All the same, I’ve adjusted everything and got the misalignment down to about 0.2mm and 0.1°. Time will tell if that’s sufficient. So, I’ve put it all back together with a new chain and new sprockets. There it is at the top looking shiny, in places. Note that you can see the split in the driven sprocket.

Although the misalignment seems slight, it does seem to tally that that was the problem. When I first put the ’08 engine in the car I left the same sprockets on as I’d been using with the ’06 engine. The drive sprocket was fine, or I’d never have reused it. I changed the 50 tooth driven sprocket after a single test session at Snetterton, because the engine was clearly running gearing that was too tall, for one that was 2 teeth larger and it’s run with that sprocket since. The 50 tooth sprocket shows some signs of wear, along the same line as what happened to the 52 tooth one. However, the 48 tooth socket that I used at Brands Hatch with the ’06 engine is absolutely untouched. That is, the sprockets in use with the ’08 engine have all worn. What’s more, looking at the chain I can see that it’s got too hot as quite a few of the oil seals seems to have disappeared. I must admit, I’ve often wondered whether a well-lubricated non O-ring chain would be better than the sealed O ring (actually “X ring”) one that I’ve got on.

I’ve decided to give this weekend’s race a miss; I just don’t have time to do all this and if I bent the car it would spell disaster. I wonder if I’ll be able to get the car on a dyno before the races at Pembrey?

So, I made those components and re-setup all the suspension, yet again. I must admit, I’ve no idea why I didn’t do this originally. It’s much better like this. So much so that when I next get a break in proceedings, I’ll do the same thing for the front suspension components. In many ways those will be easier. The rear ones are a bit tricky because of making everything articulate properly with respect to driveshaft and so on. Mind you, all this is giving me some very good ideas on how to completely re-build the rear end of the car. At the moment I’m trying to resist that though.

I wanted to remake the rear spoiler as it was rather gruesome. What’s more, I’m not at all sure that the middle part of the spoiler, behind me and the intake gubbins, is actually doing anything. So, after a while experimenting with a large adjustable device I gave up and reverted to what I’d done before, albeit without the central component and with added adjustment. The adjustment comes because the spoiler flaps can be moved up and down and bolted in different positions. (That is, I can’t adjust them as I’m zooming down the straights.)

Of course, I have absolutely no idea whether this is going to work or not, I’ll have to see. What I’d really like to do is to put some sensors on the suspension so I could know whether there’s any down (or up) force in various situations. There never seems to be the time to do things like that though.

You may notice that I’ve cut a couple of big holes in the back. This is because it’s getting pretty hot in there and it seemed a good idea to try and let some of the heat out. If nothing else it reduces the car’s weight a bit!

Finally, as the next race is a Snetterton I want to make the rear axle ratio a bit taller. Now I’ve got sprockets this is a lot easier than it used to be. So, I bought a new 48-tooth sprocket from B+C components and cut it in half as I did before. (The yellow bits are some paint I put there so it was easy to see the cut marks.)

I did change the 52-tooth sprocket I’d used at Brands for a 50-tooth one prior to going to Daytuner last week. However, revisiting the calculations showed that I’d probably still be running out of straight line speed. It could, of course, be too tall meaning I end up changing it again. If nothing else, I’m getting quicker at changing the sprocket although no-one could say it was slick.

I’ve got a collection of things that I want to do to the car after Brands. One is to get it mapped to see if that’s where the power is disappearing to. So, I phoned up these people who are recommended by Andy Bates and got the car booked in there for a trip before our next track outing at Snetterton. Problem is, I really need a lambda boss in the exhaust system to do that. Andy forgot to weld one in for me when he built the exhaust system. So, I got a boss from my friend  Chris up at trigger wheels (he sells the bosses for a fraction of the price that other people do) and took my tail pipe up to Andy. The chaps there welded the lamdba boss on and it’s now back in the car.

As you can see, this car which started out a few weeks ago very clean is now starting to get all grimy. It’s really difficult keeping all this stuff clean under the onslaught of the elements and track marbles.

As the next meeting is at Snetterton, with its collection of fast straights then I’d realised a while ago that I probably ought to change the gearing for there. So, I took off the 52-tooth sprocket that I’d got in place and put a 50-tooth one on instead. However, in consulting my big spreadsheet I can see that really it’s still going to be too short and I probably need to get a smaller sprocket, 48 tooth I think, before Snetterton.

Of course, I did a lot of work making changing the sprockets dead easy. Even so, it took me ages to change the thing, probably because I didn’t really know what I was doing. Hopefully next time it’ll be easier. However, I think I might have to machine a couple of slightly shorter turnbuckle links to change it again. That shouldn’t take too long though.

One real problem at Brands was the oil temperature which was, to use the technical term, sky high. Atone point it got up to about 145° which isn’t clever. So, I clearly need to improve the oil cooling. There’s two obvious ways to do this. One is to get a bigger cooler and the other is to shove more air through it.

I thought about it for a while and decided to do both of them.

First up was to mount a new cooler which is done as in the photo on the left. This is a 19-row cooler as opposed to the 13-row I had before. However, my suspicion is that the biggest problem is that there’s insufficient air getting to the cooler and getting away from the back of it.

First up, then is to arrange for a much larger duct on the inlet. It seems as though the NACA duct I as using before just wasn’t up to it. So, I’ve decided to cut a much larger hole in the sidepod, which if nothing else gets rid of some overweight GRP, and to fabricate an aluminium duct. This will be along the lines of the ducts you see on many LMP style cars. First step, though, is to cut a big hole. So, which much girding of loins I set about the sidepod with a jigsaw and it ended up looking like the next photo.

You can see the remains of the front end of the NACA duct here, I always knew that wasn’t going to work if I’m honest. You’ll have to envisage what this is going to look like with a sort of aluminium box leading down to the cooler. And without all that GRP dust.

Finally, I became convinced that the rear end of the car is still too high up after Brands. As such I need to modify the rear suspension, again. Sigh… However, I haven’t quite figured out how to do that yet because I’m running out of places to put the top spring mounting. In fact, Adrian’s coming round later to talk to me about it. He doesn’t know yet, but he is…

Anyway, what have I been up to? I think I’m catching up here so there will probably be some rambling. First up is that I did some modifications to the pedals after the initial tests which seemed to have worked out fairly well. One aspect of this was widening the throttle pedal a bit, as in the photo. This is a bit tedious really, this is an OBP pedal box, something I shall not ever be buying again. Why not? Well, this “race” box is far too flimsy and I’ve had to beef up several things to make it race-worthy. For example, if you look at the top of the photo there some small bolts that go through the top part of the pedal. This is because without these the whole pedal bends laterally. Secondly, you’re expected to heel and toe in a race car.  I’ve already cut off the pedal once and re-welded it towards the left and adding this extra panel, as you can see in the photo, is the latest attempt at getting the throttle and brake close enough together.

Next time, if there is a next time, I shall just make my own from the start.

Next up is the clutch pedal. I started remember all the problems that I’d had getting the Fury off the line. There I resolved things to some extent by changing the lever ratio slightly. I’ve done the same here by the contrivance you can see in the next photo. This is essentially a modified pivot point for the clutch by welding a small, home-made, bush onto the side of the clevis. (Although, as I write this, I’m wondering why I’m not using a small female rod-end to take account of flex and general shonkyness of the pedal box. (See above.)

It was race time again this weekend, that’s a shot from race 2 at the top, just after the start. If you look you can see both me (car 50) and my old Fury (car 24) in there! I didn’t do that well at the weekend, but I’ve realised since that I have a good excuse… What was good, though, was that I got two pretty good starts which is a pleasing difference from my previous existence.

Back though, to pre-race things.

I think I mentioned that I’d noticed some coolant leaking. I finally traced this (well, to be fair, it was really John who fettles Derek’s car who worked it out) to the bung in the radiator that plugs up where a fan switch could got, the black thing in the middle of the photo. John worked out that the coolant that I’d been thinking came from the bottom hose connection was really running down from this bung which, of course, I’m sure that I tightened up properly in the garage. All the same, I did it up with some pump pliers and the car now seems to be coolant tight which is quite a relief.

For a change, here’s a bit of tool-porn. This is  Rage Evolution saw and is my latest toy. I’m a firm believer, you see, in the “he who dies with the most tools wins” philosophy. This thing is just a circular saw which chops and slides and can be used at various funky angles. Best of all, the blade is a TCT (tungsten carbide tipped) device that means it can cut steel as well as wood. In the saw in the photo is a length of 40mm steel box with 3mm walls. It just cuts straight through this which is great because in the past I’ve had to use a hacksaw and then, if I really wanted it to be square either struggle for ages with a file or use the lathe. Now it just cuts. About the only thing that isn’t any good is that bag on the top in  which your cutting swarf and dust is supposed to be deposited. This is not true. What happens is that everything gets liberally thrown around the garage and nothing, absolutely nothing, goes in the bag. Oh well, it’s a small price to pay.

So, why am I chopping up 40mm/3mm box section? Well, it’s to get some droop travel in the front suspension as discussed here before. What I did was to use some of the box section to make a slightly lower mounting point for the top of the dampers in the rocker arms. Initial indications are that the suspension travel is rather better now than it was.

That was the condition that we set off for Brands in. I’m going to summarise what happened for reasons that will become clear in a moment.

I did  the test day, which was OK and my times around Brands (not my strongest circuit, to be honest) were just about where they were in the Fury. However, it’s clear that I could go faster because the car is just not accelerating as fast as the Fury did even though it’s only a little heavier. For example on a typical pair of laps I’m losing 2-3mph compared to the Fury even though the gearing on the J15 is slightly shorter. At the moment, I’m guessing that this is because I haven’t had the engine mapped with the current exhaust and inlet. So, I’ve arranged a trip to a rolling road chap to see about that. I hope to be able to do a few different runs with different configurations of inlet to see what works and what doesn’t.

One problem, though, is that the spoiler is probaby introducing a fair bit of drag. So, I’m going to re-design that somewhat; you’ll have to wait and see how. It’s also the case, though, that I need to lower the rear of the car somewhat. I started off assuming that I’d have to run the same of sort rake as I did in the Fury, about 25mm or so. However, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that really the car needs to be flat or possibly even lower at the rear than at the front. The problem is that I can’t really do this at the moment because I’m running out of travel on the rear dampers. That is, I’m going to have to change the damper mounts again. Sigh. I hope that this doesn’t mean that I run out of room inside the bodywork for the tyres.

As for the racing. I qualified 10^th (5^th in class) and 11^th (7^th in class) for the two races. Not brilliant but arguably not bad for a new car. I’d put some tell-tales on the rear suspension for qualifying and I realised that it was bottoming out which isn’t clever. (I could really do with some of the progressive rate bump stops I used on the Fury but I’ve been unable to locate any at the moment.) To try and control things a bit I stiffened up the ARBs and went out for the first race. I made a good start and disposed of a couple of people at the start. But, the car was very twitchy and I had quite a few moments including one trip through the gravel at Druids with rather a lot of wheel twirling. Hence a rather lousy result. Back in the paddock I softened up the ARBs again and just tried raising the suspension slightly. While doing this I was aware that I’d banged my little finger at some point, but I ignored it and pressed on.

The second race was a bit better although it was very clear in that race that cars I used to be able to outdrag I couldn’t anymore. Hence the mapping trip. All the same I finished in one piece and packed up. I was 11^th (7^th in class) and 8^th (5^th in class) in the two races. So, a decent basis but lots of things to do. My to-do list is getting longer again. When I can type properly again, I’ll tell you what’s on it?

Why can’t I type properly? Well, my little finger hurt more and more after the race and on Sunday swelled up rather a lot. A trip to A&E on Monday morning revealed that I’d broken it. Not seriously, apparently I’d banged it so hard, I’m guessing in the gravel trap moment, that a ligament has pulled on the bone so hard that it’s broken a bit off. I’m off to the Addenbrookes fracture clinic at the weekend where I will doubtless feel out of place with people who have really hurt themselves as apart from my relatively minor injury. At least I hope it’s minor. Bloody hurts though…

Still, with that fond look backwards I needed to actually get the car together again for the next meeting. As I said last time I found out that the rear wishbone was bent and so I had to make a new one. Here it is, respendent in its colourful, er, grey finish.

I needed to re-install that in the right rear of the car and then, tedium warning, set up everything. As that was such a nice thought I decided to make life much harder for myself by actually fitting the new dampers I’d bought for the J15 to the Fury. That should confuse me. Problem is, that means I’ll lose the entire suspension settings and have to reset everything up. Everything includes ride height, corner weighting, all the wheel cambers, front toe, rear toe and “stringing” (making sure the rear wheels actually point at the front ones). As everything affects everything else that’s pretty tedious. Still, it had to be done. First step, though, was to actually put it together and here’s the right rear corner with its new damper and new wishbone. The rest of it’s still pretty grubby though.

That left the bodywork. When he was over the other week Adrian had done a sterling job of patching up the sidepod. I still needed, though, to pretty it up a bit. So, I took off the mould that Adrian had used (some aluminium sheet), and waved some filler around and sanded it down. A measure of the care with which I treat the bodywork these days can be derived from the fact that the finest grade of abrasive paper I used for this was 120 grit.

After that, I waved some paint at it (see, I’m quite blasé these days) and fitted it back on the chassis, as you can see. Of course, the problem is that bodywork like this never really fits right and making everything fit is pretty much about pushing it forcefully into position.

It was done after a while and I finished off with a celebratory wash so that it looks less like a mobile shed and pushed it back into the side of the garage where it assume its prior unloved situation. Problem is, it’s probably realised that I do care about it and therefore won’t go so well at the next race meeting. I shall endeavour to thrash it within an inch of its life to teach it who the boss really is though.

First thing was to clear all the gravel out of the tunnel, you can see what it was like above. Bear in mind that the car has a complete front and read undertray. That this much gravel got into the tunnel gives you some sort of indication how much there was in the rest of the car. In fact, I took all of the brakes off so as to make sure there weren’t any little bits sitting there waiting to jam up the brakes at an inopportune moment.

The biggest problem, though, looked to be this. I knew something was wrong with this suspension mounting. I’d thought I’d have to take the diff out and then I realised that I could just take the seat back off. As you can see the U-mount is partially torn away from the chassis. In fact, it doesn’t look as if my weld has penetrated too well here.

So, I took the wishbone and everything off, battered it all back into place and patched it up.

I knew that the upright was mullered and I had originally thought that I’d got a spare. However, it turned out that my spare was for the other side of the car. So, I phoned BGH and they said they had exactly one and that they’d send it to me. That it hasn’t turned up yet isn’t worrying me in the slightest…

In the meantime, I thought I’d put the wishbone and everything back in. In the process of doing this I discovered that the wishbone was twisted. It’s essentially flat but when you lay it on a flat surface one corner sticks up by about 20mm. This is probably not a Good Thing. So, swearing slightly, I dug out the jig I made a few years ago and set about making a new one. Luckily I’ve got the various bits of steel and the bushes that  I need. The photo shows it in an early stage of construction. Of course, since I made these originally, I’ve acquired a lathe; have I mentioned this at all? So, things are a bit easier now and I don’t have to traipse up to the wilds of Eloi to use Dan‘s lathe.

In fact, as I write, the upright’s arrived. Phew… So, with luck, I’ll be able to get this all back together in time for the next race. In fact, I’m considering a minor tweak in that I might fit the double-adjustable dampers that I got the other day to the Fury. As I’m doing a test day it might help to see where I can get to and will provide a bit of information to help with the J15 when I finally get the thing on track. I could easily just convert back to the single adjustables though. On that subject I phoned Protech to tell them I hadn’t paid, and they said that as I’d just bought four more dampers from them they were repairing the single adjustable for free. Super service, I’m very very impressed.

As to what caused all this grief, there’s various videos been posted so you can see where I came to grief from many points of view. What’s more, this race is going to feature in a TV programme on Motors TV in a few weeks (there will also be a copy of the programme here). You never know, you might see me in it…

Here’s Al’s video where you can see how I came to grief at Druids. Or, rather, someone else applied the grief to me at about 26 seconds in. It seems that the BTCC is having an effect…

As to the J15, well progress has stalled a bit the last few days. I did make a bit of start getting the front bodywork fitted. In particular I mounted the carbon fibre/epoxy splitter I made on the front of the car, as in the photo.

However, so far this isn’t good enough as the aluminium floor that the splitter is connected to isn’t up to the job. I did make a strap to support the splitter but it allows the rear of the panel to lift which isn’t good enough. I need to think harder how to do this, when the Fury is well again…

I’ve been thinking that I might end up doing all of this season’s RGB races in the Fury. I’ll bust a gut to get the J15 ready for the Birkett though. Especially as that’s going to be on the “Historic GP circuit” this year, which is what was the GP circuit up until this year. Of course, we’ll see the new “Arena” circuit in operation for the upcoming British GP. Pity that it cuts out Bridge though…

Last weekend we went down to Brands Hatch, again, for a two day, two race, weekend. What’s more, our race on the Sunday was quite early so I was hoping to get home to get on with the J15. I should know not to think like that…

As before what I really wanted to do was to get below 52 seconds. So, out in qualifying I was trying, again, to do so. It seemed as though every lap I did was 52.0 seconds. However, finally I managed a 51.95! At last. Back in the paddock and I was 5th on the grid, 3rd in class behind Derek and Mat, for the first race and 4th on the grid, 2nd in class behind Derek, for the second race. That was pretty successful so I settled in to wait for the first race.

Of course, by the time it arrived it was raining. Although not too badly. When we set off though, as we round Paddock Hill Bend there was Paul spinning in front of me in his pole-sitting Contour. There was one of those “I hope he doesn’t shoot sideways into my path” moment but all was well. After that things went quite well. I got past Mat at Druids (around the outside!) and then caught up with John which surprised me as he should have disappeared in his class A car. However, some thought made me remember that he’d had a big accident in testing in the wet and so was taking it carefully.

So, I managed to pass him too and at this point I must have been running in second overall, although as it had taken me a while to get past Mat, Richard and John he was 5 seconds or so down the road.

After a couple of laps John got his act together and came past. Then it was down to trying to get up to Derek. However, Mat had by now also got his act together and was getting ever closer. I thought I’d got it all in hand until I had a bit of a problem with a back marker on the penultimate lap. (I have to learn to be more forceful in these situations.) However, he didn’t manage to quite catch me and so I was 3rd at the line.

So, another podium finish and second in class. My fastest lap was 52.21, reflecting the controlled nature of the race, I guess. Here’s the edited video of the race for your delectation:

The next day was bitterly cold, as you’d expect because it was the day before the summer solstice. It did warm a bit eventually, although it also chucked it down with rain. However, when we got around to race time it looked fairly overcast but didn’t look like raining.

I lined up fourth and got a slightly better start than usual. I keep thinking that what I ought to do is to book some time at an airfield day and spend the day practising starts and then just replace the clutch. Problem is, there  never seems to be the time.

Down to Druids and I tried to go around the outside of Mat again. This time he decided that the best thing to do was to drive into me an shove me off the road which he duly did. I wasn’t the slightest bit impressed with that. Especially so as I ended up dead last.

Still, it meant a considerably interesting fight back and I set about it. I was 21st at the end of the first lap, 18th on the next lap, 17th, 16th, 14th and so on. Eventually I was 9th behind Mat and Richard. They were battling away, Richard struggling with a car that seemed determined to fly off the road and Mat using some very odd lines. At Druids they tangled (I think Richard might have nearly spun and was stopped by hitting Mat, or Mat turned into him, I can’t be sure) and I got past Mat and was now behind Richard. Around to Clearways, though, and I was faced with a spinning car in front of me for the second time over the weekend. This time, though, it didn’t turn out so well. I tried to get past Richard  on the left but he carried on spinning around and smacked into the side of me. In retrospect I’m very glad about the side-impact stuff on the chassis there.

We both ended up in the gravel trap. His car didn’t look too bad but the Fury was rather second hand. In the paddock we cleared out a lot of the stones and general mess (thanks to all the RGB chaps for the help) and I ended up with a list of damage that included:

• A few broken rod ends in the right rear suspension.
• A seriously bent damper rod.
• A seriously bent upright.
• Lots of gravel everywhere.
• At least one suspension mount torn out of the chassis.
• Some, although not too much really, bodywork damage.

I should, though, be able to fix it in time for the next race at Cadwell, assuming that I can get the damper fixed anyway. Best bit was that on my fight back up the field, in full red-mist mode, I got in a lap at 51.6 which was the fastest lap of the race and for which I get a magnificent one point!

Again, here’s the video of the race:

I’ll tell you about the J15 next. To keep you on tenterhooks, though, there’s a photo right at the top of the car on the drive wearing some of its clothes for a change.

So, I got the Fury dusted down, I even spent a while doing a nut and bolt check, before going to Brands on Thursday evening. The weather forecast was, for a change, actually quite good so hopefully I wouldn’t be spending the weekend in a confusion about whether to change the wheels, adjust the ARBs, and so on.

By the way, before you complain, my apologies for the lack of video/photos here. I bought a new video recorder (one of these) and the camera is rubbish, generating a truly gruesome vertical vibration. With luck someone will have taken some photos and I can decorate this post later.

Friday morning, true to the forecast, dawned cold and clear. It would clearly warm up soon and so it did. I was testing in the morning, just so that I could remember which way things went. I was also aiming to better my FL from last year which was 52.6 seconds. Surely I could manage to get below 52 seconds?

Apparently not. Admittedly the testing sessions were marred by a series of travelling roadblocks disguised to look like Morgans (along with a truly scarey classic Corvette that seemed to come around more than once a lap) but that isn’t really a sufficient excuse. After an hour pounding around the (resurfaced in parts) track I managed 52.38, although the theoretical time was much quicker, probably because of the traffic.

In the afternoon, I decided to treat the Fury to a new set of tyres (the ones I’ve been using so far this season are, to be honest, verging on the ancient). Surely that’d make me go quicker on race day?

The next day was again a nice day, hot even, and we lined up for qualifying at the appointed time. I’d managed to get into 3rd in the queue as it’s important to get out there at Brands as qualifying is often very busy and finding a clear lap none too easy. Problem was, we had a long time sitting in the queue as the previous Formula 4 qualifying was halted by a rather serious crash which took a while to clear. Luckily, things were mitigated by Anthea going and buying a few of us an ice cream. Club motor racing you see, it’s not quite the same as Formula 1.

When it was time to go I had to make sure that I got two decent laps as we had two races in the weekend. I got stuck in but, frankly, it wasn’t quick enough. What’s more, as a consequence of the prior fracas (which was followed by the Saxmax boys and girls getting their sessions red-flagged again) we only got 10 minutes on track which meant 11 laps. FL ended up at 52.43 with the second best lap at 52.51. I suppose at least that’s moderately consistent. That meant I was 9th on the grid for the first race (4th in class) and, I guess because of the consistency, 5th(2nd) on the grid in the second race.

Come the race later in the day I got my customary lousy start and had to spend a lap or two getting back to where I ought to have been. After that I had an absolute ball. Essentially me, Derek and Duncan (all class B) were in a gaggle behind Doug’s class A Genesis. That meant we were a bit bottled up and we spent the whole race nearly getting past each other. I’m sure on one lap we went round Druids (the hairpin) 3 abreast! Unfortunately, Duncan broke his gearchange just before the end and I passed him just before the line so I came 3rd in class, 6th on the road. Afterwards we were all bouncing, a truly fantastic race…

On the next day the weather looked a mite more inclement, and it rained a bit first thing. However, it was clearly warm as the ground dried really quickly and by the time of the race it was bone dry. This time I was on the 3rd row of the grid. However, I got an even worse start than usual and had to fight my way forward. Poor Duncan didn’t even get started as he did a driveshaft before the start and Derek hadn’t put enough fuel in and his car was missing on right handers so I got past him easily enought. I was then up behind Gary Goodyear who has a Hayabusa engined Fulcrum. Oddly, he didn’t seem to be that quick down the straights and I managed to get a decent slipstream and dive under him in the Paddock braking zone. Actually, I reckon this was the best race overtake I’ve ever done, right out of the classic driving manual, so I was well pleased with it.

Then I was up to second in class and catching Mat up in the Spire. However, when I got there he’d got the widest car on the track and I didn’t manage to get past him, although a good deal of that we because someone had put some oil down at Clearways and Mat’s car was losing water which was making the track behind him rather difficult. I did so nearly manage to pass him several times and at the start/finish line I was a whole 0.06 seconds behind him, rather less than a car length.

So, another good race and truly great fun.

Now, can I get the J15 going in the 8 week gap we’ve got before the next race, or should I just concentrate on the Fury… Suggestions on a postcard please…

It all started on the Friday when I went down to Brands for a relaxing bit of testing in the morning, intending to spend the afternoon doing some minor fettling and possibly car washing. I even had some assistance there as Tom had come along to Brands to help out which was great.

Not knowing what was to come, we got the car ready and trundled over to the pitlane for the first session of the day. I just wanted to get into an early groove and then we could try a few setup things. Out I went. I have a bad habit of taking too long to get up to speed so in the first part of the session pushed on. So then they red-flagged the session. I came in and went out again and did a 53.2 which was a way off my fastest lap of 52.8 but at least it was in the vicinity.

So, I came in an Tom checked the tyre pressures, which it turned out were pretty much correct. Nice having someone who can do this, though, while I was sitting in the car. I, of course, was wearing my new HANS device. I felt a bit like a turkey trussed up for Christmas but it’d probably  be OK.

Then I was off again and in the exit lane, the car stuttered. And then it carried on doing so for a couple of laps. I’ve had misfires before and they’re frustrating to find. I came in and we tried the obvious things, looking at electrical connections but still the misfire remained. In fact, at the end of the session I had trouble driving back to the paddock through the exit tunnel, which has a bit of a hill in it.

Back in the paddock and we couldn’t find a problem, and the car was fine driving around the paddock, even in quite a brutal fashion.

So, to cut a long story short, that was our day. We tried one thing after another trying to find this misfire, which only seemed to happen under load and at highish revs. I made a large number of forays onto the circuit to do just an out lap. Along the way we changed all sorts of things even including the fuel, all to no avail.

At the end of the day, with a race meeting the next day, we moved the motorhome over into the pits area, which RGB had been allocated for the race, and say and wondered what the problem was. To be honest, I felt pretty down about it all; it all seemed very reminiscent of a lousy weekend in Snetterton back in March. At least this time I knew it wasn’t the cat.

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, it looked a good day for racing. At least it would if your car worked. I had signed up for the BikeSports races as well and went out for an early qualifying with them, having changed a few more things overnight. Rats. It still didn’t work. So, I struggled through my three laps which you need to do to get onto the grid without having to go cap in hand to the Clerk of the Course. FL was a 62.27, good enough for last place on the grid. Sigh…

So, we changed a few more things before RGB qualification and I went out again. And, again, it was still useless. Mind you, I managed a significant improvement to 59.98 in this session, again good enough for last spot on the grid. Mind you, my qualifying time for my very first race back in 2004, which was on this circuit, was 63 seconds and I seemed to be whizzing along. I got lapped twice in the race though, even though I got the time down to 59 seconds.

Enough of the reminiscence. Back in the garage, we looked again. Things seemed to have got worse in that the engine wouldn’t run properly even without load in the garage, at least not above 8000 RPM. Then Tom noticed something, I knew it was useful having him here. He noticed that smoke coming out of the catch tank. That is, the crankcase must have been being pressurised which is really very bad news as it means something seriously awry inside the engine.

Sod it, that was my weekend done.

However, as has happened before, I got set on by others. Andy pointed out that he had another engine on his truck which I could relieve him of, in exchange for a quantity of my Earth pounds. Ah, umm. Surely we wouldn’t have time to change it would we, especially as they’d just announced that all the races had been brought forward by 30 mins?

However, there was probably no problem trying. We had loads and loads of offers of help and decided to get stuck in. Tom drove over to the paddock and arrived back with the tailgate on his car open and Andy sitting inside with a new CBR1000.

Essentially, we all, and there were lots of us, worked like buggery for hours taking the engine out, swapping all the ancillaries over like the sump and the specially modified water pump. The biggest problem was the prop bolts which are always tricky and were even more so this time due to the copious quantities of loctite on them. Tom and I were helped in all this by lots of people but special mention must go to Colin, Roger, Tim and the two Andys. Miraculously, the Locost race took ages to get going having been red-flagged and then Stock Hatch did their usual service too. So, things were looking up.

We finally got everything back together and spun the engine round to try and get some oil pressure. That just about flattened the battery but it did arrive and we tried to fire it up. The flat battery wasn’t helping but it managed it and burst into life! What’s more, all of the electrics seemed to be connected and there weren’t any fluids whizzing out. Most gratifyingly, the cooling system hadn’t needed any bleeding at all; we’d just bunged in the coolant and put the lid on it. The addition of the bleed tube had clearly been a good idea.

The RGB race had, by this time, already been called and all my co-racers were sitting in the assembly area. In the fact the assembly area marshall came along to see if we were going to make it! (This is why I like the 750 club…) I had just had time to clean the grime off my hands and get my race gear on. So, I climbed in an drove off to the assembly area, taking a rather unorthodox route with the permission of the marshall mentioned. When I got to the assembly area there was a huge cheer and beeping of horns from all the other RGBers! I was really rather touched.

I sat there for about 2 mins with the car idling. Andy was even heard to mutter that we’d had two minutes to spare and we could have done slower. And then the engine stopped!

A posse of helpers descended on the car and poked and prodded everything and, for some reason it just started again. Andy reckons that the flat battery couldn’t handle the engine just idling which is a possibility, I reckon. Finally, having promised Andy faithfully that I’d take it careful, I trundled out to my grid slot.

We got a green flag lap because there was lots of oil, and cement dust, on the circuit from the previous race. The car seemed to go OK on that and, when the lights went out I took it easy, as instructed for about 80% of the lap. After that, I though, I might as well go for it. So I did and had a ball! This was the second race from last on the grid and I passed loads of people along the way, like I did last time. So much so that the edited highlights are probably worth looking at:

I equalled my previous fastest lap in the race, which considering that I’d left off things like the undertray, is pretty good. (Or, perhaps the undertray makes no difference at all?) I ended up 2nd in class and 7th on the track which was pretty good from essentially last at the end of the first lap. In the RGB presentation later I got awarded the driver of the day award which was very gratifying, and again very touching.

Later on, I did the second BikeSports race having decided that it’d be rude not to. To be honest it was pretty boring after I’d hunted down David Wale and passed him. (David, you will remember, is the car that I spent all of the last race at Anglesey trying to get past.) Interestingly, my FL in the BikeSports race was 52.5 which is another 3 tenths faster. Mind you, my theoretical fastest lap is now 51.7 to which it’d be nice to get nearer.

But then we won’t be back at Brands now until next year. Be nice to start at the proper place when we do come back…

First thing was the undertray. As I mentioned in the last post part of the front undertray had come loose and was scraping on the ground. The photo above shows the sorry state of what was going on. It’s not surprising that it was making an unpleasant noise. So, I remade the panel, this time arranging for it to, almost, engage with the underside of the splitter. I made it out of slightly thicker aluminium this time so with luck it’ll stay together. Of course, this doesn’t explain why this happened in the first place. It could be that the mountings just got old and failed or, perhaps, I whacked it on kerb. My money’s on the former explanation but there’s no easy way to tell.

I’ve mentioned before that I get a vibration in the car as I accelerate. I’ve looked in all sorts of places for what this can be. Dan suggested that perhaps I should just try changing, very slightly, the angle of the propshaft. Seemed a sensible suggestion so I took off the tunnel side panel in order to expose the centre bearing, as in the photo. You can also seem where the centre UJ has  spun a layer of grease onto everything in sight. But, it’s still pretty clean in here.

I undid the centre bearing mounting bolts and put a 5mm spacer under each one (where “spacer” is code for a couple of thick washers). Then I bolted everything back together. I’ve no idea whether this will do anything, but it’ll be interesting to see. Any sort of change would be interesting, as that’d say I’m on the right track.

While I was in the area I cleaned up some of the video wiring which had got a bit grubby from exposure to the elements. I think I’ll remake all this wiring without things like nasty Phono connectors, but that’ll have to wait for a break in proceedings in order to find the time.

For ages and ages and ages I’ve been thinking about getting a HANS device. As a consequence of the accident in the early laps of the Anglesey race I’ve finally succumbed. One of the reasons for my torpidity on this issue is that I’m offended by the price of them. This device here cost me the princely sum of £750. That’s for a carbon fibre component, two gel pads fixed by velcro, a webbing strap, two metal clips and two plastic runners that hold the strap on the back of the device.

Oh well. I did look at getting one of the Defnder devices which is a newly arrived competitor to the HANS. However, as it’s a lot heavier than the HANS, and my helmet already has the kosher HANS posts installed, meant that I decided to use the standard device.

The next problem with using a HANS is that the specs for the device require that the angle that the rear parts of the shoulder straps make with the horizontal is a maximum of 20°. In order to achieve this I welded another horizontal bar into the roll cage over which the shoulder straps can go, as in the photo. I couldn’t, to be honest, face masking everything up so as to re-spray the cage. Hence, I just painted the bar by hand. It isn’t perfect but it isn’t too bad.

The big issue now is just getting used to wearing the HANS. Everyone says that you get used to it after a very short time. At the moment, I feel like I’ve be installed in a straight-jacket. I’m also a bit concerned about my shoulder. I have an type III AC separation of my shoulder joint, caused by shoulder charging a mountain while skiing. The mountain won. In general this doesn’t cause me many issues, apart from the fact that I can’t throw a ball for toffee any more which has put paid to my international cricketing career. However, my shoulder is sensitive to getting bashed about and I’m worried that the HANS device will just turn out to be very uncomfortable. Time will tell, I guess.

Finally, I mentioned about the possibility of ducting some air to the oil/water intercooler. I’ve put some ducting and opened up a useful hole in the front of the car. This is where the original Fury designer thought that you were going to put the front indicator but in my case it’s  just been blank until recently. When I’m next out I’ll see if this has any effect; probably by trying it both with this duct in place and with the inlet taped up. In case you’re worrying, it doesn’t contact the suspension, honest…