Welcome Sports fans to the next installment of the racing Ford Zephyr
Mk II.
I last reported that it had recovered from the fire and is now nice
and shiny under the bonnet. New carbies, fuel lines, wiring
harness and all.
The restorer had sort of tuned the SU's, but not too good, assuming
that I would have it dyno tuned anyway. As time ran out (again)
I had a go myself with the Colortune and Carbalance tools.
I got the balance fairly good then tried the mixture. With idle
just showing occassional flashes of yellow (and the middle one
a bit richer than the outside ones), it was idling quite smoothly.
Under acceleration though, the burst of yellow disappeared to
'bunsen blue'. It seems that the needles (SL I think) may not
be right for it.
Anyway we went out to the circuit bright and early on Saturday
after our Friday night twilight race (came 2nd on handicap).
The forecast was for showers, and sure enough, by the time it came
our turn for practice is was steady rain.
The track had a fair bit of oil on it, sp the first time I came
around onto Pit straight, I executed a fast 180 with no warning.
With great flair and skill I immediately remembered my motorkhana
training and did a reverse flick to continue the spin to a 360
and kept going. (Thats my story anyway and no-one can prove
different).
After that I was a bit more tentative on the corners, but even
so gave my wife a few worries as I fish-tailed around. My best
time for the session was 1:27.7, but most were around 1:29.
(This time last year in the dry I was doing 1:23s but without
the triple SU's).
I nominated 1:29 for the Regularity, but in the event, slow traffic
prevented me getting a consistent run, but finished fourth.
Sunday dawned clear and sunny but the forecast was for 'ppossible
thundery showers'. They didn't appear, in fact it was quite warm,
around 28C. Having practiced in the wet, and having more power,
I wasn't sure what time to nominate; we decided 1:15 might be
possible.
In the event, the slow traffic was worse! We went out in single file,
in order of fastest practice times. I was 9th out behind a Mk VII
Jag, a TC, a TA, a Bristol and a TR3a amongst others. The field
was quite strung out so that before we finished our first flying lap,
we caught up with the 'mobile spectators' in their prams. This
made life a bit difficult for those intent on setting some fast times.
Remeber this is NOT A RACE!! Just that some of us like to get out there
and go as fast as buggery.
I never got near 1:15, but got a couple of 1:16's. to come 4th again.
The afternoon run was similar, with the same kind of traffic problems,
but this time I nominated 1:17.5. Even with the slower target,
traffic slowed me down so the best I got was 1:18s for 3 of the 4
times laps. This was good enough to get 2nd and a trophy.
I should havee been able to go faster, but the engine wasnt on
full song, breaking down around 5000 rpm. It felt like the
wakefiled Park experinece which was solved with the colder plugs.
Maybe with the mixture being too lean up high, the plugs are
getting too hot. I'll just have to get the dno tune done.
I was advised to get the distributor rebuilt first though, so
k
fff
|