Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

[Dr Dub]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Hi Graham, if you happen to be working away in Bristol and bored on an evening - give me a shout, kettles on as always -escort looks a bit different to last time you were here, if not, catch up soon.

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Cheers, I make take you up one day

After 5 long months working away from home, I'm finished in two weeks, so from Feb should get some garage time in the evenings.
Priority at the moment is to get the tow bar fitted to the 330D xDrive tow barge, but its proving quite difficult to find anyone (outside of BMW) who has fitted one on an F31. BMW wont fit the bar I've bought, despite it being a Westfalia model, one they actually fit, but as I've sourced it myself (for a 1/3rd of the cost) they wont touch it. I asked for a quote for a BMW retro-fitted bar, and they've quoted me £1467 inc !

Plan is to get the Fiesta off the trailer, hide the trailer somewhere, then take the engine / box out the Fiesta. The box is overdue its first service, and Quaife are quite keen to have it back, after four years its never missed a beat, but being their prototype, they're recommending I get it inspected. I'll also take the opportunity to fit a Gripper diff, in place of the ATB, as the front end washes out very easily when the grip is low, and the Gripper diff should cure that. I'll also get the final drive fitted that I paid for (3.857:1) because when the box arrived it was clearly under geared, and didnt have the ratios I'd specified.

The engine will be swapped for the new Duratec I bought last year, and it'll be getting a CNC'd head, new valves, cams, pistons and rods. Aiming for around 260 giver or take 10BHP.

So, tow bar is required first, then I can crack on with the rest.

[Mkdu]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

a nice list of 'to do' things !

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

A rare week off next week, so I can crack on with the to-do-list

Working in Derby from February, so I can actually get home in the evenings to work on the car, which will be awesome. Bought some aerocatches, so another job is to replace the ugly bonnet pins.

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

I really enjoyed the Great Western Sprint on Saturday. Organised by Bristol Motor Club, it was well run, the weather and organisation were perfect, and despite the casualties, everyone seemed to be having fun. Setting off at 4:45am, I was making good time towing the Fiesta, and ignoring the Satnav that kept telling me the 'M5 Motorway is closed'. However as I approached M5 J9 uncannily I found that yes, it was closed afterall. Following overnight closures for resurfacing, the road was supposed to be re-opened at 6am, so with my schedule, I anticipated the Satnav telling me it was closed, because by the time I arrived, it would have been re-opened. Unfortunately, someone had spilt three lanes of diesel on the nice shiny M5, so the Police were out in force shoving everyone off, on to the A46, through Cheltenham, past GCHQ, and back on to the M5 at J11A. That added 30 mins to the journey, and by the time I reached Castle Combe it was 7:40am. I needn't have worried though, my paddock space was reserved, and I pulled in next to the giant Green and Yellow car transporter (Converted Bus) of Simon Bainbridge, car #26. No sign of the Darrian, car #27, and Simons new car was sick, so this looked like an easy first in class.

Scruntineering was interesting. My overalls were, according to the scrute, out of date, and if I wanted to run, I'd have to go in to the Merlin Motorsport shop, and buy a new pair! I asked why none of the scrutineers last year had warned me that they were going out of date in 2015, and that I didnt think he was right. So out came the blue book, and sure enough, they werent out of date at all. I didnt think overalls needed to be in-date, same as seat belts and seats. In sprinting of course, they're mandatory, but the age's are irrelevant. (I'm told on the QT that this will be changing in 2016). Better start saving.

Simon and John were hard at work diagnosing engine woes in the jaw droppingly beautiful Audi TT, that literally had only just turned a wheel a few days before to make sure the clutch and brakes worked. Having travelled 300 miles to get to Combe, they were both tired, and determined to get the car started. I soon mucked in, and at lunch time, we managed to coax the 4.2 V8 in to life, after changing the plugs gave her the sparks she so desperately needed. I had my laptop with me, so we even reverted the DTA S80 map to a version that they knew the car would run with, and it didnt make any difference. You could hear her firing, wanting to start, but there was just no impetus. I checked all the errors on the DTA, the throttle stops, the 5V sensor voltage, and the readings from the sensors, we even used the oscilloscope to check the crank sensor, everything looked fine. So we decided that the electronics and ECU were fine, and it had to be the plugs. John changed them all, and the engine burst in to life. I then reverted the ECU map back to the newest one that they had, which had modified throttle transients, and the engine again started, and Simon went out to do a practice run. He came back with a huge smile on his face, but there was an oil leak on one of the turbo feeds, so John repaired that, and at that point, they called it a day, as they simply didnt want a repeat of the fire at Mallory Park three years earlier.

Earlier in the morning, on the Practice Run, I was just ahead of the 6.0 Davrian, with a slow and cautious 166 seconds for the lap and 3/4. The track had just been resurfaced, and although it was far smoother than I remembered, the tarmac was very oily in places, and only the brave pushed hard on the first run.

With no Simon, Ian Hall and I lined up to do our first Timed runs, and I improved by nine seconds, and Ian improved by almost 30s! He ran a 137.04, and I ran 157.47s

Crikey, Ian was clearly sandbagging in practice. Thats a big gap for me to try and make up.

Simon's practice run after lunch, netted him a 151.61s, so I really tried my hardest in T2, and I shaved another 4seconds off my time to run a 153.56s, and Ian didnt record a time, so his T1 time of 137.04s gave him 1st in class, I was 16.52s behind with my 153.56, and Simon, having not recorded a Timed run, wasnt classed as a finisher. So second in class, and an impossible gap to close. I was quite happy.

Simon's class record for Combe is 125seconds. In his previous car, the Yellow 4.2T Audi TT, he would have been almost 30 seconds faster than me over the lap and 3/4. That just shows the canyon sized gaps between cars that fall in to Sports Libre. But I didn't mind the competition. I'm normally only competing with myself anyway, and I thought the Fiesta performed very well on Saturday, considering my last time out was Prescott in June 2014. I was running a lower rev limit than before, of 7400rpm, as the engine is now four seasons old, and I really dont want it self destructing on me. This gave me a slightly lower top speed of 114 MPH, but when you consider the 16 second gap, revving the engine harder wasnt really going to make up that deficit anyway. I'd rather save the engine, than worry about a couple of mph.

The Joesracing.com GoPro mount performed excellently, with zero vibration on the footage. The Datalogger caught all of the runs, though yet again it did its trick of writing a RT040101 folder on the SD card, which luckily contained the fastest run, so nothing lost there. I'm going to relocate the DL1 to the floor, near the ECU, so its easier for me to reach. One thing I did notice on Saturday was just how hot the floor of the car was, where the exhaust system runs beneath, it was too hot to bear my hand on, so I may put some more heat shield underneath, to keep the heat from penetrating the cabin.

The 330D tow car is brilliant. I averaged 31mpg there and back, and she cruised at a steady 60mph and never batted an eyelid on some of the steeper climbs on the motorways. A good day out with friends, just what Sprinting is all about.

My first practice run (you can hear traction control working) https://youtu.be/18T1Ht8r8DE

I think this is from my 1st timed run https://youtu.be/eaqjgadcOnE

This is in-car from my second and fastest timed run https://youtu.be/IO8ViQMrtKQ

Simon Bainbridge's (SB-Racing.com) beast https://youtu.be/Pd2i0JJICAM

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Some of my photos here

https://picasaweb.google.com/115020080284159281242/CastleCombeSprintMarch222015?authuser=0&feat=directlink

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Sounds like I set a new HSA class record for class F too.

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Whilst working on the car yesterday, we found a large puddle of gear oil beneath the car, and on inspection, the gearbox has developed a hairline crack on the rearmost torque link fixing. It is the standard Ford Fiesta IB5+ bell housing which will need to be replaced. Therefore I've withdrawn my Loton entry, and shall be removing the engine and gearbox over the next couple of weekends for some long overdue upgrades. Including a gripper diff, electric water pump, and a new rear subframe to hold the engine and box steady.

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Over the past few months, with the car dismantled whilst the box was being repaired, I had time to reflect on the future, and decided that I've had 23 great years with the XR2, but its time for a change.

So the fiesta rolling shell is up for sale (http://www.turbosport.co.uk/showthread.php?t=836175) and I'm looking at buying a single seater, to continue racing, but using a Mygale FF EcoBoost, which is the Duratec Turbo engine.

Sad days, but like I said, time for a change.

[Lapinhio]

The end of an era :-(

Good luck with your next project whatever it may be! Hopefully a Ford ;-)

[team_zi]

Re: Grahamb's Mk1 Fiesta XR2 Duratec HE Hillclimber

Now on eBay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151779652397