New clutch, same old oil leak

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

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.