Toms ‘99 Lupo and maybe got lucky with another ‘99 Lupo

[johnthesparky]

Wrote this the other day on site, and then lost connection

Since last post, Rhys has been rebuilding a gearbox and then went to the British GP

We’ve swapped the gearbox oil in Harold which seems to have worked for now, shifting seems a little nicer, the diff whines but we are hoping to get to the end of season before swapping the box

We also tidied up the battery area to make it a little friendlier when scrutineering

Before



And after





Battery terminals are now covered and the cables are accessible. Rhys’s passed but we had the fusebox cover missing anyway, and it was cheaper to get an Audi TT fusebox (which is remote) than to get a lupo lid anyway

Then Tom went racing, we went to Summer Nationals at Santa Pod, I got a job and knock finish on the Friday, the plan was to park the van, jump into the pre-loaded lupo and go… it nearly worked and was only marred by Silverstone traffic

We got pitched in the pits, emptied the Lupo (spare wheel and jack out as because the retaining screw is plastic) and went to scrutineering



we were there with Black Current 4





With that out of the way we settled in before qualifying on Saturday

Weather wasn’t great, and in the end we only got 2 qualifiers in.
But these were his first ever competitive qualifiers .

First run, Tom did a 1-2-5 shift and ran a 20

Got him to slow his shifting a little, letting the stick centre before going for 3rd, this worked on the second run and he ran a 19.02

So went into eliminations 18th of 23, and got really lucky as Tom was up against DarrenW in his Kampaign Mk1 golf gti

So no mind games or psyching out like some racers do, well maybe a little in jest



Went down the pairing lanes together, got to compare the mk1 to a lupo







Tom got to speak to his fans



And then the bikes had an oil down, so we waited..
but that meant that friends watching on the Santa Pod you tube channel got to see us, and we got our 5 minutes of internet fame



Even though we waved to the wrong camera

Then, eventually, we raced….



Tom got a respectably reaction time, Darren’s was superb.
Tom had a slow 60’ Others complained of grip issues in the right lane, Tom didn’t, but he 60’ is his slowest (he mainly has run 2.4-2.8)

So maybe with a better reaction and more grip he would have got closer to the 19.02 he ran on Saturday.
But our dial-in would still have seen him beat, which is part of the fun of bracket racing.

So we need to get more runs in, and then more competitive runs so we can be more accurate with dial-ins.
But since this was all about getting Tom in the drivers seat, that’s not a bad place to be

[johnthesparky]

And I was never going to be allowed to borrow a race suit that nearly fitted, so with the scrap money I took the easiest route to keeping everyone happy safety wise.

So an idea of what it’s cost to get Tom drag racing at 16.

Car, we’d have got one anyway, this was £300

I’m not including running costs, needed a few bits for MOT, that we’d have fitted anyway as I use it as a car. We’ve fitted coilies and sport alloys from the scrapped car

Fitted some decent tyres, which cost a ticket for BugJam and £100

Also fitted a shift light, which was £60

Membership to VWDRC is £20
Race licence for MS(UK) is £69

There is plenty of secondhand race gear out there, to race it needs to be in date.
We bought new, because didn’t know what size to get, wanted worrying relatives to be happy, it was easy and we had some scrap money. So this is approximate price for new gear from memory, but will last 10+ years. Certainly could be done for less.

Helmet. £300
Gloves. £50
Boots. £50
Suit. £300
Neck brace. £20

Events cost £200 or £225 depending on whether they are 2 or 3 days.
For that you get 4 weekend tickets and 2 pit passes. You aren’t allowed to sell them on, but they are really useful for ‘sponsorship’ like the cheap tyres. Camping tickets to bugjam would be £100+ so since we’d have gone anyway, racing is free that weekend.
So it costs about £1200 for the 6 round championship but we’d have gone to maybe half of the events anyway.

An intensive driving course is about £1000, hopefully doing this will mean he’ll start driving with pretty good car control, so should get away with weekly lessons learning mostly road-craft.

So I reckon, using special man maths, and spreading suit costs over the 10years it cost about £100 to race for the year.. and since it was mostly about having fun with Tom that’s more than reasonable

[DarrenW]

Oil downs have never been so entertaining. Roll on Bug Jam!

[427za]

That was the perfect pairing for Tom’s first time in eliminations, a pair of first season rookies!

[johnthesparky]

Not updated in a while,

Since the last update we’ve had BugJam, Greenlight Nationals and VW Action.
Tom has been finding his feet, need to start trusting his runs a bit more but he’s got through to second eliminations in a couple of rounds. Rhys won the Greenlight nationals, was some really close racing from both Tom and Rhys in that round





At VW Action we swapped Toms tyres front to back, they were fitted at start of season, fronts had 6.5mm tread, rears were still on 8mm





It’s also had another oil and filter change, just because it is a bit abused.





And this weekend we went to Mallory Park for the Gathering, another great weekend



Next weekend is National Finals, then we have some maintenance planned and will be time for an MOT

[johnthesparky]

So first round of VWDRC championship for
‘23 is 29th April to 1st of May.

So having done nothing for the winter because it was cold outside we thought we should do something.

During the race season we’d had two faults, the oil light came on whilst driving to the last round, which turned out to be oil leaking through the sensor, so cleaned it out and dried it out and it was fine for the weekend and swapped it when the replacement turned up





The only other fault was the gearbox, back in June the club ran a closed event, Drag Days, Tom had an exam on the morning, I took the octavia and the Fug, and Lucy drove him to the track in Harold at lunchtime, he then did 15 or so back to back runs, and Lucy drove home… it was a hot day anyway and the poor car got abused by a 16yo, but on the way home 3rd gear disappeared I was told.
It reappeared the next day though so that was all good, right

The box had alway had a weird tight shift to 1st which was a bit of an art, and was noisy, and had a distinct whine when you coasted on the overrun. So I found another box, from a polo, but same ratios but had only 60k miles. I opened it up, gave it a good clean and bolted it back together again.
Inside had a bit of residue, but nothing bad





Since we’d bought it 18 months ago, we’d given it a couple of minor services, we’d checked the cambelt by eye and it looked ok (no cracking)… but no idea of when it was last changed, I had bought all the bits to service it about a year ago but in the end just wiped

So that was on the cards along with another proper service and whilst the box was out a clutch

We started with the cambelt





Only to find there were 2 different tensioners, and we of course had the wrong one. So ordered another and made a start on the gearbox





Between rain showers we made a start, but didn’t want to leave the engine dangling for the week

Following week, we carried on

Gearbox out, clutch out, and it was about ready to be changed!
There is a 6 round championship and Tom will be starting driving lessons at the end of April too… so don’t think we’d get many more miles from it





So new clutch, shiny gearbox in, with a bit of help from Betsy







Finished the cambelt, changed oil again and filters,
Also changed the fuel filter





Then drained it



That doesn’t look very petrol like!



That’s probably a tenth of a second just changing that!

Took it for a drive (after a couple of attempts setting the linkage)
And realised how noisy the old gearbox was!

[johnthesparky]

Then in the week had a look at the old gearbox

Drained the oil and it looked ok

Then dropped the cover off of 5th





Was a load of swarf, and a puddle of oil, which I drained



That’s not great!

Rest of box is filthy, but magnet seems to have picked a load of swarf out







Had a phone around and seems a rebuild is going to cost about £4-500. For that money is be better finding another low mileage box.

But currently thinking of having a go myself with an eBay bearing kit, then keeping as a spare box

[zeberdee]

Good luck for the comming season .

Hopefully we’ll get to at least one of the rounds this year .

👍

[commycouper]

I would definitely have a go at rebuilding the gearbox if I were you. You've got nothing to lose apart from a few quid and time. Anyway....I'm sure that someone as capable as yourself will have it back up working better than new in no time at all 👍🏻

[Sleepyboy]

Looking forward to the season starting and lining up against the Lupo!

[johnthesparky]

With the new gearbox fitted, it is so much quieter…

So quiet in fact that you could hear a rumbly wheel bearing

So since we were going to sort that, might as well swap the front flexies, they looked ok but would need doing sooner or later











Whilst callipers were off Tom gave them another going over and we found a bit of corrosion round the slide pins, swapped the flexies, discs and pads
And got sent some rear shoes by @ballbagbaggins so will give the rears some love towards the end of the season

Swapped the plugs and airfilter too, they’ve only done a few thousand miles so I was tempted to leave them, but decided I’d be more annoyed if something failed had I left them

Bit of oil in the air filter, so I did try an fit a catchcan inline, but that didn’t work, we were getting more smoke and oil smells in the car when hot, so went back to stock

Then it was time for first round, it was Springspeed Nationals, but then became Festival of Power, with the changes and Tom having not been on track since last year (and not being able to drive on road either)we should have booed a test day, but with limited time and having just forked out for insurance for him too.. we didn’t

[johnthesparky]

Was, in hindsight, a bad move

We had 3 qualifying runs on the Saturday, and Tom struggled to launch nicely. First run he wheel spun through 1st and 2nd and was 1.5 seconds off of his dial
Second run wasn’t much better
And third run was similar too.
He finished Saturday in 17th

Sunday, we discussed holding less revs on the line, he took my advise and stalled, restarted and trundled to the end. Dropping him to 20th
There was one last qualifying run, so we dialled his best run of the weekend 18.5 and it all went right, good grip on the line, and a good run… so he broke out and went into eliminations in 23rd

Monday, it rained a little bit then stopped, then a bit more… so we didn’t get first eliminations until 3pm
But he got another good run, he’d got back to where we were last year, and he won E1
We went to E2 and he jumped the start and red-lit. He left the line first with a 3 second slower car, so his opponent knew it before he even started counting down.
Tom was pretty annoyed and as a consequence ran his fastest run, a 18.09. so looks like the changes we’ve made and servicing have made it a slightly quicker car

Tom turned 17 on the Saturday, but because we were racing didn’t get to drive until Monday after we’d finished,







And a couple from the weekend













Was a Great weekend though, next round on 17th June
And Toms now driving on the round, started his driving lessons and has his theory test soon too.

[ballbagbagins]

What a great experience Tom must be having

[johnthesparky]

Tom passed his theory test this week.

Unfortunately for our Weekender plans he worked all day Saturday, so we missed the first day of the Weekender.

But we drove down when he got in, he drove the first half and I took over before the M3 and M27 came into play.
Got there just in time for the tat auction, then had a walk round the site in the failing light, then thought we should pitch the tent and sort some dinner

Sunday, we parked in retro parking, with Tom driving through the tunnel (he did rev it, with disappointing results )
And we got to park in retro parking by the pits



Then with a bit more time on our hands Tom drove the 120 miles home







Cracking weekend, if if it was a bit short

[Alpina99]

I have to say John, I envy your relationship with Tom,
In hindsight I now realise how important it is,
Whilst my two were growing I was in an employment that made me a miserable b***ard, (not that that's an excuse and many would argue it didn't take much making !!)
I did manage to get one car mad and both cooking mad so something good rubbed off,
Anyway, great to see and good luck to Tom for his future racing,
Nigel

[johnthesparky]

May 22, 2023 11:42:48 GMT Alpina99 said:

I have to say John, I envy your relationship with Tom,
In hindsight I now realise how important it is,
Whilst my two were growing I was in an employment that made me a miserable b***ard, (not that that's an excuse and many would argue it didn't take much making !!)
I did manage to get one car mad and both cooking mad so something good rubbed off,
Anyway, great to see and good luck to Tom for his future racing,
Nigel

He’s stressed out today because he has to finish some college work, so I may not actually be a great parent, but thanks

And I was probably very similar, building my business and trying to earn more.. I just got a kick up the bum through through some mates misfortune.

[johnthesparky]

Last build thread to update, and probably the one that’s been most active.

Not actually a lot of work done on Toms lupo

We started getting some hot oil smells, and noticed it puffing a bit whilst running in the lanes.
Diagnosed for us as the PCV valve, so had a look



Yeah, that’ll be it… sourced a new one, and the hose and fitted





We fitted the a-frame, so we could tow the Fug to a couple of rounds. The janky bumper wasn’t the prettiest, but free is free





Tom got the hang of burnouts









Earning the title ‘burnout king’ and a mysteriously delivered sticker in the post



And in the back half of the season things started to come together, with some good runs hitting his dials.
At Greenlight Nationals he qualified #1 on the Saturday even

Got a run in at Bug Jam RWYB with the L plate pyramid



And after all this abuse, it flew through the mot with only a bit of jiggling to get the cat hot.



It has had 2 tyres this year, one as a consequence of hitting a pothole



And a slow puncture and a damaged sidewall just before the MOT



So in spite of all the burnouts, all 4 tyres have over 5mm of tread on them still… the 2 newer tyres are on the front, but I have rotated them during the season

Engines a little smoky, but not excessive (oil consumption is within VW range) so for all of the abuse it gets, it laps it’s up!

Driving test soon, fingers crossed it goes well after the wait.



Has been a cracking year, the racing has been great, and really look forwards to race weekends!

Darren made some awesome workshop banners with all of our cars on





It’s going to be a looooonng winter waiting for the first round of 2024!

[johnthesparky]

And the other update.

A deal was done on a replacement for Ella’s corsa, another Lupo
This one has been owned by mates since 2010 and passed about a bit. Ended up in Cornwall gifted to a nephew. Not sure the story, best to forget it and carry on..
But it wasn’t as anyone expected when we got to collect it.

So we’d driven to Cornwall, dragged it out of a field, sorted the a-frame, loaded up and dragged it home in a red-weather warning with floods and all sorts on the motorway









Got it home, and it needed a lid of bits, and had a load of corrosion underneath, seized brakes, snapped springs etc

But friends basically gave Ella the car, but didn’t want it to be broken or scrapped… which meant that I threw a bit more money at it than I possibly should.
But it got;
Rebuilt rear brakes
Discs, pads
Callipers
Flexies
Bottom arms
Ball joints
Track rod ends
Drop links
Rear springs
4 new tyres
Replacement stereo
Some lamps

Then a service, and we swapped the gearbox oil





















And it turned out OK after some cleaning











Ella and boyfriend Arron were coming down to Santa Pod for the National Finals, so original plan was to swap cars whilst she was home, but with the extra needed that didn’t happen



So ended up swapping cars in a services off the M6 near Nantwich, the following weekend













And for the hard work, was rewarded with an engine management light about 1/2 hour after we left, it’s the egr hopefully

[johnthesparky]

The black one, sold one friend to another in 2011



Then owned by friends mum, who replaced a mini





But it’s a well travelled car that’s been to Germany in holidays





Hopefully it’ll be as appreciated by Ella, but she’s loving it so far (and such modern niceties as cup holders )

[johnthesparky]

Probably time for an update here too

I’ll start with the Black lupo, last time it had an engine management light for egr

Ady and DarrenW popped over one Saturday and sorted that for us





And then it stopped locking, which seems to be, as I found out afterwards a common issue with microswitches.
It also started to randomly drop the windows… the first fix was to pull the fuses and then at Christmas, in the day I had available I swapped some bits. But incorrectly I’d bought genuine VW locks secondhand rather than cheap Chinese replacements. Which was wrong!

So we did what we could, and sorted some broken wiring







And for a week or two it was ok-ish
And then it wasn’t, so Ella popped back for a night and we swapped for new cheap bits…. Which seem to have fixed it



Then the green one, Harold

It got MOTed in October and passed with just the usual cheap cat replacement





Tom passed his test, so we did a roadtrip involving the motorway



We also swapped the pop-out windows for some spares we’d got in readiness… so he could drive around without race numbers and stickers



Which made it look too normal after it being stickered up for the last two years, so Darren made some small Harold names for it



Since November Toms been driving it, and it’s done a few runs up north to see friends.

We’ve made a ‘stage brake’ to lock the ratchet on the handbrake when racing. Then pull the pin when back to the pits and it works like normal.
Hopefully he’ll be able to hold it at the line better and improve his reaction times this season



It got serviced this week





Few more weeks until we are hoping to get a RWYB in at Santa Pod and then racing starts in April