Birkin Build Diary - The Mosquito

Trolley jacks

2010-12-24T13:55:00.002+08:00

I've been a bit quiet lately - the car has been in storage, as I moved to a new place with no room for the car! I've since moved again, and now the garage has enough space to keep the car as long as it's parked sideways ;-)

So, rather than spend 30 minutes trying to manouver the car in increments, I'm going to get some trolley jacks for Christmas. These will allow me to move the car around the floor easily, and get it up against the wall.

Hopefully, this all means more time on the road, and more time at the track....2011 should be a better year for the Mosquito.

Not a bad result

2009-11-18T20:55:00.002+11:00

Finished the race with all parts of the car still attached, unbent and undamaged. Had a lot of fun, although there was one section where they got their timing completely wrong which meant a 45 minute wait in the sun for a 40 second run.

So the results are back - 13th overall, and 1st in class. That said, out of six cars, two broke down and one withdrew. On the other hand, if we didn't have a Clubman Class, then we would have been in the "All 1990-2009" class, which I would have won as well. So I think I'll be a bit smug about that.

I need to get the video off the camera and edited, then I can post it. I'm yet to pick up my perspex with matchbox car glued to it as my prize, though....

It's been a while....

2009-11-09T13:32:00.003+11:00

...but that's because I haven't been driving much this year, which is a shame. However, I'm getting back in with a bang - hopefully metaphorically speaking.

I've entered once again in the Fabcar 1-Day Classic , which was a lot of fun last year, and should be again this year. New co-driver as well, with my sister Kathy strapping into the passenger seat.

The entry list includes 6 clubmans (5 Birkins, 1 Westfield), plus the usual assortment of Evos, Rex's and Skylines, plus other assorted stuff. There's also the usual set of unsuitable cars, such as a Monaro, an HSV Clubsport, a Subaru Liberty, a Subaru Legacy, a Ford Falcon and even a Holden station wagon. Should be great fun if nothing else.

So, I should have a whole new set of video and tracking information over the coming week or so.

Results from the PowerBox

2009-03-12T11:42:00.003+08:00

You can see in the videos from the previous Motorkhana I had a small box mounted on the windscreen. This is a PerformanceBox, a GPS-enabled device that captures all sorts of real-time information on your driving. For example, it will record:

Speed
Direction
Rate of turn
Distance travelled
Radius of corner
...and many more

The use is that I can objectively look at what I'm doing in the car in far more detail than my memory, or even the video, provides.

For example, in my last post, I was talking about how I needed to brake 15m before the corner, to scrub off 20kph to turn in at 80kph. But was I doing that? Not really....

From the data, I can see where I started to lose speed, where I started to turn, and the distance between the two. I can also see the speed at which I take the corners. What I can see is that I start slowing 40m before the turn instead of 15m, and I'm doing about 40kph through the turns....

Now you're probably thinking - what a clown, he doesn't even know what speed he's doing in a corner. To you I say - fair point, but there's a lot going on right then. All my limited brain power is focused on keeping it in the right direction.

Another interesting thing is I'm not braking hard enough. Looking at the rate of change in speed, I would expect to see a linear curve going upwards, which is the rate at which I can accelerate, which is a pretty straight line up to the 100kph max for the circuit. However, the brake profile is about the same pitch, just opposite. I would expect it to be much, much steeper, as I'd expect to be able to scrub off speed faster than I could pile it on. As they're the same, I might take a look into the brakes and how I'm using them.

You can also overlay results from one lap onto another, so you can see where I'm braking later, and the overall effect on speed, and where I'm coming out of corners faster. Once you get the hang of the software, it's actually quite interesting seeing what you're doing.

I get the feeling it would be a lot better on a closed loop like Barbagallo, where you cross a start finish line repeatedly, so you can get a number of contiguous laps.

March 8th Motorkhana

2009-03-10T13:33:00.010+08:00

Ran another one of AEM's Motorkhana events last weekend. And with my best result yet - came 5th overall. About bloody time too. The car is too good to be running in the 20's. It's just a shame the driver isn't there yet.

I have to say, however, that 5th place was earnt mostly through not stuffing up, and the car basically behaving itself. All the other Birkin drivers had their dramas throughout the day. Frank's gearbox wasn't happy moving to second (leading to some interesting gearchanges), Conrad managed to go straight past a turn at full throttle in third, necessitating a rapid reverse back onto the course, and Tim had a shocking first round. He managed to hit a cone, then turn his engine off with his knee hitting the key, then overran the garage. Mind you, this was his first attempt at this event, and his final run was the 10th fastest of the round.

You also have to keep in mind that the timing is done by hand. I came ahead of Frank by 0.2 seconds, which is 0.05 seconds per run over four runs. Now you cannot tell me that someone with a stopwatch is that accurate.

Round 1 was the usual 'getting to know you' run. A bit of oversteer, which is becoming standard for my car at the moment, and needs some looking into. I also found the new tyres a bit glassy still, so the first run scrubbed them up well. The comment I got coming back in was that I was braking far too early - a few pointers of where I should be braking, a few 'you must be bloody joking' comments later, and I had a plan in mind.

Round 2 was where I implemented the plan. I think I did what I was supposed to. It all becomes a bit hard to follow, really. Unfortunately, my main evidence was going to be the video, but there's no sound this time around and therefore I'm not 100% sure of where my braking points were in reality. I know they were supposed to be around 15m before the turn, which when you're travelling at 100kph (my little Performance Box doing its thing), is half a second before the turn. In that time you have to brake, upshift to second, and begin the turn. Personally, I can't believe that's right, but I look at the video and it seems to be correct.

Mind you, I'm not stopping for the corner, so all I'm really doing is scrubbing off enough speed to make the corner. So for some of them it's probably just knocking off 20kph, as I can take some of these bends at 80kph.

The key difference was the time - I dropped 0.9 seconds from one run to the next, which is actually huge, and worth several places over four laps. Unfortunately, I forgot to set the video on this run.

Rounds 3 and 4 - well, pretty much the same, really. Just focusing in on braking points mainly.

Again, a lot of fun. Each time I get out of the car I'm shaking from the adrenaline, and I'm exhausted at the end of the day. I don't know how people do hours of racing.....

I'm going to have a look at the results from the Performance Box and see what my braking points are like - what speed to I drop to, where was I quicker etc. There may be some insights there, or perhaps just too much data for me to cope with.

Breaking stuff

2009-03-09T09:42:00.002+08:00

It's always a good idea to go over the car the day before any sort of event, so that you can break all the things you would normally have broken when it really mattered.

Saturday was spent in the workshop, which is something I haven't done for a while. The idea originally was to just go over the car with a spanner and find anything that had worked it's way loose. It turned out to be a little more than that. Interestingly, whilst a lot got done on the car, very little of it was done by me....

First job of the day was the halfshafts - these are the bits that come out either side of the diff and go out to the wheels, and provide the drive to the rear. They weren't seated properly in the diff, which whilst wasn't a terrible thing, meant that the diff would throw a little oil out. This eventually would be a bad thing. So it was out with the tyre lever and a bit of leverage later, one was in. The other required removing the rear wheel, putting a long piece of wood against the CV joint, and whacking it as hard as possible with a hammer to get it seated in. Now both are clipped into the diff. This has also made the speedo a little more reliable - the speedo works off a hall sensor that 'reads' the number of bolt heads that go past it in a second. These are now closer to the sensor, so that it gets fewer false readings. So I no longer do 80kph sitting at a red light....

One of the characteristics of my car has always been a heavy clutch, heavy accelerator, and a sticky gearshift. I've always just taken this as part of the car, but apparently, these are bad things ;-) It got to the point where someone was testing out the accelerator pedal - and broke the pedal. Yes, you had to press hard enough to bend a 4mm ali plate. This probably indicated a problem.

It was at this point that my car became cause celibre for others for the day. I had at least three people working on it, with me sort of spectating, as the entire throttle cable was removed and replace (somehow the outer sleeve had been damaged), and the link to the throttle bodies themselves was re-engineered. I have to say the change is dramatic - the pedal throw is longer by about 30%, but there's a massive reduction in effort required. Not that it was hard work, it's just that you can't control things as well when the pedal movement isn't progressive.

The other area was the gearbox. Ever since I've had it in the car, the movement has been really, really heavy. We put a short-throw lever on it which probably just made it worse. So Frank re-worked the gear lever, making the throw a little longer, which has again made it a lot easier. It's still some way off what it should be, and perhaps the next time I have the engine out, we'll take the gearbox apart and see what's what. Perhaps a selector fork is bent, or something is causing excess friction somewhere.

There's a list of tasks for me to get on with over the coming weeks - I'm down to part time again at work, so I'll have a few days to spare to focus on the car.

The things to do are:
1. Pack the gear lever forks with grease - hopefully this will make the throw easier still
2. Redo the diff mounting plate - the mounting bolts keep working loose. These need an allen key to tighten - but the mounting plate covers the bolt head. These are coming out and are getting replaced with hex heads, but it does mean taking some of the back end out
3. Sort out the engine bay - put in the engine breather tank to take oil off the top of the engine

And, of course, what-ever else turns up, as it seems to do every time I look at it ;-)

New Tyres, New Brakes

2008-12-11T08:24:00.003+08:00

I had the car in the workshop yesterday, and did a few small tasks.

First up was to replace the rear brake pads - not because they needed it (1200km only), but because they weren't doing much. The compound in there was too hard, so gone with a Mintex racing pad to try and get them to contribute more to the braking effort. Might help with the locking of the fronts if the rear is helping to slow the car more.

I also found a few more loose things to tighten, which to those who know me will come as no surprise. The clunk from the rear (which I thought might be the rear sway bar) turned out to (probably) be the rear sway bar, as I hadn't done up a locknut. Wouldn't have caused a serious problem, but nice to have it squared away. Also retorqued some of the diff mounts, checked over the suspension bolts, and noticed an oil leak from the diff.....

It seems that the half-shafts aren't sealing into the diff, so there some small weeping going on from where the shafts enter the diff. I've cleaned it up, and as soon as the car is down again I may look at topping the diff up.

The gearbox is also weeping oil again, probably from the top plate. I'll keep it topped up as well, then when the engine is out next I'll have to redo the seal on that. Just another step in the process of improving the car incrementally....

The wheels are off to the tyre guy today to have their new rubber fitted, so I'll have the car back on the road this Saturday. I'll be heading up to Barbagallo to see everyone else tear around the track, but I've missed out this time.

Another Green Birkin in Perth

2008-12-11T08:14:00.002+08:00

Yup, another Birkin is on its way over from the east (something of a pattern lately), and this one is Damien Glass' car, which is where I got the idea for hothouse green.

As you can see, this one comes with the full wet-weather gear, certainly a first for the Perth market. I think it actually looks pretty good with the roof on. I'm also interested in seeing the doors, as I reckon a pair would be useful for running around the streets and freeways - might help preserve the ears from the wind a bit more.

The number of Birkin's in Perth is swelling by the month - we've had quite a few come from over east recently, and five under construction at the moment with a couple of those heading for rego either this year or early next. The Birkin grid is certainly filling up.

Perhaps a round-up of Perth Birkins is in order - would make a really good photo ;-)

Superkhana Results

2008-12-09T09:23:00.003+08:00

The results for the weekend's run are in. I cam 14th out of 50, with that little spin knocking me out of the top 10 once more, dammit.

Lap times were:
Round 1 44.78
Round 2 56.31
Round 3 44.85
Round 4 44.4
Total 190.34

So ignoring the spin, times were getting better, and I still reckon there's a few tenths to be had just in my basic driving, let alone mechanical stuff like tyres and suspension. Lots to aim for next year.

Results etc can be found here:
http://www.classicrally.com.au/Speed%20Dome%20Day.htm

Next year's calendar is out as well, with 6 superkhana's planned, plus perhaps a fwe one-day specials as well. Should be fun ;-)

Vale Tyres

2008-12-08T09:22:00.007+08:00

I think I need new tyres. At least, that's my latest excuse.

Anyway, this weekend was the Last Blast Superkhana, again organised by AEM and run at the Midland Speed Dome in the carpark. The circuit was the same as one of the rounds in the one-day challenge, so we could get some comparison times.

The circuit itself is pretty good - for me, it's mostly first gear still. There are only a few tricky points with this one, including a sharp left right which, as you'll see in the first video, caught me out.

So, Round 1 went fine, usual sort of testing run to make sure everything is OK. The surface was reported to be quite slippery, which it was. I think the pines were shedding a lot of needles, and these were creating a lot of dust which needed to be swept off by the front runners. Unfortunately, once more the video decided not to play ball and start, so Round 1 was missed for the cameras.

Round 2 was a different story - I got the camera working early, and I've managed to capture a small mishap for posterity, which I shall share with y'all. Coming into the left / right turn, I've somehow managed to completely understeer off the road - whether this was old and cold tyres, a bit of sand on the road where others had cut the corner, or just the car not being setup right, I somehow manage to understeer off at around 20kph, then lose it when I hit the grass. Cost around 12 seconds all up. No damage (which is one of the nice things with this circuit), just a bit annoying.

To be honest the car was pushing wide all day - you'll note from the first long left-hander I'm having trouble putting power down without the car pushing wide. As Gary and Frank pointed out afterwards, I should have backed off at that point, straightened up, then put my foot down, as going wide here cost a few tenths. The understeer at the bottom corner (sharp right-hander) occured under brakes this time - my fault. I know better than to do that now.

Round 3 was again a problem for the camera, but it was a neat run with no excitement. I think I ran around a 44.7 or thereabouts.

Round 4 was captured, which was good as it was my best run for the day. Still taking the sweeping left-hander wide, but I took the left/right a lot better this time.

I note that I'm still treating the corner with the tree with too much respect, but with the car understeering like it is, perhaps that's wise at this stage.

Ultimately, I think I do need new tyres. The ones on at the moment are three years old now, which is ancient for a soft compound. Looking at the surface of the tyre, they're shredding quite badly, even if there's some tread left. As luck would have it, Frank rang this morning, and he has some Kuhmo V70 195/50R15 in a medium compound that are looking for an owner. They're a bit of a compromise - a full soft compound would be better for most things I do, but probably won't last the year, whereas the mediums will. In addition, if I do decide to do a few hundred kays just for fun on the roads, I won't be feeling guilty for shredding race tyres. But reading the various forums, these tyres seem to be pretty popular.

So one day after deciding I need some new tyres, four new tyres turn up. Nice. Now I just need to completely shred the tyres I have now, and get the new ones on for next year's events.

Fabcar - Final Results

2008-11-10T16:05:00.005+08:00

Time 626.54
Overall 25th
Birkin Rank 3rd

A result of 25th out of 60 isn't bad given its my first attempt at anything like this. Certainly a few lessons:
1. Attack the damn corners - trust the brakes and the handling more
2. Read the map - one small mistake costs a lot of points. Better to be slower and more precise than faster and make mistakes
3. Drive around the course - throwing the backend out is fun but slow

I think the first one is the most telling. Looking at the results, the spread of times near the top is fractions of a second, so each tenth can put you down 10 places or more. So being more attacking in corners is going to help a lot. In the videos I can see that I'm really quite tentative on corners, even though at the time it felt like I was pushing it. But the tyres aren't being stressed, no squealing under brakes, so I'm not anywhere near the edge of the car. I need some more time in it to find it, I think.

Next attempt will be another superkhana at the Speed Dome, then its on to Barbagallo for some real race track stuff, none of the car park malarky!

Finally, at the start of the event, Dad asked what my objectives were for the day. They were:
1. To finish
2. To have nothing fall off the car
3. To have fun

All three objectives were met. To be honest, I think as long as I go into every event with these objectives in mind, it will be a good day. Winnning, top 10 and the rest of it can follow if it works out that way. But damn it was a lot of fun ;-)

Fabcar Rounds 15,16,and 17

2008-11-10T16:01:00.003+08:00

Round 15
Time 47.06
Overall 17th
Birkin Rank 2nd

Round 16
Did not compete! Luckily, this round was cancelled from a results point of view ;-)

Round 17
Time 55.71 (garage infringement)
Overall 55th
Birkin Rank 4th

Rounds 15 and 17 were on the same track, but I stuffed up the last garage. Each round has you finishing in a garage made up of four traffic cones - you must stop with all four wheels inside the garage. I just slipped past the end this time, which cost a lot of points....I've cut the swearing out of the video....

Round 16 was cancelled - this was the paddock circuit on cut grass. Looks fun in a big car, a disaster for a low-riding clubman.

Anyway, here's he video from Round 17...

Fabcar Rounds 13 and 14

2008-11-10T15:58:00.003+08:00

Round 13
Time 38.09 (36.45)
Overall 38th (36th)
Birkin Rank 2nd

Round 14
Time 19.72 (18.97)
Overall 28th (15th)
Birkin Rank 3rd

I know what you're thinking - what happened here? Going slower the second time around? These rounds were repeats on the Gloucester Park circuit, with all the gravel etc. I though this time around I'd try a different approach. Before, I was just driving around, keeping everything neat and tidy. This time, I thought I'd try playing with the back end more on the loose surface, seeing if sliding it would make a difference. Well, it did, but not in the right way.

I think I shall go back to the smooth and steady style from now on.

Fabcar Round 12

2008-11-10T15:56:00.004+08:00

Time 37.62
Overall 17th
Birkin Rank 2nd

Round 12 was in the carpark at Cockburn central (pronounced Co-burn in case you were wondering). A relatively straight forward circuit, just going around by now really.....

Fabcar - Round 9, 10 and 11

2008-11-10T15:51:00.006+08:00

Round 9
Time 43.53 (45.62)
Overall 18th (27th)
Birkin Rank 3rd

Round 10
Time 13.56 (13.62)
Overall 18th (17th)
Birkin Rank 2nd

Round 11
Time 55.19 (57.47)
Overall 15th (24th)
Birkin Rank 1st

I was wrong - I got another 1st (at least amongst the Birkins ;-) The figures in brackets are comparisons with the results from rounds 6,7 and 8.

Rounds 9, 10 and 11 were reruns of 6, 7 and 8, which was good because you can compare results. You can see my times were consistently coming down - but so was everyone elses as you can see from a faster drag result but one lower placing.

Fabcar - Rounds 6, 7 and 8

2008-11-10T15:44:00.004+08:00

Round 6
Time 45.62
Overall 27th
Birkin Rank 4th

Round 7 (Quarter mile drag race)
Time 13.62
Overall 17th
Birkin Rank 2nd

Round 8
Time 57.47
Overall 24th
Birkin Rank 3rd

Rounds 6, 7 and 8 were at the Perth Motorplex. This is primarily a drag-strip, however their carparks and service roads are also very useful for motorkhana style events.

Round 6 was on a carpark, so we did switchbacks up and down the rows with some chicanes thrown in. Trick was at people were walking just off the track to go to the bathrooms at the end of the first straight, so if you miss the corner, you could end up ploughing through a crowd of people. One car did lose it there - luckily no-one was anywhere near it. Perhaps some element of crowd control or warning would have been appropriate - or perhaps just rely on the fact that people know what's going on and paying attention.

Round 7 was the drag strip, and having never even been to a dragstrip before, it was all a bit new. You pull up to a sensor, which lights up two little white lights to tell you you're locked in, then a christmas tree lights up and you're off. Great fun, and a 13.62 with a passenger is no mean result, with a 0-100 of 5.4 seconds. Problem was this was the run that Blair broke his half-shaft, so some concern there as I could see him pulled up in the rear-vision mirrors.

Round 8 was more carpark, with a nice round-about and some good high-speed corners. Actually one of the first opportunities to hit second gear all day (apart from the drags, of course). Only real tricky bit on this was where someone had kicked a pile of sand onto the track earlier from an accident, but overall fairly straightforward.

Fabcar - Rounds 4 and 5

2008-11-10T15:40:00.005+08:00

Round 4
Time 36.45
Overall 36th
Birkin Rank 3rd (should be 2nd! - see below ;-)

Round 5
Time 18.97
Overall 15th
Birkin Rank 3rd

Rounds 4 and 5 were at the carpark at Gloucester Park. This is where all the horse floats, heavy machinery, road-works vehicles etc park, so the surface is loose, gravelly and uneven.

Interestingly, looking at the results sheet for Round 4, Conrad decided not to run this due to the risk of damage to the car, so he got a time of zero. However, this apparently gave him a first place overall - a cracking result! They sorted it out for Round 5 where he came last for not running.... I shall lodge a protest immediately! Now, where's my red flag.....

These rounds were your traditional traffic cone type events, where you turn a corner only to wonder which cone you should be aiming for, and which side you should pass it. Still, I managed to get by without any problems, just a little slow. Birkins should eat this course up. I remember thinking I should try and fling the car around the corners a little more, rather than just drive around them - so I vowed to try that when we returned again later in the day.

Fabcar - Rounds 2 and 3

2008-11-10T15:35:00.005+08:00

Round 2
Time 50.72 with a wrong way penalty
Overall 49th
Birkin Rank 5th

Round 3
Time 31.78
Overall 6th
Birkin Rank 2nd

Round 2 was a disaster. After driving down from Midland, finding the carpark at Galleria, I got waved up to the start line without having read the map. Unfortunately it was the figure-8 circuit, so you go round and round and round - I just missed one of the go-rounds on the first attempt. I ended up diving into the garage having missed most of the lap, facing the wrong way entirely. Not exactly dignified - spectators must have thought I was an idiot....

The second run was much better, and getting 6th overall shows that this was a round where the Birkins should have moved up the rank, except I'd squandered the chance. Never mind, I learnt the lesson, and next time I turned up to a round where they were ready for me to run straight away, I parked it and watched others go first before stuffing it up again.

Fabcar - Round 1

2008-11-10T15:31:00.003+08:00

Time 43:01 seconds
Overall 22nd
Birkin Rank 1st (only time that happened, mind you)

The first run around unfortunately wasn't video'd, as the thing stopped working again. Typically, as it was my best result.

The first run was at the Midland Speed-dome carpark, and having run there a few weeks ago, I think I had a bit more confidence going into it than the others. Hence the better result. The layout was a little different from the previous runs, but you get a feel for a place.

It was a good circuit, and the run was good. Only one minor issue when up-shifting from second to first approaching the round-about where I compression locked it for a fraction of a second, but not enough to unsettle the car as I was heading in a straight line anyway.

Probably the best thing to be said for the run was that it settled some nerves, and, we thought at the time, gave a chance to work on the driver / co-driver communication. Next round was to show that this perhaps wasn't the case ;-)

Birkin Wins Class at Fabcar

2008-11-05T16:04:00.002+08:00

Nope, not me.....

Congrats to Paul and his co-driver Rodger for winning the '1986-2008 up to 2-litres' class at the Fabcar rally. Given that all the clubmans were in the one class, he's managed to beat a number of (on paper) more powerful vehicles, including mine! Goes to show it's more about the driver and less about the car, so I've been searching for performance driver training courses in Perth. More on that later. I'm also booking myself up for an AMR Speed Event Series round at Barbagallo, plus another Superkhana before the end of the year.

In other news, the grass stage at Fabcar is apparently not going to be included in the overall results calculations - I think the conditions were somewhat other than expected, sot the results from that stage would probably have skewed the overall results too much. The guys at AEM have made a good call to discount it, even though for those who ran it, it looked like a lot of fun ;-)

The full results are yet to be posted, and the videos are still stranded on the camera, so no additional updates yet.

Fabcar

2008-11-03T11:08:00.002+08:00

I thought I might put up a series of posts on the Fabcar 1-Day Rally over the next few days, as there's a l0t to say. So to start with, an overall review, then I'll chuck in a few bits and pieces (hopefully with videos) on the various stages later on. I can also provide the results once they get posted on-line.

Overall the event was excellent - good stages, well organised, good volunteers etc. Getting between stages did require some long drives (top to tail, the two furthest events were 50km apart) but this is Perth - everything is far apart.

What was also really good was the variety - the recent Dutton seemed to call out every man and his dog who owned a Nissan Skyline, Mitsi Lancer Evo what-ever, or Subaru WRX. This event at least had some older (i.e. much older) muscle cars, the odd Jag, Fiats, even a nicely sorted (and well driven) Proton Satria. We had a Suzuki Swift GTi, a few MX-5's (supercharged, turbocharged and NA), an MGB, a Porsche, plus a few Commodores and Falcons to provide the V8 tyre smoke that makes it so much fun. But at least it wasn't a processing of cars that all looked the same, sounded the same and drove the same as each other.

I think that was the result of the 1-day format - older (and maybe more fragile) cars (and drivers?) felt they could participate in 1 day event without risking too much through over-stressing the car, or if something did go bang on the first run, they hadn't paid thousands in entry fees and setup. Plus reduced wear on tyres, brakes and other consumables made it a more affordable event. Apparently there was some surprise at how quickly it sold out (a week) - personally I'm not surprised at all. It seems an ideal format for those who want to have a bit of fun, but don't have their own pit crew and sponsors.

For a day with 17 stages, there were only a few hiccups - a few stages where the queues to run ended up being quite long (say, 15-20 cars), and the final stage had to be cancelled as we just ran out of time. Nothing serious, and certainly nothing to spoil the day.

Most importantly, there were no injuries or major accidents (at least that I'm aware of). We did lose one of the Birkin brethren when Blair's right-hand half-shaft snapped going down the drags - no major damage and a relatively easy fix. It just failed at a weld - can happen, I suppose. The effect was that drive was only going to one wheel, and the LSD simply let go and basically provided no torque to the one remaining shaft - which is probably a good thing otherwise it may have snapped as well, or at least seriously stressed it for a later failure.

One of the Jags also re-arranged the landscape somewhat on one of the stages at the Motorplex. What was interesting was he managed to shift a fairly chunky concrete curb some distance, and kick up a lot of dirt, yet when I spoke to him later (as he was queuing up for another stage) he said he may need a wheel alignment. That's what you get with an older, all steel car - do that in a Birkin and you'll be re-building your front end ;-)

All of the stages were on good quality road surfaces - apart from one. I (and the other Birkins) piked on this, which was held in a paddock laid with straw. Looking at the way the other cars (particularly the heavy, rear-wheel V8s) were cutting up the ground, the amount of dust and sand being thrown up, and the obviously rutted nature of the ground, we made a decision that 50mm ground clearance and open cars weren't really set up for this, and bailed out for a DNS. It looked like it would have been a lot of fun if you were in something a little higher, and little heavier, and a little better sealed (ie with windows). Quite a few entrants made it to the next round with large chunks of the local lawn embedded in various bits of the car.

The electronics all worked well - I have yet to review the PerformanceBox output, but we noted a fastest 0-100 time of 5.4 seconds, which given the two people in the car wasn't bad. I'll have to give that a go on track later with just me in it. The camera also did OK -except I think it was having problems with the white helmets in front of it, so the white balance is way off and everything looks blue. Occasionally it recovers, but most of the footage looks like it was shot underwater.

So, overall I'd say it was a damn fine event and if they run it again, I'll be there.

What a Difference a Day Makes

2008-10-30T10:54:00.002+08:00

The car has come back from RaceTorque after it's tune-up, this time not just looking at the fuelling but also at the cam timing. And boy, what a difference.

The original run had 139rwp and 191Nm - with the changes, it's now 160rwhp and 219Nm, and increase of 15% across both figures. What's more interesting is that the average power is now higher than the maximum power from the previous runs.

To get this, the tuner made some fairly significant changes, retarding the exhaust by 4 degrees, and advancing the inlet by 6 degrees. This is where the fly-cut pistons came in - they gave confidence that the valves would clear, even with this fairly significant move. The tuner stopped increasing the offset only because we were now risking having the inlet and outlet valves touch.

It's also cured the stalling at part-throttle, smoothed out the power delivery and stopped all the popping and crackling on overrun. All that was missing was the pine-scented little tree hanging from the rear vision mirror.

Sets me up nicely for this weekend anyway - but it's one less excuse if I get pummeled by everyone else ;-)

Getting ready for Fabcar

2008-10-27T12:40:00.003+08:00

Now it's time to get ready for the Fabcar 1-Day Challenge. Actually there's not a lot to do, as most of the stuff that gets scrutineered on the superkhana day is the same for the 1 day event. The major difference is the requirement for fire extinguishers.

The requirement is for 1 x 2kg, or 2x1kg, as long as one is accessible to the driver. The trick with clubmans is finding a suitable location, and a suitable extinguisher that fits. Unfortunately, Australia has been inundated with squat, fat things instead of the previous long, thin versions that fit so nicely under the drivers or passengers legs.

So I now have two extinguishers fitted - one sits between the driver and passenger seats bolted to the rear bulkhead with a reinforcing bracket, and the other is in the boot boot bolted to the roll-bar anchorage. Neither should move in the event of a 25-G impact, which is apparently the standard.

Also, this week the car is going back to the dyno for a retune. The car is idling OK, but it hates part throttle (keeps want to stall, missing etc), makes a hell of a lot of noise on over-run, and doesn't like 3000rpm, so I think a quick retune is in order before the event. Not that part throttle or 3000rpm is likely to occur much in the event, but it would be good to know that it's all running as it should.

Also - it will make taking off at lights less conspicuous. I was sitting next to a police car the other day, which is common for me given I live next to police HQ in Perth. My car gets attention, but if you have to rev the hell out of it to stop it stalling, it gets more attention. So I'd rather it was tuned to be a little more tractable at part throttle ;-) He's also going to play with the cam timings this time around, which might also help.

I'll post the results as they come in - again, also hoping for something a little better that 108rwhp. Frank had his checked out, and it came back significantly better than this, so I need to have a lot more if I'm ever going to think of keeping up.

Actually, that's a point. Frank had his out the other day for a quick shakedown run - he had no oil pressure, was keeping the revs really low - and still he pulled comfortably away. And he wasn't even trying.

Hmmmmm.....time for an upgrade, perhaps? No, no, mustn't think that way. Especially now the Aussie dollar has achieved parity with the Mexican peso.

The Results

2008-10-21T10:11:00.005+08:00

The results are up from the Superkhana - I came 26th out of 44. Mind you, looking at my times, if I had just taken it easier, I would have ended up top 10 (coulda, woulda, shoulda, but didn't.....).

Oh, and I won the dubious 'spin of the day' which I think was a bit much given:

the RX-7 that also went up a bank, but one with a proper curb on it that threw the car into a nice spin - he recovered it well and finished with a grin on his face....
the Ford that slalomed its way around the circuit, dropped a wheel into a ditch and ripped a tyre from the rim - again he was back on track the next round.....

I think I won because they got a photo of it, which they've kindly published online. See, I'm famous. Now whenever someone Googles my name, its going to be in relation to falling off the track with a photo to boot.

So anyway, a lot of positives came out of that, and I really enjoyed it.

First time trial

2008-10-20T08:59:00.002+08:00

This Sunday, I took the Birkin out for its first set of timed runs. The day is run by AEM - the same people who are putting on the one-day rally in two weeks time, and the venue is one of the locations. So it was a good opportunity to punt it into a few corners to see what happens.

Anyway, four laps.....

First lap -well, less said about this one, the better. Started off, then put it into second for no apparent reason. Then came around a right hander, tried to sweep into the following left hander, hit brakes and accelerator at the same time, and parked it up a bank. What made it worse was that I almost beached myself -took some wheelspinning to get off and back onto the track. No damage to the car at all, which was good. I was only doing around 10kph as I went up the grassy knoll.

Second lap was better, although I must admit I was slightly gun-shy. Left it in first most of the way round, which worked a lot better. Coming into the final, sharp right hander though, I discovered it doesn't like braking and turning at the same time - basically understeered in a straight line, and clipped a bollard. Again, no damage.

Third and fourth laps were, well, dull in comparison, yet obviously much quicker when you don't park it half-way through the lap.

Anyway, the results should come out soon. I think if I hadn't parked it on the first lap, I would have done OK. I deliberately didn't look at my times during the day - I decided to focus on the driving, not on the times. When you're trying to shave whole seconds off, what's the point of keeping track that closely?

So, a few things to look at. The understeering is still annoying, but I have a lot of suspension work to smooth that out. I can also focus on the driver - as long as I do most things in straight lines at the moment, its fine. But I have two weeks before the next event - probably won't improve too much between now and then.

But gee it was a hell of a lot of fun...... ;-)

She ain't heavy.....

2008-10-17T17:40:00.002+08:00

Weighed the car today - came in at 568kg with 30ltr of fuel in the tank. So really not a lot at all.

Weight distribution was, strangely enough, almost perfect. As expected, the left front tyre was a little light on - it was locking up under heavy breaking, so I've turned the right rear shock to put more weight on the wheel - that should help. Probably only a matter of a few kilos to shift to make a difference.

I'll redo the corner weights with my Dad in the car, although I think we'll balance each other out quite nicely.

I've also bought my helmet - it's a Sparco Formula helmet, with Hans harness fittings in place, so when I decide to get teh Hans device it will clip right in. It's a nice, light helmet, but pretty huge. I guess it's not about the looks, though.

It's Registered!

2008-10-13T09:26:00.006+08:00

Yup, got the plates and everything. Now I can drive it legally on the road, which is nice. More importantly, I can start to get into the various events around the place, from nice country drives with the local clubbies group, through to AMS events.

Registration was actually a lot less trouble than I thought, although it didn't start well. The inspectors opening comments were 'I hate these cars. You can't steer 'em, can't use the pedals, and they're unsafe. If it was up to me, I wouldn't register these things'. But once he'd had his rant and seen that the lights all worked, indicators flashed, and took it for a 30 second drive, he signed the paperwork. And that's actually all that I really needed from him - the opinions were an extra I could do without ;-)

A word to the wise though - do a final check before you take it to be registered. Sods law says something will have come loose. In my case, it was a wire to the front left indicator - a five minute job saved me from failing the rego ;-)

I've also resolved the water temp gauge problem - I just needed to earth the engine to the chassis, which removed a lot of the electrical noise from the system.

Now it's back at Franks - I know, you were all thinking that once it was registered, that would be it. But there's still work to do before the rally:

Fit the cross-member. If you remember, the bellhousing is below the line of the removal able cross-member, so Frank will fabricate a new one
Re-do the water lines
Play with suspension settings

But at least now I don't have to worry about the Police troubling me for my rego papers...

Final fitting, and Fabcar

2008-10-03T14:32:00.003+08:00

The car is around at Frank's at the moment, getting the buzzer fitted for the indicator and the immobiliser done. Then I have to raise it up a little, do a wheel alignment, and put the VIN number on, and it can go over the pits. Planning on doing that sometime this coming week.

In addition, I've signed up to the somewhat camply named Fabcar 1-Day rally, organised by the same team that does the Classic Challenge and other events around Perth. For me, this will be a learning experience, as whilst I know what the car is like at low speeds, or high speeds in straight lines, I haven't yet had a chance to throw it at a corner to see what happens. So that's what I'll be using the day for.

The idea is that it's 16 different circuits including motorkhana, drag racing, street circuits etc, all done in quick succession around Perth. So you get all sorts of types of driving in, under all sorts of conditions. There will be around 6 Birkins along including several people new to this sort of thing, so we can all laugh at each other. Frank's should also be on the road, all tricked up, so it will be great to see that running again. Let's hope he avoids all walls this time.

The link for the event can be found here: http://www.classicrally.com.au/1-Day%20Rally.htm I'm going to do the rounds with my Dad, which should be fun. I'll have to see how badly I can scare him ;-)

Things may be stabilising

2008-09-16T12:51:00.004+08:00

The title of this post may come back to haunt me.

Anyway, this weekend was a quick run up north to meet up with Kerry and his Birkin, before heading over to Gary's for a BBQ. The weather was looking a little dodgy (so dodgy that the Perth clubman run scheduled for the same day was cancelled - cowards!!!) but Kerry and I committed ourselves early to making the run.

I might also point out that a few others piked on driving their clubmans up for the day - all I can say is that if you wait for perfection, you never get to drive it. Oh wait, that's what I used to say in the UK, and this is Perth where perfect weather is the rule rather than the exception. Still, can't let a few drops of water get between you and a good day out.

So I got to see whether my windscreen wipers worked.

Actually, it's not all that bad. When you're moving, the rain stays out of the cockpit. The only trick is my head is above the windscreen line, so the rain that comes off the top smacks into my forehead and runs off the back. I just need a decent rainproof hat to sort that out. Luckily I have installed a Quick Dry Head(TM) that means there's no irritating hair to get wet.

What I also notice is that my car isn't too stable in standing water - I think that's more to do with my cooked tyres and poor front wheel alignment than anything else. That's on my list this weekend to sort out.

But overall, the car ran really well. It still idles like it should (which is a record - two days in a row), even actually a little low as it tends to stall a bit. Plus the accelerator pedal needs a bit of a push before the TBs open up, so there's some adjustment to be done there as well. But nothing serious. All I needed to do was top up the oil as the pressure was a little low at temp, which has fixed that up.

So this coming weekend should see me do the following:
1. Wheel alignment - at least sort the front out
2. Front roll bar - get this fitted properly...
3. Tidy up some wiring - get a few cable ties applied
4. The weekly bolt check

I think I may start writing down lists of bolts to check on a regular basis, then create a check-sheet for myself and a service routine. You know, check this bolt to this torque setting every three months or 1000km. I'll probably need something like that, or I'll miss one one day and it will cause problems. Besides, I like lists.....

5000 viewers

2008-09-12T14:35:00.003+08:00

I note that my counter has moved past 5000. I can ascribe this popularity to my engaging writing style, wit and wisdom. Or it could the fact that I check my blog 20 times a day to see how many people have read it. One or t'other.

Paperwork

2008-09-12T14:23:00.002+08:00

Today I went in and paid for my exemption on my seatbelts. Apparently, the vehicle liensing division have an aversion to four-point harnesses as unsafe and un-usable, but if you give 'em $50 they're happy.

I'd also have had to get an exemption for the side-exit exhaust, except that it's OK apparently to have it on the drivers side. So the Zetec guys need to pay another $50 for an exemption for the exhaust, but I don't because it's gassing the driver not the passenger. Go figure.

Anyway, the guy at licensing says there's nothing holding up the paperwork, so I should have it in a few days. Then it's over the pits.

I've taken the car out for a few more short runs, and nothing has fallen off. However, it's idling at 2000rpm again, and running lean, which speaks of more air leaks in the induction. So that will probably come off again this weekend.

More shakdowns, or should that be shakeloose?

2008-09-08T09:13:00.003+08:00

The last post (?) had a few things to resolve. You can add to the list a really odd squeaking noise on start-up and shut-down.....

OK, so the fuel gauge light was fixed, and is now gone again - I think something is blowing the globe for some reason.

The seatbelt warning light is still an issue - not entirely sure what's going on there, but without a doubt it's another loose wire somewhere.

The overheating problem seems to be mostly resolved, mainly by fixing the fan wiring. There was a loose wire in the fuse box that meant the fan wasn't being switched on by the thermostat. The temp still swings a little too wildly for my liking, so the thermostat might get moved to it's original position, and we'll see what happens from there.

Now for the squeaking - turns out the throttle-bodies had worked their way loose, so the squeak was the air leak getting in behind the throttles. Most embarrassing. However, I've chucked on some longer bolts (the old one's weren't holding on with enough thread), and done them up tighter, and I'll check them regularly. But if I hear that noise again I'll know what it is.

The car has now done around 200km, so hopefully most of the loose bits are doing their thing now rather than later.

Shakedown run

2008-09-04T09:41:00.004+08:00

Took the car out for run last night - just a quick 20 minutes around the block. And it has shown up a few more issues:

1. the light in the fuel gauge doesn't work
2. the seatbelt warning light comes on when I accelerate
3. the water temp guage rapidly moves to 100+, then eventually 120+ (basically off the scale)
4. the fan doesn't come on
5. cylinder 4 is now lean

The first two aren't worth worrying about (except I will have them fixed for rego). Number 3 and 4 are of concern.

I wasn't driving hard, and it was a cool night, and I wasn't stuck in traffic. When I pulled over, I couldn't hear any boiling, and if it was overheating I'd assume the overflow tank would have been filling up rapidly. My gut feel is that the guage or sender aren't right - the temperature actually fell when I stopped moving. I'm wondering whether the water level is low, the sender is faulty etc. Something to check tonight now that it has cooled down.

The fan not coming on is also annoying - I'll have to check the wiring etc to see where that's going wrong.

On the lean cylinder, that's just a case of fiddling with the throttle bodies once more. They're starting to be a little annoying, as they're quite fiddly and don't seem to be too stable - once they're set, they tend to move again.

Anyway, just more things to do on the weekend....

In other news, the trailer is up for sale, having spent all that time and effort painting it a lovely green, I decided it was just too heavy to move around. So when Frank mentioned someone might want to buy it, it's come back to Perth to hopefully move on to a new owner.

All done

2008-08-25T16:19:00.002+08:00

Or at least as done as one of these things gets.

This weekend saw the installation of the throttle bodies, which were rebalanced and reset to hopefully fix the lean running of cylinder 3. Then it was back on with all the remaining bits and pieces, and out for a test drive. On it's return, there were no oil leaks, and the cylinder seems to be running fine. It's also solved the pre-ignition problem which meant you could see the flash of the fuel igniting in the throttle body itself, rather than in the cylinder.

Oh, and I also discovered why the license plate light wasn't working. Through a series of intense problem solving exercises involving oscilloscopes, test rigs, multimeters and a pair of pliers, we discovered the globe was missing. $1.50 later and it's all working fine.

One thing that did come up - the fan doesn't seem to want to come on when the engine heats up. When running, it only takes a few seconds for the water temp to drop from 120 to around 80, but if I get stuck in traffic I could have problems. So I'll be checking the fan - but that isn't going to stop registration.

So now I need to wait for the paperwork to come on from the Department, then it's over the pits and wack on the license plates.

All back together

2008-08-18T10:15:00.002+08:00

The car went back together over the weekend, with everything bar the throttle bodies now back on the engine. The TBs are staying off so we can take a look at installing some vacuum lines for balancing, and to reseal the gaps on number 3 to ensure it's not a leak causing the lean running. Looking closer at the butterfly on 3, it also looks like it's sitting open a little on idle, so that might also be something to correct.

Apart from that, no further progress - hopefully the vacuum lines will be in and I can reinstall everything on the car next weekend. Kerry also re-polished the extractors, so it will be easy to see if the cylinder is still running lean. I'm also really hoping the oil leak is resolved. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Grease Monkey

2008-08-11T09:44:00.003+08:00

With the engineering done, I now have a few weeks in which to sort out the teething problems, which in my case means:

1. Oil leak from somewhere major
2. Oil from the gearbox breather
3. Cylinder number 3 running lean
4. Various loose nuts and bolts
5. License plate light

The first two tasks required the engine to be removed, so that was this weekend's task.

Removing the engine wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. The task list is:
1. Remove exhaust
2. Remove throttle bodies
3. Remove fuel lines
4. Disconennect wiring from injectors, alternator, engine earth points, starter motor and crank sensor
5. Remove alternator
6. Remove belt tensioner and belt
7. Remove and drain radiator pipes
8. Detach clutch hose
9. Remove seats and belts
10. Remove centre console
11. Unbolt and remove drive shaft
12. Slightly lift the car with an engine hoist
13. Put a trolley under the engine
14. Remove engine mounts and gearbox mounts
15. Lift car up over engine and slide the engine out from underneath, making sure everything clears and nothing is still attached

Took about 3 hours all up - can take two once you know what you're doing, so I'll expect an improvement next time.

OK, so with the engine out, I then proceeded to remove the starter motor and bellhousing, then the clutch and clutch plate, in order to find the source of the leak. We removed the plate holding the main seal, and saw the problem...

There's a small lip around the main seal which closes up against the gearbox shaft to keep the oil from leaking. And I had it flipped inwards instead of outwards. That's it. I've pumped probably $100 worth of oil onto Frank's floor and the road because I had a seal in backwards. Idiot.

So we put it right, and then moved onto the gearbox.

I now have a new top plate on the gearbox, which has a baffle welded underneath the breather hose in order to stop the oil froth from bubbling up so easily. It will still allow expansion in the air as the gearbox heats up, but should stop the geyser of green oil. I also removed all of the gearbox oil and will replace it again, as I now had no idea how much was in there.

So, with the main seal fixed and the gearbox hopefully done, everything gets done in reverse. I did run out of time though, as I had to go home and cook dinner for 8 people. I dunno, modern man that I am - I can spend the day removing and reinstalling the entire drivetrain from my car, then be home in time to whip up a four course meal for 8 people.

Got nothing done on Sunday, of course. Except the dishes.

The Engineer Cometh

2008-08-11T09:40:00.002+08:00

With the car now looking like a car, even if it has an unsightly oil leak, I can get the engineering done.

What happens is a bloke comes along with a knowledge of the ADR requirements for the construction of an Individually Constructed Vehicle (ICV) and a checklist, and he goes over the car looking for anything that might be in contravention. The interesting thing of course is that a lot of things on the checklist aren't really relevant. For example, doors must have a double latch system, but if you haven't got doors....Luckily there's an N/A box you can tick, which got a lot of use.

However, it all passed except for the fact that the license plate light doesn't work - either it's not earthed properly, or I forgot to put a bulb in. Actually, it's more likely the latter, as I don't remember buying one and putting it in. But really that's not such a big deal.

The paperwork will take around four weeks, at which point I can take it over the pits and get it signed off for rego. Then it's on with the plates and onto the road.

I just need to get this oil leak fixed....

Out, out damn oil spot

2008-08-04T14:15:00.002+08:00

In an effort to isolate the oil leak, I've completely removed the Eurospeed oil plate that links the engine to the remote oil filter and oil cooler, and replaced it with the factory oil filter adaptor. Took it for a run, and it was still draining the engine of oil, so no joy there. It's looking even more likely that the main seal is leaking, so that's an engine out job.

Still, everyone else has had to take their engine out at some point, so why should I be any different?

While it's out, I'll be checking all the bolts I probably didn't do up tight enough, and well have a look at the gearbox to see if we can solve the oil coming out of the breather problem.

On the lean cylinder, I swapped the injectors from 2 and 3 around to see if thats the problem. The injector supply says they've sold 3000 and had 1 come back, so odds are it's not the injector. Actually, I now reckon I've got an air leak in the throttle bodies. Any leak after the butterfly would cause this sort of problem, and seeing as I put it together, I'd put money on me not getting it quite right before believing there's a problem with the injector.

So this weekend will be a case of getting the engine out and having a look before racing home and cooking dinner for the seven guests I have coming around.....

However, this won't stop the engineering process - hopefully this will get done this week, so the paperwork will go in to start the registration. I should have everything put back together before it goes over the pits, which is good because I don't think they'll register something that leaks this badly.

Independent Scientific Confirmation

2008-07-21T16:30:00.003+08:00

Well, I've taken someone else out in the Birkin for a scientific assessment of the performance in a comparitive situation vis a vie the performance. And the verdict is it's faster than most. Which is good, 'cause I was worried.

OK, so it's not exactly scientific, but it's nice to have someone tell you that, depsite the dyno report which showed the output was the same as theirs, the reality is somewhat different.

In other news - the lean cylinder is back, and is colouring up the exhaust once more, so there's some work to do looking at the injector. In addition, if you take the air filter off, you can see the spark flash actually in the intake, which isn't good.

So I had better not overdo it - running the cylinder lean means its heating up unevenly, which can lead to cracking and detonation if I'm not careful. So until this is resolved, I'll be driving more conservatively....

I did fill it up with petrol the other day, and someone was taking photos while I was paying. They either liked the car, or were sending the photos off to the police to report me under the anti-hoon laws ;-)

Back from the Tuna

2008-07-07T16:08:00.002+08:00

So, after all the hype and hyperbole of this blog, saying how my car will be super powerful and go really fast, it finally went onto a dyno. Expecting a call with a figure of 'Gee mate, it's bloody great. Rips 230bhp off at the flywheel, and tore the dyno out of the floor', I was a little non-plussed to get something a little different.

The comment from the tuner was that, overall, it seemed a little disappointing. He kept saying things like it felt that there was a restriction somewhere - perhaps the throttle bodies are too small (they're 48's, so no). Perhaps the standard cams aren't up to much (oh, wait, they're 220bhp raceline cams, not standard). Perhaps the cam timing is off (nope, done by a guy who builds motorcycle engines - finer tolerances on a Ducatti than a Ford lump). So really no idea as to why it pulled the figures it did.

So, to be blunt, the dyno showed a paltry 106kw at the rear wheels. This translates to around 180bhp from the engine. Given all the fruit that's been thrown at it, there's either a serious problem with the engine, or a problem with the dyno.

As it turns out, it may be the dyno. One of the other Birkins just went in with a stage-3 CNC milled high compression head, cylinders bored out plus forged pistons and rods, which should have sent the power skyrocketing. Instead, they showed a 5kw loss. The guy at the shop also said his RX-7 seemed to have lost 20bhp somewhere, and a few other cars are showing lower than expected results, so my guess is that something has gone a little wonky with the dyno. Mind you, being at least 40bhp down is a little more than just a small issue. But I'd rather believe that than believe I just spent that much money on an engine that does just 25% above the standard Ford Focus.

The ultimate test will be on how it now drives. The tuner has worked the power and torque curves to be nice and smooth, so as long as the whole lot just moves up a few inches on the page, then it should all be fine.

I'll either challenge some of the other Birkins to a drag race (under controlled conditions with trained professional drivers, of course), or use my new toy, the Performance Box from Racelogic, which has a power estimation calculation based on weight and 0-100 times. Obviously the calculator is a little hit and miss (lots of driver, tyre and other factors), but if with my poor driving and cooked tyres it tells me I have anything like 180bhp, I'll know its much higher ;-)

Or, I'll drive it for 6 months and think it's great, then someone clever will say 'hang on, this looks wrong', make a tweak, and uncover another 40bhp for me. That would be nice.

So, not ready to scrap the whole thing just yet. But would have liked a little bit more certainty around what it is I've actually got.

New clutch, same old oil leak

2008-06-30T10:12:00.006+08:00

This weekend was a little limited in progress, but I now have a clutch pedal that at least disengages the clutch at the start of the pedal movement rather than requiring me to put it all the way to the floor. So whilst everyone else is using a 5/8" master cylinder, I'm all the way up to a 1 1/8". There's certainly a lot of weight behind the pedal now, but the bite is a lot more noticeable.

What I did notice was that, on fast changes, there's a definite shove in the back when you take your foot off the clutch - I'll have to work on smoothing that out to save the drivetrain and my kidneys.

The mystery oil leak is still there. I suspect its from the take-off plate, however the oil only leaks when under pressure, so it won't leak while sitting still. I just need someone to volunteer to strap themselves under the car whilst I drive around in order to find it. Or we could just put it up on the hoist....

However, the car is drivable still. So took it out for a few laps around the place. I'm starting to understand its driving characteristics, including the significant understeer that happens when you feed in progressive power through a corner. Put in too much and it'll shift to powersliding oversteer, which was demonstrated to me by Frank at the end of the cul-de-sac. I think I shall look for somewhere with no curbs in sight before I start really throwing it around like that ;-)

I'm also quite suprised at how loose the end really is. Given the sticky tyres and IRS, the thought was that getting it loose would be a problem. I think the power developed by the engine has resolved that issue ;-) I can still slip and slide like a live axle, I just have to boot it harder. More noise, more smoke, and more consequences of getting it wrong, I suppose. I tried one or two fast launches, and had the rear wheels slipping in first and second, and third might have been a possibility but for a stop sign.

I think its fair to say the car has a lot of power at the moment, and it is still running off a standard Zetec engine map. This week its up at Race Torque Engineering for tuning - they have a guy who does Motec tuning, and he'll hopefully pull a few more horses out from under the bonnet.

So, next weekend it should be 95% tuned - I'll also be taking it to the track with the tuner (along with a few other guys) and we'll get the final adjustments made with real data from the Motec under track conditions.

Shakedown issues

2008-06-23T17:44:00.002+08:00

Too the car out for a longer run - 80k out to the Mundaring Weir and back, so some nice twisty country roads. Still driving it conservatively, as it's all pretty new, and I don't know how it reacts at the edge (or even where the edge is). But took it past 5000rpm, and it screams along nicely ;-)

As with any build like this, there are always going to be little niggling problems. Luckily, in comparison to some of the other builds I know, mine are pretty minor.

First, there's an oil leak from the side of the engine where the remote oil filter lines attach. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure of where the oil is coming from really, but it's around there somewhere. So it's all come off, been re-sealed and re-attached. I need to take it out for another run, but hopefully that's fixed it.

The other is the clutch pedal, which is still too long. Even with the 7/8" bore, the pedal throw is still down to the floor before the clutch disengages, so we're getting a 1 1/8" to see if that improves things, and we'll move up from there. But as I'm the only person with an AP Racing clutch, I'm the guinea pig on this one.

I also had to redo the steering rack, as the steering wheel slowly got out of alignment after a drive. OK, that's not a good thing, as the steering rack is kinda important in the whole "pointing in the right direction" role of the front wheels, but no harm done.

So, I just have to fit the new clutch master, and then it's off for engineering and registration.

First Outing

2008-05-31T17:01:00.003+08:00

Yup, taken it for it's first drive today ;-)

Took a few last minute adjustments - the alternator, for example, decided to short out and start sending up smoke signals, so that was taken out and replaced. Windscreen and wipers went on (which proved to be important), and a few more bolts were tightened up here and there. We also had to bore out the clutch master to 7/8", refit and bleed. The clutch is still long, but at least it works. Once all that was, done, there was nothing stopping me from taking it out....

Of course, today is also one of the wettest days in Perth this year, with biblical rain showers, thunder and lightning all day. So I had a ten minute window to take it out on cold tires onto very wet roads - doesn't matter.

So, first impressions. Well, for a start, the brakes are waaaaay off being anywhere near where they need to be, which is alarming to start with. They just need to bed in (new pads, new disks, new everything), but there's not much feel to them at this stage. What I need to do is get a dry day, then go for a drive somewhere quiet and stand on them a few times from 50kph or so. This should get the pads into good contact with the disks, and improve the bite a lot. Other than that, well, I didn't drive it that fast or hard to be honest - I mean, new and untested car, no brakes, and terrible weather doesn't lend itself to lots of confidence. So perhaps tomorrow when the weather is better, I can take it out again.

Oh, and the new video camera? I forgot to set it to record when I drove out. Idiot.... ;-)

It's Running!

2008-05-28T12:45:00.003+08:00

Yep, the engine runs! And boy, it sounds vicious, let me tell you. Starts up quickly, idles nicely, but the slightest twitch on the accelerator and it spools up extremely quickly.

I wasn't there for the wiring that needed to be done - down at my parents for the weekend. So all of this is second hand, however it all went fairly smoothly. Only concern was over a small fountain that appeared from a blanking plate. We'd removed the EGR sensor and blanked off this area, however one of the holes covered up must be linked to the water system, and when placed under pressure it sprayed a 6 foot jet of water from the engine bay, all over the laptop, of course. Frank resealed this up, however we were also getting a lot of water coming out of the exhaust. This implied that water was leaking past this seal and into the EGR system, which in turn was drawing the water into the exhaust. The risk here is that the cylinder can fill up with water, or that water simply speeds up corrosion etc. So we've put an aluminium stopper into the port, and this should stop any further leakage. I've also ordered a proper CNC-milled blanking plate with o-rings to seal up the water and EGR ports.

So, at this stage the only thing stopping me from taking it for a drive is the clutch. Initially, after the first bleed, I had the terrible thought that I'd blown the slave cylinder. The slave cylinder is the part inside the bell housing that pushes against the clutch to disengage it from the flywheel. A few of the guys had managed to blow the seals by over-pressurising the system, which means you have to take the entire drive-train out (engine and gearbox) which also entails unplugging the fuel system, water system, drive shaft, engine wiring loom etc etc. I had the tell-tale puddle of brake fluid under the bellhousing, so for a little while I was, well, worried I'd have to do the same.

Instead, it looks like I just stuffed up the bleed process (hooray!). It also appears that my master cylinder (the cylinder attached to the pedal) is too small, so it's extremely unlikely that I've done any harm. Instead, I've removed the master, and it's off to be bored out from 5/8" to 7/8" to give more pressure. Once this is back, I can install it, bleed it (extremely carefully), and take it for a drive. Should be on the road this Saturday ;-)

Nearly there...

2008-05-20T18:55:00.002+08:00

Despite the lack of postings, there has been a lot of progress on the car - it's just that none of it is terribly exciting. Once you get the engine in, there's all sorts of prosaic things to do, like:

* Install dipstick
* Install water pipes
* Install radiator overflow tank
* Tighten suspension bolts
* Do a wheel alignment
* Align headlights
* Install throttle cable
* Put oil in diff, gearbox and engine
* Install car horns

All this and more has been done, but that's not exactly riveting stuff. I'm just waiting for the engine loom to be put in and the car will be drivable.

That said, the bills keep rolling in. For example, the oil I'm using is Redline Lightweight Shockproof for the diff and gearbox, and Redline 10W40 for the engine. The total oil bill was over $300, which suprised me. But I should be coming to the end of the bills as well.

I've also tested all of the electrics, and everything works fine - headlights, brake lights, reversing lights, indicators etc are all fine. There were only two problems - I'd installed the high beam switch in upside down (disaster ;-) and the indicators initially didn't work as the wiring to the relay was back to front. Both easily resolved.

So, any day now, I'll be posting the video of the car starting up for the first time - can't wait.

Oil lines

2008-04-26T17:38:00.006+08:00

Now that the engine is in, I've installed the remote oil filter and oil lines. The remote filter takes the oil filter from the bottom of the engine (where it would have stuck out below the sump) to the front of the car where it can be kept out of the way. Given that the car is also going to see some track work, I've also installed an oil cooler.

This is the Eurospeed plate that covers the oil ports in the engine. Originally, these ports fed the standard oil filter housing. The other fitting is an oil pressure guage - I've fitted the guage to the dash by drilling a new hole and moving the fuel guage to the far right. Now I have oil pressure and temperature guages in my line of sight while driving.

This is the remote filter mounting, which has been bolted up near the steering rack. This will keep the oil filter out of the way, while still leaving it in an easy to get to position for changing filters.

Here you can see the oil cooler. I made up the brackets top and bottom to hold it all in place, using rubber mounts to isolate the oil cooler from vibration. On the road, a cooler of this size will probably cool the oil too much, so I'll make up an aluminium blanking plate to cover about half of it up.

This is the car with the nosecone fitted - the cooler and lines all clear, which is handy. I may paint the oil cooler bracket black at some point to make it less conspicuous.

The exhaust system

2008-04-20T10:46:00.005+08:00

The exhaust went away for chroming with Kerry, and has come back polished to perfection. So I've fitted it up to the engine to see how it goes in, and whether the hole is in the right place.

Unfortunately, the hole needs to be widened slightly. Nothing significant, perhaps 20mm towards the top and left and side, but there you go. So Frank will have to get out with the snips and take some more of the car out ;-)

But it all looks really nice and shiny.

The Engine is In

2008-04-20T10:08:00.005+08:00

Finally, the engine has been installed. Actually this happened about a week ago, but I haven't updated the blog ;-)

The engine build was relatively straight-forward, as it turned out.

Install cam shafts and verniers

Cam shafts open and close the valves on the top of the engine to allow air into the combustion chamber (through the inlet values), and another set allow exhaust gasses out of the engine (outlet valves). The profile of the cams determines how long the valves are open (duration), and how wide they open (lift). So basically, these two spinning shafts are a key component in the whole process, and need to be matched very, very carefully to the movement of the pistons in the cylinders. Get it slightly wrong, and the cylinders won't get enough air, or be able to push out all of the exhaust, leading to a reduction in power. Get it severely wrong and you can get a cylinder head hitting an open valve, which will break the valve and damage the cylinder head.

The cams are installed by first placing them into the guides, then measuring the gaps between the buckets and the cam. The bucket is a, well, bucket-like thing that sits over the springs. As the cam turns, the lobe hits the bottom of the bucket, pushing it and the spring downwards, and opening the valve. There needs to be a small gap to ensure the valve is completely closed when the cam is off, but not too much. Each bucket can be moved, as each bucket is very slightly different in height, which allows you to shim up the springs to the correct height.

Then the engine is placed into top dead centre, which is a known position of the engine cylinders. The cams are turned into their correct position by checking the position of the cam and the position of the engine. I won't go into massive detail here, except to say that as mentioned, the cams and cylinders have to be perfectly matched, so that the valves are opened and closed at the correct time.

Refit timing chain and chain guides, and front engine plate

With everything timed up, the crank (which is driven by the cylinders) and the cams verniers (which turn the cams), must be linked via the timing chain. In most cars, this is a toothed rubber belt, but the Duratec has a chain which is generally more reliable, but needs to be oiled. Hence is it a sealed part of the engine, whereas other cars have their belts external.

Install flywheel and clutch
The next step is to install the flywheel. The flywheel is a heavy metal wheel attached to the engine. The flywheel takes a lot of energy to spin up, which in turn provides a store of energy back to the engine. It's the flywheel that keeps the engine revs from plummeting when you take your foot off the accelerator, and also helps the car climb steep hills. The flywheel is also toothed around the edge - this allows the starter motor to engage with the flywheel to turn the engine when you turn the key.

I've opted for a lightweight (relatively speaking) flywheel, as having a lighter flywheel improves acceleration, as there's less rotational mass to spin up. The flywheel is bolted directly to the camshft using some new ARP bolts. Great care was taken, as the manual states they should be done to 175nm, which is actually waaaay too high. Others were stretching their bolts terribly, and were lucky to not snap them off. The manufactures guide, and ARP themselves, stated 100nm which is more realistic.

Once the flywheel is on, the clutch goes on. The clutch comes in two parts - the housing and the clutch plate. The plate is attached to the rear drive train, and is the link between the engine and the rear wheels .With your foot off the clutch, the clutch plate is pressed hard up against the flywheel, and the turning engine turns the wheels. With your foot on the clutch, the clutch slave cylinder pushes outwards, which pressed on the clutch housing. The housing then releases the pressure on the clutch plate, which then lets go of the flywheel. As it's a hydraulic system, the clutch plate progressively engages and disengages with the flywheel.

An important point to note is that the clutch slave cylinder and the clutch housing must be a set distance when the two are brought together. Note that the slave cylinder is installed in the bellhousing, and the clutch on the engine. So you need to measure the distance between the front of the clutch and the front of the engine, and the distance from the front of the bellhousing and the clutch slave cylinder. You can then work out how much travel the clutch cylinder will have, then install a spacer to get it into the right position.

Bolt bellhousing and gearbox to engine

With the clutch and slave cylinder correctly spaced, it's a simple job to bolt the engine and gearbox together. It's all a bit heavy, and a two man job, but get it all lined up and the spline of the gearbox goes straight into the centre of the clutch plate. Whack in a few bolts, and it's all done.

Lift car and drop over engine
Installing an engine into most cars involves lifting the engine and dropping it into the car. Installing and engine into a Birkin involves lifting the car, and dropping it over the engine. The car at this stage is probably lighter than the whole engine / clutch / gearbox combo anyway, plus it can get a little tight in the engine bay, so this way is a lot easier.

Just pick up the front of the car, and push the engine underneath. With some wiggling and shifting, the whole thing slides in no problem.

It was at this point that we discovered a small glitch. The Birkin has a cross member linking the two sides of the car underneath the bellhousing. It's a fairly important crossmember, as it provides a lot of torsional stiffness to the chassis. However, with the 2.0L engine installed, the bellhousing is lower than the bar, which means it doesn't fit. So there's a small job to re-engineer the bar to fit the bellhousing.

We also noticed that the engine sits quite low in the engine bay - this is probably because the engine mounts are set for the 2,3L engine, which is taller. All this means is that the 2.0L sits quite low in the engine bay.

Install prop-shaft
The final step in this post is to install the prop-shaft. This links the gearbox to the differential. It also isolates the fixed rear axle from any movement generated in the engine (and vice versa). It does this with two universal joints to isolate up and down movement, plus it slides along the spline from the gearbox for any back and forwards movement.

It's also worth noting that this is a critical failure point in the car - if the propshaft lets go, you then have a very heavy, steel shaft thrashing around mere centimeters from the driver at very high rotational speeds. Hence the two steel hoops there to protect the driver and passenger.

It's also interesting to note that the entire power from the engine is, at so many places, transmitted via a few bolts - 6 for the flywheel, 4 a the propshaft, and about 12 at the half-shafts. I always imagined far more engineering and strength went into this, but apparently it's all as it should be.

And that's it, the engine is installed and linked to the rear wheels. As soon as I mention the fact that the engine was installed, everyone keeps asking me "so what's it like to drive". Then I talk about engine looms, exhaust systems, induction systems, ignitors, barometric pressure sensors, fuel lines, throttle cables and so on, and they don't ask any more....

Engine is back!

2008-04-06T14:44:00.002+08:00

The engine has been rebuilt ;-) The cams are in and timed, the front cover is back on, the harmonic is on, the water rail installed, and various other bits bolted on ;-) I now need to create a few blanking plates to block off part of the air system (EGR), and get a few fittings to block off some of the water system (heater). Then we can drop it onto the floor and fit the bell housing and gearbox.

Thanks to Mike for his efforts on this.....

This basically means that I have about two weeks effort to complete the build, I reckon. It should all move pretty quickly from here. Having said that, there's probably a thousand and one things I don't know about that will get in the way ;-)

Remounting the Seats

2008-04-06T14:29:00.002+08:00

With the racing seat in place, it became apparent that my head will be above the rollbar when I have my helmet on. Kinda defeats the purpose of having a rollbar in the first place, really, as in the event of a rollover my head will be ensuring the rollbar comes out unscathed. So yet again I'm copying an idea from Frank, and repositioning the seat to be a lot lower.

The standard car comes with a set of movable rails mounted to a steel frame - all up there's probably 4kg of steel in the driver and passenger seat mountings. In addition, they put the seat about 2 cm from the floor, and with the thickness of the seat, that puts you about 8 cm up. With the modifications, you can get this down to about 3cm. 5cm doesn't sound like a great deal, but it makes a huge difference to the feeling of being "one with the car".

The modification basically involves removing the subframe (held in by four bolts), and angle grinding the two rear mounting points. The two rear points have a lip on them which prevents the seat from sitting on the floor.

Next, fashion a base plate out of 3mm aluminium. 3mm ali is probably overkill, and overweight, however seeing as your butt is now that much closer to the ground, a little armour plating probably doesn't go astray ;-) Plus, it adds some stability to the seat, as the seat is mounted directly to the plate itself.

The next step is to position the plate. The plate needs to fit in between the rear mounting plates for the seat belts and the floor. This means that the base plate is held in place by the same bolts as the seat belts, which are strong 10mm bolts. In addition, the plate is bolted to the steel crossmember in the footwell.

With a few rivnuts in place, the seat now bolts to a strong base which drops the driver (and passenger now I've done the same to the other side) lower into the car.

The downside is that the driver seat is now basically fixed in place. However, we also fitted the standard driver seat to the base, and it turns out that Dad fits in quite nicely! So he'll still be able to drive it (if I let him ;-)

Slow Progress

2008-03-15T20:27:00.002+08:00

Well, today was another engine building day, but overall not terribly good progress. Mike has been dialling in the cams, but even with the key in the crank holding the toothed chain wheel in place, there's too much movement. We needed the harmonic (the bit that takes any harmonic vibrations out of the crank) in place to hold it all together, but that's off being cut down. So it all came to a grinding halt, to be picked up next weekend.

Adding to that, I think the water rail I have doesn't fit the engine - I can see where it should go, but there's a whole heap of engine block in the way that doesn't seem to have been catered for in the design of the rail. So something else to look at.

So a slow week once more, as I work through some minor tasks. I've fiited (one) clear plastic 3M sheet on the rear guard to protect against stone chips, made a small bracket to mount the ECU on, and redone some wiring in the front. But that's not a great deal to show for a week.

I think next week may be focussing in on a few other things, like more furniture and stuff ;-)

Camera Work

2008-03-03T19:01:00.004+08:00

With the build nearing completion, I thought it would be a good time to look at how I'm going to record it's first steps into the real world, so I've bought a camera setup.

The best regarded setup at the moment (according to OzClubbies) is the Elmo SUV camera - it has a good resolution lipstick lens that you can mount onto the rollbar, and a simple, lightweight recording unit that you can stop and start with one button press. I bought the camera with 150cm cable, the rubber mounting and wide angle lens from Digital Camera Warehouse, who are also well recommended on OzClubbies.

What made it easier was that Frank also has one, so the trend of basically copying everything he does continues ;-)

At the time of writing, DCW has a damn good deal on these things, which make them cheaper than anywhere else on the planet as far as I can tell.....btw, no commercial relationship with them at all. And if they stuff up the delivery you'll be the first to know.

http://www.digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au/category566_1.htm

The camera will therefore provide me with some decent video to add to the blog as well as photos, so look out for those in future ;-)

Putting it all back together

2008-03-02T15:31:00.004+08:00

With the engine parts now back, the engine can start to come together. On the principle that I'm barely qualified to tighten a bolt, I've decided to allow someone else to assemble the explosive part of the car ;-)

So, Mike has come back to reverse the exercise of disassembly, and is putting it all back together. So far, the crank is back in, along with the pistons. At this stage it's all large things going back in, so progress is fast, however next weekend we're looking at the cams, belts and chains etc, which could take a little longer.

Some early photos:

I have an engine!

2008-03-02T15:15:00.006+08:00

Yes, the big news over the weekend is that the engine is back from the workshop, with the head ported and polished, the crank keyed, and the pistons flycut.....

So, what does that all mean? Well, porting the head means cutting away additional material from the part where the air gets into and out of the engine - again, one of the most important things for an engine to develop peak power is it's ability to breath, so removing any barriers or inefficiencies (such as rough patches, edges etc) will always yield results. The thing with the Duratec head is that it's pretty perfect as it stands. So, unlike the Zetec which was also cut for another Birkin (where a huge amount of material was removed), the Duratec is more of a polish. The key element is that the ports allow the right volume of air to flow based on the size of the valves, so there's no restriction in the head. Also, the split between the two chambers has been cut to a knife edge to reduce turbulence.

Keying the crank has been discussed before, and as you can see in the photo, it's a simple matter of notching the gear and putting a small key in the crank itself. Now, the gear cannot move on the shaft. Given the revs and power I have, I've read that it's probably overkill, but what the hell....

The pistons were apparently the hardest part. As you can see in the photo's, not a great deal of material was removed, which is what you're aiming for, as wholesale shredding of the piston heads is to be avoided. So you can see that there are now four small scallops taken out of each piston, which will allow the clearance required by the new, more aggresive cams.

All in all some nice work that will allow the engine to reach it's peak performance once it's all back together.

Racing Seats

2008-02-28T19:40:00.002+08:00

One of the tasks I had put aside for a rainy day, but thought I may as well do now as I have the time, is to install the racing seat.

Basically, the reasoning behind a racing seat is that it holds the driver in place better than the standard seat. In normal road use, this isn't a problem, however under the stresses of track use, a better seat is required.

I've bought a 15 inch Road / Race seat from Go Gear (www.gogear.com.au). The seat itself is an aluminium seat with a foam cover - pretty basic, but it fits into the Birkin with some modifications. So, I go out and spend over $600 on a seat, and then attack it with a sledgehammer.

To get the seat to fit, you need to bend the right hand shoulder wing in, as it doesn't clear the side of the car. Then you do the other side so it doesn't look to lopsided. Then you sit in it and work out that you don't fit anymore....so you hit it a few more times.

I also ground off the welds underneath the seat, removed a few studs, and bash in the side support around the base to give more clearance for the base. And it all fits in fine! I've also removed the sliders under the seat, and mounted the new seat to rivnuts put into the seating frame itself.

The seat means that I'm now really, really, held into the car, plus I'm a lot lower. I've also had to move the pedal box once more, as I'm also a lot further back in the car than before.

I'm also still waiting for the engine parts to come back, but again I'm expecting them this weekend.

And now the front end

2008-02-09T17:33:00.000+08:00

With the back end mostly done, attention switches to the front end. Basically the nosecone can now get fitted up, and the front indicators installed.

The first thing is putting the Birkin badge on the nose - pretty simple, but the black and silver looks really good against the green, and matches the rest of the car.

Getting the front indicators on is another matter. The indicators have to be within a certain distance from the outer edge of the car, which for the Birkin is the front wheel. To get these on, you have to drill two 10mm holes in the fibreglass nose - however the fibreglass is pretty brittle, and tends to shatter and flake, taking the paint with it. I drilled a few pilot holes, and luckily the damage to the paint isn't too bad (it's covered by the washer). But there's another thing I should have done before painting....

I also had a shot at putting the bonnett clips back on using stainless rivets, however got the size completely wrong and had to drill them all out. This worked well apart from the last two, so I've managed to gouge the aluminium skin a little. It'll be covered by the latch when it goes on again, but it looked pretty dodgy for a while there.

Anyway, more photos to be added.

And an update on the engine - delivery of all the parts promised for the end of next week ;-)

Back end of the car

2008-01-29T12:47:00.000+08:00

OK, some more details on the work done behind the driver.

It's pretty much all done now, with the fuel tank in, filler cap on, lights installed, fuel lines installed etc. It looks like this now:

The fuel lines are all EFI standard, as the fuel will be under some pretty high pressure through the system. I reckon I'll need about 4m of the stuff all up, and at $15 per metre it's another little expense to add to the spreadsheet ;-) I also installed a fuel filter from a BMW K-series motorcycle. Although when I went to buy it they tried to ask all sorts of questions about the bike, and they got a little concerned when I said it was going into a car...

I still need to get the charcoal canister - this takes the fuel vapour from the top of the tank and runs it through some carcoal to filter out most of the environmentally unacceptable bits before venting to the atmosphere. So there's one more line to run from the small silver thing on the right hand side to another canister which will go on the left.

What else - fuel filler cap is in, with the judicious use of the heat gun to get the pipe connecting the filler to the tank to bend. Bad bit of design, that.

I've also installed the rear lights - the number plate light, the two indicators / brake lights, and the reversing light (not shown). Took me ages to get them lined up, drilled all the holes, and I think the light on the right still isn't straight. Oh well, that can be fixed later. But it all definitely makes the back end of the car look, well, finished. I just have to put the rubber strips in between the rear guards and the body, and put the rear splitters on, and it's done. Oh, and move the reversing light so it doesn't stick out quite so far.

Engine news...

2008-01-29T12:37:00.000+08:00

When too much power just isn't enough.....Frank has come up with a new option for the throttle bodies. There's a local (i.e. Melbourne) guy who casts his own throttle bodies, and is developing a straight through tapered throttle body for the Duratec.

So, now for a discussion on what this all means....

The throttle bodies replace the car's existing air intake (induction) system. Normal cars have a huge air filter with a single pipe feeding all of the cylinders at once. Throttle bodies provide independent air feeds for each cylinder, and incorporate a butterfly valve in each to control the amount of air that reaches each cylinder. Throttle bodies provide a cleaner airflow, and ensure that each cylinder receives the same amount of air.

Tapered throttle bodies start out wide, and end up narrow - as you can imagine, this means that the air arrives in the cylinder at a higher velocity / density - which is what turbo and superchargers are there for, to provide denser air. Now this is nowhere near a forced induction system, but it has the same effect of increasing power.

Most air intakes have kinks and bends in them, which introduces turbulence and disturbances to the airflow. The ideal is to have the air go straight into the cylinder head with the minimum of fuss, hence a straight-through throttle body is desirable. To be honest, the ones I have now are straight through as well....

The other thing about the new throttle bodies is that I can add another set of injectors later if I want to (would require a new computer) so that there would be eight injectors all up. Wrecks the fuel consumption but adds a heck of a lot of power, apparently ;-)

The only change to the outside of the car is that the hole for the throttle bodies will be higher up the bonnet, which as I haven't cut the hole yet, isn't a problem.

Apart from that, the engine is still in bits, so no other news there, I'm afraid.

So much time, so little progress!

2008-01-26T11:41:00.000+08:00

Well, OK, that's not entirely true. Quite a bit of progress has been made, actually, which given that building the car is now a full-time occupation, is only to be expected.....

Yup, I've taken a few months out to work on the car, sort out the house, get fit again, and do all the sorts of things that normally happen in between work, rather than what I've been doing which is just working.

So what have I achieved - I'll list them out:

All non-suspension related bolts torqued to final settings
Rear guards fitted, indicators / brake lights fitted
Number plate position and light installed
Fuel lines installed, along with fuel filter
Reversing light installed (although this will be moved later)
Centre console redone (didn't like the standard one)
Wiper blade arm installed
Headlights pre-fitted
Front guards fitted (still some work to do there)

The major changes are to the back end of the car, where all of the lighting is now installed, and it all looks pretty good. The real test comes when I can stand 50 feet away, where all of the angles will be more obvious - I have not doubt I'll be straightening a few bits and pieces here and there, but it will only be a matter of milimeters.

I've also ordered the plates - the car will be called "Mosquito", which somewhat changes the original theme I was going for. However, I think it's a good moniker - a mosquito is small, fast moving, agile, and has makes a noise you can't ignore. The Birkin will be small, fast moving, agile, and will make a noise you can't ignore from three suburbs away.

Anyway, I have some photos to add (at my parents once more on 128K), so will add these shortly, along with some more commentary on the work done to date.

It's on wheels!!!

2007-12-31T13:36:00.000+08:00

Yes, it's now on it's wheels. After a big push towards getting a lot of work done, Dad and I got the brakes bled, the diff and half-shafts installed, and the front suspension sorted out. This means that after a weeks work, the car car be pushed around!

First, the breakes. We bled all the brakes, so now there's pressure in the system and the brakes all work. I did stuff one up, and threaded one of my front calipers, which was a problem. Frank helicoiled the caliper and all was well, but as a mental not I'll watch that one for any leakage for the first few hundred km's.

With a few minor leaks sorted out, this was over pretty quickly, especially as a tag team. Bleeding brakes is a two person job.

Getting the diff in was fun, although luckily with the small and light Subaru diff, this could be done with all of the backplate in place, whereas the Sierra diff requires the backend to be largely dismantled to get it in. So we manouevered it into place, bolted it up, and it was ready for the halfshafts.

These went in without a hitch, although it's sobering to realise that the entire power transfer from the diff to each halfshaft is controlled by six small bolts on each shaft. Still the diff holds the prop shaft with four bolts, so I guess it's all OK. Someone must have done the maths somewhere.

Anyway, with that all done, all it took was bolting the wheels on, and getting a crane out to lift the car off it's frame and onto the floor, where it sits today. Again, lots of photos, but I'll upload these later.

I did have to come in the day after and tighten up some bolts on the rear uprights, as in the excitement we had completely forgotten to do any of these up beyond a few threads. So I took each wheel off and put these on properly (but not to final tightness). So I could take the Christmas / New Years break without worrying that the backend would fall off.

Stress is drilling 26 holes into your immaculate paintwork

2007-12-12T18:03:00.000+08:00

So, I've finally managed to do what I've been threatening all along, and taken a long holiday to work on the car. So there had better be some progress to show for it.

Apart from a few invisible things (like wiring up the car horns), the major activity over the past three days has been in getting the boot cover and tonneau on. This involves drilling a large number of holes in the body of the car, with all the exciting possibilities of skipping a drillbit across the nicely painted surface. It's the sort of thing you want to psyche yourself up for, really.

The first thing to do is to mark out where you're going to drill. The way I approached this was to put masking tape around the top of the boot area, then measure out where all the holes go. Then measure again. Then step back and take a look by eye, do some more measuring, move a few holes, and measure again. You only get one shot with the drill, after all.

There are some decisions to be made - stick with the book measurements, or go for your own? Black or silver poppers? I decided to mainly stick with the book, which has quite a few poppers around the edges, including some on the corners, as it reduced the likelyhood of any odd pulls where I might make a mistake. I also went for the black poppers - what the hell, they can be changed later.

So, out with the drill, and 26 holes later, all was well. Then it was just a case of riveting in the base of the poppers to the skin, remembering to use a small washer behind each rivet. There's also a risk of skipping here - as the rivet breaks in the gun, it might jump out of the base and hit the skin - only did this once and it's barely noticeable. Did stop for a cup of tea after that one, however ;-)

Then you glue the boot cover to the back of the car, using the same glue as in the carpets. Wasn't enough to muck about with my head this time, luckily. You then need to get the cover over the back and line up the other part of the popper - again, check and check again. Start with the corners, then the outer points, then do the middle points. After a few demos from Frank, it was all done in a little over a day. Which is pretty slow, but I took my time and I reckon I did a good job of it. After wetting it down to allow it to shrink a little, it's as tight as a drum.

The next bit is the toneau, which covers the cockpit. You can either have the whole thing covered (which keeps the rain out), or just the passenger section. Same process as before. One point to note is that the car comes with the popper bases already in the padding over the scuttle - you need to replace these, as the lip on the base is too short, so the tops can't gain enough purchase on the base to hold the tonneau in place. This, plus the fact that the bases sit deep into the padding means the tonneau kept falling off until I fixed this.

All in all a good job, I reckon.

The most astonishing thing about finishing this was Frank saying "oh well, its ready to go onto its wheels now", which I thought was a way off, but apparently not ;-)

Oh, and there are lots of photo's (new camera and everything), but I'm at my parents place in the country, and Telstra believes that 128K is a perfectly acceptable speed for "broadband"....so they'll be up once I get somewhere civilised.

Lessons Learnt

2007-12-05T08:09:00.000+08:00

/Constable Care Mode On/
Something I've learnt is that there's always something new to learn. So you may read this and go 'idiot, who doesn't know that?', or perhaps even than I'm wrong. Or you may read this and say, 'I never thought of it that way before'. I guess this is aimed at people new to owning and driving a clubman, rather than race-hardened track pros. Particularly as its not anything to do with racing.

So here goes, driving advice from a guy with a car still in pieces.

When I bought my Caterham in the UK, one of the things that got me a discount off my insurance was to take a driving lesson with Cadence (http://www.cadence.co.uk/). These guys are professional driving instructors, but not your usual guy in beige trousers with a clipboad and a dual control Mitsubishi Colt. These guys teach proper and safe driving technique to drive 'progressively', as they call it. And it was probably one of the best things I did. It wasn't focussed on driving fast, it was focussed on driving safe. Driving a Caterham (or a Birkin, Westfield, Fraser, Robin Hood etc) is a different experience, both for the driver and other road users. And while you can't do much about other people being idiots, you can at least anticipate.

Note that there are a lot of parallels in driving a Birkin with riding a motorbike - keeping aware of where you are on the road, and particularly where you are in relation to other drivers. Also constantly asking - did he/she see me? And never, ever assuming they did. Because the 1 time in 100 that they didn't, the consequences in a Birkin are much more serious. Looking around, there are actually a lot of ex-bikers in clubmans, which probably helps keep the acccident rate down ;-)

Anyway, I went out a did this driving lesson in my new Caterham. They guy jumps in, tests a few things out (like the brakes), and off we go.

He then proceeds to demonstrate how to drive progressively. This is much the same as bikers do - moving quickly, but smoothly amongst traffic. The key point is to control what goes on around you, and not let others control you. In other words, you make sure you do not place yourself into dangerous positions, and most importantly, you don't let others do it to you. If you're just happily trundling along and someone puts you in their blind spot, get out of it!

Cornering
This is not a section on how to take a racing line - lots of other places for that, and people get upset when you take a late apex on Albany Highway. This is more about how to drive on a nice country road.

First, look through the corner, not at the corner. If you focus on just your apex, you'll hit the apex to within a centimeter, then hit the cow three feet further on. So constantly look through the corner to the exit, and flow through the apex, rather than drive at it.

Second, position yourself for the corner. On a left hander, move towards the middle of the road - the Birkin is a narrow car, so this gives you quite a bit of room to play with. Don't cross the line, but get into position. Brake progressively (don't stamp, but don't tickle the pedal) and change up to the right gear. Now, look through the corner and hit your apex, and progressively apply the loud pedal. On a right hander, do the opposite (but watch out for rough edges).

Oh, and if you think trail braking is a good idea on a public road, please let me know when you're out and about so I can avoid you.

The emphasis is on smooth rather than fast. This transfers weight from neutral to the front wheels under braking for more turn-in grip, then to the outside wheels for the turn itself. Keeping everything smooth means you have less chance of surprising yourself or others by rapid and unplanned changes of direction. It also gives you more options if something unexpected comes up.

Overtaking
Overtaking for a car such as a Birkin is pretty much an everyday occurrence, especially on open roads. Overtaking is of course a relatively dangerous manoeuvre when compared with just tootling along, but the risks in a Birkin are different to those in a normal car. Whilst we have more power (and therefore require less time to overtake), the nature of the Birkin means some additional techniques are required for safe overtaking.

Some things to consider:

Setting up an Overtake
We cannot see around other cars as easily. The usual approach to overtaking in a tank is to come up relatively close (but still a safe distance, kids!) from the car in front, then pull out and overtake. You need to get closer because the power available isn’t that great (esp in higher gears), so you get close to reduce the time to overtake. Do that in a Birkin and you’ll be unable to see around your target ;-)

Instead, hang back a little. You have all the power in the world to blast past the Lada puttering along in front, so you don’t need to finesse it up close.

Also, by hanging back, you can see up a potential queue of cars. Birkins are also great for overtaking multiple cars at once, but you need to make sure there’s a slot for you up ahead.

Overtaking
In a tank, you overtake by downshifting, planting your foot, then moving into the oncoming traffic lane and booting it until you’re past. Do this in a Birkin and you’re likely to embarrass yourself.

Think about it – changing lines involves turning, basically doing a chicane move with a quick right / left flick of the wheel. Now, when you approach any other corner, do you ever plant your foot and then turn the wheel? Ever? So why do it now? What will happen is you will overtake the car in front, but you’ll do it sideways. Then backwards. Then sideways again. I’ve had a friend do this and he got a free ride in a nice ambulance strapped to a backboard.

Make sure you’re all set to overtake
Move into the overtaking lane
Now accelerate, not before
Move progressively past the vehicle/s
Lift off gently, and move back into your lane

Additional note – watch out for people driving by using their rear-vision mirrors. They will have noticed this amazing little car rush up to them in their rear mirror, and now it’s overtaking them in full song. I’ve seen some drivers get so mesmerised by this life-changing event that they forget they’re driving their own car. All of a sudden they’re drifting into the middle of the road watching you in their mirror while you’re trying to overtake!!!

Being overtaken.
I know, it never happens. Sure. But there are people on the road who think it’s a big thing to overtake a racing car. What they forget is how damn small the Birkin is, so as soon as the little car falls from view, they pull back in. Of course, they’ve misjudged and are trying to take your nose off. Watch for this!

Another risky thing is when you’re in a line of cars. Again, leave a very large gap between yourself and the guy in front. What happens is the idiot in the Commodore at the end of the line see’s what he thinks is a gap three cars up, tries to overtake, then finds you occupying the same space he was expecting to pull into. If you’re nose to tail, there’s nowhere for him to go, and it gets exciting. If you leave space in front of you, at least he’s got a chance.

And that's it. That's as far as my driving wisdom goes. I'll probably get written off by a truck on the South West highway whilst executing an illegal u-turn, and people will look back and this post and mock, but there you go. But it is important to understand some of the differences in driving a clubman, and I couldn't find anything on the web about it, so I thought I'd throw it out there myself.

/Constable Care Mode Off/

Sports Car Sunday

2007-11-19T13:55:00.000+08:00

This weekend saw three Birkins head down to Rockingham (a suburb just south of Perth) for Sports Car Sunday, run by Shannons insurance in aid of Telethon. Lucky for me, I got to head down in the yellow Birkin you see below - a really well put together little car.

http://www.classicrally.com.au/Sports_Car_Sunday.htm

It was a pretty good event, with a few cars I recognise turning up, either from track days, or from the car show on Channel 31. Along with the usual contingent of Fords and Commodores, there was a large number of MR2s, Minis, a few exotics (Ferrari, Stratos etc), American muscle cars (and their eccentric owners), plus Elises, Japanese turbo monsters and so on.

Tell you what though, when the Birkins showed up the crowds soon followed:

Kerry's car, with it's polished skin and well sorted engine got a lot of attention, especially when the bonnet came off. The others were also inspected minutely, and it was good to see a few Birkin business cards get taken from the cars as well - hopefully the day proves to be the genesis of a few more Perth Birkins.

After that, it was back to Blair's place for a BBQ and a few beers (not too many ;-) Many thanks to Blair and Christie (not sure if that's the right spelling ;-)

A few other cars there:

Zen and the Art of Engine Maintenance

2007-11-04T10:10:00.001+08:00

Yup, this important step has begun. And with a bang, too.

There are a few things that need to happen to the engine before it can go in (and to the car too, but that's another post). The new cams give higher lift - cam designs these days (sure, like I knew what they were before) give higher lift and less duration for more power, better efficiency and lower emissions. Basically, the way the cams are ground means the valve open wider (better breathing) but for shorter periods. The science behind all of this really does escape me, as most websites start talking about flow rates and the effect of turbulence as described by fluid dynamics, and chaos theory as well (if a butterfly in Perth gets sucked into a throttle body in Perth, it causes hurricanes in the American mid-west, apparently).

Anyway, the upshot is that if the cams are taller (ie the lobes on the camshaft are bigger), then it stands to reason that they need more headroom in which to turn. So, to achieve this, little pockets need to be fly-cut in the top of the pistons so that the cams don't get fouled. This means removing the head to remove the old cams, and then getting the pistons themselves out to be cut.

Getting the top off the engine wasn't that hard - here's a photo of what it all looks like:

You can see the two cam shafts clearly in this photo - they're the two rods running down the left and right on the top of the engine. You can also see the lobes of the cam shafts, all offset from each other to open the fuel and exhaust ports in sequence. You can also see the chain that drives it all, as distinct from the Zetec which is driven by a rubber belt.

The new cams also come with adjustable verniers, which

allow minute adjustment of the cams and timing. This should mean that I get the most out of the new cams once they're installed.

The next step was to open the whole thing up to get at the pistons, which is where things got trickier. In order to take the whole thing apart, there's a main bolt at the front of the engine that needs to be undone. Now, the rotating parts on the bottom end of a Duratec are all pressed together- ie relying on friction to stop things from slipping. So far this is apparently very reliable, even up to hp and torque levels above where I'm going, however if the engine is coming apart, I'll get these sandwhiched parts keyed. This picture helps describe what this means:

OK, it's a crude representation, but you'll have to work with me and my poor left-brain dominant art skills.

The picture shows two cylinders. Now imagine that the dark blue cylinder spins, and through friction the light blue cylinder spins as well. However, you can imagine that if you apply enough force to overcome friction, you could force the two to slip. Given that this is an engine, where all sorts of components have to move in some complex little ballet, this would be bad. For example, if the crank gets out of sequence with the cams, you'll get all sorts of weird things happening.

If you add a key, however, this is what you get. A groove gets cut and a key added. As you can imagine, this means that the two disks can no longer slip, giving a more reliable engine under power.

OK, enough of the amateur mechanics, and back to the story. In order for all of this to happen, there's a bolt. As you can imagine, when Ford put all this together, they didn't want things to slip for 200,000km or more, so there's a bit of torque applied to this bolt. Getting it undone would require some force. Here's a photo of the delicate instruments and techniques used to achieve this.

In case you're wondering, what has happened is the guy on the left has just taken an almighty swing with that lump of wood at the spanner on the bolt, and the guy on the left is trying to make sure the engine doesn't turn over. This, and several other violent attempts, didn't work. Ford know what they're doing when they build these things ;-)

The answer, apparently, is a rattle gun - a tool powered by an air compressor that applies a huge amount of force (1000ft/lb of torque) to turn a nut. It's the same sort of tool used by F1 pit crews to remove and replace wheel nuts. If that doesn't shift it, nothing will.

Oh, and in other news, I finally bought a new camera, so the photos on the blog should improve. And if you're wondering how I managed to cut everyone's heads off in the previous photo - that was deliberate. Not everyone wants their face plastered all over the web......

The wishbone's connected to the, upright.....

2007-10-31T10:50:00.000+08:00

More work on the front end this weekend, with the front disks and calipers going on. So now we have round things on either end of the car.

Putting the front disks on introduced some new elements, such as the front mudguard brackets. What it also demonstrated once more is that it pays to prefit, think about it all, then take it apart again.

To put the front disks on, you do the following:

disconnect the steering arm from the upright
offer the disk up to the upright
put the nut on the spindle on the disk
try and tighten the nut
find out that turning the nut means the spindle turns as well
remove the disk and use a cold chisel and a hammer to notch the spindle so that it grips
put the disk back on the upright and tighten the nut
put the brake calipers on to the upright
remove it all again when you find out you've forgotten to put the mudguard bracket on
put the mudguard bracket on, tighten the but on the disk spindle, and replace the calipers
discover that the mudguard bracket prevents you from reaching the nut holding the upright to the lower wishbone
remove the guard by undoing the nut once more
discover that the taper on the lower wishbone has been made too thin, and that the nut runs out of thread before the upright is secured to the wishbone. Find out that you need a washer to bridge this gap
start work on something else......

However, I now know how it all goes together (and comes apart), so there's no worries in future if I need to rework some of this.

What needs to happen is I need to get the space machined up, then I can tighten the nuts on the uprights (not fully yet), and get the rest of the assembly pretty much all in place. Then I can hook up the brake lines to the calipers, and the front assembly will be pretty much complete.

Springs and shocks

2007-10-23T07:58:00.001+08:00

Hi all,

Another weekend of highly visibly progress, which is good for the soul, let me tell you.

This weekend, the shocks and springs have gone on. As it turns out, a relatively easy process, really, once Frank spent a day machining the spacers. The spacers were needed for the front shocks - basically, the point where the shock meets the chassis had significant gaps between the bracket and the shock itself, leading to a lot of lateral movement - not ideal. So some small aluminium spacers needed to be machined up. They aren't load bearing or anything, they just need to keep things in place.

So really it was just a case of bolting the things on. The only tricky part was on the front cross-member, as the threads needed to be cleaned out. Unfortunately, doing this chipped some chrome off the front left hand side. Nothing huge, but it's there if you look hard enough.

With the shocks now on, it's only a short step to putting the uprights and the wheels on, and then it can go onto the ground. But it will stay up on the stand for a lot longer yet - I want to get most of the drivetrain and remaining wiring in before I drop it (including things like lights etc), as it's much easier working at this height. I'll put it on the floor once I'm ready to get the engine in.

On the lights, I need to buy:

Headlights
Front indicators
Side repeaters
Rear brake lights and indicators
Reversing lights

There are, of course, a series of rules around what lights can be used, and visibility of things like repeaters. I believe the basic rule is that if it's "E"-marked, then it should be fine.

I've found a few sites to look at lights - S.V.C seems pretty good (http://www.s-v-c.co.uk/), a few motorcycle sites (like http://www.bikeit.co.uk/) and obviously sites like Demontweaks (http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/). I've also been advised to go around and see what Harley Davidson have to offer, as they often have decent options for bikers. Anyway, more money to spend I suppose ;-)

The Duranail

2007-10-18T14:55:00.000+08:00

I did a google search on Duratec engines, and came up with the following link:

http://www.jackals-forge.com/lotus/duranail.html

This guy has basically build the same car I am, apart from the diff and gearbox. He has the 220bhp Raceline setup, DTH Jenvey throttle bodies etc. It's a good little page from someone who knows his cars.

Hopefully I have as much fun as he obviously has, although if you check out the rest of the site, you'll also see what it looks like once you've run it into a wall at Spa, so something else for me to take note of.....

Hartley Enterprises - V8 for a clubbie

2007-10-13T18:31:00.001+08:00

Frank pointed me to the following website:

http://www.h1v8.com/

These guys have bolted two Suzuki Hayabusa engines together, and made a 400bhp engine that revs over 10,000 rpm on stock everything. Madness. They have quoted a price under $USD30K for the whole thing - hmmm, upgrade, anyone?

According to the website, it does tend to break traction in nearly every gear, which would make it a handful to drive, I would imagine. Or that may just be sour grapes.....but in the video's the back end does step out a lot, even when he's not pushing it.

Suspension and carpets

2007-10-13T18:01:00.000+08:00

As I write this post, you'll have to excuse any typos or grammatical mistakes, as I'm off my nut. However, more on that later.....

Been doing quite a bit of work this weekend, but for the most part you wouldn't notice. First, I've redone the back end. When I did it the first time, it was with the intention of having to remove it all to fit the differential in, however it appears that with the smaller Subaru differential, you don't have to remove the plate which supports it at the back - it can be maneuvered in with everything in place. So that means I can get all the bolts into place properly to hold the upper and lower wishbones in place.

Easier said than done, of course. The basic idea is to get a bolt through a bracket, with a washer on both sides of the bracket. If that isn't clear, here's a picture:

OK, so that isn't the prettiest of pictures, however you get the idea. Anyway, the problem is getting the washers in there (it can be a tight fit), getting them to stay there, and in most cases getting everything (bolt, washers and holes) to line up to get the bolt through takes some effort. So I referred back to one of the previous lessons - don't be afraid to hit it with a hammer. Hard. And sometimes that even worked ;-) Other tricks included sticking an 8mm allen key through the other side an using that to lever the arm and move it around to get things aligned, and using screwdrivers etc to allow me to hammer the washers in from the side.

However, after some perseverance, it all went in. There's only one spot where it didn't go perfectly - the two inside washers ended up on the same side. That's just the way the arm wanted to sit. I had to remove the uprights, but that's OK, as they were going to come off anyway to get the halfshafts in (once the diff is in, which is waiting on the moving of the brakelines.....)

After that (and the usual time for standing around talking - it is a shed after all), came putting the carpets in. And this is where the light-headedness comes in.

First, I needed the glue to keep it all stuck down. So off to Bunnings, where I find the glue locked in a cage. When I ask why, it's because people buy it to sniff it. I assume the kid decides that I'm an upstanding member of society and not likely to be a glue-sniffer (dunno why - I'm in my usual Saturday uniform of an old t-shirt with holes in it, cheap trousers and trainers) and hands me a tin. I also grabbed a few $2 paintbrushes to sacrifice.

Back to the workshop, and prefitting the carpets. Only a bit of trimming required - the carpets were cut for the longer footwell for the passenger. If you recall, all footwells from now on have been shortened to allow for Duratec installation.

The glue itself then goes in. I'd masked everything up beforehand, as the stuff is apparently lethal and gets everywhere, and I can imagine putting a dollop on top of a screw or down on of the threaded holes for the seats and mucking it up. It's at this point that the fumes hit me.

The tin warns that it should only be used in well ventilated areas - they must mean outside in a gale, because under any other conditions, this stuff is potent. I'm applying it into a small space inside a clubman, so it tended to hang around. Plus you have to get your head right in there to get the glue to the front of the footwell. Once I'd finished the passenger side, I was feeling it, and the drivers side finished me off.

However, it's all in there now (and boy, it's not coming out, I can tell you). Yet one more thing completed in the build.

And now I'm off to lie down. And not operate any heavy machinery......

New item on the site

2007-10-09T12:50:00.000+08:00

I've also added a list of Things to Do on the right hand side - gives some idea as to what I'm planning on doing. Note that the list is not sorted (some things tend to happen when nothing more exciting is happening).

I've included some things that may not happen at all, but are just ideas at the moment.

Rollbar is on, temporarily

2007-10-09T12:36:00.000+08:00

OK, so I had a few hours spare yesterday, so dropped into the workshop to say hi to Frank. Clearly you cannot come in and NOT do something, so I've fitted the rollbar and the rear mounted brake light.

The rollbar itself is a bit of a story. The one that came originally didn't fit at all. Apparently having the two arms that attach to the back of the car not quite perfect isn't unusual - they can be pretty easily bent a little (not too much - it is a rollbar after all), and you can fit spacers if you have to. The problem with mine was that it was the main bar (that goes from side to side in the car, and is MUCH thicker and stronger) that was out. By quite a bit.

Turns out there was a breakdown in the process in the factory. The guy responsible for putting it all together didn't follow the Standard Operating Procedure, and was tacking the bar (ie. welding little spots on to hold the pieces in place) in the jig, but then removing it and completing the job off the jog. Now when you heat these things again, everything can shift, so the final geometry of the bar tended to bit a bit of potluck.

The next batch were all a lot better, and in most cases now go straight on no problems. My new one goes on find (a little bit of filing required), and the two arms are close, but there's still some work to do there.

With the bar and bootbox in temporarily, this was a good opportunity to fit the rear stop light. Given the height of the main stop lights on the rear guards, and the overall lack of height in the car, I'm guessing this is the main indication to people behind you that you're stopping. I've read a few stories of people in clubmans being rear-ended, and the explaination was that the guy behind was so interested in the car, he forgot to stop. So a bright red light may prove useful.

Anyway, it's an easy matter to position the mounting bracket, drill a few holes, and get it all stuck on. Again, learnt a few more things, like how to pick the right drillbit, and how to thread a hole (slowly and with patience).

Now that this is done, it can all come off again and be sent off for chroming - again, Kerry will do the honours. Should look great when it comes back all shiny. And yet another thing to shine in the eyes of people coming up from behind so they don't hit me.

BTW: Apologies for the poor quality of the photo - I'm still on the hunt for a new camera, and the phone camera is having to do for now.

Odds and Ends

2007-10-01T10:16:00.000+08:00

More work on the weekend, completing little jobs around the place.

For example, putting the ignition switch on. Sure, a ten minute job, but now you can turn a key and imagine it running! OK, that's a little sad.....The idea of relocating the switch is going to have to wait, as ADR apparently requires a lockable steering column, so the existing barrel will remain where it is.

I've also finished (or at least, fitted) the pedal box. Last week it got moved towards the front of the car to give the maximum room possible for the driver, and this week the pedals got connected to the cylinders. Took me a while to figure out that the threads on the pushrods were a completely different width (guage? pattern?) to the threads on the pedals. I spent some time cleaning the threads thinking it was that, but eventually eye-balled it and decided they were completely wrong. That's when the box of bolts Frank put on the car suddenly made sense - they were to replace the pushrods.

That turned out to be a simple task, but again if I didn't have someone to tell me what to do, I'd have spent another few hours beating my head against the wall.

That done, the pedal box now looks correct as compared to everyone elses. The real trick will come once the disks and brakes are on and the lines are bled, so that I can set up the balance bar. The only thing that's worrying me at this stage is that there's not a lot of room for adjustment in the middle cylinder, so if that needs more movement than the current pushrod allows (it's a little short) then I'll have to take it apart again and redo it later - but on a pressurised system.

I've also sorted out the fusebox, which was another exercise in frustration. The new model Birkin's have a shortened fusebox - earlier models had a wide, flat fusebox with lots of access from the top, so you could lay everything out. The new versions have theirs shortened to allow the Duratec engine to fit, but it means that they're deep rather than wide. Add to that the fact that the wiring is pretty damn tight, and it makes it a exercise in frustration trying to manoeuvre everything in there.

So I did what I always do, and cheated. Luckily there's another short fusebox chassis in at the moment, so I had a look at what he did and copied it. Worked a charm. On that note, Blair (the other IRS in the workshop) has been in working hard over the past few weeks, so if I'm not careful my main reference point (i.e. build to copy off) will be gone soon.....

So that's now all in place and covered over - the fibreglass cover is hiding a multitude of sins, but I don't care.

Mind you, seeing how long it takes to get these things finished, and how long the engineering and registration process can be, I'm getting worried for my December deadline. That may prove to be optimistic, unless everything goes really, really smoothly from now on. We'll have to see.

Further progress

2007-09-17T12:56:00.000+08:00

Hi y'all.

Further progress has been made in some small areas. Firstly, the dash wiring is basically in now, with some clips supplied by Paul making the whole thing a lot neater. I still need to drill a hole for the indicator light, but I'm going to wait until I decide on whether I'm going for LED lights or not. If I go LED, then the indicators require two lights (one left and one right). If I stick with bulb lights, I only need one to indicate that an indicator is on. When you turn the indicators on in a clubman, they're set up to make a horrible noise to remind you - no nice soft clicking sound like in other cars - because there's no cancel on the steering wheel to turn them off once you've completed the turn.

I've also completed the front steering mounts, including getting the sway bar roughly located in place with the reinforcing plates are now all bolted in. I've also fabricated some little aluminium brackets for the fan and mounted it on the radiator, which is now also mounted on the car. Just a tip to the unwary - you need to turn the fan around. It's default position would have had the poor thing trying to blow air back towards the front of the car - not the most efficient setting.

I've also moved the pedal box to its farthest position, and fitted the pistons for the pedals. I'm still missing the joints to fix the pedals to the pistons, but its all there ready to go.

So that's not bad progress. I've started to make a list of the next steps to take, and there are a few things that need to happen before I can move on some of the suspenion components (machining a few spacers etc), but its moving forward.

You know, I think it may be a car

2007-09-02T09:23:00.001+08:00

There's been some movement lately, which has made the car look, well, more car-like. The front and rear suspension and running gear is coming together, with the uprights installed at both ends. When you attach the steering rack to the front and turn the shaft, there's a satifying corresponding movement in the uprights to turn left and right. OK, I know, juvenile, but it's great to see some mechanical movement at last.

I've also been putting the dash in - the dials and lights are all provided, and the holes all pre-drilled. The dash only required some work on the holes for the lights to make them large enough, which wasn't that hard, plus I need to drill an additional hole for one more. ADR requires, of all things, a seatbelt light to warn me if someone's seatbelt isn't done up. I have absolutely no idea who would be in a Birkin and not realise they had no seatbelt (especially after they've left an impression of the dashboard in their forehead at the first lights), but there's a light just in case. I'm also not sure how that wires into the racing harness or not.

I've also been looking at making my first, individual, decision (so far I've copied everyone else). I thinking of moving the ignition from the usual position, where it's attached to the steering column. In the Caterham, I kept bashing my knee on it, plus you have to contort a little to reach the damn thing. Then the keys keep hitting things. I've been wondering whether it's possible to move the ignition down to the centre console. Keeps it all out of the way. Hey, maybe I could even have a pushbutton start ;-)

More progress, but a bit stop-start

2007-07-23T12:50:00.000+08:00

More progress this weekend - still a little bit hidden, but the next series of steps should start to make a difference to how the car looks.

First up was to install the rear wishbones, both upper and lower. Pretty straight forward at this stage, as they just slot in with the bolts loosely fastened. The trick comes in a little while when I attempt to get about 20 different moving parts to all mesh into a single integrated unit.

Progress stopped on the rear suspension when I realised that the uprights are all still at Dad's - I've got them back in Perth now, so they can go on next week. That will make the car start to look a little more complete, as the uprights have things like brake calipers and disks etc, and you can mount wheels on. It also means that I can test the handbrake operation, then once that's done get the diff and half-shafts in.

I can also install the front uprights and therefore the shocks and springs, which should make the front a little more car-like as well.

I also started threading the wiring loom in. One thing about the new Birkins - the fuse box is now really, really small, as the engine now cuts into the space where it used to be. It also reduces the passenger footwell quite a bit. From the wiring perspective, I'd be interested in seeing how others have managed to get the fuses and so on mounted in there. One option is to simply let them float around (it's pretty tight) rather than try anad screw them to anything. They won't move around that much.

I also spent an inordinate amount of time fabracating a small bracket to keep the wiring nice and neat. Took a while, but its the first time I've actually made something for the car rather than just bolting things on.

So, more progress. Next week I'll be taking some days off, and working on the car either side of a Sydney trip.

If I had suspension, wheels and brakes installed, I could park

2007-07-16T09:32:00.000+08:00

Three cables. One triangle thingy. Four hours.

This could take a while.

I've installed the handbrake - well, the handbrake itself (two bolts), the three cables, and the triangle that turns to activate the rear brakes when the handbrake is pulled. So far the cables go out into space, as now I have to install the rear suspension arms and uprights which include the calipers to attach this all to. At the moment, all I can achieve is to pull the handbrake, get the clicking noise and make two cables get shorter. Hold back the excitement.....

In my defense, it wasn't as simple as it first looked. I did have to get the dremel out and make a few holes a little bigger to allow the cable to thread properly through the chassis. And there was some scratching of heads trying to figure out how the pictures related to reality, plus a few missing pieces (nothing major, custom or tricky, just some split pins) to replace.

At the very least, it means I can now get the rear end moving - I can install the diff, the half-shafts, the rear suspension etc etc. It's all a progression that needed the handbrake installed, so it releases a whole series of activities that I can get on with. In project manager speak, the handbrake was a critical path item.

I'm planning on taking a few weeks off shortly to actually focus on the build, which should mean some better progress than I'm showing now. I must admit, the lack of time is starting to annoy me.

Baby Steps

2007-06-04T15:03:00.000+08:00

Spent a day on the weekend with Dad continuing on the car, which was great. The first task we tried was to install the handbrake – except I have the handbrake cable for a Live Axle car rather that the cables needed for the IRS. So that stopped that, and I need to get this in and the rear brake cables before the diff goes in, which has to happen before the rear suspension goes in. So the back-end of the car is on hold for now.

However, as with most things, there are other activities that can happen in the meantime. We moved to fitting the drivers seat. Because of the range of relative sizes of the two main drivers (Dad and I), we needed to put the adjustable runners into the car. In most vehicles that wouldn’t matter, it’s just that in this sort of car it’s all or nothing – if I can reach the pedals, Dad can’t. If Dad can reach the pedals, I can’t get my knees under the dash. So the movable seat is required.

The downside apparently is around the stability of the seat. As the runners are mobile, and the anchor points are brought inside the main runners, the stability suffers, by all account. Whilst the seat isn’t structural – it doesn’t hold you in, the belt does – it is important to feel secure, and to have all the messages from the chassis translated through the seat to your backside properly.

So there were a couple of things to do. Bolt the runners in – no problem. Cut a hole in the bottom of the seat to allow space for the runner – slight problem. The measurements in the book would have put a huge hole in completely the wrong place. And now this is where Dad comes into his own – measuring and measuring and measuring against to get it right, even if it doesn’t matter as you can’t see the holes. Did it all, and it turns out to be a really nice, neat job.

Dad also came up with a good idea to resolve the stability issue. We’re going to craft a simple metal frame that goes between the bottom of the seat and the squab. This will anchor the seat tightly to the frame, and spread the load a little wider than the underlying frame. Simple and cheap – gotta be a first for this build.

We also bolted the wiper motor on. No real excitement there.

So for a day’s effort, we put a seat in. This could take a while, especially as my work now takes me to Melbourne basically full-time until the middle of July, at which point I might take a few weeks off to focus on the car. Then the blog updates will come fast and furious, I promise.

You’ll also notice some photos of the car in this posting – what do ya’ll think of the colour?

Gee, it's very err, green, isn't it?

2007-05-21T11:17:00.000+08:00

Finally got to see the car, and yes, it's extremely green at this stage. Overly green, in fact. But I guess you could expect that, as there's nothing else on the body and nothing breaking up the colour. However, there's a really nice movement of the light in the paint, it keeps changing colour depending on where you stand and how the light falls - not quite Harlequin paint, but close. I must admit seeing it for the first time, it wasn't exactly love at first sight, but it's growing on me.

So ignoring a series of barbed comments and outright insults, I finally got to start putting things on the car.

And the change was immediate - as soon as you start breaking the lines with simple things like the rubber strips for the rear arches, and the beading for the suspension holes, it starts to break up the block colours and give the car a little more definition, which was lucky.

So, to the first task - could have a done a few things like the differential, wiring loom or front suspension, but I wanted to see what the front end looked like with all the chrome, so tackled that first. And learnt a few lessons:

Don't bolt everything up tight until near the end, otherwise things won't fit. It's a kit car, not a piece of absolute precision engineering, so things need to wiggle a bit sometimes to fit
Actually stop and think occaisionally
Use other cars (and other people) to check what you've done
Don't be afraid to hit it with a hammer (still working on this one)
Turn the nut, not the bolt.

I put the steering rack in, torqued it all up to the recommended 28Nm, looked at my handiwork then realised that I needed to undo it all to put in the other bits that sit under the bolt heads. Then threaded a screw taking it all off again. Fine, probably about 1.5 hours wasted there, but the steering rack is in, and lesson 1, 2 and 3 learnt.

Then, putting the front wishbones on required a bit more force (lesson 4). Then I discovered I'd put one of the upper wishbones on back to front (re-learn lesson 2 and 3).

All up, 8 hours of work netted the rubber strips back on the car, steering rack and associated equipment bolted in, and upper and lower wishbones installed. And let me tell you, with the chroming and everything, it looks bloody good. Even got a few comments that already it looked a lot better now than it did in the morning.

We also tied the lower wishbones to the upper to keep them from hanging off the car, and we used bright red wire which also looks damn good against the green (the colour, not the wire). I think I might look to add some subtle red somewhere in the build as a contrasting colour - perhaps paint the uprights red? Not sure, want it to be subtle (as it's an extremely strong contrast) but there.

Pretty damn happy now that it's all started, I just hope I get better at it because if I keep building it the way I did on Saturday it'll take 12 months and will fall apart. Hopefully I'll actually figure out how to use the tools at some point ;-)

Oh yes, and photos. Turns out my camera phone photos look terrible, and I'm away now for two weeks, so you'll have to hang on a little longer. I'm thinking of buying a new camera anyway.

It's back!

2007-05-15T14:53:00.000+08:00

Unfortunately, I'm not. I'm still in Melbourne, doing my weekly 7000km round trip to work on the car on Saturday.

Frank has the car back in the workshop - his comment is that no-one that has seen it so far likes it. I haven't seen it, but I'm prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt ;-) I think it probably looks extremely green at the moment, as it's just a painted shell. Once I get the interior, seats, suspension etc onto it, it will break the colour up a little more.

Personally, I can't wait to see it, and finally get some a) photo's and b) actual visible progress made on the car.

In honour of the completion of the paint job, you'll note that I've changed the colour scheme on the blog. Looking at it, I'm not sure whether I like it, but we'll see if it grows on me.

1000+ views!

2007-05-08T13:40:00.000+08:00

So, I note today that my little page impression counter has topped 1000 - OK, probably 100 of those are mine, however that's still quite a few people.....thanks to everyone who's reading this, hope it's of interest, and please feel free to leave comments, even if it is to tell me I'm soft in the head for painting my car green......

Shiny Bits

2007-04-26T14:38:00.000+08:00

Hi y'all. So, there's been some progress on the car since I last wrote. Firstly, the car has gone to the painters to get turned green. This should take about 2 weeks, which is excellent news as the original estimate was 8 weeks! So I should be back on the car soon to actually start adding parts to it, rather than taking bits off....

The other news is that my parts from the UK have arrived. There are some good points and some bad points. Without labouring the point, it appears that the "kits" from Raceline haven't been developed into proper kits, in that the maps don't exist for the kits yet. So you buy all of the component parts, then there's nothing in the car's brain to run them. Hence the computers and looms are on their way back, and we'll develop our own maps using Motecs.

Given that the components could have all been sourced locally, thereby by-passing all of the exchange rate issues, shipping time and cost etc, this is somewhat annoying. However, I'm a pretty calm individual so I won't let it bother me. Frank's confident that with Motec ECU's, we can get these things running well in no time.

However, the other parts form a nicely comforting (if somewhat small for the money) pile of goodies. I've got:

Kent cams, verniers and valve springs for the top end.
Some Jenvey direct-to-head throttle bodies for the intake.
A nice light-weight flywheel and AP racing clutch.
A new water-rail (neater than the standard)
A new fuel rail (with a fuel pressure regulator)

Just need to get the injectors and the engine parts are all in hand. As discussed before, with some engine work on the head, this should take it to around 220-225 bhp. I'll take some photo's this weekend and add them to the blog. However, Frank might be ahead of me and sent these off to the engine builder (Peter), so perhaps the next time I see them they'll be on the engine.

The other progress is courtesy of Kerry, who's building a chromed Birkin, as he owns and runs his own chroming company. Kerry has chromed all of my front end suspension, including the springs. Now, apparently this isn't recommended for hardcore racers, as the suspension can become brittle as part of the etching process, and cracks can appear underneath the chrome without appearing in the chrome itself (as it's a relatively plastic coating). However, given I'll only be doing the odd track day, this shouldn't be such an issue, and I reckon it'll make the car look damn good. I'll also polish the windscreen mounts and frame, plus chrome the rear roll bar to make the whole thing coherant.

I'm also thinking of getting a frog stitched into the boot cover, but I'll have to think on that.

Anyway, photo's will be forthcoming, especially once everything is painted. Can't wait!!!

Wow, I cut a hole (OK, someone else did really....)

2007-04-10T17:30:00.000+08:00

And the parade of photogenic developments continues. The hole for the exhaust has now been cut. Yes, now hordes of people will flood to this page to see this wonder......

OK, so not too special, however it was a big moment in that it was probably the first obviously progressive thing I've done so far. Plus, it means that the car is now ready for painting - except the painter is now flat out with other work and will not get it to it for several weeks. Oh well.

On the flip side, Kerry is chroming my front suspension components, including the springs, which will mean a nice, shiny front end ;-) Much appreciation owed there. I asked in the spirit of the black market what I could do for him in return, but we worked out that he didn't need the services of an SAP Program Manager after all.

Apart from that, not a great deal else to report. I'm working in Melbourne a lot these days, and spending a few weekends over here as well which is cutting down on the car-time, not that there's anything left to do anyway as it's now waiting on painting. However, progress is progress.

Australian F1 Grand Prix 2007

2007-03-19T07:53:00.000+08:00

No work on the Birkin this weekend, as I was in Melbourne for an engagement party, wedding (different people!) and the F1 Grand Prix. The first two lead to late nights and sore heads, but that's a story for a different forum. This blog's about cars.....

I've never been to an F1 GP. I've been in a few countries when they've had one running (UK several times, Bahrain etc), but F1 has not been of much interest to me really. It's not racing, it's a procession of cars with few actual battles, chances for competition etc. I think the race is won in the strategies employed and in the pits, which for me isn't much fun. I also think the budget of the team has too much influence over the outcome, which isn't an unusual feature in expensive sports, but seems to have a big influence here (I'd like to have seen how Michael Schumaker would have done in a Minardi or Spyker).

That said, when it worked out that I'd be in town for the Aus GP, I thought I'd make the effort. AUD100 per ticket (as compared to GBP100+ in the UK), plus the ease of getting to and from etc made it worth the cost and effort.

I won't give a blow by blow account of the race - because I had no idea what was going on. The start was great, and the sheer noise was incredible, but the effect of a few laps and the earplugs you really should wear reduce the impact. After that, it's just a series of cars all following the same lines as each other. I'd be interested in knowing how many competitive overtaking manouevers there were after, say, the first five laps. Competitive as distinct from back-markers being overtaken, or being overtaken whilst in the pits. There'd have to be very few. Ok, Massa from the back of the grid pulled past quite a few, but he was there because of an engine change. And we didn't see any of it anyway, as the cameras are elsewhere watching Kimi add 1.2 seconds a lap to his lead. How dull.

But hey, maybe on telly it was a race full of excitement and drama - it's just from trackside you see so little of the entire race, and you're just waiting for someone to do something, anything, in your little bit of the track.

In addition, with the new rules making the cars slower but more reliable, you also don't have the thrill (or frustration) of someone holding on to a position, but losing it to mechanical failure. The risk is still there, but much reduced. What this seems to mean is that

Compare this against other forms of racing, like BTCC and rally. BTCC is bumper to bumper, cars touching, overtaking is common, and the times are pretty close from the front to the rear of the field. Rally driving is fast and loose, with anything possible at any time. Hitting a rock, putting a wheel over a cliff, all outcomes possible either due to chance or driver error. Much more fun.

So I think F1 has a place in that it's the (supposedly) pinacle of motorsport racing. But from my point of view, there are more exciting, more accessible and better value options out there. I might go again to see if I could get something more out of it next time, but I think I'll stick to watching it on telly from now on.

Go Faster Bits

2007-03-14T11:44:00.000+08:00

With a dearth of interesting things to write about, I thought maybe a short piece on all the toys I have coming over from the UK might be in order.

As per a previous post, you can take a perfectly good engine and turn it into a complete monster, as long as you have enough money. Now I don’t, and I also want a car that I can still drive, rather than some 300 bhp beast that scares the hell out of me. So I’ve gone for a package of items that should take the car to 220bhp or thereabouts.

But what do you need to achieve this? The shopping list for my 2.0L Duratec is as follows:

Direct to Head Throttle Bodies – these replace the standard air intakes with individual trumpets. This means that each cylinder will have less trouble breathing, leading to more power and a better power curve. Comes with mounting kits etc.
220bhp Cams with verniers – simply, these determine the timing and lift of the valves on top of the engine, leading to better breathing / exhaust etc. Also putting in uprated valve spring sets.
OMEX 600 Series ECU – the brains of the car, giving good flexibility in terms of things like fuel ratios, timing advance, redline etc etc.
Wet Sump kit – this takes a few centimetres off the bottom of the car, adding to the clearance. If you look at a clubman from down low, you’ll nearly always see the engine protruding underneath. With such a low car, this is an invitation to smack into anything slightly taller than a leaf. A low speeds (like speedbumps) you can get away with it, but hit something at speed and you’re asking for broken engine mounts, cracked sumps, and spectacular repair bills. It will also help with the 100mm ADR ground clearance requirements.
AP Lightweight flywheel and clutch – the flywheel sits on the engine transmission, and is the thing that ensure when you put your foot on the clutch (and off the accelerator) the engine revs don’t just stop. The flywheel contains kinetic energy that keeps the engine spinning. Of course, you need the engine to put the energy in there in the first place, so a heavy flywheel saps power during acceleration. A light weight flywheel means it takes less energy to spin up, to you go faster. The theory is that hills etc will cause a problem (the flywheel contributes it’s energy to help you climb under load), but the Birkin weighs nothing, so doesn’t need that. The clutch is an AP racing model, again lighter weight for similar reasons.

There are other things that need to come along with this stuff – bolts, water rails, fuel rails etc that are either there because they have to be or because they look pretty.

Another point that’s sometimes not mentioned is that with more aggressive cams you need to pocket the pistons – essentially each piston needs a groove ground out of the top in order to allow the cams to turn, otherwise they’ll foul with all sorts of exciting results. And if the pistons come out, you may as well key the crank, and if you do that you may as well port and polish the head – so it’s a minor rebuild. But the idea is that the engine will be not only powerful but strong. I’m not keen on the idea of a highly strung engine that needs a rebuild every 10K. I also don’t like the idea of the crank letting go and destroying the engine block, as it’s aluminium and when they break, it’s a new engine.

So the engine package I’ve opted for should provide a nice, smooth power band with as much power and torque as I could possibly ask for, whilst still remaining reliable and tractable. Truly an everyday supercar.

As an aside, I went to Crown Casino the other day and saw they had a Ferrari exhibition. They had an F40 on a stand, and whilst it’s top speed was far beyond what the Birkin can achieve (without dropping it off a cliff), I took a great deal of pleasure knowing I’ll get to 100 faster than it will.

Now all I need to do is find myself up against one at the lights……

Still unbuilding......

2007-03-13T11:37:00.000+08:00

The problem with this stage of the project is that everything seems to go backwards. Plus it isn’t photogenic, unless you really want to see what a bracket looks like once it’s been ground down. However…..

The main activity at the moment is to get the car prepped for painting. As mentioned before, this involves pulling everything off that can be reasonably removed, and drilling some holes. I’ve replaced the fuel filler cap with a much nice, flush mounted model from Meridian Motorsport. And OK, I know I was a little uptight about getting it straight, but you get one shot and it would have driven me insane to get it wrong….

The bonnet clips are off, and I’m looking at replacements. The one’s everyone else are using aren’t supplied in WA any more, so it’ll be the US or UK for those ones. I also rather like the spring-loaded ones – except that the OMP units I’ve looked at look huge and chunky. I guess having them nice and solid is what’s important, but still…..perhaps if I chrome them up.

There are a few more things to do before it goes to the painter – I need to drill some small holes in the back for the number plate light, but most importantly I need to cut the hole for the exhaust. Birkin are now shipping cars with no exhaust holes cut, so they can be set up for exhausts on either side. What they haven’t sent yet is instructions on where to cut the hole! Kinda important.

Mind you, John Watson (Birkin’s founder) was in Perth the other week, and he’s promised these will be available shortly. Of more interest is the ram air pod unit that’s being developed – this is a tube-like construction that sits over the throttle bodies, and provides a smooth, consistent airflow over all the TB’s rather than having the front intakes steal airflow from the ones behind. Plus, I think it looks really cool ;-) You can see some photos of what this might look like at http://www.birkin.com.au/imageview.php?iid=2092 – this isn’t the final version, as it’s a unit bolted on from another vehicle class. Hopefully the Birkin model will be a lot slicker.

One day soon I shall be bolting a piece on rather than drilling it off - can't wait for that day. In the meantime, I'll be taking a short break to attend and engagement party, a wedding, and the Australian Grand Prix all in one weekend. Two-Day Hangover + F1 Cars = Bad Idea, obviously, but oh well....

Day 2 - taking more bits off

2007-02-26T12:55:00.000+08:00

OK, so it's in the workshop, and now it's time to prep it for painting. Which basically means deconstructing it further, and feeling like I'm going backwards instead of forwards.

Having said that, it's also a good time to start improving some of the elements on the car. The standard fuel filler cap, for instance, is a complete travesty and should only be considered a stop-gap measure until something better can be fitted. So once the fuel tank came out, I drilled the four rivets and a new fuel filler cap is on order from Meridian. They do a nice flush-mounted alloy filler cap that will sit far better with the overall look of the car.

Mind you, as I was drilling these out Frank glides past and screams "be careful, you're drilling into the car" or some such thing, which is precisely what I was thinking. I might need to become a little less tentative.

Other activities included removing the standard bonnet clips, as they were dodgy and a bit tacky. These will be replaced with the rubber style clips that are slightly larger, but are less obvious and feel like they might actually hold onto the bonnet.

Other tasks included rasping out holes for the windscreen wipers, removing various bits of rubber, and taking the rear splitters off.

The other thing that became apparent was that I need to think longer and harder about the paint scheme. It's all very well and good to say "I want green", but what about the rest? The rollbar, the front suspension, the windscreen surround, the splitters etc. If I chrome stuff, do I go shiny or more like polished aluminium? Do I want the engine bay painted complementary colours etc etc? So more thought required.

But, it's moving forward. Next week should see the last jobs done before it gets sent to the painters, then there'll be a hiatus for a few weeks, during which time the parts from the UK should have arrived, so at least I'll have some new toys to play with.

....and once more back to Perth

2007-02-19T12:57:00.000+08:00

Well, nothing was happening on the car, plus I was getting a little concerned that there was little that I could really achieve until the car was painted. I mean, I was bolting in all sorts of things, but not torquing them up because it all had to come out again once it was ready to paint, so why not paint and then build it once? Could take a long time otherwise....

So the car came back to Perth yesterday, bolted onto the painting frame and on a trailer. It was an extremely odd drive, with the nosecone about a foot from the rear window and just over the roofline of my brother-in-laws car. Also got a few looks from people passing by.....

Anyway, it's now back in Frank's workshop - this weekend I'll be in drilling and prepping, then it will be off to the painters. The intention at this stage is still to paint it Hothouse Green, but I'm wondering what that would look like with copper threaded through it. Might be more trouble than it's worth, but I'll have a chat to the paint guy and work something out.

Once that's done, I'll be able to put things into the car for real and stop pretending ;-)

Fastlane Driving School

2007-01-29T14:59:00.000+08:00

A lot of what people tell me about going fast is that it doesn’t matter how many ponies are under the bonnet, it’s about the skill of the driver. Having watched that Top Gear episode where Sabine Schmitz drives a diesel transit van around the Nurburgring, I can well believe it.

Plus, my Dad seems to like driving fast, so why not combine the two, I thought. So I bought Dad a day driving Formula Fords at Waneroo Raceway for Christmas, and thought I’d treat myself as well.

The whole day was pretty slickly run – first, you get divided into groups based on height and build, so that they can put you in a car with something close to what you need. After a bit of heel-and-toe practice in the car, you get taken out in an SS Commodore for a run of the track.

The organisers had helpfully put out little signs indicating where to brake and change gear for each corner. At this stage, the only observation I could make was that the braking zones appeared to start rather close to the corners themselves…..

Anyway, after that it was back to actually drive the cars. The Formula Fords we were driving were powered by 110bhp Ford Crossflow engines – relatively common a few years ago in Clubmans, but now superceded by newer engine designs. However, given the weight of 420 kg, this is enough to propel them to 100kph in under 5 seconds. Strangely, given that I’m after a 220bhp car that weighs around 600kg (but with a higher drag) the performance in a straight line should be similar to the Birkin. They'll probably go around corners faster.....

So, first out is 10 laps behind a pace car – fairly tame, but useful for working out the racing lines and practicing the gear changes.

The next 10 laps are on your own, where you are supposed to gradually feel your way into the performance of the car. Bugger that. I prefer to rush into these things and find out where the overlap between driver confidence and ability ends, so of course I spun out on the first lap. However, it did give me a feel for what the car does when it lets go, which will prove useful later on.

After lunch, another 10 laps were spent doing timed circuits, and this is where Fastlane differentiate themselves from other trackdays I’ve been on. You get some pretty decent feedback from guys who actually race these things professionally, so they can tell you what you’re doing wrong at which points. As long as you listen, you can make some pretty serious inroads. I’d started out in the mid-60’s early on in the time sessions, but was down to 59 seconds a lap by the end.

After that, it was the serious business of the timed race. Obviously, they don’t let you rub bumpers with each other (only two overtaking zones allowed, both on long straights), so the timed sessions were used to space us out to avoid traffic. However, after some final advice, they basically let you out to go as fast as (safely) possible. Spinning out, however, meant disqualification, as the idea was to get the lowest average time over 10 laps.

And the result – need you ask? I was damn pleased to see an average time of 58.6 seconds, and a fastest lap of 57, which is only a few (but extremely hard to find) seconds off something competitive. Got a little trophy and everything. Dad’s laptimes were rapidly improving by the end, and with a few more laps would have been pretty competitive.

Overall, I reckon the Fastlane operation was the best trackday I’ve done by far. Most other times they just bolt you in and give you all sorts of dire warnings about crashing, then let you loose. Fastlane treat this as a school, so you’re there to learn and improve rather than just go as fast as possible. I actually learnt something about driving, the capabilities of the cars and my own driving style that day, which will stand me in good stead with my own car. I'd recommend them to anyone in the Perth area looking to improve their own track driving, esp with a Clubman.

Day 1 - Taking it apart and putting stuff on

2007-01-15T10:05:00.000+08:00

OK, so the build has started - by taking things off. My six year old nephew was a little non-plussed that by mid-afternoon it still wasn't finished. He seemed to take comfort in the fact that it would have been, but I'm missing a few pieces. In order to keep the peace I think those pieces will remain missing for some months.....

So, the nose is off, as is the scuttle. Nothing tricky there. However, in order to feel like I've actually achieved something, I though taking the first steps of installing the steering rack and front wishbones would at least show some progress.

The chassis arrived with most of the steering already installed, although I will be giving everything a good torquing to later on when I get a torque wrench. So it was just a matter of removing some more stuff and bolting the one extra part in.

And it's now that I understand why these things take a year. Dad and I must have put that thing in six times, each time realising that this bit should actually go over that bit, or that to put this in, week needed to have done this and that in step 1. All I can say is thank goodness for digital cameras.

It's probably also worth describing my build sequence at this point as well. The idea is that the build will go in, say, four stages:

Stage 1 - prebuild. Dad and I will fit everything possible to the car, making sure we have all the bits etc, but will not tighten anything to it's final levels at this stage. We'll drill the holes for the tonneau, windscreen washers and bottle, seat rails etc, fit the rollover bar, suspension etc. The idea is to get a rolling chassis. This will also give us something concrete to start planning colour schemes etc.
Stage 2 - paint. The car will head back to Perth, get put on the paint stand, and have most of the various bits removed before painting.
Stage 3 - rebuild. The car, once painted, will be rebuilt from the start and everything torqued up, nylocs etc replaced where required etc. After Stage 1, this should be a meccano set build.
Stage 4 - drivetrain, wiring etc. The final bits and pieces.

May seem a little slower (there are two Birkins in Perth that were delivered a few weeks prior to mine that are almost finished....) but time ins't the important thing here. I say that now, of couse.....

Anyway, the steering rack eventually went in, although it's not a terribly good fit, and I'm assuming that the aluminium blocks holding the rack will crush in around it to hold it secure.

The upper and lower wishbones were also a simple plug and play operation, albeit with a few exertions to get the ends into the brackets. It's a tight fit in there ;-) I'm just waiting on the front sway bar and shocks / springs to arrive before these are fitted, along with the uprights. Then I can put the wheels on a see what they look like.....but now, looking at my hectic social calendar, plus time commitments from my MBA, it will be a few weeks before I get back to the build.

However, there's still the engine to talk about, plus a few car related events to occur between now and then, so my faithful 150 readers, stay tuned ;-)

It's here, it's here!!!

2007-01-15T09:45:00.000+08:00

Yup, finally picked it up. Well, most of it. A box or two was missed in the shipment from Melbourne (understandable - they were broken into again.....), so there're a few more exciting bits of car still to arrive. However, enough arrived to make it look like something's happening!

Went around to Franks to pick it all up, and found it was all nicely boxed up and ready to go. All I had to do was put all the loose bits (like brake disks, exhaust headers, metal thingamies that will go somewhere I'm sure, etc) in the back of the 4x4 and we were good to go.

I must admit I'd never towed anything this large before, so was a little hesitant. Got slightly spooked driving along hearing an odd rumbling noise, then noticed that the trailer was running over the catseyes. Everyone was giving me a respectable margin on the road ;-)

However, once on the freeways and highways, all was fine, and I eventually got used to the width of the wheels. Getting it to my parents place was another matter - Dad's advice was to "keep your speed up and you'll be fine". My parents driveway is 2km long, gravel, and goes through two steep valleys. People in rear wheel drive cars need to be rescued. And here I am in a heavy 4x4 towing a large trailer. Luckily all went well - dusty, but well.

So now it's in the shed, having gotten the thing off the trailer and onto the stand. Only one slight off note - when the packing guys put the frame over the chassis, they must have run the frame down the side of the car, as there's a decent sized scratch and slight crease in the passsenger side. Shouldn't be a problem though, as I'm planning on painting the sides, and the crease should be easy to remove.

Tools and such

2007-01-12T09:26:00.000+08:00

One of the things to consider when building a clubman is the tools you will require. One of the main attractions to me of the Birkin was that it didn't strictly require any fabrication to finish it, keeping the number and complexity of tools down. The basic idea is that you should be able to finish the job using the tools common to everyday use - screwdrivers, rubber mallet, socket set etc.

The build manuals that come with the Birkin have, at the start of each section, a listing of the components and tools required to complete each one. That's fine, but being the sort of person I am, I preferred to know what tools I'd need up front, so I pulled all of this information out into a spreadsheet, sorted it, removed all the duplicates, and came up with a list of stuff. Basically, you need the following:

metric socket set
allen keys
drill bits (for drilling metal, but really only soft aluminium), and of course a drill
rivet gun (for the press-studs on for the tonneau and roof)
torque wrench (ranging from 5 - 150Nm)
screwdrivers
silicone, grease, locktite, masking tape, drop sheets, pencil.....

So nothing there that looks too atypical, apart form the torque wrenches and I'm going to borrow those off Frank anyway. There are, however, a few tools to make life easier that've been made up. These aren't strictly necessary, however they can make life simpler.

So it's back to The Hanger to find out what we have and what we're missing. I may buy some things like the spanners and sockets, screwdrivers etc just because I need them anyway. I have, for example, a new bed that needs a screwdriver or two to put together.

To Max Power or to Not Max Power....

2007-01-11T16:30:00.000+08:00

A little wrinkle has appeared around the engine package - I was aiming at the 220bhp, as there seemed only a minor difference in price. However, where Raceline mention the GBP120 for the pocketed pistons, what stupid me didn't understand was that to pocket said pistons, you must first strip the engine down. And whilst you're there you may as well strengthen some other internals, "key the crank" (what-ever that means ;-), port and polish the head, and so on.

So the extra 10bhp ends up costing another $2000 - law of diminishing returns kicks in. I prefer to think of it in terms of $ per bhp over the entire engine, which means an increase of a mere $6.35 per bhp. Surely that's a bargain!

I guess at the end of the day it all comes down to power to wallet weight ratio. I mean, you can go the whole hog and go for a 250bhp 2.0L engine for around $20K, or go 2.3L and get 300bhp for I don't know what price.

So Frank and I have tossed it backwards and forwards. And what was the decision?

Are you kidding. Max Power...... 220bhp it is. Should knock that ever important 0.1 seconds off the 0-100kph time....

I have an engine!!!

2007-01-05T09:14:00.000+08:00

Frank has sourced a Duratec 2.0L for me - someone has kindly written off their new Ford Focus on the east coast after a mere 7000km! His or her loss is my gain, as it's a really low mileage for a donor car, and as a second hand engine it's a far better price than new.

So now the car has the bit that makes it go forward, which is a good thing. All the bits and pieces are coming together nicely now.

Frank also mentioned that the chassis et al is on the truck tonight, and will begin it's 4000km journey from Melbourne to Perth, no doubt aided by large quantities of amphetamines for the driver (of the truck, that is).

Once when I was driving back from Adelaide (a mere 3000km) I met a truck driver about 1500km from Melbourne. When I found out where he was going, I asked him how long it would take him to get there. He'd driven for about 8 hours already, reckoned he wouldn't be sleeping until he finished the trip in about 20 hours. Madness.

Anyhow, a few large bills are on their way over the next few weeks, but at least I'll have some large lumps of metal to show for it ;-)

More Gearbox and Diff news

2007-01-03T10:53:00.000+08:00

More news on the gearbox - Frank has kindly offered his gearbox, as he'll get himself another one more suited to his needs.

So, this means that the gearbox with the following ratios is now available:

2.39/1.69/1.210/1.00/0.870

It's a semi-helical Quaife gearbox built by SP Components, so damn strong, and also will lose less power through the drive-train. Should be good for 250bhp at 7500rpm.

So what does this do to the car's speed etc? It means that 1st gear is really, really tall. At 7500 rpm (well past the max torque), the following speeds are indicated:
Gear / Speed / Change revs (to next gear)
1st / 80kph!!!
2nd / 113kph / 5000 rpm
3rd / 160kph / 5000 rpm
4th / 192kph / 6000 rpm
5th / 220kph / 6500 rpm

Obviously I won't be changing down from 7500rpm too often, but when I do it will drop me back into the torque curve nicely. More likely I'll be coming down earlier, as the torque curve tends to flatten out at higer revs, which in turn will drop me lower down the rev range and again into the start of the torque curve. All up, should be an exciting drive (on paper, anyway....).

The higher gearing on the box will also compensate somewhat for the lower gearing on the LSD (4.4). Otherwise the car gets dull. But with a 3.9, the car will try and do 90kph in first, which is just silly ;-) As it is in theory I won't have to leave 1st gear in most city driving.....

So, thanks Frank, and now I think most major decisions (engine, chassis, gearbox and diff) have been made for the drivetrain. I guess things like the clutch will also have an impact, but the one in the package should cope for now.

Just have to wait until the damn truck arrives.....

Gearboxes and Diff Ratios

2007-01-02T14:56:00.000+08:00

I was planning on using Frank's gearbox from his current Birkin, as he was replacing it with a dog-box, however best laid plans and all.....Frank bought himself a dedicated race-car, so the his Birkin will keep the nice Quaife semi-helical, meaning I now have some decisions to make regarding gearboxes.

The main concern with gearboxes are the various ratios. These, coupled with the diff, have an immediate impact upon:

Acceleration - how fast the thing gets off the line in various gears
Speed in gear - at what speed do you need to change up a gear
Top speed - at what point does the scenery blur stabilise?
Driveability - how hard do you have to thrash it at the lights to stop stalling?

For example, if you have a nice low ratio like Franks for first gear (2.39) and a low diff ratio (3.9), then you'll get to a ridiculous 80kph in first (on 15 inch rims). Which is great for tearing off the line and getting good 0-100kph figures. However, you'll also note that at idle (let's say 1000 revs), the car will attempt to do nearly 15kph. Now, when you're trying to pull off at the lights, this means you have to give it a bit of stick to stop it from stalling, which means you tend to squeal the tyres every time.

At the moment, the suggestion is to go for a Subaru 4.4 diff with a decoupling LSD (decouples on lift-off, reducing oversteer) and a rebuilt Sierra gearbox from a 6 cylinder. According to this setup, I should be able to get the following at 6500rpm

1st 48
2nd 89
3rd 128
4th 160
5th 195

While the top speed doens't look massive, clubmans tend to hit an aerodynamic wall at anything above this anyway.

The other thing to consider is - where does a shift leave you? So, let's say I'm doing 48kph in first at 6500rpm, and I shift to second. 48kph in second is about 3500 rpm, which is just before the torque kicks in at around 3750rpm on the sort of engine I'm looking at. So not 100% ideal, but not too bad. But as you go up the gears, it drops you into higher and higher rpm - so the shift from 4th to 5th at 160 kph puts you at nearly 5000 rpm.

Anyway, there are a few options, such as a copy of Franks gearbox, or a 3.9 diff ratio, but it's all a bit of fun to try and model what the car will be like using various numbers.

In other news - the chassis is now in Melbourne, and will be shipped this week to arrive early next week, so it's a little later than Christmas but oh well.

For those with any sort of interest, the following website was used for the speed calculations:

http://www.kabamus.com/garage/gears.html

Setting up the Workspace

2006-11-30T11:50:00.000+08:00

Whilst Frank generously offered his workshop space, with its added benefits of…
a) being clean
b) having all the tools you could possibly need
c) having air conditioning
d) having other clubmans there as references
e) having Frank there as the ultimate reference

…part of the reasoning behind the clubman was to build something with Dad. He’s a frustrated engineer at heart I’m sure, and the challenge for both of us to build this thing is not insignificant. So we’ll see how that goes in Dad’s shed.

When I say shed, perhaps I should say hanger. Dad felt that an ordinary shed just wouldn't do. Keep in mind that my parents are on about 100 acres of bushland out the back of a small country town in WA, so space isn't an issue. Add to that my Dad's collection of "things that may be useful someday" and you can see why he needs the space.

I can't criticise my Dad's magpie tendencies too much, as no doubt all sorts of useful stuff will suddenly appear out of nowhere during the build, saving the 20km trip to the nearest town to buy something inane. It's also useful because it means there’s ample room to build a car – all right, a fleet of cars – in there. But I will insist on not using anything from the massive collection of rusty nuts and bolts, now matter how many cents I can save by using an old one.

So we shifted a heap of stuff around, I took away some old things I’d put in there when I left Australia 10 years ago (man, there were some bad fashion choices – with the Red Cross now, thankfully), and we made a space. The whole place needed a bit of a clean to remove the most obviously dust piles, plus we’re no doubt going to have to clean the cobwebs off the car every now and then.

The final steps were to add lights and some ventilation – it gets pretty hot in there. Thankfully there’s a fridge for beers / softdrinks etc – essential for any Aussie shed, but a few fans will be put in to blow a bit of air about….

I think at some stage, the car will return to Franks for some of the trickier / heavier work – for example, fitting the engine and drivetrain. We just don’t have the equipment to be moving engine blocks around. But the early stages will all be done down south.

Choosing the Engine

2006-11-29T15:30:00.003+08:00

The engine is the other big choice, and there are quite a few of them. Again, Frank and I narrowed it down to three – Zetec, Duratec 2.0 or Duratec 2.3.

Both are fine engines from Ford. The Zetec is a little older, and a little less easy to tune due to some inefficiencies in the head, apparently. It’s also heavier, being an all-steel block compared to the Duratec ally block.

The other main difference as far as I could tell from the engines was the exhaust side – passenger for the Zetec, drivers for the Duratec.

While the Zetec is a fine engine, it appeared that the Duratec was overtaking it as the engine of choice for clubmans, so I decided to go that path. Plus, these things are loud regardless of where the exhaust is. Go out in a clubman and see if there’s a massive difference from the drivers or passengers side…..you’re still going to go deaf.

So, now the choice was which engine. The 2.0 litre is better for street, being a revvier, more flexible engine. The 2.3 litre is apparently better for massive high end power (can go to 300bhp). I was ultimately aiming for something with better street performance than ultimate high-end power, so I went for the 2.0 litre. Both are fine engines, however in all honesty the 2.3 is probably overkill. Plus, you need to have somewhere to go once you're bored with what you have.....

Choosing the Chassis

2006-11-29T15:30:00.001+08:00

The next two steps were an agony of indecision – IRS versus Live Axle, and the various engine choices.

IRS is Independent Rear Suspension, where each wheel can move independently of each other. Live Axle is a solid rear axle, where if one wheel moves, so does the other. In theory, IRS gives better traction on rough surfaces, as each wheel can move independently to provide maximum grip. IRS will also cause the car to squat under high power loads, giving better grip off the line and when applying power through corners. By implication, IRS can also handle higher power limits, and is just less likely to spit you off the road.

Live Axle, on the other hand, is lighter and far easier to set up. IRS has all sorts of arms and linkages to get right before it handles properly. Live Axle is a simple case of bolting stuff together. You also have far fewer setup options for the rear tyres – simply bolt them on and go. If you want toe-in, bend the rear axle. With IRS would have all sorts of fiddly bits to tune and adjust each time.

It all comes down to what you want to do with the car. For track-days and smooth surfaces, Live Axle is better in that it’s lighter. If you can rely on the roads being smooth and steady, you can fling the thing around as well as an IRS. For roads, especially country roads, an IRS might one day be the difference between taking a corner and visiting the shrubbery, especially if you’re not the best driver in the world.

I’m not the best driver in the world, and I like to drive on country roads with all their pot-holes, gravel and undulations. Indeed, once you see where I’m building the thing, you’ll note that it’s probably a few hundred kays from any smooth surface.

So I went for the IRS for a couple of reasons – I’ll be on some rough roads and I want to feel that the car has the best chance of keeping me there, simple as that. The Live Axle provides more “fun” in terms of sliding the back end at lower speeds / power, which I must admit I quite enjoy. But I’ll still be able to do that with the IRS, I’m sure…..

Choosing the Manufacturer

2006-11-29T15:24:00.000+08:00

The first thing to do is to decide which Clubman to build. There are a huge number of options out there, from Westfield to Caterham to Fraser to Birkin to Elfin…..the list goes on. Given that I have no experience what-so-ever in the mechanical department, I decided to limit my choice to the local companies, leaving Westfield and Birkin.

The first thing to do, obviously, is visit each company. First trip was to Frank at Motowest, the local Birkin distributor. Frank runs an LPG and cruise control installation business, but you wouldn’t know it given the shop floor is covered with in-progress kit cars, plus the odd rare racing bike or two. It’s a well set-up workshop with all the tools and equipment you could need to build a car, plus he’s happy with people having their projects on his floor (or all over his floor when an oil-line gives way…..)

My impressions of the Birkin were good – it’s an extremely close replica of the Lotus 7 / Caterham, with similar lines and dimensions. The fixtures and fittings to my inexpert eye all looked to be extremely good - the car just worked as a unit, and looked less like a kit car that's been cobbled togther and more like a production car quality. All the parts fitted into an overall whole.

What I also liked was that Frank stood and chatted for ages on the car, the options, the abilities, the other options, how the other cars were coming together, how his car was coming apart for improvements then going back together etc. I certainly didn’t get the feeling that I was being sold anything, or that there was any sort of pressure. Which is nice when you don’t have a clue.

The next trip was to Westfield. Westfield is a name I knew in England, and it would be interesting to see what it was like over in Aus.

The Westfield’s in WA are imported chassis from the UK, modified for local standards and the dreaded ADRs. The showroom there is also littered with in-progress Westies, plus a few Cobras (one of the other lines of the Replica Motor Car Company).

Again, quite an impressive setup, plus I got to take the demonstrator out for a spin. I hadn’t driven a clubman for a while, so it was fantastic to take one out again. I must admit to being a little surprised at how squirrelly it was in the back end – nothing scary, I just knew that there was some back-end activity available when required ;-)

This was a great deal of fun, until I discovered that the throttle would stick in the fully open position if you floored it. I found this out when I lifted off the throttle as the bus in front of me slowed to a stop – and the Westfield kept on launching itself at the back of the bus. Luckily, I managed to turn the engine off complete and use the ample brakes to not wedge myself under the rear end, and roll it backwards into a car-park, much to the amusement of a few onlookers.

Not that it coloured my opinion – these things can happen, and it’s not like it was a serious fault, but it did dampen the amount of fun I could have…..Other points I liked about the Westie was that it was wider, giving more room for driver and passenger and making it a little more practical.

Overall, however, I decided on he Birkin – it was closer to my Caterham, and in my opinion looked more like what I was after. As I have said (and will no doubt say many times), I’m no engineer, so I cannot comment on various qualities around chassis design and suspension setup. I just bought with my eyes and heart and went for it.

My history with the class and other cars

2006-11-29T14:55:00.000+08:00

I'm now building a clubman (more on that later), but I have had one in the past. I used to live in the UK, and when I was in Leeds (and therefore close to the Pennines, the Yorkshire Moors, and hundreds of twisty roads) I thought about getting a little sports car to run around in.

Personally, I like small cars. I like going fast, sure, but I really like acelleration and cornering. Top line speed in a clubman is never good - ancient design means a poor cd (co-efficient of drag). Basically they're a brick at speed and hit a wall at around 180kph. Later designs are getting better, but it's still the same concept.

So that ruled out all the usual "big" car options - my two choices at the time were a Lotus Elise and a Caterham.

Long story short - basically everyone had a Lotus, and few people had a Caterham. Plus, the Caterham had everything the Elise had and more, in my opinion, plus it just looked amazing. The classic lines of an older sports car (I love MGBs and Triumph Spitfires, by the way) with the handling, accelleration, braking and overall performance of a modern car.

So the Caterham is was. The basic spec for the car was:

Caterham SuperSport

1.6 litre K-Series engine uprated to 145bhp

Six-speed gearbox

Anti-cavitation tank

Uprated front brakes

Built in fire extinguisher (for scaring passengers)

All weather gear (it's the UK!)

And it was pretty damn fast - 0-60mph in about 6.2 seconds in a motorised tea-tray. Enough to get me going, anyway.

Over my year's ownership, never missed a beat, apart from once when the alternator cooked the battery (leading to plumes of acid vapour pouring out of the bonnet - very dramatic), and once when I hit a patch of mud on a back country road and understeered into a bank.

Oh, and once coming around a corner on a one-way lane and meeting a tractor with a forklift attachment coming the other way. Very exciting.....

But really, it was a year of just driving somewhere for the hell of it. Downsides were based on where I had to keep the car - I was living in the centre of Leeds, so I left it at my clients factory. Every time I wanted a drive, I had to walk 15 minutes, go through the gates, take the cover off the car (it was outside....), change shoes, put the steering wheel on, take the roof off, then drive out. It would take 30 minutes from start to finish, which really does take the edge off.

I've made damn sure that I now have a place which is undercover and within seconds of my front door for the new one.....

I've also owned a few other fun cars - from a Mitsubishi Cordia (that blew up), to a Suzuki Swift GTi (that travelled with me to the UK and was sold to a Kiwi who was going to race it), to a Porsche 964 /911 Carrera 4 in Dubai that was a hell of a lot of fun but damn expensive to maintain.