'gulf' Spitfire - Race Car (Rebuild) Project

[RealWorld]

Thanks for the confirmation Jimes - couldn't see why it wouldn't work but you never know.

Good news is that the blades I've removed were poor when blowing - but with the new blade the air flow is MUCH stronger - which will be handy on the starting grid waiting for the lights.

 

R

[RealWorld]

Think I've sorted the sticky valve issue too. Got bored waiting for the reamer, and closer analysis substantiated my theory that as the valve settled into the seat it moved in a particular direction. So I re-lapped, a little deeper, and also put a little fine paste on the stem and lapped that into the guide. Result? Feels good - nice and smooth in motion and no sticking. No additional lateral movement in the stem either.

 

So final clean and the valve gear is back together, and the head is back on and torqued down.

 

Progress...

[RealWorld]

More progress. Fuelling is coming together.

 

The twin Dell'orto 40DHLA-Es should be back from Mr Sideways tomorrow having been cleaned, lightly refurbed and rejetted.

This is the pair Frederick found for me in Europe (from an Alfa) - Thanks Fred.

 

I've also acquired a pair of TT manifolds (narrower at the carb head than the old set - they were for 45s) from Chris.

 

Linkage next. Thinking of a Mangoletsi - any experience out there..? See here:

http://www.dellorto....artsectionID=49

 

Final element is air filtration. I'm sensitive to this as the pair of Piper socks that were on the car definitely seemed to have influence on the cause and outcome of the fuel fire that put me here in the first place.

 

I'm seriously considering going with trumpet gauzes only - less of a combustible hazard...

 

R

Edited June 7, 2012 by RealWorld

[PeteClan]

 

Final element is air filtration. I'm sensitive to this as the pair of Piper socks that were on the care definitely seemed to have influence on the cause and outcome of the fuel fire that put me here in the first place.

 

I'm seriously considering going with trumpet gauzes only - less of a combustible hazard...

 

R

 

Waste of time leaving more chance of rubbish getting into the engine. Best to fit a decent filter. Lots of opinions about which is best. I've used a large ITG filter to provide for both carbs for years with no problems. Also use a cold air box with a KN cone filter on the inlet with no problems.

 

Filtration definately need on the racetrack in my opinion.

 

Pete Richards

[CHRIS211083]

Ram Pipes with Gauze are worse for flow than a bad filter. ITG filters sit away from the carbs and are fire resistant.

 

Chris.

[Andy]

Biggest filter your can fit, I use a pipercross "sausage" foam filter.

 

Are your front inner wheelarches still in place? narrowed? Mine are cut away for lots of filter space and allows cold air to be drawn from inboard of the front wheel. Saves the effort and a bit of weight from running a hose to the front.

 

If you go for any twin filter get a blank backing plate to cut your own holes so you can angle the filter down towards the front of the car giving yourself some bonnet clearance.

 

Any hope of you getting out racing this year?

 

Cheers

Andy

[RealWorld]

Hi Andy

 

Thanks for the advice. The current 'kevlar' bonnet has no inner wings, so no issues with space. I've yet to repair the fire damage to this though, and it's delaminated quite a lot around the carb (fire) area. I have a GRP GT6 bonnet in reserve in case the original is NG, so could cutaway inner arch material as required for the filters...

 

I'm thinking of a large sausage ITG type, customising a blank backplate.

 

I may get out back end of this year, but am taking it a step at a time rather than repeating last year's balls-up - working flat out to get the car ready, and then torching it at the series practise day...

 

Have you been out this year? Sorry for letting you down, I'll be there as and when I can!

 

Jango (of modified GT6 rear end fame) is also planning to go racing in a prepped TR7 in the CSCC series, so the scheme is to do dates together and ride shotgun/moral support for each other...

 

Cheers

 

Richard

 

PS - and thanks Pete and Chris for your input.

Edited June 8, 2012 by RealWorld

[GT]

The twin Dell'orto 40DHLA-Es ...

I've also acquired a pair of TT manifolds (narrower at the carb head than the old set - they were for 45s) from Chris.

---

A NOS copper composite came off the engine, put there by GT when he rebuilt this engine*.

 

My understanding is that copper is 'best' for race applications as it withstands heat and pressure better BUT tends not to seal as well as say, a Payen.

 

THE FACTS

Right, let's get a few facts straight, so that I can clean the shit out of my memories of doing your work, and never have to think about all the getting shafted stuff..

 

It's a nice idea to come clean.

I never appreciated doing 2 engines for the price of one, then get slandered for "lying".

 

No-one has ever accused me of lying, because it's not one of those things I do in life.

Be racist and say "Welsh" if you like but lying is WRONG as I was brought up to know that lying will always be found out.

Ask my mum if you like.

 

1/ Your Ken Riley race head was cracked and didn't work very well**.

I therefore had to get your ROAD head up from a normal spec "overnight" to a race car spec, principally because you couldn't afford a new one.

It was then decided we would pension this head off in your road car.

So now you know your road car has a cracked head, but hey I told you that.

 

I got paid F. all for doing that extra work, so as you could have your car worked on, tested and stored in a workshop with all facilities to hand.....ask if you like.

 

Why did I take it on?

Nothing to do with money.

It's cos I liked Kevin Ginger and knew his car would be top dollar.

ENTHUSIASM. You bet!

 

I had a chat with Paul (L) about it, and he told me all the things to look for including the f..ck d up clutch release which had been bodged, so I set about doing a job Kevin would have been happy with.

In the event it also needed a new CR gearbox, because Tony Dean has f..cked that up as well.

 

TLD couldn't harden an input shaft to save his life...so the splines were tearing off.

When I replaced the defective (brand new NOS) 4th syncro under warranty on my new one, you forgot it was also FOC.

It's been fine ever since.

 

Next it turns out the w..nkers who had balanced the crank, had made a complete crapper of it.....(explains my grimaces in the R road UTUBE videos, which you have since erased).

 

I could feel that something was badly wrong, as the vibration started about 6000rpm, then the engine felt rough all the way to 9000rpm,- which of course it was absolutely incapable of before.

Once we threw away the Aldon crap rev limiter (which didn't work), the car could start to be tuned properly on a cylinder head that actually worked, but took a good deal of extra time to develop to race car standard.

 

Lucky for you Mr Dingle had enabled me to make a brand new prototype exhaust which we tested on your car. (FOC again btw!).

In fact I never got paid one single penny for the 30-40hrs spent on testing and checking the various options on the rolling road....but of course that is normal for you!

 

2/ I didn't rebuild your engine. You didn't have the money to do that, so I tried to see how we could possibly make the extremely tired engine last a little longer, maybe 1 season with 2 emerging and major problems.....

 

Here they are:-

 

a) The engine immediately produced an extra 15ftlb more torque with my exhaust on.

Yes I was suprised.

I had never ever seen 125ftlb from a 1300, so had to test it several times to be sure something hadn't interfered with the data.

Paul told me his engine dumped it's (stanpart) conrods on Pete Baldwin's floor at 110ftlb...so you are living dangerously.

 

I have on record, Powell saying that exhaust is crap.

In fact it also generated an extra 10bhp, which is astonishing considering that what was on it, was already "a good one" from Maniflow.

 

The peak power with the previous cylinder head was measured at 138bhp by CES.

This was bollox, because that head could not possibly deliver more that 128 with the flow figures it had.

I based all the subsequent figures on the engine with that damn Aldon box misfire as being about 100bhp, which rose to about 125 once we had binned it..(so in reality I found you 45bhp!)

 

c) The old inlet manifold was a nice idea from Kevin. He had welded the 2 together, so that it would bolt up straight to the head without mucking about with alignment Qs. I messed about with it for quite a number of hrs to make it match the head really nice.

Again FOC....

 

Kevin had very thougtfully fitted 2 beautiful 45DCOE webers to that car from BOLOGNA, with decent size chokes.

The last good ones they did. PERFECT for the job, and the power output showed it as being SPOT ON.

Kevin knew his stuff, and he knew how to drive, which somehow I doubt you will ever emulate.

 

d) I ran the Payen "black" modern gasket on this engine for testing, and very soon realised they are utter crap at high CR and power levels over 100bhp/L. There was an issue with the amount of blow by being shown by the crap CP cast pistons in your engine, so that entered into the final calcs, of how we could possibly keep it alive for you an extra season.

 

e) The w..nkers that had fitted the clutch to your flywheel hadn't dowelled it.

It was merely being centred by the bolts,on top of this, the clutch release mech had been bodged so that the piston was mashed into the bottom of the cylinder.

This meant the thrusts of the crank were under maximum load ALL THE TIME....even 9000rpm!

My crank balancer, who I pushed to turn around the job in 24hrs, asked if the owner had a suicide note when he saw the flwyheel and clutch were UNBALANCEABLE without dowels, so I had it wizzed back ASAP to make some specially....(!)

 

The thrusts were so worn, (the crank had gone almost blue) , I was amazed they hadn't dropped.

 

Ignorance is bliss eh?

 

I managed to get the crank thrust side ground to remove the MASSIVE groove in the back of the crank and so I could fit oversize thrusts....all done in record time so that the BOTTOM end could be reassembled.

I believe from start to finish was about a week, inc plenty of late nights.

 

In the event the camshaft was fine but the followers were shot, so you got a set of my just made, EN40B nitrided steel ones put in there...for which again you paid practically cost price.

I tested them, on both the 264 cam in there and a 79 cam and they seemed to be pretty OK despite being ragged to 9000rpm immediately.

My concern? Are they any good?

 

Seems those are just fine so will go on my cams which have 0.510 lift next time, without any worries.

Are they lightened, got special stupid oil holes in, shorter....?

NOPE nothing like.

They are actually HEAVIER, so next time go and buy your lightened shit from Jigsaw.

 

I also had conrod and main bearings on the shelf in VP, so I threw out the mini cooper ones and fitted the proper ones, because the mini ones don't have the proper main bearing alignment holes from the oil gallery..

...again because the bearings in the engine had been hammered, by being plain wrongly set up, misfiring or with the thrusts slammed into the block permanently....

 

f) The engine was reassembled using all ORIGINAL bits (eg gaskets), and it needed a brand new AP paddle clutch**.The alloy bellhousing had a whopping crack in it thanks to some previous shunt. I replaced it with a perfect one from stock and pensioned off the repaired-tig welded one later to someone else.

 

These bits all cost a lot of money, but there, there was no money for that** either, so the clutch had to be retained, despite being at end of life.

The caterham sponge filled crap sump was junked, an one of my "antisurge" ones fitted, (again for which I received F all, see seperate thread).

 

3) Now we to come to the detuning bit.

Most people it seems have an absolute burning passion to DETUNE this car.

They ALL succeeded except me.

 

I managed to squeeze an extra 20bhp out of the damn thing, over and above what the old Riley head could manage theorectically,- despite the fact most people would say every 10bhp gain at the top end level usually costs about 5 grand PER ENGINE (check if you like,- that's what it costs).

 

What did you ACTUALLY pay me?

About 5 in total for TWO engines and all the time inc the heads, the new box and the whole shebang.

 

My passion extended merely to fitting a genuine (TC type) original coopers - copper-asbestos-steel composite gasket.

They were made for coopers-payen for stanpart (ie Triumph) and I have very few left.

 

Why?

Because they are THE BUSINESS, and on top of that, can be reused, if a quick head off job is needed in the paddock.

(eg.a broken isky valve spring, which we had a rash of a few years back).

 

I have a few of these left, and it meant I could REDUCE the CR of this engine (as it's 0.5mm thicker) by what I considered JUST ENOUGH to make it last a season.....after all there are VERY FEW 1300 spitfire engines, least of all with original "suicide" conrods running around with that lorry like torque and nearly 150bhp.

 

I can't comment on the fire (I haven't been blamed for that yet).

I haven't YET been blamed for an engine blow up on this one, but I have no doubt I eventually will.

 

Finally:-

I read the collective passion to make this car SLOWER, now extends to fitting shit brakes too.....

(Paul and Kevin found out BY FAR AND AWAY the best brakes were the 16P calipers from the GT6, so why not ASK him?)

 

Then someone has the bright idea to fit 40DHLA Dellortos..which again will drop the power and torque.....

(Paul found the 45DCOE was the PERFECT carb for the Spitfire race engine, so why not ask him?)

 

Then suddenly someone has to fit an inlet manifold from toilet tune.....hey presto it's smaller eh?

That just HAS to be right!

 

FFS?

When will people learn?

 

Do me a favour out of all that.

Kindly stop mentioning my name,and the next time you accuse me of being a liar in public, I'll stick your ass in court so fast you won't even say "bonjour" in the time!

Understand?

 

I broke all the rules?

 

No you did. You even do the absolutely unforgiveable, - removing 20bhp from a nice engine and bring the curve back down from 126ftlb to what it was before.

 

The other side of Offa's dike is full of really wild men with their own incomprehensible poetic language not lots of liars. They're not known for being especially warlike, but they get completely mad, when they get misrepresented or persecuted by the old enemy.

 

[Nick Jones]

I nearly just deleted that last post because of the sheer ill will at the beginning. Dunno where all this talk of liars comes from but I don't see any earlier in this thread and I'm damned if I'm trawling through ancient history which everyone else has forgotten.....

 

Technical content means that it lives for now..........

 

Gareth, this is not the place for your business beefs. If you do extra work without agreeing terms / setting limits & prices before hand then you are setting yourself up for disappointment. That's the way it is in business. I don't want to read about it years after the event or at any other time. It's between you and your client. Judging by the PMs I'm getting from others, I'm not the only one with this view.

 

Nick

[GT]

Dunno where all this talk of liars comes from .....**

 

If you do extra work without agreeing terms / setting limits & prices.......

 

Nothing to do with business, nothing to do with bills,

 

(Although getting SHAFTED all the way, is unethical, when there was so much enthusiasm & lots of generosity on a job.)

 

Heck I would like to DRIVE a car that goes like that!

Have you ever seen how quick Kevin Ginger used to go, with 20bhp less, and a real possibility today of getting genuine 160bhp in there now?

That could be a blindingly fast circuit car even today, in the right hands.

 

You don't do loads of work FOC,- or for next to nothing to save some "poor blokes" engine for him, "cos he can't afford a new one", then find you're getting a hot poker rammed up your ass......just for fun.

 

I am not alone in this bad feeling about Mr "Real W" btw.

A guy doesn't tell lies, told me the same,- "thinks only of himself" and "pxxxx", comes to mind.

 

Then there was Martin at the rolling road who was disgusted, - watches me work one full day then all night on a car, then all I got was a rail ticket out of it FFS!

(how many of you can do 30hr stints at 45+, then get offered a bus ticket or a rail ticket?).

You know respect is a 2 way thing, & I'm not good at tolerating insults of that size.

 

I'll put it to you,- Have you ever been referred to in these terms?....

on the lines of :-eg.

"nutcase Nick Jones" or "turd polisher" Nick...

Would you tolerate it?

 

This is the rough gist of what I read:-

 

"I'm learning constantly & telling everyone just how total SHIT GT's work is/was/will be crap....", or, how "Maynard act under my supervision"....

 

(no they're totally capable of f..ckg up people's stuff,or charging for things they didn't do, WITHOUT my supervision thanks...want some examples?).....

 

"... usual curtain calls of any dealings with the **lying Welsh one"...."the depth or insanity of the small welsh one's paranoia"... etc etc etc.

 

Then you have the amalgam of everything+dishonest machining companies, = I manage project crap/bad businesman, and hey presto now I'm reading I "REBUILT" an engine which I didn't rebuild.

WTF is this?

 

"p...ssed off" is an understatement, cos now I'll get blamed for it going wrong!

 

TBH I REALLY do think an apology is in order.

It's not from me, but I don't think you can get the leopard to change its spots.

[DaveNotSoSideways]

Watch people who appeal to your overly kind nature Nick, you are a nice bloke, all this moderation will cut you in half emotionally. I ignored all PMs requesting me to act on peoples ideals, they come thick and fast, begging almost at times, sad if you ask me, that's why I never replied to one of them, ever seen me ask for an admin to assist? I ignore those requests on principle - mainly cause those who PM constantly for moderation needs need to grow a pair, man up and deal with it.

 

That's why noone ever PMs me for moderator requests. They will LOVE pushing you around Nick, pulling on your heart-stings, careful for this is no valentino and you are not female, they are wasting your time, they don't PM me cause they know it's a waste of time, they will LOVE you Nick. Don't feel pressured to do anything. I'd ignore this issue completely. Let it run it's course. After a while their pressure via PMs will cause you to act, naturally, it'll get annoying and so you will act to stop the flow of messages and time consumption, rather than ignoring the problem; the PMs asking for those who cannot be dealt with to be sent to the gas chambers - you will ban GT.

 

That's why I ignored all moderator requests and get none as a result. They see you for what you are Nick, too bloody nice. Cut the strings before they have you as a puppet. Just a warning.

 

The scales are swinging, sadly my mass is the higgs boson and controls the scales publically.

 

At the end of the day you should just let them have it out. It's none of our business. Richard has fine limits to his personality in this format. As such Richard will always revert to pressure via the PM system, forming and supporting pressure from behind closed doors; so to keep his image clean, politician and as such will use any opportunity to create sides/pressure or wiggle into your head. GT doesn't give a damn about his image as he has no vanity, Richard just isn't able to deal with GT publically as his image won't let him go down to what he perceives as GT's "level". Hense it always goes silent and Richard goes to the PM system.

 

I want to see the whole story laid out end to end so I can see both sides.

 

I've done my best the last few weeks to start cracking this egg. Moons gonna be a strong one so I'd expect plenty of action next two weeks.

 

I'm looking to shell everyone, cause you all have weaknesses and that's why we are still here.

 

Mattius, Wolfrace are silenced for time being, we really only have Richard now, once he shuts up with his little comments then I can stop the rebalancing acts and so GT can be quiet to move on and we can learn a lesson and so all move along.

 

GT offers more to this forum than Richard or Mattius in terms of what it is here for. I'd rather he stayed and they got lost.

 

If that list covers even some of the work done, well sounds like you got a deal at half the price honestly. You can go to Jigsaw/MASS engines next time and do £8-10K with your credit card, 60% of that goes into someones wallet, you don't even get experience for that money, let alone any product/time or HP. You might even manage to do £22K like one guy, spent another £3000 getting it all put together right, even then it was a POS!

 

Want the job done right? Learn the skills and do it yourself! I never asked a soul for anything. Dealing with suppliers was bad enough let alone having work done for me.

[Gerard]

I'm looking to shell everyone, cause you all have weaknesses and that's why we are still here.

 

Nah, the Shell station is too far away, I'll stick to Total thanks