It was originally an aircooled beetle. There's not much left....
Couldn't really spot anywhere to put this, so this forum seemed the most appropriate, as requested, thread on the buggy, have a couple of
pictures and I'll flesh it out in a moment:
It was originally an aircooled beetle. There's not much left....
Looks like a grown up version of this
What sort of suspension does it have?
Edited to fix image
[Edited on 28/6/13 by scudderfish]
Can't see the pic.
It's Beetle-derived torsion beams front and rear, custom arms, torsion bars removed for coilovers instead, etc.
[Edited on 28/6/13 by PhillipM]
Ah, I can see it now 
You will be a member of NORC then.
ATB Agriv8
Nah, we tend to race with the AWDC, we did the odd NORC event a few years back but that's all.
Right, sorry about the cut and paste job, but I really didn't feel like re-writing all this, anyway, I think it should be formatted okay, just
give me a nudge if you spot a mistake:
quote:
Well, here we go, the car's been built between me and my mate Ed (his car), he originally built up the frame as a cheap car to compete in the local regional championships in, total build cost was around £3.5k originally, which is fairly cheap as there are plenty of machines in the championships costing between £30-80k+. (And some 150k these days).
Having said that it's about triple that original cost now....oops.
The build started before I even knew Ed a fair few years back, cost and time constraints had meant the car had been built around heavily modified VW torsion bar suspension bought in from the states (they use in on their Baja buggies so it's cheap and works reasonably well). It was actually just chopped off a knackered old Baja 1000 car.
The engine was a bored and stroked 2180cc Beetle unit, on twin 45's, mild camshaft and various modifications to the rockers and heads, again, straight from the donor car, along with the 091 transaxle.
The first time I met him, I gave it the once over and told him the dizzy would give him problems, it wasn't too healthy, and had been mucked about with to stop the engine pinging (given it was original designed as a 1.6 litre unit...)
Anyhow, a phonecall shortly after he attended his first event revealed the dizzy had exploded and scuppered any chance of a finish.
Which resulted in a fair amount of p*ss taking for the next week, and eventually ended up with me getting roped in for years of work on the bloody thing afterword, should have kept quiet...
So the last few years we've been working the buggy over between us with upgrades here there and everywhere, ready to enter it in a full championship rather than the few clubman events we've run in on shakedown tests, it's been stripped bare a few times, and work had been seriously slow on it for the previous 6 months because of work commitments.
Anyway, being a 2wd budget vehicle, the racing is interesting, as there are no weight limits on 2wd vehicles, whereas most 4wd cars are 1200 kilo's plus, so we're half a tonne up already with more to loose yet...the downside is, get stuck in some slippery stuff and you can't see which way they went when they put 4-500bhp through all 4 tyres....
Back to history, the original engine specifications were along these lines:
2180cc VW aircooled engine, built from 1.6 unit.
- 4-1 manifold,
- Carbon/Mica filled PTFE gaskets (heatsoak prevention).
- Dellorto 45's + custom inlet manifold
- Engle 120 camshaft
- Needle roller rockers, high lift 1.4:1 ratio
- Full flow casing with external oil coolers
- Modified cowling with electric fan assist.
- Counterbalanced forged steel crank.
- 3D ignition system (MegaJolt, built it for him after the dizzy problems), I did the ignition mapping DIY.
Along the way the buggy has had several new rear ends, 4 suspension setups, a new front end, 3 different gearboxes/linkages/pedal setups, and 3 different braking setups, I'll go into detail on these at some point. (*Make that 2 new front ends, 6-7 suspension rejigs, couple of rear ends, 4 gearboxes, 5 brake setups, etc, it's a while since I wrote this....)
Now, that may sound excessive and a bit chop and change - but usually they've coincided with a change in the chassis (or an exploding gearbox...) in order to keep the entire chassis working as well as we could within our budget.
The first change came shortly after it's second event, in which there were a few problems, the first was some pretty crap rear pads, from a 3-letter named source, they were originally sponsors of the local club series so they had to be used - they were bright green ones- fell to pieces, and the backing plates then ground into the disc, welded themselves there and then ground away at the nice ally hub.
The result of which was some different pads, Mintex 1144's with the backing plates painted green on the rear, Wilwood Poly A's up front - then Hi-spec 4 pots fitted at the rear and some new discs.
The second was the gearbox exploding, this was the original box sourced with the engine so it was to be expected, another box was duly sought, and the engine and rear frame pulled out for fitment, the new box was a five speed version though, which gave us a little more pace as the VW tended to drop off cam, this was later resolved through some careful carb jetting and linkage tweaks, but the shorter gears were welcome at the time.
Of course, the problem with a five speed box is that it's slightly longer, which meant a simple gearbox change meant we had to rejig all the linkages, the cabling, and the entire back end and engine mounts needed moving an inch back.
This in itself mean the driveshafts had to be altered, and new panels formed up out of ally sheet.
So next time you are swearing during a gearbox swap, just remember, it could be worse....(*A lot bloody worse, you want to see what this winter held....few more walls of text first though)
The fun is in getting the engine on the box (yes, that is the right way around), which takes 4-5 goes to get the splines located right, which, when you are holding an engine made from sharp aircooling fins, gets you some funny looks when you've a dozen 'scratch marks' in a pattern down your arms, whoops.
The second box came around 2 events later on, after a final drive turned itself into smeared lump in objection to landing a 6ft drop off a small quarry under full power. Ah well, the joys of cars built out of scrapyard bits.
;D
This time we sourced several boxes while we decided what to do with it, the engine was down on power and there was a brand new 3.5 Nissan V6 sat on a crate in the workshop, a Porsche carrera 4wd box was duly acquired by Ed, along with a standard 2wd box.
It was decided to stay 2wd as they're more fun to drive, and it's more fun when you leave the 4wd boys, and it would have taken us about 10 times our budget to do what we wanted properly - unfortunately the next events were fairly soon, and there was no way the 3.5 V6 was going to shoehorn in with the necessary plumbing without a complete new rear end and suspension setup, so instead, in went a 5-speed Renault Master van gearbox, complete with 9" differential, again, this meant new linkages and tweaks to the chassis, along with a spring change due to the different CoG, we finished at 4:30 the morning of the next event....
Now, the problem with concentrating mainly on sorting out the rear, is that, at 5:30am, the morning of the event, after a short nap, you really don't want a whining noise to appear on the shakedown drive before loading it up on the lorry.
You most definately don't want that sound to be whining front wheel bearing, and you definately don't want to be 2 miles from home when it starts getting worse.
Once a bearing goes on something like this, they don't last long at all under the impact stresses, unlike in a car where it'll whine for 2000 miles, you're lucky to get 2000 yards...
Unfortunately, the smallest of the workshops must be 2010 yards away, because the wheel fell off trundling around the last corner back to it.
In itself that's not a problem, the way the buggy is setup you can post a running stage time with just 3 wheels.........
What IS a problem, is that fabricated steel wheel, meeting a beautiful but rather softer alloy Wilwood '5-star' rally hub.
After turning the 5-star hub into a 1-disc smear, it decided to take a chunk out of the from calipers just for kicks before it did it's party trick of wandering off down the lane.
Shiiiittttt.
We've got spare bearings, but no spare hubs, so that's the end of that event already, what fun.
Fortunately, I was driving back up to the workshops at the time, so I just caught Ed running around the corner before a wheel fell off, which gave me a laugh, even if it didn't him.
The next event was the final one we attended before taking it back in the workshop for a rethink, a local club event where you can just turn up and drive, all went well that morning, bar getting the lorry stuck in the staging area and having to tow it out.
The engine was running a little rough, but then, it's been due some new piston rings and probably some new shells for a while, but we couldn't see the point of spending money on the VW engine, it does the job but when it goes bang, well, there was that V6 waiting in the workshop....
This probably annoyed the poor overworked veedub, after being originally designed as a 1.6 with about 40 horsepower, for some greasemonkey to pull it apart, subject it to a bore out of existing holes, put in holes that shouldn't be there, push the output to 120bhp and then run it at 5000rpm, solid mounted to a buggy driven by a pair of nutters with suicidal tendancies, well, perhaps it had every right to to be a bit ****ed off and spit a shell that day....
The competition in the 2wd class included an RS200 look-a-like, and a similar machine to ours but with a long-travel double wishbone front end, 1.6 turbo engine with ~190bhp (More like around 120 when it got going tbh!), but it had a pretty poor frame compared to ours.
We were quite happy after the first run, setting a time 12 seconds faster than him (7 mile stage), which got us some mutterings from a competitor power steering failing and his engine overheating.
What we didn't tell him was we'd had to stop for 30 seconds at the bottom of the hill, as the carbs flooded the engine because of bouncing floats.....well, no point rubbing it in is there, that's what the next lap is for....
Especially when you'd lost time yourself as the VW had thrown a belt and you'd lost PAS and overheated the engine yourself. B)
After rigging a new belting system up, we were ready to go out for the second stage, with a better idea of the course allowing Ed to pick up the pace on the corners and avoid the ripples on the exit to get what power we had down, we worked out at 43 seconds up from our last time around after two thirds of the way around the course, on par with the some of the spaceframe 4wd guys running there, but we were loosing power, the engine was starting to blow a little smoke, but we had to finish the stage to get back to service area anyway - so full throttle it is.
Out of the marshland they called a corner halfway around the course, the car simply would not slog it's way out of the mud, struggling to pull second gear where normally we would have been in the top of third, onto the next straight, top of 5th at ~80mph over ripples left by the bigger cars digging in on the power - imagine speedbumps 2 feet apart at 80mph - and the engine spun a shell, the shock and friction as it attempted to weld to the crank dropped the engine revs massively and with a locked rear axle and the back end already snaking as it was running over the ripples, the car immediately spun several times, we ended up travelling backwards at around 60-70mph, downhill on wet grass toward a stone wall.
Now, we weren't too concerned about the buggy as we know how strong it is - the entire frame is T45 tubing, it would have made a mess but be fixable - but we knew for a fact that there were spectators behind the wall and the buggy would flatten it like a bowling ball hitting smarties tubes, or go over the top, thankfully the tyres eventually dug in and scrubbed a lot of speed off before we got close.
With Ed hard on the footbrake and attempting to bring the front end back around with the steering, I hung onto the left hand fiddle brake and between us we managed to slew the buggy around to a stop away from the wall anyway.
Some good natured cursing ensued in the fight to restart the engine, which luckily hadn't welded itself solid, and once it fired into a nice, uneven beat with lashings of rattles, we limped the remainder of the stage in first gear, and announced our retirement to the marshalls.
We posted an 8m40s stage time.
Which amusingly was still faster than a third of the competitors...so the car had a bit of potential against the local racers. So long as we stopped breaking it. (*This theme continues for years....)
Ooops:
The diagnosis was terminal, we went home and hatched plans, coming to the conclusion that the 3.5 V6 was just too big for the current chassis and we may as well start from scratch with it - as we could use it as a stressed member for a double wishbone front and rear. Basically you'd end up with a new car and some old bits tacked on...
Given the buggy was meant to be a low-budget challenge, this was wiped off the list and an RX-8 renesis engine accidentally made it's way into the workshop.
;D
Quick rundown on the chassis before I go into the Renesis conversion:
Chassis-
- Mixture of 1.75"-3" T45 steel tubing, rotary draw bent, weight was a touch over 770 kilos. You can quite happily lift the front with one person and walk around with the car, but certainly not as light as a kitcar.
- Rear setup was 4 gas pressure monotubes, consisting of 2 Bilstein dampers, 2 Fox adjustable coilovers, all remote res. nitrogen charged, giving around 13 inches of rear suspension travel, these act on a rear torsion bar setup with heavily braced arms, again, made from T45 tube, the bars are rising rate and there's a secondary assist torsion bar which comes into play after 10" of travel.
- Front setup is now 2 Fox coilovers aiding a rising rate twin torsion bar front end adapted from the VW setup, approximately 9" of travel up front.
- Brakes are a mixture of small 2 pot Wilwoods up front and Hispec 4 pots on the back, linked with braided hoses to 2 AP master cylinders on a balance bar with a homemade pedal box, it also sports a pair of hydraulic handbrakes/fiddle brake setup to brake individual wheels for turning the front end in quicker (or donuts).
Solid discs (less weight) all around matched with the uprated pads.
- Wheels were our own steels - 15x6J, weighing in at 5.8kilos, fitted with 215/75 Bridgestone M/T's.
It's absolutely hilarious to drive, but not exactly the most sophisticated or good-looking car in the world I'll admit
And, onto the engine change:
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Right, job number one was to mock up and adapter plate to get the RX-8 engine onto the VW gearbox, as well as machine a new flywheel with a counterbalance weight to fit a smaller clutch, as the the Mazda unit is too large for the bellhousing.
So, a decent 2800lb pressure plate, plus an AP cerametallic 4-puck clutch plate, with the centre cut out and a VW one pressed in, made it's way onto the engine:
Which lets us bolt the engine on for mock-up of the ancillaries and hoses, before taking it back off and machining the various brackets and fixtures out of ally to keep the weight down - as most of you know, it's easier to mock-up in steel as you can just whack the MIG on it to tack something in place - but it's a hell of a weight penalty when you add up the amount of brackets and adaptors on a car, so all the final versions will be ally where they can be.
And a couple of hours work to get the exhaust manifold sorted out - unequal length manifold as the centre port is siamesed on these, like an a-series, so the centre branch meets at a different length to the others to keep it from causing problems with pulse tuning.
As you can see, still not touched the plumbing!
We've kept the standard intake manifold on this engine, as although it's quite large, it's an extremely good design, with several variable intake ports on it, replacing it with throttle bodies would result in a marginal top end gain for the cost of a huge amount of midrange.
We had massive problems with a fooked Microtech ECU we were supplied, which isn't fun when the only bloke who maps them is several hours trip away and really couldn't be arsed to do our car anyway - we took 4 trips over there and the car ran like a bag of s*it even after switching to DTA instead, bearing in mind this guy is a rotary specialist we got led up a lot of blind alleys with regard to the fuel system - one trip to our normal DTA mapper and the car now flies. Hmm.
That set us back month and a large sum of money we didn't really have to spend.
A month or so later on and the car had the rest of the exhaust made up, a new 36-1 crank trigger wheel on for the DTA to read (they're a right pain to make up!), most of the plumbing in, and the loom stripped out for wiring to begin, hence the big pile of old wiring on the floor:
A new rear bonnet to keep it all dry:
And we finally got the thing running after about 6 months work, there were still a few jobs left to do on it, and a lot to tidy up, including another trip to the dyno having a flat spot sorted out and the top end mapped to account for getting the final variable inlet stage working - the rev. limiter is at 9600rpm...
Hopefully, we should soon be back to this:
We'll run this car for a year or two to prove the drivetrain, then sell it and make a new car with the RX8 engine (well, the new 1.6L version, when it arrives) in the middle where it should be, multi-link wishbones and a body with at least some kind of nod to aero....(Hah, so much for that)
Yep, another wall of text - I hope that's a big cup of coffee your sat with
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A little more work squeezed in over the past few weeks - made the doors (as doors or nets are now compulsary), with tubular ally frames and thermoformed polycarb over the top, new front bulkhead made to clear the new brake cylinders.
There's a pair of new front calipers on the way as the old ones are too far gone now to be worth refurbishing (they are 30 years old....), plus new pads.
I'll be machining some new discs up for it this week as the old ones have warped very badly from the sticking front calipers (they're about 3mm out
After that a quick strip down of the front suspension to replace some worn beam bearings and then it's finally ready to roll.
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New discs for it I've had made up from some CGI iron plate:
Ideally the rear needs to go vented now we have 260-odd bhp, but they'll do for now until we've got some pennies spare, as always it's gone over budget!
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After fitting new calipers/pads/discs and building the scoop for the rear bonnet, along with finishing off the meshing, and rebuilding the front suspension, we went off to Newstead last weekend to finally compete.
Unfortunately the going was so sandy/boggy that we were running for ages at full throttle, which resulted in the fuel boiling in the injector rail from the buildup of heat in the engine bay.
Which means this week we're lifting the rear scoop upwards and forwards into cleaner air, meshing the rear panel by the exhaust manifold, and wrapping the fuel rail to keep it insulated.
We'll probably double skin the exhaust too as that's where most of the heat-soak is coming from - rotaries run silly exhaust temperatures, the outer two headers get cherry red, but the shared center runner glows dull orange right up to the collector!
Back end as it stands after a wash - going to add some mesh, bring the scoop up and above the roof:
Still going? I commend your stamina
quote:
This is one for all you polishing fanatics, how to clean the underside of your car the lazy way:
That's a mere 100+ kilos of mud, gravel and sheep s*it you can see washing away under the car....
After that we set to work again, air intake has been shifted around to the side and ducted forward to a scoop, the bottom rear panel by the headers has been meshed to allow some airflow over them, and the entire exhaust has gone off to be ceramic coated, there larger meshed area around the rear to let some more air out and some ceramic blanket around the fuel lines to stop them picking up so much heat from the engine bay
Just got to work out how to sort the roof scoop out and we'll be motoring again
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The buggy now has nice ally roof scoop and rejigged hinges, plus an air intake scoop to take air from the high pressure area at the top of the windscreen, the exhaust collector and manifold has gained a couple more heatshields and there's been a few alterations to the panels for the engine air intake and cooling around the exhaust manifold.
We've cut down the rear bulkhead to the 'V' in the rear cross and then panelled that up to the roof to give a large airbox for the radiator to draw from and to remove the restriction the rear rollover hoop would cause with the new roof scoop.
quote:
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Had a synchro failure on 3rd gear a couple of days before the first event
So, engine out, shafts off, radiators out, loom out, gearbox out, new box in...
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Made it to Waterbeach this weekend for a bit of fun, unfortunately with a sporadic engine cut out problem which I suspect is the alternator given the battery voltage is dropping.
That and the melted alternator terminal...
Got a few good runs in though and shook the revised front suspension down - spent last week realigning it, new springs, alter the dampers and changed the bumpstops and torsion bar rates, the front is about spot on now, in fact we went over 2 foot by 2 foot square trenches without being able to feel it through the car, so that's working well.
The rear is on the soft side so we're just waiting for some new springs now, it's fine whilst in the forests or along most of the bumpy stuff, but it slams the rear skid plate onto the floor on the bigger jumps, always knew it wanted harder rear springs but now we know how much to go with, so the suspension is finally working at last.
Still wants the dampers altering a bit but that's a winter job.
She still runs a bit too warm even with the new scoop, so the exhaust manifold is coming off to be given an internal and external ceramic powdercoat, as it's the heat building up around the engine causing problems rather than the water/oil temp, it was damned warm weather though, which didn't help - 21* and blue skies, better than rain but wasn't helping the engine!
Ended up having to shortshift and leave it in third in the tight stuff and letting it haul itself out to keep the exhaust temperatures down (and whoever says rotaries have no torque wants to come and sit in this thing, when it pulls itself from axle deep, out of soil full of clay, in a forest, at 2krpm in 3rd...)
Other than that she's doing well at last, it might actually do a full event next month! :hehe:
Got to try and sort a bit more silencing though, 105db driveby and 104 static where everyone else was 104 static and ~90db driveby....whooops
Broken as normal:
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Well, we've finally sorted the brakes, solved the cooling problems, and fitted a new alternator to sort out the electrical gremlins.
Took it for a nice 10 mile test run with nothing but a very slightly slipping clutch.
Back in the workshop, adjust the clutch, back down to the test track, perfect, no slipping.
2 minutes down the track, into 4th gear, BANG.
No drive
quote:
Well, good news and bad, nothing broke, and for the first time since it's inception, the car has actually finished an event :laugh:
Bad news was it's still getting hot enough at full chat that you have to back off a little bit - bigger oil cooler should sort it as it's oil temp not water that's the problem now.
Good news is the event was a lot of fast, very steep, full throttle uphill slogs in 26*c ambient temperatures, so it'll only get better from here!
Even better news is it's got a shiny trophy with 1st in class engraved to it's name.
And this is what happens when you don't have a decent navigator
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Well, a few weeks back, Ed put it into a tree at Minehead whilst I was laid up with flu!
Anyway, he bent both front beam tubes, a shock tower, made a 2D wheel out of a 3D one, broke the steering ram/mountings and bent a fair few tubes.
We've been debating just chopping the front off and sticking a double wishbone setup on there not ideal for the car, but we've already got the bits to hand (from building other cars), and it should be better than the trailing arm setup.
However, after chipping the bent tubing out, a bit of ingenuity with a jig allowed us to get the beam tubes under pressure in the right places, and that and a gas axe resulted in straight tubing again, with the front end welded back on, the bent tubes were chopped out, the frame jigged back up and new ones welded in, new suspension bushes, bearings, straightened the trailing arms out, made a new control valve for the steering and made some new wheels up and she was good enough to go.
Cheap and cheerful wins again!
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And all that work resulted in....another shiny 1st trophy....
Just about managed to cobble it all back together by 3pm on Saturday, loaded up, drove down, ended up kipping in the car as we needed a boat rather than a tent, course was rough as anything, bouncing off the skidpan most of the time, as there were area's where they'd been testing tank suspension out or something.
p*ssed it down most of the day so was far too slippy for a 2wd car really, but still managed 1st in class + lap times were good enough for 8th overall.
Lots of broken cars due to the ruts though - rough as hell.
So everything aches today, but ah well.
We had a bit of trouble with a seal on the PAS pump giving up, and a car in front putting the boot down whilst sideways on a muddy patch just as we were overtaking, putting about an inch of muck on the screen and blowing the wiper motor :hehe:
But apart from those and the battery giving up and making us late for our last run, the car itself is alive and well again, with no problems
Walters Arena in 2 weeks now that the WRC boys have finished using it, gravel tracks!
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Unfortunately, despite being the fastest 2wd on the course, we got two punctures, both on the rear axle, that left us stranded at the far side of the course
By the time we'd been back to service and rolled two wheels and a jack through the woods for 4 miles, we couldn't complete enough runs to finish the event. Bah.
The car had been spinning the wheels on the rims somewhat early on in the day, which probably helped towards them getting thrown off the rim by the rocks.
We do have some 16x8J steelies in the making to fit over the winter though, which will let us step up to more aggressive tyres with 8 ply Kevlar/Steel sidewalls instead of the 3 ply nylons/steels we are currently having to run, should sort that out.
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3 weekends to get it back together before the first event and it currently looks like this:
Hmm, tiny little bit of work left then?
Sounds like our competition has stepped it up this year - there's a two new 2wd buggies arriving, both built with about 10 times our budget, so we'll be doing well if we win any!
One's a spaceframe with a fibreglass shell over it to look like a car, similar to the construction of the 4wd cars, but with a civic type-r engine, sequential gearbox, bypass shocks all around, limited slip diff, and long travel double wishbones, all brand new parts - not scrapyard monkies like us - similar power and weight to us, but should have lots more traction and grip, and should be much more aerodynamical, so faster on the high speed tracks.
The other is a little single-seater buggy, clothed in carbon fibre/fibreglass, with a 1400 Kawasaki bike engine in the back, sequential box with the quaiffe back end and diff, should be a good 150 kilos lighter than us and that too is on long arm double wishbones, bypass shocks.
Bugger!
Having had problems with the brakes overheating, and in the case of the Poly-A pads - eating discs at about 1mm per event, and a set of pads every other event - we had some Carbotech XP8's custom made for it - far better bite, they don't fade, and the pad and disc wear has dropped to about 0.05mm per event, if that - just slightly better then!
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Nearly there!
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Slightly wider new wheels
And a pic in the sunshine!
Good read, excellent engine choice
Who was the 'specialist' who couldn't be arsed with your ignition.?
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The first change came shortly after it's second event, in which there were a few problems, the first was some pretty crap rear pads, from a 3-letter named source, they were originally sponsors of the local club series so they had to be used - they were bright green ones - fell to pieces, and the backing plates then ground into the disc, welded themselves there and then ground away at the nice ally hub.
The result of which was some different pads, Mintex 1144's with the backing plates painted green on the rear...
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Originally posted by Dualist
Good read, excellent engine choice
Onwards and upwards (or sideways anyway), the next weekends work was:
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Bit more work on this now since the last race, stripped down and revalved the rear Fox dampers as the oil was knackered and the old bilstiens on there have lost some damping.
They're not revalvable though - sealed units - so I've altered the shims and pistons in the Fox's instead, as they're cooler running anyway.
Should have a bit more traction over the rough stuff and be a lot better landing and taking off over jumps, hopefully.
Stripped the rear calipers down and rebuilt those as they were sticking a bit, had all the nuts and bolts off the drivetrain and suspension and renewed the locktite as it tends to soften up after a few events.
Front upright has had a couple of new bearings again and a sleeve on the shaft to take it up to the next size bearing - see if we can get them to last longer than a season!
Also sorted out the number board by taking off the top where it looks bloody ugly and putting some proper stickers (thanks to Adam!) on the side of some Carbon/Kevlar panels on the side of the car.
Tweaked the airbox to get another litre of capacity in there just for a touch easier breathing for the engine, and sneaked a bigger filter in so it doesn't get clogged up as fast with the dust and mud.
Other than that, just routine maintaince - oils/filters/water/grease bushes/regass dampers.
And ready for the next race next weekend - novelty being ready this early for us!
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Those new numberboards have been fitted instead of that bloody awful shark-fin thing, made out of carbon-kevlar sheet, saving at least 30-40 grams!
Everyone knows having some carbon bits on your car is worth 10 seconds a lap.
It looks like the only time all 4 wheels are on the ground is when it's parked up!!!
Nah, usually when it's parked up they're in the air, 'cause it's on the jack while we swear at something
Anyway, that weekend went rather well bar tyre issues:
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Chalk up a pair of first in class trophies
Car riding much better with the revalving on the rear dampers, but we had major issues with heat buildup boiling fuel in the rail - lots of misfires when the car got hot - we've had it before but thought we'd cured it with lagging - but now the car is riding better we're on full throttle harder and longer....although we had some cold too, so it may be more than one issue. Still, was good fun!
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Right, we've hopefully traced the problem with misfiring to a dodgy throttle pot as well as the heat issue with the fuel, so a bit of tinkering over the weekend and it seems to be okay, sorted the hesitation/misfire with the throttle pot and just waiting for the new hoses to move the tank.
We've stripped down the rear wheel bearings to make some thicker shims to account for wear as the new bearings bed in, so that should be back together shortly, along with a new fuel tank shifted up front to help the turn in a little and hopefully solve the heat/boiling problem.
Spare throttle pot and a new set of leads on the way as they're a little past their best, and we'll see how she goes with the other half of the engine firing at the next one.
And then things started to go downhill, the next week after a bit of testing:
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Well, after thinking we'd cured the misfire it's now back with a vengance, but in a different spot - at a guess we've been unlucky and had two problems, not one, which is why it's seemed so random! Anyway, we've stripped it all back down for a check over and I've just dropped the injectors off at a local garage for checking and cleaning - hopefully it's one of those - if not I'm stumped!
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Apparently, ripping one front wheel and the associated suspension components off the car on the first laps isn't actually the fantastic weight saving scheme it appears to be initially.
Whoops:
Slight problem with the tracking.
quote:
Slight problem with the engine too, looks like the previous misfires that we drove through in order to finish Baden Hall has killed a seal in one rotor of the engine, so it's lost compression and is down about 100bhp or so
One month later, after building up some spare cash:
quote:
Right, new engine sorted with only 1000 miles on the clock, it's a 2009 model which has a lot of changes to the sump and oil system, so we need to tweak the rear chassis to get it in and alter a lot of the oil lines/blanks, but we're doing it with adapators so the car can then take either engine if need be.
That's because the plan is to rebuild the old engine with a ported intake and possibly a peripheral port exhaust (it's only cracked a side seal so it's fixable, just going to take a lot of time and effort) - which should hopefully push her up to about 300bhp or so, albeit a bit higher up the range @ around 9.5/10krpm or so.
It'll be fun*!
*The kind of fun that involves learning new curse words.
quote:
Anyway, got the new engine finally installed, oil system changed, electrics altered and sat down and alter the timing in the map.
And she fired first time on the button, spot on.
Unfortuatly the DTA software showed the throttle pot reading was jumping so we need to sort a new throttle pot, little oil leak from one of the fabricated fittings and sort a new oil gauge out (this engine runs at 150psi of pressure instead of 90), but hopefully we should be at Sweetlamb this weekend.
I'll do a full writeup with pictures the week after on the alterations hopefully.
IT'S ALIVE!
quote:
Unfortunately the new TPS didn't arrive (obviously the Royal Mail vans need some remapping, and a bigger turbo, and slicks, and someone awake at the wheel).
Anyway, we managed to get hold of one this week and replaced the knackered one, spent this morning refining the mapping (bit conservative on the timing and fuel up top originally until we'd got all our issues with cooling sorted, so altered that).
The new engine seems to run a lot smoother, might be me imagining it, or it's down to the extra oil pressure (80PSI at idle!) and better water pump, and she gets to peak power earlier now and holds it for longer (there's 90%+ of peak power now from 7500-9400rpm), feels much quicker up top.
Runs even cooler too now with the new water pump + extra oil flow.
Apart from a little oil weep that we expected from a temporary fitting, all seems well, so we're gonna get some milage in to bed the engine in (it's a little down on the old one 261bhp vs 268bhp, according to the rollers, but you know how good they are on different days), as it's done under 1000 miles and it's definately a bit tight.
Might just crack over 270bhp once she's done some miles, hopefully.
And, some good news for a change!
quote:
Well, despite not being able to sort the slight oil weep from a fitting, we went to the last event at Ebbw Vale this weekend anyway, and apart from a bit of a heat problem (long slog uphill through some peat bog, horrible stuff, the car sunk in about half a foot when you hit it), and knackering the sidewall on a tyre after a little overexuberance through the final chicane - which was made of rock, so not very forgiving - we kept going all day.
As it was, we were the only 2wd car to get around the whole event, it was slippery and very rough and rocky in places, the new floorpan looks like it's been shot peened underneath from the rougher bits...
Anyway, other than that, we managed to slug around, it was never going to be a course that favoured 2wd vehicles as the uphill slogs were on mud or peat bog, but we made some time up early on with a bit of gravel track and ended up tenth overall anyway, obviously 1st in class.
Which means we've finally won the 2wd Championship class
Watch this space for the upgrade program
First step is to shift the oil cooler and make some high-flow endcaps for the radiator just to help out with the cooling - it's been perfect everywhere else but a long uphill slog in peat saw it climb to 105*c so a few tweaks should help a bit with engine life and, more importantly, stop the driver from looking at the gauge instead of where he's going
Then onto some damper work again and perhaps rework the front end for better geo. and travel, see if we can sort a cheap digi-dash to loose some wiring from behind the dashboard and hopefully sort out some sort of limited slip diff so we're not struggling so much in the really wet stuff.
quote:
Had a day at Curborough on Saturday for a bit more seat time, took my nephew for a spin in it too :hehe: (he also took the first couple of pictures, and a lot more of the floor, grass, the track behind a passing car, his thumbs...)
Few pictures:
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/Curborough/Buggy%20pics%20from%20others/73515_494050855907_589880907_7090376_6137530_n.jpg[/IMG ]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/Curborough/Buggy%20pics%20from%20others/150010_494050785907_589880907_7090374_7933777_n.jpg[/IM G]
And a couple of the nephew in the car with Ed:
See, I told you there'd be more pictures
And a little video here from the return of the Suspension Cam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSjgk2R0Mw4
Can't see a lot as it's pointing sideways but you can watch the front wheel dangling in the air at the chicane
Right, don't know if everyone is bored by now, but onto the winter mods!
February update:
quote:
Right, no, we haven't just locked it in a shed and forgot about it.
(Well, alright, maybe we did, for a bit. Beer got in the way over christmas, and new year)
However, it looks like the LSD diff. isn't going to be ready for the first event, which is a pity, but the little elves in the workshop have been busy, we've ditched the rear torsion bars and the housings/bushes they ran in on the rear suspension, because they wore pretty rapidly and it gave really vague toe settings at the rear, which made it a bit inconsistent to drive after a few events.
Anyway, the fabrication-fairies have been in, and kindly made new spring plates at the rear, that now terminate in a rose joint, that bolts into a new bracket made to clamp up to the original rear beam, which keeps the suspension geometery and load paths the same, but shouldn't wear as quickly (same sealed system as my joints on the 306's wishbones) and is a damn sight more precise as the bearing is metal-to-metal now.
At the risk of turning into cheque-book racers, we've also just sorted out some new Fox replacements for the rather tired old Bilstien dampers at the rear too (they are 30 years old now, they deserve a rest!), which means they're on my kitchen table looking incredibly clean and shiny.
They twin rate coilovers with a stop for the tender so they should give us much more options for the rear spring rate and the steps/progression that occurs over the travel too.
And we can't have that
The new radiator and cowling is all welded up and fits beautifully, so when Demon Tweeks get their arse in gear and send us a 60* silicone hose out (Yes, see, even more shiny new stuff, we'll be paying someone to put the kettle on too at this rate. Or we would if we hadn't nicked the wire out of it to run the fans in a last minute repair a few months ago...) the cooling upgrade should be all sorted ready for, hopefully, the advent of some boost sometime later this year.
Few pictures soon, write-ups are no good without lots of pictures, I know, sorry!
quote:
1st in class again, 7th overall this time around, I'll do more of a write up tommorow 'cause I'm heading to bed, I'm knackered!
quote:
Well, due to having 4 million other things to do we didn't actually get the new trailing arms on in time, although we mounted the new, wider tyres and new rear dampers, plus some modified fronts, and bled the new cooling system through - just about managed to throw the car back together by 5:30pm on Saturday, and head off to Walters Arena for the first event.
Haven't even got this years stickers yet so had to make some temporary numbers up from electrical tape too :hehe:
Got there at 9.30 after traffic from hell, went to sleep, up at 5:30 and walked around 7.5 miles of muddy Welsh hills
Not the best thing to do in a morning before the racing! Cue two knackered northerners running around like nutters trying to unpack the car, get setup, scrutineered and signed on in the 30 minutes before the drivers briefing....:rofl:
In a shocking distortion of reality it was actually bloody sunny in Wales for once, which dried most of the standing water up pretty quickly, so apart from going steady for a few laps due to rough riding and a horrible knocking noise, the car ran well all day, no trouble with traction, although it could do with a gear between 2nd and 3rd on some of the steeper uphill slogs!
The horrible noise and rough riding was due to throwing the torsion bars back on in a rush on Saturday and the car sitting on it's suspension like a stilt walker - the rear was running on the droop stops, but altering it would have taken far too long and the new dampers were keeping it in check enough to give us another 1st in class and 7th overall. No problems with the car for once* so we'll get the new suspension on for the next event (Waterbeach) and spend some time setting it up properly. Hopefully we might achieve our aim of a top 5 overall finish this year, it wasn't far away this time.
The good news is the new dampers on the rear and the revamped fronts have got the car handling jumps and ditches far better, I might do a little tweak to the rears but even I'll be struggling to make them much better now, without fabricating some 2/3 way adjusters for them - I'm thinking about it....
Some more good news came over the weekend as Tom from Gripper gave us a ring, who has one of the old differentials to look at with the aim of having a plate-type limited slip made, and after some studying he thinks it's definately possible to drop one of his existing units in that's robust enough for our abuse, so we should have that soon, for some much needed traction
I think that'll have to go in during the summer break when there's a free month between races so we can take our time to build a good gearbox up out of all our spares.
So, a good start to the season with 100pts in the bag, here's hoping the rest goes as well and we can concentrate on making the car faster rather than repairing it for a change!
**Well, apart from catching a car up, hitting the horn, and the car in front promptly rolling over onto it's roof....cue muggins here running up a welsh hillside in overalls and helmet waving like a nutter to attract a marshall.
I know the horn is pretty loud, but I didn't think it was enough to make a whole car jump
This does sound like a lot of fun
Definately that.
A lot headache too. But definately fun
AWDC ! playing with the big Boys Does Robin Clarkson still attend events 240z powered 4wd Warrior.
Co-drove a Warrior in Welsh Hill rally 88/89 IIRC still miss the good bits, I will have to scan the Photo off my wall at some point.!!
good luck with the racing.
ATB Agriv8
He's running a Nissan 350Z V6-powered spaceframe car with a Pug 306(ish) bodyshell these days - actually his second one IIRC, he sold the first -
mainly NORC but he turns up to the odd AWDC/joint event too.
[Edited on 2/7/13 by PhillipM]
And the next few weeks:
quote:
Right, no, we haven't been spending all our time in the pub (more's the pity), just haven't had much time with the photos due to pulling the engine/gearbox/etc all back out again so we could change the clutch (cracked the plate and worn yet another splined center out), and weld in the upgraded suspension bits:
As you can see, the torsion bars have been removed, along with the frankly knackered bushes and spring plates (they wear out rapidly from all the grit that gets in, then the back wheel toes in and out of it's own accord and the car steers where it likes!), the bushes are about £120 a set and when they're dying after an event and knackered after a few it's a bit tiring.
Anyway, if you look, the whole thing has now been replaced with a chromoly rose joint, clamped in double shear between those plates (the gap will be plated over and welded between the pegs to stiffen the whole thing up at the front).
In case you are wondering, the gap between the plates is that large as the rose joint runs side spacers - these serve two purposes - one, they allow me to wrap the joint in a neoprene sealing boot to keep the mud and water out (which will also be packed with grease to reduce the heat and wear in the joint).
In addition to that, the gap should allow the mud to drop out of the back of the plates, to prevent damage to the boot - seems a little backwards having a larger opening for the mud to get in there to start with I know, but with a small gap all you need is one small stone/clump of mud to stick and then all the muddy slop/stones build up behind it.
More pictures soon, I promise
I'll have to as Rob over at www.gtechniq.com has kindly donated some more water/mud repellent products that will now work on the side polycarbonate windows, some of their P1 polish, and dirt repellent coating for both the paintwork and the mudguards in an effort to keep the buildup of mud off the car and the stickers visible - seems a little tarty for us I know, but it's not uncommon to scrape 30-40kg of mud off the car if it's a wet event, that's a fair chunk on a light car such as ours, and being able to see is always a bonus!
Personally I think Rob's sitting at home laughing his tit's off at me having to polish this thing, it's gonna take a tub of elbow grease the size of a swimming pool!
Edit: You can also see the upper secondary torsion bar there - the one that runs across the back above the beam - it's attached via rocker arms and rose-jointed droplinks, and can be set as either a secondary spring that lifts the spring rate at a certain point in the travel, or stiffened up and set to use a softer version of a bumpstop to prevent the chassis hitting the floor, depending on the course.
quote:
And a bit of makeshift modifications to the arms to space the rear dampers apart so that we can run springs on both pairs of coilovers, it also grabs the shock in double shear instead of single - as the bumpstops are on the dampers rather than the body now it makes it less likely to bend a bolt on a big impact.
Not the best arm design in the world due to the cut and shut but it's more than functional, we'll probably make a couple of lighter, stiffer ones during the break in the race come summer.
The open area to the right you can see will be plated in with some drilled/pressed 1.2mm steel sheet to tie the upper and lower tubes together, which will stiffen up the connection between the inner damper and the hub without adding much in the way of weight.
In other news, the Bay of E has turned up trumps with a brand new half-decent TIG welder without breaking the racing budget, picking it tomorrow, so lots more formed alloy components and brackets to save weight will be appearing through the year after a bit of practice, hopefully.
And a few days later:
quote:
Anyway, all the new suspension is oe and setup - the dampers want some valving changes but we're waiting on the new sets of rear springs (for some reason, Demon tweaks and Rally Design don't keep 24" long coilover springs in stock,
Waiting on a new paddle clutch arriving (mullered the centre in yet another one), before we can put the engine in and rear cage/bodywork, etc, on though, so going to be some long nights this week!
quote:
Well, springs are here
Brake pads are here
Nice clutch firm sent us some new splined centres out for free because they couldn't do us a plate, which are being machined to fit the old paddle plate as we speak
And the engine is still sat in the corner and half the frame and bodywork is on the floor, 's gonna be a looong day today!
quote:
Well, shiny red new arms, casing and rose joints:
Shiny red new XP10 brake pads:
And new damper mounts to allow twin springs so the torsion bars can be chucked:
quote:
Oh, and the disc 'wear' after ~15 months of racing abuse.
That'd be, errr, none then.
And the race report from Waterbeach:
quote:
Well, the weather was fantastic, the course was nice - albiet a bit of an outright power course - lots of fast stuff, the engine didn't explode, the temperatures stayed reasonable, all the wheels stayed on, new brake pads feel like someone threw a brick wall in the way, the new suspension held up just fine and the car rides the rough stuff like a bloody magic carpet with a rocket up it's arse
Unfortunately, we had the Curse Of Waterbeach return in an exact re-run of last year the bloody throttle cable snapped just before the finish on the last lap!
After burning our hands and removing a few yards of skin trying to wedge it open to trundle the last straight to the finish in first, we had to give up and take a maximum, a little unfortunate as it was feeling pretty quick all day.
We'll see what we were doing when the run times come through on Tuesday (issue with the timing printer/computer), car was much easier to drive with the new suspension though.
quote:
Right, the drill and hammer has been out and she now sports 2 throttle cables, take that yer swine
Rear dampers are apart to give a little more damping to match the new spring rates, and the driveshafts have been tweaked to give us a touch more rear suspension travel. Next job is to pull the front suspension apart and replace the worn bearings and bushes (again), and perhaps some tweaks to the side scoops to flow some more cool air around the gearbox as the oil is getting a bit too warm.
And beat all the dents out of the skid pans with a sledgehammer....
And some more
quote:
Right, not got much in the way of improvements this time around I'm afraid, bar making up the new side scoops, then deciding they looked crap and didn't allow the air to expand enough and shelving them, back to the drawing board.
Anyway, with this weekends event being a 2-day race rather than one, we decided to concentrate on a bit of maintainance and setup work rather than introduce yet more new parts (got some front suspension/arm upgrades in progress, and some stiffer damping settings, but we'll wait until we can get some more testing time before fitting those)
So, spent this weekend having various sensors recalibrated after some replacements, just to ensure they're accurate, tidied some of the wiring up that had been chopped about before to add new bits, and then sat with the laptop refining the engine mapping.
Mainly been focusing on the throttle transients to get it to respond as smooth and crisply as possible, as it sometimes had the odd hiccup when it was still on the cold engine map, and added as much fuel up the top of the rev range as possible without killing the power in order to cool the engine a little more.
And the most important bit, the nice 3ft long over-run flames are back
Reliability tweaks and refinements this month really, sorry, no pictures of new shiny bits for a change!
Regrease all the bushes and bearings on Friday, set the tracking, load up and off to Baden Hall and see how she goes!
quote:
Lots, and lots, and lots and lots and lots of water from the sky.
I'll give a race report in a week when I've dried out...but there's a lovely shiny trophy in the house....
quote:
Oh, also had a slight arguement with a concrete post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEq1enypU6g
For once, the car won
(Seal bust in the front damper and let the gas out overnight, hence the weird bounce that threw it into the fencing).
Definately going to have step up with saving the money to get that limited slip diff as soon as possible though, it was so wet today that if you came out of a corner behind a 4wd car they pretty much disappeared whilst the car sat spinning wheels, once it got going you caught them back up under the brakes but it's a fair struggle to keep the car up where it needs to be in the results once the heavens open
Meanwhile, well, this was Sunday morning....
And it still looked shiny on Monday morning after a day of racing:
One lap later it looked like this...
1st in class again (in fact the only 2wd that finished), 7th overall in the awdc results, and, because we've been fairly consistant in pace through the events, we're now 3rd overall in the championship. Long way to go yet but we're hoping if we can hold off on the big upgrades whilst winter (new front suspension in the works) and just concentrate on current suspension setup and reliability mods, then we might be able to hold station there and end up with a podium, with a lot of luck.
[scooby doo mode]
Would have been second if it weren't for that pesky throttle cable!
[/scooby doo]
And a couple of weeks later, more bad news....
quote:
Right, had the rear dampers apart and put in some more low speed rebound - to compensate for the friction lost with the new rear suspension - and also put some more compression damping in the range for landing over jumps, as it's a touch soft at the back at the minute. Sounds simple but it was a pain in the arse
See how it fairs this time out - probably tweak the fronts a bit to match but we'll see how it goes first.
Two new aluminium plates ordered for the sump and gearbox guards too as we've worn a hole in them...
And two new mudguards, give the hole in the rear one from firing a rock through it off the rear tyre, and the post incident with the front one!
quote:
Well, dampers back on, new skid pans made and fitted, new mudguard on, fresh fluids, new mastercylinder for one of the brake circuits (score on the bore from some debris), new power steering valve and pump, and she's strapped down to the trailer ready to roll again
Even given her a polish!
quote:
Won't start hot.
Lost power through the revs.
Won't go past 7k.
Oh dear.
Sorry about the pictures going, the account should reset next week so I'll update again then
Right, onwards we go again, on the subject of the engine, again:
quote:
Side seal gone in the engine again I think. Just not up to the heat generated in race use.
Forlorn hope that it might be a sensor or something electrical but the symptoms are there...
I think that's game over for the championship podium now
quote:
C1 crystal coating on the drivers side panel, G3 rain-repellent on the drivers side window and their C2 product on the plastic mudguards and mirror (the rear mudguard was fairly clean too until it got ambushed by a tree at the bottom there, hence the crack!).
Gtechniq side:
versus:
This side had a very popular wax know for it durability applied too. Didn't last that long!
quote:
Results through tonight!
Now 2nd in championship, and 3 points behind 1st.
[homer]
Doh!
[/homer]
quote:
Looks like RX8 engines at the moment are going for a fair old chunk, so it's probably season over, we didn't budget for a spare engine I'm afraid!
We'll keep on the hunt, and I'll let you guys know if anything happens on the engine front.
If not, I'm sure we'll manage to sort something silly out over winter instead...
However, just over 2 weeks later, we stumbled across a cheap motor and decided to risk it and slap it in:
quote:
Late on a Saturday afternoon, an engine barks into life...
...and promptly covers half the town in blue smoke from burning the presevative oil film off the inside of the rotor housings
quote:
Well, cars ready, all packed up, loaded on trailer...and Ed gets called into work because the weather has dried the crop out, bloody farming!
Sat twiddling thumbs all day on the off-chance that we can get down there tonight if he finishes in time, but it's not looking likely now - it's a 6 hour drive, and it'll be at least 2 hours to walk the course in the morning and half an hour for scrutineering too....
quote:
Right, didn't make the last event
All that work wiped out by the weather and farming! Ah well, down to 7th in the championship now but we'll see what we can claw back.
Loaded back up and on the trailer ready to head to SevenOaks tommorow though, supposed to be a nice tight and twisty track, so might be good for us. Hopefully!
quote:
Well, few issues again, that's what you get when you've not got anywhere big enough to test it - car misfiring badly when it got warm, which meant we took a maximum penalty time early on for not completing a stage.
Think it was down to a couple of failing coils, however, we didn't have enough spare coils to replace them all and completely get rid of the issue, but we got it better and good enough to run around all day, albeit still with a misfire and about 40bhp down from a reduced rev limit to preserve the engine/coils.
Apart from that, it was an absolutely fantastic course, with something for everyone - some faster stuff through a couple of fields, plenty of lanes through forests, turning into tight tree-dodging sections (which the new suspension and fiddle brakes on our car were fantastic, I don't think there could have been anything much faster through them), and then some nice narrow flowing tarmac and gravel sections back through the forests again. Think it's up there for one of the best events we've been to.
It also gave a great proving ground for some alterations to the brakes and the suspension work, and they were flawless all day, so at least the rest of the car is about where it needs to be now, on pure laptimes we weren't all that far behind the podium guys even with the dicky engine, which was encouraging - in fact, if we hadn't abandoned a stage to try to sort the coils out, we would have been 4th even with the misfire all day!
Pity about the engine as it's cost us any chance of regaining a podium this year, but that can be sorted and it's proven the rest of the upgrades anyway.
However, since the engine was playing silly buggers anyway, we spent half the day giving passenger rides, which judging by the grinning faces when they got out went well
Hopefully we can still hang on to some more points at the next event after sorting the engine, and make sure we get a single figure race number for next year
We did get the highest jump over a bump in the field though
quote:
Just working out the times and points, and it appears nobody can actually catch us in the 2wd championship again, even if we don't go to the next event and the nearest guy wins, so at least we've won the 2wd trophy again
More photo's time!
Sorry about the quality, pictures of pictures again
Look, there's at least one or two in there with wheels on the floor as well!
Anyway, back to engine issues (sound familar?):
quote:
Well, in the hope of sorting out the munching coils issue, there's a set of D585 coils on the way from the 'states, they're a lot more powerful than the stock mazda coils, but more importantly, the components are rated for a higher ambient temperature (120*c instead of 85*) and they come with their own heatsink on the ignitors to help with cooling.
Should help with coil life, they're a damn sight cheaper too, bought 8 x D585's for less than the price for 4 Mazda OEM coils.
Got some rewiring to do to make them fit, and need to make some new ends for the Magnecor leads (do Magnecor still do custom leads, seem to remember they used to?), and some tweaking to the dwell tables in the ECU to charge the new coils for longer.
Fingers crossed!
quote:
Right, this bloody new engine is making me loose what hair I have left:
Mis-fires badly from 3.5k to 7k.
After 7k it clears and goes like poo off a shovel.
Engine starts just fine, no excessive cranking, idles smooth as butter.
All injectors are working and staging okay, coils are working, variable valves are working, there's nothing stuck in the intake tracts, the earths are all good and clean.
Leads are relatively new Magnecors, new set of spark plugs. Swapped two coils for brand new spares that made a small improvement but not much.
Fuel pressure is fine, fuel lines are clear.
Throttle pot checks out okay, new throttle pot makes no difference. Same for the shaft sensor.
Our rudimentary coil tester (patent pending) - otherwise known as a trailing plug with the bar snapped off - shows a consistant spark across all 4 coils - albeit a relatively weak sounding orange spark, but with no difference between 'em that would mean we'd have to have got 2 duff new coils too...
Winding the coil dwell up just to check makes no difference either.
Only change between this engine and the old one is the timing (S1 > S2 timing is different), checked with a timing light and it's right, tried it 20 degrees retarded and no difference bar a lack of power.
quote:
Okay, looks like the 2 brand new coils we had were a pair of duff ones, so all that fun was for nothing :hehe:
Lesson learnt, if all the symptoms point to coils, even if you've swapped them, it can still be coils....
Anyway, over the weekend we've done a very fast conversion to some D585 Yukon coils - which are rated for more ambient temperature, have a built in heatsink and are also much more powerful, rigged up with some universal leads most of the misfire went away (bar a little @5krpm, but the spark plugs are sooted up from running them before).
Have to say a big thank you to the people at Magnecor, who after a hurried e-mail over the weekend, sorted out a rush order on some custom ignition leads for us to suit the new coils, which arrived first thing this morning, ready to put on and test before we set off down to Minehead on Friday.
I'll get a picture tonight if I remember of the new coil setup! At the moment it's a case of some very fast work to correct the timing and coil dwell maps...
quote:
Shiny new leads, beefy coils and new wiring, hopefully should stand up to the heat and abuse a bit better than the Mazda ones!
Unfortunately, this time something else decided to stop play:
quote:
And the oops moment:
Great read, thanks for posting it up, looks like you guys have had a lot of fun along the way (along with your fair share of late nights!)
I think late nights is probably something everyone on here has had more than their fair share of
There's more to come yet, it gets a little more interesting shortly, I'm just trying to keep in in readable chunks instead of a massive wall
of text
[Edited on 5/8/13 by PhillipM]
Right, on with the repairs, again, this was the weekend before the last race of the season:
quote:
Arrrgh, spare gearbox in, test run, stuck it in reverse and it jammed there and won't come out. Engine out again...
quote:
Engine out, gearbox apart, 5th gear synchro/selector was worn just enough to move ~1mm on the shaft and jam the whole selector mechanism. frown
Put a 45* bevel on the edges of the selector to help if anything similar happens in future, and 5th gear/selector and it's fork are on the bench looking lonely
Gearbox back together, engine and box back in, radiators back on, fluids refilled and bled, test driven, works beautifully.
4-speed gearbox now, it's lighter, might go faster
quote:
Right, after a very rough event at Kirton today, we've managed to claw a couple of places back and end the year 8th overall in the Championship, albeit after battering the skid pans to death, punching two holes in the floor, cracking the windscreen on a hard landing and hitting the engine skid pan hard enough to dent it the whole way across and put a dent in the sump too.
Oops.
This stand-in engine was feeling decidedly unhappy towards the end of the day too tbh, just about managed it but it doesn't have many ponies left!
Can't end a season without some pictures eh?
Right, first modification ready for the new seasons, off-road spec welder!
And something to use it on:
quote:
We decided to fabricate some new front arms to reduce the friction in the suspension, modify the geometery and give a bit more travel at the same time, so new arms getting mocked up:
4 degree's of static negative camber, 7.5 to 16 degrees of castor (varies with travel, not much I can do about that), 4 inches of extra travel, 1 inch less scrub, more progressive spring/damping rate, and 2 inch wider track
quote:
Yes, I know, the mudguard is miles out and the wheels are about as round as a 50 pence piece - don't worry, making new ones, gotta move the mudguard as we're making new damper mounting towers too, improve the motion ratio and change the progression curve. Gives you an idea of how much travel there is though, that's not quite full compression - it's got another half an inch or so.
quote:
The things we go through in the name of money saving...couldn't really stretch the winter budget to a set of longer 10" stroke front dampers to match the arms, so we're having to trying and make the old 8" units do the job, doesn't do the motion ratios any favours, but needs must:
Damper goes the other side of the bracket but the old shock tower was in the way, I've had the angle grinder out since and there's a lot of front steelwork sat on the floor now though
Best get on with making the real replacement arms properly now though!
Ed's finished welding the jigs up tonight so should be able to knock the proper T45 tubular arms out in the next couple of days, got a few bits of chopping and tweaking on the chassis we weren't expecting just to add a little clearance around the tie-rods, and possibly move the rack a little more, but it's almost there, just waiting on some spacers/fitting for the new steering arms.
In other news, engine should be back together just in time for christmas, it's had a bit of light port work to boot as well, see what Santa brings when you've been good...
Hopefully should get chance for a run around the yard and lane after christmas just to give it a quick check over (I'll get some video this time, I promise!), then it's back to ordering yet more springs, damper oil and valve shims/stacks, as the whole lot needs re-valving and re-springing again, doh.
And another 6 wheel rims to make and weld up too, bit more offset now the track is wider.
Once that little lot is sorted, we'll start on the rear suspension!
quote:
Right, no takers for the 8" Foxes so needs must, on they go, proper arms nearly finished:
quote:
New upper mounts in progress for the damper, didn't really want to put a kink in the arms (need to be as stiff as possible) but couldn't clear the damper when it's fully compressed without, good enough anyway, another tie-rod to go down the chassis toward the rear mudguard mount too - may as well - but it's stiff enough without tbh:
Don't worry, it's not getting heavier, it's all thin-wall T45 tube, lighter than it looks!
Certainly lighter than the plate tower that was there before anyway.
From the side:
And the passenger side pretty much finished:
quote:
Weekend in pics:
Finished these at last, car on the floor again!
Pushed her outside today for a look at the front from afar, and to see what it looked like at full articulation (one wheel on floor, one in air, with car still perfectly level, lots of travel!), didn't get a picture as it was dark and raining but she certainly looks a bit more purposeful now!
We've lost a shedload of friction in the front end with the new bush/bearing/arm setup too, which should help the ride and handling.
Slight technical hiccup with the bonnet...
Needs a bit more than some T-Cut to sort that out...
And a bit more text for you to skim through and skip to the pictures
quote:
Right, wiring ripped out, new connectors here, ready to start making a fresh new loom again, what fun. Only 4 weeks before the first race and the car's a frame with some suspension on at the moment!
Ed's just mounting the new fans whilst I 'enjoy' rewiring some parts of the car loom that were rather tired
Looks like the new rear damping system we were hoping to do as well is going to have to wait until the second event, as we'll be pressed to get everything together and the car shook down for some testing at this rate, haven't heard back on the new gears we've ordered yet either
quote:
Gear man's ears must be burning, he rung me not 5 minutes after posting that, might just have them in time
Spent the weekend fabricating the new front mudguard mounts, made new steering tie-rods, and stripped the steering rack.
Rack had loads of play in it and no provision for any adjustment for wear and tear, so I had to sand the whole case down by hand with wet + dry paper, until it got back to a nice, tight sliding fit again, then bond tiny strips of 0.25mm thick shim steel to the rack bar to bring it back into proper engagement with the pinion, and then make some more tiny strips of shims to give the appropriate clearance back on the casing, as well as changing all the support bearings.
It involved lots of swearing.
And it's a good job the firm that make the rack have gone bust so I can't go over the pond and kick them square in the nuts.
Even started rubbing down and painting the front arms, shiny things on the car for once!
quote:
Just fetched engine tonight, it's had a rebuild (apex seals warped from the heat) and some light port work - tbh, because they wanted a look at the R3 motor a bit closer, he did it almost as cheap as we could get the parts to do it ourselves, no brainer really.
We wanted a fresh engine for the year, and a check over the rest of the engine to see if we'd sorted the trouble we've had before with side seals/springs, which seem to be good now (bar needing a bit better intake filtering), so we'll get a few events on the engine to make sure all is okay, then supercharge her.
quote:
New prefilters + secondary airbox:
Would probably be better with a couple of cotton filters up there so we can wash them out, but budget dictates paper for the moment!
Accidentally made it flow enough air for 500bhp, oh and the supercharger can go where the primary airbox is at the moment too.
Fancy that!
quote:
Well, weekend went fairly well. Bar doing 3 miles on 3 wheels, and the next run with no brakes....
Writeup later!
Oh, and 'Wheeee!'
When and where is the next event?
Not for a while for us, she's having work done at the minute, I just haven't got that far yet
However, I think the next AWDC event is on the Sweetlamb Rally Complex near Llangurig on the 18th.
Oh, and it's not a safari unless you find some mud:
quote:
As for the 3 wheeled excursion, well, we re-used the old VW link pin washers that hold the upright to the arms, turns out they weren't up to the job any more, one folded over and the upright fell off, leading to dragging a front wheel sideways along for a few miles on one lap. Doh.
That also killed a brake line with a hairline crack at a joint we didn't spot, which resulted in doing the next run with just rear brakes on the fiddles, no pedal, so we had one driving, one braking
So, we weren't exactly fast, we spent the rest of the day just going steady so we could get it home in one piece, but the new suspension worked nicely when it wasn't hanging off
Had a few issues with the new engine being a bit slow to start, so a few tweaks to the startup map might be required.
quote:
Shiny new paperweights waiting for us when we got home!
Need a lot of hours putting in to profile the selector teeth by hand, as they couldn't get their cutting gear in for the right angles, but they were cheap so it was worth it, only way we could afford it
Shorter 3rd and 4th gear, so they're a bit more useful, currently 3rd is good for over 90mph and 4th is good for about 135mph, which the car struggles to pull when it's on a gradient, the new ratios should drop that to 80mph and 108mph.
quote:
Hey, the old shock oil doesn't look too bad for 2 years of abuse, sure, it's a little dark, but it's clear, not cloudy and no real debris in there either, gotta be good, right?
I mean, even the seals and shims look spotless, next to no wear on them at all
And the new oil is just the same colo.....oh, wait, maybe the old oil was a little tired then....
And off to the next event at Waterbeach, near Cambridge:
quote:
Well, the site was better suited to swimming today - pressing the throttle pedal down in any gear at all just meant the mud flew higher - the car didn't go any faster
Unfortunately, we had trouble with the alternator on the second run, which lost us 10 minutes whilst we bodged it back together with side cutters and tie-wraps.
However, the next few laps we barely made it around - literally creeping along sideways on full lock at 1mph through a few sections they were so slippery, and then just to top it off, on the very last lap, either the gearbox or the clutch plate let go with a bang whilst launching off the start line
Bah!
Had a lot of issues with starting the engine again too, which isn't good....
A photo so I can remember what the car looked like when it was clean:
That's the lightest bit of rain we got!
Well, up until the racing finished, when in the usual UK-weather trick, the rain stopped and the sun came out.
Extra points if you can spot the vital performance upgrade it's had!
quote:
Whee!
And here's some more of that muddy stuff:
And just before the next race a month later:
quote:
Well, got our nice new 15 tooth starter gear and new clutch centre yesterday, so, in a mad rush today, we chopped the starter mount off, fitted the new pinion gear, moved the mountings welded it all back up, refitted the clutch, lifted the engine in, bolted the rear frame/cage back on, fitted the exhaust/wiring/oil/fuel lines/etc, and fired her up!
With an hour of tweaking with some cold start enrichments it's now faster at starting again, great.
So, fitted the floor, seats, belts, etc, put it in gear to reverse out of the workshop and load up to go racing tommorow. And no drive.
Feck.
So, by this time completely knackered from rushing around, and after lots of energetic swearing, we got stuck in and ripped it all back out in about 10 minutes. Only to find the clutch pressure plate has died and there's no way of fixing it or getting a new one in time for tommorow.
I am just very slightly annoyed. A little bit. About a hairs-width away from setting the thing on fire.
And some more pictures:
Right, as you might have guessed, we got pretty fed up with the engine by now, and having that one rebuilt had taken pretty much all the spare cash we
had over the winter, so that was the end of the racing.
A compression test confirmed it had lost power across every rotor face, which after just 200 or so miles of running was pretty disappointing on a
rebuilt engine, but combined with the previous starting issues made us suspect something else.
Anyway, a stripdown at the builders confirmed massive side housing wear, which, with the side seals in good condition, pointed at accidentally going
through the hardening when lapping the side plates in the rebuild.
Engine builder argued it and we spent months running back and forth having things microhardness tested to prove it. Builder finally agreed to rebuild
the engine at his expense with some good side housings, however it took almost a year of pestering before we actually got it back.
Anyway, rewinding a little, with no engine and no money, we parked the car up, and after it being sat there for a few months with no engine in,
looking forlorn, we really lost the drive with the car, and stuck it up for sale, with the intention of using the money from it to start a 4wd
sometime down the line instead.
[Edited on 10/8/13 by PhillipM]
7 Months Later...
quote:
Right, we had this up for sale for a while, had a guy come to have a look, decided he wanted it if we could stick a cheap vauxhall 2-litre 4-pot in it for him, so we sold off some of the rotary bits, did a bit of research, bought some parts and started chopping the frame...
...A month after that, he came by to say he was very sorry, but he couldn't afford to do it after all, and could he have his deposit back....:/
Anyway, since we'd done the research, started chopping, and bought some bits, and we had a bit of spare time over winter....it seemed rude not to give the old girl another chance
She's had a bit of plastic surgery courtesy of Mister 9 Inch (angle grinder, get your mind out of the gutter):
As the new engine is longer than the rotary, we chopped out the centre of the beam tube so that we can push the transaxle forwards into the cabin a couple of inches to keep the rear overhang similar, we don't need that reinforced part there any more anyway because it was what the old torsion bars used to run through/work against, so it was basically a great hunk of steel tube and plate doing nothing.
Free weight saving!
One week later
quote:
One immediate issue was the engine used a pull clutch, and there's no room in the transaxle to make that work, so we needed to convert to a push clutch somehow. We found a plate that was a similar size and a diaphragm that would fit, but the spline for the Renault transaxle was wrong, so we nipped up to CG Motorsports to see if they could stick us a Renault spline in the clutch we'd found (or a paddle version of it).
We used to just weld centres in off-the-shelf paddles for the VW clutch setup, but the splines never last that long as they soften a little from the welding heat no matter what you do to keep them cool, so we wanted to do it 'properly' this time.
Anyway, Mick had a good look, and decided he'd got an even bigger paddle and push diaphragm already sat on a shelf that would go on the standard flywheel - provided we gave it a skim to take the raised surface off it - so we came back with a nice 230mm setup:
Which looks a little more promising than our old lash-up of Renault/VW/RX-8:
You'll like these next bits, lots of shiny bits in photos
quote:
Due to a bit more weight/leverage and stress being anticipated this time, we went with poly mounts for the transaxle instead of the old solid strap system, there's no real movement in them for the engine torque, etc, they're simply to reduce shock loads on the gearbox from landings/frame flex.
And as you can see, moving the transaxle forward proved to be quite a tight fit....
Not very happy with this mount, it'll probably get changed, but it does for now.
Then we mocked up an adaptor plate for the bellhousing to the new engine, and bolted it up just to see how it fitted:
Which, as it turns out, is almost exactly where the rotary was after the alterations.
quote:
Whilst we were at it, we thought about maybe going a touch wider on the rear tyres to compensate for the additional rear weight bias, might need a rethink on that one, not a whole lot of room left
And we checked the new clutch, after chopping a hole in the middle of the adaptor with the angle grinder, everything fits okay, but we've got loads of spare room in the bellhousing - there's a good 30mm of wasted space there, maybe more with a tweak of the release bearing, which makes the clutch quite snatchy as the lever arm is at an angle, so we might have a little rethink there, we stuck 2 release bearings back to back for the minute just to test the pedal feel:
And, after a bit of a trawl around scrapyards and ebay, we accidentally might have bought this, an Eaton M112 supercharger from a Jaguar 4.2L V8....it was so cheap it seemed rude not to...
quote:
Anyway, that seemed to fit so nicely just by the inlet manifold it seemed a shame not to use it:
However, the more we looked at the space in the bellhousing, the more we wondered...so we bit the bullet, chopped the new front mount for the gearbox back out, took the angle grinder to the bellhousing, and started moving things again...
Bellhousing, meet angle grinder, angle grinder, meet bellhousing.
And bring your friend TIG welder...
Redid the engine and gearbox mounts, which required even more frame surgery:
And as a comparison to where the old engine was, this is the old engine cage:
And as the transaxle got shunted even further forward, redid that mounting and used a strap on the casing to spread the stress:
Exhaust Time!
quote:
Having had enough of chopping out old bits of the car, decided to make more shiny new bits, and everyone loves a shiny exhaust, no?
It took quite a while to get the lengths and routing all right, there's about 2 weeks of evening work in this, even though most of it was sorted by the first two nights, tweaking and altering after that/finishing it off took a while!
As the gears are fairly wide in the van transaxle (haven't fitted that shorter gearset yet, needs lots of fettling to make the syncro's work with it), the lengths are set to bolster the bottom end and midrange torque rather than outright peak power.
That should be enough exhaust pictures to keep anyone satisfied
Bare with me here, you're nearly there, honest!
Teach you to ask me for a 'few pics'
quote:
Bit more of the plumbing and mountings were finished, yes, I know, the outlet on the charger and the inlet to the plenum aren't great, but it's a case of make something quickly that will work well enough for those pieces, as they can be easily upgraded later on when we have more time spare:
You can also see the fun we're having with the alternator...
It was starting to look a bit tight in there even with the old cage on, so we cracked on with making a new one (again, out of T45 tube - you never know if someone is going to give you a love tap up the rear...)
As the dry sump has lots of clearance in the middle between the fittings, we went a little more substantial with the under-engine guards this time, as we were forever beating the old ally sump plates back straight after events, it's only thin-wall tube so it weighs very little and gives a lot more stiffness behind the sump guards:
Oh yes, we mocked up the silencer there too, just about fits :hehe:
And the new engine cage from the side:
It shows pretty well how much extra clearance we've gained from moving the transaxle/engine/shortening the bellhousing and tilting the transmission slightly (now there's no torsion housing tube in the way).
Unfortunate side effect is the centre of gravity is going to be higher at the rear of course, but needs must.
And the final leg
quote:
Only place big enough for the airbox, means a bit of reworking of the bulkhead though. For the moment it's going to draw from the main roof-fed airbox, but it'll probably get a seperate feed from the side scoops once we get chance:
Old dashboard got ripped out along with the wiring, to make room for some additional instruments and a new dash:
Still needs a rub down with some sandpaper and a brushed finish creating to keep reflections down, plus waiting on a few more electrical/gauge bits, but:
Airbox top finished off:
And on with the weird shaped dry sump tank (only place we could find for it is behind the pulleys in the rear engine cage - believe me, we looked elsewhere - hence the strange shape:
quote:
Okay, whilst the driveshaft angles were still just within limits (moving the 'box forwards didn't help them), with the extra power/stress anticipated we had a bit of a question mark over the longevity of the CV joints, they get pretty hot from the transmission loss as it is.
Anyway, after a few weeks thinking about it, we bit the bullet and decided to go with longer driveshafts to reduce the angles. Of course, that means moving the outer CV joint outwards to suit, and the car is already as wide as we can practically go at the rear that becomes a bit more difficult, so, cue shiny bits:
Whacking great spindle/hub that's large enough to pass the CV joint right through, with ally upright to bolt to the rear trailing arms, of course, that means we can't drive the discs off the rear of the spindle any more (The bearing preload nut is there now) hence the ally brake bell instead of bolting them to the rear of the hubs as presently.
The CV then bolts up to a machined drive ring that is clamped down on by the wheel:
Although, I'm not sure whether to just ditch that and drill the wheels to bolt the the CV's directly to them - we've never broken a wheel yet so I think it'd be okay.
Bit of inlet manifold modification with a set of old injectors off the RX-8...
Fuel shortage? What fuel shortage?
quote:
You know how I said the dry sump tank had to go in a really bad place because there was nowhere else for it?
Well, here's praying we don't get too much of a love-tap up the arse:
Ed had fun making it though:
quote:
And the worst part of all builds, just when you think you're nearly done, stripdown time!
quote:
I reckon that ought to cope with some bumps, eh?
quote:
Slow going, but the gofasterjuice can get to where it's needed now:
quote:
Fairies have been in, apparently they do panelwork, who knew?
quote:
Well, as you could guess from the header tank locations, space is getting kinda tight now, and there's still some more plumbing and fibreglass/ally heatshielding to go in yet, you don't even want to see it with the dampers and some panels on.....
Bit of framework to make it easier to shape the rear bonnet/scoops, yeah, you know how I said the engine bay was quite tightly packed?
Right, here we go, if anyone is still reading, congratulations, you've either got great stamina or great coffee:
quote:
Shiny Shiny Shiny Shiny Shiny....new rear uprights:
Much more fun than wiring anyway.
New rear discs being cut as we speak, little larger than the old ones but the same weight:
And we finally picked up the rest of the engine/logging sensors and plugs today, so we can crack on with more wiring, and also had the En14 stubs machined for the rear arms which the uprights bolt onto, so we can get on with those now too.
Few weeks and it should go 'vrooom'.
Then we have to strip it all back down again for paint and reassembly after everything is trued up, cleaned, lubed, and all the tape we have over the inlet/exhaust ports + supercharger to protect them needs removing. Bah.
quote:
Getting there with the rear arms, Ed finished a jig and tacked up one side just to double check clearances:
[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Rippthrough/media/RearArms4.jpg.html][/ URL]
[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Rippthrough/media/RearArms2.jpg.html][/ URL]
Ended up 2.5 inches longer, 2 inches wider, and the driveshafts have gone from 24 inches to 31, which is a hell of an improvement in drivetrain angles/wheel travel available and how much shock load they'll absorb too. And with it being bolted to the upright, it means we've got more adjustment for castor and toe by way of shims too.
quote:
Originally posted by PhillipM
And, some good news for a change!
quote:
Well, despite not being able to sort the slight oil weep from a fitting, we went to the last event at Ebbw Vale this weekend anyway, and apart from a bit of a heat problem (long slog uphill through some peat bog, horrible stuff, the car sunk in about half a foot when you hit it), and knackering the sidewall on a tyre after a little overexuberance through the final chicane - which was made of rock, so not very forgiving - we kept going all day.
As it was, we were the only 2wd car to get around the whole event, it was slippery and very rough and rocky in places, the new floorpan looks like it's been shot peened underneath from the rougher bits...
Anyway, other than that, we managed to slug around, it was never going to be a course that favoured 2wd vehicles as the uphill slogs were on mud or peat bog, but we made some time up early on with a bit of gravel track and ended up tenth overall anyway, obviously 1st in class.
Which means we've finally won the 2wd Championship class
Watch this space for the upgrade program
First step is to shift the oil cooler and make some high-flow endcaps for the radiator just to help out with the cooling - it's been perfect everywhere else but a long uphill slog in peat saw it climb to 105*c so a few tweaks should help a bit with engine life and, more importantly, stop the driver from looking at the gauge instead of where he's going
Then onto some damper work again and perhaps rework the front end for better geo. and travel, see if we can sort a cheap digi-dash to loose some wiring from behind the dashboard and hopefully sort out some sort of limited slip diff so we're not struggling so much in the really wet stuff.
Some pictures from that event:
And before the car got laid up for winter, Curborough beckoned for a bit more seat time:
quote:
Had a day at Curborough on Saturday for a bit more seat time, took my nephew for a spin in it too :hehe: (he also took the first couple of pictures, and a lot more of the floor, grass, the track behind a passing car, his thumbs...)
Few pictures:
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/Curborough/Buggy%20pics%20from%20others/73515_494050855907_589880907_7090376_6137530_n.jpg[/IMG ]
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/Curborough/Buggy%20pics%20from%20others/150010_494050785907_589880907_7090374_7933777_n.jpg[/IM G]
And a couple of the nephew in the car with Ed:
Plus a few much better ones courtesy of Mr Yorke:
Doh, ignore that last post, I was quoting it for somewhere else and the browser had a hissy fit.
Delete button, where for art thou?
Well, the new arm revealed one stumbling block after being cycled - the existing rear geometry gave massive toe change with the extra travel we were
intent on using, and nothing beneficial either. After hearing Ed swearing about it for a while I had a look and we decided to just re-do the mounting
points on the car and make another new arm - I've been wanting to alter some of the rear geometery for a while, so there's really no better
time than when you're making a new arm.
We've removed a little of the rear camber change, and lifted the outer pivot to help with the toe curve, which now has about half the previous
toe change over the travel and what is there is helping rather than hindering now. As a side bonus that brings the anti squat up a little closer to
where I'd like it, and lowers the rear roll centre which should help with a little more traction/grip.
Cheap and cheerful jig to swap the pivot location over to the other side of the car, nothing fancy but it works:
And on with the new, new arms:
It's actually made the area for transmitting load around the bumpstops and damper mounts much neater so they should end up a little lighter too,
added bonus!
Car going back together and shiny new discs - clearance on the caliper is a little risky mind...
edit, somethings breaking the last two img links :/
[Edited on 31/3/14 by PhillipM]
Try again:
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/Discsfitted2.jpg[/
img]
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/Rippthrough/Discsfitted.jpg[/im
g]
Nope, wtf?
[Edited on 31/3/14 by PhillipM]
Extra spaces ?
Yep, for some reason every time I posted them it added those extra spaces.
Well, photobucket died again, but we're getting there:
Well I know this is a very old thread and photobucket has killed it but...
it's alive again!
[Edited on 25/1/22 by PhillipM]
Great, absolute beast of a machine and looks really well built. Certainly my cup of tea, very jealous
Yep, nice to finally have it moving again, although we did end up ripping the engine straight back out this week for a dodgy clutch bearing, it's back in again now though, few more finishing touches and back to the dyno.
It's been a fun year!
