Subscribed, half read, time for bed

 

Hurrah, the first picture!

6 weeks to prepare? I assume you won't have it prepared in time for the first round at Lydden then?

 

Looks great Si

What's the thinking on going for wide body, would have thought it would be trickier to repair after a few close encounters with the opposition........or are you planning on being way out in front

 

Looks great. Glad to see your not following the hot hatch trend

 

stunning, like a young burt reynolds.

 

 

Aft Guys,

Thanks for all the positive messages, sorry i'm slow at replying but i've been out and about this week with work.

Well, after having a very serious sit down with my team at the end of last season, we went through all the issues and came up with a list of problems that needed to be addressed. The first car was build purely with budget in mind and the idea was that we needed a car that was cheap and easy to repair, but it had it's limitations. The new car is much more focused on performance, so with that in mind we built the new car as a wide track to aid stability, and also everything is being placed as low as possible. Even my drivers position has been pushed lowed and further back to aid weight distribution.

One of the major issues we had with the previous car was that the back end was just too heavy with all the ducting fabrication for the rear rad. Also the fuel cell location was behind the rear wheels due to the rad setup. The problem with all that was that it gave the car a pendulum effect when the car got too sideways and was almost impossible to hold in a drift and 9 out of 10 times i ended up spinning.

The rad has moved back to the front of the car and the rear is now much lighter, the additional bonus of this is my shocks are ex-wrc proflex units that we have all the factory setup data for and with the weight distribution similar to a wrc car, we can now use the settings that they where designed for. On the subject of dampers, the units have also had the shims inside changed to make them respond faster and give them a more firm damping as a base setting, which when combined with less weight over the rear and new suspension geometry should mean less weight transfer on the launches and mean we can get off the line better this season.

One other significant change is the introduction of a proper tilton pedal box, which gets round the brake servo issue with the antilag and also should give a much more dynamic feeling through the pedals and help the balance under braking.

Just this weekend i've dropped the engine and gearbox back in and built up the suspension and hubs. So by the end of next weekend i'm aiming to have all the fuel, oil and brake systems full installed and the engine ancillary's installed.

More updates coming soon i promise

 

looking good Simon,,,a bit different from when you picked shell up!

got the logbook here for the shell,,, not too sure if you need it!

hopefully speak soon, Andy

 

Very much so!
In fact i've got to give a very special mention to all the people that have helped get me and the car this far.

Andy @ Scoobyspares for providing the base donor car.

Daren @ ABW for the lightweight body panels

Rollcentre racing for fabricating a custom rollcage (it's a work of art!)

Greyhound Ford repair centre for painting the car, especially young jake the apprentice that acturally painted the car, it's part of his NVQ project.

And Proflex suspension for there technical input

And finally to my amazing team (Rachel, Andy, Craig, gareth and Pete) for there help and support.

I've just set up a photo gallery of the work so far here
http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/album.php?albumid=5387

 

That looks superb mate, shall follow with interest and look forward to the end result.

Im sure it will be fantastic when finished!

 

Interesting to see the reasoning behind the design of the new car. I hope it all falls into place so you can kick the Evo X into touch!

 

looks awesome! subscribed!

 

Thanks for the explanation Si, best of luck with the new car

 

Any more news on the car yet? Still looking good for a Lydden debut next month?...

 

.. i have indeed.

The car is now officially 100% complete and i'm acturally on track this very weekend testing

Also i'm officially entered for Lydden, so i can't wait to share the grid with a certain Mr marcus Gronholm!

We also have a MAJOR new sponsor for the next 18 moths which will be announced at lydden too.
Few images of the new aggressive colour scheme for 2011-12 minus new sponsor decals for the time being.

 

Excellent, that is good news! Where are you testing?

The August meet is looking like its going to be a cracker. Some classics out on circuit, at least one new car in the supercar mix and Gronholm there as well. Can't wait!

Looking good and thats great news on the sponsorship as well. I saw Kevin McCann's new Scoob over the weekend. Its got a way to go but its starting to come together (I've put a thread up on here for it); hopefully you'll be joined on the grid by a second Scoob sometime soon!

 

what roof scoop is that on the classic ?

 

Just a GC8 wrc style roof vent, fairly common on the web. Can't remember exactly where i got it from now as it was quite a number of years ago when i built the black car.

 

Well she officially got dirty for the first time (the car that is!)

It was very much a weekend of 2 halves.

Saturday I was down at cadwell park on track getting some setup info, mileage and just getting a general feel for the car, but by lunch time I was so happy with the general setup that we got in the morning that we opened up the taps fully, and my god it's a monster now! It's SO much quicker than the old scooby by quite some margin.. it handles like it's on rails, no understeer what so ever, a smidge of oversteer when REALLY provoked, but I could chuck it into any bend as fast as i dared and it would go round. And I did make one of my passengers cry and scream because it was going so fast lol

Later afternoon we maxed the power but ran into issues with blowing off the turbo hoses and disrupting the runs, so we called it a day after altering the boost settings.

Sunday however was a different story. I think the car was sulking as it got left outside under a gazibo all night instead of it's cosy garage.

In practise we blew off the turbo hose again, so we turned down the boost further to try and help keep the hoses on during the race. However in race 1 it wasn't the boost that gave us an issue, it was the driver . As I launched off the line and into the lead I knocked the fuel pump switch as i changed gear and ground to a hold (proper school boy error!)

Heat 2 i abandoned going to the grid as the lambda sensor was failed and was in danger of going lean, so returned to the pit area as a precaution.

Heat 3 again was plagued with boost / miss fire issues which was traced back to a failing water temp sensor, which left us without a fast run for the day and put me in a C final

We fixed the issues and went back to the grid for the final where i started from the back row, hoping to clear the grid and make the B final and then to the A, but it didn't quite work out like that. I launched off the line again into the lead only for the bloody turbo pipe to blow off again before the first corner and i had to settle for second place with no boost.

It wasn't exactly my crowning glory of a weekend to be fair, but it was better to find these issues before a main championship event and it did show me what potential the car 100% has. Overall I'm very, very pleased with the new motor and I've absolutelly no doubt in my mind that when I address all these issues (and yes i have a big list of actions for both days) that I can be right there with the front runners in the british championship. Next stop is Lydden hill in kent on august bank holiday with a certain Mr Marcus Gronholm on the grid, which should spice things up.









"Where's my Mechanics gone!!"

 

Loving the new car Si.

You need somw murray clamps for the hoses and beaded ends in them if not already.

Simon

 

Great to read the car has been run in anger for the first time.

Shame you had some problems, but at least it was nothing too severe and, as you say, at least it wasn't on a race weekend.

Roll on the end of the month and Lydden!

 

Interesting backbox there Simon, who made that?

 

That would be me. It's a APS 3" system, but I altered the tail pipe to deflect the sound down to get through noise reg's for my sport, which is 105db limit at 3/4 revs from directly behind for rallycross. The tailpipe came from the tip of a wagon exhaust with a bit of creative engineering this deflects the sound into the tarmac and just get's me to that noise limit.

It knocked about 5db of my noise level compaired to when it used to come directly out the back when i built my first car and I got a severe slap on the wrist for noise level.

 

I know why you've done it mate. My exhaust has been like that for years now. Just never seen another like it on a subaru. My system was built by Simpsons and puts me at 87.5dB static. 91.5dB drive by with full 3" flow.

Car look fantastic mate. Best of luck with the season.

 

Ref the boost pipes blowing off, ive had the same issue on my rally car, I found that putting some score marks around the ends with a hacksaw gives the silicone pipe something to bite into when clamped. Sounds a bit stone age but worked a treat for me.

 

In all honesty it's not a problem we have had for years as on the previous car I put small spot welds round the edge of the turbo pipes for the hoses to grip onto, and we also used the massive mikalor is supra clamps to secure the joints. However this year i've rotated the turbo and altered the intercooler pipework, but some how i forgot to put the spot welds on the pipes when i fabricated them, so i've no one else to blame than myself LOL.

We run at 2 bar so there is quite some force when they go pop and you know instantly when you do lose the hose. It still amazes me though just how fast and how much torque the engine has without the turbo feeding it, I was still lapping as fast as a very good driver in a heavily modified redtop astra gte supermodified car without any boost :-).

Lesson learned.

 

A very impressive read mate, well done for your achievements and having the neck to tell us truthfully about the issues, I hope they are all easily resolved. So what kind of power a 2bar do you think you can lay down on the tarmac? and also what aftermarket ecu are you using?

I once blew off a hose and my car jumped into limp mode I suppose its a good thing to have that precaution, but in your case that would have cost you the race entirely.

Hats off to you, and I look forward to reading your updates with the "issues" resolved

Rob

 

One thing you will find is i'm a fairly honest open sort of person, no point hidding problems as we are all human and it might at some point be useful to someone else who's had similar faults / failures and how we have overcome them. In rallycross you have to be very quick at thinking on your feet to solve issues due to the limited time between races, so sometimes things can appear to be bodged, but if it gets us back out quickly it will do and then the real fixes happen back in the garages after the race weekend.

Also on race days we are totally open to the public instead of hidding in garages and behind fencing, spectators have paid to come and watch and be part of the action and we encourage people to get up close to these monsters in the pits and feel part of the team atmosphere when your trying to turn the cars around between races. It sounds crazy but over the years i've seen spectators leave the circuit during a race to go to a scrap yard to find parts for competitors to keep the going, and they love it as they feel like they are for that day part of a race team. It's what national level motorsport is all about.

ECU wise i'm running a simtec unit and Steve Simpson does the mapping.
With my current engine configuration and turbo etc we are mid 500bhp depending on map, boost, fuel, atmospheric conditions etc etc. Power never really has been a issue, but the very top boys are now just creeping to the 600bhp figure i'm lead to believe, but you can't physically get more from a 2ltr with the 45mm restrictor on the turbo's and if you can keep the engine in 1 piece.

 

Looking forward to seeing the car on circuit Monday: best of luck!