Anglesey Preparations

The Fury and I made our racing debut in Anglesey last year, so much seems to have happened since then – a new diff, a new engine, a crash and rebuild along with lots of other more minor repairs and developments. I’m really looking forward to it, it’ll be the first time I go to race on a circuit feeling I already know my way round, also I won’t have to go to a first time at the circuit briefing

I haven’t touched the car since last weekend and there really isn’t much to do to it. I ordered a replacement rod end for the ARB and they arrived during the week, it’ll take all of 5 minutes to fit that. I also got a U clamp to experiment with a mount to clamp the DigiDash to the steering column. And I need to have a look at the corner weights.

Saturday morning I nipped out to Argos and bought a gazebo – I’ve been luck so far in that the weekends when I’ve needed to do major work it’s either been sunny or we happened to have the garages (Oulton last year). I was planning on getting a wind-out awning for the motorhome but they’re over £400 and apparently don’t take kindly to windy conditions. £70 got me one of Argos’ finest with 3 sides to it as well. A trial run on the lawn has left me quite impressed with it.

On Saturday afternoon I stuck the ARB link on then got the car out of the garage to get a bit more room to use the corner weight gauge. This is the Pace one I got from Demon Tweeks that basically uses a lever on a post to lift each wheel in turn. It’s fitted with a master cylinder-like contraption with a pressure gauge. I haven’t bothered to calibrate it because because the raw numbers are fine for corner weighting, I don’t need to know how many kilos the thing actually weighs. With David sitting in the driver’s seat it came up with the following readings:

[table id=1 /]

I gather from Tim that I’m supposed to either get the diagonals the same or make sure that each front wheel carries the same percentage of the weight on that side. As it happened they were pretty much spot on with the left front wheel carrying 44.6% of the weight of left front and rear combined and the right front 46.2% of right front and rear combined. Left front + right rear was 790 and right front and left rear was also 790. So I didn’t bother adjusting anything

I decided I’d also have another look at the DigiDash situation. After an hour or so hacking a length of aluminium angle about and drilling some holes in it I could do a trial fit of the dash unit clamped onto the steering column. It certainly solved the problem it was intended to in that I now have a great view of the whole dash including the shift lights. My worry was that it would all be a bit floppy but it seems rock solid so I’m pretty chuffed with that. Perhaps I’ll need to look into the programming and make sure the shift lights are set up right now. It’s slightly more difficult to access the buttons but that’s not a problem as once I’m out there and have the display set up as I want it I don’t need them. This picture’s a bit dark but you get the idea.

That’s me done and ready for Anglesey apart from just packing everything up.

A new experience

What a difference it makes getting home from a long drive back from a race weekend and just pushing the car off the trailer into the garage without any repairs being needed! There are lots of little jobs I want to do but nothing that really [b]needs[/b] doing, she’s ready to go.

The replacement perforated tube for the exhaust arrived during the following week so I’ll take the silencer apart and swap that in for the cat. I’ll need to find a scrap bike cat to stick a slice of cat in the tailpipe. I also ordered some steel box section to make a wheel rack for the trailer – 4 wheels takes up a lot of space in the motorhome garage and I had a look at Tim’s design which was pretty much as I’d planned anyway. I’m away until Saturday night but hopefully can make a start on it on Sunday. Other jobs I have planned for the weeks before Anglesey (6/7th June) include:

• Replacing the FIA battery switch and ignition switch
• Tidying up the wiring behind the dash. I think the sight of it was giving Tim chest pains!
• Refabricate the gear shift paddle setup to give more cable travel
• Have another look at the air box situation

The steel arrived while I was away so David and Jen had to put it in the garage. Apparently 4 x 6m lengths of steel 1″ square box section is quite heavy I’d considered going to the local steel stockholder but as I knew it was going to be a PITA to get it home I got it from http://www.metals4u.co.uk/ – once you get over £75 delivery is free which makes it a bit of a no brainer. I was home late Saturday night so I made a start on my fabrication on Sunday. I quite enjoyed myself hacksawing and welding! I ran out of welding wire mid-afternoon so I carried on with it on Monday evening. It all got a lick of paint and was bolted onto the trailer on Tuesday.

The perforated tube also arrived before the weekend so I took the silencer apart again and cut the new tube to length. The wadding had melted again, mainly around the cat but I’m hopeful that with this huge chicane removed from the system the exhaust will be nice and quiet and hopefully the wadding will last longer.

On Wednesday evening I made a start on the gear shift paddle. There are three problems with the existing set-up – firstly the cable’s attached too close to the pivot on the ‘paddle’ so it doesn’t give much throw, secondly the whole thing sits a bit too low making it not terribly ergonomic to use and a liability to my knees in a sideways shunt and thirdly the cable angle isn’t optimal. I initially drilled two more holes in the bracket to mount the paddle a bit higher but in reality only gained a centimetre or so. I then decided to weld another piece of angle on top which means it will be raised by about 4cm which looks much better. I also welded a new little strip of steel onto the paddle to extend the bracket the cable attaches to and drilled it, this will extend the throw by about 40% which should make the gearshift much more positive. continuing on Thursday night I then fabricated some more steel to give a mount for the cable outer that reflected the new position on the paddle so that it’s all nicely aligned. I could then set to with the hacksaw and angle grinder and remove all the now redundant steel to make the thing a bit more compact as well as lighter. Then it was time for a bit of paint.

Friday morning I fitted the new bracket and am well pleased with the result. The whole paddle is about 4cm higher than it was, the cable run is nice and straight and it feels much more positive. Next job on my list was the Neuros video recorder. Although a great little device they are a bit quirky and can be a right PITA when something’s wrong as you have no display. So the kitchen telly migrated temporarily out to the garage. The problem seemed to be lack of camera input, the Neuros itself seemed to be functioning fine. I tracked the problem down to a failed connection where I’d soldered the camera’s 12v supply wire to the output leg on the little voltage regulator. This was easy enough to fix and once I’d tested it all worked OK the telly went back in the house.

I also wanted to make some form of bracket to bring the DigiDash forward a bit so I can see the shift lights clearly. This is fairly low priority since firstly I can just about see them and secondly with the Busa’s power delivery it isn’t terribly critical – most of the power’s in the mid range and there’s really no point screaming it like you would one of the litre sports bike engines or even a ZX12. One option is some form of bracketry fixed to the dash, the other is a bracket that mounts via some sort of U bolt onto the steering column. The latter seems the best bet but I didn’t have time to troll off to B&Q to look for one as I had to get to work for the afternoon.

I only had a couple of hours on Saturday morning and made a start on the dash wiring. I wanted to replace the FIA switch, replace the ignition switch, change a lot of the connectors from the pre-insulated crimped ones to the much better non-insulated ones (+/- soldering for the more critical connections). I also want to generally tidy up the wiring – there’s lots of redundant wire in there as I’m always reluctant to cut wires exactly to length. The trouble is especially with all the DigiDash wiring that makes it really messy. Swapping the switches wasn’t just a straight swap as a few of the terminals had more than one wire via those piggy-back connectors which always seem a bit dodgy. So I snipped the existing blade terminals off and soldered and crimped new ones on soldering wires together instead of the piggy-back connectors.

I had identified one issue with the FIA switch which I now think was the most likely culprit for the problems at Cadwell. It actually has three switches within it, the first is the main battery cable connection via the big chunky copper posts, the second makes a connection from the main switched 12v circuit to earth via the ballast resistor when the switch is off to prevent engine run-on and the third makes the connection from ignition switch to ECU/coils when on. What I found was that if I pushed the switch a bit past the normal ‘on’ position it was making the ignition circuit live even with the ignition switch off. So it’s easy to imagine it was somehow also able to break the ECU’s circuit thus causing the cut-out with everything else apparently working.

I met the Baldwins (who designed/built Derek’s cars) at Cadwell. They suggested that ignition switches need replacing annually as they carry quite a bit of load and the minor arcing every time they’re switched eventually pits the terminals resulting in problems. They’ve tackled this by having dual switches (so either one will provide power, both need to be off to switch off and they also have a relay in the circuit so the switches aren’t actually carrying much load. This sounded a nice idea but I then spoke to Andy Bates who put forward the argument that it’s best to keep everything as simple as possible and using relays introduces yet another component to fail (and indeed one of Paul’s early problems with his new car was caused by a relay, apparently they don’t much like the combination of vibration and G forces). He advocated firstly using a 20 or 30 amp switch for the ignition and only using that for the ECU, supplying everything else (fuel pump, water pump etc.) direct from the FIA switch. I decided to just use a heavier duty switch, make sure I’ve got good connections to it and replace it annually. I like to be able to run the DigiDash and a few other ancillaries without having the water and fuel pumps running, apart from anything else they run the battery down.

Most of Sunday was spent rewiring the dash. Sounds simple enough but it took ages. Still, it’s done now and in addition to looking better I’m a whole lot more confident in it, so it was well worthwhile. I suspect it’ll still make Tim feel a bit queasy though

Bank Holiday Monday and lots of other stuff to catch up on so just 3 hours or so in the garage. The ARB bracket had come off the wishbone again so this time I removed the wishbone to clean it all up and make a new bracket then weld that on. While the paint was drying I took the tunnel panels off to get to the electric reverse. This had seized again, and it turned out it was the same cause as last time, a sheared roll pin. It’s a quirky mechanism and quite fragile, and I suspected that the return spring that goes on the pinion shaft was too hefty. So I took it all apart and cleaned it up with wet and dry to de-burr the shaft etc. so it all moved freely. I then bodged a much lighter weight spring to fit, greased it all up and reassembled it. The pressure required on the lever is now much less and it all seems to work nicely enough.

Once the wishbone was back on and the car was back on all four wheels it was time to tidy up the tools, sweep the floor and tuck the car up. With the exception of having a look at the corner weights (although she seemed OK at Cadwell) and sticking some fuel in she’s ready to go which is a great feeling with almost two whole weeks to go till Anglesey! Mind you, there is a trackday at Pembrey next Sunday …

Racing at Cadwell. Oh yes!

I woke up to clear blue skies and no wind Quite a few of our guys are joining in with Bike Sports today and although I’m tempted it makes the day busier. Also their scrutineering is at 8am, qualifying at 9, and I need to get to the ‘first time racing at this circuit’ briefing at 8.15. It would also be asking a lot of both the car and myself – two 15 minute qualifying sessions, a 20 minute race and a 30 minute race.

I went to the briefing at 8.15 which was less formal than usual and took all of three minutes. After a bit of breakfast I got going with my check-list which includes checking all the things that come loose on these bike engined cars – suspension rose joint locknuts, prop bolts, diff bolts and drive shaft bolts. The bolts holding the left hand drive shaft had loosened just enough that the paint marks no longer lined up correctly, so I tightened those with a plan to remove them one by one and refit them using some fresh stud lock.

Scrutineering was the usual slow affair but with no comments from the scrutineer. It’s all a bit tense because if they do find something you’ve generally got less than half an hour to sort it out and re-present the car, so most of us go ready suited up. With that out of the way I had just under an hour for the final checks on the car. Cadwell’s only a small place and the assembly area is right by the clubhouse at the bottom of the paddock so David came along and hung around with me as we waited park up in a queue around the perimeter of the area. We were noise tested again as we went in, 100DB this time, so it looks like my noise troubles are history. The whistle was blown and the cars started peeling off one by one, as my turn came the engine just cut. I didn’t stall it, it just cut. It turned over fine but wasn’t firing. The marshals offered to give me a push but I declined as I knew it wouldn’t work. I turned the ignition off, turned the FIA master switch off then turned both back on again, hit the starter and she just started first turn. although relieved she’d started it meant we clearly hadn’t got to the bottom of the problem.

I put that out of my mind and concentrated on driving. Cadwell’s almost 2.2 miles, narrow and with very little run-off in places. It’s a very technical circuit and there’s lots to learn. Since I’d gone out last I at least had a clear track for a while but it wasn’t long before the faster guys were catching and passing me. The main areas I was focussing on were:

• Keeping my foot off the middle pedal coming into coppice at the end of the main straight and trying to make myself lift off the throttle later to carry more speed up the steep hill that follows
• Making myself brake later and later coming into Park
• working out what to do with the gears around Chris Curves – I was ending up on the limiter in 3rd halfway round so started short shifting into 4th just before turning in

Towards the end I caught up with Judi who has a CBR1000 motor this year and was much quicker on the straights than before so I didn’t get past her before the session end. I had no idea of lap times as despite them saying their infra-red beacon was on my DigiDash reckoned it wasn’t. I drove back to the paddock and as I was manoevring into my spot the engine cut again.

My fastest lap was 1.45.26 putting me 23rd out of 25 on the grid for the first race, my next fastest was 1.45.80 which put me 2 places higher at 21st for Sunday’s race. I wasn’t unhappy with that at all. Although I hadn’t actually gone faster than Friday I felt I’d learned a lot and had clear ideas about where improvement could come from. I had about four hours before the race at 3pm to investigate and hopefully fix the intermittent cut-out which had to be electrical. There were also the usual checks and maintenance issues as well as re-doing the drive shaft bolts.

The only thing I could find in the wiring was one of the wires from the ECU that’s connected to earth via a 150 ohm resistor. I’d twisted the wires together to solder them but had forgotten the soldering. They were pretty well twisted together though so I doubted that was it. I also crimped all the connections to the FIA and ignition switches to make sure they were all OK. I was getting lots of advice from helpful people in the paddock, all of whom are more knowledgeable and experienced than me and a couple of themes emerged – it seems ignition switches and FIA switches have been culprits for this sort of thing previously. I didn’t have spares so I’ll get those changed before the next race at Anglesey. I also hadn’t been able to get the camera working for qualifying and investigations on that drew a bit of a blank which was a pity. The throttle had been sticking a bit – nothing major, it just took a time to drop completely down to idle, so I oiled the cable.

On my way down to the assembly area for the race the throttle was worse, so we popped the bonnet up and had a look. I made a minor routing adjustment but it all looked OK apart from not having enough free play. Again it wasn’t a major drama, it wasn’t sticking wide open, just not returning completely to an idle. We were delayed a bit as yet again the Formula Vee race before ours was carnage! We eventually peeled out onto the circuit and drove round to the starting grid and all got into position. It’s always a bit tense but once I get there I always feel fine. We had the usual 3 minute, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 5 seconds boards all within about 30 seconds, the lights came on and you’re sitting surrounded by bike engines at 7-8,000 rpm waiting for them to go out. I had my usual great start but had to get straight off the gas as the folks in front of me hadn’t, and the road’s simply too narrow for me to even consider any heroics especially with Coppice coming up at the end of the straight. Judi came up alongside on my right and I had no intention whatsoever of defending my place and let her slot in front of me going up the hill into Charlie’s. I’d been hoping to have a dice with Neil Constable-Berry who had been doing similar lap times to me at Brands and again here but it wasn’t to be as he’d started alongside me and was ahead of Judi. Although fast along the straights Judi was quite variable into the corners, generally, but not always, braking earlier and harder than me. Someone more experienced and aggressive would doubtless have just got up the inside of her into a corner but I need a bit more sett time before I start doing that. As we came down the main straight I tried to out-power her but that didn’t work and I was stuck for another whole lap. Next time round I used the slipstream and waited till halfway down the straight and gritted my teeth keeping my right foot on the throttle – I only needed to lift a bit later than her and the corner was mine. This worked great and although she pulled alongside me on my right going up the hill she lifted earlier again for Charlie’s and I was in front. By now there was no-one in sight in front at all and that was the way it stayed. I concentrated on the same things as in qualifying an it started to flow a bit better. I was now just lifting very late for Coppice and getting straight back onto the power which then meant I was coming into Charlie’s much quicker, giving me another section to work on.

I then started to encounter a problem in that I became aware my brake pedal was getting longer – in the hard braking areas for Park and the Hairpin the pedal was going down closer and closer to the bulkhead. I had no idea how many laps were left but knew it wasn’t many so decided to carry on, but I was having to hit the brakes earlier and earlier – Park’s a 90 degree right and I was approaching it in 5th gear more or less on the limiter, so I guess about 120mph. there were no marker boards out but I was normally hitting the brakes about 100m out which seems horribly close at that speed when you aren’t sure what’s going to happen when you stand on the brake pedal! Anyway, I made it round and took the chequered flag and enjoyed the cool down lap thanking the marshals who were all out of their posts and have a tradition of giving us a clap as we go round. It had been a bit of a lonely race but I’d finished.

On the way back to the paddock it was obvious I had a serious brake problem! It didn’t improve as they cooled down and as I pulled up next to the motorhome I realised I’d left the handbrake on! It’s completely ineffective, but had clearly been dragging all the way through the race – David said there was smoke coming from my nearside rear wheel towards the end and Dave Hackett said the disk had been glowing red. the wheel was covered in brake dust and what looked like fragments of what had been molten metal. Once I got the wheel off it was obvious the pads were down to metal, the disk was wrecked and there was brake fluid actually dripping from the caliper. The outside piston was stuck to the pad backing plate and once I got the caliper off I could see that the alloy piston had actually melted! This pic shows the piston, pad and what’s left of the caliper seal. I concluded that I was a lucky boy to have finished the race but that I’d need to be luckier still to get out for the race tomorrow.

However the RGB paddock machine whirred into action. Adrian Moore had had an almost identical problem at Brands testing a couple of weeks ago and reckoned he probably had he right Hi-Spec brake caliper parts at home to fix the caliper, he also had 2 spare brake pads with him. Poor old Dave Hackett who’d come up for the day in the Megabird was press ganged into going to Adrian’s that evening to collect the parts then coming back again early Sunday morning with them. I felt pretty bad about it but I didn’t think Dave really minded. I popped round to Andy Bates to see if the disk was skimmable but he reckoned it was best to throw it away and after a quick rummage at the back of his truck appeared with a box containing a pair of disks! I took the caliper apart ready for the next morning and got most of the pre-race checks done so they were out of the way then grabbed a couple of beers and hung around gossiping with the guys until we were all too cold to stay out any longer.

What was most heartening was that when I saw the results my fastest lap was 1.43.79 so I’d gained almost two seconds on the morning’s qualifying time. Even more startling was the fact that that was on my last lap, with no brakes!

Sunday morning dawned with clear blue skies and no wind. I woke really early and went for a walk round the circuit which brought home just how steep the climb after Coppice, the Gooseneck and the Mountain are. The pics above show the approach to Coppice and the view from the apex up the hill. I suspect as I get braver even I’m going into this at approaching 100mph.

Here’s the entry into the Gooseneck and the view from the apex down towards Mansfield. Having discussed this with Derek I was leaving the car in 4th gear for this as the downshift into 3rd is very unsettling as you go through the hard right trailbrake followed by the left flick down the hill and back onto the power.

And here’s the Mountain – I’m approaching this around maximum revs in 4th gear, so about 100mph before leaning very heavily on the brakes, getting the car round the first left hander than sliding it round the very sharp right turn before getting hard on the power and managing the car squirreling round as you get a bit of air over the crest. Lots of black lines on the tarmac telling you it doesn’t always go well! In fact all the way round the circuit there are lots of black lines clearly at the wrong angle which then continue onto the grass before ending abruptly at the tyre wall. Quite sobering.

Dave Hackett turned up at 9am, bless his cotton socks It quickly became clear that the caliper halves are handed and Adrians’s were the wrong hand to mine. Plan B was just to replace the caliper seal and piston and hope the seal in the other side of the caliper wasn’t toasted. Getting the new seal in was a doddle but getting a piston out of one of Adrian’s caliper halves proved more tricky and Andy Bates and I ended up getting it out by blowing it out with a foot pump! The caliper was soon back together and I could bleed the system again. Dave Hackett leaned as hard as he could on the pedal with no sign of a leak from the other seal so we were back in business. To say I was pleased would be an understatement! I bled the clutch in case the low reservoir fluid level had impacted on that but no air came through. I then had plenty of time to tidy the tools and stick the bodywork back on then hang around with the others chatting before we were called to the assembly area.

On the way down there it felt great to be in the car with no issues to worry about, everything was working great including the throttle which was now behaving with a decent amount of free play in the cable. I felt fairly relaxed in the assembly area waiting to go out and was looking forward to the race. I was a couple of places further up the field today and really wanted to try to hang on to a few of the guys for a bit longer to actually have someone to race with. Neil C-B was behind me for this race. We had a green flag lap which was surprisingly stressful, lots of hard acceleration then all bunching up and braking with the cars very close together. Pete Rope who had qualified 19th had gone home so I actually had a space in front of me on the grid. I got a great start again and held my position on the inside around Coppice. Rob Grant hustled his way up the inside of me into Charlie’s followed by Neil Palmer in the Fulcrum around the second part of Charlie’s. for the next couple of laps I fought hard to keep up with them but every time I made a slight error – missing a braking point, coming off the gas too early etc. – the gap was just opening up slightly. I ended up on my own again but gained in confidence and was enjoying going faster. About three quarters distance (it was a 28 minutes + one lap race) I caught Judi to lap her. I was planning the same move into Coppice but Steve caught me into the hairpin, I waved him through on my left and stayed right into Barn where Steve went past Judi up the inside. I just followed Steve through and got on the power early and that was that, job done! I was watching my mirrors for more cars, in yesterday’s race I’d been lapped by the first five cars but no-one appeared. I caught Tony Carpenter and decided to be a bit more assertive. I got on the power early coming through the first part of Charlie’s and pulled alongside him in the middle section. He backed off a bit as we approached the second apex and I was through. The last couple of laps my tyres were starting to go off and the car was sliding round a lot more which was fun but felt slower. I then saw another car I was catching and was surprised to see it was Adrian’s Subaru-blue Genesis. He clearly had a problem for me to be catching him but he was a target nonetheless! I was getting right up behind him along the main straight but the chequered flag then ended play.

This had been by far my best race ever, completing what had been my most successful weekend in RGB so far. It felt great to drive the car back into the paddock and onto the trailer without any damage or mechanical issues knowing she’s pretty much ready to race with no major work required. I’d finished 17th out of 25 starters and 20 finishers and my fastest lap was 1.41.03 on lap 16 of 18 (i.e. before the tyres went off) so another couple of seconds improved from yesterday’s race. Another couple of seconds a lap will put me in the back of the pack which is something to look forward to. The next race is Anglesey in four weeks time, I made my debut there last year so I already know the circuit, I’ve raced there before, no first-time-racing-here briefing and no major repairs to carry out in the intervening weeks. Happy days

Cadwell Testing

Maybe it was a good omen. For a while I’ve been thinking of investing in a couple of travel mugs for having coffee on the move in the motorhome. Also I wanted to replace my aging but trusted road atlas that’s been missing for a year or two. I don’t always trust TomTom and it’s sometimes nice to just have a hard copy of a map in front of you. Lo and behold, at Strensham Services on the M5 they had their travel mugs on offer at £1.99 and road atlases at £4.99. Bargains!

We got to Cadwell and parked up with the other RGBers. I went and signed on and had almost an hour before our first session. It was really windy but had been dry since we got out of Wales. The sky didn’t look terribly safe though. My first concern was the noise test – at all the MSV venues you have to noise test before going out, so I got the car warmed up and trundled over there. The scrutineer asked for 6.75k rpm so I duly obliged with fingers crossed. His mate with the meter nodded and said OK – 98dB! Well pleased as it means I don’t need to worry about tomorrow with such a comfortable margin.

By the time we got out at 1.50 it had started to rain. Although a lovely circuit, Cadwell’s pretty scary even n the dry but very scary in the wet. Fortunately there weren’t many of us out so I could just concentrate on remembering my way round – I did a trackday in the Westfield a few years ago and I did a session and a bit before the Muffett diff let go last summer.. The marshals had the ‘slippery surface’ flags out at Hall Bends and even going as slowly as I was (trust me, I was going slowly!) the car was sliding about in the middle section there. I gradually gained confidence and a bit of speed and it dried out a bit but it was odd, it was raining on and off and because of the high winds it seemed to be drying out quite quickly, but it was different each time you came round. The lap timing beacon wasn’t working for me so I had no idea of lap times but David later said my best was about 1:55.

What was most important was that the car was working great – clutch was fine but it had bags more power. Clearly the new injection pump etc. was making a difference. I suspect the fuel pump was putting out low pressure.

The second session was great, sunny, dry and again uncrowded so I got up to speed a bit more. It’s a complex circuit and a few of the corners are both high speed and quite technical so loads of room for improvement. At least this time I was able to actually concentrate on the driving rather than having to drive around a problem. Afterwards David said he’d timed me at 1:45 which was pleasing. I’ll need to go faster but I can see loads of areas where I can gain chunks of time with a bit more time in the seat on dry track. It was a novelty to just be able to refuel the car and give her a quick wash before the next session. No oily hands, no crawling about underneath her etc.

The third session was wet again but I was able to go faster than first time round and even started catching a couple of people and was able to hold onto the faster cars for much longer than before. It was still a bit scary but I was getting more confident and getting more of a handle on the grip levels. The last lap was dry but then the chequered flag came out. As I came down Gooseneck the engine cut out. I coasted down as far as the turn into the Mountain and tried to start it but to no avail. I ended up using my new shiny tow loop and getting towed back to the paddock.

We looked under the bonnet to find the wires to the brake light switch and brake fluid reservoir had got caught up in the steering column and were shorting. It seemed likely to be the cause of the problem, probably by inducing a voltage drop that upset the ECU. It was a straightforward fix. I spent an hour or two just fettling minor things getting the car ready for tomorrow and covering her up for the evening then it was time for a relaxing beer, some nosh and an evening of paddock banter. What a difference from Brands!

Cadwell here I come!

I guess I must have put in well over 60 hours working on the car in the couple of weeks since Brands. I have a dream. One weekend I’ll just get the car onto the trailer, troll off to a circuit, test/qualify/race, drink some beer, load the car on the trailer and drive home. It’s got to happen some time. As you can see from the pic on the right the new fuel pump in its swirl pot is safely ensconced in the space above the main fuel tank. This all took way longer than I expected as most jobs seem to do and I only actually got it finished this morning after a 6am start before work. There are a couple of minor issues, one being the design of the swirl pot – not having thought it through properly (in fairness mostly as it was a bit of a panic to get it all done) the spigot to provide the return to the fuel tank is half way up the tank when it really needs to be at the top. It shouldn’t be a problem due to the volume and size/shape of the tank but it’s not a big deal to sort it before the next race weekend. I only really had one anxious moment – this morning after checking the pump worked when connected directly to 12 volts I connected everything up, switched ignition on, pressed the start button and she turned over nicely but didn’t fire. I disconnected the hose at the engine end which confirmed that there was indeed no fuel flowing. After a bit of head scratching I spotted the problem – I’d unplugged the ECU when I did the welding at the weekend! Easily sorted and she ran fine straight away.

This evening’s been spent rounding the tools up, getting the motorhome ready and sticking the Fury on the trailer ready for an early start tomorrow morning. There were still afternoon test sessions left on Tuesday and by then I was confident of being able to drive the car so I booked in. I’m not bothering with the Circuit Guide for Cadwell as so far my experience is that although it may all be good stuff most of the RGB guys seem to do it a bit different! I’ve watched Derek’s YouTube footage which was a good reminder of both the circuit layout and just how crap a driver I am in comparison. So far I haven’t really had a weekend in which I’ve been able to concentrate on my driving. Fingers crossed for tomorrow!

Countdown to Cadwell

Sunday morning and I had a leash of wires from the bike loom and couple of ancillaries emerging from under the tunnel behind the dash. Time to start consulting my wiring diagrams and connecting them up. This went to plan, albeit slowly and with the ECU still disconnected I switched the main cutoff switch on and gingerly tapped the battery earth lead onto the battery terminal. No sparks, so on with ignition and try again. Still no sparks so no obvious shorts. But no water pump either, turned out I’d connected one wire wrong but once that was sorted the water pump was running again. I connected up the ECU and checked for sparks again but all was well so I connected up the battery. Plugs out and a quick jab on the starter button to see if she turned over, which she did, meaning I’ve got the clutch, side stand switch and tip-over switch right. I stuck a spark plug in its cap and rested it on the exhaust headers and there was a nice big fat spark when I turned her over.

One other thing is that this time I’ve actually got the wire from the gear position indicator wired correctly so the DigiDash now knows when I’m in neutral. Yay! So not only do I have a neutral light but the dash actually says ‘n’ when it’s displaying the gear position and I’m in neutral. It’s a minor victory bit it’s been bugging me all along.

Pleased, I could now turn my thoughts to providing her with some fuel. I still didn’t have the swirl pot for the new pump but had a cunning plan involving the old pump and swirl pot. I unbolted the old pump from the throttle bodies and just hooked the whole lot up resting on top of the fuel tank at the back of the car. It’s all very Heath Robinson and temporary but hopefully it would allow me to check that the engine’s working OK. I just about had enough hose and clips to make it work, stuck some fuel in the tank and just ran the Facet pump long enough to fill the swirl pot.

Another new addition is a new fuel filter between tank and Facet pump (just visible behind the top of the fuel ump in the pic above), the old one was full of clag as you can see in this pic. I also have a new and somewhat expensive filter at the other end immediately before the hose hits the fuel rail, one possibility was that it was crap in the fuel upsetting the injectors at Brands.

Once this was done it was time to see if she worked. So, ignition on, press the starter button and … oh lordy, very loud without the silencer on As I blipped the throttle a few times I realised there was fuel pissing from the short length of hose between new filter and fuel rail so I shut off quickly. I’d used a piece of tube that was just a bit small and forcing it onto the spigot on the rail had damaged the reinforcing with the result that the 45psi of fuel just split the hose. After replacing it with a new length I started her up again and gave a few blips. no leaks this time and she seems to be running fine, but I need to get the silencer back on to really tell.

I was right on the noise limit at Brands so needed to make it a bit quieter somehow. As you can see from this pic the first thing I did was to drill some holes in the front end of the cat to effectively increase the surface area of perforated tube – the cat takes up about a third of the length of the silencer. This took ages and three drill bits. It obviously doesn’t affect flow through the cat as that sits just in the middle of the wider section. It’s clear that these cats are all failing, some quicker than others, and we need another plan. Steve and the Formula Committee have been discussing this with the 750MC guys and there’s an acceptance that these car cats just will not work in a bike engine running open loop – 10,000+ RPM, lots of time at full throttle, lots of heat and quite a bit of unburnt fuel. So they’ve agreed that we can use a small section of bike cat at the tail end of the silencer so that we comply with the regulations. I’ve ordered a new length of perforated tube to replace the whole lot, the plan then will be to fit a slice of cat from a bike exhaust in the tail pipe.

This is the view looking down the silencer. You can see that there isn’t much wadding there at all and what there is just sits as a thin rim around the outside, with none of it anywhere near the perforated tube (which engages onto the tube you can see in the middle down the far end). I’ve had a box of the wadding from Merlin Motorsport since last season but never used it as when I took my old silencer apart the packing material was fine. Then at Brands Derek failed on the noise meter so I lent mine to him. It’s sod’s law that as soon as you do that you’ll need some yourself! Anyway, I got some more last week and I cut a piece to fit around the perforated tube, rolled it around it and got it into the can. I then packed some more around the cat and fitted the whole lot together and refitted the exhaust.

When I get the new swirl pot back on Tuesday all I’ll need to do is make up some brackets for it, fit it and plumb it in. This will then just be 3 new hoses though, I already have supply from tank to Facet pump, I’ll just need a hose from Facet pump to swirl pot, a return from there to the tank and the high pressure outlet from fuel injection pump to the main copper pipe running forwards. And a couple of wires to connect. So it’s looking like I will make it to Cadwell which is good because it’s a super track and we have long races – 20 minutes on Saturday and 30 minutes on Sunday

On Monday morning I set about fabricating some reasonable towing eyes. The chassis originally came with a small loop welded onto the lower front cross member but firstly it’s way below the MSA specified 60mm internal diameter and secondly using it would probably rip the radiator out. So after much cutting, filing and welding here’s the front one ready to paint. In between coats I made a start on the rear one – here I’d been using a Schroth strap which was bolted to the bottom of the chassis. This one wouldn’t damage the car if used but it required grubbing round under the car if a marshal actually wanted to use it.

And here’s the rear one more or less finished and ready to bolt on. This one was much more straightforward to make and didn’t take too long at all. While I was waiting for paint to dry I fixed the front ARB – at Brands when I was giving David a lift up to the pit area he commented on a jingling sort of noise. I tracked it down when I got the car home – the little bracket I welded onto the left lower wishbone had become detached. So that got cleaned up and welded back on.

And here are the two towing eyes fitted. I had to cut away quite a bit of bonnet to allow it to open but I got over being precious about the bonnet a long time ago!

By now most of the day, and indeed the long weekend, was gone. One more job I wanted to get done. Since the bonnet-flapping-in-the-breeze episode in Anglesey every time I go out in the car I gaffer tape the bonnet – some of the others do this routinely too. Also since the reconstruction of the bonnet it’s got a bit played and while the catches pull it in at the rear the front sticks out well beyond the sidepods which looks a bit naff. Another issue is that the front of the tub mounts got melted by the exhaust. So I got 2 metal over centre latches from Merlin and fitted those to the bonnet, using one of them to replace the one on the tub but moved a little forwards away from the exhaust. To keep the bonnet lined up with the front of the sidepods I had a cunning plan involving some little pieces of aluminium sheet rivetted to the bonnet return and a 6mm bolt protruding up through the sidepod return locating in a hole in the ally sheet. This took quite a while but works nicely and is invisible with the bonnet closed.

More progress

I eventually got the engine loom out along with the ECU and Power Commander. The engine bay’s looking quite empty now although the shot to the right was taken before the loom came out. I’ll need to get another Power Commander as this one’s only for ’99-’00 bikes. Just before 9 I headed off over to Weston-super-Mare to collect the air box from Darcy. It was early afternoon by the time I got back and the fuel pump had arrived. It’s actually from a GSXR 600 or 750 but Malc Curnin said they run the same pressure and have the same internals. I wanted to avoid one that’s got a fuel level indicator on it. It’s actually bigger than I expected – the pump itself will fit fine inside the swirl pot but the flange at the bottom is bigger and this may be a problem.

I popped over to see Clive, the aluminium fabricator who’s done a few bits and bobs for me. We decided the best bet is for him to fabricate a new swirl pot a bit bigger in diameter but not quite so tall. He’ll have that ready for Tuesday. He’s going to use some 1/4″ aluminium plate for the base and top plates so there’s enough thickness to tap holes to fix the pump, also to provide fixing points for the tank. I’m planning on fitting this at the rear of the car, so I’ll then have a single high pressure fuel line down the tunnel into the engine bay and a bit more room in the engine bay. I called into the local motor factor for some 1/4″ copper pipe to replace the fuel line but they didn’t have any. I ordered some for tomorrow in case I need it. Once I got back I reconnected the electrics to the fuel pump to empty the tank into a jerry can. I decided to measure the flow rate which turned out to be about 1.3 litres/minute – should be ample, my calculations from racing and testing are that she uses about 0.6 litres/minute on track. I know one of the fuel lines got bashed when the prop went at Anglesey, it’s still intact but a bit squashed. On checking it’s the return line anyway which I won’t be using any more, the feed pipe was fine so no need to replace it.

I clambered back into the engine bay and removed the clutch master cylinder. I transferred the fittings onto the new Willwood one from Rally Design and made up a new braided hose then fitted the cylinder into the footwell. I also tidied up the fixings for the rear brake pipe which was replaced prior to Silverstone as I couldn’t get at them with the engine in. Tomorrow I’ll also add a few rivets to the passenger side footwell end panel as that was removed and refitted with the engine in situ and is missing a few rivets. Then I need to get the loom sorted out and refitted into the car.

I can’t tell yet whether the air box is going to fit until I get the engine back in – hopefully that will be tomorrow.

I was working overnight Thursday night but took the loom in with me. It was a fairly quiet night so I got a couple of hours of loom-unpicking done. When I got home Friday morning I carried on removing the bits I didn’t need then re-taped the loom. I went out to the garage to fit the loom and decided it couldn’t really be done without the engine there to see where all the connectors needed to be. So after pop riveting the foot well panel back in and a bit of a clean-up I hooked the engine onto the hoist and lowered it into the engine bay. With th hoist it’s no drama doing it on my own and it wasn’t long before it was in position and I could tighten the bolts.

With the engine back in I could start mating the connectors up and getting the loom positioned. I had to run a few additional wires for the electric water pump, oil and water temperature sensors and the fuel pump at the back of the car. After a couple of hours of this I realised it looked as untidy as the last time! So I gave up for the day and decided to take it back out tomorrow and redo it. I also had a quick look at the air box and came to the conclusion it ain’t going to work The bit immediately above the throttle bodies fits fine with my existing hump, but there’s a large duct running down and forwards. Unfortunately the Fury bonnet sits pretty low above the front suspension and radiator and it would need quite a lot of the bonnet to be removed. So I need to come up with another plan.

Saturday morning the loom came out again and back into the kitchen to try to tidy it up a bit more. Eventually it was all taped up again and did in fact look better, so I went out and stuck it back in the engine bay and tried it for size. It’s still a bit of a dog’s breakfast, but I don’t see how I can get it tidier without more major surgery – there are lots of little spurs, relays and connector blocks which are too close to the main loom to mount separately without chopping them off and grafting in more wire.

I then went off to pick up the O ring and threaded spigot from JT’s, while I was out I collected a box of nitrile gloves from Machine Mart and the cunifer fuel pipe from Rickard’s. Once back I finished off connecting up the loom and cable-tying it all in place. All that’s left is to now connect up the wires in the spur going to the dash for power, the DigiDash connections etc.

I refitted the gear lever and cable, refilled the coolant and stuck the oil back in. I’ve stuck the ECU down on the scuttle with double sided tape but made up an ally strap for good measure. I had a look at the original Hayabusa air box but that ain’t going to fit without major bonnet surgery either. I think I’ll just stick with the sausage filter for now until I have either the time to fabricate an air box or I can afford the £400+ from one from Andy Bates. I’m confident I can get the exhaust quieter anyway and the performance deficit using the foam sausage isn’t enough to worry about. I’m pretty confident I have been significantly down on power as suggested by Derek at Snetterton – even when I exit a corner right behind a Class C car I don’t seem to have much more power than they do and my car isn’t actually much heavier than theirs. I suspect the fuelling is largely responsible and am hoping that the swap to newer fuel injection pump, throttle bodies and ECU will improve the situation.

It might not look it but the engine bay is now in fact quite a bit tidier – the loom is tidier (on the left side of this pic), the fuel injection pump is no longer hanging down from the throttle bodies (you can see the inlet pipe hanging from the fuel rail towards the right) and the swirl pot has now gone from the top of the pedal box.