Sport   Motorsport   Touring Cars

The Inside Track with Motorbase: We're moving forward and the future looks bright!

By Motorbase / MJP Media | 18 February 2015

Motorbase Performance discuss their enduring relationship with Ford and explain why the use of their Environmental Test Laboratory is so important to the development of the team's BTCC cars.

Engine installation testing at Ford's Environmental Test Laboratory

Here at Motorbase it has been a winter of change for us, but the one permanent fixture has been our enduring relationship with Ford. We work well together as they understand importance of the British Touring Car Championship globally and we understand the fantastic proposition that is the Ford Focus. We have been running the car for a while now and have had some outstanding results.

Since last season the team has been working hard alongside Mountune on an all new version of Ford's EcoBoost engine for the 2015 season and are pleased with the results so far. Last week we got the opportunity to run the engine at Ford's UK testing facility to gain valuable data ahead of our spring testing programme. Oly Collins, our BTCC team manager, gave us his thoughts on the process:

"We've recently completed an engine installation test at Ford UK's testing facility in Dunton Essex. The lab we have been using is called the ETL (Environmental Test Laboratory). This part of the facility is a state of the art rolling road which is located in a temperature controlled cell which means we can operate the car in specific conditions with 100% consistency. For example, we specify a temperature similar to those we experience throughout the season. We then specify the simulated wind speed and we can go through various tests using those parameters. With this we can change the cooling characteristics of the car and monitor the cooling efficiency of the intercooler, radiator and oil coolers etc."

Alex Martin in the Motorbase prepared Dextra Racing Ford Focus

Oly continued: "Because we're on the rolling road and not on track, we can also monitor live telemetry of a variety of temperature readings provided via thermocouples spread over the cooling devices as well as all the other relevant engine sensors. We under use the facility for what it's capable of. It's able to simulate conditions of minus 40 to plus 40 degrees and can simulate high and low altitude as well as different sun exposure as well. This is only a small piece of the technology located at Dunton, it's hugely interesting to see what goes on in the research and development of the road going vehicles and the amazing attention to detail.

"Developing the new EcoBoost engine with a whole new installation is always going to be a challenge for a team - so to be able to use this facility is great for our program. It can save us days of circuit testing where the conditions are changeable and you can never get 100% reliable data. We had a 100% finishing record with Mat Jackson last year which helped us secure runner up in the Independents Championship and 4th overall. It's tests like these which help us to achieve these results. We plan to utilise the test track at Dunton prior to each race meeting for our systems shakedown throughout the year."

Alex Martin is racing for Motorbase under the Dextra Racing banner

There is no doubt in our minds that we will once again be challenging for title honours this year and we look forward to seeing all our fans at the BTCC Media Day at Donington Park on March 24th to show off the 2015 team line up!

Motorbase Performance

Touring Car content supplied by MJP Media