From Kit Car Journey to Southern Hemisphere Journey...

Well, I'm afraid that this is likely to be my last post on this 'ere blog for a while.

Kate and I finally head-off travelling tomorrow.  The last Gemini-related job was to finish rubbing-down, oiling and wrapping the chassis and then inverting the whole thing so that it could be ratchet-strapped to the ceiling beams.  Not as easy as it sounds - particularly with just two of us.  Anyway, 'Mission Accomplished' as they say.

Wrapped:

Going Up:

Enough room to pop the run-about (read post-travel interview transport) underneath:

So, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Fiji and Australia await.  Guess what....?!  There's a NEW BLOG to chronicle our trip.

I'll ensure that I update my ramblings here as soon as we're home and things start happening with the car again.

Until then, Ciao.

Angles of dangles and mummification...

A bit of catching up to do... I picked the chassis up from the very amiable Dave Gallop some three weeks ago. I'm really pleased with the work that they've done. The combination of a beautifully welded and arrow-straight chassis from Autotune and the revised geometry is quite exciting!

Once I got the car to the garage I started to worry a little bit about the engine; or rather if the engine would fit. Unlike on a Seven-ish, Striker or Fury the car stays the width of the rear bulkhead until the end of the footwells. The chassis then tapers quite severely to form a rectangular engine bay. Because bike engines effectively have the gearbox and clutch pack bolted to the side of the motor, the whole unit needs to be offset to the passenger side in order to run a propshaft off the output shaft. My concern was that I wouldn't be able to offset the engine by enough to get a straight or even near-straight run for the prop.

My solution was to borrow a 5VY R1 engine (my chosen powerplant) from my mate Ed. I lay the chassis on what used to be Ikea shelves and dropped (not literally Ed) the engine into the engine bay onto an identical shelf. This effectively represented the flat floor. Initially, things didn't look great. With the engine shunted against the footwells it was debatable whether or not the propshaft would interfere with the tube at the front of the tunnel. Of equal concern was the high angle that the universal joint would need to run at the centre bearing. Not great.

However, having stared at it for a short while and having taken some photographs for reference, I decided to shunt the engine forward in the engine bay. This had the effect of reducing the angle on the prop to something that, intuitively at least, looked a bit more sensible. The picture below shows the engine at 85mm forward of the bulkhead.

Once I got home, I did some web-based research into prop phasing and angles and also posted a question on Locostbuilders to see what the general thinking was. The other consideration that also comes into all of this is the angle that the engine is mounted at, that is, the degree to which it is canted-over. There seems to be two schools of thought on this. Fisher and Dan B advocate mounting the engine so that the sump flange is parallel to the ground, as seen here (from Dan's site.)

I gather that Andy Bates also favours this approach. However, MNR mount the engine so that the bottom of the sump is parallel to the road as in the bike.  What concerns me about the former method is that the oil pickup is halfway along the bottom of the sump and is therefore not at the lowest point. Both Dan and Andy Bates (for Ed's Phoenix) have used an extended sump to solve the issue. However, I was never convinced that all this was necessary. I then met a local chap who runs a Caterham with a supercharged 5VY engine. Winston has run this car competitively for several years on slicks with the sump bottom parallel to the road; with no issues. His only mod is a dressed version of the "Nitram" sump baffle that everyone seems to use. As I understand it, his son holds a number of course records in the car too. What was also apparent is that he knows the motor back-to-front and inside-out. Hence, if its good enough for Winston, its good enough for me. This is good news as if the engine was mounted in the more upright position it would be more likely that the sump would need to protrude below the floor. Having just spent a serious amount of cash getting the pick-up points moved to run with the floor at close to 75mm, needing to run the chassis higher to accommodate the sump would have been pretty joyless news. Also, in the more upright position it is very difficult to see how the exhaust primaries would route - in fact they'd more or less come out of the head and want to go straight into a chassis tube!

Aside from resolving the prop angle issue, moving the engine forward has some other positive and negative impacts. On the negative side, it moves weight towards the front of the car and therefore affects the weight distribution of the car and increases the polar moment. The convention with bike-engined cars seems to be to move the engine in the other direction. However I suspect that it is possible that moving the weight forward a little might actually aid front-end grip and also steering feel - which is generally relatively absent in a BEC. The other positives from a 'packaging' perspective are that it gives me room to mount the starter motor for the reverse and also means that the exhaust primaries can be a little longer. The overall consequence is that I'm not all that bothered about it, particularly when I can move my short-arse 90kgs self back in the car by mounting the pedal box further back.  What I will probably do is modify the very large footwell slightly (as shown in the Microsoft Paint-modified pic below) to give everything a bit more room. The webbed portion at the top of the footwell should even provide a suitable place to mount the fulcrum/pivot for the rod-operated gear change.

All of this will of course have to wait for my return from travelling (plus subsequently finding a job and somewhere to live!) With the departure date ever-closer, attention has turned to storing the chassis while I'm away. When I collected the chassis originally, it had been stored for a year in a timber garage. This meant that it was virtually free of oxidation, except for a few finger prints. It hasn't fared quite so well since it has been at Track Developments and in my tin-roofed garage so I'd planned to give the metal a bit of a 'polish' with some wet'n'dry and a wire brush. Stage Two is then to give everything a damn-good coating of oil before wrapping it all in stretch-wrap.

I'm about halfway through and am really pleased with how its gone. It's quite time consuming and I've exhausted my supplies of contour sanding blocks and a can of spray oil but tomorrow should see the job finished.

The last job will then be to suspend the chassis from the garage roof. That could be quite exciting.

Progressing Pick-Ups…

After fairly extensive analysis and drawing from Dave and his associates at Track Developments a plan has now been formulated. What is rather pleasing is that the rear geometry is apparently very good, with a low roll centre and a good amount of anti-squat – all at circa 100mm ride height. I must admit that I wasn’t expecting such good news and anticipated having to get all of the pick-up points moved.

The front-end wasn’t quite as perfect and clearly wasn’t designed to run at c.80mm ride height. Hence, the original pick-ups have been removed and new ones are in the process of being welded on.

As part of the process of correcting the geometry Dave has also had to turn-up new inserts for the bottom of the uprights – it’s a bit of a pain as it means that the original ones I had made were effectively useless. Its fairly small-change compared to the overall loss as a result of aborting the last project though so I remain philosophical(ish)…

I should pick-up the chassis next weekend and then just need to get it wrapped up for storage while we’re away. A covering of oil and then stretch-wrap is the favoured method of keeping the rust at bay at the moment. If anyone has a better idea, please let me know.

TC

Out with the old and in with the… errr... old skool!

So, five kit cars/projects in five years; ridiculous right? I quite agree, so I’ve solved it – by buying another project. What?

Allow me to explain, or at least try. I’ll be honest – I was a bit frustrated that the chassis still needed work. I tried to suppress it but the feeling was too strong. I feel like I should be saying that like James Brown… (Good God!)

Anyhoo, it led me to ask if I was going to be really happy with the car; did I really want another 7ish? Well, the problem is that I’d found my head being turned by all sorts of racers from the 50s and 60s. So, I did the sensible thing (?) and put the chassis and associated parts up for sale on locostbuilders.co.uk and phoned Westfield about their XI kit.

Unfortunately they only wanted to sell me a complete kit for £8.5k. As I still want to race the car in the RGB Championship I’d be throwing half of the stuff away. I thanked them and moved on. I spent a few days thinking about cars I really liked but had never considered building. A Lola replica would be nice, as would a one of the Lotus 15 replicas or even a Jag D-type or XKSS. Unfortunately these are all BIG money and not terribly suitable for a 1000cc bike motor and racing.

Next thought was the Autotune Gemini which uses an exact copy of the Falcon MkII bodyshell from the late 50s (as used on a relatively famous Elva racecar.) I contacted two people before speaking to the factory. Firstly, the only person I knew of who was building one – a chap called Dave Beddows and secondly Matt Gilmour from Procomp. The car uses a live axle and Cortina uprights, much like a Locost, so I thought Matt might have an opinion.

Dave came back with good reports and then mentioned that his lightweight (18G) chassis was untouched due to family commitments and that if I was interested, he’d sell at a favourable rate.

The reports from Matt were less good – he said something along the lines of “People have tried to race them but I can’t see why.” Another shattered dream; I contacted Dave and said that I wasn’t interested.

Then I thought about it some more. I respect Matt’s view an awful lot. If he says something would need a lot of work to be race-ready, it needs a lot of work to be race-ready as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, I’d rather set my heart on the thing. The picture below may go some way to explaining why.

I thought about asking Matt to do the necessary mods. However, I suspected that he would talk me out of it – the sensible option would no-doubt have been one of his LA Golds….

So, I made another call. I’d read about Track Developments  in one of the kit car magazines years ago. They’d been involved in a feature where they analysed a V8 Fisher Fury with dodgy handling traits. They eventually determined that only major changes (moving the pick-up points) would make any real difference. Apparently the owner wasn’t impressed. I liked their honesty.

Anyway, I spoke to Dave Gallop, who boosted my confidence in their abilities, and eventually agreed to deliver the chassis straight to him for analysis and potentially to make some of the necessary physical changes.

This is where the chassis sits now. I’m going to be a little bit limited in terms of what I get done in the short term however as I’ve finally booked for Kate and I to go and see a bit of the world… we fly on the 7th November. Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, New Zealand, Fiji and Australia here we come.

TC

Perspective…

I’m sorry that I haven’t posted on here in nearly two months. A few days after my last instalment a close colleague and friend tragically died after a terrible accident at work. I just haven’t felt like reporting on the car’s progress since. My mate Gav mainly got his kicks on two wheels – he was an outstanding bike-trials rider in particular. He really liked his cars too and had helped me with one or two little bits relating to the new build. Hence every time I hold my Moto-Lita wheel (which he drilled much more confidently than I’d have managed) or pick-up my repaired C-spanner my thoughts will no doubt turn to Gav. You’re very much missed Mate!

Rather in the spirit in which Gav lived his life (Carpe diem) it seems right to get this blog and life in general moving forward again.

The chassis and other parts are now in South Wales. A plan was hatched for me to take a van up to Lancashire and for Steve, Joe and I to finish the fabrication that day before I brought it all home. These things always take longer than anticipated and I came home with a few jobs still outstanding. These include:

• Fabrication of the upper front wishbones
• Steering rack mounts
• The addition of anti-roll bar tabs on the front and rear wishbones
• Some tidying of the chassis

Not so long ago I’d have got quite upset about the chassis not being finished. While “right-first-time-on-time” is still a bit of a mantra, if one accepts that problems are part of ‘life’s rich tapestry’ then such problems should, almost by definition, be viewed as precious. This is very much a new perspective for me! I’m off to see my friendly local fabricators to chat about the outstanding jobs shortly.

I had intended to take a raft of photos yesterday. Unfortunately Sunday’s wedding (congrats Mr & Mrs Breakwell) had taken its toll on the camera batteries so I only managed a few shots.  The first shot was taken after I’d roughly positioned the steering rack to check that the steering column would pass unhindered through the chassis bars – I needn’t have worried.

The other photos show some of the thought that has gone into making the subsequent build up and use of the car as easy as possible. Where body parts will be removable, these special tabs have been added to facilitate the use of Dzus fasteners. These are to be used all over the car including on removable sections of the flat floor, the nosecone, bonnet, scuttle and rear ‘boot’ cover(s).

Next are these tabs, made from folded washers. These will carry the cables (electric and control), and fuel and brake lines and largely remove the need to drill the chassis tubes, except for when attaching fixed sections of bodywork.

This final picture shows the result of my decision to rose joint each of the linkages to the front upright. Douglas at Westgarage again did the machining work which should both remove any slop and allow fine tuning, by moving the stub axle in or out using the adjustment in the rose joints, or indeed up or down (by using different tapered inserts.)

More photos should follow over the next few days.

I really should update on the position relating to the RGB regulations. The committee has been busy drafting a revised set of regulations that basically centre around 1 litre engines. The regulations freely permit one-off cars and hence the ‘Paradign Locost’ fits into the new structure quite nicely. This has left me positively enthused about competing in the championship. I’ve just seen that a draft version of the new regulations can be found at http://www.hoverd.org/Tim/2011_draft_Regulations.pdf.

Series of musings / Musings on series

The plan has always been to compete in the 750 Motor Club’s RGB Championship. It’s a well established championship with lots of friendly folk involved. However, I have a couple of concerns. Central to these concerns is the fact that I’m now not leaving for my 9 months “gap-yah” until September/October which means that I’ll almost certainly miss all of the 2011 season. If the truth be told, I’m not entirely sure what the championship will look like in 18 months’ time. The regulations are being debated at the moment and I think there is a possibility that ‘one-off’ cars could one day be excluded from a front-engined class. This is far from certain but it has meant that I’ve started to consider what else is out there; and I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

I’d heard about the Classic Sports Car Club’s Magnificent 7s series over 12 months ago but hadn’t given it too much attention. A few weeks ago, prompted by Matt Gilmour at Procomp, I started to look into it in more detail and contacted the series organiser Peter French to find out more. After some correspondence regarding the eligibility of the Paradigm, I decided to drive up to Cheshire this weekend to watch the race at Oulton Park. I dragged Steve along for a second opinion. We arrived mid-morning and post-qualification so were able to wander around the pits, look at the car and have a chat with some of the drivers. Most of the cars were Caterhams with a smattering of Westfields and derivatives of the Stuart Taylor Locost thrown into the mix too. Most of the cars had Ford or Rover K-Series engines but there was a good selection of bike engines from Suzuki (Busa), Yamaha (5PW R1) and Kawasaki (ZZR1400) too.

Everyone seemed very friendly.

What was immediately apparent was that the regulations were far less strictly defined that in the 750MC series. As long as the car is 7-shaped and isn’t covered in aero-addenda, basically, anything goes. Talking to Peter, if you are an outlier in terms of your pace within a class you should expect to be moved – sounds simple enough. This flexibility is born out of the fact that ‘Mag7s’ does not have Championship status. This keeps costs down, but does mean that awards are strictly informal. The race format is also very different to RGB. Races are 40 minutes long and include a mandatory pit stop. This can either be a simple timed stop-and-go, can involve a driver change or a complete car/driver change. This therefore provides an opportunity to share entry costs and get involved as a team entry. This got me wondering about value for money. If I add up the cost of entries and divide this sum by the time racing in RGB this season, even allowing an extra 15 minutes across the season for the +1 lap format, each minute of racing costs £11.30. If I add in qualifying, each minute of driving on track costs £6.34. In Mag7s, each minute of racing costs less than £7 and each minute driving (either qualifying or racing) costs less than £4. That’s a hell of a difference!

So what of the racing? Well I’ve been lucky enough to witness some great battles in RGB. However as one competitor observed recently, there isn’t really that much overtaking evident at the moment. This I believe is a function of increasing speed differentials and a grid of often only about 25. While one cannot really make a judgement on Mag7s on the basis of one round, the grid was full and this led to a lot of action. The pit stops also seemed to add something too and I like the fact that you at least have the option to share the costs, for example if funds at the end of a season got a bit tight. However, the speed differential in Mag7s is much greater than in RGB with the top four cars lapping faster than a RGB car has ever gone around Oulton and the slowest three lapping at speeds similar to a quick 1300cc Locost! That said, I liked what I saw and will certainly be looking to get involved.

The only question that remains is whether or not to continue to build the car to RGB regulations or whether to plan for the greater freedom of Mag7s. Of course, if the car is built primarily to meet RGB regulations then it is possible to enter Mag7s as well. The same is not true the other way around. Hence, Plan A remains THE plan.

TC

44 months on…

06:30hrs Friday 4th June 2010.

A thirty-year old man yelps somewhere in a sleepy former mining town in South Wales. A black and white cat leaps for cover, unsure of what caused this most unusual of sounds. The cat peers from around a corner to see the yelping man holding aloft two reams of white A4 paper. He looks happy. Over 3 ½ years of endeavour has all but come to an end. His Masters in Business Administration degree is finally finished!

I’ve just got back from the binders having dropped-off two copies of my final and most extensive piece of work. Joy fills the room. There’s more good news; my chassis is nearly finished as well. Joe and Steve spent an obscene amount of time getting it welded-up last weekend. The hope was to have it finished. The reality is that there is probably another five hours of work to do, mainly focussed around the front suspension. In any case, here she is with Joe ar the wheel

I’ll get some better photos when I go up to Joe’s for final fitting for the headrest and steering column. I should hopefully bring it home the same day which should be good. Then its off for powdercoating. Splendid!

I haven’t forgotten about the exhaust end pipe that I mentioned in the last instalment but I’m now going to hang-on until I’ve got the slice of catalyser to fit it before I try to explain the issues and plan on here. I’ve sourced some very smart aluminium bearing carriers for the back to replace the heavy cast iron ones, which I hope is going to make my drum and hub assembly somewhat lighter than even posh Wilwood billet calipers and the associated bracketry.  That’s the plan anyway.

Enough for now; I feel knackered! That’ll be the lack of sleep resulting from the final push to get the dissertation done!  Plus, I’d better do some proper work…

TC