The Lair

7 November 2003

Last night proved to be a very bad night - not only have I been ill all week I now have a somewhat busted trailer, the perfect way to end an awful 7 days!

I had set off to pick up my car from the workshop so that it could be delivered to the NEC for the International Classic Show at the weekend. Before I had even left my estate (I am all of 200 yards from the main road) someone had driven me off the road and the trailer clipped a wooden post. After that the trailer handbrake kept popping on but I couldn't find a reason why - a quick piece of work with one of the straps kept it tied down. Before I got to the other end of the journey I had someone (too busy with his mobile phone to pay attention to the road) drive into the other side of the trailer - no real damage this time, just a bent wheelarch. At the workshop I looked things over but couldn't see anything wrong so I took it all back home.

This morning I went out to inspect the damage in daylight and made some rather annoying discoveries. First of all the impact with the post has knocked the leading wheel on the nearside out of line - barely noticible and not enough to really upset the tow. The reason the handbrake kept coming on was that the break-away cable had been pulled taught - to the point where the cable is now useless! The big question of course is how did the cable stretch? I found the cause of that a little later on - the tow hitch is badly deformed. It appears the impact bent the towhitch right out of shape, knocked the wheel out of line but the trailer itself is completely undamaged - a credit to Brian James Trailers!

4 November 2003

October proved itself to be the race cars brightest month yet since I bought it. Not only is it back up and running after a long down time (already detailed below) but it is running better than ever. Taking a slight gamble on the new build's reliability I entered the last AutoItalia race of the season (actually the last AutoItalia race ever as the series is now dead and buried) on October 11th. The race was held at Oulton Park (another new venue for myself) and on a Saturday (just to be different). My long time racing buddy Trevor hitched a lift up with me on the Friday evening as he had opted to hire a car for the event (his own car still in pieces at the time). No need to arrive early on the day as we had the penultimate race of the day so no rush at all - despite staying just 20 minutes away from the track...

Practice and qualifying went reasonably well - I had to take it easy for a while to make sure the car was behaving and then spent most of the session trying not to spin at the circuit's only hairpin (had real trouble selecting 2nd gear) but finally got it right enough times to put in some hot laps. The timings showed I qualified 4th (and almost last) in class and 15th overall (out of 20) - not quite what I had hoped for.

The race itself went much better. The new brake pads I had fitted for Brands Hatch in March started working very nicely and the extra power from the engine was definitely making itself shown. Handling is still slightly suspect but my confidence in the package overall was definitely growing. While I still can't keep up with the likes of Tim Lewis and Andy Thompson in their giant slaying motors I am definitely no longer hanging around the back by myself.

The first few laps were the usual natural sorting process as the stupidly fast cars powered their way through the slower classes but I found myself passing Phil Thompson (placed on the grid with the class D cars despite being in class B) and the newcomer Joanne Farby (driving Neil Smith's winning Uno from last year). Emma Karwacki had spun badly at the hairpin leaving me ahead of my usual crowd and all of a sudden I found myself in a new situation - leaving the others behind and starting to close on the car ahead or so I thought. The real problem being that by this point I was dodging the fastest cars coming around to lap me and I had no idea who I was chasing or how far behind I was.

Unfortunately everything went a little bit wrong around lap 9. I had one of those moments when confidence overcame ability and I did something that can only be described as stupid. One of the trickier parts of the circuit at Oulton is known as "The Cascades" - a series of 3 bends, all quite steeply downhill with the direction of the track switching back and forth. Up until this point I had been taking the last section in 4th gear having braked lightly, for some reason this time I neither slowed nor changed gear, instead I tried going through flat out in 5th. Given the slope and slightly off camber nature of the corner it doesn't take much to realise what was going to happen. At first I thought I was going to make it but then the rear lost all traction. Trying to catch the spin was a lost cause so it was down to the most basic recovery technique know to man - the brakes. It has to be said that I have even more respect for the brakes on that car now than I ever did - to the point that I wondered why I hadn't noticed how good they were before. The speed came off very quickly but not enough to stop me taking a slight excursion to the grass. It wasn't a graceful recovery and I had to apologise after the race to Neil Smith who turned out to be right behind me when I spun as he was left in the tricky situation of deciding where to position his car as I span from one side of the track, to the other and then back again. Luckily he did avoid me and all would have been well if I hadn't stalled.

At the rolling road I had been warned that the engine tends to stall as it comes off throttle, I had witnessed it earlier while moving around the paddock and coming into parc ferme after the qualifying. Annoyingly and rather predictably it decided to stall now. Even more annoying was the amount of time it took to get going again. I had just got it up and running again when Emma and Jo came flying past. I picked up the pace behind them but I was now running at a disadvantage. 9 laps of hard driving had warmed the turbo and intercooler up and the initial power gains were diminished, my tyres were feeling a little the worse for wear after the punishment of the spin and to make things even worse I had a fuelling problem. Every now and again the engine hiccuped leaving me kangarooing. It took a while to clear by which time I had watched Emma blitz Jo and both of them run off into the distance.

The last few laps were spent concentrating on no more stupid behaviour and just making the best time I could so that I didn't lose any more places (as it happens this was quite unlikely but I didn't know it). I managed to lap Dave Lambourn in his Lanica Delta HF and it seems came very close to lapping my friend Trevor (if I hadn't spun I would certainly have lapped him but what if's are a terrible thing).

Ultimately I finished 14th and 3rd in class thanks to Tim Lewis throwing it all away in a gravel trap in the closing stages of the race (a move that cost him the overall championship win). Initially this was enough points to leave my fourth overall in class but that is not the end of the story. What I didn't know on the day was that both Jo Farby and fellow class B competitor Terry Davis were actually guest entrants and not eligible to score points or positions so I gained two places on the final positions up to 12th and a single place within my class - taking my first 2nd in class (previous best being 3rd) and bizarely taking third overall in class. I am of course overjoyed to get my first real trophy it is just a shame that the circumstances don't make it such an acheivement. Trevor it seems pulled off much the same trick in Class A so we will both be heading off to the award ceremony at the LeMans Motorsport AutoItalia dinner and dance on January 24th to collect our respective 3rd in class trophies.

The car is now back in the workshop ready to receive the new brakes and suspension I have acquired from Mike Kason (straight off his Dallara) along with some fresh, new Avon rubber to replace the now tired Hoosiers that I have been running for two years.

Hopefully I will be at the Classic and Sportscar show at the NEC next weekend with the car on display (assuming my mechanic hasn't got a bit too enthusiastic and stripped things down already).

1 October 2003

It's taken 6 months (again) but the car is finally back together again. I picked everything up from the workshop on Monday and then on to a rolling road on Wednesday. Everything had to be ready for Friday morning as it was then off to Edinburgh for the Scotish Classic and Performance Car Show.

The rolling road session was interesting (even if a little short as I was eventually an hour late turning up so the full range of power and torque values didn't get done). Peak power turned out to be a very healthy 130bhp at the rear wheels (assuming the reading was accurate) at 0.6bar boost. That is a substantial 35bhp (roughly) increase over stock with just a freeflow induction and exhaust kit plus the three angle valve seat cut. How much of that is down to what I just don't know as I never did get a reading from the previous incarnation of the engine but it is certainly good news either way.

It looks like I will need to dismantle the dump valve as it was sticking during the tune-up and caused a few problems during the power run. The only other issue was the engine running lean but that has been corrected.

Assuming the turbocharger can supply the air mass a quick adjustment to the engine should see the full 1bar boost and a theoretical extra 20bhp - enough to put the car at about 200bhp/tonne. The assumption is likely to prove false though as 130bhp at the wheels (roughly 155bhp at the flywheel) is about as much as it can handle from what I have been told.

Sadly there is just one race left in the AutoItalia series, on October 11th at Oulton Park. This will be the last ever AutoItalia and even more annoying is the fact that it looks highly unlikely that I will be able to afford the entry fee and the petrol to get there and back. With Phil's Panda out of contention there are just four people competing in class B and I need just 30 points to grab 3rd place - seeing as I haven't played my joker yet it wouldn't be difficult to rack up 30 points, all I need to do is finish.

I will be playing things very carefully over the next week to see if I can raise the cash but it is looking very tight at the moment (especially with a large chunk of the repair bill still to pay).

It is Brooklands on Sunday so the car will be on display there - I can't promise to be around all day though as it is also the Sporting Fiats Club committee meeting (also at Brooklands) which I need to attend. The meeting should be over by midday so if you want to come and take a close look then after lunch is the time to do it!

The next guaranteed showing will be at the NEC Classic and Sportscar show on November 5th and 6th. This time it will be the X1/9 Owners Club I will be representing although with the SFC directly behind the stand no doubt I will be wearing at least two hats on the day.

19 August 2003

The final part of the engine rebuild has proven to be the hardest. The turbo is on the car now but only after a real struggle with the head. First of all one of the head bolts snapped on it's last turn - requiring a new set (fortunately not too hard to obtain or too expensive). Then it was discovered than the valve spring collets didn't match the valves properly resulting in the shim buckets sitting on the collets instead of the valve stem - reducing valve clearance to impossible levels. Two different sets of valve collets later and the correct fitting was found, valve clearance setup proved to be a pain as the workshop didn't have any shims left in the right thickness (unusually thin). Then with all of those problems solved they noticed the head was missing some of the manifold studs (shouldn't they have spotted this earlier - especially as I pointed this out to them when I delivered the head!) and worse still at least one of them was snapped off and would need drilling out.

You would hope that this would be the end of it - but no it gets better. When the old head was disassembled the adapter for the water temperature sender (to the gauge) broke. Annoyingly this hadn't been tended to in the huge intervening period between disassembly and reassembly. An aborted attempt to buy the correct adapter showed it was going to cost £40 as it only comes with the gauge (which I already have) so instead a new adapter is being made - hopefully a little stronger than the old one which looked like it was designed to break.

Any hope of making it to Castle Combe on Monday is now totally out of the window and even Snetterton is looking iffy. I still have to get a rolling road session in and my trailer is still fubar'd Something tells me my racing is over for this year...

30 June 2003

Dropped the head off at the workshop for final preparation. It's not quite all going back together though, not yet. After some discussion it seems that I need to swap the original Uno Turbo cam out in favour of something that will strengthen the performance a little. The irony being that the cam of choice is that from a 1500 X1/9 and that worse still, I gave my last one away! Thankfully it didn't take long to find another one (for no cost which is even better). I should have the parts together by the end of the week (except for the turbo...)

29 June 2003

The new cylinder head is finally here - no signs of any cracks although it does have some noticeable water corrosion in some places. I have to trust in the experts that this is actually ok and that this isn't a ploy to get me back for another head before the end of the year....

The head is basically stock but with three angle valve seat cuts and matched valves. In this respect at least I know there is little to go wrong there. The Spesso competition head gasket is already at the workshop. All that needs doing is for the inlet and exhaust manifold faces to be cleaned and new studs fitted (there are four missing).

The last remaining hurdle (other than a lack of finances) is to find a new turbo!

4 June 2003

Two months later and things still haven't improved much. The original cylinder head has been binned thanks to some rather nasty cracks but a replacement head was located but this too has been found to suffer from cracks. A third head will be ready for fitting within a few weeks. The spare turbo I keep is still inaccessible (still fitted to my spare engine which I can't actually get to) - everything else is already fixed in theory at least or at least ready to be fitted. Strangely despite all the missed races I still have 3rd place in class overall which came as a real surprise after the 5th round at Snetterton. If I ever do get back on the track this year there is a fair chance of actually retaining 3rd place in class and getting my first trophy.

Completely aside from all the work (not happening) on the car I managed to borrow a VX220 turbo for the last weekend. My thoughts on the matter are in the reports section.

30 March 2003

It's all gone very horribly wrong - it all started after arriving at my pit lane garage. We knew the brakes were a bit spongy so the first job of the day was to get them bled through again. Problem 1 - we couldn't get the reservoir caps off as they were done up impossibly tight. It took a while to overcome that one, but finally we did it and found that the rear circuit reservoir was empty (odd as it had been bled just a couple of days earlier). Problem 2 - the bolts on the rear wheel were done up so tight we broke two sockets trying to undo them. Thanks to the race organiser (who was sharing the garage with us) for lending us a bigger breaker bar and a socket otherwise we would have been stuffed. Problem 3 - the new rear calipers were leaking fluid, not from the pistons but from the banjo joint. A few tweaks with a wrench and it pretty much stopped the flow of fluid but not entirely. Both calipers are still weeping a little bit but barely a drop over an entire lap. At this point it seemed all our problems were solved - unfortunately not though.

Practice rolled around all too soon but we were ready with time to spare (except that I nearly missed the noise test - a healthy 98dB was the reading - quieter than my old road car!) and I set off with the new brake pads in mind and pulled a couple of very gentle laps to help bed them in. A few quick laps followed that were spoiled by an inconsistent brake pedal - sometimes it was there but every so often I would have to pump the pedal to get the pads engaged. On lap 6 I noticed a black and orange flag out of the corner of my eye as I sped past the pits and noticed it was my number they were holding! One very gentle lap later I pulled into the pits and down to the marshall's post. It seems my car was leaking quite badly and a glance at the temperature gauge showed why - over the last few laps it had gone from about 95C to off the scale (past 120C).

Back into the garage then to examine why - the obvious culprit was the new electric water pump. I checked the circuit over and over and could find nothing wrong - in the end I just wired the pump straight to live instead of through the controller but no matter what I did the pump wouldn't do anything. Closer inspection showed that the pipe leading away on the pumped side of the system was pinched shut, virtually blocking all flow to the radiator! No surprise then that the engine overheated.

While checking the car over it became apparent that it wouldn't start again, my guess at the time was overheating had semi-seized it so I left it to cool for an hour. It appears I was correct on that count as it started on the button just a short while later but it appears the overheating has done some damage. While it wasn't spewing clouds of smoke there was a constant stream of pale blue-gray pouring from the exhaust. Not sure if its the turbo that's gone or if its the piston rings - either way the engine will have to come apart!

Fortunately I do still have a spare engine tucked away somewhere that can be swapped in but that will be no small task - the water pump looks like it needs replacing and the plumbing reorganised. My day at Goodwood next Saturday will have to be cancelled and it is very unlikely that I will make it to Castle Combe at the end of April...

27 March 2003

The tension is rising, just 3 days until the seasons starts and things are looking a little frayed at the edges. My car is still in the workshop - so no time for a rolling road session now. It will be ready for Sunday though, with just a windscreen needed to finish the work.

The weather forecast is looking marginal, rain on Saturday (expected to be light but that doesn't mean anything) and overcast on Sunday. How damp the track will be in these conditions is anyone's guess - worse still it could be too damp for slicks and not damp enough for full wets. Thankfully there is a test day on Saturday which should help to keep the line clear provided it doesn't rain overnight. With a full morning of qualifying/practice on Sunday the track *should* be dry enough for the race but this is all based on a weather forecast for 4 days ahead...

The entry list for the race is interesting, class B is the only one showing a decent turnout. C, D and E are typically under subscribed but A is unusually quiet with just 4 entries. On the upside it is showing a great potential for the variety of cars present, John Rutter's Hawk Stratos is a previous regular (if absent for a while) and seems to have taken over Graham Scott's role as sole Stratos representative; the rest are new comers, Nick Sismey in a typical AI car - the Alfa 33, Phil Burton in a Ferrari 360 Challenge - oft entered but rarely raced in AI; finally the real odd-ball star of the moment is Stuart Rolt in a Lancia 037. It is rare enough to see an 037 *anywhere* at all outside of a museum so this is going to be a real treat!

19 March 2003

Apologies to all that regularly visit this site - work has taken its toll over the last few months with barely time to stop and breathe. The racecar is looking much happier now. The front wings and valance were held on by just a few rivets and some adhesive - the rest was either missing from the original design or lost over the last few years. Damage to the those panels has all been repaired and made good. A visit to the paint shop for a quick blast over is due next week. The rear ducts are the current headache - the ones we had planned to use are unavailable and the ones that we used as substitutes were incorrectly described in the catalogue as 2.5" and are actually 2.75" so all the ducting hose has to go back and the correct size hose ordered up! What a nightmare! A similar thing had already happened with the panel clips for the new bonnet which turned out to be 2mm short of what they needed to be despite the details in the catalogue.

With just 11 days until the first race of the season it is beginning to get a little tight to get the work finished but hopefully it will all come down to just the ducting and getting a new windscreen fitted on time. Everything else has been fitted - the electric water pump, new wiper motor, new rear brakes, 5th gear synchro.

The first race will be on March 30th at Brands Hatch (for those who want to know) and will be a double header (so my fingers are crossed that everything still works as I wont have time for a shakedown). I also have a test/track day scheduled for April 5th at Goodwood courtesy of the Lancia Motor Club so I hope to get some of the niggles sorted out (like brake bias!?!) then and possibly even squeeze in a rolling road session to sort out the missing boost (currently still limited to stock).