As usual, we went up on the Thursday evening and set up camp for the weekend. This time we were between Duncan, who’s a new RGBer, and Tony Gaunt. We were so close to Tony that he noticed us banging the side of the bus to make the window blind retract in the morning. (The vibration helps, you see.) Tony commented that we had the rebound damping set too high…

Out on track the day started absolutely chucking it down so I sat out a lot of the first session and only trundled out later on when it was clear there was going to be a bit of a dry line. Really all I managed to do was establish that the car was at least working.

I’d been looking at the data logs and decided that the way for me to go quicker at Brands hatch was to start braking rather a lot later in a couple of places; specifically into Paddock and  Druids. I was indeed working at this as the day went on. I can’t admit to thinking I was going particularly fast though. I’d been looking at some minor suspension tweaks but it was still too unstable through Clearways and Graham Hill to get a really good lap. I reckon I’m nearly a couple of seconds away from where I should be here.

At the end of the day I noticed that the brake lights weren’t working, which would mean a certain failure in scrutineering the following day. This is something that’s sort of half happened before, and then gone away before I’d managed to track it down. This time I persevered and it was eventually clear that there was dodgy connection somewhere. All the connections were fine, but there were presumably some high impedance connections to ground in the wiring. I resolved the issue, none too prettily, by completely wiring a new line from the power to the brake switch to the brake lights. At least that fixed it… I ended up working rather late on that, and didn’t really fix it until getting up early the following morning.

So, after getting up early and finishing off faffing around with the wiring, I signed on and it was time for the first race weekend of the year. One nice thing was that due to the very large level of RGB entrants the club had split the grid. So, not only did we have a race for each class we had the chance to watch the class F boys having fun.

I lined up moderately early for qualifying and made a rather poor fist of it really. I ended up with a best time of 52.8. This put me 13th on a grid of 21 cars which really wasn’t too wonderful. This is about 0.4 seconds slower than I managed in the Fury in 2010. At that time I was 9th on a grid of 29 cars. I was 2.9% slower than the pole man. This time I was 7.8% down on the pole time. I’ve’ got to work out what to do about this, of which more later I suspect. As it is I’m almost wasting my time…

So, the day passed pleasantly as the weather was good. however, as it got closer and closer to our race the clouds rolled in and, sure enough, as we assembled for our race it was absolutely chucking it down. As such the race was a bit of a lottery really. Mind you, it was clear that the chaps at the front were managing to actually generate some downforce and were in a completely different league from me. I ended up 11th with a best lap of 67.38 seconds. Matt, who won, had a best lap of 63.9… All the same, you can see the soggy video here if you want:

After that I retired to the paddock, covered the car up and went to the bar. Seemed the best response really… Oddly, the camera seemed to be able to see better than I could. I was aware that I was just heading for the biggest ball of spray I could see on account of the fact that that was where the cars were and therefore that’s where the track was…

The next morning looked dry and pleasant. I spent some time cleaning the car up; drying it off and trying to lose all the dirt  that seems to come hand in hand with the grotty weather. Later on it still looked good when we lined up for the race. I got a half decent start and spent a couple of laps just behind Colin and David. It was almost like the old class C days again. However, one lap when arriving at Druids I made a dreadful attempt at braking and I lost touch. What’s more, after that the brakes seems to get very soft with a very long pedal. It didn’t seem to respond to pumping up and down which seemed odd as normally when they fade you get somewhere with this. So, I just reconciled myself to a rubbish result, kept out of the way of the leaders as they went past and just got to the end. The best lap, though, was the fastest I’ve ever driven round Brands but it was on lap 4 before the brakes went awry.

I’ve since had the car in bits and I’ll tell you next time what I found. For now, you can see the video. It’s not exactly interesting though:

I wonder what happens next?

The one slight saving grace is that the club have managed to get a test session into the start of the programme. This means that I’ve got two practice sessions and two races to fit in on the day, which is going to be a bit pressed, to say the least.

Hence, it was time for final fettling and packing up. I hope that I’ve made the latter a little easier by buying some new storage boxes for fitting into the bus. You can see them sitting in a pile in our hall at the top of the page. Their arrival was a bit traumatic though in that I had them delivered to the office and they arrived on a huge wooden pallet which gave the blokes in reception palpitations…

One thing I wanted to sort on the car was the headlamp covers. Although they’re fine the way I’ve attached them means that grot gets behind them. Hence, I’ve adopted the radical approach of taping them to the bodywork. I don’t think they’ll fly off because other people have done this but you never know…

These boxes are, indeed, now all packed up and in the bus because I went to Snetterton last week for the first test of the season. I didn’t really find much out, mostly because it was wet but I was managing to get my race head on again. After sitting looking at the logs I can see all the places that I was too slow. The problem is, I really need a whole day’s testing at Donington to get myself up to speed and it seems unlikely that I’ll get anywhere near that for the reasons discussed above.

And, luckily, the headlamp covers are still attached… The only problem I had on the day, apart from the ones I expected like the new chain mysteriously acquiring loads of slack on the first session (they always do!) was that the button that put a track marker into the DL1 failed. I spent some of last weekend replacing the switch and rewiring this with a button just below the Dash4. After doing that for a couple of hours I realised that you could program one of the buttons on the Dash4 itself to do this. So, somewhat chastened, I took the new wiring back out again… Speaking of the Dash4, I had a lot of trouble last year with reflections from the display. I’ve attempted to resolve this by buying some anti-reflective film which is intended to go on a Nexus 7 and stuck some of this, with the aid of some gaffer tape, to the front of the Dash. It seemed to be OK at Snetterton, but if the sun ever comes out this year it might turn out to be not so good.

Finally, I did what is becoming the auspicious start to a new season of putting the race numbers on the car. Yes, I know they represent the same cardinal value as last years, but they are actually new numbers.

I must admit that I’m looking forward to the season with slight wariness. The J15 is turning out to be a bit of a pig and I’m at a bit of loss what to do (other than the wholesale rebuilding already discussed here). I’m seriously considering either retiring from racing permanently or at least temporarily while I try and find some speed with this car… One thing I really ought to do is to get someone good to drive the car. I was talking to Tim Gray (last year’s RGB champion and the sort of chap who’d have won if driving a Tesco shopping trolley) and he did some testing with another J15 that’s racing with the Kit Cars. He was very complimentary about that and I wonder if I’ve gone really wrong somewhere…

Less of the wibble though, “what’s been happening in the garage”, I hear you all cry. Well, something, at least. Due to all the alarums and excursions over the winter I’ve done nothing like what I originally

planned to do and am just having to satisfy myself with a few minor tweaks. You can tell the new season’s approaching though, I have to drive up to Donington Park tomorrow evening (as I write) for the first race committee meeting of the year. Doubtless I’ll learn lots of interesting stuff about Locost and Formula Vee.
Onto the car though. One thing I wanted to do was to increase the spring rates all round although to change the front/rear balance slightly to see if I can make the overall balance better. I’m also planning on running the car closer to flat (that is, with no rake) to see if that will also help the balance. There have also been a lot of maintenance things to do like replacing the air  filter foam. This is last year’s, complete with grass.

So, I replaced that and cleaned up all sorts of bits in the engine bay. I made an especial  attempt at neatening up the wiring which had got into a bit of a state after the rushed engine change at Anglesey last year. A bit of me would like to completely redo this, but that’s a but extreme really. One thing I did find while doing all this was the earth connection for the power commander was loose. Hopefully, that’s the explanation for the missing that the engine developed at the Birkett. I certainly haven’t found anything else wrong. At the time we had a theory that it was caused by the fuel tank vent being blocked but closer investigation showed that that wasn’t the case. But, I replaced it anyway…

One thing that I had a bit of trouble with last year was the aluminium turnbuckles that connect to the ends of the anti roll bars at the front and rear of the car. As it’s clear after the Birkett that I need to put a bit more energy into the bars I replaced these with ready made, and steel, items from McGill Motorsports who are a company that sells all sorts of interesting little gadgets. I’ve used them for all sorts of things over the years and their service is usually superb; I had an interesting chat with them at the Autosport show last year when they were saying that they’d taken 8 tonnes of stuff to the show with them to sell. At the time Adrian bought about a tonne of rod ends which we then had to lug around the show for hours.

While in and around the suspension I changed all the pads and changed the brake fluid. I’m going to try some harder pads for the start of the season  but I have a suspicion that they’re going to be too harsh for me.

I spent a while doing things to the exhaust system. First up was re-packing the silencer. I actually repacked this before the Birkett but it was clearly getting noisier and so, after just that one meeting, I took it apart again to find the glass wadding half not there and half completely solidified.

This time, I repacked it with basalt. Supposedly this will withstand the temperatures better, although it has a reputation for just blowing out of the exhaust so we’ll see how it goes. I tried to forestall this with an epic quantity of stainless steel wire wool wrapped around the perforated tube but I’ve no real idea how well it will work.

On the same front, I knocked off the wrap I’d got around the headers. From experience that just goes hard too and eventually falls off so I thought I’d assist it and here it all over my nice garage floor. (That, by the way, is a huge success.) Hopefully the end result of this won’t be overheating of my back but we’ll see how it goes. I have tried to add some extra heat insulation by the exhaust system around the back of the passenger compartment with some proper double-layer heat shield but I don’t really know how well this will work when the engine’s working properly.

The other thing that seemed sensible to do was to replace the chain and sprockets after a hard season. So, I bought new items from B&C Express and installed them. As you can see in the photo below, this time I decided again to not split the sprocket as it’s just too hard to make it run nicely. As such I could buy a lightened driven sprocket which, if nothing else, looks seriously blingy. I also made the chain this time to have a single link more than it did before, to try and make it run a bit better.

Looking at last year’s sprockets they’re pretty badly hooked but perhaps that’s just par for the course after a full season.

One final change was to remake the toe-link adjusters on the rear suspension. The previous design had a flat tab so you could only adjust in half-revolutions. What’s more, you had to unbolt it all the time, hence the turnbuckles. I didn’t buy these ones  ready made though, mainly because, rather oddly, I needed on with a 1/2″ thread on one  end  and a 3/8″ one on the other. But, to make  these I had to break the TIG welder out for the first time for a while. I’d forgotten  how much fun TIG welding was and I’m now looking for something else to weld, Perhaps I’ll make a complete new body out of aluminium. English wheel, anyone?

I’m getting to the point now where I need to put the car back on the ground and do some set-up work. I might also remake the seat which I made in a bit of a rush two years ago… Perhaps this weekend.

It seems quite likely that you’ve all been wondering where I’ve gone. In a nutshell, a lot of things have been happening one of which has just about stopped all work in the garage. More of that in a mo’ though.

After the Birkett, which I think was where I left you all, we went to Hong Kong for a week with Tom which was great. Just so you realise that there’s rather more to Hong Kong than all those photos you usually see here’s a rather different one.

Back in Blightly there were loads of non-car things to be doing in the run up to Christmas and it was only just before the holiday season that I got around to taking the car off the trailer. While doing that I was thinking that I really ought to put some time into tidying up the garage before setting about the car.

And then it was Christmas and good things were happening and, in what turned out to be a short sunny break on Boxing Day morning Anthea and I went out for a bike ride. Nothing too serious just to blow the cobwebs away.

At least that was the idea. The problem was that at one point, luckily on a cycle route and away from the road the front wheel of my bike locked solid. I still have absolutely no idea why this happened but the effect was that I sailed over the handlebars thinking “what the f*** is going on?”. I landed in a heap, Anthea was behind and gave me precious few style points later on, conscious that I’d actually landed on my chest and in the process my wrist appeared to be hurting. My language was very unpleasant for a while, at least once I could breathe again, and I was aware that I seemed to be properly hurting. So, we cycled home (much protestation from Anthea who said she’d ride home and get a car but I reckon I’d have frozen solid by then) and went up the hospital by which time I was aware that I really had hurt something.

The end result was that I’d broken a bone in my arm (the distal end of the radius) and cracked an indeterminate number of ribs. (“We can’t really see but as we wouldn’t do anything about it anyway it doesn’t really matter.”) I had two spectacularly badly bruised knees but nothing there appeared to be actually broken. Luckily the break in my arm isn’t displaced at all so it was just painful; turns out the wrist is sprained as well.

Since then I’ve done precious little to the car for obvious reasons. There was a comedy period where I couldn’t actually get up out of a seat because my knees didn’t work and I couldn’t lift myself with my left arm (the damaged one) or my right arm (as it pushed ribs about). Worst of all, as it turned out, the crash had damaged my shoulder again (it’s a “separated shoulder” as a relic of a skiing accident some years ago when I shoulder-charged a mountain and lost) which has been quite spectacularly painful.

However, I am now starting to feel a bit more human although I go some lengths to avoid coughing, laughing or sneezing (ask anyone else who’s broken a rib or two!). As such, I’ve started the great tidy up in the garage. In particular I’ve done something I’ve been meaning to do for years in that I’ve tiled the floor with inter-locking PVC tiles which makes a quite spectacular difference to the general ambience of the garage; it’s now almost welcoming. What’s more I’ve bought a large and a half decent toolbox to keep some of my collection of a myriad tools in.

All the same, we’re arriving at the new season rather quickly. It’s clear that despite my grand plans last year I’m just going to have to do some minor tweaks, such as stiffening the front ARB, before the season starts.

I have, though, at least started now. What’s more, I’ve connected up the battery charger. There, that’s bound to help…

If you remember back that far, last year’s Birkett was a real damp squib as I blew the engine on the test day. (Now I think about it, I’ve recently left a bit of a trail of dead engines. I don’t think I’m too amused about that.) All the same, with luck this year would be better. As before we got to Silverstone (through some torrential rain) on the Thursday evening and parked up not too far from the garage. However, the forecast for the weekend didn’t look too bad at all.

We were testing on a slightly different circuit from the race itself which was a pain. The test day was on the full GP circuit which includes Vale, which is a largely pointless corner. The race, though, was on the “Historic Grand Prix circuit” which is a complete misnomer as I’m pretty sure they’ve never run an F1 race on this circuit. All the same, this cuts out Vale and, as a consequence, has a much nicer flow of corners around the new pit complex. (Which, of course, we aren’t allowed to use as we’re spotty club racers.)

You can see the difference between the two circuits on the two track maps from the data logger here. Although, you do have to look pretty hard.

We only had three sessions on the test day and I had made a decision to take a slightly different tack in testing than I’d done for the rest of the year. Mainly because I seem to have gone backwards this year… Essentially, all year I’ve been chasing rear end grip as the car’s been oversteering just about everywhere. However, I was thinking, that perhaps I’d just accept the inevitable and make the front end worse. At least that way I might be able to get a bit of balance into the chassis.

So, the first session out on the test day was really trying to find out where the car was. Sure enough, it was over-steering all over the place. The FL in that session was 2:29.21, but perhaps I’d better quote the theoretical laps as there was a lot of traffic and getting a complete decent lap was nigh on impossible. So, that lap in that session was 2:26.40. If you look up the times from last year’s Birkett that doesn’t look too clever, but bear in mind that this is including Vale which actually slows the track down quite a lot.

After that I’d got the tyre pressures sorted out and I started off down my notion of making the front end worse which I did by stiffening the front ARB. It has be said that in a lot of the photos of the car it does look as though it’s rolling quite a lot. This one here is from Anglesey earlier this year. (And yes, I do know the photo looks a bit, err, vivid but that’s because this didn’t come from a photo file directly from a scan of a photo in a scanner that isn’t intended for use as a photo scanner.) I’ve put a photo scanner on my Christmas list but I’m not sure Santa is listening at the moment.

But, as you can see there’s quite a lot of roll there. And, with the ARB duly stiffened I set off for session 2, although by now this was well after lunch. The car immediately felt better, I felt that I chuck it into the corners with much confidence than I’d had recently. The outright FL in that session was 2:24.97 so that’s a lot quicker but I think the track was a lot quicker by now. The theoretical lap in this session was 2:24.57 which is again a good deal quicker. What’s more, I’m sure I could have gone a lot quicker.

So, that was quite successful. I wonder why I hadn’t done this before. In the final session of the day I actually stiffened the front ARB as far as it’d go. Times in that session were 2:26.57 (2:25.28). So, that’s actually a bit slower but I’m not too sure whether that’s down to the suspension or not. All the same, at the end of that I was feeling quite pleased that perhaps I was getting on top of the car after all the trials and tribulations.

After all that, we got the garage sorted out for the Birkett which was the next day. As usual it was cold. It was, after all the last Saturday in October and that was the evening that the clocks were going to go backwards which is always my clue to feel depressed about the approach of winter with only the possibility of a skiing trip to lighten the gloom. I was first out in qualifying, on account of being car A. For some reason we sat in the assembly area for absolutely ages. When I got out everybody else had clearly decided to drive like an absolute pillock and there were cars all over the place, and spinning off all over the place too. As the result of this qualifying is irrelevant, the grid position  being determined by the handicappers, that all seemed a bit daft. I wasn’t too sure I was looking forward to the race after that. So, I just did the laps I needed (MSA rules say you need to do 3 laps to be allowed out onto the track) and came in before the carnage caught up with me.

The race got under way with Derek leading off. The car in the photo at the top of this post is Derek’s. That photo was taken at the end of the day with all the drivers and hangers on in the background; well, most of them anyway. I think I was third out so I spent about 30 mins sitting in the car waiting to be allowed out, but there in case I had to go out in a hurry. I had meant to bring my Kindle down with me to sit and read in the car but had managed to forget to take it to Silverstone.

I have to admit that I’d got some ever so slightly illegal tyres on the car. I’d bought to A048 softs for last year’s Birkett and had the cut as wet tyres. As by next year’s Birkett they were going to be too old I thought I’d try them even though it wasn’t actually wet. That turned out to be a bad idea…

Once out on the track I had a considerable degree of fun. Here’s some of the highlights of the  session. Pretty much the best bit was sneaking round the outside of the traffic at Brooklands to emerge in front of John Goodwin, which is around 12:40 in. The problem at the Birkett, though, is that a lot of other cars don’t actually see us. For evidence see the two comedy Porsches at 00:44 and 14:10. The latter one allowing John to get past me again.

The notion of the soft tyres, though, turned out to be a bad idea as they overheated terribly and grained up. (Do I sound like an F1 poseur, moi?) All the same they  just didn’t work, as you can tell by the way I keep missing the apex by a country mile in the video. Here’s on the tyres, as you can see it’s all got rather hot there.

That’s all very well but the problem was that towards the end of the session the car suddenly starting missing, almost as if it was short of fuel, which it wasn’t. As such I came straight in. We couldn’t find anything wrong though even though we suspected things like the Dynojet IRC which have been perennial problem. So, eventually, we put it all back together and got ready to go out again. Times in session were 2:23.73 (theoretical 2:22.52); rather quicker because of the Vale cut-through.

So, later on I went out again. This time, though, I’d put the proper tyres back on and the car felt instantly more stable and the car was going fine. Problem is, about 20 minutes in and the same misfire/stuttering reappeared and I came in.

I ended up with no idea what was causing the problem. One possibility is that we noticed the fuel tank vent valve didn’t seem to be flowing properly. Certainly not letting air into the tank could screw up the car as eventually no air would get in and the fuel wouldn’t flow properly.So, I’ll sort that over the closed season but it’s hard to believe that that was really the problem. Times in this session were 2:23.09 (2:21.6) which is quicker again so that was pleasing.

So, that leaves us into the closed season. We had a slightly interesting start to the break as on the day after the Birkett we flew out to Hong Kong to spend a week with Tom. It was really nice to get away from gloomy England and go somewhere the weather was nice.

I am, though, left with a conundrum as to what to do over the closed season. I was intending to replace the rear end of the car, as I’ve discussed. But, on the way down to Heathrow Anthea and I spent some time talking about it and ended up thinking I’d do something different. In the meantime, though, I’m going to do some detailed stuff to the J15. Mind you, since then I’ve been so busy that I have, as of today, just got around to talking the car off the trailer. Watch this space to see what does actually happen.

The final two races of the season were at Mallory Park. Not really my favourite circuit originally but I’ve grown to like it. It’s moderately scary though as even though there’s a first gear hairpin on the lap the lap time is still an average of nearly 100mph. (Although, I’m convinced that the official timekeepers have the track length wrong, because my lap times never come to the average that they suggest.

However, I couldn’t find any time to test and you long-suffering readers will know that ruins things for me. So, we drove up on the Saturday (it was two races on the Sunday) and set up camp in the paddock. After that, was it as the last race of the season we had an RGB trip out for a meal. If anyone is in the vicinity of Mallory Park I can heartily recommend The Windmill Inn, it was some of the best food out I’ve had for some time and the service was really friendly too.

Come the following day and it still looked dry so we set off for qualifying. As usual, I was trying to catch up with myself, due to the lack of testing, and I ended up a rather 13th (11th in class) on the grid with a lap  of 50.37. This is, depressingly, about 0.5 second slower than my best Fury time… Still, it could only get better. Mind you, after the qualifying I found out why the handling had been so awful in that some dozy member of the pit crew had neglected to re-attach the front ARB. That can’t have helped…

As a consequence, the first race was a bit more interesting. However, it was marred by a rather astonishing accident which happened right in front of me when Dave Watson’s car essentially vaulted onto the top of Austen’s. Austen’s roll cage had a quantity of tyre rubber on the top of it after the race which I think had caused a rather brown trouser moment in the cockpit. I think the consternation from that caused me to not go very quickly as the FL was 50.4 and I finished in a rather lonely 10th place. However, the car seemed to be handling rather better, I guess as a consequence of putting the suspension back to where I thought it ought to be.

After the race there was a rain shower (actually, mini-deluge would be a better term) and it seemed as though the second race was going to be rather slippy. However, this time I had much more fun. And, even though  there was only a dry line I was getting my brain up to speed and got down to 50.19. I ran the last few laps of the race in close company with Colin. I was clearly faster than him—he said after the race that I could have got past—but we kept on getting blocked by back markers and, depressingly, the top 3 cars lapping at a quite astonishing speed.

All the same, that as much more fun and we returned home with my spirits intact.

So, that’s it for the season. I now have to see if I can get my act together to sort the car for next season. First of all, though, is the Birkett. I put a bit of time in last weekend in getting the car together for that. The only real thing I did was to repack the exhaust as well as doing the routine things like de-glazing the pads. I had been aware all season that the exhaust was getting noisier and noisier and I wanted to forestall this before I failed a noise test. As usual, when I took the silencer apart the wadding was mostly solid, and mostly not there either. Here’s the remnants. (Although, it’s worthwhile noting that there is a bit that’s still mostly there and it also seems to still have the stainless steel wool with which the expansion tube was wrapped. I wonder if I should put rather more of that in?)

So I did exactly that, and repacked the silencer and put the car back together. It’s certainly quieter now; time will tell if the wadding lasts better…

Most importantly, as you can see in the photo on the right, I’ve splurged, I think that’s the technical term, some red paint around and put the car back together. You might also note that I’ve re-instated the undertray extension (I hesitate to call it a diffuser for reasons that RGBers will understand which I’d taken off for Anglesey. In a nutshell the handling at Anglesey was so horrible that surely it must have been helping a bit.

Along the way I’ve done some minor things. For example, I’ve replaced the rain light, seen here. I’d broken this while hopping out of the car when I stopped in the first Anglesey race. It’s always been a bit vulnerable as it sticks up a bit above the cage and when exiting in a rush, pursued by a bear, it’s far to easy to sit on. As this time I’d done a better job on it than I’ve managed previously I’ve bonded a small aluminium plate to the back of it, with the ever-present PU adhesive, and arranged for it to be slightly lower. Hopefully, when the driver plonks his fat arse on the roll cage it’ll be slightly harder to break this time.

I used the same adhesive to bond the left rear light unit back into the bodywork (next time I’m going to mount the lights on the chassis).

The only thing left to do is to sort the dash display. You may remember that I bought one of Race Technology’s Dash-4 displays earlier this year. I’ve actually been deeply unimpressed with this, mainly because it doesn’t calculate the gear correctly, because the display is so reflective that it’s nigh on invisible and because it seems deeply incompetent at seeing the track markers and telling you the lap times. It does have the advantage that it’s weather proof which is why I bought it but that seems a minor issue when it doesn’t actually work.

I’ve been in a long discussion with a support bod at RT who is of the opinion that I ought to use a new GPS receiver. So, I’ve bought one and will be fitting it. If that fails I shall go back to the old Palm-based display and work out a way of making it weather proof. That might have been clunky but at least it mostly worked. The only problem is, to use that I’ll have to downgrade the firmware in my data logger, which might not be possible.

This wasn’t too badly damaged even though it clearly got bent a lot. Nice to see that it’s mostly sprung back into position as the Fury stuff didn’t. As is usual for this sort of thing I held the outside properly together with gaffer tape and I patched up the inside by making it heavier. I’m now trying to get a half decent finish with some filler and lots of elbow grease. After that I’ll re-spray this corner (I’ll just have to blend it in, I’m not redoing the whole panel) and I’ll be ready for the next race at Mallory. After that it’s the Birkett and the end of the season!

All the same, a little report on what’s been happening. About a month ago it was time for Anglesey and we made the long trek up there on the Thursday, arriving a fairly sensible time to set up in the grassy bit of the paddock that we’d been allocated. That was useful as it was time for the annual RGB marshalls BBQ where we run a free BBQ for any marshalls that turn up. Usually a good time is had by all. This time, mind you, a blow-up doll appeared; it was wearing an orange suit though so I suppose that’s OK!

The plan was to test on the Friday, get quick and have a good weekend. Well, that was the plan anyway…

I took it easy on the first session out, although to be fair I was fighting the back end of the car again, of which more anon. Still, everything seemed OK and I lined up for the second session. After a couple of laps there was the obligatory red flag and we pulled into the pit lane. Then out again and half way round the second lap the engine made an odd noise. It sounded for all the world like the exhaust had come adrift, something that happened at the start of last season. So, I slowed down, put my hand up and motored slowly back. Then it just stopped making a rather unpleasant sound. Ho hum.

Back in the paddock and it was obvious that there was something amiss. There was a certain amount of oil around and there was the odd bit of casting in it which wasn’t clever. After I took off  the back of the passenger area it was very obvious that something was seriously  awry because there was a big of conrod sticking out of the block as you can see if you look hard at the photo at the top of the page.

So, at that point I was in the process of packing up, although we’d have stayed to watch the racing and run the BBQ. However, John Cutmore wouldn’t hear of it and I was instructed to do a deal with Paul Nightingale for one of the spare engines that he had and we set to and installed it. Mind you, it takes far too long to change the engine, something of which more anon.

So, I with some help from a valued coterie of RGBers I changed the engine on the Friday afternoon (at some points of which it absolutely threw it down with rain). You might well wonder what caused the engine to die. I have no idea at the moment, although I do know that the oil pressure was absolutely fine just before it went. Although, presumably the funny noise was something internal in the engine which was dying. You can see in the capture from the logger here that the instant before the engine stopped the oil pressure was about 80psi. What’s more, from looking at the view the oil pressure lights only came on after the engine had stopped.

I might never know what caused the problem. I am, though, hoping against hope that the crank on this one won’t be too damaged. That might mean I could make one spare engine out of two dead ones…

Back to Anglesey, though. I got up early on the Saturday  to finish the last touches of the engine mod. After that a little drive around the paddock and all seemed to be well. I then did all the usual stuff, signed on, checked the fuel 15 times, chatted, had a bacon sarnie, chatted some more, check the fuel again and this time the oil too and then we were out for qualifying. Didn’t do too wonderfully really as I was 14th (10th in class) in both races. The car seems to be handling worse and worse, although perhaps that’s the driver getting more and more frustrated.

Come the race, though, there was more to be frustrated about. This is Austen’s video of the first few seconds of the race, you’ll see me appearing from the right…

As you can see, Austen (who was tipped into the spin by someone behind him) managed to hit my left rear with both the front corners of his car. I think the first impact was actually pretty benign. However, after the second one you can see there was a fair bit of bodywork damage and, as I discovered as I set off, about 50mm of toe-out on the left rear which meant I retired behind the same barriers where I’d watched the test session the previous day.

Back in the paddock after the race I inspected the damage. It actually wasn’t as bad as I’d feared the bodywork will need a bit of work (still haven’t done it!) but the rear suspension had been damaged by having the rear toe-link bent. I fixed that with the aid of a large hammer and a vice and I was OK for the next day.

At least I managed to finish that race although it wasn’t too wonderful. I got a decent start (the one high point of this season) and then spent some time trying to keep Tony and Steve behind me. I’d pull away in the straight bits but as soon as it got at all twisty I lost time quickly. Anthea was watching from the top of the hill and commented on how out of shape the car looked all the time. All the same I ended up 10th, 8th in class, which I suppose isn’t too shabby. I’m just aware how much better it could be though; in particular if I could stick the rear end down rather better.

So, back in the ranch now what am I going to do about it. I think I’ve mentioned before the notion of rebuilding the rear end of the car completely and I’ve actually been getting on with this. First of all I’ve been re-designing the rear suspension with:

• pushrods,
• rather longer wishbones,
• rising rate,
• scope for anti-squat and
• a slightly longer wheelbase. (I’m going to have to lengthen the bodywork again!)

Here’s what the CAD assembly looks like. That’s the current diff assembly sitting in there. Also, that slanty bit is the back of the seats. It seems to work so it seems sensible just to use it. What’s more, I already had the CAD models for it.

You might well wonder what the uprights I’m using here are. (OK, you might also note that some bits of the assembly appear to be held in place with skyhooks. I’ll sort that later…) After some discussion I ordered the ones that Brian and Ian Baldwin designed for the BDN S3.

What’s more, I got them at the weekend as you can see in the final photo here. I’m actually rather chuffed with these bits. Note that there’s an aluminium brake bell here as well. The biggest issue of using these is that I’m going to have to get some different rear wheels as the upright uses a Vauxhall hub and stub axle with a different PCD. Mind you, the offset requirements are also different so that’s not really a big deal as I’d have to buy some more wheels anyway.

The plan now is to start fabricating that rear subframe. Once that’s done, and the season’s over, I’ll cut the entire rear end off the car and then weld stick them together with some welded sticks… Should only take a few minutes to do…