Excellent posts Richard, I'm over in the West Country so will try and pay a visit at C.C. in August !
Great. Let me know closer to the time and I can send you a ticket for free entry over the weekend. Anyone else who wants a tickets to any other events, please get in touch. I usually get between four and eight for a weekend. I need two myself but usually have some spare.
Able to share any detail of the reinforcements to the shell?
This was the most interesting bit for me as I was pretty ignorant of Delta shells and their weaknesses. John from jjperformance.co.uk has done all the strengthening work on the shell so he can share the precise details. When I first got it from Tanc Barratt, John showed me on the car when it was yellow where all the weak spots are, where they rot and crack. The shell from this perspective was not too bad, it was only later when it was dipped did we find the side had been shunted in 5mm but filler and paint had masked it all.
In summary, what happened was:
- Visited Walkers and went to look at the group A car they have there and took loads of pictures and talked it through with Steve
- Got a copy of the Arbath CAD drawings for their strengthening kit, this was mostly a disappointment as it was just tiny bits of metal covering only small areas
- Got hold of the roll cage (which is replica of the factory group A)
We then
- Cut out and made the inner arches larger to get more lock on full compression
- Seam welded all the panels
- Plated over the key weak areas of the shell not covered by the cage
- Welded in the cage, including through the firewall in two places to the front turrets. The rear cage is on and over the rear turret so there is huge strength there
- Finally (and we haven't done this yet) we need to put a front strut brace in-between the front turrets, but that is a last minute job as it gets in the way of the engine.
The conrods and clutch are works of art...
Agreed. The crank, head and valves are also machined to perfection, all matched and balanced to within 1/2 a gram or something silly.
Is that a twin filler? (plate backed by two red cones, pair of hammer in the background) I'm guessing fuel goes in as air comes out all in a big hurry. Any refuelling in your series?
Yes correct. This is a FIA twin dry break re-fuelling system and you use one of these to fill up with:
http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motorsport/refuelling/atl-refuelling-bottles 20L can be done in a matter of seconds. Most of the time I will be doing 40 minute races which should be fine with a 80L tank, but I am interested in Club Enduro which run a 2 hour race with a mandatory stop for fuel. I will need to run the car to know how much fuel I will need as it varies from track to track. You can only put 50L in on one stop so hopefully I can do 2 hours on 130L or I will be doing some lift and coast or turn down the boost to make it last.
Are you permitted any cooling upgrades? Going to cool diffs or gearbox(es)?
I am competing in a relatively open series where you can do pretty much what you want as long as it is original engine and gearbox type, silhouette and original suspension pickups. So, cooling is free, as are diffs.
Cooling is using a Walkers combined oil, water and intercooler radiator which they use on their rally cars. These are not particularly bigger than standard, but are constructed so the fluids go through each and every channel through the radiators before being re-circulated, whereas most OEM the water flows straight from the inlet to the outlet. The channels are also smaller, more numerous and you get much greater cooling efficiency. The pumps are upgraded to motorsport spec to deal with the constant higher RPM demands also.
The diffs are standard at the moment but were rebuilt by a company in Italy. As this is a circuit car we are going to see how the mechanical diff works as opposed to a plated diff which is less progressive when it locks up. The gearbox is a special one, also from Italy with dog ring gears and ratio’d up for about 150MPH. It may mean I am bouncing off the limiter at somewhere like Spa but everywhere else it should give better drive. It also has a strengthening plate in it to stop the whole thing from twisting around when the power is applied.
The principle was that the drive train should deal with 600BHP reliably in a rally environment which is what Walkers build most of their cars to withstand. The Fiat lump can be raced reliably with 600 when it is on race fuel but 520 is more realistic on pump fuel (which is what we must use). We are using it on a circuit which is easier in some respects (less bumps, dirt, standing starts, slow speed poor airflow) but harder on others (longer duration, higher RPM, higher average speed, [nearly] always tarmac). I am not going to say what power it is going to run as this then becomes a target for others to beat, but it will be more than 400.
I do like the grey interior and structure.
John used it on one of his other cars so I copied that. The factory cars were lighter than I have done it but it strikes the right balance between not causing any glare and not being too gloomy.
Exhaust manifold is quite something...Favorite bit for me? Those airjacks.
The exhaust is currently the object of hate given it has prevented me from racing! I can appreciate its engineering though... The air jacks will make the weekends so much easier given how often you need to put the car up. For those who don't know... every time you run the car you:
- jack the car up
- corner weight (jack the car down, then up again)
- check wheels for play
- take the wheels off
- check pads, disks, fuel lines, brake lines for splits, tares and other anomalies
- visually and spanner check every single nut, bolt, screw and head you can see and access
- check all seals for leaks
- check all levels
- calculate fuel, put fuel in
- corner weight, make any adjustments (multiple raising and lowering)
- check toe, camber and caster on all four wheels (this in its self can mean 10 sessions of raising and lowering the car)
- warm up the engine & transmission
- put in the right wheels and tyre combinations
- adjust pressures
- drop the car and go
It has probably added 100KG to the weight which I could ill afford to do but it is perhaps the only part of the build which I have compromised ultimate performance for luxury on.
