Leaves can suck it

Our backyard on Sunday, after having mowed all the leaves on Thursday:


After 5 minutes with the mighty Craftsmen mower:


I intend to keep on the leaf removal this year, since two winters ago I didn't, and our backyard became a soupy mess of awesome.

Leaves and Tools pretty much sums up my Thanksgiving.

C'

Beers and Tools

Despite sitting on my ass for the past four days, I managed to do a bit of tool organization and sorting. I pulled out all the hand tools from from three different tool boxes, and sorted them on the living room floor. Thank you Susan, for letting me keep them there for a few days.



Good grief. My tool count included:

9 - needle nose pliers
11- slip joint pliers
7 - wire cutters
12 - 12mm wrenches
32 - phillips screwdrivers
40 - flat screwdrivers

and on and on and on. I have since found homes for everything, including making some little drawer dividers to keep all the sockets and wrenches in their own little home. Properly labeled of course.


And speaking of home, that's where I was today when Susan surprised me with my first Christmas gift. My comment "Man, I'm jealous of Sean's beer a day advent collection" was apparently taken as a hint. So look what showed up today!



Susan made her own beer advent box. Hand picked singles from several sources around town. Mmmm, can't wait to start on Tuesday. Week 1 is already in the fridge.

C'

More Macau

Just a few more snaps from Macau, mostly of random pit action as I sort through photos:

What does a Formula BMW look like underneath?


Expensive step ladder


Crews were very active just before first practice session


Crew pushing the Bufori to the scales. This was a funky little car. Looked like a home built GT using a Toyota 4-cylinder Turbo engine. In a class dominated with Porsche GT3, Lamborghinis, and Ferrari F430s. Alex Yoong (former F1 pilot) was driving.


Even the support races were using full slicks, as shown on this Honda RSX


These guys were checking for leaks, while it was running in gear on jack stands


Everyone was prepared for rain. Luckily the Chinese government sent up 27 "weather rockets" a few days before the event and made it rain to rid mother nature of any moisture the days following


We couldn't resist the American Iron


How many Hong Kongers does it take to work on a Lambo?


Pretty simple method of adjusting the rear wing on the Lada WTCC


C'

Macau!

I'm back from Macau. I'm rolling on about 30+ hours with no sleep, so bare with me if this blog doesn't make any sense. Overall, I had a blast. Macau is an interesting place. The day-to-day look and feel is Chinese, but with a strong European influence thanks to the Portuguese rule up until 10 years ago. All the street signs are in three languages, and even the Police cars/motorcycles say "Policia" on them. Pretty much everyone spoke enough English for me to get by, and those that didn't understood to type the prices into a calculator to show us white folk.

Now, onto the races. We spent 4 days wandering around the entire track, with full "press on course" credentials. Meaning we could essentially stand right next to the track and take pictures. Pretty much wherever we wanted to go. And speaking of photos, here's a bunch to show what we were doing:

Motorcycles at the hairpin corner


At Maria bend

More hairpin action. We would be able to touch the bikes on corner exit if we were dumb enough


Formula BMW at Hospital Hill, one of our favorite shooting locations


Formula 3 car at the hairpin


F3 car lifting an inside front at the hairpin


Ginetta GT car


Gaggle of World Touring Cars through the hairpin after a mess of oil dry was laid down


Chinese Formula BMW driver retired at our photo station. He was hit by a wandering Petronis car. After e helped him over the guardrail, and gave him a bottle of water to drink, his comment was "I'm ok, but the car is fucked." Classic.


Alan Menu's hood lifts open on the Chevy WTCC


Ferrari F430 driver hit a TON.


They had about 30 cranes all around the track, so they could quickly lift the crashed cars off the course to avoid full course yellows. Note the Ferrari in the air about 50 feet, and the Lamborghini racing underneath.


Craig standing in one of our photo locations.


Corners workers assembling the pads for the guardrail for when the motorcycles took to the track.


After I sort through some photos, I'll post tomorrow. for now, I'm just glad to be home.

C'

Christmas Lights!

I got busy today and put up the Christmas lights, both inside and out. Outside consisted of three strings of LED lights running around the top of the fence in the front yard, both inside and outside of the courtyard. In the back we ran some small globe LED lights around the pergola.

Front Courtyard Pics:




Chris H.

New Wiring for RalphVee

I'm about 99% finished with the new wiring on the FV. I had a couple electrical issues at the last event, including what I think was a fried + wire to the coil, and a bum ignition switch. So with Mr As help, we drew up a wiring schematic last Saturday, and I searched around the valley for the various parts and pieces I needed.

I found a simple junction box and a 8 port terminal strip to help separate all the individual circuits, instead of just running them off the main disconnect or ignition switch. The seven circuits are:

Ignition
Starter
Transponder
Tach
Brake Light
Rain Light/Mister
Wideband Controller/Gauge

New junction box, new push button starter, and new 50amp ignition switch


I also made a new big power wire running from the main disconnect to the + side of the starter. the old one was just short enough to where it had to run too close to the headers. Having it longer means I can run it farther back, before turning it around the back of the car, avoiding the headers altogether.

I took my time over the past couple evenings running new wires, crimping new connectors, and routing everything through the chassis properly. I even bunched wires together and ran them inside some split plastic loom protector sleeves.

All new wiring and looms running to the back of the car


I also took the time to add a circuit for a brake light. I was one of the few cars in the race group without a brake light (being a formula car) so I figured I would add one while I was going through all this effort. I fabbed up a bracket that comes off the brake balance bar and works on a generic brake switch I grabbed from NAPA.

Brake switch and bracket


New brake light mounted up on the roll bar. The light mounted PERFECTLY to the existing two bolts that hold the head rest. Amazing.



Now all I need to do is clean up the giant mess in the garage! Amazing how many tools it takes to do a job like this.

C'

Race Day

We had a race day on Friday, which went pretty good. This was the second day with the new engine, but the first day running my new scoops (no longer running the fan) and having the wideband air/fuel ratio controller on board. Because of these changes, I decided to sign up for the "open" group along with the typical race group, since the club ran a special combined price.

We made two jetting changes during the morning, after a session of running. AFRs we originally in the 11:1 range, which is a bit rich, which we knew it would be. We bumped down from 165 mains to 160 and down to 155. AFRs were very solid in the 12.5 range after the last change, in the 90-95 degree heat. A funny thing happened too, as we leaned the car a bit. I picked up about 500rpm on the front straight! I'm now just touching 6,000rpm in 4th on the front straight.

The new cooling scoops seemed to do their job too. Oil temps would get up to about 220-230 degrees after a few laps, but just stablized there. The previous event with the new motor and cooling fan, temps would get to 250 pretty quickly and I couldn't run full throttle down the straights the last few laps of the sprint race. This time, I had no issues. and it was at least 10-15 degrees hotter outside temps.

I also had a Cylinder Head Temp gauge and sending unit installed for the first time. I didn't know what my head temps were before, so it is always a case of "new information can be too much information." Head temps generally ran in the 400 range, and never got much hotter after many laps in the heat. I have a temperature compensated Mini 1000 CHT unit from Aircraft spruce.

I did have two "funny" problems that caused me to have to get towed in. On the second track session, the car just shut off on the exit of turn 5. I was able to coast around and park it in a safe zone in a bypass road. Turns out the coil wasn't as tight as it should be in its mount, so it fell down and pulled the main hot 12v wire connection off. We fixed that, and got it nice and tight. The second problem happened on my last session. Again, the car just shut off on the main straight. I figured it was the same problem again, but it wasn't. In the pits, the car wanted to start, then wouldn't, then would, etc. It ended up being my last session so we just packed it up. We found a loose wire connection on the main power switch back in the garage. Over the winter I'm going to rewire the car anyways, as I've added a bunch of stuff lately and don't like the mess of wires behind the dash.

So I ended up not running the race sessions, but actually ran more in the day than I usualy do. I did a bunch of shorter sessions and am pretty pleased with the performance of the car, and the tuning we got done. I was 10 seconds quicker than the last time we ran the cyclone configuration on the dunlops vintage tires. Not bad!

It was also fun having Sean down for the event. He brought his Subie 2,5RS and ran his first track day at Thunderhill. I had a blast playing navigator for his first couple sessions. Makes me miss my Subie!

Coming in after a session:


Sean's tow and race rig:


Getting towed in:


Chris H.

Scoops Finished

After getting the internal ducts sorted out, I turned my attention to the exterior scoops. These mount to the engine cover and scoop the air into the ducts which feed the oil cooler and cylinders/heads.

I started out with a block of foam:


After some fiberglass, I had the basic shape:


After a LOT of sanding, fitting, sanding, priming, and painting:


From the front, kinda like Dumbo ears:


On the car. Note oil cooler is located slightly higher, for ducts to feed air to it:


Now let's just hope they work!

Chris H.

More Scoops/Ducts

Since it has been hot as hell the past couple weeks, I haven't bothered going out to the garage after work to finish up the scoops. Until this Wednesday and Thursday when I did a bunch of little fitment and trimming to the inner ducts. Then Mr. A came over Saturday morning and helped me slop some epoxy into the joints of the interior baffles that separate the air flowing to the cylinders, and to the oil cooler. After a bit more trimming and final fitting, I hit them with some flat black paint. These don't need to be "pretty" since they sit inside the engine cover mostly out of view.



I'll have some time later in the week to work on the exterior scoops since Susan will be off to Jesus fest at Laguna Seca for a few days.

C'

Making cooling ducts for the FV

One of my planned mods for the FV is to replace the cooling fan and shroud with some duct work and scoops. At higher rpm, the fan belt tends to slip enough to where the fan essentially stalls out at say 4,00rpm, even when the engine is turning 6,000rpm. With the greater horsepower of the bigger engine, my oil temperatures were climbing up to about 250 degrees F at the last race, and it was only in the mid 80s temperature wise. Without better cooling, I would never be able to run in hotter temps, or for longer sessions.

I am attempting to kill two hot birds with one cold stone. First, I want to use some air scoops mounted on the outside of the rear bodywork to suck in air and push it through duct work down onto the cylinder heads. Second, I want to also direct some air to the oil cooler.

Previously, the oil cooler was located just in front of the fan shroud intake. Not the most ideal position, since the fan is pulling air through the oil cooler and then sending that warm/hot air onto the cylinder heads. But, with the 1200cc engine, I never saw high oil temps, so there was no real reason to "fix" it.

I'm hoping that the combo of ramming air onto the cylinder heads, and providing cool air directly to the oil cooler will solve my issues.

The first part of this job is to create the internal duct work. And by internal, I mean what fits inside the rear bodywork, which is mostly exposed. The duct work will fit between the opening in the body down to the cylinder head tin. After carving out the rough shape of the ducts, I quickly realized I could simply add on a bit of extra duct work to send air to the oil cooler. Instead of having to make individual ducts, or mess about with hoses etc.

The shaping and sanding of the foam was actually a lot of fun. It took a bunch of test fitting to get it right, and each side was slightly different in final shape and size. Here is a shot of them fitted inside the engine area, but before the final shaping took place:



The oil cooler will be moved to the right and up, so that those two curved parts of the ducts are centered on the cooler.


And here is a closeup of the "passenger" side after shaping and sanding:



The upper right part of the duct in the above photo is where the air enters. The air will be ducted down and out the bottom for the cylinder heads, and across and through the upper curved pieces for the oil cooler. I'll make a small dividing wall to separate the two flow paths.

These foam pieces are essentially the male plugs, and will get wrapped in fiberglass. I can either melt out the foam with chemicals, or simply hog it out with some screwdrivers and wire brushes. Basically, a perfect example of a "lost foam" process, like how I've made motorcycle seats and gas tank extenders before.

The next part of the project is to make the outer air scoops, which will attach to the stock engine cover. I'm trying to keep things both simple, and original looking. I'm hoping the air scoops won't be that noticeable, yet provide enough area for adequate cooling.

C'

Spring Cleaning

After the extended FV engine build I finally got around to cleaning up the garage a bit. I still need to organize a bunch of stuff hanging out on the FV side of the garage, but at least the motorcycle side looks more respectable.





Thats the 1200cc FV engine sitting in the middle, awaiting its teardown.

And a quick shot of the bikes hanging out in the front yard, after receiving a washing.





C'

New iPhone!

Just blogging from my new iPhone.

GTF's Setup Chart

For GTF:

It Runs, Part Deuce

The 1750cc engine runs. In fact, it started up instantly, doesn't smoke like it did on part 1, and has no visible oil leaks. This time, we built an engine test stand, using the engine stand as a base. Mr A. came over and took care of the wiring, and by about 11am we had it making noises. This way I can run it and actually see any problems, unlike when the engine is buried in the race car frame.

Here are a few pics, and a link to a short movie:







And the link to the video:


I'll run it a bit more this week before swapping into the chassis.

Now for beer and grub.

C'