April 2022

Tyres fitted

Only £5 for the pair of tyres to be fitted and balanced on the wider rims, they're now back in the garage wrapped, and ready for Blyton. They balanced easily, one rim didnt need any weights at all. And fitting the tyres on the latest design of rim section supplied by Force Racing Wheels was far easier than before. No more struggling to get the tyres on.

The set of fresher 2021 tyres on the gold rims will need cleaning, as they were used four times at Anglesey on the Sunday, so there's a bit of build up that needs removing. In total they've been used around 10 times, I'll try and maintain the count. Once cleaned, I'll wrap them again to keep them clean. I did read somewhere that some people spray WD40 on their tyres, to re-invogorate them. I cant imagine how spraying a lubricant on rubber, improves their grip. I'm certainly not going to experiment.


The collar clamps are now fitted to the rear dampers, and look great. These support the Bosch potentiometers, and most importantly, place the sensors in line with the dampers, so the displacement reported is now true. They also allow me to remove the aluminium bracket and fasteners that the sensors were previously attached to. When I designed them I chose M3.5 fasteners, and then realised M3.5 fasteners are really scarce. However I managed to find a Model shop (Model Fixings) in the UK who supplied me with 10.

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Wheels built

Torqued up and sealed with clear caulk, the front rims will be ready for the tyres to be refitted in 24 hours, once the caulk has cured.

The LiPo battery is now held in with a ratchet strap, which allows for rapid removal in the event of a fire. Not that I dont trust LiPo's, but fires do happen and I dont want to be trying to wrestle a battery from the car. This will allow it to be removed far more easily.

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Wheel update

Tyres removed, rim sections seperated, then 30 mins spent removing the caulk. And the first rim is rebuilt. I'll rebuild the second one today. The first two tyre fitting centres I tried said they wouldn't remove the tyres, the first garage said they'd probably damage the rims, the second said they'd been told not to do 'foreigners' anymore. Luckily the third garage said yes, and the fitters were very enthusiastic. They couldn't believe how light the rims were. I'll definitely use them again.

I'm pleased to see that Carl has changed the design of the inner rims. The single biggest criticism that tyre fitters gave, was that the bead of the rim was too wide, and that made getting the tyres on and off very difficult. The new sections are a smaller diameter away from the edge, so the tyres will be far easier to get on and off these rims.

The overall width is now 8.5" which will be far better for the front tyres, and should improve the handling and cornering.

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Wheel update

Just a few weeks to go now until the Blyton round, and I've received the pair of wider inner wheel rim sections from Force Racing Wheels, so I can clean the front tyres, get them removed, split the rims and rebuild them, then get the tyres refitted.

Nothing much else happening at the moment, still waiting for the final few pieces of 3D printing to arrive, and then I'll get my plan of attack together for Blyton. I will stick a few more turning vanes to the floor, ahead of the rear wheels, and I've got another couple of mods to do to the rear diffuser, again, to try to increase the downforce produced.

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Number 1 Gould GR55B

The end of an era?

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Aero updates

I've fitted an additional pair of vertical carbon elements to the rear diffuser. These will help with maintaining the laminar flow as the air exits the diffuser, hopefully producing a small increase in downforce. I've also drawn a 110x100mm louvre in Fusion 360, which is now away getting 3D printed. I'll fit one to both two sides of the diffuser, on the end plates behind the rear wheels. These will help draw air out of the diffuser, by using the vortices generated by the rear tyres. Again, another small increase in downforce. I'm hoping this combination of changes will allow me to reduce the rear wing angle. I'll find out at Blyton, which is traditionally a max downforce track, due to the medium length straights, and twisty layout. I'll still run the steeper front wing angle, but I'm going to see if I can reduce the rear wing angle by one step.



A pair of replacement inner rim sections are on order with Force Racing Wheels. These will replace the narrower sections I currently run on the set of black front rims. Once they arrive I'll have the tyres removed, and build the rims up.

Sadly I wont be going to Aintree at the end of April. Several other BSC drivers are, and next weekend there are drivers going to Goodwood and Hethel, though Hethel is looking close to being called off as they only have 49 entries at the moment.

In June I'm possibly going to Pembrey, if my reserve entry makes it through. Then three weeks later I'm aiming to contest the NSCC Curborough rounds, again another Mid Speed Round. In August I fancy a trip to the Harewood Hillclimb, which would be an entertaining weekend I'm sure.

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Is that a forklift ?

Yes, that really is a forklift, parked on the circuit at the Abingdon Long Course sprint held last Saturday. It's on Pushrod straight! But its ok, the cones will protect the driver from any harm. So it doesnt really matter that the two forks are pointing at the approaching vehicles.....



And another one, on the final straight this time.

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64ft times

Considering I didnt have any new tyres to bolt on, and I didn't use tyre wrap to keep the tyres clean on the drive to the start area, I am quite happy with my 64ft times from the weekend. Even on Saturday morning when I did two granny starts without using Launch, I beat Pete in the sister car on every single launch. The only car to be consistently quicker, was the shared SBD Dallara, on the second drivers turn. So employing a tyre warmer definitely worked at the weekend :D

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Fuel consumed

So this is the final fuel consumption figure from the ECU for the five runs of Anglesey. So there is still loads of fuel left. So for the next event, I'll again brim the tank, and repeat the process. I'm possibly going to enter Aintree sprint at the end of April, as its a round of the Midland Speed Championship. Failing that, I'll be at Blyton on May 15th/16th for the next rounds of the BSC.



The wobbly front wheel (with the black centre) appears to be due to the inner rim being buckled. I knew it was already out of true, but its looking quite bad after the one run on Sunday morning. I'll remove the tyres off both fronts, and get some wider inner sections, since these are only 8.5J and I really need 9.5J for the Ultrasofts, which is the same width as the front gold rims. No idea why its buckled, apart from the impact at Abingdon in 2019 which bent a rear pushrod. That might have overloaded the front wheel and caused it to buckle.

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Class winning success at Anglesey, by 1.6 seconds

I arrived at the circuit Friday afternoon, a journey of around 190 miles which took 3.5 hours. Once unloaded in to my garage, I then pushed the car over to the Scrutineering bays, where the scrutineer was most complimentary of the car, always a good sign. During the night there were several spells of heavy rain, and sure enough Saturday morning was wet, and very cold, below 10C for most of the day, and I struggled with grip all morning on the National layout. The sun did come out after lunch, and the track dried but was still patchy, and I could only manage a pair of 6th places in the two run offs on the Ultrasoft Slicks. That was 40 points in the bag.

The queue for scrutineering on Friday. The black Rimstock rims are what I transport the car on.



The sun trying to make an appearance on Saturday morning.



The fuel consumption gauge I'd added, worked wonders, and after the final run showed the engine had used 5.54 litres. However, when I tried to refill the tank, I could only get 4.5 litres in. So that meant the consumption was around 17% lower than what was shown on the dashboard. So I needed to alter the injector scaling, to reduce the figure from 15.12 ml/s to 12.55 ml/s and that would then provide a more accurate consumption figure. However I didnt have any confirmation if that wouldn't affect the fuelling, so I left it for the weekend. The main benefit, even with the inflated value, was that I didn't top the fuel tank up all day, and each run meant the tank had less fuel remaining, and therefore weighed less, which was helping to reduce my times.

The fuel consumption figure after a days racing on the National layout.



I also had curious issues with the wet traction control map. I just couldnt feel it cutting in, and I had a spin in practice so I knew it wasnt working properly. When the wet tyres are selected through the TC switch, it selects a different Yaw based TC map, and I thought this might be something to do with it. However, some headscratching on Saturday evening, and I compared the cal with one from 24 months ago, and spotted a key parameter value that was vastly different. So for Sunday morning I'd be trying a few tweaks, hoping it would restore TC. But I'd only be able to prove that if it were a wet day....

For Sunday, with a full tank, and the consumption reset to zero, we had a far better forecast, and the international circuit I find more enjoyable to drive. First practice I tried the practice tyres on the black rims, and suffered terrible vibration on the high speed sections. So bad I couldn't see where I was going. I cant find anything obviously wrong with the front wheels, but the vibration meant I had to abandon the black front rims, and run the fresh Ultrasofts on the gold rims for the rest of the day.

On the first timed run I broke my PB, and had a really good lap. So for the following first run off of the day, I fitted the gold rear wheels (freshest tyres) on, and put in an amazing lap, despite an opposite lock moment around Peel, knocking two seconds off my PB, and slicing 1.6 seconds off the 1600T class record, finishing in 2nd place. Matt Hillam was first, just 0.5s ahead, which was most satisfactory. If I maintained the quickest class time, I'd get a bonus point, netting me 25 points for that run. Traction control was working really well, if only I'd fixed it yesterday. I made some more adjustments, and it continued to improve, however my next run was a second slower, the wind was getting up and it was a cold wind.

Fuel consumption on Sunday was of course higher. The engine consumes some 2100ml/min at full throttle, so I was expecting a larger volume to be used. Before the final run of the day, the dashboard showed 6.234 litres had been used since it was refilled Saturday evening, thats for the four runs of the circuit so far on Sunday. So if that figure is 17% high, then the consumption is 6.234 * 0.83 which is ~ 5.2 litres consumed. So the tank still had 4.8 litres left. That was the theory. But was it a 10 litre tank? Hmm, doubts suddenly in my mind. Was it 10? I think it was. Do I stick another litre in just in case? OK, lets go with 10 litres. So there are around 5 litres left. It will be enough for the final round I convinced myself. I dont need to add any fuel. (and remember that the density of the RTF-R5 fuel at 15 degree C is 0.765, so the fuel weighs around 765g per litre, so thats only 3.825Kg of fuel on board). A small penalty for having enough for the last run, or even two runs if there is a red flag.

For the second and final run off, I recorded another 2.2s 64ft, and I was 3rd fastest, behind Matt Hillam and Steve Broughton in their shared Dallara. Again I was a second off the class record I set earlier, but I was ahead of Smiles and Goulding which meant my bonus point was safe.

So Sunday I scored a total of 48 points, and in total I have 88, which puts me in joint third place with Matt Hillam. Steve Broughton is in first place with 92 points, Pete Goulding and Smiles are tied in 2nd place on 90. A very close start to the season, with a sprinkling of rain which always spices things up.

The car was amazing to drive, and was clearly the faster of the two EcoBoosts. The traction control even in the dry was far more friendly, so the change I made had improved it no end. The 3D printed aero parts made a big difference to downforce on the corners, and I was pulling 2G everywhere (2.1 on Peel). On a warmer day, those figures would be higher, but the Spring event in N.Wales isn't any guarantee of warm weather. A big thankyou to Longton DMC for putting on a great event, and to all the marshals and volunteers for their time. A very well run event, blessed with incredible weather on Sunday.

This is my class record breaking run from Sunday Run Off 1, where I took 2S off my PB and a commanding 1.6 seconds off the class record set by Pete in 2019. Which means I now hold both 1600T class records for the National and International layouts. Please excuse the swearing at the end :D

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