HELEN FROM THE DRIVER'S SEAT

HELEN GETS HER POWERS BACK.

Most-played in the garage this week - Van Halen

Injury of the week - liver damage.

Helper of the week - The Dermott, the David, and the boys of Novatech

HELEN FTDS April 2nd

Helen's ready to roll, but the Bear and the Beard are heading for a rolling road in Slough, and we're curious about her power levels these days.

The pilot was reporting an improvement in performance at the Cadwell trackday, experimentation with gearchanges suggested she wanted less rpm than ever. Less rev but more pull means presumably more torque. Precisely how much we aim to find out.

We book our little selves into Novatech - www.nt-r.com - for a session on the dyno.

Result?

I must admit, that's better than I had imagined. Clearly the exhaust and Dermott's  demon tweak on the cam timing have worked wonders, that's the most power I've ever had.

The bhp figure is 10bhp above what Jaguar claim for the engine, and if we assume they were lying, it's therefore far better than standard.

Torque though, oh yes! 310 lb of it. 30 above what even Jaguar claimed, probably 50 above reality. And it's lower in the rev range than before, which is why she was liking the short shifting. Now I know that there's every chance this engine will never exceed 5000rpm ever again!

That's the most power I've ever had, we've always shied away from modifying the engine at all. No wonder she was able to overcome the 70kg penalty at the Cadwell shakedown.

It offers a tantalising glimpse of the possibilities too, because the only mods to make this figure are a bigger throttle - Power4Peanuts again - and a slightly better exhaust, with a cunning devil leaning on the cam a little. The dyno suggests that what looked like a vague trackside guesstimate was in fact precisely right, we had 3 cars on the dyno, and this one was the only one not to get adjusted. She got her power run and sent home, no need to touch it. Now if we were to add say a ported head...

We feel better now.