After the disappointment of Import Allstars, I thought it might be worthwhile to give everyone a bit of a rundown as to what has been happening with DOCILE, and what we see happening in the future. I have been absent from this forum for some time due to the growth of our business and the personal commitment I have had to both growing it and better serving our customers. Unfortunately this has meant that over the last two years DOCILE has also been very much neglected.
Firstly a big thanks to those that have supported DOCILE over the years. It really does make a big difference and provides us with a lot of motivation. This makes it even harder when we have a bad day at the track because we know that not only have we let ourselves down, we have also let down our supporters.
The problems we had on the weekend were very frustrating and very simple. On the first pass a clip fell off one of the shift cables preventing me selecting gears. This pass was only a check-out pass on wastegate boost. On the following pass the boost controller was setup to achieve approx 40 psi in top gear. Unfortunately a problem with the setup meant that during the second pass boost peaked at 62 psi in 2nd gear! This was enough to lift the head on the engine. It is a huge shame as the car left well running a 1.39 60 (its best is a 1.30) and shifting into 2nd gear perfectly.
This was unfortunately always going to be DOCILEs last trip to the drag strip regardless of the outcome. We have reached what we consider to be the end of our development ladder with this chassis. We would have loved to run a 7 second pass, but unfortunately it was not to be. The limitations imposed by retaining the 4WD platform hinder reliability and our ability to run times that the engine is capable of. Safety is also a big concern in a car capable of running close to 300km/h, and we felt that the chassis could not offer the driver protection in a big crash that a proper tube chassis car can. We are very happy with what we have achieved to date, becoming the fastest evo in the world, and 2nd fastest 4 cylinder 4wd.
All is not lost however. Our engine development program for the 4G63 has us making about as much power as anyone in the world. We are committed to continuing our development with this engine as we feel that there is still a lot of potential available. Our current intention is to build a new chassis to compete in the 09/10 season. This chassis will be based on a US PRO MOD car. It will most likely use a late model Eclipse body. Our highest priority with a new car is to ensure absolute reliability of the drivetrain. The advantage with a RWD car is that we can purchase gearbox, driveshaft, diff and axle components that will easily cope with the sort of power we can produce. This means that we can get on with the job of developing the engine, tuning the chassis and making the car go quicker!
In the mean time we are working hard to support our customers efforts in Pro import and Sport Mod. We are looking forward to the debut of Mike Bradleys full tube EVO 9. This car certainly has the goods to run deep in the 7s and should be a competitive and reliable package. Our congratulations go out to Nikki Dunlop who has done an amazing job in her STM-built EVO 2, running 10.12 on her 2nd ever pass! More experience and seat time now has her running a 9.37 as well as becoming NZs fastest female import racer. We expect her to be running consistent high 8s next season. Congratulations also to Alistair Benson, breaking into the 9s at Allstars with his 1.8L GSR and running with the sort of consistency that would see him winning a bracket race and all in full street legal trim!! Heat Treatments are gearing up for a huge season next year. The skyline is being prepped for another assault on Aussie soil in August, and the 350Z is coming along well. We are involved heavily in the tuning and development of both cars and look forward to seeing the 350Z debut at the track!
So thanks again to all who have supported us over the years. We will be back on track soon and hope that we can count on your support with our new chassis when it is complete. DOCILE is also for sale and we would welcome any serious enquiries regarding the car. There is nothing we would like more than to see someone else step up and continue development of this car as we know it has more potential!
Andre
