Getting ready for 2012 season
( A difficult birth)
The winter has been a trying time, first was the search for a replacement engine, then three came along. To cut a long story short we built an engine that was better than the engine we had last year, more compression and a few more revs saw a promising start on our test day at Donington in February. The morning was moist and there was a good mix of top racers including Matt Neil BTCC and Alain Menu WTCC including Le Mans cars, E Types, single seaters and 1960’s Mini’s and Cortina’s. The car felt good, it was a little tricky to use the extra power on the slippery surface though. After lunch I was trying to track a little problem on the ignition and did, what turned out to be rather stupid thing, I disconnected the rev limiter…………… Well, I took the car on the track and did three or four reasonable laps, came back into the pits to make a couple of adjustments and then back on the track just approaching McLeans and the throttle stuck wide open, after wrestling it round the corner I reached for the cut off switch, as I turned it off the engine expired with a POP! Back into the paddock we had no compression on cylinder one and four, bugger.
We arrived home about 6pm, had the engine stripped by 8pm and got a better idea of the damage. One valve had dropped, smashing itself and the piston, the other three pistons had a little damage a further four valves and push rods bent and a broken cam follower.
The engine went back to Blackpool Road & Rally, Jed and Brian have been a fantastic help. They re-seated the valves, supplied new pistons, valves and springs. On first fitting the crank was giving some problems, every time I torqued the main bearings down it tightened up the crank. So back to Blackpool Road & Rally, they line honed the block to free it up, and built up the bottom end for me FOC, cheers guys.
Last weekend, 18th/19th March, we strapped the engine together and installed it in the car. On starting it up it sounded like a bag of nails, my bottom lip came out, I would have kicked the cat but we don’t have one. I went back to Jed & Brian at Road & Rally, Jed assured me that it was likely to be the new con rod bolts catching on the sump. With new hope I spent that evening in the garage, took the sump off, modified it with a hammer and re-installed it. On re-starting the engine sounded sweeeeet.
So with the first meeting at Silverstone looming my focus was on the rest of the car. Checking the steering geometry, ride height and strapping the front nose and wings back on. New regs for this season means that we don’t have to have headlamps fitted, so they’re staying off.
Also, a big thank you to Paul and Heath at X Works, for help with my wheels and tyres.
The Calendar for the 2012 season is:
Silverstone March 31st
Brands Hatch April 28th/29th
Cadwell Park May 26th/27th
Donington June 23rd/24th
Anglesey August 4th/5th
Donington September 1st/2nd
Snetterton October 7th
Janette will be taking on Silverstone and is raring to go, both of us are looking forward to the season and are hopeful that we can start making progress and challenging further up the field.
