Hi Graham

A couple of years ago I was luckly enough one sunmmers evening to watch Martin Sargeant flying Spitfire PL983 at Goudhurst. Stood at the end of the runway and watched him buzz the airstrip for 30 minutes. When he came into land I was so close you could see the flames on overrun and smell thing. Tragically he was killed the next day at Rouen air display. Great shame, one of my fondest memories.

 

Sheer Magic!
Drilled the prop yet?

Graham.

 

Not yet, a bit nervous about getting it wrong and having the thing shake it's self to bits!!

Is it possible to release the prop cv joint at the diff end?

Tweenrob have you done this?

 

I think the 'X' joint is crimped into position nowadays?
A pro prop shop can do all you need, just give them the prop and the diff flange.

Rally cars use 2 bolts and 2 dowls on the prop nowadays.....

I would have thought David would do a swop for you?

Graham.

 

Right

Spent another day working on the car .

Managed to get enough height to get my 3 foot breaker bar onto the diff nut. Well after much sweating it popped off and tried to use my puller, but puller is now f*cked. So the drive flange is still in place and need to think of an alternative plan.

At this point switched my attention to the G-box
Swapped over the speedo cable etc, took the starter motor and modified it, only really need a small amount of metal taking off

Jacked the car up even more and used the engine hoist to lift the car over the gearbox Then lowered the car and raised the gearbox end with the engine hoist. Had to remove the clutch cylinder as it was catching the bulkhead

 

So with the gearbox in place the easy task of tightening the gearbox subframe bolts! But as usual managed to **** this up, and one of the bolt holes is now damaged and I'm going to need to try and tap the start of the thread.
Anyway making progress (slow) and pleased the gearbox is in. I will continue next week with the start of the engine build!!! that's got to simple

PS no nasty accidents today

Mark

 

God, that box is a size...
I was told they filled the tunnel, but what a tight fit.
Strange about the diff flange, after the bloody nut (2ft breaker bar etc) the flange slid off!
You are having to work hard for your gains Mark.

Saw Rob over the hill climb on Sunday, regrets selling that RA. Has a Harley now!

The engine will be easy?

Yeh, right

Graham.

 

Right things have moved along but a bit slowly.

Salvaged the thread on the gearbox support.
Gearbox fitted.
Prop going to be modified tomorrow.

Spent the day building up the short engine, fitting the various pumps etc.


What i have noticed and need some advice about this. The inlet valves catches the piston crown (the engineers blue is visible)

I need an extra 1.2mm by the valve cut out in the piston crown.




Do I remove the pistons and have a 1.5mm cut machined into them or using a burr adjust the current cutout by 1.5mm? (I think I know the answer as the engine is balanced)

Which is the quickest way to remove the pistons?

Mark

 

Mark:
You must be the ONLY one actually doing anything; the rest of us are fooling about havin' fun.
How about using a thicker head gasket?

Graham.

 

I had thought of this, but I've measured it with feeler gauges and its 1.8mm in total without a headgasket. I could take a fraction off the valve edges also. I'm using a cometic gasket which I think compresses to .8mm

I was keen for slightly more clearance just in case.

Graham - Barn got buzzed by two mustangs in close formation, what a noise, it's a wonder I get any work done.

Mark

 

this is Pavlo on p20's computer...

how have you set up the cam timing? You will need to put the cambelt on and turn the engine over to assess the piston to valve clearance. Unless you have skimmed the hell out of the heads the valves should be well clear of the pistons with the valves closed.

 

TWO Mustangs.....

Concentrate!
Nobody has commented on the clearance of the valves ina 2.5 build-up iirc?
Having seen the mighty runs at SSO yesterday you will have a killer car Mark at the end of all this.
P20 was killer to name one.
Did you race too Paul (Pavlo)?

Please don't come and compete 'up north' Mark, it will blow my doors off.

Graham

 

No I had not set up the cam timing. Looks like I might have learnt another valuable lesson. Thanks Paul.
This week I should get time to set the heads up and time them up, I will need to be very careful and check clearance again.

Mark

 

Graham, it's pavlo again, i think you're getting your Mark A confused with your Mark Aigin!

 

Steven I think Graham is referring to my previous sprinting season. This project started out with the hope of only missing the first couple of races!

I would like to try Harewood, so you never know!

Mark A

 

When I do mine, i'll be putting a 'skin' of plastacine (sp) over the valve cutout in the piston, dry fitting it all, and timing everything up, turning it over by hand and seeing if I get any marks in the plastacine....

Time will tell....

 

Paul, Mark 'The hill climber' is right. His 2.5/6speeder etc car will be very good on the hills.
As to the SSO, your car was Mark Aigins/Ex Trout's old car?
There seemed to me to be 4 very quick Imprezas there, 'Irelands', P20, Paul, Forrest, very closely followed by Harvey and others.
Difficult to follow who is with what car!
Dyney was there but looked very busy, so I kept out of the way.
Just wanted to blame him in person for starting all the tuning thing I've been through...

Hope to be amongst you all next year

Graham.

 

Mark (hill climer!) Harewood is an absolute MUST for this/next year, just a fantastic track.
Will buy you a coffee if you blow me into the weeds

Graham.

 

Right just picked the prop up. Helped the chap "precision" machine the holes, my god the 6sp prop weighs a bit, especially when trying to hold it up in the air so he could bench drill it.
Just need to order the various small gaskets and then attempt the build, time up the cams and hope everything works as it should.

Mark

PS Graham, if was to be quicker I'd expect more than coffee

 

I'm a poor poverished old boy racer with a 2 liter and a dicky 5 speeder, not one of the new breed wizzos with an oversized drivetrain.( )

You are lucky, Carman STILL owes me for a win at Prescott in a better time than him (on the slicks you bought). That was a full cup of coffee to.
David at API deals in Cups of coffee, so that's the going rate.

Keep at it!

Graham.

 

Graham,

In case you didn't notice, I was in the final on sunday, and came away with fastest subaru time of the day (but after qualifying) of 10.63@135mph.

puzzle pieces firmly in place now I hope!

Paul

 

Oh jesus, this gets complicated

Dee Ireland - White scoob with bnnet tilted at the back, and different rear wheels to front.
Andy Forrest - Blue type R with black boot and no rear spoiler.
Paul Blamire - White type RA V3 with black wheels (in the final)
Mark Aigin/Steven Darley (me) - Cool Grey STI 5 (in the final)

I was driving Marks car (ex Trout) for a couple of the 1/4 mile runs, and the finals.

Paul has used my computer to post a couple of posts above, which adds a little confusion.

Graham, for reference, dee ireland got a 1.60 60ft time (best of the day), which would suggest a >1g force, if your 2s 64ft measurement is right.

Steven

 

Graham, i am puzzled as to how you think Harvey closely followed us, the official results would suggest his car was some 2.5-3 seconds behind the top 4. You sure your not confusing it with Davids car (black bonnet, and ugly looking front end)

 

From the last 2 posts above, it's not surprising I'm confused...
Remember I only know most of you via the Snet.

The front runners were very impressive for many reasons, especially the home brewed nature of the car rather than mega bucks.
My point about the 'Harvey' type cars is much the same as the above, they are robust enough to start hard time and again and run cleanly, albeit slower I accept.

For those of us (ie me) very new to 400+bhp Impreza's, the effort and engineering of all the 'top-end' runners leaves me respecting all of you, especially the bespoke engineering I saw there.

Thanks for the info.

Graham.

 

Out of interest what's the ball park BHP figure for the top runners?

Mark A, A for Atkinson , using my own computer in the privacy of my own home

 

Said elsewhere i think Mark, 500-600bhp for Andys, Pauls, Davids, and Marks cars.

Graham there were a lot of cars with far less recorded power, doing harder starts, than some of the 400bhp cars. Chrome is a good example, probably somewhere around 340bhp, but 12.66s quarter! Which is good in my book.

 

More power does not always equal better times.
On the hill climb side, my 64 feet times went tp pot when i fitted sticky tyres!
For the first 3 races this year with the '407' engine, the starts went even worse....

Ok now, but very hard to balance the grip/power.

Remembering that you leave the start line when you are ready not on the light change as in drag racing, makes the hard chargers on Sunday more credible.

Why do the drag racers time 60 feet and not 64 feet?

Not sure if this has done your thread much good Mark, so sorry

Must enter next year and see if I can get into the 12's.

Graham.

 

at elvington you can leave when you like, which I do.. its when you break the beam

 

graham, as david says, you can go whenever once its green, with the exception of the eliminators, as its 1st across the line, so leaving 1st, gives you a better chance.

 

Graham. Have you seen the full results?

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/verminh...uns%201-4m.htm

13.5-14.3secs is std uk territory.

Agreed that there were some VERY fast cars there with some blistering times.


There is a drag event on this weekend (sun/mon) in Stratford-upon-avon (Shakespeare Raceway) if you fancy it?

Bob