I’ve got empty garage syndrome. Although, I must admit to seeing the Fury go to a chap that’s clearly intending to race it. As you can see, there’s now only one red car in my garage. So, I could get on with sticking myself into the car; making a seat involves quite a lot of mess as the cut-up bits of foam get everywhere.
Luckily, it wasn’t permanent and I escaped. After much faffing about with plastic bags, expanding foam and gaffer tape I ended up with this. It’s black, as you can tell, as that’s the only colour of tape I’ve got at the 
moment. That’s why the photo looks so awful. For now it’ll have to do. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world but it does work and I seem to be in about the right place. I’m pretty sure that I am going to do what I mentioned, as make the dash even smaller and move the Palm; I could see it but I really think it’d be better elsewhere.
The other thing I’ve done is actually run the car up to temperature. There’s a couple of problems with this though. There’s some coolant on the garage floor and I’m not sure where it came from. What’s more, I’m not entirely sure that the radiator is going to be up to it. I had real trouble keeping the temperature down even with the fan whizzing away like mad. That could, though, be a consequence of the long pipe runs and a non-too wonderful fan switch. I must admit that I’m considering fitting a manual switch to this, even though I’d have to change the wiring.
However, that all meant that I couldn’t put it off anymore. So, with loins firmly girded and a Greek chorus of dissenters, I tried it:
As you can tell, the reverse is not exactly wonderful, and it stalls the engine with alacrity. Let’s hope it’s OK though.
Love the encouraging comments at the end…..”You’ll never win any races in it !”
Great to see it move:), looks like you need a higher screen though, maybe something like Jeremy’s adjustable one he has fitted recently.
Typical comment, my lovely wife urging me on, as usual. 🙂
If anything I think the screen is too big. Remember that I’ll always be driving in full lid. The only issue about the screen is whether the airflow over my bonce causes too much lift. Have to wait and see about that though.
Tim
Hi Tim
All looking very good!
Backtracking a bit, what material and tube sizes have you used for your ARBs? I am building a Duratec engined J15 and want to make provision for them at an early stage. Well that’s the plan anyway.
Good luck with the car.
David
David,
The bars are just mild steel, currently solid. However, I’m on the look out for some suitable tubing as it’s really only the outer bit of a torsion bar that actually does anything. The bars on the Fury were 1/2″ and I’ve made two sets fror the J15, one that size and one a bit thicker as I was never convinced that the bars on the Fury were stiff enough. The calculated roll moments of the two chassis are not wildly different so that isn’t a bad place to start.
However, one thing on the long term list is some cockpit-adjustable blade-type bars, which will need to be a very different material.
T
Tim
Many thanks for that. I take it that despite feeling the 1/2″ ones on the Fury were not stiff enough, they still made a worthwhile difference. Presumably a shorter bar of the same diameter at the front linked to the inner ends of the rocking arms would increase the stiffness.
Am I correct in thinking that the ARBs can be used to improve the balance of the car once the best spring rates have been established without resort to the bars?
Do you use Alan Staniforth’s formula for calculating ARB stiffness? I have not found any values for other cars to use for guidance.
David
I used a number of resources to calculate the required rate, inc. the estimable Staniforth and a hand-done calculation of roll moment distribution following Millikan and Millikan and the Optimum-G people. I calculated the actual stiffness of the bars using the standard formula for torsion bar stiffness.
Then I made it adjustable and twiddled with it a lot! The bars on the Fury, especially the front one, were hugely useful. Of course, the front roll centre is rather lower and therefore the roll moment is larger which explains why the front one was so useful.
Yes, the big advantage is that it gives you a nice way to adjust the balance without taking the car to bits. It isn’t a substitute for getting the spring rates correct, which seems to be a common misconception. The other thing that’s easy to change and has a large effect is moving the spring platforms up and down, that is by adjusting the corner weighting.
The big problem, to be honest, is that when it gets wet you really need to take the bars off and that can be tedious…
HTH,
Tim
Tim
I am indebted. Can you not just disconnect one drop arm at each end in the wet?
David
Yes, but on the Fury that involved grovelling under the car. It’ll be different on the new car! 🙂
T