Bob’s FuryBusa Website

Llandow Trackday

Having got home from work at twenty past midnight my alarm wasn’t terribly welcome at 6.30 this morning But I had lots to do – I had a load of car juggling to do, get the motorhome ready, get the Fury onto the trailer, pack all my tools etc. and get my helmet etc. together. With the cars rearranged I nipped to Tesco to fill the motorhome with diesel and fill my 2 jerry cans with unleaded. All seemed to be going well until I came to get the Fury out of the garage to find the nearside front wheel fouling the arch. I was initially a bit puzzled but decided it was probably just a low ride height – in addition to sticking weaker springs on the front springs are an inch shorter. I decided to just wind up the platforms when I got there.

There was a briefing scheduled just before 10am with the first track session starting at 10 and it was always a bit of an ask. David and I arrived a minute or two after 10 and everyone was in the briefing. I didn’t want to go in part way through so I got the trailer off the car, jacked it up and wound the spring platforms up. I’d spent a bit of time cleaning and greasing them so I was able to just turn them by hand. About 10.20 they all came out of the briefing and John, the chief marshal there called me over. He did a quick briefing for myself and another late arriver, he knows I’ve been there a few times before and I hadn’t expected arriving late to be a problem. They were starting off with 2 sessions, and the fast group was going out first, so I got back to the car and stuck some air in the tyres and got ready to go out. By the time I got out there were only about 4 or 5 cars on the circuit so plenty of space to get up to speed.

The car felt great. When you’ve not driven one of these for a while you forget how lively they are, how good a bike engine sounds at 10k+ rpm etc.The only minor hiccup was that the gear indicator wasn’t working properly as I’d forgotten to tell the dash it had a 3.14 diff not a 3.38. The car felt noticeably softer, I seemed to have much better feel for what it was doing. Although there will of course be a significant psychological element to this I have in fact reduced the springs by about 12% so you’d expect to notice it really. My main goal was simply to do a shakedown, check everything was working properly. Within a couple of laps I was up to speed and really enjoying it.

Between sessions I did a bit of checking but mostly some cleaning! Correcting the dash for the diff ratio took only a minute and the speedo and gear indicator worked flawlessly after that. I hadn’t had time to clean the car and it was still covered in grime from Silverstone. The wheel didn’t seem to be fouling any more and although I must have put the corner weights out it felt fine under braking. Llandow’s not a very good place to test that though, the finish straight is incredibly bumpy and I decided to back off early and take it easy – it’s a hard braking zone from about 110mph in 5th down to 2nd gear. After 3 sessions John announced that it was now open pit so we could come and go as we pleased. There were probably about 20 cars there altogether but it was always quiet on the track.

By lunchtime I’d done 5 good sessions entirely without incident so I decided it was mission accomplished and stuck her on the trailer and headed back. So she’s now in the garage cleaner than when I left this morning and good to go. I’ll do a bit of prop/diff bolt checking during the week and have a look at the corner weights again but that’s all she needs

I couldn’t do any lap timing but from my video I think I was doing around 47 seconds. I can’t remember what I’ve done there before but am confident it was slower than that. Here’s one of the traffic free laps:

Back together again

I was going to make an early start this morning but it was -4° so I bottled out and sorted out my race suit instead. I’d been planning to send it away to have it dry cleaned and to have the velcro on the belt and collar replaced as all the hooks had fallen off the old stuff. In the end the company I spoke to said it was OK to stick them in the washing machine so that’s what I did. I managed to buy some fireproof velcro as well so this morning I spent an hour unpicking the old stuff and sewing some new velcro on.

By 10 o’clock I decided it would be tolerable in the garage so off I went outside. I go the front shock refitted then replaced the brake fluid and bled all the brakes. After that I stripped, cleaned and regreased the front hubs and bearings.

After lunch I got the wheels back on and lowered her onto the ground and set up my string box around the car to check all the wheel alignments. I was now confident of getting the car ready so rang Llandow and booked onto tomorrow’s trackday. The front wheels were fine for both toe and camber but the rears unsurprisingly weren’t. It then took me a couple of hours to get the rear end sorted, I wanted just a couple of millimetres of toe-in and about 1.5&deg of camber. Once I was happy I could tighten up all the rose joint lock nuts etc, stick the wheels back on and tighten the hub nuts.

Now running out of time (as I’m working this evening) I got the car outside and got David to sit in it to measure the corner weights. After a bit of tweaking I was happy with that and got her back into the garage and refitted the bodywork. The harnesses need refitting in the morning and I need to pack my stuff up but the car’s otherwise ready to go

Nearly there …

The stuff from Demon Tweeks arrived on Tuesday morning. Everyone moans about them but to be honest I’ve had nothing but good service from them, whenever I’ve rung they’ve been very helpful, the stuff has arrived the next day and with the 10% club membership discount they’re cheaper than the alternatives for most of the dedicated motorsport stuff. I also had an email from the MSA to say my licence is on its way back to me. Since I only sent my application last Thursday that’s pretty good too.

At the end of the season I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope with 5 months without a race weekend but as time went by I started to feel a bit can’t be bothered, especially when it was just too cold to be in the garage. Other priorities started to take over until the first race started to loom. But now I’m starting to feel enthusiastic again and am really looking forward to the Snetterton weekend. Some of the guys are testing at Snett this Friday but it’s simply too far for me, 300 miles and at least 6-7 hours in the motorhome. There is however a trackday at Llandow on Saturday and seeing as that’s only 40 minutes away and for the princely sum of £80 it would be rude not to unless the weather’s awful or I hit some unforeseen snag with the car.

Tuesday evening saw the propshaft refitted – plenty of loctite on the nuts and all marked with paint. I also fitted the new mirror.

On Wednesday I received confirmation that the club have received my entry. It turns out the All Comers race is on the Saturday, which makes a bit more of a weekend of it which is good given the distance. You can usually get into the All Comers quite late (usually on the day in fact) so I’ll wait till I’m confident the car’s sorted (i.e. after Llandow if I go) before entering. I also sorted out the motorhome insurance – I haven’t looked at the motorhome since Christmas when it was press-ganged into providing accommodation for some of the family visiting. So far as I know it doesn’t need much doing to it apart from a spring clean and restocking of cupboards. I also knocked the plastic wheel arch trim off while manoeuvring it and that needs a bit of tidying up and refitting.

Wednesday evening got the reverse motor refitted – it’s got some fairly serious duty bracketry so as a rather futile gesture I’ve drilled some holes in it. The whole lot could do with some paint but it’s a bit of a thrash dissembling it all and I couldn’t be bothered. Once that was refitted I could refit the tunnel panels. Next job was swapping the springs on the front suspension. A bit of a PITA job but with the assistance of my trusty Lidl luggage straps I managed to compress the springs. With the springs off I could give the bodies a good clean and some lubrication then reassemble with the 200lb springs.

Progress continues

Right, I’m back in the groove now Yesterday morning I sent off my application for the RGB series, there’s a rather nice single form on which you can enter all the races so that’s what I’ve done. I also rang Demon Tweeks and ordered a couple of bits and pieces – a new tinted visor (the last one was iridium which looked nice and worked well but ended up horribly pock-marked quite quickly as the stone chips damaged the surface coating). Also another pair of nomex socks as using a single pair for a whole weekend of testing and racing turned out not to be a terribly good thing! And a replacement mirror – this will be the third of the nice curved Longacre mirrors, the first one cracked spontaneously and the second one when the guy at PDQ caught it when climbing into the car on the dyno last year. Not cheap at £17 but a real godsend.

I also rang Fisher but still no sign of the new uprights – apparently they had a batch made up by their fabricators that were all out of alignment so they’re waiting for more. They sounded reasonably confident of getting them within the next week or so but I’m not too worried about running with the repaired one at Snett.

In the evening I made a bit more progress. I swapped the rigid rear towing eye for the Schroth strap I used previously as the Blue Book now prohibits bits sticking out of the bodywork. I painted up the bolts on the diff and drive shafts then it was time to refit the fuel tank.

Refitting the fuel tank didn’t take long and pretty soon it was connected up and the rear end was back together apart from fitting the return and vent hoses back onto the tank.

Ooops, the season’s about to start …

Sadly I’ve had a bit of a week work-wise and didn’t get into the garage till yesterday. I did manage to get my race licence medical done and my licence application sent off. Sadly BGH Geartech didn’t have a replacement upright in stock so as a temporary fix I decided to attempt to straighten the old one. Basically the bottom rear corner had got bent in. It was only when I came to stick it in the vice to assault it that I spotted the crack. As Tim Hoverd has pointed out cracks really don’t show up well on these black powder coated chassis and parts which is why his are all grey. So plan B was to whack it straight and then weld it up. It seems the things are about as tough as a piece of chocolate anyway so it should do temporarily.

The welding went OK after a fashion, it’s thick steel so I turned the welder power up to max. And promptly welded my wire to the welder tip. I got there in the end and after a bit of a gentle caress with the angle grinder and a lick of hammerite it was looking good to go. While I was at it I painted it’s opposite number which has been a goldy plated colour since it was replaced after the original one on the nearside got bent at Oulton.

I’d decided a while ago to stick my original 3.14 Sierra diff in. Since it’s rebuild by Austen’s Dad it’s really looking quite spiffing having been blasted and painted and the 3.14 ratio just suits the Busa engine’s power delivery better than the 3.38. The 3.38 has a bit more backlash than I’d like too. So after sticking some oil in it I then got the diff bolted back into the chassis.

And that was it until today. Trouble is after getting back from London at 8pm Friday then working overnight both Friday night and last night I’m a bit cream crackered and not exactly firing on all cylinders. I started getting the offside rear corner back together, first refitting the drive shaft, it’s amazing how much easier it is with no wishbones in the way! This was accomplished fairly quickly, followed by replacing the wishbones (glad I made a note of where all the washers go on the rose joints!). The wheel bearing got repacked with grease then I bolted the hub back onto the upright and got the upright refitted.

I came to the conclusion as I slid around Silverstone in the wet that my car was set up too hard so I’d decided to change the springs for softer ones. My current setup is 225 pounds on the front and 250 pounds on the rear. The originals when I built the car were 225 front and 180 rear and firming it up definitely got rid of the wallowy rear end. Tim helpfully has measured all the pickup points and stuck them in a spreadsheet to calculate suspension frequencies and according to this mine are in roughly the right ratio but are just a bit too stiff. If I drop to 200 front and 225 rear I’ll be about the same as him frequency-wise so that’s what I’m going for. After a bit of faffing about with luggage straps and a vice I managed to swap the springs over OK.

By the end of the afternoon I had the rear suspension reassembled, shocks back on, brake calipers and handbrake cable refitted and she was looking much more like a car again. As you can see from the pic here not only is the car looking better but there are quite a few less bits on the floor underneath now.

I now need to refit the propshaft, fuel tank and reverse motor, then swap the springs at the front and apart from the usual stuff I’d do before a race weekend that’s about it. First race is 2 weeks today at Snetterton, a bit of a long trek for a single race and of course I’ve yet to finish a race there so it’s not exactly my favourite circuit.

Back on the case

I’ve had a fairly busy time since Christmas with various things including weekends working or away but I found my way out to the garage again Sunday afternoon. I suppose it’s been partly the natural inertia when you’ve left something for a while but having dismantled the transmission it all seems fine – prop centre bearing, UJs, drive shafts etc. so I haven’t been feeling particularly under pressure.

All that was left to dismantle was the right rear suspension. I’d already got the hub and brake caliper etc. off so it was just a matter of unbolting the shock and the wishbones, having noted the number of spacing washers in each location. When unbolting the upright form the lower wishbone I spotted that something wasn’t quite right and remembered arriving at Oulton Park last September to find that corner had gained quite a bit of positive camber. I didn’t find anything to explain this at the time and just adjusted the rose joints to realign it. I’ve now discovered that the lower rear corner of the upright has bent slightly. Having cleaned it and discovered no cracks I’ll get a new one but try to straighten this one to use as a spare.

I spent the rest of my time out there cleaning up all the wishbones, uprights and the rear of the chassis. Apart from making it look better I also wanted to check for any cracks in the diff mounts and suspension pickup points. It all seems intact so apart from replacing the bent upright it’s mainly a matter of tidying up a few bits of damaged paint and reassembling it.

I still haven’t got my medical done so I really need to sort that out this week, it’s only 3 weeks to the first race. There are also a few other bits and pieces I need to order and the motorhome needs getting ready too.

Another cold day!

Today started bright and early. Well, last night really as I went to work at midnight and came home at 8am. After getting the Christmas tree down it was time for my little trip to Machine Mart. I’d made myself a little shopping list but of course when I got there remembered a couple of other bits and pieces that I’d been thinking of getting for a while. Of course the place was heaving! It didn’t take me long to do my little trolley dash without a trolley – aluminium low profile jack, a little parts washer and fluid for it and an air powered sheet metal shear. So on the one hand I saved quite a bit by getting the VAT discounted but I still spent a lot!

After clearing a bit of space on the bench for the parts washer I stuck some of the degreasing fluid in it and put it to good use. I cleaned up the drive shaft bolts then the rear hub spacers, caliper brackets and the hubs themselves. Once they’ve dried off I can have a better look at the bearings and check they’re OK. There’s no reason they shouldn’t be really, but then I could say that about the diff that failed, the CV joint etc. etc. …

I then removed the airbox to get at the front prop bolts and undid them then the centre bearing bolts. There’s certainly no play in the centre bearing and it feels nice and smooth so I suspect it’s OK. I then set about the left rear corner first of all noting down where all the spacing washers around the rose joints are then removed the upright and upper and lower wishbones and gave them all a clean. I now have really good access to the rear end of the chassis to give it all a clean, check for any cracks and touch up any paint. Initial inspection suggests the powder coating is all in very good shape which is nice.

Brrrrrrr!!

Really cold in the garage today even with the heater going – I’ve got one of those propane heaters that blows the hot air out. It’s usually pretty efficient but it was really cold overnight with an inch or two of snow and still freezing in the daytime.

I undid all the bolts holding the drive shafts onto the diff then removed the drive shafts. I decided another possible culprit for vibration might be the wheel bearings so I took the hubs off as well. Of course there’s grease everywhere but I plan to get myself a little parts washer from Machine Mart – they sent me a VAT free card a couple of weeks ago and one of the dates is tomorrow so I’ll pop over there.

I then undid the prop-shaft and removed the reverse motor. I was pleased to note that all the bolts I’d come to so far were still nice and tight with all the paint marks intact. This was the case also for the diff bolts. It didn’t take long to get those out then I could manoeuvre the diff out.

I can now get at all the wishbones etc. to give them a good clean and touch them up where the powder coating has got chipped. I want to get the prop off completely so I can check out the centre bearing properly. I’m still undecided about getting the engine out – the front end of the chassis where Andy resprayed it is looking a bit sad with bits of rust here and there so I suppose I really ought to.

The Winter rebuild finally begins!

When I came back from Silverstone towards the end of October I just wheeled the Fury into the garage. And dumped all the tools and spares from the motorhome in there. Then in the subsequent weeks lots of other things got dumped in there. So to get to my bench I had to step over multiple obstacles. Then when I got there I couldn’t see the bench for clutter anyway

So over the last few days I’ve spent some time in there on a big tidy-up. It was freezing so I made use of the propane heater I got some time ago to make it vaguely tolerable in there. Sadly it does create some condensation but I decided to live with that.

Today I actually made a start on the car. Having removable bodywork and tunnel panels is at the very least a godsend if not essential. It was only the work of half an hour or so to get the rear tub off, bonnet off, hub nuts loosened and the whole car up on 4 axle stands. I then drained the fuel tank, removed the rear wheels, brake calipers and disks. Once drained the fuel tank could then be removed.

If you’ve read my previous entries you’ll remember I was worried about what appeared to be a transmission related vibration. So my plan is to remove the drive shafts, diff and prop shaft. I’ll then take the drive shafts and prop shaft to BAR and ask Andrew to check them over to make sure none of the UJs or the tripods are sick and to check the prop centre bearing is OK. I’ll also swap the diff – Andy Bates did great work at Snett getting the LSD into the 3.38 diff but he deliberately rebuilt it with a bit of backlash to allow for it heating up in use. Sadly I think there’s a bit more backlash than I’d like so I’ll get my now shiny 3.14 diff back in there. When I took it out one of the bolts pulled its helicoil out with it so I re-tapped the hole, slapped some stud lock in there and fitted a new helicoil.

By this stage I was trying to make up my mind which was the worse smell – the petrol that was inevitably dribbling out of the tank outlet as I disconnected it all or the distinct smell of cat pee. Sadly my neighbours cats love it in my garage and every time I leave the door open they take the opportunity to get in there and mark it as their territory. It was difficult to tell what they’d actually peed on, the foam mat I use for kneeling on, the seat that I’d removed from the cockpit to dry it out or the car itself. I ended up suspecting all three

At the end of play I was ready to remove the drive shafts. This is tricky with the wheels/hubs removed as it’s difficult to stop the shafts rotating but experience tells me the wheel gun with a 6mm hex key on the end of a long extension bar makes short work of it. Sadly I sheared off the 6mm bit when tightening them up so I’ll need to get a replacement tomorrow. But I’m still pleased to have broken the inertia and made a start

I need to order some bits and pieces but have held off until I gave had a look over everything in case I discover I need things I wasn’t aware of. I’ve got a half day tomorrow so hopefully can get back in the garage in the afternoon.

RGB Winter League

Nope, no updates on the Fury I’m afraid. She’s still sitting exactly where I put her after unloading her off the trailer from Silverstone. I do plan to venture out to the garage again soon and start the winter rebuild though.

I came up with a plan a while back to help with the winter withdrawal symptoms – RGB winter karting events. After checking it was viable we had the first one yesterday at Daytona in Milton Keynes. We managed to just about scrape together 20 karters for an exclusive booking. Sadly I couldn’t get a daytime slot so we were on at 5pm.

Having met up with the gang we had out briefing at 5pm – a video presented by Martin Brundle, followed by the race director answering questions. There were quite a few questions and I suspect he must have thought we were numpties but the problem is that we’re all well accustomed to yellow flags, red flags etc. which all have very specific meanings and set protocols in motorsport. The problem was that at Daytona they use them differently so we needed some clarification.

After the briefing we all got geared up and trouped out to the pit lane and went out for our 5 minute qualifying session. The track was soaking with standing water in places, it was also dark and to be honest the lighting wasn’t too brilliant in places. I got to turn 2, braked, turned the steering wheel and nothing happened, at least not from a kart turning in point of view. It just understeered straight on into the kerb. As I splashed my way round I discovered this was quite a variable phenomenon, at some corners there was a modicum of grip at others there seemed to be nothing. At one particular corner with fairly high entry speed there was none at all until you got to a certain point when just as you thought you were going into the wall the thing hooked up and round you went. Of course we were all spinning left right and centre. I wasn’t sure what to make of it to be honest.

After qualy we all parked up in pit lane and they called us to the grid one by one. I think they called the back half of the grid first in case which I’ve no idea where I was! We had a rolling start and after half a lap I decided I could see better without the visor so I lifted it up which did help. After a few laps I got the hang of the circuit layout and after a couple more started to get to grips with the kart. I eventually discovered that the trick was to get the power on almost as soon as you’d turned in, this would step the rear round a bit and kill the understeer off. When you got it right you could then go round the whole corner sideways which was great fun. Within a couple of laps I was of course completely soaked but had decided it was well worth it!

After our 25 minute race we all went back in and took the soaking race overalls off to reveal soaking clothes underneath. I don’t think any of us had a change of clothes but no-one seemed particularly bothered and from the grins all round I deemed it a success. A bunch of us then found our way to Pizza Hut in the town centre for a debrief over some food and a couple of drinks. By the time David and I got home it was gone 11.30pm and I was knackered and still soaking wet. Good day out!