Controls

I think I might have resolved the pedal box conundrum. On the Fury I’ve got a pedal box that came from OBP which works pretty well. I had spoken to them about their top-hung pedal box but given up because it was too tall. Adrian mentioned in passing that they did a bottom hinged one with the master cylinders pointing back to the driver. After looking at their website they do indeed do so, so I’ve ordered one! This is the photo pinched from their website here.

Obviously this is slightly odd because the master cylinders are sort of where you would expect to put your heels. However, it’s only about 50mm above the ground so not too onerous. (If you look at an F1 car from the side it’s really hard figuring out where the driver’s legs are, they almost seem to be at head height.)

In fact, it’s not such a big change from the Fury as on that car the pedal area is already 25mm higher than the “seat” area anyway. So, this new box will be about 25mm higher than that, which shouldn’t be too bad.

When I get the pedals I want to look into making some sort of throttle linkage which has a slower actuation ratio at the beginning of the travel. One of the problems with driving the Fury in the wet is that the throttle is just too sensitive at small throttle openings. Once you’re beyond about 50% throttle that becomes irrelevant. To be honest you usually stamp on it at that point anyway. So, something that varies the ratio would seem to be sensible.

With this done (making the wild assumption that these can be made to fit nicely) I can start thinking about the steering. In fact, it should make life easier because the normal Spectre arrangment is for the steering column to thread between the pedals, as in the photo shown here. As you should be able to see, the steering column is coming out the pedal box area below the brake master cylinders.

In fact, I should be able to make the top of the pedal box area rather lower than it is in the usual Spectre/Riot builds. Mind you, I keep wondering how much panelling to put in at all at this end of the car, I can’t see that much is required at all. On front engined cars there’s lots of Blue Book regulations about keeping some sort of fireproof bulkhead between driver and engine. When the engine’s at the rear that isn’t an issue for things pedals and steering. That should all make this end of the car rather easier than it is usually. Mind you, I did wonder whether some sort of panelling would be useful just to make some sort of effort at keeping my feel dry(er) in the wet. If nothing else, access to the pedal box area will be a lot easier.

I’m planning on making the steering column in the same manner as I did for the Fury, using 22mm OD CFS tube. As for the bearings, I’m thinking about doing something slightly wacky and using Iglidur self-aligning bearings. These things, as shown in the drawing here, are entirely made out of engineering plastics. As such they’re light and are supposedly impervious to things like water and other grot. They’re not as out and out strong as something like a metal-to-metal bearing but it should be good enough for a steering column. This bearing here is rated at 6000N in the radial direction and 3000N in the axial direction and as such that should be OK. Mind you, I’m not sure how I retain the column in the axial direction; I’ll have to ask the suppliers.

If  nothing else, it’ll be fun trying…