Jan 2018
31Jan
Progress
The nose cone is now finished and painted underneath with black paint where I had to cut it to size; the rear wing support brackets have had a polish and the carbon rods smoothed off, and I've fitted three replacement 32mm black silicon hoses to the EcoBoost cooling system to replace the leaky blue Samco hoses. The Intrax damper has been repaired, and will be back with me in a few days time.The entries for the Great Western Sprint opened a couple of days ago, and it was 50% full after just 24hrs, so I'm glad I didnt waste any time in entering. I'll be going to Rockingham the next day too, but the regs arent out until mid-Feb according to BARC. I've also registered for the BSC Championship for the third year in succession, and I'm pleased to see that Pete Goulding has finally taken the plunge. The championship needs more people to enter it for it to survive. And over recent years, there's been a steady decline in numbers. Jeff Wiltshire is also entered in his new Zeus Prototype, which is undergoing ROPS modifications I understand, but hopefully car and driver will be out at Castle Combe. Its a 3.3 mile long sprint, covering 1.75 laps of the track, and I've been there many times in the Fiesta, and even had a couple of track days there, but I've never driven it in the Mygale. Last years event was beset with breakdowns, fires, and oil leaks, but Steve Miles still managed a run off in 120.00 seconds, so I'm hoping to get close with the new aero package. It might take a few laps mind :D
The test session on March 3rd will be the first time I've driven with the new aero package, and I've set the front wing to a moderate angle, and the same will apply to the rear wing, and I'm hoping to see if we can reach a balance quickly on the track. The top speeds at Combe should be a lot higher than Blyton, so I'll most likely run less wing, but I'm sure it'll take some time for me to get the adjustments right.
27Jan
Nose job
With just 34 days until I go testing at Blyton (Saturday March 3rd), the nose cone is now fitted, I just had to remove a couple of sections of fibre glass from underneath, and it fitted almost perfectly over the DJ front wing bracket. I shall smooth the edges off underneath, and complete the mod over the weekend, using the Dremel. Very happy with how it finally looks :DI'll also stick a bit of the spare D shape carbon rod to the front wing bracket, again to reduce drag.
23Jan
Superwinch
I fitted the Superwinch 3000 that I took off the old Woodford Trailer, in to the Race Shuttle on Saturday, and it certainly made loading and unloading the car a lot easier, if not safer. I've some wiring left to do, to add a car battery to the trailer, to power the winch, and a means to charge it, from the tow car electrics. On the race car, I've added some carbon half round rod to the leading edge of the rear wing brackets, to reduce drag, and I've made some brackets to secure the Intrax damper reservoirs, and relocated the Anderson connector from the rear of the gearbox to the floor, beside the oil catch tank. I can now start on modifying the nose cone to clear the front wing, which is the last big job I need to tackle before the car can be driven in March.
22Jan
Triple M visit
I took the car up to Gainsborough yesterday, to see Alan Mugglestone at triple M, for a full chassis setup. He started by removing all the Intrax dampers, tested them, added silicone bump stop rubbers, and fitted packers that will allow me to adjust the suspension movement. One of the dampers had air inside it, and Alan removed it for repair. I'll hopefully get it back in a few weeks time. The car was leaning to the left, and had a higher ride height at the front than the rear, all the cambers were out, and it had a large amount of bump toe out on the rear suspension. Gradually, everything was adjusted until the car was then sat on the corner weight scales, and showed that the weight distribution was 100% right, with a perfect 50:50 split left to right.
11Jan
Spacers mk2
The spacers have been machined again, to increase their internal diameter to 47mm, so they now pass over the 45mm od Intrax dampers. Over the weekend curiosity got the better of me, and I removed the springs from the dampers to check how far they compressed when the chassis was lowered to the ground, and sure enough the spacers were hitting the tops of the dampers, restricting their movement, and the movement of the chassis. This is now solved though, and the spacers are back on the car, and the full suspension travel has been restored.I went to the Autosport International show yesterday, at the NEC in Birmingham, and I spent about 4.5hours walking around the two halls. I bumped in a good few people I knew, and I saw the WRC car's being unveiled, and the top WRC drivers, who were all in attendance. I probably couldnt name some of them though, but I recognised Thiery Neuville and Seb Ogier, so I'm not completely out of touch with rallying. The Wolverhampton University team were there with the F3Cup Dallara I saw racing at Snetterton last May, and there were loads of other familiar faces from the world of Sprints and Hillclimbs. A good day out, and well worth the annual pilgramage.
I'll be getting the trailer out of storage either this weekend, or next, ready to load the car up for the trip to Triple M. I need to fit the electric winch to the trailer, so I need to get access to it with the power tools. Its the same winch I used on the Woodford trailer, its hardly been used. I reckon it should mount inside the trailer, if I can get a secure enough fixing for it on the floor.
My photographs from the Autosport Show are available here
4Jan
Spacers fitted
Altiss Engineering has machined the spacers according to my drawing, and they fit perfectly. The fat Eibach springs are now sitting 15mm further down the dampers, and the springs no longer hit each other as the suspension moves. This probably could probably have been avoided if I'd gone for a different make of springs, but at least the problem is now solved. I will be looking at fitting bump stop rubbers, to prevent the dampers from binding under full load. The car is due to go to Triple-M motorsport on January 22nd for a full setup, so we'll be addressing that then.
I'm working on a Raspberry Pi data logger project at the moment. I've got a Pi3B, and a GPS HAT, and the results are looking very promising at the moment. I've put a project page together, and I'll maintain it as the project progresses. The idea is to get it to log the voltages from the four suspension potentiometers, tagged with the time/date and long/lat position of the car on the circuit. To visit the page click the image below, or click Resources>Raspberry Pi Datalogger
01Jan
Happy New Year
