Any tips for a new radical owner? I’ve came from a rally car competing on Hillclimb’s . Plan is to carry on competing in the Hillclimb championship ..... any tips welcome.
Have bought a sr8
One of the hardest things to learn about driving a Radical is how to get the smile off of your face after you drive it. The only way I have found to remove the smile is to wait a week or more between track events. The cars should come with a warning saying that if you drive this car too often you may have a smile permanently on your face that may not be possible to remove 🙂
Since you are a championship driver, some of the the things I am going to mention may be two basic, but hopefully they will be helpful.
1) Read the Owners manual and the Mechanics manual before driving the car. If you don't have copies of them you can find them in our "Resource Library". If you want electronic copies that are easier to print out let me know and I can email them to you. The technical experts at the Radical Factory recommend using the latest manual for your car because as they continue to develop and race the cars they update the specifications. For example the SR8 Gen 1 manual recommends torquing the wheel nuts to 200 ft/lbs, and through years of racing these cars the SR8 3rd generation manual recommends torquing them to 260 ft/lbs. So always use the updated values in the latest manual (260 ft/lbs in this case) and only use the earlier manuals for items that are unique to that generation car.
2) Learn the proper procedure for checking the oil (it's in the owners manual) and do it before every session.
3) It is extremely important to warm these cars up properly or you can damage the engine or transmission. These cars have a lot of cooling capacity so it can be challenging to to get enough heat into the engine. Believe it or not the recommended method for adjusting the cooling level is to block off a portion of the radiator inlet screens with duct tape. On my SR3 I typically used 1.5 strips of Duct tape on both the oil and water inlet to keep the engine warm enough for a 30 minute session on track. I would imagine that the SR8 generates more heat so it may not be as much of a challenge for you, but since you will be using the car for Hill climbs you may need to look into adding engine and transmission heaters to get the oil up to temperature. It is very important that you watch the oil pressure at the beginning of your session. It is important to make sure the oil pressure stays below 100psi or your risk blowing your oil cooler. Since the SR8 transmission does not share oil with the engine it is important to warm up the transmission prior to going out on track. The SR8 Gen 3 manual does a very good job of detailing how to warm up the engine and transmission.
4) These cars handle extremely well but they are very sensitive to car balance (front / rear). This likely won't be an issue for you due to your level of experience, but for people transitioning from street-based race cars there is a bit of a learning curve where spinning is common. If / when you spin it is essential that you get the clutch to the floor very quickly. If the rear tires start to run backwards for even a fraction of a second the starter engages with the fly wheel and self destructs. If you don't have an extra starter your day will be over.
5) When downshifting coming into the pit it is important to pay very close attention to the gear you are shifting into. With the SR8 it is possible to downshift into reverse and if that happens when your are moving forward you will be replacing your transmission. There is a safety that SHOULD keep this from happening, but pit entry shift's into reverse happen.
6) Check your fuel cell. If I remember correctly Fuel cells are only certified for ~4 years and by year ~6 or 7 they will likely be cracked so badly that they will leak fuel into the cockpit.
I hope this is helpful. Enjoy the new car.
Charley
thankyou charley , any help is appreciated.
