We made the drive to silverstone with no drama, almost 4 hours driving and not a blip, the car ran brilliantly.
We went out for the sighting session to learn the track and immediately saw the megabusa's handling potential. Even at relatively slow speeds, the cars in front were rolling about and we felt like we were chilling out.
Once the sessions started, we were straight out, and giving it some welly. Around 12 laps of flat-out driving completed, and it just started to rain. It seemed like a god time to come in, so i headed for the pits. Only one small incident in that session- a bit of an overcook into a corner caused by overtaking other traffic- i was on the outside of a bend and ended up running out of track.... and going onto the run-off.
We went out again, and on the slippery semi-wet conditions managed to spin the car off. Unfortunately it stalled, and the battery didn't have enough power for a restart. Red flags came out and the tow truck came out to tow me in. Once back in the pits, turns out there's oil everywhere and its filled the catch-tank and overflowed everywhere else. Very weird. Past experience says that if you over-fill the dry-sump system, once the oil gets very hot it will naturally level itself by chucking out the overfill. Level seems ok, if a little lower than before, so i clean it all up and go out for a couple of test laps.
In from 2 laps and everything is fine, car ran great, temps are ok, pressure ok, so i go out again. 2 laps in, 105mph changing down from 6th to 4th, a little heel-and-toe, and BANG BANG BANG, sounds like a bunch of spanners dropped into my engine.... not good! Pull into the pit-lane and turn the engine off.
Once back in the paddock, i spend ages trying to work out whats wrong. The engine fires on all 4, pistons are ok, values ok, clutch ok, gearbox ok... all ok apart from the noise- and its LOUD. Very Loud. Chatted to a few people, starting to think its the "big end" or crank bearings, starved of oil. I trace all the oil and it turns out its been overflowing from the top of the sump tank - so the sump pump must have been pumping all the oil out of the engine! All a bit beyond me, i'll work it all out tomorrow....
