So for those that may not have been following, the whole reason for Aurelia (may she rest in peace), followed closely by Alonzo (2003 Alfa Romeo 147, 2L Twin Spark) , was to get a 'cheapish' car on track for inexperienced me that if something untoward occurred would not cause me any great grief but it still had to be fun to drive.
Since the last time, Alonzo has made one more visit to Barry to finally have both front Lower Control Arms ( wishbones) replaced and a general once over. All good, didn't even need a couple of other arms that I got for free. Found out the Fiat brake pads I was given were also for the Alfa 147 front brakes, so a little win there. The front discs are a bit pitted so that will be a job for me in the future, replace front pads and discs together as there is still plenty of life left in the pads at the moment. A re-gas of the air conditioning system fixed the warm air problem (personally a necessity up here).
It was then just a matter of booking Alonzo into the upcoming RCCQ Happy Laps on Saturday 4th February and having the patience to wait. This gave me a bit of time to do some more cosmetic detailing. The wheels got a good clean and the new Bridgestone Potenza RE003 tyres received some tyre makeup; it does make a difference, if only to me.
A bit more interior cleaning of dash and plastic parts along with leather cleaner and protector application to the seats. They have come up quite a treat. There is still a smell which I believe is coming from the carpet, but that will be left to another day when I'll remove it totally and do a thorough clean, in the meantime a bit of car freshener does the trick. Drove it a few times over the last couple of weekends and Alonzo is performing as required.
The day has arrived and on a very hot and humid Brisbane day I made the 40 minute trip to Lakeside Park. This used to be the 'Lakeside International Raceway' and was very popular with the V8's in its day. Now used for community events/racing, it provides a challenging twisting circuit that is a lot of fun with not a lot of runoff if things turn a little pear shaped.
Alonzo behaved perfectly on the way there and upon arrival we had the customary bacon, egg, hash brown, sausages and baked beans supplied by the organisers (No beans for this boy). It was then a quick safety briefing and into the car, along with the other 44 participants ( Happy Laps is capped at 45 cars by RCCQ). Turn on ignition and immediately see warning messages that have never been seen before; ABS system failure, VDC system failure and EBD system failure......WTF !!!. Breathe slowly, turn ignition off and then on again, hooray, no messages, gotta love Italian electronics. So out onto the track and a brilliant and enjoyable 30 minutes of driving. Alonzo performed and handled well. The 2L Twinspark engine revved well without any funny noises or lagging. The handling while softer than Renoir still wasn't bad around this twisty layout and at 120 kmph around some of the corners I felt totally in control. Alonzo was quite a bit different from Renoir (2011 Renault Megane RS250 ) but he is now 20 years old and normally aspirated, which was quite noticeable from the Megane turbo. The main indication for me that Alonzo's first run went well was that at the end of the session (and 30 minutes non-stop is quite a good length of time) I got out of Alonzo with a big grin on my face and felt brilliant. This was my one The project was a success.
Of course starting up to go home the ABS & VDC warning lights (No EBD warning this time) came on but went off within a minute. A bit of googling indicated, 'common Alfa Romero electrics issue; just ignore it' common when really cold or humid weather conditions so that will be the procedure. Ignorance is bliss.
Now to continue improving and fixing Alonzo, ready for the next session and maybe checking out what extra is required to get him into Sprints. A very successful day and a very happy lad.
Comments
Post a Comment