Can you believe it! I managed to break the un-breakable gearbox! Yes, Snetterton 30th July was not a good day for me as the gearbox seized on the first lap of the first race.
Sunday was spent removing the engine and gearbox from the car which is when I noticed the 1st/2nd gear baulk rings had broken up. On Monday I took the gearbox to my regular gearbox and diff expert to inspect and repair and today I have picked it up again.
His diagnosis is oil starvation. I had put 0.9 litres in thinking this was the correct amount, but apparently the correct amount is not measured. The main case should be filled up to the oil plug on the side, which is quite a lot more than 0.9 litres!
So, the gearbox IS un-breakable… As long as you put some oil in it first!
The first race weekend of the season and it’s looking good. The updates I made to the car have made a real difference to the handling. It now goes where I tell it to! My best lap was 55.90 seconds – over 2 seconds quicker than the last time I was at Brands Hatch – and earned me first in class and eighth on the grid. I didn’t even feel that I was pushing the car hard. It’s the final corner that seems to be what’s costing time now, I can’t get good drive out of there, but I’m still happy.
It’s not all good news though, as during the in-lap I heard a seized bearing kind of sound and the car ground to halt at the entrance to the pits. I couldn’t race the car as I didn’t want to damage it any further, so I reported that I wouldn’t be attending the grid.
The engine is now out of the car and it looks as if it was the release bearing making all the noise. I haven’t worked out why it was so hard to start after it stalled though. I think the release bearing was half engaged during practice though as I do remember smelling the clutch half way through practice and a fellow competitor said he saw a little smoke coming out the back of the car. Everything else seems fine, so the best I can do is replace the worn clutch components.
I am looking forward to some more of this kind of pace and a good race result at Cadwell Park now.
I’m busy working on the car for this year at the moment, the main focus being weight reduction. I’m aiming to lose at least 15 kgs off the car which will reduce it’s overall weight to 390 kgs.
How am I going to do this?
I’m milling the discs from 12 mm thick down to 6 mm – 5 kgs.
The massive rear wing and rear bodywork support is being replaced with something far more flimsey. This saves about 7 kgs alone!
I’m replacing the diff casing with an alloy pattern item – 4.75 kgs.
There are other updates as well, but nothing too onerous. My main aim is getting out there and doing the whole season this year.
Well, the engine is back in, but now the Polestar sensor has broken. Probably because as the crank vibrated, it shook the timing wheel loose, which took a massive chunk out of it. I’ve got a new sensor, but I’ve yet to fit it.
I really hope this sorts my engine related issues now, so I can concentrate on weight reduction and rear axle mods this winter.
The lastest news from CK Engineering is that the engine is ready to go. Apparently, the flywheel had come loose – that was the main concern, but they replaced a couple of main bearings as they were worn and replaced the piston rings whilst they were looking around.
I’ll be putting it back in the car on saturday. Now, the only question is do I take it back to the rolling road to redo the timing?
Let me begin with a damn and blast as on opening the bonnet at Snetterton I realised I’d left the choke on for the Silverstone race. I think this is the reason I felt I was going backwards compared to qualifying. Another item to add to the pre-race check list.
Unfortunately, things only went down hill at Snetterton though. On the fourth lap of qualifying I lost drive through the bomb hole and was forced into the pits with a rather sick sounding car.
I checked the engine compartment and found the timing disk had worked its way loose. Odd, I thought, until I put it back on and started the engine again. Clackety clack it went and it soon dawned on me that there was a more serious problem. It sounded like the main bearings had worn and the crank was shaking about which worked the timing disc loose.
So, saturday for me was spent removing the engine from the car (at least we had a garage) which I gave to CK engineering who were at the track as well.
I will be out for Mallory Park in October though. Let’s hope for a good result. I need it!
So I managed to get some time to work on the car Wednesday evening whilst Rachel was dancing (and yes, I got a dance in afterwards).
I’ve added a 10mm gurney flap to the wing. It’s almost a necessity to get the wing started these days. I noticed a bit of contact between the rear wheels and the rear calipers, so I’ve spaced the rear wheels by a couple of mm which seems to have helped. I’ve tacked the half shaft nuts in place as once again one side has loosened and topped up the engine oil (by about 1.5 litres) as I was showing low oil pressure at Silverstone. I hope it fixes it, otherwise it’ll be something like new bearings. Doh!
Off to Croatia this weekend then Snetterton next weekend. Can’t wait.
Not exactly brilliant results from Silverstone. I qualified 12th, which I thought was not too bad until I read the lap times and saw I was three seconds behind 11th place. The race didn’t go much better as I seemed to go backwards as people overtook me until I did literally exit Copse corner backwards!
So, my best qualifiying lap time was 1:11.69 and my best race lap time was 1:12.06. Compared to last year (1:13.28 and 1:12.68) it does show improvement, but to be honest I was hoping for more. So comparing it to 2006 (1:13.28) it is better, but not enough.
In my defense though, this was my first race since Silverstone last year, so lets hope for some improvement over the coming races. Perhaps one thing that may help will be to set myself a target time and watch my on board lap timer. I think though, it is fair to say the car is too heavy. I need to lose at least 25 kgs this winter and more in the long term. I also need to work on my driving skill, particularly getting the power down earlier in the corners and getting used to how fast these cars can corner.
All said and done thought, it was great to be out again, but I’m not kidding myself, I have a lot of work to do yet.
The engine updates have worked well. The net result is 89 bhp @ 6500 rpm. That’s a massive improvement on last year and best of all the car worked faultlessly for the entire dyno session. Big thanks to Jon Lee of Lynx AE.
With only two weeks remaining to the first race of the 2010 season, the Phasar bursts finally into life. Tomorrow I’ll be taking it to Lynx AE to be set-up and fingers crossed we should return with a competative car (power-wise).
So to summarise, the following changes have been made to the engine:
So, I’ve finally got round to uploading some pictures. I thought I’d upload a select few - quality rather than quantity.
First there is the new exhaust system. It’s out of the way of the cooling hoses and just about everything else (I did have to cut a hole in the bonnet for one of the manifolds though). The new silencer should stop the scrutineer who checks the noise level giving me funny looks as well.
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There’s an array of intakes at the front and the side. Two for water, one for oil and a NACA dust for the carburettor. No cooling issues this year.
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Talking about cooling, the water hoses have been re-routed.
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There’s a new DCOE45 and a pretty cool gauze filter for it. I’ve yet to route the NACA intake to the carb.
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Ooooh, the dzus fasteners on the side of the bonnet were annoying last season, so now they have been replaced with bonnet straps. Nice bit of advertising there…
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The battery has moved.
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Look! I’ve got a new seat.
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I’ve only got one more weekend I can spend on the car before the wedding now. I’m hoping to get the car running that weekend. Fingers crossed.
We picked up the car from Viper Exhausts in Essex this saturday. The exhaust is full stainless steel and looks great. It now exits above the chassis rails so packaging isn’t a problem, the only issue now being I’ve had to cut a hole in the bonnet as one of the headers just fouls it. How annoying!
The seat is complete and fitted.
The bodywork has been refitted and as mentioned before, various holes have been cut for the new exhaust.
A word of caution – I bought some rubber bonnet straps using ebay and no sooner had I fitted them than they snapped. Better now than on the track I suppose.
No pictures again as the camera on my Nokia X6 is about as much good as a chocolate teapot. Yes, it maybe 5 mega-pixels, but 5mp blurred images aren’t much good to me. I’ll take the proper camera with me next time – I promise.
So what’s left?
Add a duct from the NACA intake to the carb trumpet.
Mount the battery behind the passenger firewall.
Make new wing posts and attach the wing.
Modify the rear anti roll bar. It still needs to be stiffer.
Possibly replace the roll hoop.
That’s about it. It’s almost ready for the track again.
I’m due/hope to be in the workshop on the following dates:
May 2nd
May 16th
May 22nd
I’m then planning to drop the car off at the exhaust fabricator’s workshop on May 17th. The exhaust will only take 3 days to make so I’ll have it back the following weekend. I’m planning to have the car finished and ready for the dyno by the end of May.
I’ve made some major enhancements to the cooling side of things over the last couple of months. Firstly, I’ve moved the swirl pot to the rear of the engine and routed the inlet and outlet piping past the exhaust side of the engine. The oil cooler has returned, but this time it’s mounted infront of the engine with its own dedicated ducting and intake at the front of the car. I’m also going to have a new exhaust manifold made up which will be clear of the water pipes by at least 200mm. I’m confident this will cure the cooling problems that were the bane of my life last year. Pictures to follow…
A new seat is almost complete, based on a OMP kart seat, which will allow me to sit further rearward and lower in the car.
I’ve installed a 3.77 differential in the car so, fingers crossed race starts will be better and high revs in top gear will now be achievable.
The prop shaft has been shortened by 20mm as there was no tolerance. This was putting undue strain on the gearbox mount.
Lastly, I’ve added a NACA duct on the side of the bonnet to direct air towards the carburettor as last year there the carb did not have a dedicated air intake and I’m sure this hurt my top end power.
Sorry no pictures. I’ve been so busy, not only with the work on the car, but my wedding as well. I’m aiming to be racing again in August, though.
Well, here I am, back in the workshop again. I’ve had my winter holiday and given myself enough time to consider the changes required for next season.
Starting at the front, the ARB was useless and rather than transferring the weight from one side of the car to the other, it just flexed. So I have now added a 19 mm x 0.8 mm ARB and altered the drop links so they connect to the lower wishbones. Initial tests are looking good. The ARB transfers weight to the opposite side after about 25 mm of travel.
At the rear of the car I’ve reduced the length of the arms on the ARB, but the ARB is still a solid 12 mm bar. It seems to work better than the front, but I’m considering changing it.
I also noticed that when the left rear shock is compressed, the top left radius arm fowls the chassis. I’ve taken steps to increase the travel.
Mallory was a great success for me and the car as, not only did I manage to finish a race (competitively) I also got a third in class trophy so that’s something nice to have to remember the day.
The car felt sure footed, if a little tail happy in places (I’ll try and dial that out with the suspension settings). Removing the oil cooler cured the leak I had at Cadwell, but meant the oil temperature was rather high – over 100, so I need to get that back on there.
At the moment though, it’s outright speed that’s letting me down. You can see in the video how much time I’m losing on the straights. That’s a job for the winter though. For the rest of this season I’m content to get the car handling as well as I can.
[singlepic id=533 w=160 h=120 float=left] As you can see the front passenger side was the first part of the car to hit the tyre wall. I’m amazed how little damage there was though as it is only fibreglass and thin fibreglass at that, but I guess the bodywork and undertray mated together made for a sturdy structure.
[singlepic id=532 w=160 h=120 float=right]The car then span round and te rear also hit the tyre wall. How can both ends of the car hit the tyre wall!? The diffuser came off and split in two as did all of its mountings. Also, the towhook didn’t fair too well.
[singlepic id=534 w=160 h=120 float=left]The rear wing completely detached as literally must have flown away as none of the marshalls could find it and after the race, neither could I.
Leaving all that behind though it took a couple off weekends to repair so all is good (as long as I don’t do the same thing at Mallory). The new wing comes from a Van Diemen sportscar and the profile looks more NACA than the previous ADR wing. Unfortunately, the mounting points are further apart so I’ve had to build some new towers, but they are aluminium this time so shouldn’t rip apart next time I have an off (the last ones were wooden).
The diffuser mounting has been simplified and there are new towhooks front and rear.
Also, I noticed the driver’s side front shock was leaking quite badly so I dropped it off at AVO in Northampton who fixed it there and then, for free! What a nice bunch of chaps.
