I've been pretty quiet lately, I've very briefly scanned the list but I
haven't
read most messages and have sent a couple of private replies.
I've been prepping two cars, the bugeye has been rebuilt after the Lactos
Rally incident. The front end (panels not suspension) was rebuilt by the
amazing Roger Gaunt. I sand blasted, painted, reconditioned or replaced
every single attachment forward of the firewall - including the suspension
of
course. I took a few photos along the way and I'll put them up at some
point.
I had intended to race the bugeye again at Bathurst this past weekend, but
I couldn't resolve problems with the somewhat botched wiring. So I had to
pull the race engine/gearbox out of the bugeye at the last minute and put it
in the other project that has kept me busy - a MkII MG Midget ('65).
This car, a LHD car out of Walnut Creek (reg: Mr Mgt) was converted to
RHD, painted BMC Champion Red, mechanically refurbished and raced
at a couple of meetings as I *started* to sort it out. It is still in *full*
road trim
(even lambswool seat covers on standard seats!) but had a roll-cage
added of course.
It was not really ready to race at Bathurst, but it was better than missing
out.
The event ran from Wed 29 Sept to Sun Oct 3. We were on the track each day
except Friday.
On Wed, the engine was fantastic (at last, after 3 attempts by the builder
to
get it right) but the handling was almost lethal! Across the top of the 4.X
mile
circuit there are up and down corners and changes of direction at well over
100mph. I was fighting the car the whole time and couldn't go anywhere near
100%. BTW, the whole track is lined by concrete walls, often 2 feet from the
edge of the track, so confidence in handling is imperative. The new gearbox
was giving trouble - crunching into second on up-change and downchange
even with double clutching. I had run a 3.7 diff, but the engine wasn't
running
out of revs in 4th on the climb up the mountain, so I decided to swap back
to
a 3.9 diff.
After that session, I changed rear springs (to a flattened stiffer set),
added
lowering 1" blocks, changed the rear lever arm shocks over to much stiffer
set. This now matched the 510lb, short front springs and 3/4" sway bar.
On Thursday, the handling was now almost perfect. A little oversprung at the
rear
but damn close enough. However, the engine was way off song after the first
lap
and after 3 and 3/4 laps, dropped to 2 cylinders. I pulled in and this meant
I never
got a good qualifying lap. The time was OK, but put me back in 13th place.
It
was strange that down the *long* main straight I still wasn't able to pull
over
7000 in top (the same as I was pulling with the 3.7 diff the day before). I
put this
down to the head gasket at the time.
A compression test indicated gasket, so I pulled the head and found a badly
blown competition copper gasket. I had a spare metro turbo gasket (better
than the copper anyhow), but that wasn't the only problem. With the head
off,
we could see that inlet valves 2 & 3 had been hitting pistons. Since I am
running
a full race scatter pattern cam (with inlet 2 & 3 more advanced than 1 & 4),
it was
clear that this was a setup problem. Besides, I hadn't been able to rev over
7000
and the engine was good for at least 8000 according to the builder.
Friday (supposed rest day for us). On the phone to the builder. Checked for
seal (poured avgas down both inlet ports and checked for leaking around
the seats) - OK. Removed valves and checked for bind-free action - OK.
Took it down to the workshop onsite and checked runout - OK enough.
There was runout - i.e. the valves were bent - but it was very slight. Since
the indent on the piston was b/n 10 and 15 thou, we machined 20 thou of
the face of the valve. Put it all back together, ran her up to temp,
retensioned
head and check compression - OK.
Then checked over rest of the car for the first of two races - 1 on Sat
morning,
1 on Sun morning. Found leaking rear hub - changed both sides to a set of
double bearing hubs I had on the shelf for a while. Bled brakes and found
that both wheel cylinders had seized. They had been OK when I bled them a
month before - oh well. Changed them but it was dark by then and
I left the bleeding until the morning.
Saturday, bled the brakes, and went racing. Still was way down on power all
through the rev range and refused to rev over 7000. I was being blown away
going up and down the very steep hill. I was happy with my driving but was
well
off the pace 2:58 compared with the fastest spridget 2:50. Still, I was 3 or
4th
fastest spridget out of 11 and probably 9th or 10th fastest outright. More
worrying
was the worsening 2nd gear. It had started to jump out of 2nd and that made
a couple of the corners very scary (close concrete walls again). I avoided
2nd
at two of them which was non-optimal, but a lot better than kissing the
wall.
After the race, I checked compression and it was still OK.
In the post race check, I discovered a dangling wire - it was from the
alternator -
the small tab that goes to the alternator light (the energiser circuit) was
broken
(damn Lucas alternator). This may have explained the inability to rev over
7000.
It is well known by spridget racers that you can't run off battery alone -
you'll get
a high rpm misfire. I was hopeful that I'd get my power back. I'd been
having other
electrical problems that first became evident by unreliable brake lights and
a partly
melted rear wiring loom. There was further evidence of electrical problems
in the
engine bay which led us to power a couple of items directly from the
battery! This
certainly wouldn't have helped as it would have cost voltage to the ignition
circuit.
With the alternator fixed, it was just putting out 13 volts at 5000rm. Not
great, but
maybe enough I hoped. I put the car on trickle charge all night.
Woke up sunday to steady heavy rain. Major disaster as I only had Hoosier
Street TDs. Both the rims and tires I'd normally use in the wet were not
eligible
for this particular event, and there was standing water on the 120mph
straight
and water running across the track through the fast corners across the top
of the
mountain. Hoosiers, standing water and concrete walls don't mix. I had
planned to
groove the Hoosiers if it rained, but the groovers were nowhere to be found
early
Sunday Morning (our race was at 9:20am, immediately before the first of the
two
feature enduros). Luckily I could buy a set of the new Yokohama Advan 32R
which
is very soft, has good drainage channels and is supposedly good in the wet.
Unfortunately we didn't have time to buff them or drive off the smooth
skim -
straight to dummy grid and onto the track.
I was pretty aggressive on the first lap, attempting to stay with Glen
Taylor's midget.
We both shot through the field but unfortunately he made it past two big
Healeys
before a tricky bit of track and I didn't. I was stuck behind them across
the top and
Glen had made a bit of a break. I made an unsuccessful passing attempt under
brakes at the end of the main straight but slid wide and missed my chance to
stay
with Glen. I had never used these tyres before and I was struggling to find
the
exact limit of adhesion in the very slippery conditions. I was loosing power
again and
now it jumped out of 2nd almost every time. I resorted to avoiding 2nd gear
if at all
possible even though this gave me a poor exit out of a couple of critical
corners.
I never got close enough to make another reasonable passing attempt. Glen
went on to
2nd place outright. I ended up 5th outright and 2nd spridget after the
leading spridget
driver Peter Brice, made contact with one of the 3000s under brakes and
spun.
This let Glen past and Peter joined the race behind a few seconds behind me
but
out lap times were pretty close (3:19 vs my 3:20) and he settled behind me
as
there were only 2 laps to the finish.
I should be happy, but I would have loved 1 trouble free race. I had a fresh
motor
and gearbox especially for this event so I thought I had these things
covered. oh well
that's motorsport... Since the compression is still OK, I'm guessing that
maybe cam
or lifters were chewed out. I won't know until the pulldown
So I've built two cars in the last couple of months, gone racing and ignored
the vineyard,
family, stockmarket and all the other things I've pushed aside.
Still, there is nothing in the world like a fast lap of Bathurst. It is so
awesome that it
is well worth the hassle. if we are back next year, maybe the luck will turn
my way...
On top of that I have nicely sorted a new race car and almost finished the
bugeye.
Mike
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