Brake enhancements.

Another big weekend on the car up at Lynchbuilt Performance - involved two early mornings, some cutting, welding, and more of the good stuff.

We started out by grinding the paint off the front panel, and welding a couple of tags on in crucial spots. Then, while tony heated it with a gas torch, i leaned on it with a bar and chain, and we pulled most of the front of the car back into place. With a few test fits of the radiator and bonnet, the front is pretty close to original.

We then cut away all the support for the new bonnet, making it approx half its original weight.

Who needs rigidity in a race car ? its only a cover to stop animals and small children from falling in right ?

After the front was about 90% finished (in need of some finishing bog) we started on brakes ..

fitting in a fully reco'd stainless sleeved Vauxhall Firenza master cylinder, brand new bundy tube, and a wilwood bias valve instead of the factory fiat item.

I also threw the old radiator cooling fan in the bin, and fitted an aftermarket one which is about half the depth to get more space in the engine bay to fit my new electric waterpump.

Theres still a bit more to do to finish it off - will post more pics when its done.

Engine runs !

A busy weekend last weekend was very eventful.

Over the last week i have acheived the following:

1) done a final assemble on the engine

2) degree'd the cam in

3) put the engine and gearbox in the car

4) fired the new engine up for the first time

5) been to the dyno and run it in under loading

6) done several power runs and changed timing and jetting

7) changed the master cylinder

8) done all preliminary checks ready for racing.

The car pulled 160bhp at the flywheel, and 155Nm of torque from 3500RPM through to redline on an absolutely flat torque curve.

We are now ready to run the new engine at the track and see how she goes. With a touch more compression, and the same spec carb's / cam / pistons / stroke etc etc it should all be very similar. I am really looking forward to driving it.

Heres a few new pics !

Oh and in the video - yes thats RUST coming out of the exhaust.

It had been sitting for 4 months after only ever being run on Avgas.

Getting Closer

Hey everyone,

Knuckled down and got most of the block assembled for my 128, then popped one piston into number 1 cylinder to get ready for a valve to piston / piston to head clearance check, and found that number 1 conrod has quite a big twist in it.

I've now got another steel conrod away being shot peened after i had it balanced.

All valves are now swirl polished, the sump has been cold tanked and completely cleaned, and i now have a piston back in number one cylinder to do the crucial checks before assembly.

Will keep you posted.

New Motor Almost Done

Hey guys, sorry about the late update on the car .. i've managed to get a nasty round of Sinusitis and been pretty slack.

However, i have been busy preparing my new block for next season (which is only a month away, so i better haul ass).

The new block is decked, honed, bored, final cleaned, and ready for assembly.

The cylinder head has been welded, skidded, had new seats put in, had a full new set of valves sized, and is ready for the valve heights to be set.

Ill keep you posted as it all goes together, but heres a few photos of the new engine being prepared.

Success at last !! (then failure - oops)

Well .. two meetings have passed, on the 15th/16th of March, then the 30th of March. It appears as though we may have solved the tripode/gearbox issue by drilling a couple of holes and milling a few slots in the gearbox case to get oil around the LSD diff to the other side.

The Car ran perfectly on the 15th/16th, competing in 3 races, the first being a scratch race, starting 9th on the grid, finishing 5th, then in the handicap races, starting 9th in both, and finishing 2nd, then 3rd respectively.

I also set a new personal best lap time in that car of 1.17 around pukekohe - which we haven't gotten managed to get to for about 4 years.

On the 30th, we got to the track after a bit of a nightmare - on the 29th she blew a head gasket between numbers 1 and 2 cylinders at 5pm in the afternoon, and after sourcing a head gasket, and getting it sorted, strapped it back together to fire it into life at 12.30am.

The car ran like a charm - lapping pukekohe in 1.16's ! it felt fantastic, driving it alot harder than previously. Finally i put in a new personal best of 1.16.49 - of which i could see another half a second that i could be faster.

Unfortunately in the 2nd race, i gave the car an over-rev when i missed 3rd gear, which didnt seem to do any harm, but was later revealed that all the exhaust valves had touched the pistons.

The car went on to finish that race in good time (3rd in the first scratch race, and 5th in that handicap race) - then on the next race out, was climbing through the pack, only to have the head of an exhaust valve drop off at 8200RPM in top gear at 210KPH.

Needless to say, that was the end of my race day, and am now trying to source a set of stainless valves, a new piston, and need to do a bit of repair work on the cylinder head.

Well on the way though ! The car is now running in the top 3 cars in AES/Tradezone, with hopes of maybe a few first placings next season.

Break it and improve it ..

Its been a while since i last posted, so time to update this thing.

The stackup between the X19 5 speed gearbox and the 4 speed 128 box is somewhat different - when you bolt the casings together, the gears jam up and dont move. I have since found out that i need a Fiat Ritmo 5 speed gearbox to make the conversion work.

SO as a result, i ran through my 4 speed gearbox parts, of which the input and cluster shafts were in good condition, and so were all the gears and synchros, so i bolted that back into the 4 speed casing, with my new LSD, and all new bearings.

Last meeting out i discovered another breakage - which i believe has been contributing to my unbearable high speed vibration at race pace.

I dropped off the inner CV Boot and had a look to the inside of the diff, and discovered that my tripode joints were now sqaures.

The Tripode's had given us issues in the past with needle rollers not being able to hack the pace, and either tearing out of the bearing caps, or crushing, and turning to smush inside the gearbox, so we had rebushed the tripode's with aluminium bronze bushes.

The problem we have discovered is that by pressing the bushes into the caps, and making them too large, the cap cannot move about 4 - 5mm in and out on the pin of the tripode, it is stationary, which means when the driveshaft moves on an angle under cornering, its dragging the cap instead of allowing it to turn.

Tony from Lynchbuilt Performance Products (http://www.lynchbuilt.co.nz/) has since rebushed them for me with bushes that press onto the caps and allow the caps to walk sideways as well as turn freely.
Im out at the track this weekend after yet another gearbox rebuild to see if the new style tripode's do the business.

Fingers crossed ..

Also, my friend Chris took a quick video in-car as we did a few brief laps at pukekohe while testing out the new diff - this can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ8BxEJSPmo Its just a few laps at low speed, just starting to get some pace on in about the last 15 seconds of video.

Waiting Waiting Waiting

Not alot has really happened in the last few weeks - my Fiat 128 4 Speed diff has been sent to Phil Buggee in Australia to be turned into a clutch type LSD, and should be ready by the end of the week. I have been down the line and met up with a guy called Darren who is restoring a Fiat X19, and done a bit of a parts swap, him ending up with a 1300cc long motor (ported head, hot cam etc), and us ending up with a couple of spare 1500's, a spare 4 speed, and a 5 speed gearbox.

The 5 speed has been stripped - and is in decidedly average condition inside, but nothing a bead blaster shouldnt tidy up. I also have my 4 speed stripped from the incident at pukekohe where it had a bit of a "moment" - but the internals all look good.

Im going to start building the 5 speed as soon as i see my diff back in the country. Will keep everyone posted.