'87 Sports Libre BMW 2cv & 94 MX5 Hillclimbers - MEGA UPDATE

[vitesseefi]

Jun 5, 2018 17:25:35 GMT @johnnybravo said:

I reckon in will max out at 161 hp....

The engine.....? Or the gearbox...?

And I would be at Gurston on the 16th to cheer you on, but there is unfortunately a very strong reason (not a good reason) why I can't I eagerly await the videos though!

Nick

[dadstaxi]

So what did it make or did the gearbox let go?

[Darkspeed]

Whats actually missing here is on of those US crime drama CSI type slo mo recreations of the induction tract drawing all that charge in, the screaming whirl of the charger forcing it past the valve at every induction stroke, the explosions and rapid expansion of gas into flame forcing the piston, con-rod and crank into a mechanical whirling fury. Each firing event then hammering, bang, bang, bang, the 4th gear teeth on that primary shaft into the secondary dramatic close up of each tooth as the combustion event shock wave tries to shear the teeth off, the whip in that shaft between the bearing as the teeth try and move apart to resist the torque. The secondary shaft drive cogs fighting to stay together as they are pounded relentlessly as they transmit that power to the pinion gear. Cut to commercial break.....

[greencarfritz]

Jun 5, 2018 20:45:32 GMT dadstaxi said:

So what did it make or did the gearbox let go?

Bubble bubble.

Zoooooooom

POP PSHHHH

were the sounds that came out of the rolling road at Emerald yesterday evening.  The boys smashed out a late working day and the part that let go was a slight surprise...

[dadstaxi]

The tyre? intercooler? Wastegate?

[Deleted]

You broke the dyno 😳😳😳?
😂😂

I did that with my turbo nitrous 16v golf caddy years ago, Rightside driveshaft through the rollers. Owner was not impressed

[greencarfritz]

Jun 6, 2018 8:13:08 GMT @johnnybravo said:

You broke the dyno 😳😳😳?
😂😂

I did that with my turbo nitrous 16v golf caddy years ago, Rightside driveshaft through the rollers. Owner was not impressed

Haha nope!  It was a BMW part...

[Deleted]

Take the rivets off the flywheel?

[greencarfritz]

Jun 6, 2018 9:33:12 GMT @johnnybravo said:

Take the rivets off the flywheel?

Ahh actually using a modified 2cv flywheel... so nope...

One of the rubber extruded throttle body to cylinder head adapters tore itself clean in half.  It was 18 months old so it was a slight surprise although there was the possibility that in NA mode the throttle body hadn't been supported as well as it could've been leading to some stress where it tore.

Anyway, that pretty much meant no more opportunity to play on the dyno as there aren't any spares with the car and I need it to arrive with me ASAP.

So 154bhp is the magic number.

[georgeb]

That's a nice round number...for now.

[greencarfritz]

Jun 6, 2018 10:07:02 GMT georgeb said:

That's a nice round number...for now.

156bhp would've meant a genuine 250bhp per tonne.  So I'm just going to have to cut, grind and drill a few more holes to resolve that PWR.

[rollingcoal]

up the injector size ,up the fuel pressure and run it on E85

[vitesseefi]

Jun 6, 2018 10:11:21 GMT greencarfritz said:

Jun 6, 2018 10:07:02 GMT georgeb said:

That's a nice round number...for now.

156bhp would've meant a genuine 250bhp per tonne.  So I'm just going to have to cut, grind and drill a few more holes to resolve that PWR.

Nah.... you just need to have what Guy Martin would call a "Race Poo"!

Nick

[keyring]

Just read this through from the start, what an awesome journey you’ve had with this car, especially it being your first car
Cars like these are why I love this forum, I look forward to seeing it at RRG!

[nalesutol]

Jun 6, 2018 12:29:37 GMT vitesseefi said:

Jun 6, 2018 10:11:21 GMT greencarfritz said:

156bhp would've meant a genuine 250bhp per tonne.  So I'm just going to have to cut, grind and drill a few more holes to resolve that PWR.

Nah.... you just need to have what Guy Martin would call a "Race Poo"!

Nick

Ah, standard mistake made by those uninitiated into the anal world of weight loss :-)

Lots of holes and a race poo beats just a race poo every time.

[greencarfritz]

Apologies for the delay, it's been a busy few months but please let me catch up with this...  you leave us making 154bhp out of the Rotrex C30 Supercharged BMW R1100 GS motor - with stock heads in the end after that malady..

I'm presuming you'd like to see a dyne cell run...

[greencarfritz]

So he came back to Devon with 154bhp and sounding pretty healthy after those dramas listed and a few more I will keep quiet for now. Needless to say the Gents at Emerald are absolute ballers and couldn't have gone out of their way enough (late nights, moving sessions around, storing him for a month in their personal car store!). I can't recommend them enough.



When he got back to Devon there were still a couple of things I needed to do before he was ready to race at Gurston Down Speed hillclimb next weekend...



Bracing the front hubs was the major priority.   With a 1930's kingpin design that rotated around the bottom of the hub there was going to be a huge amount of stress and wear caused by the super wide and super sticky tyres. So I'd been looking to do what is known in 2cv circles as a "Belgium Arm" conversion - so named after the prototype class 2cv silhouette racers that hail from Spa, I'd had a look at a set Pete at Sparrow Automotive had done and decided that design looked the best way to go about it...

Essentially finding the pivot point at the top of the hub and adding a rose joint braced back to the swing arm.

 Have a doodle...




IMG_1971 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

Firstly I made up two plates for the top pivot point, these would bolt down ontop of the track rod end that bolts into the top of the hub.  The TRE is stepped so I welded a stepped piece into the underside of the plate.  I used the mill to drill all of these so I got the hole centres spot on.

IMG_2255 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

Tap the front hubs very very carefully...






IMG_2258 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

The rose joints I got from McGill motorsport, the drilled bolt and nut are titanium.

IMG_2260 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

Note - the bolts into the tapped front hubs are high tensile steel jobs as per the original spec.



, just longer and with allen socket heads.

Favourite welding mask is the auto dimming one from ESAB that I have with a filter/air feed module.

IMG_2261 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

I also sleeved the steering arm in steel tubing and held this back with a Ti nut where the steering arm adjuster thread starts.



 You can sort of see that here if you knew what you were looking at, don't worry I did weld that tube to the swing arm... the magnet isn't permanent...

IMG_2277 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

Ohh and we'd made a new brew too...

IMG_2281 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

READY FOR GURSTON DOWN!

[greencarfritz]

So packing for Gurston I drove up the A38, crossed to the A303 and gave it the beans, seemed to run really nicely although accelerating hard if you hit a bump at that exact moment you went on the power he would jump across into the other lane. I’d need to get a hold of this torque steer melarky this weekend!



As usual reaching Gurston after a mammoth rebuild was an absolute joy so I settled in for some cheese a beer and a solid nights sleep.





IMG_2284 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

The class for the weekend.




IMG_2283 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

Ohh. Ohh ohh ohh.







So that didn’t go to plan, second run in and you can see we just get to the finish line before we drop to one cylinder.




Whipped the drivers side plug out and held it against the block whilst someone cranked the motor for me, yep spark, pulled the other side out…..



IMG_2292 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

And this doesn’t look good…





Time to take the rocker cover off…..

a collet fell out (the one shown next to the plug) and a spring is just dangling around…



IMG_2302 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

So I’ll take the throttle body off to have a peek… yep….



IMG_2301 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

IMG_2303 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

That’s knackered the motor then.



Most fortunately I know a couple of 2cv superfans nearby, Richard was spectating that morning but had left for lunch, a quick call saw him over with his C15 van and a tow rope, we whipped through the lanes to his house where I could pull off all the race numbers, timing strut and then call out my breakdown policy…



IMG_2287 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

IMG_2300 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

Yes I am looking most dejected... this is the first event of my season!

IMG_2299 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

Back at base.




IMG_2293 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

Shortly afterwards:

IMG_2304 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

With the old motor whipped out Tee and I went up to North Devon to pick up a new motor (£700) that had essentially just been run in. I justified the day to her with a trip to Heddons Mouth and along the Exmoor coast, Valley of the Rocks etc… max beauty (& the scenery too).

IMG_2341 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

IMG_2344 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr





I fitted the motor on Thursday, balanced the wheels Friday and ran it in on the way to Tregrehen (St Austell), from Ivybridge (near Plymouth) on Saturday morning where I was racing that weekend.



IMG_2369 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

7F76559A-51C4-4001-A92A-1DDA313248FE by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

I gave it the absolute beans and knocked a second off of my time from last year which is a lot on the UKs shortest hillclimb course (it is very short!).

IMG_2422 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

IMG_2416 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

IMG_2404 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

^ I'm thinking about having this made up as a signed postcard, what do you think?

The only downside to this event was that I was finding it hard to get second gear off of the line, I had bent the shift linkage and didn’t have a spare so just had to make do.




It's amazing how much sweeter this new motor is, in all honesty I'm not that surprised that the last motor lunched itself in such a spectacular style.  I had been thrashing it hard for 3 years of racing, on the limiter every single time out and this was a viking funeral for it.  It had done around 80k miles with an unknown history from a smashed bike, as well as being thrashed on the filmset for RED 2.  

RIP dear friend.

[greencarfritz]

I headed back to Mexico for a month and tucked Green Car back up at the Super Secret Shore Base. Finally safe in the knowledge that he was running well and ready for Shelsley.. and RETRORIDES of course!

What can I say, another excellent weekend. Need I say more? Here are the pics.

40031287_1559696217469728_2292746459927281664_n by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

39869079_695983727432533_6828021277832249344_n by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

39883612_10157695982612586_3230063556917460992_n by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

40140035_10215656128023820_599648954317012992_n by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

And to the track..

39957117_696010624096510_3496602759086473216_n by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

40047908_2338007042892996_4733506323327483904_n by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

39583860_10157695985352586_1202063060118798336_n by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

It wouldn't be a day out with green car without some drama though. Half way through my runs on Saturday afternoon (I had planned until staying until I was kicked out) I was following the Bonfields wild mini back down the hill when I could hear a ticking sound... then it stopped... I did one more run and then decided to check it out.

Half the driveshaft bolts were missing on one side and the ticking was one of the speedo sensor pickups destroying the sensor! I took some bolts from the other driveshaft to even things up a bit, retorqued with some locktite and then drove home relatively sensibly!

[greencarfritz]

I had entered something else the next weekend but was due at a wedding on the Saturday in Birmingham. Naturally I drove up in green car, attended the wedding and then drove down to Guildford in my tux... because that's how you racecar like a boss.

I'd entered Shere hillclimb, which until the week before I had been under the impression it was a timed event... but I'd missed something somewhere...

IMG_3269 by Alex de Vries, on Flickr

It was super bumpy and untimed, but it was all for charity, had some good food and interesting cars and I was quite happy lazing about the field all day with little pressure. Although I bent another gear shift linkage here so couldn't get second off the line on my first attempt! Embarrassing but fixed that with a handy spare.

See how bumpy here: