The Build
Preparation
Getting Started
The Chassis
The Bodywork
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
December 2007
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
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Racing
Anglesey June '08
Cadwell July '08
Silverstone Aug '08
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Sunday 1st June, 2008
Most of the weekend's been spent catching up on the garden although I have got a few little jobs done on the car. I moved the rear view mirror to the centre of the roll cage - I'd had it on the right hand side which gave me a good view of my own helmet and the left side of the track behind me but not directly behind. Another minor irritant at Pembrey had been that on the straight the steering wheel was slightly to the left so I put a quarter of a turn on each steering rod. Sounds petty but it had meant that keeping my hands in position on the wheel had meant they weren't quite in the correct position for the gear shift.
I stuck a jubilee clip around the oil filter and lock-wired that - a tip from one of the racers, apparently every year someone trashed an engine through the filter coming undone. I also removed the sump plug and drilled a hole through it using the pillar drill then lock-wired that to another casing screw.
Because of the vibration bike engined cars are notorious for loosening bolts propshaft bolts being particularly critical. I suspect one reason for this is that it's very difficult to actually get any real torque into them when tightening. Mine are nylocs and I used threadlock on them but thought I'd give them a check. Sure enough one of the bolts at the engine end wasn't very tight - it wasn't actually loose but I could turn the bolt via an allen key, so I undid it, reapplied threadlock and redid it. I had to nip up to B&Q later so I bought a little jar of white enamel and put a dab of paint on them all so I can easily see if they move. Access at the rear means removing the panel off the top of the tunnel. I took the seats out to do this and one of these bolts was similarly not very tight. They all got a dab of paint too.
While the seats were out I removed the harnesses from the passenger side and cleaned all the bits of rubber out of the car. I also drilled holes in the floor, I'd meant to do this before but forgot and it was a bit of a pain at Pembrey - every time round Hatchett's there was a big puddle and I ended up with water in the footwell which made my feet slide around. Once the swarf was cleaned out I gave the panels a bit of a clean.
And that was about it. The only other jobs are that I want to bleed the brakes as I thought the pedal was feeling a bit spongy on Friday afternoon and to swap the alternator cover over which should only take an hour or two. I spent a couple of hours getting the camping gear out - I'm using my son's fishing tent so thought I'd better have a dry run putting it up on a still sunny morning in the garden before I try to do it in a windswept field in Anglesey in lashing rain! I need to get a few bits and pieces although I don't expect to be doing much cooking up there, there's a barbecue each evening. I do need to get all my stuff together though, I think my evenings will be pretty full this week.
Monday 2nd June, 2008
Lots of minor shopping today - blue tarpaulin and some bungees from B&Q to keep rain out of the car at the weekend, camping stuff from Makro and Argos. I got insurance for the Fury from Richard Egger - just over £200 to cover it against theft or accidental damage while in the garage, out and about on the trailer or parked up at a circuit etc. I also got myself some AA cover - for years I've had new cars with cover included by the manufacturer but both the Ferrari and the Cayenne are out of warranty now. I also rang Anglesey circuit to book into the test day on Friday. I was worried I'd have missed the boat seeing as there are over 150 racers descending on the circuit at the weekend but they had a space left for me. £180 for the day but that's just 4 sessions, has to be done though really, I definitely don't fancy going out there with 30 other cars to qualify on Saturday morning without ever having driven the circuit. The test sessions are likely to be very busy but I'll get to find my way round and it'll be valuable experience of being on circuit with more cars than I'm used to. I also Rang George Polley Motorsport to ask about a set of wheels and wet tyres. The person I need to speak to wasn't there but I got some prices - wheels (Compomotive CXR'likeek the ones I've already got) were £83, front tyres £58 and rear tyres £71, plus another £10 per corner for the cutting and VAT on top. That'll be another £650 then - I'd thought of just making do with the single set of wheels/tyres but decided that it was inevitable that I'd get a set of wets at some stage and the time I need them most is when I'm inexperienced. Ordering a set to collect in Anglesey (if they have the wheels in stock) is also the best way of insuring against a rainy weekend ;-)
In the evening I decided to bite the bullet and get the alternator cover replaced. This involved getting the car up on stands so I could get the jack under the engine, undoing the 2 top mounts and drilling out the rivets again to get access to the casing. Once the casing was off I could swap the alternator stator and crank position sensor over into the 'new' casing then apply a bit of silicon to the rubber bung where the wires exit and refit the casing. Then re-rivet the footwell panel, refit the mounts and reconnect the bits of loom I'd undone to get access. During this process I had a visitor in the form of Phil Morgan, a local guy I know who I bumped into in the pub at the weekend. He's a very experienced rally driver who has a beautifully immaculate Mark 1 Escort he's built. I'd asked him if he'd pop around to cast an eye over the car for me - he's not a scrutineer but has lots of experience of being scrutineered. He pointed out a couple of minor things but reckoned the car looked OK. Me mentioned MSA logbook which was something I'd overlooked and will need to ask about in the morning. He hung around till I had the car back together and running again.
Wednesday 4th June, 2008
It's all coming along nicely and at the close of play this evening the car's sitting in the garage ready to go. All I need to do is pack all my stuff and load her onto the trailer.
I spoke to Stephen Polley yesterday morning about wheels and tyres but we couldn't get far as I didn't know the offset of my wheels - my original spreadsheet from Martin Bell said ET18 front and ET18 rear. It seems the ET18 is a common size as Polley keep them in stock but the ET0s would have to come from Compomotive and it wasn't certain they'd have them off the shelf. At lunchtime yesterday I checked and the rears are indeed ET0 so I phoned Stephen back with the info and he said he'd check with Compomotive and get back to me. He rang back this morning to say they can get them and they'll supply me with the wheels and cut tyres up in Anglesey on Friday. This plan all seems to be working nicely as currently the BBC weather website is showing nice fluffy white clouds and sunshine for north Wales at the weekend :-)
I've done lots of fiddly little jobs on the car. The battery has been suspect for a while and I had to use my booster battery to start it at Pembrey so I ordered a new one from www.watchbattery.co.uk who delivered a Varta the same size as my original but rated at 11Ah against the original's 8Ah for £62. That arrived yesterday and is now fitted. I've sealed around the gearshift cable and brake bias cable where they go through the bulkhead into the cockpit. I tidied the wiring in the engine bay and discovered a forlorn coolant temperature sensor plug on the bike loom. Strangely plugging this onto the coolant sensor on the cylinder head markedly improved the cold start. I made up and painted some little ally plates and poprivetedd them over slots I left in the rear bulkhead for the harnesses to go through (the harnesses are actually attached to the roll cage) - the fuel tank's just behind there and I suspect an eagle-eyed scrutineer might not have been keen. I took the rear tub off to check thedriveshaftt studs to find the ones on the passenger side were fine (the paint blobs worked nicely) but that on the driver side 2 were loose and the remaining one missing! I'd thought there was something a bit clanky about the drive train coming off my last session at Pembrey and that explains it. I had a vague recollection that there were some spare ones with the diff originally but I wasted the best part of an hour trying to find them amongst all the boxes of fasteners and bits in the garage. I did eventually find them and tightened them all up with some threadlock after cleaning the threads off with brake cleaner. I also checked the locknuts on all the rear suspension rose joints. I stuck some split pins in the harness eyebolt clips so they can't undo themselves. I also wound down the suspension a bit front and rear leaving me over 5mm spare at the front and about 10mm spare at the rear above the minimum 75mm. Phil had said the battery earth lead is supposed to be identified with yellow marking (I checked the blue book and he's right) so I stuck some yellow tape around it. Seems odd since to most of us having a black lead and a red lead is surely enough. I stamped 'FURYBUSA001' on the chassis to identify it for the insurance company - the person who did my quote grabbed some pics off this website during our phone conversation.
I'd checked the trailer's tyre pressures at the weekend - most were around 16psi instead of the recommended 35 so they'd got a bit of air. I dug out my hitch lock and wheel clamp and checked they worked OK and stuck a bit of oil in the locks.
I know the roads through Wales reasonably well so had a rough idea of the route I wanted to take. I found where the circuit is on the Cayenne's satnav (eventually - it's a pretty naff system) and here's what it offered me as the fastest route:
Great, along the M4, all the way up the M5 then M6 more or less to Liverpool then head West. I don't think so. But it gets better. I next told it I wanted to avoid motorways and here's its suggestion:
Head west to Fishguard, across on the ferry to Ireland then pop across to the west coast of Ireland before doing a little tour and coming back across on the ferry to Holyhead! Needless to say I'll be ignoring the satnav and following this route:
Google maps reckons it's 164 miles and about 4 hours 12 minutes which seems a bit more like it. I'll lose a little time cos of the trailer but plan to leave before 5am so the roads should be clear.
Monday 9th June, 2008 - Anglesey Weekend
I'll write more when I've had time but the short of it is that I had a great weekend. The car's come home broken but overall the weekend was a great success and I can't wait to get her fixed and back out there.
I did 4 sessions on the test day on Friday, practice session followed by the RGB race on Saturday, then decided to enter the All Comers race on Sunday which meant an additional practice session Sunday morning followed by the All Comers race and the second RGB race in the afternoon. The car suffered a sudden transmission failure 3/4 of the way round the first lap in the second RGB race.
Once I got the car back to the paddock I didn't investigate, I just loaded her onto the trailer and got home. This morning I unloaded her and unpacked the car then removed the tunnel top cover. Here are the pics - I initially just thought it was primarily a prop failure then realised the diff's flapping in the breeze - the diff mounting bolts have loosened and it looks like it's just hanging from the one mounting bolt which clearly put unreasonable stress on the prop. The prop restraint has been pretty mangled but it looks like it just about did it's job although you can see it's dented the top of the tunnel and holed the driver's side panel. I'll get the car into the garage later and get the rear tub off to have a better look. Hopefully it's just a case of replacing the diff mounting bolts with some more substantial spacers and getting the propshaft fixed. I'm mindful that this could have turned out much worse and I'll rethink the prop restraint fixings etc.
I've decided to stick race reports on separate pages from the building/maintenance pages, so the Anglesey report's here.
Tuesday 10th June, 2008
I've got the week off work so I can spend a bit of time today getting the car sorted out - at the very least I want to get the prop dropped off to be fixed. I got the car up on axle stands again, removed the rear wheels and drained the petrol tank (quite easy, just disconnected the return from the swirl pot to the tank and switched the fuel pump on and let it pump the fuel out into a jerry can). Removing the prop was easy, I then undid a couple of suspension nuts/bolts to allow the drive shafts to move to free the diff. I undid the lonesome remaining diff stud and undid the drive shafts and using a luggage strap lowered the diff out onto the floor.
Andy and I worked out why the diff was working loose - there's about 5mm clearance between the chassis top lugs and the diff but about 50mm each side at the bottom. I'd used some thin walled steel tube shimmed with washers to space it but the tube had crimped into the washers allowing the play. I was going to get some ally/dural 1" diameter tube with a 10mm central hole and cut it into lengths but Andy recommended getting a machine shop to fabricate some to ensure the ends were perfectly square which seemed like a good idea.
I nipped round to ask my rallying friend Phil if he knew of any machine shops and he suggested asking the guys at the place he's used for propshafts in Neath. I popped over there and they said they'd have the prop done for tomorrow morning. I asked about spacers and they said they didn't have any ally but could do them in steel which is fine, I'm only using four 50mm lengths so I don't think I'll notice the extra weight!.
At Anglesey a few of the guys had been fairly negative about Muffett diffs - apparently most of those using them had given up on them. I did wonder about stripping mine down to have a look but decided I didn't really know what I was looking for. James Johnson's still running a Muffett with his Busa engined Fury and he reckoned the input shaft bearing can fail. I checked mine for play and it all seems OK so I decided to just change the oil and refit it. I cut some lengths of 10mm threaded bar to length, lifted the diff back into place and loosely inserted the studs to support it in position.
I'd previously been quite worried about the engine but it had run like a trooper in Anglesey - I'd done 8 full sessions each of which was longer and much harder than any track sessions I'd done before and it was fine. Difficult to know how it is from a power point of view but quite a few of the other drivers had commented on how much grunt it had had. I think they'd come up quick on me in corners and had been disappointed when they expected to get past on the power on the way out :-) The oil pressures had been OK once I got the sump level sorted and I think my next mission is to try to find a good Power Commander map for it. The one concern was the hot starting and I'd heard this was an issue with Hayabusa - there was a recent thread on this in the BEC email list. I spoke to both James and Darcy (Darcy himself runs a Radical) who confirmed it's an issue and the only fix is sticking a big battery on there that's capable of high cranking amps, like the Varley Red Top. I also wondered about the effect of the water pump and wondered about fitting a switch to switch it off just for starting, obviously with some bright LED warning. James confirmed he's done something similar with a relay that automatically isolates it when the starter's pressed. That sounded a bit clever for me so I think a plain old DP switch will do me.
During the weekend my speedo reading had been a bit flaky, probably partly due to the diff movement. Once the speedo reading is out I also lose the gear indicator as that's calculated from speedo and engine RPM. There's a sensor in the tunnel with a pair of magnets on the propshaft. When the prop let go it took out the sensor anyway and only one of the magnets remained. I've decided to invest in a GPS module for the DigiDash which will give me better lap/sector timing capability anyway.
I was going to swap all the rubber bonnet latches for either latching over centre fasteners or springs but had decided that I need to stick a couple of bonnet pins on the top of the bonnet anyway which means the rubber latches will probably do. I think I'll tape the bonnet edges anyway for each session in future - Darcy Smith was saying he did that on Josh's car every time. Even with the latches closed OK the rear edge of the bonnet flaps around quite alarmingly once you're at about 100mph and I've realised that it's important to remove even quite small distractions.
The Le Mans Trip
Here's the reason I haven't made any further progress with the Fury, also why I won't be going to Brands. It's my annual pilgrimage to Le Mans with a group of guys I met via Jen's boss a few years ago. I did manage to pick up the propshaft and the machined spacers on Wednesday morning then in the afternoon I drove the Ferrari over in convoy with David in his Civic to Oxford to meet up with my buddy Richard. After an evening at Richard's it was an early start to meet up with the guys at the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone for the 8.40 train. A few of the guys were absent this year for various reasons but we still had a reasonable convoy including a Lambo Murcielago LP640, Ferrari F430 Spider, Porsche 997 Cab, Aston V8 Vantage, Ford GT and a Merc.
We convoyed the 300 miles down through Rouen without incident, didn't even see any gendarmes. We left the autoroute to call into Beaumont-sur-Sarthe for our usual beer - I was passengering in the Civic behind Richard driving my car and took a few pics out of the window. The convoy got loads of attention passing through the small towns/villages. Probably because Joe leading in the Lambo had set off all their alarms with his exhaust - it really is spectacularly loud!
Thursday evening was spent having beer in Le Scarron in the square followed by a meal at our usual restaurant. We left early but some of the guys were still hitting the beer hard and were late for parade the next morning. So Richard, David and I went into the circuit early on our own and had a stroll up the pit lane looking at all the cars being prepped - most of them have had their bodywork off while they were fettled. Nice Audi R8 safety car in pit lane:
Late morning we left the circuit and headed over to the Mulsanne straight where all the Brits gather for various displays of tomfoolery, this year including a Ghostbusters car complete with garden sprinkler on the roof. There was a nice DB9 with a full wrap in the Aston 007 Gulf colours and we also spotted another friend passengering in an XJ220, first time I've ever seen one on the road. The owner pitched up at the restaurant in Arnage village later and it turns out it's actually the first one ever produced and he was the designer of the car!
After we got back from lunch the rest of the day was spent drinking at Le Scarron. Seems to be a pattern emerging here ...
On Saturday morning we went back to the circuit and we made a little visit to the paddock. Richard knows David Richards, the Aston Martin Racing boss, and we had an invite for a pit garage tour. They were prepping the cars and as you walk into the garage you're made aware of the amount of money being spent by these teams - piles of wheels with various tyres on them, acres of beautiful carbon fibre bodywork, this year all in the pale blue and orange Gulf livery. This year there's an Aston engined LMP1 car as well as the GT1 DB9s and it had qualified 7th behind the 3 diesel Audis and the 3 diesel Peugeots.
The GT1 DBR9s
The Lola Aston LMP1
View from pit lane (including 80's Group C Silk Cut Jag) and a few cheapo OZs ;-)
The rest of the weekend was spent watching bits of the race, in the champagne tent and ... back in Le Scarron. We left for home fairly early Monday morning and after about 600 miles in the Ferrari I got home early evening feeling pretty knackered. It was a great trip but my liver's ready for a rest and I'm keen to get the Fury sorted.
Tuesday 17th June, 2008
Bit of a blow today - I rang ETB to order a GPS module for my DigiDash to find that my unit's too old to support it and I'll just have to replace the speedo sensor that got trashed by the propshaft. I suspect with a firmly fixed diff it'll work fine anyway, it was certainly OK till the last couple of Anglesey sessions when I now realise the diff was flapping around in the breeze. It's cheaper than the GPS unit by about £170 so that'll just about pay for the on-board video recording kit I've also ordered (thanks to Tim for advice on this).
Thursday 19th June, 2008
I sorted out my remaining race entries this morning. I'm already well past the opening date for Cadwell and just realised it's limited to 28 cars so quite likely I won't get in. I faxed it in along with all the remaining RGB races and sent an email along asking about Cadwell. Robin replied later in the morning to say I was currently 2nd reserve but 'We have Brands this weekend and anything may happen in RGB'. I guess there's a good chance I'll get in but I've decided to commit to the weekend anyway - there's an all comers race on the Saturday and 2 RGB races Sunday. Even if I don't get in the first I may get in the second, if not there are 2 Bikesports races as a backstop. Later on I went on the Motorsport vision website and booked the test day on the Friday so I'll get some track time in the car whatever. Cadwell is a long way (270 miles) from here but it's a fab track and worth the trek.
At lunchtime I called in Maplin and bought some nice bright 12v LEDs and a single throw switch - I'll wire these up so I can disable the water pump and have an LED warn me so I don't leave it switched off with the engine running. I might investigate an automatic relay for starting later but there are times when I want the ignition on without the water pump draining the battery. I also called in Livermores and got some aerosols - a couple of cans of the blue and a can of orange to contrast with it. Last night David photoshopped a picture of the car with some orange on it and it looked good - he copied the Aston DBR9 colour scheme, I'll try to get the pic he did and upload it later.
In the evening I did finally get an hour in the garage. I made a start on re-mounting the diff. The spacers were a great fit, I had to work quite hard to get the front pair in between the diff and the lower mountings, the rear pair were just a snug fit. The top mounts were fine with a single washer on one side and 3 washers on the other. I didn't have time to get the nuts on the studs but I'll do that tomorrow as I'm not working - they'll get some new nylocs as well as threadlock.
Friday 20th June, 2008
All the bits I'd ordered arrived in the morning - Neuros video recorder, bullet cam from RF Concepts and a 4Gb compact flash card. Tim reckons CF cards are better than SD etc as the pin connections cope better with vibration. I spent an hour or so fiddling about with this lot getting it to work and am really impressed, it's a lovely compact system. I'll just need to work out where to position it all and how to get a 5 volt supply to the Neuros from the cars 12v. If need be I'll nag Tim when he gets back from Brands.
I got the diff secured and am much happier with the spacers. I didn't take a pic of them but the previous spacers are clearly kinked and crimped at the ends which has then allowed the whole diff to move causing the prop bolts to loosen and ultimately causing failure of the diff mounting studs.
I could then refit the drive shafts which is always a pain in the arse - they're 6mm studs with 10mm nuts on them and it's difficult to get much torque on them. Once they were on I cleaned up the spacers and nuts etc. sprayed a bit of black paint on the spacers and marked all the nuts with white paint - much easier to do a visual inspection than have to actually stick a spanner on each one.
Paul Rogers had kindly sent me a message via the BEC list about my suspension pointing out that my car looked too soft and lacking rake - the rear should be 15-20mm higher than the rear. I'd already suspected the former but hadn't known the latter. I decided to investigate while the rear shock was unbolted to allow me to swing the upright down to get the drive shaft back in. I found that if I wound the spring platform right down there was quite a lot of free play at the end of the spring and I could easily remove it without any compression - I'd suspected the springs were too short as I'd had to wind the platforms right up to get any sort of sensible ride height. I also removed a front one to check that. The rear has 6" 180 pound springs, the front 7" 225 pounds. I measured the fully open and fully closed lengths of both shocks then visited Avo's website to find that indeed both springs were 1" shorter than their listed required spring free length. Grrrr ...
I made a phone call to Andy Bates who was very helpful. He said he's set up another RGB Fury (Neil Constable-Berry's) recently which ended up with 250 lbs front and 225 lbs rear (note: this is wrong, I was later told the stiffer springs are at the rear) but that that was with ARBs which means you use a slightly softer spring. So mine are way out. He also said I'm going to need to fit some ARBs which was something else I'd already worked out! He's going to be at Cadwell so I've arranged to meet up with him on the Friday test day to have a look at my corner weights. He also said it's eventually worth getting some Eibach springs but to experiment with cheaper ones till I've worked out what works best.
I decided I'd go with 275 front as I'm heavier than Neil and am running a heavier engine/dry sump and 225 rear. This does mean I can just swap the front springs to the rear and just buy 2 new ones for the front. The Avo's are about £20 each, Andy suggested Rally Design and indeed theirs work out less than £15 so I ordered those.
Feeling much happier about sorting the suspension I went back out to the garage to progress with the rebuild. I removed the speedo sensor bracket and the prop restraint and removed the rear tunnel side panels so I could drill right through the lower chassis rail to bolt the restraint in. Once that was done I refitted the propshaft and stuck some white paint on the nuts then called it a day.
Saturday 21st June, 2008
A quick trip out first thing for some bolts for the prop restraint, a foot pump from Machine Mart and a voltage regulator from Maplin. The plan for the voltage regulator is to provide a 5v supply for the Neuros, I don't know if it'll work but they're under £1 so I thought it worth a try.
I got the prop centre bearing bolted back in with more spacing washers to straighten out the prop angle, fitted the new speedo sender, refitted the reverse shift rod, handbrake cable and then finally the fuel tank went back on. I got a switch fitted for the water pump along with a warning LED for when it's switched off. I then made up some brackets for the front bonnet pins and got them sprayed before coming in for the evening. That's only one paragraph but it's taken me most of the day!
More emails from Chris and Gordon in the BEC list about corner weighting, also more from Paul who reckons I've got it wrong with my springs and that the ones I've ordered are too stiff. I'm confident he's right! I need to order a couple of sets for front and rear to give me some choice - the springs themselves aren't terribly expensive, it's just a pity I'll need to pay another courier charge. I've got lots of experience of putting stuff together but when it comes to setting the car up I'm a complete novice and appreciate all the help I'm getting.
Sunday 22nd June, 2008
Once I'd riveted the brackets I set about marking up and drilling the holes in the bonnet for the pins. I was keen to get them positioned so they hold the bonnet in the correct position and wanted them to be a fairly snug fit so this took a while. Once on I was really pleased with how much more solid the bonnet it - even with the catches done up the top rear edge of the bonnet flaps around quite a bit at speed and can be a bit off-putting.
One thing that was pointed out to me in Anglesey was that the hole in my bodywork to access the fuel filler is supposed to be covered. When I got back I ordered a pair of dzus fasteners with the bonnet pins from Rally Design. I cut an oval plate of aluminium and sorted out the holes for the dzus fasteners then cleaned it up and sprayed it blue. I'm pretty pleased with the final result. The spray cans I got are really good with a very fine spray giving a really good finish.
I'd planned all along to make a bonnet support strut but just didn't have time before Anglesey. If tipped right forward when on the ground the bonnet front scrapes the floor damaging the paint, it also sometimes doesn't stay there and falls down. The front all needs filling and repainting after my little off-road-with-bonnet-up excursion so I decided to get the strut sorted. I hadn't really worked out in my head how I was going to do it but had bought a metre long length of 8mm aluminium tube at B&Q that I thought would do the job. It turns out that 6mm screws just fit inside the tube so I made a little bracket with a screw poking out at each end and fixed them onto the bulkhead and the bonnet. This seems to work quite nicely and will save damaging both the bonnet and my head
I noticed my brake and throttle pedal aren't aligned terribly well, the throttle pedal is too high so I've no chance of blipping the throttle for downshifts. I took the throttle pedal off and bent it a bit then refitted with a new backstop.
Another thing planned but not got around to was fitting a serial adaptor onto the dash so I can just plug the laptop into the DigiDash without having cables trailing around. I got one from Maplin yesterday and after cutting a hole in the dash I araldited that in place. I also labelled the water pump switch.
The front of the bonnet got sanded down and some filler applied followed by sanding down, primer then eventually topcoat by which time she was looking as good as new again :-) The rear tub also needed some work - not crash damage, but when I lift the rear tub off it flexes at the top/back of the wheel arches and they'd both developed some cracks along the line of the wheel arch extensions. First of all I reinforced the inside with more GRP matting and resin then sanded the outside back, then filled, primed etc. I didn't get that finished before end of play and think I'll need to sort this properly at some stage. Or just accept that the rear wheel arches look a bit manky.
During the afternoon I had an experiment with the bullet cam and Neuros. I just gaffer taped it between the roll hoops of the Ferrari and took it out for a quick spin. It works really well - I have uploaded an edited version (I think I may just possibly have strayed over the speed limit) onto YouTube.
The Neuros records in mp4 format which won't import into Windows Movie Maker which is what I've used before to edit stuff. My main PC's running Linux so I just used a command line converter (mencoder) which converted it into an avi. I did manage to edit video on Linux before but it was pretty clunky and I gave up on it.
The car's pretty much ready again - I just need to spray the blue topcoat on the offside wheel arch and the body can go back on. All that's left is to sort the springs out and set up the wiring for the video stuff. It'd be nice to be able to have a shakedown before Cadwell but I'm working next Friday, I might ring Llandow, they were advertising a trackday for next Saturday.
Monday 23rd June, 2008
i checked my online account with Rally Design to find it was still showing as 'processing' rather than dispatched so I gave them a ring and sure enough my pair of springs were sitting about to be packed. So I asked them to stick some more in there. they rang back to say they didn't have the rears in 275lb strength but I'll have something I can use to get a reasonable setup. I had assumed at the time that the apparent instability of the car in corners at Anglesey was pretty much entirely down to my lack of talent but as Paul reckons I should have stiffer springs on the rear than the front and I had 225 fronts and 180 rears it may well be that I'll see a marked improvement. The other thought is that corner weighting may well improve things further - when I was locking the brakes coming into Rocket it was always the right front. I remembered Alan saying the right front was in the air on the fast right hander at Pembrey too so both of these antics would point towards the front right wheel being too lightly loaded.
I finished spraying the rear tub, it's not brilliant but it'll do. I then moved on to fitting the bullet cam. It comes with some velcro fixing which I think will be OK, particularly if augmented with a couple of cable ties. I picked a spot just above and to the left of the lap timer sensor and got it roughly in position. The trouble with these things is it's difficult to make sure it's not rotated, so I ended up bringing the TV out of the kitchen and setting the whole lot up so I could see a video feed from it in real time. With the cam fixed in what I think looks an OK position I cable tied the cable along the route of the lap timer cable along the passenger sidepod. I want the Neuros box itself to be somewhere that's firstly weather proof and secondly where I can see the LED. There are 2 LEDs, a green one that tells you when the unit has power and a red one when it's recording. They're also a bit dim and difficult to see in bright light. Sadly no indication as to when the unit's actually turned on, although Tim has suggested a mod to the LED that does this. A quick Google turned up this page which looks a bit fiddly but allows you to have brighter LEDs as well as a blue one when it's on. I emailed the guy who will ship one for $15 + $20 postage. Tim reckons removing the red cover from over the LEDs helps so I'll try that first.
The other news from Tim was that I'm on the right track with the voltage regulator although he reckons it's a good idea to use one for the 12v supply for the camera too. I made a start on creating a mini-loom for the camera installation by soldering up some wires onto the 5v regulator and testing that which was fine. I also soldered the DC power connectors onto some wires for the 2 power supplies - I'd bought a selection of connectors in Maplin as they all come with different outside diameters, internal pin diameters and lengths. The bulletcam is a 5.0/2.5 and the Neuros a long 5.5/2.1
After a bit of thought I decided to mount the Neuros unit under the dash just on top of and slightly to the left of the tunnel. It could go on top of the tunnel except that's where my main loom comes up and into the scuttle. So I fabricated a little right angled plate that'll support it in place. I etch primed it followed by some black paint and left it to dry. I can rivet it on tomorrow, I'll fix the unit onto it with some sticky backed velcro - it's only light and I'd have thought that will be enough.
Tuesday 24th June, 2008
First job of the day was to drive to the local delivery office to pick up my mystery packet that Royal Mail had refused to deliver yesterday on the grounds that the stamp on it was 6p short. So I used about £2 worth of petrol and paid the 6p plus a £1 handling fee to get it. Next time you send me a DVD stick the right postage on it Andy!
I got the bits I wanted from Maplin at lunchtime and in the evening made up my sub-loom for the video equipment. It actually took rather longer than it should have but eventually I had it all ready to connect up. I checked the outputs on both power supply jacks before connecting then plugged in. I could power the Neuros up but it wasn't autorecording like it's supposed to. I manually recorded a couple of clips and took the flash card into the house to check it out. Sadly both were just black screen so I went back out and checked my connections to find everything looking OK. I abandoned for the evening.
During the day the springs also arrived from Rally Design but I didn't have a chance to try fitting any.
Wednesday 25th June, 2008
Awake early this morning - I hate it when something doesn't work and I don't know why. So I took the telly out to the garage at 6.30 to troubleshoot. Plugged the camera directly into the TV and picture was fine. Connected Neuros up and that was fine although it seems to have lost it's autorecord setting (where it autorecords as soon as it detects a video input). Changed that and all worked fine ... until 20 seconds into the recording when it crashed. I restarted it to find lots of interference on the screen. I was puzzled but discovered the answer when I burnt my fingers on the 5v regulator! 5 minutes later it was screwed to a piece of aluminium plate as a heatsink and I was in business with everything working fine.
Came in to find a helpful message from Derek about using a battery for the Neuros to protect it from voltage dips - mine seemed OK this morning when I started the engine but I'll confer with Tim and Paul to see what they do.
I gave James Johnson a ring after morning surgery to pick his brains - he's running a Hayabusa engined Fury in RGB and also has a Muffett diff. I lost count of the number of people in Anglesey who basically said I should throw it away and fit another diff! James reckons he's close to solving the problem - apparently one of the internal bearings lets go. I felt vaguely reassured after speaking to him - apart from the expense it would be a right royal pain in the derriere to switch to a different diff since my chassis was specifically built to house the Muffett.
In the evening I drilled a couple of holes in the aluminium plate that acts as the shelf under the scuttle and screwed the regulators to it with a bit of thermal grease underneath. I fixed the switches in place and gave them a couple of labels then stuck the Neuros unit in place using some self-adhesive velcro. The pics below show the Neuros tucked away under the dash and the bulletcam next to the lap timer sensor on the rear roll cage.
Next I made up a new throttle pedal stop - the old one was now too short since I bent the pedal and I didn't have a long enough 8mm bolt. B&Q didn't have any 8mm threaded bar so I splashed out on a length of 8mm aluminium rod and cut a length off, tapped it and got it into position.
Suspension next - I was a bit worried about this, whether the longer springs would fit OK. I did buy a cheap (£11.99) set of spring compressors from Screwfix on Monday but the 'Heavy Duty' in the description on the box should have been a clue. They might fit on the Cayenne's springs but won't go near the Fury's! So Plan B was trying something else. I'm sure there are clever ways of doing it but I basically stuck 2 luggage straps on a spring, stood on it to compress it a bit and tightened the straps. It was a bit of a struggle and not every elegant but it worked and I soon had all 4 corners sporting nice shiny new blue springs. While doing the front I also discovered quite a bit of slop in the top rocker arm on the offside - the 2 bolts that screw into the end of the pivot shaft were pretty loose. So that's yet another handling issue identified and sorted - might explain the wheel locking up easier than the nearside maybe?
My only concern now is that the springs will be too long to get the ride height low enough but I think it's unlikely. I didn't have time this evening to get her down off the axle stands but I can do that tomorrow.
I did get an email from Paul during the day informing me that I was no longer a reserve as there had been a couple of withdrawals. I don't want to wish mechanicals on anyone but it's another uncertainty out of the way. I did get going on editing some of the video footage Andy sent but didn't have time to get it finished.
Thursday 26th June, 2008
The Cadwell Finals were posted on the 750MC website this morning confirming that I am in there, although there appear to be 29 drivers listed for the RGB races. I also got a hard copy in the post along with entry tickets - I got 2 lots of these for some reason, maybe because I entered the All comers as well as RGB. Only just over a week now, getting quite excited.
I rang Llandow the other day and booked onto Saturday's trackday, just for the morning - I just want a couple of steady sessions to shake the car down - Cadwell's a long way to drive to find there's some showstopping problem with it.
In the evening I refitted all the tunnel panels after knocking the dents out and spraying a bit of paint on the injured bits then lowered her back down onto her wheels. It was a bit of a struggle finding stuff to replicate my weight to set the ride height! I ended up with 2 gas bottles, trolley jack and a jerry can of water!
No worries on the spring length/ride height front - with the spring platforms pretty much at the bottom of the threads the front needed to be about 5mm higher, the rear about 10mm higher. I've set it at 85mm front, 100mm rear so I've got 5mm clearance above the minimum allowed at the front and about 15mm rake front to rear which is what everyone has said I should aim for.
Once that was all done I refitted the rear tub and cleared up for the night. I haven't polished up the overspray on the bodywork but there's no rush for that and to be honest it doesn't show very much unless you're looking closely. It's nice to see the car back in one piece again with the battle scars fixed up - I'm really looking forward to driving it with the stiffer rear springs, it'll be interesting to see how different it feels.
I did find my old footage of Cadwell in the Megablade, most of my laps were in the 1:55 bracket although there was quite a bit of traffic, the quickest I saw was 1:53. That would have put me near the back of the grid in May's RGB race there. It has to be said I was keeping it nice and smooth and nowhere near the ragged edge so loads of room for improvement time-wise! I'll edit a bit and stick it up on YouTube - I've already stuck a clip from Llandow in the Megablade on there along with some on the road footage from the Ultima. There's also an edit of Andy's footage from Anglesey.
Saturday 28th June, 2008
One of the things about trackdays and racing is that it never ceases to amaze me just how long it takes getting ready to leave. This morning I was up just before 5am and in the garage by 6 but still didn't have the tools and stuff in the Cayenne and Fury loaded onto the trailer by 8! Still, they don't open the circuit till 10am at Llandow anyway so I was still there in plenty of time. It was absolutely heaving there - there was a karting meeting on and I swear the paddock was busier that Anglesey was, they'd even taken over half of the race circuit paddock area. I signed on to find there were only about a dozen of us booked in!
I took the car out for the first session and discovered that even where it is it's pretty impossible to see the LEDs on the Neuros. It has a green one indicating it has power, you then need to switch it on using the remote but get no visual indication of this. You then flick the camera on and the red light's supposed to come on. So I went out thinking it was on but it wasn't. The car seemed fine - the back end felt much more planted and wasn't wallowing about anywhere near as much . It did feel slightly skittish but I suspect this was because the track was very bumpy rather than because of the suspension. By the end of the session the gear indicator wasn't working which I suspected meant the speedo sensor had a problem. The track had a few damp patches but it was essentially dry and the weather was improving.
When I came in I didn't do a cool down lap but drive straight in and checked the tyre pressures and put a bit mot air into them. I took the tunnel top off to find one of the magnets had flown off despite its araldite. So, a nuisance but no major drama.
I went out again and felt I was going faster than I've ever gone there, certainly the differential between my speed and everyone else's was huge. Being one of the slowest out there at Anglesey had made me forget what a fast car this is! In my hurry to check tyre pressure when I came in I switched off the ignition forgetting to switch off the camera first - when you do this it barfs and truncates the file at zero bytes. So another failed recording.
Checking round the car there was a bit of play in the offside front wheel so I jacked her up and tightened the wheel bearing. I also made a little sort of visor over the Neuros LEDs with some insulating tape which helped quite a bit. I went out again and on something like my third lap the car suddenly started a low frequency vibration like one of the rear wheels was loose. I limped round to the paddock and here's what I found:
My worst fear after all the horror stories I'd heard up in Anglesey was that my diff would fail in Cadwell. So here I was with a pool of diff oil - at first I was worried the drain plug had fallen out but when I took the tunnel top off it looked like the input shaft and flange were wonky which made me think I'd been afflicted by the problem I was warned to expect - disintegration of one of the input shaft bearings which apparently happens because the input shaft isn't sufficiently supported. Or something. I was pretty gutted but decided there was nothing to do but get the car home and get on with trying to fix it. The amount of time I've been spending on fettling the car's become a bit of an issue at home and I'd been hoping that once it was sorted I might get away with only minor fettling between race weekends. Taking the diff out and rebuilding it doesn't fit into the 'minor fettling' category! I'd planned to leave for Cadwell Thursday evening after work and I'm in London all day Wednesday so this week could be a bit of a nightmare. Oh yes and I'd forgotten to switch off the camera again so no video footage at all!
Back home I parked up and watched the MotoGP while I ate some lunch then got outside and David and I pushed the Fury into the garage and I unloaded my tools. Getting the diff out is a pain - getting the prop bolts off, the drive shafts unbolted, the wishbones are in the way of the diff studs so I have to undo a couple of the suspension rose joints to drop those out of the way. And there was diff oil all over the place which is horrible stuff. First surprise was when I undid the prop bolts and the nut holding the diff flange fell onto the floor. Eventually I had the diff on the bench. By this time I'd sort of assumed the worst and it was only when I'd got the flange off with some difficulty and removed the front cover off the diff that I realised the diff actually seemed fine. Basically what had happened was that the flange nut had undone itself (despite locktite and me swinging hard on it), the flange had slipped to the end of the splines at which point it had gone a bit crooked and I'd felt it. I had thought it strange that despite the vibration I still had drive and no funny loose bit of metal kind of noises from the diff. The input shaft oil seal is on the flange collar rather than the shaft and that's where all the oil had escaped.
By now I was feeling decidedly brighter. I had a good look around the front of the diff and it all looked fine - there's a bit of wear on the drop gear but that's not too worrying since it's easily replaceable, it's unlikely to actually fail in any case. In particular the input shaft bearing you can see in the second pic below looked absolutely fine.
So I stuck all back together again. I used some studlock rather than normal threadlock this time, it's supposed to be stronger - the guy in Swansea Fasteners had said it was too permanent but after my diff practically falling out and seeing the prop bolts continually loosening I'd been unable to resist when I saw a bottle of it in Maplin. God knows why they sell it there, I can't imagine needing it with any of the other stuff they sell! I also had a new secret weapon in the form of a clutch holding tool I bought a couple of months ago. In addition to the prongs it has for holding a bike clutch basket it has pegs for holding flanges, alternator rotors etc. I hadn't used it since I bought it but it really made tightening the flange nut much easier:
So, by the close of play at 7pm I had the diff reassembled and ready to refit.
Sunday 29th June, 2008
This morning was spent getting the diff back in the car. Time consuming but fairly straightforward. While the rear wheels were off I also bled the brakes. With the fuel tank refitted and some petrol in there I got her outside and took her for a spin up the drive. Did a couple of stops to see which wheels were locking first - I'd wound the bias further to the back yesterday and it sounded this morning as if the rears were locking first so I wound a click the other way. The speedo isn't working as I don't have replacement magnets for the propshaft, I'll ring ETB in the morning.
I had the camera running too and this worked fine this time, including the audio - I have the mic cable tied on the chassis in the passenger side of the cockpit hopefully out of the way of the worst of the wind noise but able to pick up the exhaust OK.
When one of the RGBers fell off at Anglesey he got a bit of a bollocking from the marshals for not having a towing eye - like many he'd just assumed it was OK to use the roll cage. I do have a towing point and had even got a red arrow and 'Tow' sticker on the front of the car. Trouble is it's a bit useless! It's a steel loop welded onto the bottom of the chassis on the middle of the front cross-member. The problem is that the radiator takes up much of the frontal area of the Fury, and the bottom of the rad is only a couple of mm above the height of the tow loop so towing from that may well damage the radiator. And I don't have any towing point at the rear. During the week I'd ordered a pair of Schroth towing loops and set about fixing them.
The rear proved to be simple as there's a big cross member just in front of the fuel tank, so I drilled a 12mm hole and bolted the loop on then secured the loop to the cross member with gaffa tape. The front was more problematic and in the end I gave up. The only solid part of the chassis that doesn't have radiator in front of it is the bottom one and bolting the loop to that was no improvement on the current loop so I left it. I'll have a look at the other cars in Cadwell, I know Tim's fitted one to his and I'm sure others will have too.