Still Battling Old Problems On Hanger Straight

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]This is my rally prototype I've [music] built over the last five or six years. I have called it the Peugearoo. It may look like a Peugeot 206, but trust me, it's 90% Subaru. Up front, there's a flat 4 EJ20 engine. We have the all-wheel drive system from a WRX, and overall, the wheelbase is 80 mm shorter than the Subaru Impresser. Plus, it's a lot wider, too, [music] and it's a whole lot of fun to drive. Over the years, it's been up and running. I've done numerous hill climbs and a few track days, but now it's time to take it back to the track. And since it's been on the circuit last time, we've made a few upgrades. We have had some issues with keeping the engine cool [music] over long periods of time on track.

[00:00:42]Hopefully, with a few tweaks, we can have some more success. I need to dig [music] the car out and do some final checks before we take it to Landau next weekend.

[00:00:58]Being so busy with the Z4 Evo project, I haven't had a lot of time to use it in the last year or so, but I am making a conscious effort to try and use it a bit more. For those of you who have not seen the car before, we have a rear mounted radiator in the boot that cools the coolant that goes to the engine via a remote water pump. You can see I've had a few leaks, so that is one of the jobs I need to sort. One of the upgrades I did was an oil cooler which is fitted just in front of the intercooler behind the front bumper. The reason why the radiator is in the boot like a world righc cross car is the fact I've lost about a foot of space at the front of the engine. To see exactly where the leak is coming from, I take the rear shroud off complete with a pair of fans.

[00:01:48]You can see I have a really large radiator, but it's still not enough to keep this engine cool. I think the leak is just coming from there. So, I've got a replacement clip to go on there. While it's off, I'm going to check all of them and make sure that sensor is not leaking. Also, it's a bit of a mess back here.

[00:02:12]I should really upgrade all of these Jubilee clips and fit some proper hose clamps. But for now, I'm just going to replace the one that I believe is causing a leak.

[00:02:26]With the new one on and hopefully it now being sealed, I can drain all of the coolant that sat in the lower cowling.

[00:02:32]Once all the liquid was mopped up, I can get the shroud and the fans back into the car and fit the two securing bolts either side.

[00:02:44]To ensure the cooling system is working at its optimum, I need to seal the air gaps from around the radiator. In theory, it should direct all of the air that comes in the side ducts on the car in and under the radiator, then up and out the vents in the boot lid.

[00:03:01]While I'm in the car, I check the rear suspension bolts are tight. Now we can move around to the front of the car. I want to get rid of this fog light as I'm not going to need it as it's coming up to summer.

[00:03:14]Once I had tweezed out a bit of foil tape that dropped down into the engine, I can fill the expansion bottle up and it should work its way into the system and replace the fluid that was leaking out. The next mission is to adjust the water pump controller. I first need to start the engine and then try and get into the driver's seat so we can get some warmth into it and then I can make the adjustments.

[00:03:43]It has been a while since I set this Davies Craig pump controller up, so I did have to refer to the manual. In the end, I set the fan to come on at a slightly lower temperature, which should help fight the engine from overheating when it's on the track. And just before I put the car away again, I check all the wheel bolts are torqued up tight. If I have time, I will give the car a quick clean up. But I've got the essential mechanical things done that I wanted to.

[00:04:11]We just need to fuel up and get on the road on Saturday.

[00:04:24]>> We made it to Landau circuit. It's been at least 2 years since I've been here.

[00:04:31]>> I've made the small adjustments on the car. So, let's see if it's improved or made it worse.

[00:04:40][music] >> No idea what to expect. We've got a good selection of cars here. Initially, I'm just going to take it nice and steady, not go crazy, >> see how it feels, and just try and pick up a bit of pace throughout the day.

[00:04:56]And I want to monitor the biggest thing is to monitor the temperature of the engine and try and gauge as to what I need to do next to improve it [music] further.

[00:05:14]>> For the first session in my group, we go out for a couple of sighting laps. If anyone is new to the track, they can learn it. and it gives all the cars a chance to warm up a bit before we start getting some hot laps in. Back in the day, this area used to be an airfield.

[00:05:30]So, the circuit is essentially built on top of it. We're going down runway straight and then soon enough we come into a section called the bus stop.

[00:05:40]There's a tight left corner followed by a double apex right and then [music] we have a slight chicane.

[00:05:49]A couple more righthanders and then we go down towards Hangar Straight after this long righthander. Now we're on Hangar Straight and you can see on the left there's actually a building that may be partially original. That was a hanger. And then we go down to the end through the chicane into the long righthander.

[00:06:16]And this is called glue point as we exit again to head towards runway straight.

[00:06:24]And that's pretty much the entire circuit. Pit lane is on your left.

[00:06:33]Stick it up to the I just did 10 in a row. I just did 10 in a row. I just did a go.

[00:06:44][music] I've been out for about 5 minutes and unfortunately the brakes are giving me a lot of vibration breaking from higher speeds. So, it's not going to be a day of setting lap records. But the temperature seems to be okay.

[00:06:58]5 minutes went by and it was probably went to about 64° on there. However, the engine side, so the sensor, the water temperature sensor on this gauge is actually at the front of the engine and it was at about 80. So, I'm just going to have to monitor that as the day goes on. I'm not going to go nuts and do 10 15 minute sessions because otherwise a this track wears out tires really quickly. So, I'm going to run out of tread and B, I want to keep some life in the brakes so I can have some fun throughout the day and just just learn the car a bit more really because I haven't had a lot of seat time in it as well. That's the goal today. Get some seat time, get some smooth, reasonably paced laps in and uh see how we go. But during days like this, it's really handy to figure out what I need to do to incrementally improve the drivability of the car, especially on track. As you all probably know, if you've seen the channel, I've driven this car on the road a lot, and it's fine. But if I want to do more track days and more serious driving, then I have to make some improvements, especially on the cooling, the brakes. Those are the two to start with. I have checked the pads and everything and we've got plenty of pad, but I'm presuming that the discs are warped at the front. I mean, they were off the donor car years ago and I've not replaced them, so they probably need a new set of front discs. I've actually rolled the outside of the tires a bit as well. You can see that. So, I'll monitor the tire pressures. Fronts are set to 25 PSI and similar on the rears. Damper settings are going a bit tighter also.

[00:08:44]I'm going to go four off maximum stiffness.

[00:08:50]And you will be pleased to know that the repair we did to the leaking water hose is repaired. No problem, no leak.

[00:09:01]Let's just hope we can keep this thing cool with myself on the sidelines licking my wounds a bit and realizing I wasn't particularly prepped for this track day.

[00:09:14]We can watch Nile do some hot laps. As always, he's going very well and he's having a battle with an RS, which I think has been stage one tuned and mapped to about 300 horsepower. So, he's doing very well to overtake this orange car.

[00:09:43]Once I let [music] the pujeroo cool down enough, it soon went to open pit. This means that there are 10 cars on the track at once and it's just a traffic light system, so you can line up and just queue on to get on whenever you want. Now, we've got Dan [music] in the passenger seat. It's his first time in a stripped out race car now. Hopefully he can enjoy it [music] while I try and keep this thing on the track, keep it cool, and generally get back to the pits in one piece.

[00:10:30]However, predictably, after about 5 minutes, the temperature started to rise and wouldn't go back down. I didn't explain it that well earlier, but once it gets over 80°, it's hard to control the temperature. It will keep rising and eventually it will overheat and boil all the water out of the breather.

[00:10:50]I do not want to cook this engine, so I'm not going to push it. So, once the coolant temperature started to rise that high, we just had to pit and wait for it to cool down again.

[00:11:01]>> Easy.

[00:11:04]It's quite annoying cuz I know it's got so much more in the tank.

[00:11:08]>> First race car experience that was >> Yeah. did not disappoint. Good. It's a full race car.

[00:11:13]>> It's a great actually.

[00:11:15]>> Cheers, mate. Um, yeah, I just got a lot of uh thinking and thoughts to try and improve things now.

[00:11:23]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:24]>> It's kind of why I brought it here is to um >> document the whole >> remind myself. Yeah.

[00:11:28]>> The whole nothing to this.

[00:11:30]>> Yeah. So, um two D cars. So, like the Impressa and the Peers 206.

[00:11:37]>> Um Yeah. So, both stripped down to a bare shell, >> then rebuilt.

[00:11:43]>> Yeah.

[00:11:44]>> I love I love watching like that.

[00:11:45]>> Yeah.

[00:11:46]>> Yeah.

[00:11:46]>> We got lots of binge if you want to see it.

[00:11:49]>> See how it was built?

[00:11:50]>> Oh, yeah. I love that, man.

[00:11:51]>> Yeah. Nice.

[00:11:52]>> Just getting out gracefully. Do you want me to hold that?

[00:11:54]>> Oh, normally left leg out and then get your torso out.

[00:12:00]>> Head and torso and then experience that.

[00:12:07]>> Yeah.

[00:12:10]As I predicted though, still got cooling issues. Just a quick update and it's starting to rain almost at lunchtime and I've noticed there's a bit of water coming out from here and I'm presuming it's when the engine got hot and it's just coming out the overflow. I've also put the sock on the air filter just to stop that getting wet. Done a quick check over. Everything looks good. I'm just presuming that the corner is coming out of this expansion bottle, which you can buy from any tool station. I'm deciding whether to go back out after lunch because I've essentially done the test. I know that the cooling is still not correct with the upgrades I've made so I can decide whether I want to put more tire wear and potentially compromise the car before I take it home. So, I also need to drive it home.

[00:13:01]So, I need road legal tires.

[00:13:04]And there's not a huge amount of tread left, especially on the inside as we're running a bit of camber front and rear.

[00:13:11]I am pleased the repair I did is working and generally everything's holding together pretty well. We just have to stop the thing from overheating. I have a big idea which would change the main principles of the cooling system entirely and it might be the sensible next step so we can talk about that later. Going out for one more ball before I head home [music] just because we can.

[00:13:42][music] Even with a compromised car and some slightly damp conditions, I enjoy the rest of the afternoon while making mental notes of things I need to improve on the car. There were some quick drivers out there and some regulars to Landal Circuit for sure.

[00:14:17]Heat. Heat.

[00:14:24]Heat.

[00:14:45]Heat.

[00:14:55]Heat. Heat.

[00:15:20]overheated again. Is it getting too hot?

[00:15:25]The usual story with this car.

[00:15:28]Just getting into the flow of things and it starts to get too hot. Was good while it lasted.

[00:15:36]We've got a lot to discuss about the future of this car and what we [music] need to do to get it right.

[00:15:44]But my thoughts at the moment are going back to the factory settings for the engine layout. So do away with a front mounted intercooler.

[00:15:58]Get a slightly larger top mounted intercooler fitter scoop to the bonnet.

[00:16:06]Do away with the radiator in the back of the car and the remote water pump and all the lines.

[00:16:14]Either get a custom radiator. Well, it need probably will need to be custom because of the space we have at the front, but essentially replace the front mount intercooler with the radiator.

[00:16:27]And then that should alleviate all our cooling problems and also turbo lag because you'll be removing the long pipes that go to the intercooler at the front which it currently has and reducing the intake distance dramatically. Now it was tuned with the current setup but I don't think it be too much of an issue um changing that.

[00:16:55]So, it might actually be even faster and stay cool by doing that. But it does mean having a bonnet scoop, which I never wanted. But the fact that the arrow is so crazy on this car, I think it it it won't be out of place having a big Subaru style scoop on the bonnet.

[00:17:15]Um, and then I need to really overhaul the brakes. That's the important thing because they're worn out. These were the brakes, the standard WRX front and rear brakes off the Impressa donor car. And I don't even know the condition that they were before I got the car. So, they could be 10 years old. And I've done three track days, numerous old climbs.

[00:17:42]I've changed the pads, but nothing else.

[00:17:45]That's the plan. I don't know when I'm going to be able to do it because priority number one is get the Z4 Evo built which is behind me and I need to put a lot of hours into that and money obviously.

[00:17:59]So I think this is going to be on the back burner until that one's done.

[00:18:06]Yeah, it'd be nice to have more time to use this car, but however the current reality is I don't have a lot of time to use it.

[00:18:16]Anyway, hope you enjoyed this episode. I know I've not done one on this car for a long time, but I still use it once a week. Just take it for a run and clear the cobwebs, but yeah, I should really be using it more. All right, see you on the next video.

[00:18:39]Hey, [crying] hey, hey.