My current racer

[Billzilla]

Originally Posted by profi

Whats going on Bill, few problems?

Yep, though the car is still in one piece .... and oily.

Tested on Friday, car went okay and I did enough laps to get used to where the track went.
Did official practice on Saturday morning, the Dorian timer must have been in backwards because I didn't get a time, nor did they use a stopwatch. They thankfully used a bit of common sense and slotted me into the grid in 8th position which is where I should have been. One thing i found that a lap or so before I came in, my upper-back was burning really badly. Turned out it wasn't the exhaust as it's nowhere hear the back of the seat but the fuel tank vent is .... I had some fuel dribbling down my back and it stung like a bastard until I could get the suit off. Fixed that problem really quickly. Suit still stinks of fuel though!
First race that arvo went okay, I tried a different start technique and it gets me off the line really well now - no bogging-down in all three races - and I was circulating reasonably well though not dicing with anyone when I had a brain-fade and stayed on the brake a little too long into the series of right-lefts (the first 45° RH corner at the start of the curves) and lost the rear end, spinning and smacking a tyre bundle.



I clutched it as soon as it went around and there didn't seem to be any real damage to the nose to I got back on the track and took a few seconds to have a feel to see if the steering was straight, brake pedal good, etc. All seemed okay so into it again hoping to catch up to the backmarkers, but when near the end of the main straight I saw there was only 20psi oil pressure so I shut it down straight away. Had a quick look through the holes in the engine cover and oil everywhere.

To cut a long story short, it turned out to be the scavenge pump drive, which is a fitting welded to the pulley that engages a hexagonal shaft that drives the pump unit. The weld has failed so the pulley turned but the pump didn't. So ..... engine full of oil and there seemed to be just enough that it was spitting back through the breather into the tank and so a tiny bit was still circulating through the oil system.
Grabbed the unit the weld failed on and went for a drive to try to find someone that could weld it back together for us. On the second try we pulled into http://www.advancedmetal.com.au and the bloke there was a bloody champion! - welded it up for us on the spot and didn't want to take any money for it. We pushed a few beer $$$ onto him and them back to the track.
Put the pump back together and turned it by hand to get a total of six litres out of the sump (we added some more to the tank earlier to try to figure out where it was coming out of, but it just ended up in the sump) then add new oil and a filter, gave it a run and it all seemed perfectly normal - whew!
Cleaned it all up with a heap of rags and was allowed to take it for a slow lap to see how the engine behaved. Still all normal ..... and no leaks - no real idea still where all the oil came out from, maybe the breather but it didn't seem wet enough.
Anyway this morning at about 5:30am I cut the old filter open and had a good look at the paper. Only very small flecks of metal that looked more like assembly fluff, with a handful of very small bearing flakes. Under the cam cover also looked fine, as were the valve clearances.
So, stuff it, I took the punt and did the two races though I kept the revs down to only 7,000rpm but that was fine as the longer inlet manifold has the engine running out of chuff at about 7,500rpm anyway. But the mid-range is really strong now.
Both races pretty dull, just running around by myself, managed a 1:07.8 which isn't all that fast but good enough for third in the championship race. In the last race I chased down a two litre sports car of some sort but I didn't quite have enough power to slipstream past him, but was faster around he corners. I couldn't figure out a way past him so I went back to cruising to make sure the engine didn't shit itself. I was really chuffed that even with the reduced revs I pulled away easily from a similar car in the same class that was using a 9,000rpm Datto A12 engine.
The only funny bit was about halfway through the last lap the front-left mudguard support tubing failed and the guard started rubbing on the tyre badly. I didn't see it until after the finish line but it apparently was making a bit of smoke. I pulled over just a couple of corners after the finish line on a side-road, and the firies rushed with extinguishers & so on. I hopped out and had a quick look, then figured out that all I needed to do was to get a pen from the marshalls to stick down the broken tube and it'd hold it all in place to get back to the pits.
The engine still leaks a lot of oil from somewhere, so at the moment there's a very oily race car with a ball-point pen in the front corner sitting in the trailer .... time for bed soon.
I'll put up a couple of vids tomorrow.