Project 111

Post by **Stuart** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:50 pm

x 10 mate

Mr Fletcher · Post by **Mr Fletcher** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 7:40 pm

these tick a lot of boxes for me as a track car

nice project i will be following with interest

RX7 · Post by **RX7** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 9:38 pm

Thanks guys, I do like them. Secondhand price is pretty high still at the moment.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with it mate.
But I also cant wait to see the V8 RX7 :-)

RPS13 · Post by **RPS13** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 10:47 pm

I dont think they will get cheaper RX7. S1 prices bottomed out about 3 years ago and have only gone up since. I bought my first S2 (a 2000 model) from a dealer and sold it 2 years later for the same price. Prices have gone up again with the drop of the GBP as they are easy to sell in Japan or the EU for a big profit.

RPS13 · Post by **RPS13** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 8:18 pm

Just got back from Snetterton.

Great time, preety much stayed out on track constantly except for 1 break for a red flag, and later a stop after I ran out of brakes, to let them cool again.

There were various headaches and last minute issues to get there, but the car and I made it in one piece. Once there it ran well, but a problem with the geartbox of the Elise soon surfaced (deja vu from the silvia at my last Snet track day) . Once it warmed up I had a hard time getting 3rd and 4th. I can try new oil but I think i can also get a cheap brand new box too. A few adjustements to the shifter mech might help also.

The most frustrating problem was that even though I had 2 borrowed data loggers and an iphone, not one got any data. THe iphone is just rubish, and the other 2 took power from the cigarete lighter, which didnt like high lateral G and would cut the power every corner and reset the system, which i would only then discover once I got back to the pits 40minutes later. Eventually I fitted a bullet cam right at the end but only got 2 warmup laps before the event ended thanks to the drawing in nights. Both of those were me warming up and in traffic, but were both c1.27, but werent at proper pace. At a guess there has to be at least 2 seconds to come off those once up to speed, maybe more but I really dont know. A 1.27 would have qualified me for the Lotus ON track series, but quite a way down the grid. Pole was 1.21.8 for production class, 1.16 something for modified. Production looks achievable, modified requires me to spend way too much money on the car.

I did get a data run of the car before the event that shows the engine is down on power (122hp measured, meaning almost 40 ponies have run away) so trying to be optomistic an engine tune up, fixed gearbox and some decent tyres of the right spec and I might have a chance! I know I have a fair bit to improve as a driver too, but practicing that bit I am really going to enjoy.

RPS13 · Post by **RPS13** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 9:55 pm

good news - there was some data and it looks like 1.24s are the best so far.

I know I said that this car would only ever be off the road for a weekend at a time, but I failed already. I underestimated how long it would take to fabroicate some front aero and modify the car to a quick release clam, so despite working every day since friday on it, it is still sitting on the ramp and the RX7 is outside. I will carry on working every night after work to get it back and running to get me to work on friday. However this is what I have been up to so far...

I started to remove the front clam, and pulling the car apart:

once it was naked I decided to also remake the front undertray to a completely flat panel, now that i was cutting the clam and it wouldnt need the form to mate up:

Then it was time to start on the front splitter which would be a substantial part of the new clam mounting structure. So a scrap of wood in the workshop was raised into place and I started making the brackets to bolt it up.

I also made brackets from alluminium mounting to the door hinges ( alluminium extrusions) to fix the lower A-panels, and take the brackets for AeroCatches to fix the back of the clam. All the bits they joined to needed a bit of modification taking yet more time.

The clam was the trimmed down to sit flush and at the original height. ( this required a lot of fitting and re-fitting to get right, but it got there). I then added 50mm to give a sensible splitter size but still offer plenty of downforce.

I then cut the aerocatch holes and machined away the back of the clam reinfocement to allow them to be flush fitting from the back. by this time the driving lamps had been damaged as they are in teh way for taking the clam on and off so i decided to bin them and save weight. I will replace them with an HID converstion to the main lamps instead.

It was temptomg to turn it into a front diffuser but that would have offer naff all gain at road heights so decided it wasnt worth the effort, and I know I am not going to get the car down to 50mm or so ride heights where it starts working. that was about where the weekend ended late sunday night. The splitter was just a lump of old ply, and the clam wasnt attached at the front at all and there rear wasnt lined up. Tonight i went straight there after work and complted the wooden mock up of the diffuser adding some extra features:

the mouth will direct a little more air underneath and accelerate it further for even lower pressure, whilst the strakes are there to stiffen, guide air underneath and also give me something to ground out on without wearing the main body of it.

Tomorrow night I will start repairing the orriginal clam damage, laying up the carbon fibre and hopefully get the splitter finihsed soon. There are still teh clam front mounts to worry about.

The gearbox and brake issues from snetterton are booked to be fixed on friday with simple fluid changes. Apparently cooking the oil in k-series boxes isnt unknown with racers and causes exactly the issues I had. Luckily there is a magic snake oil for that. Brake fluid was get uprated at the same time, so I will try and get the big brakes on too, but need 5 mm spacers and longer bolts to fit then on the std wheels. I dont have legal tyres for the Volks whch are 1.5" wider than std up front and 0.5" at the back.

Rob S · Post by **Rob S** » Mon Sep 14, 2009 10:33 pm

You certainly don't muck about do you?
Good efforts mate, look forward to seeing it!

RPS13 · Post by **RPS13** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 6:49 am

sorry for the picture sizes above. After the hassle of getting them there I couldnt be arsed to re-do them all.

I forget to add that I had some interesting tyre rubber build up at snetterton. I will try to get the car on a Hunter on friday aswell to check geometry, but maybe it is just because i was staying out for quite long stints and overheating them too? Here are more pictures to show what happened:

strange wiggly line just off centre about 5mm high. The pictures were taken after driving 10miles back to the workshop so they had worn down a fair bit by then.

RX7 · Post by **RX7** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 7:26 am

Blimey Rob, good work.

But get the RX7 finished ;-)

Post by **Stuart** » Tue Sep 15, 2009 8:07 am

Photos edited because I could be arsed to sort it as it needed to be done for those of us that don't possess a 32" screen

If you upload the photos to photobucket, they automatically resize the photos to the default size for the forum.

Tyres and that style of wear may be due to over inflation once hot, my theory being that the rubber gets scrubbed off of the shoulders of the tyres under cornering and then into the middle of the tyre. (over inflated road tyres always wear more on the middle strip?) May be complete bunkum but what were your tyre pressures when hot after the long sessions you were taking?

As for the old scrap of ply

(You can tell what's coming can't you) can you replace that when you get a chance as that had loosely been ear marked for use on Betty.

1'24"s??? Never on your life

Gavan Kershaw reckoned a 27" was about right for that and you driving it, so where did you get 3 seconds from in a 150bhp car? Fancy a gauntlet laid down style challenge?

_____________

Ok, with my throat cleared, the project is coming on nicely and I'm sure once there has been a bit more work on the areas already highlighted the car will be huge fun and effective too. I always find the photos of these with the front clams off so interesting......like something really exotic (rear engined)