Author: Tim Hoverd

Recombobulated

It’s getting back to normal service here. especially as I’ve just finished the first final draft (yes, I know that doesn’t make sense) of my thesis. So,I thought to myself, “I’ll update the blog before I go to bed”. See? I really care.

After all the stuff I’ve done recently, a sensible person would get the car to a dyno to set it up properly. However, I just won’t have time for that so I decided to fit the wideband lambda sensor on the car. When I designed the wiring loom I included wiring for this sensor, which I had installed on the Fury, but I never got around to installing the sensor. As I’d put the boss into the exhaust it seemed that now was a decent time to install it.

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Shine

I’m still in a bit of a quandary about what happened to the chain and sprockets. I spent a while measuring it as accurately as I could tell and I think the driven sprocket was translated about 0.9mm to the right of where it should be and was at an angle of 0.3° to the drive sprocket. I’m not an expert at chains but that doesn’t sound horrendous.

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Working on the chain gang

Hmm, I think I’ve found a bit of a problem, which might just explain the problems I’ve been having with the new engine.

After the first outing at Snetterton I’d noticed that the chain had needed adjusting quite a lot. That seemed a bit odd but I didn’t think too much about it. However, I’d noticed that the same thing applied after the Silverstone race. At first I was wondering why the chain was stretching so much, or perhaps the sprocket was moving slightly. However, I think I’ve found the problem…

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Exhausted, completely knackered

After all the faffing around with the exhaust I put the old exhaust system back on again, feeling bad that that wasted a set of header seals which are some alarming price. Like that I could get the car ready to go to Silverstone. This was the annual club August bank holiday weekend meeting where all the formulae get a race, meaning that everyone gets just one race.

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Exhausting work

OK, I’m back. It’s been a while but we’ve been on holiday and I spent a week away at a conference which explains the lack of progress.

In fact, if I’m honest there isn’t really much to say anyway. After the Snetterton race I’d decided that I needed to sort the exhaust system out. I spent a while phoning around a few builders without any joy. I’d imagined that they’d all be twiddling their thumbs at this time of year. However, that appears to not be the case. So, after discussing it with Andy I thought I’d try something that I’ve been meaning to have an experiment with for a while. This is making my own exhaust. After all, it’s just a pipe and as Andy manages to make them out of a collection of mandrel bends, why can’t I?

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Not quite what I intended

Oh well, that didn’t quite work out as I intended. We went to Snetterton last weekend for the next race in the RGB championship. I was hopeful that the new engine would do something useful, although wary that the bodged around exhaust wasn’t really going to help. Also, the car hadn’t been been on a dyno which wasn’t going to help.

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Bar the shouting

It’s getting perilously close to the next race but barring a bit of shouting, the car’s now done. I wonder if it will work properly?

I took it up to Andy’s last week and he modified the old exhaust system to fit to the new engine. I think it’s ended up being a bit of a bodge, to be honest, but with luck it will work well. I do keep wondering if I should have had a complete new system built.

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Startup 08

It’s definitely the finishing straight now, barring some horrific problem. First up is that I finished re-installing the transmission. As a consequence of careful design and planning, cough, it all fitted fine and will hopefully work OK.

Luckily, the gearchange lever on the ’08 engine is in almost exactly the same position as on the ’07 engine so no change was necessary here. You can see my super-long gearchange cable snaking around the engine in the photo here.

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Liftoff approaches

Well, at least I hope it does.

Since I was last here I’ve been pressing onwards, and missed the RGB meeting at Donington last weekend. Anthea and I went up to watch and got burnt in the sunshine while watching the RGBers swooping down the Craner Curves. What’s to bet that when we go back there later in the year it’ll be raining, like it’s doing at the moment? More importantly, it’s now not long until the meeting at Snetterton which I’m aiming at for the newly engined car.

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Electrification

So, on with the tale of the engine upgrade.

As a couple of people suggested to me, I made a support for the standard-sump equipped engine as in the photo here. This allowed me to support the engine in position to see what I was going to have to do to make some engine mounts.

Note that I’m using a motor sport magazine to get the support at the right height.

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