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The future – musings of an old man (except when at Cadwell)

Started by Caryl Wills, August 29, 2015, 23:29:15

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Caryl Wills

Still recovering from one of the best races in any calendar (my thanks to everyone for making Anglesey GREAT), but in the cold light of day I'm looking at what I've got to do in preparation for next season. I've got 2 engines and both were rebuilt at the beginning of this season. The engine we ran at Anglesey was significantly slower at the end of the race than at the beginning and the other engine is 3 seconds a lap off the pace. Both need rebuilding and I'm smarting at the cost. Kris built an engine for Anglesey and it had £1200 of bits and services (rolling road time and travel etc.) in it. He did all the labour (porting the heads, setting the cam timing, cleaning everything and carefully putting it together) on top of the parts cost. I'm probably looking at around £1250 each for my engine rebuilds plus setting them up and getting the fuelling right.

So, my thoughts turn to 'How can I make this cheaper? Can I continue to spend £3000 every year on engine rebuilds, rolling road time and extra testing time?'. Over the past 3 years I've made some mistakes and used the wrong people to do things (Sammie has rescued me on every occasion), but I've spent the best part of £15k on my car – almost entirely on engine work. I thought 2CV racing was going to be the cheapest form of motorsport and in truth it isn't.

There have been many ideas about having a level playing field and reducing costs over the last couple of years. We've had the 'Injection' idea, the 'BMW R1100' idea, the 'C1 engine & gearbox' idea and probably some others. I'm not proposing anything other than let's have some discussion about the future of the club and the sustainability of racing costs. We've had a good turnout for the sprint races this season, but the 24hr was disappointingly supported (there may be many other reasons for this) by 2CVs and without the Minis and Euros we would have faced big losses for the event.

The future of 2CV racing is being challenged by parts getting scarcer, the quality of some aftermarket spares falling and cars getting more valuable. We can stick our heads in the sand and ignore the fact that the world is changing or we can start thinking about how we can adapt to this changing world.

Let's start a discussion about reducing costs. Let's not just think about maintaining them, but actually reducing them. The BMW idea was started on this basis. The economics were simple. Pay less than £3k in the first season to buy an engine and a fitting kit and then pay for a gearbox rebuild and engine oil change (£350) in each subsequent season. Total engine costs over the first 3 seasons = £3700 for BMW compared with £9000 for 602cc. It's a no-brainer economically, but there are other issues and opportunities.

There are other ideas and one that I immediately scoffed at was using the Citroen C1 engine and transmission. I've recently looked at C1 engines and gearboxes on eBay and they're staggeringly cheap. There's more to this idea than I first thought and it solves a number of challenges that the BMW might have. We ought to investigate further.

As I've said, I'm not making any proposal except that we need to discuss this and think about the future. Maybe you can think about this before the AGM and we could move forward with ideas you have then – or decide to do nothing.

Right, need to find my asbestos underpants and a fire/bullet proof suit.

naughtybear

I know that my engine and everyone else's are a completely different animal, I built that Eco engine at the beginning of my 2cv racing journey with limited knowledge and funds. It had new oil cooler, oil feed pipes, valves and springs. I used the original barrels and Pistons (not even re-ringed) since then it has done two open pit lane test/track days a full sprint season and the 24 with nothing breaking engine wise and I think is quicker than it was at oulton way back in October last year! Also I am sure you will agree I don't hold back and drive like a naughtybear possessed probably pushing it harder than I should at times.
Naughtybear - powered by roarspeed!

Louis

Great post Caryl, it's something that has been on my mind recently.

Ultimately I'd come to the conclusion next season may be my last for the foreseeable future, this was before I'd been re-enthused by the 24hr. I'm not sure how we reduce costs, and if we did something as big as going to BMW / C1 engines everyone would have to accept that there would be a difficult season or two of adjustment. I've spent a lot this year, and not really due to crashes or fire, I've just spend a lot which is probably only 50% of what you've spent!
I think the old adage needs to changed to 'if you can't afford to set fire to 5 grand you can't afford to race'

naughtybear

Why do we go racing? Personally to have fun and enjoy myself firstly and foremost, secondly to achieve something which we did by finishing every race for me that means money well spent........ Could have a season ticket to my local footy club and go to every away game, spent loads more than I reckon I did and had a rubbish time ha ha
Naughtybear - powered by roarspeed!

Nick Paton

I agree with Caryl.

The cost to get near the front of the grid has gone up significantly.  It is due to the cost of optimising the engine.  

I support a proper assessment of options to bring engine development costs down.

Its fun to fettle these old engines but when you get to the stage that it is deciding many of the races and preventing or discouraging people from racing it has gone too far.  Unless you have access to a cheap rolling road, free and well-equipped workshop and lots of time on your hands, you're really going to struggle in this series.

Nick

Pete Sparrow

Guys.
i think that we do need to keep an eye on costs and as you know I run a BMW engined Car. I wouldn't say that this would be much if any cheaper.
No one who wants to win races is going to put a second hand bmw motor in their car. Just look at the Belgian series. So much for standard engines. Add to this tyre wear, gearbox overhauls and oil seal mods, new clutches etc. People will buy different ECU'S to try....
Doesn't matter what You race it always follows the same path.
As Nick points out, you either do it yourself or pay, the people who have the time, money and facilities will do best, look at any championship you like.
I'm not saying bmw isn't the way to go, I just saying the same issues are always there.

Great weekend BTW...
The older I get, the more rubbish I talk
(and the more pills I take)

Scooterman

I totally agree, the expense is getting silly. If we continue to stubbornly think the series can continue with increased costs and declining grids (in particular for the 24hr) we are being short-sighted.

With reference to the C1 engine (which is actually a Toyota engine), it is widely available as its in a few cars. Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1, Peugeot 107 and Toyota IQ.

I owned a Citroen C1 for a few years, loved it. Great little engine, it had plenty of poke and it was thrashed by myself for over 90'000 miles before I part exchanged it for the IQ. No reliability issues save for clutches. Another plus is the economy. Even when thrashed it would still top over 40mpg. That would certainly decrease fuel costs. The same engine in my IQ is not as good because of a poor design of EGR valve.


Caryl Wills

Guys,
I'm not saying BMW is the way to go. I wanted to illustrate why we built a car with a BMW engine. I think Pete has a point about moving the reliability problem elsewhere, but I don't know what the issues will be. We're racing it again at Spa in the 24hr and this will give us a better idea of the problems we might face.

I'm sure there will be a load of different issues with the C1 engine/transmission idea and the installation may be more challenging than the BMW.

I hope you guys will have some more ideas of how we can level the playing field and reduce the annual cost of racing.

To get a proper understanding of how these conversions might perform perhaps we could allow selected prototypes to race a season (without points). The Belgians have an 'Experimental' class for this purpose and they tested 3 prototype gearboxes last year. Perhaps we could do something similar.

Louis

Abolish club class? (Bar the club cam because that make it very expensive to introduce)

Control shocks, pattern solex, there are probably other things but I've been painting the car today so my mind isn't working as well as it should.

coxm

That's a very welcome post, Caryl:  its high time we had this discussion; not only because of the level of the costs, but also their direction of travel.  I'm sanguine enough and have raced long enough to know that racing is pretty expensive, but somehow since the introduction of the Webers, the cost of the engines has spiraled.  I can only talk about the 24hr and costs relating to that, although Philip raced one of our cars in the sprint series.

Before I do that, though, I'd like to thank those involved in organizing the 24h race.  I know from organizing another race at Anglesey how much hard work it involved; and how easy it is to carp from the sides.  Well done, everyone.  I had a great time; I love the weather (I know its odd.  I like racing in the rain, ideally in the dark).  The loos were crap (if you'll excuse the pun), but overall, terrific job, chaps.  We'd have won aside from a wheel bearing failing....  If only.  If only....

Back to Caryl's point:  many you will know that at last year's 24hr, we changed more engines than we started with – we ending up running 6 different engines altogether; so this season, we had a bigger version of what Caryl is now facing – our engines had broadly got tired: so we built 5 new engines for the two cars:  maybe we had more new parts, maybe we are less good at sourcing components, less efficient, do less ourselves, who knows?  But I'd estimate the component costs (including a base engine) for a competitive race engine at a little under £2k:  then, as Caryl says, there's labour, set up, jetting, testing, AFR meter, lambda sensors etc, etc.  If you do any kind of proper full costing of an engine, its around £3k; and we may even run three cars in next year's 24h, which would mean £9k of engines plus whatever in spares....

Of course, many teams and drivers work on their own cars, so don't pay fully for the labour, but it would be foolish to pretend that labour is free just because we don't have to pay in cash for it; similarly workshops.; so, if you're thinking that engines don't cost that much, you're not costing it properly. We also need to remember that across the grid, there is a lot of capital and know how invested in 602cc engines.  We probably have as much capital as anyone invested in engines right now; so any change is going to be painful – however, the status quo feels unsustainable.  Costs are spiraling, grids (24h at least) are shrinking: time for change before there isn't anything left to change.

There isn't going to be any panacea to this problem.  As Pete says, BMW engines may not be cheaper (at least, if you allow the same rules as the Belgian series – I'll come back to that); and they are so much more powerful than the 602 engine that they chew gearboxes up unless you fit the Sadev sequential box (and that's £5k, although I ran the exact same box for 3 full seasons of 11 4-hour races, one 6-hour and a 24-hour – ie >300 race hours - in a 900kg Clio Cup with 290+bhp and all it needed was oil changes, so with a BMW engine, so I think we can assume that Sadev boxes would broadly last forever in a 2CV); at which point the brakes start to become inadequate....

C1 engines would sound very different to the flat twins; and have outputs similar to the BMW engine (68 bhp / 69 lbft), so the brakes will struggle as per BMW engines.  I don't know what they weigh (Wikipedia says 69kg, probably without gearbox, but I don't know whether that is dressed or not, and won't include the radiator etc), but I'll wager that they are of an order of magnitude different to the 602 or BMW engines:  then there are radiators and electronics to consider, etc, etc, etc.  Its not going to be that simple to change to a modern three-cylinder engine (I've fitted a Range Rover V6 twin turbo diesel to a Wildcat and we had to create a completely new ECU simply to make it work); and who knows what the handling would be like?

But, before we disappear into a funk of despair, though, its worth remembering how well much of the regs framework works in this series.  Its really quite hard to spend very much (and believe me, we've tried) on anything other than the engine.  We've managed (I don't know why I say "we", since I can take no credit for it at all) to come up with a set of regulations that result in cars that are pretty similar in speed generally.  The exception is the engine., and possibly dampers.

So let's look at what's caused the ramp up in costs with the Weber.  It feels to me that it's a harder carb to set up than the Solex.  The time spent on rolling roads, jetting and getting the carburation right has increased materially.  No one used to change jets during a race; or have drills with 1/1,000th inch intervals.  An attempt (misguided in my view) to save costs, by only allowing fixed emulsion tubes, was implemented.  I think it was misguided as it drives development up one, narrow corridor; which has actually increased costs materially, rather than driven them down.  Normally, when some new technology (Webers in this case) is introduced, you'd expect a short period of cost to implement the new technology and then a reversion back to normal levels.  That hasn't happened: I guess competition at the front of the grid has increased a bit, but I can't help feeling that it's a combination of the narrow corridor of the scope of development and a fundamental lack of scrutineering.

So what could we do about it?  Shoot away at the suggestions, but I agree with Caryl:  we can't go on like this.  Maybe we even need a group to discuss and implement a solution. I'd volunteer for it, if that's the route.  So, some more musings of another old man (well, sort of, I'm not even the oldest in my team any more):

There is a fundamental choice of whether to stick with the 602, or change to another engine.  I have only third-party views on the BMW engine; and we're all guessing on the C1 engine; but let's look at how you could make either work?

602:  if we agree that it's the narrowness of the corridor that's pushing the costs (mostly through time and labour) with the Weber, there are two options:  make the regs more restrictive; or relac them.  There are probably pros and cons of both.  If you narrow the options to, fixed emulsion tubes, two jets and one filter (there would be a number of other bits you'd have to define as standard), then you almost entirely eliminate the whole rolling road scenario.  You'll also end up with engines that don't fuel terribly well – but we'll all be in the same boat.  You don't achieve much on the component cost, but the reality is that we are racing 50-year old cars / engines and when the bits start to run out, as they have, the component costs will go up.  That, I feel, is an immutable.

If you widen the regs again, then I'm not sure that it would address the issue.  We've all spent a pile of money on making the current emulsion tubes' fuelling work; so we could either spend a pile of money testing the new routes to see if we can do better, or continue down the current route.  It feels to me as if widening would only increase costs further and is a deleterious route to pursue.  It may not have been had the fixed-emulsion-tube reg not been introduced, but that's water under the bridge now.  On the plus side, someone might find a broader operating window with a different set up, which, over time, would cut costs.  Or not.

New engine: BMW, first: I agree with a lot of what Pete says; and he clearly has a lot more experience with that engine in this car than I:  however, we don't have to follow the same regs as the Belgians.  We could have standard ECUs and hard components. which would only really leave the exhaust manifold to play around with (although there is no reason not to make that standard).  In some ways its easier than with the 602.  BMW still make the parts, so if it ain't unmodified and ain't got a BMW roundel on it, you're disqualified....  I think its entirely feasible to define a very standard engine, so that there is little or nothing to be gained by playing around with the engine (ie spending a lot of money).  ECUs can be standard and sealed.  They are easy to check.

There are still other issues with a new (BMW) engine of which three appear to be major to me at least:  the initial cost; gearbox; and brakes.
-   Initial cost.  I don't have a good answer to this one, other than to observe that the season cost appears to be much to same to me.  Pete's right, that at the front of the grid, no one is going to run second-hand engines (unless they turn out to be quicker?); but anyone at the front of the grid is spending more on engines than a BMW costs anyway
-   Gearbox.  I guess there are two routes to go:  standard 2CV or Sadev sequential.  I'd vote for a Sadev every day.  New ones are £5k, but you can get second-hand ones for £2-3k, which brings them down to the realms of the cost of a 602 engine.  I completely get the initial cost point, though, but there's no reason why we can't run two classes – one with Sadev's, one with standard boxes, so people can change when they can afford it.
-   Brakes.  The BMW produces a lot more torque and power, so the car is going faster at the end of each straight.  So we have to play around with pads.  That's very cheap by comparison.  Maybe we have to change pads in the 24h?  I remember doing that at Snet.  They are, after all, a wear item, so I can't get excited about this one.

C1 engine:  We're all guessing, but it appears to have all the problems of the BMW engine PLUS, much more complex to fit; a different sound; and I'll bet its heavier.  It may be cheap from a scrap yard, but that would only be the start of things.  This doesn't feel like the right route at all to me.

I don't have a strong opinion between the other two options (tightening regs; or BMW engine); and others have much more experience of the car than I; but they seem to me to be the two most likely to work in terms of reducing costs in the long term.  

If you're still reading (thank you), and I realize I've been rattling on rather a long time already, but there is no point in implementing any changes if we continue to tolerate the current level of scrutineering, which is abominable.  If we want to be seen as a joke series, perpetuating the status quo is a pretty good route.  At no point during the race was our car weighed; no one carried out even a rudimentary check of the engine for compliance.  I could go on, but we all know that we are not demanding proper scrutineering.  Whatever we do (including nothing), we need to implement proper technical scrutineering by an independent source.  If BARC are unable or unwilling so to do, we need to commission a technical independent scrutineer ourselves:  measuring bore, stroke, cam profile, compression ratio etc is not rocket science.  

We should insist (at least for the 24h) that the top three cars; the car that sets FTD; and any engine that is changed during the race are taken apart and checked for compliance before being allowed to leave parc ferme.  I can see that during the sprint series, this would be an excessive burden; but after a 24h, the engine is going to need a refresh anyway, so I don't see an issue with this.  We would need to give plenty of warning, so there is no argument; and if anyone isn't complying, disqualify them on the spot.  

I'm sure there will be those reading this thinking that such an approach would be excessive, but there's no point in having regs unless you police them; and its nothing that isn't there in other series – our Belgian friends already do exactly what I'm suggesting.  We have somehow allowed it to lapse; and if we really want to do something about costs, we have to have a major focus on scrutineering to ensure compliance.

Being an old-fashioned sort, I'm wondering if we should get together somewhere to talk this over:  electronic fora have their place; and I'm delighted that Caryl has kicked the debate off:  how do we sustain that debate and turn it into action?

Peter Rundle

Some interesting posts here.

I agree that there needs to be change. I think the cost but also difficulty of acquiring remotely competitive engines is a huge barrier to entry for new people or those who only come out for the 24 hour. A few years ago people could come to the 24 hour with a well setup solex and not be too far off the pace such that if they were reliable they could do well. Now the lap time difference is too great.

Without having heard any strong objections yet, I would be in favour of Louis' suggestion of simply abolishing club class. I realise that this would mean a huge amount of investment would be wasted. However, I fear it would be wasted anyway if there is no grid in five years time.

I suggest that we change the date by which technical proposals must be received so that it falls after the end of the season.

Trevor Williams

#11
It says on the back of your ticket that motor sport is dangerous. I should also say that is expensive.

It has always cost around £2,000 minimum to have an engine built for a 2CV, and that cost did not include any rolling road time.

The people at the front will always spend, I know for a fact that one championship that was won when I was racing cost £12,000 in engine development alone. And that was when we were doing 10 to 12 sprint races a season plus two or three enduros and the 24 Hour Race.

There is no easy answer to controlling the costs, just a multitude of poorly researched "answers" to the problems. The Weber carb is a prime example of this.

Competitors have more pressing expenditure over this closed season (FHRs and any adjustments to belt mounting positions for one) before another knee-jerk technical decision is made.

As for the date of the deadline for technical proposals, this has to be as early as it is in order for the merits or otherwise to be discussed by the tech committee and recommendations made to the AGM. What needs to happen is the AGM to be earlier in the season so that clear regulations can be drafted and submitted to BARC

On a related matter (somewhat), people need to look at their cars and make sure that they FULLY comply with the regulations (both the Tech regs and the Blue Book). Just from photos posted on Facebook both before and after the 24 Hour Race, I can see numerous cars being in breach of a multitude of regulations.

Its not easy, never has been, never will be. Maybe the club should start spending some of the cash it has in the bank.....
Some days, it's REALLY difficult being me!

Martin Harrold

As someone who started by having a lot of fun nearer the back of the field and over 15 years still has fun nearer the front, I can say that much of that has been achieved by shear hard work, persistence and by listening, looking, thinking and trying things. And it's not all about engines, as Pete proved at Cadwell. Driver skill and thoughtful chassis preparation are still probably more important than the engine. We use normal price shocks.

It's good to see the reality of cost of the engines being published. For a long time they were thought of as 'about £1k', but yes, the real 'all in' cost of an engine is £2k plus. We, like others, have had a lot of blown engines over the years, but we changed to Valvoline 10-60 semi a while ago, with a considerable improvement in reliability. We've acquired six engines over all those years and normally have four in race trim. If averaged out, our engine costs are probably now less than £1500 a year.

Shrinking grids in the 24 Hour are mentioned. The grid was just two down on last year. We were short of a few 'Belgians' in part because of the clash with Spa F1, which should not happen next year. And there are at least three 'new' 2CV's in build for next year, so a 30 car grid is quite possible in 2016. And I believe that sprint grids in 2015 have averaged a very healthy 24. It is for sure a reality that the jolly days of driving a 2CV over to Mondello, racing it and driving back are long gone. It is now an awful lot of work and organisation to get a 24 hr team on to the grid. The Club was slow in setting the 2015 date, and hopes to set the 2016 date by the end of October. In reality, most teams decide whether or not to enter during the Autumn.

If we were to make a substantial change to engine regs, there would be a very difficult changeover period of around 2 years. During that period, the Club would be very vulnerable as grids would probably diminish.

I'm not suggesting that we should stop thinking about and worrying about the future, but what we have is not quite as bad as some make out.

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Caryl Wills

Great posts everyone. The debate is starting to tease out out some common threads and remembering of mistakes past. I wasn't a member when the Club Cam was developed, but I've heard a number of people say that it was the start of reliability problems. How was it introduced? Were a few engines with different cam profiles built and tested throughout a racing season? If so, what class did they run in and who paid for the development?

The same thing applies to the Weber. I joined the year it was allowed, but I didn't experience its introduction. How was that tested before being allowed?

If we're going to make any major changes to the technical regulations, surely it makes sense for them to be tested in race cars over a full racing season. Bench/rolling road testing doesn't tell you about the implementation challenges that everyone is going to face before and at the circuit. The problem with testing is that someone (or preferably more than one) is going to have to race a season without points and finding volunteers is going to be tricky. Having said that, I'm prepared to volunteer to be a guinea-pig for whatever the membership decides is a way forward.

On the point about technical proposals, I think we could have a later cut-off date. After all, the technical proposals for 2015 have not been published yet and it's 2 months after the cut-off date. I've been volunteered to take on the role of Regulations Coordinator and I've suggested that the Technical Committee draft and publish the regulation wording BEFORE the AGM. The membership attending the AGM then get to vote on the actual wording being proposed, rather than voting on an idea that then has to be drafted after the AGM. With this small change, it should allow us to easily submit our regulations to BARC within the deadline and the membership get to see what they're voting for before it get's published. I don't see the need to move the AGM date.

Abolish the Club class - that's an interesting idea. My first thought is how would we stop people using the club cam and all the other developments built into the 100 or so race engines that exist? How would we overcome all the problems that existed when the Solex was being used that led to the introduction of the Weber? Injection maybe? I'm not sure that would level the playing field, increase reliability and reduce costs. I believe the only way to contain costs is to have regulations that state 'No modifications allowed' everywhere.

Trevor, did you have something specific in mind that the club should spend its cash on?

Scooterman

General Description:
The 2CVPARTS.com CHAMPIONSHIP is for Competitors participating in standard production post 1970 Citroen 2CV6 saloon vehicles. The Championship was conceived as a low cost form of motorsport. It is intended to be a racing formula to develop the continued use and enjoyment of the 2CV and where driving skills and car control are of paramount importance and where technical development takes a secondary place.

I for one feel the meaning last sentence has been lost. There are too many variables and areas where clever and skilled technicians can develop cars, and being of competitive nature (thats why we race) competitors are forced to follow suit and spend if you want to be in the same race, never mind win. It seems we are split down the middle. Are you a 2cv enthusiast wishing to maintain and race them at any cost? Alternatively, are you someone who wants to race in low cost Motorsport formula where driving skills and car control are of paramount importance?

Another issue is that too many of us are guilty of seeing things from our own perspective and not that of the club as a whole. Competitive sport breads this kind of attitude and its an issue in all forms of Motorsport, however as Mr Rundle junior says, there was a time you could rock up with the basics and be competitive at low cost. This is no longer the case. If that is true, it is time for change. Inevitibly when change occurs some will lose out.

For people looking for low cost racing, maybe a 3cv championship would be the way forward? It might well be easier than getting everyone to agree on what to change in 2cvs. I am only half joking with that one....

Well done to Caryl for actually bringing this debate on the forum, not many people voice there opinions on here anymore, which is a shame. Healthy debate (without being personal) is the way forward.