Our DCY Evo7 RS Time Attack car began life over 6 years ago as a standard Evo which was brought in by us direct from Japan as I wanted a super exceptionally clean car - especially on the underside! 

 

The sole intension for this car was to build a fast and RELIABLE track / Time Attack car running around 500 bhp, and even though the car was not going to be used on the road, we still decided to SVA it so the car could be used for events like TOTB, as well as being more attractive if it was ever to be sold. 

 

Since then the DCY Evo has had three major re-vamps over the past three winters, so to help us both out I’m going to split this feature into Stage 1, 2 and 3!  Here goes……

 

Stage 1

Before building an engine in-house because of time issues and the thought I might save a few quid (!), I thought I would try my luck on the ever expanding MLR by putting a post up asking if anyone had a brand new forged engine for sale. Ok, this was a long shot, especially 3 years ago… but hey bingo, a guy under the username “C” was selling a complete engine already built but not mapped, which even came with Pectel T6 ECU/intercooler, special wiring loom / both manifolds and GT35 turbo - basically everything I would need.

 

The engine had been built by DTW (Dave Wild) from Harlow, a very methodical guy with 30 years experience.  I spoke with Dave several times afterwards, and as I’d bought an engine off a guy who I’d never met (and still haven’t to this day) asked him to crack on and get it mapped on his engine dyno, as I wanted to know if the risk had paid off!  After Dave had  done the mapping it was ready to collect and fit into the 7, which meant all I had to do is drop it in the car and do a fuelling system.  Sounds simple! Well nothing is ever quite that simple with highly modified cars.

 

As this is Stage 1 we were more interested in just getting the engine fitted and getting it running, so you could say the RS shell work was slightly over looked at this point. Out comes the original motor which was sold to Nick at NR Autosport and in went the forged lump , fuel system was soon complete running swirl pot and 1 Bosch 044 pump with Walbro 255 lift pump.

 

Pat Herborn arrived shortly after to finish off the custom wiring loom and a week or so later the car was up and running.  At this point we hadn’t even touched the interior, just added  suspension and new wheels shod with R888 tyres and went straight into my first Time Attack season with no shake down and zero track experience at all - and all in a 650bhp motor!

 

To be honest it was pretty daunting and I realised I was at the start of a BIG learning curve. Although the car performed well my driving needed a bit of work to say the least, as expected, and I finished mid-table-ish in Club Class for much of the season, once we’d sorted a few teething troubles; split Magnus inlet manifold, turbo failing, and a pretty big “off” at Brands Hatch!  This was all part of that BIG learning curve I’d expected and it was clear there was a lot of work ahead to reach the top of the field if I was to realise my aim!

 

Stage 2

Now I had the bug…. but also hadn’t forgotten this was also about promoting DCY as a 10 year old very successful company, so we needed to some good results to show what we are capable of.  As soon as the last round of TA finished the car was straight into the workshop for serious new prep and spec, as every year the whole Time Attack scene was getting bigger and the cars getting quicker .

 

We decided to leave the engine alone, not even take it out. After all, it had run faultlessly all season so my thoughts were don’t touch what isn’t broken. It was the chassis we were most interested in and with Mick (DCY’s mechanic) having vast experience in chassis work/geometry having built many of James Thomson’s British touring cars for 10 years prior to working for us, he was the man for this job!

 

The main thing in mind was “we need a light car”, but also a safe one as the speeds hit by these monsters on circuit was phenomenal.  The interior was stripped along with some serious lightening of the shell, and a T45 cage was bought in from Custom Cages and fitted by us as 99% of everything we do is done in house.  We also modified many parts of it due to the amount of metal that had been taken out of the shell, which included re-developing the rear end diff mount to tie into part of the cage to retain rigidity of the car.  Whilst the new suspension and other geometry parts were on order, the next task was to complete the interior including a repaint in Scotia White which was accomplished in just 3 weeks.

 

As you’ve probably noticed, a lot of the car is carbon fibre. One of the main areas we could save weight was on the doors thanks to a great sponsor deal off Seibon. The doors are already incredibly light and give around a 20kg saving on each one, but I made them even lighter by gutting the insides as they are designed for road applications!

 

After “many” hours fitting handles / plastic windows which was a nightmare job, they were fitted to the car along with a carbon AMS roof skin which was also an amazing fit but always keeping safety in mind we did fit extra roof bars above the drivers seat . We now have carbon doors, roof, bonnet, wider CF wings and boot lid which is also wafer thin due to me lightening it further.

 

This left nowhere to mount the large rear wing but this was always planned to be mounted from the rear chassis legs with again light weight T45 thin tube. The spoiler sits at the correct height for most down force and is now very rigid after fitting wire ties running to the roof skin.

You maybe getting the gist by now that lightness and rigidity is a major part of producing a good handling car, and not needing as much bhp which then leads to less engine stress which is always a good thing!

 

Leading onto the underside of the car, the front and rear subframes where stripped and lightened along with the front alloy bottom arms, whilst the large moustache bar at the rear was replaced with the tiny alloy AMS eliminator kit.  Various other parts were changed along the way but moving on …….

 

We needed a wider body to incorporate wider rims - although some say you can “over tyre a car”, which is true in some cases!  Without going to carbon wheels which cost a small fortune, I chose the lightest Rays wheels; Volk CE28’s which are the lightest fully forged wheels, going for the Skyline offset on a 10.5” rim, again with Toyo R888 tyres.  This lead onto needing wider rear fenders too, which Rob Barnes from Sumo Power supplied using the Voltex wide arch kit, but we slightly modified these as well and blended them into the rear bumper for neatness.

 

Next on the list was the Glebe dog box fitted with Ikyea shifter for faster shifts and more strength, along with Carbonetic diffs throughout, a carbon prop, Hotbits suspension with DCY’s own spring rates, DCY geometry set up (which is producing winning times from Clio Cup through to MLR sprint cars). Decals were done and we were almost due to arrive at Donington Park in 2008 for the first round of Time Attack with no practice whatsoever under our belts!

 

The car felt amazing apart from a couple of problems when spoiler almost fell off, but we won’t go into that!!! I still managed to meet the lap record for our class and fastest Evo award from the MLR, but sadly didn’t manage to get on the podium. For the remainder of the season I won the MLR Fastest Evo award at rounds 1, 2, 3 and 5 and finished second for most of the season. I was happy with that!!  Reliability and preparation being the key!  

 

As you can see we are not missing many areas here and the car weighed in (dry) at only 1093kg.

  

Stage 3

After what was a very successful year we weren’t going to “stand still” so to speak.  Upping the game and making the car better is always talked about and that’s what leads me onto the present time, which is almost “PERFECTION”!

 

Another year flew by into the beginning of 2009, and with it came time to refresh my engine with a new spec and new power as it would have been silly not to modify/improve the front end while the engine was out!  Back in January I removed the engine and thought long and hard whether to refresh it ourselves as we already do loads of race engines, albeit only a hand full of Evo engines, but in the end I decided it was time to give it to someone with VAST Evo engine experience so I handed it to Simon Norris for new spec including higher compression ratio and “a few” other changes!

 

While the engine was away in capable hands , we were doing more work on the shell. I seam welded and cut as much metal out of the front end as I dare, again for lightness. Then decisions decisions – do I fully paint the underneath knowing it’s a mammoth and time consuming job to get it to my standard??   Game on!  Off came the subframes /diffs etc etc and it was time to spend a couple of weeks preparing the underneath and engine bay ready for paint, before handing it over to Martin Pinder from York Accident Repair Centre, who made a fantastic job of it as usual.

 

I have literally gone through every nut and bolt, every single part was stripped and either replaced, re-painted or polished.  Thanks to Darren Round (Roundsport) who supplied me with a new T45 front subframe, new 3 way AST suspension with shortened struts and again DCY spring rates were used.  A brand new pedal box was the other thing on the shopping list so we could get rid of that horrible massive heavy servo!

 

By the time the underneath was rebuilt the engine was back, but this wasn’t as simple as just dropping it back in as I wanted to tidy all the piping and positioning of parts in the engine bay to make it UN-CLUTTERED and easy to work on . . . or to put it another way; I didn’t want to see any wiring AT ALL, and Shane from www.motosparkz.co.uk soon sorted that out!!

 

I spoke earlier about upping the game, so it would be rude not to have fitted a turbo that was capable of 800bhp. This also meant new fuelling and injectors along with different intercooler pipe work and solid engine mounts.  As the car now has more power I needed a gearbox I could rely on, and wanting to stick to the Glebe dog box as I’ve always got on well with it and liked my ratios, it was time to upgrade to their new super strong larger dog kit which I am yet to test but have been told its “good”.   After hitting high oil temps last year we also fitted a larger cooler which was difficult to fit in with me having side exit titanium exhaust, but we managed!

 

Aero is the final part of this project keeping the same carbon bumper but now with quick release and running a large front splitter going all the way back to the subframe acting as a flat under carriage, The rear is to have a very different rear diffuser fitted in the near future but for the time been it will stay as you can see in the pics.

 

The car now weighs in at 1090kgs - not a lot less than last year, but with bigger aero / turbo / heavier dog box it’s very difficult (and I would say near impossible) to get an 800bhp Evo 7, 8 or 9 below 1060 kgs!  I know, I’ve tried!!

 

 

CONCLUSION 

Even though this project has again ran a little over time schedule due to DCY business work load , their has been no corners cut and nothing rushed.  I’ve always considerd preparation is the main key to DCY’s Evos reliability and success. “It’s now better than a brand new car and we’re now ready for another successful season – or the last few rounds!   It’s all been well worth it to see the finished article, but this last stage did take 5 months to get it to this standard!