Just like buses.........

.....aint it true.  You do one post then have the inspiration to go on and continue to catch up past events.

So here goes!

So the shopping list grew and grew.  One thing and another, the odds and sods and the cost of rebuild started to mount.  Lucky for me I was able to sell a lot of the parts I had inherited with the car.  I had quite a lot of stuff to sift my way through, kept what I wanted and sold the rest.  Plus the sale of a spare set of 13" wheels and tyres meant up to point I have been able to do all the rebuild pretty much cost neutral   Well, that's what I tell myself.  I am sure its cost a lot more!

So other than my the bits I had to buy in my last post.  I can add a new set of diff bearings.  Renewed these more as a precaution really.  We made some substantial changes to the back end of the car.  Before the reverse gear was mounted on the diff.  In effect the diff was encased in a cylindrical tube with what was effectively a fly wheel attached to it.  When I first saw the car I had identified this would have to go.  The weight of this big lump of metal (purely there to enable a electric reverse to work, which consequently may only be used once in a whole season), was in the region of 6kg!  Couldn't believe it.  That's like having an additional wheel on the car.  The extra mass that is rotating hampers acceleration, saps the available bhp thus giving you a slower car.  So that was gotten rid of and AB Performance supplied me with a tiny tiny tiny spur gear that bolts inline to the bike sprocket on the output shaft of the engine. So I have high hopes for this mod.  In making the changes it was necessary to now mount a reduction starter motor to work off the spur gear bolted in place.  This involved a bit of clear well thought out welding to make it just so.  Well done Tris!


What with relocating the reverse mechanism, this proposed a problem in that the gear linkage now required some modification so that it could navigate round the reverse motor.  After a bit of ummming and arrrgghhhing I came up with the brain wave of installing a cable operated stick gear shift.  This decided I ordered a push pull cable from Cable Tec.  Very prompt service i have to say. Would well recommend if you are considering a Paddleshift gear change especially for bike engined cars.  Instead of buying a set of paddles i decided that I would keep the push pull gear stick and have the gear shift and cable mechanism mounted from that.  I would love to take credit for all the work that went into installing it....but, credit should be given to Tris once again.  I just came up with the idea!

One of the things on the shopping list was a new bespoke fuel tank to replace the rather leaky one.  I phoned round numerous companies that do bespoke tanks with the response mainly with two forms.  "OOooo.....it'll be expensive" and "sounds incredibly complicated".  I was horrified.  £630+vat for the tank I was quoted by one company.  On talking with them (i wont mention which firm it was), I simply burst out laughing.  'You got to be kidding right?!'.  I can only liken my reaction to someone getting their first ever car insurance quote.  A sense of anger, betrayal, despair........and the like. I began to wonder if I would manage to get one made.  I persisted in phoning round and started to get the quotes down.  I had a quote for £150 which was very good, but on calling MK Sportcars to see if they would consider doing something, my faith in humanity was restored.  Danny (owner) said.......'yeah we can do that no problem'  'jot down a diagram tell us what you want.....no problem mate'.  It cost £200 but i was more than happy with the result.  Big thumbs up for them.


Another job was to ensure I had a handbrake mechanism.  With removing the flywheel that was the reverse gear, this left a dilemma   The flywheel had a caliper mounted in line to it, which acted as the handbrake.  What with only having 2 pot calipers on the rears I set out to find out if Wilwoods did a 2 pot caliper that had a handbrake mechanism built in.  Short answer.....NO.  Bugger.  Some contemplation time later I had convinced myself that if I had 4 pot Wilwoods PowerLites on the front why wouldn't I have them on the rear too?  So it was decided.  Purchased some 4 pots for the rear with one of them having handbrake mechanism built in.  However this posed a couple of challenges.  How is Tris going to mount the darn things.  Some head scratching later and a little ingenuity some ally mounts were made to take the caliper.


As a result of having the same calipers on all 4 corners this would allow for making brake bias adjustments a bit easier to phatom out.  Well that's one of the excuses i had made to justify the expense!














Next on the list of jobs was to remount the exhaust, but not before taking a peak inside the silencer.  From having seen and more importantly, heard, of the car out on track....it was exceptionally noisy.  On removing the end of the silencer revealed, what wadding was present was rock hard, disintegrated and the total volume of silencing material would not have even filled a pint glass.  So, once again, i decided to brush off the mothballs and buy some Acoustafil wadding.  This stuff is great.  The website provides a calculator help determine just how much of the stuff you need to fill it.  Surprising little.  The idea behind it is as it heats up for the first time, the strands that hold the matting together burn away and it expands filling the voids.  Simple.  However, it is yet to be seen if the wadding will sap any of the power.

Next up was a new bespoke side mounted rad supplied by Radtec.  Beautiful piece of engineering and tig work. Excellent service and very very knowledgeable helpful people in general.  Doesn't look much from the photo, but believe me it is the dogs you know whats!

Next up was to weld a bracket onto the roll bar for the rain light.  Luckily, whilst at the Autosport show and talking with Andy Bates I noticed the Sabre had the light mounted on the roll bar and asked AB, why there?.  "Easy....it has to fall in line with regs." so having it bolted in-between the rear lights on the chassis was no go.

However this was a blessing in disguise to be honest as it made a perfect mounting point for the new GPS receiver I had decided to take the plunge on.

See below.






GPS receiver............. that's right folks.  A GPS receiver   One would argue this is a rather pointless purchase especially when you consider the car had an Aim Sports dash and it would not cater for one.  But, one has to these things and when in Rome (or rather AutoSport 2013) and you have Race Technology there offering me an amazing discount, its really hard to say no.

So now i am the proud owner of a DL1 Sport with Dash 4 Pro by Race Technology.  Oh yes!!!
With it steering wheel mounted, its just how a race car should be.  Looks pretty good uh?!

Again....hat off to Mr Kipling.  Although he had wired the car using the old dash already, he duly went on to stripping it out and started again.  Good lad!  (I am paying him btw).

However, its not all been plain sailing. Turns out the Dash 4 Pro has an inherent bug in the software, in the sense it doesn't like zero values apparently (so i am told) which makes custom config of sensors a little tricky when you don't actually know why the software keeps crashing.  So once that had been determined  hopefully the rest is plain sailing.

There is a whole load of other work that has been done on the car, but these were the biggie's.

Next up is get all bodywork back on and get a track day booked for a shakedown and pray it all behaves.  I envisage a lot of set up work will be required and testing the balance of the car.  Previous owner, Steve, mentioned to be that the rear end and a tendency to snap away mid corner so hopefully as none of the suspension was removed i can replicate this situation and start to make adjustments to help resolve the issue.

There are a number of things i would like to address in terms of balancing the car....not only mechanical but i think the aero has a massive part to play in all this, so i will be experimenting to say the least.

Time to Reflect

Hello.  I realise I haven't posted anything for a while now and felt I should give a progress update on the new car.  What with the International following I seem to be attracting from all over the world I feel duty bound to provide at least a little update.

What with it being out of season now there is not a lot to report racing wise, but when you get bored or itching to get out on track....you just can’t help yourself to occupy your time by tinkering.  Well that was the plan.

I knew when i bought the car there were a list of jobs to do.  Some safety critical, others just nice to have done and others that would form some kind of wish list.

However all these ideas of tinkering were scuppered when I did my back in.  Its long story, but the long and short of it is that it stems from an old rugby injury years ago.  Slipping 4 discs in my lower spine.  Although surgery was carried out and have been fine for a few years now, every now and then at the most inconvenient of times I would be struck down :-)  Moral of the this story......look after your back.

Anyhow, feeling very despondent especially after organising and then had to cancel a meeting with Tim Gray from Tim Gray Motorsport to look over the car for me to help suggest future improvements etc it was starting to look like work on the new steed would be delayed indefinitely.

Luckily....my buddy Tris, team mate from last season (spanner man, grease man, owner of the Fury) stepped in and kindly took up the challenge of giving the car a once over (for a fee).  Knowing how long it takes to get over back injuries and the fact there wasn’t much chance to get to see Tim, I took up the offer. 

Tris kindly offered to come pick up the car on his trailer, coz I was really struggling to move, so when he turned up late one evening, dark and miserable outside we set to loading the car onto his trailer.  ‘Bloody hell……!!!’  ‘What…..what’s the matter?!’  ‘How wide is this your car?’ Tris said.  Standard width I thought.

Turns out the Genesis RR is extremely wide and simply would not fit onto the trailer.  At least I thought it would make passing me on the circuit that little bit more difficult next year.  What with it not going to fit, we abandoned the idea and waited for a day I was able to move a bit better and went and got my trailer.  On it went no problem. 

Once delivered and tuck up in the workshop it was several days before anything happened, but as I rocked up on the Saturday, the car was hovering several feet above the ground, all bodywork off, wheels off, radiator and everything out….blimey.  This guy works quick!  It had only been started work on about an hour before apparently.  So he says!

From this..........

The main objectives were to:

1.  See to some cracks in welds that appeared (ones I already knew about)
2. Look over the car to identify any further stress fractures
3. Have a go at tidying the wiring up a bit
4. Think about relocating the radiator to side pod



......to this in a few hours.

5. Add in a brake bias

I think I would have been happy with just this as an initial phase 1…..but you know how it is.  ‘We are 65% the way there to completely stripping the car down; we may as well remove the engine to’.  Hmmm okay I thought slightly reluctantly……but boy I was glad we did.

Removing the engine revealed some slightly worrying hidden gems I was not aware of.  The fire wall was a sheet of heat reflective matting that had almost disintegrated and the exhaust headers just inches from petrol tank with little or no heat protection.  Plus the smell of petrol was apparent.  Took the ally sheet away covering the petrol tank revealed the tank was dented and cracks had started to appear.  Not good news.

So to cut a long story short, everything except suspension, steering has come off the car to do what would be a small (mini) rebuild. 

So the list of objectives increases:

6. New custom made fuel tank

7. Skin bulk head and apply new heat shield

8. New radiator as the old one was leaking slightly….oh and relocate to side pod.

9. Do a complete rewire of the car adding in some nice features I had gotten used to on the Fury this last year.

Let the shopping for parts commence!

The Genesis RR has landed!

Sunday 21^st Oct: A beautiful autumnal sunny day and what a better way to spend such a wonderful day than driving 260 miles to collect the new steed ready for next seasons racing.

That’s right….collection day of the new ‘edsco’ mobile.  Myself, Beckie and Mollie dog set off up north to Bingley to collect the motor.  Nice family day out all in all.  Arrived at around midday and Steve’s first comment before even getting out the car…….’Cuppa?’.  ‘Yes please….’.

Walked into Steve’s garage to find a massive pile of spare parts for the car, documents, history logs, development logs, more spare parts, and a winners garland….well it will look nice in the garage!

With the boot loaded full, it was time to load the car onto trailer.  Note to self for future loading / unloading requirements.  Jack up the jockey wheel….!  Helps a lot with car ground clearance.  All strapped down we were ready for the long journey home…..oh not forgetting handing over wads of dollar.

Got home at 17:00ish, which was good, as it meant the Mrs was happy as she still had time to get out riding the ‘orse before it got dark.  Tick in box for me ;-)

With the car stowed safe and sound back home and tucked up in garage, it was time to start thinking about modifications and improvements for next season.

Watch this space. 

Mallory Park Race Report 2012

Mallory Park Weekend

What a blinder of weekend! A little taster video before we get started.

It has to be said, from my point of view, Mallory Park Circuit is not the most exciting of race tracks out there, but it certainly led to some exciting exploits.

I arrived at the circuit 17:00ish on the Saturday evening to find the Paddock almost empty.  I was a little surprised by this as usually I am normally one of the last few to arrive and end up having to find a space to squeeze into with the van.  But this time I had a blank canvas of free choice. 

Team Spire along with Tim Gray Motorsport were there already having tested all day Saturday along with Arthur Rogerson who had just acquired Matt Higginson Spire GTR only a few weeks prior.  First thing Arthur said was….’this car is just magical!’.  He was comparing it to his old car, and at the end of his test day had a smile from ear to ear.  Great stuff….i thought.  I no longer have him to overtake.  Damn it?!

Saturday night circa 30 of us headed off into the near by village to the pub to have our fill.  Very nice it was too!  The shoulder of lamb was fantastic.  If I could remember the name of the pub I would recommend it, but I can’t, so I won’t.  Got back to the circuit about 23:30 and just before I headed back to the camper van I saw Rew Chapelle struggling to assembly a number of camp beds for his kids in the dark.  I offered a hand but he was adamant it was all under control so promptly left him to it.  Poor kids, camping on evening such as it was, I am sure they must have been freezing cold.  I was cold in the camper and I had the gas heating on! 

Sunday morning arrives and bloody hell it was cold.  Ice on the windscreen of the camper I was praying the sun would make a prompt appearance and help me thaw out.

Tris turn up with the Fury about 07:15 at the circuit to which I had a phone call….’Hi…I am at the gate of the circuit….where are you?’.  I replied ‘In bed still……’.  At that point I thought it was time I got up and got the bacon and eggs on the go.

Time ticked by, did the driver briefing (unlike some who were fined £160 for not doing so.  Won’t mention names.  Arthur your secret is safe with me), then got the car down to scrutineering.  No dramas to be found there, so started about prepping for qually.

Lining up for qually, the dreaded noise check was first.  To be fair I never know what to rev the car to exactly.  ¾ revs?  Well I did 7,500rpm which was just shy of ¾ but was miles under the DB linit.  101.6 decibels.  At that point, I wasn’t sure if that was okay.  Turns out 105 DB was the limit, but was waved on into the holding area.

QUALLY

Not the most fantastic of qualifications.  Having never driven the circuit the 15 mins qually for me was all about learning the circuit.  More importantly learning ‘Gerrads’.  How much speed should I take into the corner? Which gear?  Should I be bouncing off the limiter?  All things I have to phathom out in my 15 mins qually.  Turns out I qualified 21^st out of 24 runners with 52:45 best lap.  Although it wasn’t a great performance, at least I wasn’t last.

Once thing I did notice in qually was the unevenness of by brake balance.  Obviously front to rear balance is easily solvable by adjusting the bias…..but right to left?  I found going into the hairpin I was consistently locking one wheel and getting hardly any braking from the other front.  It was causing the car to be really unstable under heavy braking resulting in a lot of ‘Wobble’.

Got back to the paddock area and notice the smell of burning oil.  Whipped the bonnet off…….’OH *&~@!!’  The entire engine bay was coated in oil.  Thinking the worst i.e. I had blown the engine in a big way, the cause of the Exxon Valdez oil spill was down to the oil filler cap not being present.  

Not wanting to cause an issue over this, but it wasn’t me who checked the oil level.  That was down to Tris to which in my honest opinion I believe he didn’t screw the filler cap back in after topping up the level, but of course this is all denied.

After 4-5 kitchen rolls later the worst of the oil was mopped up.  I suggested checking the data logger to ensure we had done damage to the engine, but oil pressure was just maintained throughout qually.  I think if I did one more lap it would have been curtains that’s for sure.

‘Would car #21 RGB please report to the Clerk of the Course’. Hey?  That’s me…  What have I done wrong?  I nipped over to see them, explained who I was wondering what the issue was.   ‘Some of the marshalls radioed in and think you may have an oil leak.  We thought you should know’.  I burst out laughing….’yeah you are not kidding’.  Not knowing if the engine was okay at this point, I said it could possibly mean an early bath for us due to the issue.

Got back to the van, went through the data logger to find all was well.  Thank god!  Bring on the RACING!!

RACE #1

I really need to improve my starts.  FACT!  The Reds go out….and I stalled.  FFS!  Calmly restarted, but my clutch control had regressed to something like when I first started to learn to drive when I was 17.  Incredibly jerky!  I just couldn’t get it right.  Sod it….i thought.  Just floor it.  Promptly lit up the rear wheels and left the biggest number ‘11’ on the grid.  The car skewing sideways, bit of opposite lock and I was away.  At least it got some heat in the tyres. 

I caught the pack up going the ‘Esses’ and proceeded to start racing. 

Not many laps into the race I came through the hair pin to be confronted with what looked like a war zone.  Car debris everywhere.  30 yards later I clocked Dave Watsons MNR parked up with the right front hanging off.  Not one for rubber necking, I pushed on and lap by lap the circuit was slowly cleared of debris with the marshalls doing an excellent job keeping the race going.

This video shows what happened with photo below showing Dave driving over Austen Greenways Fury.  Doesn’t have much luck does Austen.  The incident does make a very good case to having a full roll cage….that is for sure.

I saw the race to the end doing my obligatory eyeballing of the rear view mirrors to check for the leaders lapping me.  Had a butt clenching experience going round Gerrads when Derek Jones and John Cutmore decided to simultaneously over take me sandwiching me effectively doing close to 105mph.  Luckily Class R cars have far superior grip so they got round no problem.  I just focussed on holding my line.

Race complete it was time to go through Post Race Scrutineering.  Up till this point in the season I never really paid a great deal of attention to the whole thing, until now.  Mallory weekend they decided to check weight limits and min ride heights.  The queue of cars started going through, but I was left a little baffled as to why some disappeared off to the left and some off to the right…slightly puzzled, so when I drove onto the weigh bridge, as they checked the car I ask…’why have some cars gone one way and others being held over there?’.  The reply I received was, ‘Turn left sir out of here please’.  ‘Why not turn right?’  Left if you  have been good, right if you have been naughty.  It would appear a large number of my fellow competitors have been….how can I put this…..CHEATING!!!  Ride heights is part of the rules and regs with a minimum ride height of 75mm imposed.  It would seem that rule by passed some people.

Not really worried all that much I didn’t hang about after given the all clear.  Toe down and away I went back to Paddock.

Race Result: Race #1

Started 21^st out of 24.

Finished 14^th  My best result to date!  We won’t mention all the disqualifications.

Best lap time: 52.15 secs…quicker than Qually

RACE #2

This was quite an entertaining 20 mins of my life.  No sarcasm intended.  Again a really poor start (must work on my starts).  But Race 2 worked out to be a game of 2 halves.  After 5-6 laps out comes the red flag.  Race Stopped.  ‘Oh no…I was just looking forward to the part when I get lapped…and its not going to happen….boo hoo’.  Putting my disappointment to one side I continued round to the starting grid where everyone had gathered waiting for restart.  What I found a little unfair however, I had actually made up a couple places on the initial out laps but I was duly shepherded to the back of the grid behind those I had over taken.  Not fair!  Guess rules are rules. 

I decided to hit the fan override switch on as I was eyeballing the latent heat billowing out the back of all the cars in front me.  Not wanting to tempt fate with any engine related dramas, I sat there patiently waiting for the restart.  MUST IMPROVE ON MY STARTS…..GOD DAMN IT!!

We were off.  Past Rew going into Gerrads then queued up behind Arthur and Ian Kempson whilst I watched on as they did battle.  There wasn’t a lot I could do about overtaking them as they had much quicker cars and I was scrabbling about trying to catch up in the corners.

Arthur, went for it on the exit of Gerrads and passed Ian without any drama then it was my go.  Lap by lap I had the new MK in my sights.  Reeling him in the corners but loosing out on the straights.  That MK is very wide!  Couple of times I poked the car down the inside at the hairpin but a damp track and Ian closing the door on me I just couldn’t get the manoeuvre to stick.  AB later said in the paddock….’I would have been tempted to trade some paintwork if I were you Ed’.  That was definitely one possible outcome, but what with it being my last race in the Fury with buyers lined up for the bodywork, chassis etc I really didn’t want to damage it.

I kept pushing and pushing.  The more I pushed the more the MK responded, but with almost disastrous consequences.  I couldn’t help but think at the time, under heavy braking the MK at the rear was all over the place.  Brake and the car lept out to the left.  Going through Gerrads the car snatched quite violently (you can see in the video if you watch closely) and almost had Ian off the circuit digging potatoes.  I was a little concerned I may end up collecting him on my way past if he had an incident.  This was case almost in Race 1 exiting the Hairpin into Devils Elbow where the MK just swapped ends, into the tyres then back across the track.  I was left with a 50/50 choice….left or right. Left or right?

Post race I went over to see Ian and congratulated him on being able to keep the car on the track.  He duly thanked me for providing a bit of exciting racing in the dying moments of the day.

Unfortunately for Arthur in his newly acquired Spire GTR, he wasn’t able to finish the race as he decided to place the car neatly in the tyre wall through the Esses.  Not had much luck as previously that day he had to have his exhaust weld up with the added help of a baked bean can to help resolve a rather noisy exhaust system.

All in all…..Bloody good fun!

Race 2 Video - post restart

Race Result:  Race #2

Started 21^st out of 24

Finished 12^th THIS IS MY BEST RESULT TO DATE.

Best Lap time :  52.38, marginally slower than race 1.

Now i have caught up on the posts....

....the next report will be post Mallory Park on the 14th Oct 2012.  It will be a sad day, as it will be the last couple of races of the season and it will be the last race in the Fury.

I have decided to moved to Class R within the same series (RGB) but go from front engine to rear engine.  There are many reasons for this decision, but ultimately it will mean faster racing!!

Here it is in the hands of the STIG!....err sorry i meant Steve ;-)









I decided to buy Steve Robinson's Genesis RR as he has decided to sell up and maybe do the odd arrive and drive from time to time.  The car itself has had a varied history, what with various engines over time, but last year saw the car under go a complete rebuild and saw the arrival of CBR1000RR power slotted in the back....oh yes! 

The bodywork has been modified somewhat to reduce frontal area and hence reduce drag etc and the best thing about it is....the weight that it is, will mean when i place my lardy arse in it, it will only just be over the minimum weight limit for the class.  Something i haven't had this year i.e. a good power to weight ratio and when every gram saving counts....its very important to achieve as high as you can get.

Once Mallory is out the way...i will embark on stripping more weight out the car (within the regs of course) and generally tinkering with it over the winter months, with odd the track day for good measure hopefully.

Watch this space!