A damp squib

…whatever one of those is. (Actually, it turns out that it’s a small explosive device.) It’s what the Birkett turned out to be.

I’d got myself all ready well in advance, here’s the car sitting on the trailer and, after a morning lecturing to students. I jumped on the train, zoomed down to Cambridge and drove to Silverstone. There, miracles of miracles (they must have got some new security guards) we got in easily and parked up for the night.

What’s more, the weather forecast was looking good so perhaps we’d even have a dry race. So, first thing on the Friday I got the car sorted, signed on, and I was ready to go. However, looking at the track it was clear that it was still pretty wet from the overnight rain and the dew. So, I took a short detour to put the wets on (there they are in the photo above) and hence got on track a bit late.

And, spun hugely at Becketts on the out lap… Sigh. The session was really slippy and I’d neglected to remove the ARBs which I know is necessary. However, it wasn’t too big a problem, as there was the rest of the day.

So, come the second session, I went out again and was starting to press on a bit, especially as it was now properly dry. One problem was that I’d clearly got the gearing calculations wrong as I was on the limiter from about half way down the Hangar straight. I don’t think that precipitated the awful thing that was to come, but you never know… All the same, the first lap of the second session was aout 30 seconds faster than the fastest from the first and it got quicker every lap after that.

Until lap 6.

At which point, while going around Brooklands, the oil lights (there’s two of them, arranged to be dazzling) came on. Ooops. TBH, I’m not sure I killed the engine as quickly as I should have done but here’s a snapshot of the logged oil pressure. The top trace is lap 4 and the lower one is lap 5, that is the lap before the oil light came on.  The cursor is positioned about 80% of the way around Luffield and, as you can see on lap 4 the pressure was fine, on lap 5 it wasn’t very clever as it was about 50% of what it was the previous lap. Problem is, this wasn’t low enough to put the light on and at this point of the circuit I’m not looking at the gauge. (The reason it drops right down at the end is that on this lap I came in to adjust the tyre pressures.

So, after the light came on I killed the engine and coasted into the pitlane. Luckily there were some helpers there to put me back to the garage. Once there I took the engine cover off and there was oil everywhere inside the engine compartment. at first I wondered about a rod sticking out through the block but inspection showed that wasn’t the case. After much cleaning it transpired that the cooler had sprung a leak. (These things seem to be too fragile…) As a temporary measure I took off the cooler and cleaned everything up. (And, while doing this, Damon Hill came over for a chat; his son was testing from the adjacent garage. Damon was whinging about the cost of motor racing which I thought was slightly rich going by the amount of stuff they had in that garage for one chap.)

With that done, we added some more oil. (Not a huge amount, it doesn’t take much oil to make a quite spectacular mess.) And then I started the engine. The pressure seemed OK but I must admit I wasn’t too happy as the engine didn’t sound right.

All the same, we retired for the night, and set up everything for the race the next day. It dawned cold and damp but, again, the forecast was to clear up which looked right. I was in the second qualifying session, and trundled over to the rather unusually sited assembly area. On the way over, with the engine essentially ticking over the oil light came on again. Now, as the light comes one at 10psi this isn’t unknown when the oil’s really hot. Problem is, it wasn’t. In the queue I fretted and tried a few things but it was clear that something was up. Bugger…

So, I pulled out and that was the end of my Birkett. My team ended up coming 10th on the road which is pretty good seeing as we were down to 4 cars and we had a couple of mishaps. What’s to bet that it rains, again, next year.

I’ve decided to strip the engine myself rather than taking it to Andy, mainly for interest. I’m assuming that I’m going to find some run shells in there. I hope so as something more than that could be expensive. It’s not going to be cheap though, I looked up the prices of new shells and fell off my chair. A complete new set of big end and main shells will be about £250 which is horrible. Cheaper than a new engine though. I’ll just have to hope there isn’t more damage in there when I get in there…

So, I’ve started putting the car in position to strip things over the winter. I’ve taken all the bodywork, and have even secreted a bit of it in the garage roof as seen here. (A long time ago I screwed some hooks up here to hand the Westfield bodywork here. They’re still there…)

Anyway, that’s the absolute end of the racing season. Watch this space for the tale of the winter fixes and upgrades…

6 thoughts on “A damp squib”

  1. Sounds like a frustrating end to what must have been a frustrating season.
    What tyres are the wet’s, Tim?

  2. Hi Tim,

    Good luck fixing the engine.

    I am new on here and wondering if you can point me in the right direction. Im currently trying to get my Fury race ready, one item I need to address is a roll cage, as the roll bar I have is insufficient. I have ahd a couple of scary quotes for custom builds and would love to know if I can buy a prebuilt fury cage ready to be welded into the car?

    I plan to go racing initially in a Scottish series (knockhill), then if it works out venture south of the border into a larger race series, thats the plan anyway!!

    Cheers, Marc

    1. Marc,

      The only place that’s likely to sell a cage that will fit is Steve at Fishers themselves. The alternative, and the one I’d choose, is to get some tubes bent yourself, there’s usually mandrel benders in the yellow pages, buy a tube notcher and make it all fit and then find a local welder to stick it together for you. The specs of the tubing you need are all in the blue book. But, it you want it certificated it’ll cost a lot more.

      Tim

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