Well thanks to my dealer I got a day at winton park with Peter Fitzgerald. It was originally meant to be 6 but 2 pulled out early and 2 didnt turn up, which left me and one other guy with the entire track for the day.

Day started with Peter taking us through some basics theory of track racing, and then Winton Park theory. He then took each us for a "spirited" (but not fast) drive around the track. He then handed over to us for a few laps.

In this first session I was hideous (Never tracked before) and managed a best lap of 2:02 and a bit of change.

We then broke for lunch, had a few yarns, cup of coffee and hit the track again. This time we went for a few more laps by ourselves, and then Peter jumped in the car with us and gave us a real lesson. This lesson was one of the best I have ever had (But wait there is more) He yelled and screamed at me and I finally figured out the right lines, only problem was I couldnt get the car to go there. I had a few more laps by myself after this and managed to come down to a mid 1:52. In amongst this I ran out of oil (Engine light on) and the car stalled going 80k around turn 2. I spun full circle, managed to restart the car, limped to the pits and added about 700ml of oil (wanted to make sure I had some left in case of emergency). The part that amazed me was that I had my oil and filter changed last night and they put 4ltrs of Mobile1 Gold in. So I had managed to use 4ltrs of oil driving 200k's freeway and 200ks track . I had to do the brake pedal ecu reset to remove the engine light.

We then had another a bit of a break and this time Peter spent some time in each of our cars driving, with the other car chasing. It was the first time he had tried this and I was only to happy to tell him that it was by far the single best lesson I have ever had. Unfortunately during this we had to stop for refueling as Peter and the other guy we suffering from fuel starvation (1/4 tank of fuel). We refilled and I took over chasing Peter, I managed to push my times down to low 1:51 but had to pull up early as I had run out of oil again. Engine light, stall and full circle again I put the remaining oil in and we decided to let the cars cool down a bit.

By this time we had about 30 min left and we decided to have one last run. I have to say, I nailed it :D I ran 3 laps that felt absolutely awesome and to make thing better, when I came in I had run a 1:49:56.

Overall it was an amazing day. I still cant believe I went through 5ltrs of oil though.

Cheers

Andrew

 

Nice, glad you like Winton. Do you think you need suspension upgrade on that track?

If it is engine light, not oil light. I will say it is more than just oil. Should keep a DTC on the PCM really.

I admire your courage to drive on after the first stall, even the Mazda guys are there to hold your hand.

I have 0.5L for morning session of Sandown (that is 100km of track)... 5L is a lot

 

Interesting................ but 5 litres of oil seems way too excessive


B...free
michael

 

Suspension would give me at least 1 if not 2 secs there I reckon.

There were no Mazda guys there, just me, Martyn (the other 8 driver) Peter and his offsider (ohh and the ambo driver).

I agree 5ltrs is a ridiculous amount of oil, but in contrast Martyn didnt refil the whole time he was there. Yes it was an engine light not oil hence I was happy to continue driving. Now that I have reset the ecu is there a way to pull the error code?

Andrew

 

Sounds like a fun day, much improved by the low numbers

If it was the engine light, why did you keep adding oil? That amount of oil consumption is waaay too much -- the oil burn would have been visible (ie, smoke) My experience is similar to taka. All sounds a bit strange, so get it checked out

 

I just re-read my first post and I think I may have confused you, heck I confused myself!.

I was trying to find reasons for the engine light and in doing so found the oil level to be very low. That is the reason I refilled both times.

I checked the oil before leaving Benalla and added another 250ml. I have checked the oil level since coming home and its pretty much full, ie used almost nothing on the 200k trip home.

Remembering that my car has done 6500k's and so uses more oil than those over 10000k's

cheers

Andrew

 

Good stuff auzoom. 1:49s is pretty good for your first time at Winton.

I have done 1:46s on standard tyres and 1:44s on Dunlop R race tyres. These times were done with every thing else stock.

I have done a lap or two (or thousand) around Winton though :D

The RX-8s love a tight track like Winton. The HSV's and FPV's dont even get close :p

 

Side track for a sec...Can someone tell me, how much oil would go into an empty car?

I am trying to confirm...I got my oil filter changed yesterday and they changed the oil at the same time (duh). They used a 5ltr container of oil which had 1 ltr left in it. does this sound right?

Andrew

 

Gomez will tell you to read the owner's menu but it is 3.8L

Cheers
Taka

 

Cheers Glenn :D

Sorry Gomez :-|

Thanks Taka ;-)

Andrew

 

so Taka do u mean that eveytime when our dealers change the oil for us, we should ask them for the remaining 1.2litre.?

 

Yep you payed for 5 liters if its not used , because the car only takes 3.8 you are entitled to get the rest back . :D

B......free
michael

 

You can "politely" ask for them.

 

I asked the service guy once but he replied there wouldn't be any oil left... 5 litres.. all gone... McGrath Sutherland... thats where i have my car serviced...

 

The worst part is....they probably also charged you for the full five litres, too Don't start me!

 

If that is the case then they are over filling. Happenend to me once on my 20K service. I hardly got any oil back so I check it at work and foung it to be way, way over. Took it back for them to do it properly. I mentioned how the manual states to never over fill the oil and ranted a little about them trying to "****" (exact wording) my car in front of a few customers. Anyway ended up getting a couple free services out of it :D

 

Andrew, the way I read it, you added 1250ml of oil......(assuming you keep a one litre bottle in the car and you bought more oil in Benalla...) You didn't burn through 5 litres. T'would be scary if you did.

The unknown in the mix at this point is what was the oil level before you left home for Benalla? I know you had an oil change done......but was the level checked properly afterward? Was the car level when the dipstick was read? Even the dealers **** this up occasionally....mine did once, but it was overfull. I'm assuming your oil level wasn't spot-on before you tracked the car, and was in fact a little low. It's a positive sign that the oil level remained static on the run home though.

As a matter of interest, what tyre pressure did Peter have you track the car at? How do the tyres look now?

Gomez.

 

Oh oh Gomez enlightened me....

ANDREW!

The bottom reading of the dipstick is not absolute bottom!!!! It is about 1.7L from full. In my experience it is only about 1.2-1.4L from the top mark (FULL).

As Stuart and Gomez says, never overfill the top mark on the dipstick, but the low mark is not the rock bottom

Hope this will make you feel matter

 

Sounds like you had an amazing day Andrew. Good on you.

<makes mental note to pack spare litre of oil for the RENEW track day this Sunday>

 

While I was having my recall work done I asked them to check the Engine codes.

C1093 - ABS ESP LAMP SWITCH DEFECTIVE
C1994 - ABS ESP CONTINUOS OPERATION
U2023 - FF-EPS
U1900 - FF-RKE
P0336 - FF-PCM CLIP SENSOR "A" CIRCUT RANGE/PERFORMANCE

Any ideas anyone?

Andrew

 

Sorry, can't help but I can say that my oil use at Wakefield was neglible.

 

Hopefully, sco might read this ......

 

OK I just realised there were a bunch of questions I had missed as well.

Gomez, I had the Oil changed and the used 5 litre bottle of Mobil1 Gold. I got the bottle when they had finished and it had a bit over 1litre left in it (after reading a few of the post I would say that there was about 1.2 ltrs left). So, I set out to benella the next day with roughly 3.8 litres of oil in the car. Benalla is roughly 200k's and I had done about 200k's on the track when I had the first engine light. I check the dipstick then (CARDINAL sin I know as teh car was hot and didnt wait the 5 min from the oil temp mid point!!!!) and it was showing almost nothing, so I added half of what was in the oil bottle. the dipstick then showed just a reading I was happy with.

Later on I got the light again and added the remaining oil...roughly 500ml. I then finished up and had to fill up to get home, so I checke dthe oil and again was low, so added about 500ml. Check of oil level properly the next day found the level to be just udner full. I I guess you are right Gomez, Ididnt use 5ltrs, I used....1.7 litres (is that right?).

btw, whats the issue with over filling? WHy would it be a problem?

Andrew

 

Taka could...but OHHH Thats right...he's been a BAAAADDDDDD BOY :-|

Andrew

 

The last day at Sandown I used roughly 1.7 - 2 litres of oil for around 200km of track driving. Sandown is pretty high speed though with a fair amount of time in higher gears reving near redline. So I guess you would call that higher load on the engine which should also mean higher oil consumption in theory... I think :o