I severely missjudged the economy of the car
- having never driven any decent distance since doing the 1.5 conversion; as a result I was down to a quarter of a tank already, just driving from Chester le Street to Penrith! No way would I make it round the first leg of the route
(which Mac had given us the map and directions for, at the little chef).
.
.
so off I went on my tod to the services and filled her up; it seemed to take forever and indeed the folks had left before I had finished.
I guess I was about 8-10 minutes behind at this point, so I figured instead of trying to catch up I'd just enjoy the drive.
.
.
the car was behaving itself
- oil and temp perfect, boosting smoothly to 13-14psi and no issues other than a slight tendency for 3rd gear to pop back out when downshifting
- I think it needs the shift cable adjusting
again!.
Anyway I headed out on the first leg myself, with only a few odd cars in front of me once I got onto the single track roads around the back of the roads to Braithwaite and Buttermere.
.
.
and then lo and behold.
.
.
they all turned off one by one and I was left with a completely clear road in front of me! It seemed as if by some random fluke I had just been given a chance in a thousand to drive some clear roads
- put it this way; I didn't have a single car in front of me for a good 10 miles!
:icon_rr:
So.
.
.
as soon as I could tell that there was going to be no-one around I stopped the car and flipped the camcorder on
- oh yeah, I had bungie tied my old Hi8 to the centre console and put a funky fish eye lense on
So here we have my solo drive around most of the first leg of the Lakes tour:
1.
Buttermere to Honiston Pass
(4:30, 17mb)
http://www.fmcc.org.uk/personal_john/01 ... 20Pass.avi
Nice quick road with lots of sweeping bends and only the odd car.. pity about the billions of hikers though :rant:
2.
Driving up Honiston Pass
(5:09, 20mb)
http://www.fmcc.org.uk/personal_john/02 ... 20Pass.avi
This ^^^ road truly is amazing - I only wish I could have done it again and knowing that there weren't any cars coming! Could have given it even more welly!
3.
Honiston Pass down to Keswick
(19:11, 60mb)
http://www.fmcc.org.uk/personal_john/03 ... eswick.avi
Lovely drive down back into the valley... tough on the brakes and gears (grr, 3rd!).. the ST185 brakes seemed to cope fine. Once back down in the valley there are some nice roads where you can use 3rd and 4th with a decent amount of power - Relaxing after the technical ascent and descent!
The car handled beautifully, turbo spooling well
(though laggy, but hey, who cares!).
.
really needs an extra few psi and setting up properly with the unichip though.
.
.
the biggest problem was the gearbox jumping out of 3rd on occasion, but not enough to spoil the fun!
To be honest I really wasn't pushing the car, but relying on the mid range torque
(3-5krpm mainly), of which there is plenty.
.
.
though on the few times I could plant the throttle
(couple of times up Honiston Pass, which was ace!) and got both the TVIS and turbo engaged it really does shift like no-ones business!
:laugh2:
more to come.
.
.
.
.
