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Been a bit busy the last few weeks and done quite a bit to the car. Engine went back to Sandy as he wasnt totally happy with the power it made 1st attempt. I gave him another head which he cut up to see how much material he had to play with which enabled him to adjust the ports more around the areas he was concerned about breaking though. Also Sandy made up a solid cambelt tensioner, as the standard semi auto plastic one wasnt the best! He also advanced the timing slightly, and I modified the cambelt cover so it cam be removed in the car to adjust timing on the rollers if nessisary.
Also I took delivery of my new TranX plate LSD. Me and Andy stripped the FRP box to double check the ratios and fit the new LSD. Required a bit of modification to the gearbox casing to fit it in!
Engine and box were refitted last weekend, and it was taken back to the rollers to be mapped on monday. Had a much better mapping session this time round, it was clear the engine was working much better with the head tweeks. Its now making around 215bhp. I got sandy to spend some time trimming the map aswell and it now runs silky smooth.
Nice exhaust ducting on the rollers!
Was out testing on Wednesday at Castle Combe, it was plain to see that the changes had made quite a difference, as my 2nd lap was a whole second quicker than I went in the first round, and after 8 laps I had lapped within 3 tenths of the class lap record which has stood for 8 years! Its still not handling as I would like, but certainly looking quite positive for the next round on bank holiday monday.
Qualifying: 1st in class by 0.135, top 3 in class covered by 0.137 so mega close! 5th overall on 31 car grid.
Race: 1st in class, 3rd overall. Ran P2 for 4 laps, hassling the lone Evo for the lead for the first 2 laps! Missed out on class lap record in the race by 2 tenths, which has stood for 8 years IIRC.
Nice work, well done!! I love it when a car like yours pushes round that jap crap Combe is a pretty high speed circuit too, so extra well done in that respect!
I'm getting some metalwork done through a sponsor, first up is a new footplate as mine is looking a bit shabby now. JC DESIGNS is being laser cut out of the aluminium sheet, swaged and then powdercoated in orange.
I am also going to design a new battery cover and datalogger cover with some more lasercut designs.
I wasnt entirely happy with the wheel spacers as they were a bit heavier than I would have liked, so I have ammended the drawing and getting them milled out. This will reduced the weight of them by 35%, about 300g.
Also I originally hoped to fit some thin 7 or 8mm discs on the rear with alloy bells and the lightweight ap 2 pot calipers, but I cant justify the extra cost that will be to fit them. I ended up using the 2.0 focus rear disc setup, which uses a 252x10mm disc.
By some modification, milling some holes, reducing the thickness and skimming 2mm off the mounting face (also reducing rear track by 4mm) will loose about 1kg from the disc. I dont want to cross drill the face of the disc as it may lead to cracking.
I will also use OZ Superleggeras all round rather than just at the front, again reduced mass by 1kg per wheel over the standard wheels.
So reducing the weight of the spacers, rear discs and wheels I will be reducing the rotating mass by 4.6kg. Quite a saving.
Reducing the track at the rear I'm hoping will also help the issue of the turn in understeer that I have had so far this year. The car has not got the balance that I had last year, and I suspect this is partly down to the 20mm increased rear track by the rear disc conversion.
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