The Worlds Fastest Landrover - LRM December 2009
We took our newly aquired Td5 90 CSW (Aka - The Rat Bag!) to the 'Worlds Fastest Land Rover' competition, Hosted at Bruntingthorpe proving ground by Land Rover Monthly magazine, and Sponsored by Twisted Performance, who set the event up.
When I first heard about the competition, I spoke to a few other well known tuning companies, who told me exactly what I had been thinking, so I had no intention of entering as it was obvious I would not win. However, Nick King from LRM kept badgering me, and one of the tuning companies that refused to come had a well prepared, VNT turbo'd 90 representing them (all be it under the resellers name), so I thought I may as well give it a go!
Having only bought the car on the Sunday of the Peterborough LRO show, I had a lot of work to do to bring the car back to a good state of repair, never mind tuning it! New front swivels had to be fitted since they were leaking, The diffs were replaced with new exchange items from KAM, but with taller gearing (rather than changing the transfer box gears to disco 1.222 ratio), since they were about to expire! All oils were replaced, Injector loom replaced, a new manifold and hybrid turbo went on, new decat downpipe, new intercooler with some new Samco XDB hoses, New lowered springs, dampers, dislocation cones, and turret rings. Anti Roll bars front and rear were fitted, and all the brakes were stripped, cleaned and rebuilt, retaining the standard discs and pads. I also had a propane injection kit to go on the car, the installation of which cannot be rushed for obvious reasons! I did manage to get the kit fitted, but had finished the installation at about 9:30 on the monday night before the event, so had no time for testing and calibration, as I had to load the 90 onto a trailer ready for the next morning. I quickly knocked up a pretty hot fuel map, and downloaded this onto the car, before locking up and going home.
Up bright and early on Tuesday morning so I could make the two and a half hour drive down the M1 to Bruntingthorpe, and get there early enough to do some testing and setting up of the propane system. I met a couple of other 90's en route, who promptly sped off into the distance! I was towing my 90 with the Range Rover and could only do 60mph as the trailer got a bit twitchy above these speeds! Once at the track, the car was off loaded and after a couple of laps of the main track, the propane kit seemed to be working, but the car was generating a lot of smoke, which certainly should not happen as propane burns much faster than diesel, so all fuel should be consumed within the power stroke!? Never mind, there was no more time for setting up, so it was going to have to stay as it was.
First event was the circuit lap, which consisted of 3 laps; A warm up, Flying lap, and cool down lap. I had asked a freind to drive for me, since he's had a lot more experiance at driving defenders, so could maximise my cars potential on the track. He did this alright, as out of 21 cars, Toby brought mine home in 2nd place (in the diesel class), in a highly respectable 1 minute, 43.50 seconds, being pipped by the sponsors own java black 'Drifter', who managed a blisteringly quick 1 minute, 38.20 seconds. If we'd have had the previous day for testing, as they did, I am sure we could have closed the gap! Interestingly the JE Zulu managed a best flying lap time of only 1 minute 51 seconds. It did sound nice though, with it's 4.2 supercharger! Who would have thought that a pair of TD5's could whoop a no expense spared peice of V8 exotica like that!
Next up was the Auto Test, and we managed this in 36.6 seconds. There was a green 90 which was on 18" BFG AT's and looked clumsy, screeching and wallowing round the track, but according to the time sheets, it managed a 34.7 second lap!? JE's Td5 90 Automatic came in at 36.5 seconds, and our host cleaned up in a well practiced 34.1 seconds!
Last up was the quarter mile sprint, and top speed combined run. Several people complained about them using a sat nav for the timing, when I had a Racelogic in my car, which is far more accurate and it records and stores all the data, so there can be no fibbing. Never mind, at least the quarter mile was timed with some proper timing equipment. I never managed to record all the times for this, but our car did a 16.9 second quarter, with a top speed of 104mph. The JJF 90 managed an amazing 16.1 seconds after what can only be described as a 'violent' start, and carried on to a top speed of 106mph, taking the throne for the quarter mile in the diesel class. The twisted 'Drifter' 90 managed a 16.9 and a 17.0 second quarter mile on both of it's runs, but amazingly it managed a top speed of 107mph, according to what the driver said the sat nav says anyway!
All in all, it was a great day out, and even the LRM magazine feature was suprisingly unbiased, so a good result all round I'd say. Many thanks to the organisers who had obviously put a lot of effort in to make this happen, and Bring on next years rematch. Times next year WILL be quicker! lol
