

Go larey or Go home!




It's due to be put back into active service first thing tomorrow morning, only time will tell if the barely legal tires will make for some interesting handling ;)

This is the end, my beautiful friend, the end.

Well, maybe,

The old girl has not been too happy to start recently and when she has she complains about being awoken from her slumber for a while. Nick started the car up last Sunday and 500 yards down the road she gave up the ghost.

Nick suspects a snapped cambelt which will mean a new head and an expense none of us want to incur.

She may be going to the scrappers in the sky, but her memory will live on in her replacement.

She's getting towed home tonight so hopefully we will find out more, I have already seen something I'd like to replace her with...........

Summer + Scotland = Fog

A 4hr session was booked for the end of June which all three of us were able to make. This should be fun!

Waking up at 6:30 full of excitement i drew back the curtains to find.....fog?!?! Oh well, has to be a first time for everything i guess.

Sadly it got worse and worse as we approached Knockhill and fog turned to drizzle to rain to fog to well, you get the picture. A soaking wet trackday which lost an hour of running due to the conditions.

At least it would be a good day to learn the lines and work on being smooth. Out we ventured....what the dickens.....why is everyone going so slow (admittedly in their 20K machines)?

It was happening again, we seemed to be faster in the wet! For some reason, we always seem to run really well in poor conditions and were braking later and harder than a lot of people out there (not through skill I'm sure, which only leaves...stupidity) but we weren't being silly, we were well within our and the cars limits.

As there were all three of us in attendance I took the opportunity to blag some passenger laps in others cars including a rare 993 GT2 and a bright orange Caterham SLR - thanks Mass :)



The pig ran without fault again and although wet and miserable the day was still brilliant brilliant fun. Fingers crossed the next time out will be in a little better conditions.

Russ's Return!

Due to various circumstances conspiring against him poor old Russ hadn't been on track in the pig since the TrackScotland day way back in February.

We were booked onto another TrackScotland evening and Russ was able to attend so Nick sat it out while Russ was to experience the pig in all her new found glory.

Russ took the reigns first.....I think a new nickname was spawned for him that evening: 'Rusty' ;)

He soon settled and picked up where he left off commenting that 'The brakes are jolly nice, it makes a difference being able to slow for the corners'

I jumped in and as Russ had kindly warmed the tires for me thought I'd push on from the word go to show Russ just how late and just how hard you could brake.......'oh' was the response :)

His second excursion onto the track yielded much faster results as he wrestled the pig round the track throwing her into bends and stamping on the gas earlier and earlier.

It was going to be a good summer. Next up SIDC, and we still had nothing to fix on the car and we were starting to feel a little spoiled now!

Is that a VW Camper Van ahead?

That was the question raised when 'thundering' down the back straight. I had caught sight of what looked like a bus going round the hairpin!

It was another sunny Thursday evening and we were back out on track enjoying ourselves in the pig with some very nice and odd machinery, favorite amongst which was the camper van pictured :)

I say enjoying, which although true for 98% of the time was let down by some 'straight line hero's' not moving over on the straights and holding us up terribly in the corners.

This was the first time we had ever experienced this (due to having a car which was fully functioning and able to lap a decent pace) and hope in our early days never did this to anyone else (I don't think we did, we are a jolly nice bunch of chaps!)

Regardless another trackday down, another brilliant evening and another boost to the confidence of the car and the drivers. Le Man's soon? Maybe we should get our application in early for next year - oh how deluded I am ;)

As a friend on the RX8 Owners Club forum pointed out: 'The VW has less compression and body roll than the pig!'



Upon our return Nick ordered us a nice set of stiffer lower springs for the front to take care of the body roll we seem to be getting through the corners. I can't see any body roll though, certainly looks flat and level through the bends........

Brakes, gotta love them!

'Well, that was epic!' Nick screamed from inside his helmet.

'Yes, having brakes is a good thing' retorted Mark in wide eyed wonderment.

That was the end of the first track day with the brakes functioning properly. It was a sunny Thursday evening and it had been a good couple of months since we had been on track. It's easy to forget how much fun it is throwing a 26year old pig round a race track.

The pig was finally starting to trouble some of the more expensive machinery and now, thanks to a combination of brakes and tires we were fairly fast through the corners (but still a little out of touch on the straights).

Having the brakes work gave us so much confidence to hold on to the last second before stamping (re: progressively applying) on the brakes and chucking the old girl into the apex.

The bug was back and had bitten hard. We booked on for another track day in a weeks time.

Here is a video of the first time out on the new brakes, a little tentative, but it had been a while since we had been out on track :)

Brakes are over rated - Discuss.....

So, the brakes....right, lets take a look.

With great enthusiasm we set about the brakes in an effort to sort them out, it would eventually take us 2 months and several man hours to get these sorted out. Through a process of ' Do you think its the master cylinder?' to H'mm, why are the rears always covered in a lot more dust?' to 'Sod it, lets do it properly!'

New discs and pads and a new master cylinder were bought and fitted over a sunny weekend with beer flowing :)

Well, after some skinned knuckles, some swearing, copious amounts of beer and listening to the greatest hits of Led Zeppelin for the thousandth time (no exaggeration) we were ready to take the pig back out on track - this times with brakes!

Seriously though, if i never hear this song again it will be too soon.

Whole lotta pain