Well, I finally picked up the race engine from Grace last night. Other than a bit less paint it looks great ;) So Saturday morning saw me down the workshop to put it in the car ready to do a bit of roadtesting. Slotting it in was the usual straightforward affair after all, we're used to it! The only new stuff to report was a shortening of the accelerator pedal by about half an inch (cheers bro) to stop it fouling the mounting bracket which had a plate added to stop the linkage actuation rod falling out and the replacement of the coil with a Lumenition version which was matched to the Lumenution ignitor in the dizzy. This was to try and cure the misfire which we had at Cadwell. A heavy return spring from a rear brake drum refurb kit was fitted to the throttle linkage. It's a bit too heavy really and gives you a false impression of where full throttle is but I'll get used to it. Twice on the roadtest, I thought I had it floored only to find another half inch or so of travel! Talk about a rev-limiter ;)
James from Grace turned up in the afternoon to check the CO and re-jet the carb. We went up a size on the mains and bigger on the air aswell as increasing the float bowl fuel level. Another brief roadtest showed no probems with fuelling that I could reproduce, still, I couldn't reproduce them in the paddock at Cadwell so only the race tomorrow will truly check things out. A bolt check showed the front suspension to be a bit sloppy so everything was tightened up and we were ready to race. See my race diary for details of how we got on.
Very little to report really as the car was fine after Mallory was cancelled. A new Lumenition coil went on to replace the damaged one (broken terminal), but that's about it. It was just a question of loading up the vans and making our way to Snetterton for the race. Find out how we got on in my race diary.
Well, damage assessment from Snetterton - if you don't know why go and read the race diary!! Broken rear wing, broken radiator cowl, bent wheel, split tyre, bent cycle wing stay, bent side chassis rail, bent steering rack, bent panhard rod, split fuel tank, missing fuel filler and god knows what else :(
Well, I had to go to Vienna on business for a week but the boys in the 'shop' were hard at work in my absense, especially my brother Stuart. The chassis rail was now straight and the ally panelling was as good as new. The fuel tank got welded up (a nightmare to get anyone to do this by the way) and the filler neck and cap replaced. Then Stu took it off to Procomp to have a full roll cage and side impact bar fitted as well as a complete geometry check. Not only is this a damn sensible thing to do, it's mandatory in 2002.