As usual, the modifications meant to be done during the winter were started at the beginning of the summer. At this time, the cockpit was under work. Sparco racing seats with belts were fitted and a roll cage as well. The cage is from an old rally car and the seats were also second-hand items. However, after some patching and washing the seats looked like new.

The roll cage was put in place without major issues. The dashboard has to be cut from the ends and it looks now quite awful. Also, the inside door handles needed some modification because of some parts of the roll cage. The seats were equipped with mounting frames (the passenger seat can be turned to allow entering into the back seat). The roll cage was fastened with bolts and welding, and the diagonal bar is detachable. No mods were done to the back seat itself.

Some parts of sound insulating were not installed again, especially the ones behind the dashboard. Noise inside the cabin was not significantly incresed but the engine sound is now a little more pronounced, this helps to detect some problems like engine pinking. The car feels now more like a race car because the chassis became more rigid, and also the seat is located low.

In practice, the engine was left untouched. This is because it has served so reliably during several summers, despite of the boost pressure that have been raised on every track day.

The first event of the summer was the GFF Track Day at Ahvenisto, Hämeenlinna. The modifications were barely finished before that. The bigger brakes mentioned earlier were now in use, equipped with standard Mintex brake pads, supplied by Ricambi Heikka. Again, the day was some kind of a learning experience, and the best lap time was 1:45. Not bad, when taking the broken diaphragm of the dump valve into account. Videos.

Because of the perfect fit of the race seat and increased safety feeling after fitting the roll cage, some situations like losing the tyre grip at turns were not so scary any more. This has significant effect on driving. The driving on track is also more fun, when you don't have to work hard just to prevent falling from the drivers seat.

Increased speed and revs have brought some nasty problem, the bolts fastening the downpipe into the turbo seem to be loosening. After the track day, the copper gasket between the turbo and downpipe was deformed and started to choke the exhaust gases. Different methods were tried to prevent this, like Nord Lock washers and even welding the bolts in place. Those did not seem to help.

The broken dump valve was changed to a large China-item, that seem to be working nicely. The load spring needed some adjusting to prevent running problems after gear change.

The second Fiat/Lancia track day of the summer, at Botniaring, was held at 5.8. However, I have been visited the track with my friend also earlier during the summer. The standard brake pads, that have also worked well, were changed to Mintex sport items.

Like in Ahvenisto, the weather was great and track surface dry. However, there was some problem with the boost pressure, it was decreasing during the day. The first thought was of course that the dump valve was again faulty. With 0,7 bar boost, the best lap time was 1:33,52. Videos.

After the track day, some investigations were done to find the reason for the boost problem. Broken air hose after the turbo was found to be guilty. The hose has been damaged from outside by hot exhaust gases at some time when the bolts of the wastegate were loose. After changing the hose, the engine was really acting like different one!

At the end of the summer, a drag race contest held in Kalajoki was also attended. No improvement to the ET or trap speed of the last summer, but several around 14 seconds results were achieved. Videos.

At the autumn, we had a some driving evening at Botniaring because the weather were still nice. There was some difficulties at the beginning (like a flat tyre) but otherwise the evening was great. After adjusting the wheel toe setting, the car become much better to handle and I got 1:30,00 lap time. Videos.

One of the greatest innovations of the night was to disable the brake servo. After doing that, the brakes felt much better and it was easier to prevent them from locking. Never goimg to use the servo on track again!

The suspension still seem to be needing further modifications, something in the front suspension is sagging too much. Lower suspension arms will be equipped with polyurethane bushes. Also the shock absorbers will need new top mountings. Here is some work to be carried out during the next winter. Also, it seem to be worth of visiting the tyre store after the summer...