A bit of fun for the weekend
09-04-2008, 12:52 AM
#51
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A GRP bonnet sounds like a good plan, but could prove more difficult to fix if you have the misfortune to "remodel" it.
The best investment to make now is a trailer - that way you can start removing heavy things required for road legal use, like about 2/3 of the wiring loom and the dashboard. Plus, if the worst does happen, you can still get home.
Depending on your racing ambitions, the next real weight saving is the glass, although as mentioned above, you may need to keep some of it for homologation purposes.
Following on from that, you can lose the air conditioning system for good. The next cheap and easy (ish) mods are to remove the alternator and fit a race (eg motorbike) battery that will just have enough juice to complete the session. Couple this with an FIA approved battery cutoff and an external booster battery plug-in socket and you have a way to start the car on external power and then retain the on board battery for the session. Whilst you're at it, you can remove the viscous fan or even better the whole water pump and replace with their electric equivalents. This will mean that the engine is no longer bleeding off power for cooling pumps and fans and will have approx 5-10 hp more to put onto the track.
With a little rummaging in scrap heaps and autojumbles, you should be able to make these changes for very little money, with the only sticking point being the water-pump adapter plate, which you might have to ask some helpful welder type guru to manufacture for you.
After that, the world is your oyster!
The best investment to make now is a trailer - that way you can start removing heavy things required for road legal use, like about 2/3 of the wiring loom and the dashboard. Plus, if the worst does happen, you can still get home.
Depending on your racing ambitions, the next real weight saving is the glass, although as mentioned above, you may need to keep some of it for homologation purposes.
Following on from that, you can lose the air conditioning system for good. The next cheap and easy (ish) mods are to remove the alternator and fit a race (eg motorbike) battery that will just have enough juice to complete the session. Couple this with an FIA approved battery cutoff and an external booster battery plug-in socket and you have a way to start the car on external power and then retain the on board battery for the session. Whilst you're at it, you can remove the viscous fan or even better the whole water pump and replace with their electric equivalents. This will mean that the engine is no longer bleeding off power for cooling pumps and fans and will have approx 5-10 hp more to put onto the track.
With a little rummaging in scrap heaps and autojumbles, you should be able to make these changes for very little money, with the only sticking point being the water-pump adapter plate, which you might have to ask some helpful welder type guru to manufacture for you.
After that, the world is your oyster!
09-04-2008, 02:38 AM
#53
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Originally Posted by Dan Hale,Sep 4 2008, 09:12 AM
Come on Lee 
Will get it back on Saturday
unless Nigel wants to upload them off the camera.
09-05-2008, 07:22 AM
#54
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Originally Posted by Fieldl,Sep 4 2008, 11:38 AM
I kind of left the camera in the back of Nigels car.....
Will get it back on Saturday unless Nigel wants to upload them off the camera.
Will get it back on Saturday
unless Nigel wants to upload them off the camera.
09-06-2008, 02:56 AM
#55
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Pictures from last week at Oulton:
All the pics are available here: http://picasaweb.google.com/l33fld/OultonPark280808#
All the pics are available here: http://picasaweb.google.com/l33fld/OultonPark280808#
09-06-2008, 03:00 AM
#56
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Oh balls how on earth do you link to Picasa web pictures ?
Off to Croft tomorrow
so anyone local is welcome to come and watch.
If the weather is wet it will be tricky keeping it on the black stuff.
Off to Croft tomorrow
so anyone local is welcome to come and watch.If the weather is wet it will be tricky keeping it on the black stuff.
09-07-2008, 09:59 AM
#60
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[QUOTE=ian_6301,Sep 4 2008, 08:52 AM] A GRP bonnet sounds like a good plan, but could prove more difficult to fix if you have the misfortune to "remodel" it.