Australian F1 Grand Prix 2007

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

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......

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....