Qestion and Latest Update on my car

[Berw]

Question1
I wanted to put a picture here, Rob how can I post a pic?
Question 2
Ok weighed the Phoenix Friday, 698 KG, all oil and water but not petrol, car is race only, spec is, it has a full cage, with side impact bars, ( the proper light tubing) a Nissan SR20DET turbo, (264bhp at the wheel) 5 speed, race clutch, Atlas back axil with LSD, 17x8 wheels with full slicks, single (very thin and minimum padding) seat, fiber glass rigged cover on passenger side, digi dash, no other instruments, no head lights, just H3 spots in the front body, wheel arches extend front and rear to cover the wheels, so body shell is heavier than standard. Plumed in fire system, anti roll bar (Rob’s), extra (removable bracing across the bottom of the Chassi at the rear bushes for the front wishbone) intercooler, big oil catch tanks, it has 4 pot brembo on the front, and two pot on the rear, 3 liter surgetank, twin fuel pumps, aero screen all steel hoses, all water hoses silicon, big vented disks at the front, huge Ali rad, as it runs in 32C ambient air temp.
I was a bit disappointed with the weight, but I can’t see anything that can come off, planning to have a day or two cut in off all the surplus on any bolts, but that can’t be more than a couple of Kilo, so what do people think, am I being too optimistic expecting less than this?
It still has Escort front up rights but these and the heavy rear axil and LSD take the power and brake loads no problem, and I’m reticent to save weight on these and get reliability problems.
I know that there was a light weight Phoenix body, does anyone know how much weight this saves? What would I save if I went carbon fiber? Now I’ve sorted out all the clearance problem for the engine and wheels and sorted out the brake and engine cooling, I am planning to get a body mold made up and put aide in case it goes into the wall, so a light weight body may not be to costly if significant.
Racing,
As Rob knows I lost last year due to needing by pass surgery, so back into racing this year, car had a first in class first time out two weeks ago, which was the first time the new engine had been used in anger, but then DNF’d in race two due to fuel pump problems, this weekend all the problems traced to a battery cut out that was loosing contact due to the vibrations when I took curb, so new cut out and the car is up and running.
Picture attached of the car in action yesterday at Sepang, the MGB is a 4.6 Rover V8 500 plus Bhp and under 100Kg and both it and the Phoenix were lapping Sepang in 2m 33s and within ½ a tenth of each other, which is an Average speed 81 Mph, Speed through the speed trap 130mph, actually overtook the TVR 5000 in the picture here, first in class, http://www.classicworldracing.co.uk/team.html (the Corvette in the picture is not so nice today it went into the wall at turn 4 on Saturday and the front is 4inches to far to the right now) and only beaten by a 427 Mustang. Now the Sepang straights are two huge engine eaters not really suited to the JP concept of small agile cars (hence the turbo), but I think only being beaten by American V8 is not bad.

[stylussprinter]

Wow Kelvin , what a spec .I think you'll have great difficulty in lowering weight for greater power to weight ratio but any weight saved at the front end , particularly rotary weight , will give big rewards on corner entry/exit speed -- disproportionately so
Attaching photos , well if you have posted a message on here , before you click submit , schroll down to an area that says attach files ---- then click browse which should take you to your computor's my pictures file --- then click a photo to attach . This then goes back to your clubstylus page you were posting asking you to attach file after a few minutes sorting it's brain out ---- then click submit and your posting plus pic will be on the forum , job done

Going back to your car --- due to the new engine/gearbox plus turbo plus big radiator/water etc etc , it will be difficult but ally uprights/hubs will help a little , you can't change to solid disc's as I have due to the number of laps , and that rotary weight difference is large . You could look at making up totally adjustable wishbones to optimise the camber/castor by checking the inner/centre/outer tyre temp's after a race or even better testing getting it even across the surface with my ARB will give you ' time '

[Antnicuk]

glad to hear you are back to racing

i just spent an hour typing a response but when i posted it it didnt appear for some reason. Possibly because Rob posted at exactly the same time. So here is a summary

I have a similar spec car to you but mine is road going so i have doors, windows, roof, windscreen, wipers, washers, two seats harnesses, water injection, charge cooler, 45 litre fuel tank, full size battery etc. I also have a large oil cooler, front and rear ARB's, very big and heavy stainless exhaust silencer and longer than normal exhaust. I corner weighted mine a couple of weeks ago with a full fuel tank all fluids and it came out at 790kgs. Although i would like it to be lighter, every thing on the car is made for strength and reliability.

I also have an atlas which i removed the other day and it reminded me how heavy it is, it can be made lighter with light weight tubes, carbon shafts and prop.

Other things that can be done is lightweight stainless turbo manifold instead of the stock cast one. Titanium exhausts are extremely light and can save weight.

Turbo setups are heavy and your block is cast iron IIRC, but it sounds like you need the torque a turbo set up provides and the weight wont cause you much of a disadvantage on the straights, does it in the bends?

My cousin has a tiger avon with an RX8 engine. It puts out 250 bhp but being N/A its torque is very low and it feels gutless at higher speeds compared to mine.

Have you considered changing your wheels to smaller ones?

if you have trouble with the pics, email them to me and i will post them up, it would be good to see some of it in action.

[Berw]

OK problem is the pic I want to upload is a pdf and can't do. so need to wait until I am home to get some photo's.

Can't go smaller brakes, just spent a fortune on new wheels to go bigger, the old brakes were going after 2 laps, so I think I have two or three options, lightr body panels, light weight front uprights, and lighten the back axil, I already have light weight manifolds

The axil route sounds expensive, the body panels will be a 'over the winter job' but I think I'll get someone looking at the upright.

Car out handles anything and wins its class easy now, so no point in spending mega money until it looks like some one is catching me up, but good to know what the options are so I can move quickly, my Mechanic just wants to bolt on a big turbo. The advatage I have with the SR20 is there are loads about, so if I over cook the turbo I just buy a second hand engine.

What happens in Asia is that Japanese cars get scrpped or Written off, chopped in half and exported, as 1/2 cuts, so you cna get low milage engines for not much money. To give you and idea, on Jap car part cost, there was a guy on piston heads wanted a Dihatsu turbo 1500 pound in the UK, I bought a brand new turbo here for him, 140 pound, (he was lucky he was from my home town and I had relative cisting, so he didn't pay postage or duty).

Currently on to a new project you may e interested in, I have a 1985 635 CSI, with all the M extras, seats suspension etc but not the twin cam s88 engine, it is the only one in the country and has been totally restored, the weekend I bought a B7 Turbo Alpina engine for it, so thats the new Project, can't change the engine block for tax reasons, but all the internals and the turbo are going in, or at least they will when the car comes from the body shop.

The wife has a 944 with 25K miles on the clock, mint, one of the fans stuck and it blew a head gasket, so while it was in the shop she borrowed the 6'r, manage to reverse it into the flag poll at the daughters school, no big damage but only a year after a bare metal rebuild I was not happy.

[stylussprinter]

H'mm , me thinks you need to make the driver's seat non adjustable to save body damage Sounds like your fun is cheaper than ours

[Antnicuk]

there is a discussion on locostbuilders forum now about car weights and the fact tha many people and manufacturers talk a lot sh1te about weights, and i agree, i think they do, in the kit car world its the equivalent of bhp.

There is a guy with a Motor bike Yamaha R1 powered lotus 7 style (MNR) car and it weighs 540kg and he is disappointed.

[Berw]

Ok I've worked out how to use the phone camers at last so a few photos, this is Sepang a few weeks ago, car colour is because it did have an Esprit S4 engine and was registered in Uk as a Lotus Sunbeam, which is how it got to Malaysia a kit/Sylva would not get in as the car needs an ' approval' and is checked against a list of approved cars, just the vin plate.
Also picture of my daughter and her Locost, 15 and just done her first race. 1300 cross flow, twin webbers.
Sylva laps Sepang in 2.31, (and tyres where gone) aiming for sub 2.30 at next race in September, dyno is 296bhp at the wheel and 698kg. So 500bhp/t.
So far this year of 6 starts it has won 4 races and DNF in two when 16 to 20 sec ahead, 6 more races to go and bottom 4 results drop out so on course to win the championship.

[stylussprinter]

I think your car looks absolutely awesome Kelvin , has it been resprayed ? The finish is great and that power at the wheels on slicks must give you one he'll of a buzz

One thing that could be useful to you though ---- I don't fit the ARB to Phoenix's in the same manner now . Having seen two chassis here at my home now , it's obvious that a stronger solution doing away with my lower shock brackets alltogether is to mount the poly clamps directly on the chassis tubes that run longitudally , on the outside of each lower shock mount . This means the' bar ' itself is supported very near to the lever arms . It also makes it possible to mount the ARB closer to the shocks which allows more space in front of the engine for links/levers

[Berw]

Hi Rob, the front ARB mounting has been heavely modified by my race mechanic, who is actually a chassie man by training, and is working well, he is currently working on a rear ARB.
There as some good pictures of the car here, http://gallery.me.com/udokraus#100432&v ... ack&sel=77

The only thing beating me at the moment are the two TVR 5000's, but as they cost over 300,000 pound each to build I can live with that.

Car was built in 2002 and has had 3 complet resprays, as they are fairly cheap here.

[MattD]

Kelvin - awesome looking beastie - particularly liking these
She's shrunk in the wash, looking at those rims

[stylussprinter]

Very nice indeed

[Berw]

The other week I had the Turbo let go, so we decided to upgrade to a bigger turbo, just had the result back (telephone call to the office) from the rolling road, 340BHP at the rear wheel, (was 296 with the smaller turbo), in addition we uprated all the springs, and fiited a ARB to the rear axil, so next race is 16th September looking forward to it now. we didn't go to lage on the turbo as wedid not want to introduce serious lag.

Don't know what the new springs are, my race mechanic is atrained chassie man so just give him his head, and he had the springs mde to his spec, as I've said before cost over here are much lower than the UK.

[stylussprinter]

Maybe your chassis man has softened the spring rates for more grip then added the ARB at the rear to prevent transitional weight transfer which would increase with softer spring rates ---- I'd like to know his ' thinking ' regarding the changes

[Antnicuk]

very nice, i would interested to know what your new spring rates are,. Thats good power. I have fitted a rear ARB although i was advised against it................. i like it though

[Berw]

http://www.youtube.com/user/matthewsmit ... pPcwaNO8aA

You may be interested in this, my Phoenix at Sepang last weekend. Having finished 3rd behind the two 5000M TVR in the first race I had run out of soft slicks so I put on a set of mediums I had been given which had done 10 laps, as you will see they were usless I was 8 secs a lap of the pace of race one and dropped back into the BMW and the Capri, car was understeering like fun and again as you can see I could not get the power down out of the bends, or even off the start line, but you can get an idea of what 400hp in a Phoenix can do to the speed.
You will note tha I disapear at the end of the vidio, went off on the inside at turn one, came back and went off again but so did the civic and the BMW so managed a class win, so i still lead the championship.
The civic has a 2 liter vitec, and as you can see the BMW is superbly set up, the Capri you can read about on classicworldracing.com. (and the TVrs) and the guy driving it has win the Asian GT3 championship.
The rear ARB does makethe car better and I liked it but it can not make up for the crap tyres, just ordered new soft slicks for the next race.