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

[Simon Crook]

As only a part time racer within the series - I can safely say that I picked to race in this series because of its low cost, I haven't been around this series as long as some, but in my short time within the club I've seen this topic come up a few times now, last big debate being the weber carb introduction - the '2 seconds a lap' promise which in fairness did work although it really didn't really bring the cars closer together which I think that all of us from the Middle of the pack to the back was hoping for - I do think that when 'we' the club, and yes it was voted on so it is a 'we' decided to keep to the emulsion tubes now listed in the regulations, that we have to use now may have caused this performance issue - We run with two engines Old Faithful and Rouge - Both of which are not bad engines, when the emulsion tube rule came in we struggled with both engines to make them work with the weber (even to the point of putting the solex back on) both on the track and rolling road with the regulation emulsion tubes - thus giving us no choice but to have four new heads being done, what interesting is we spent 12 hours on a rolling road with Old Faithful and managed to get the weber and the engine producing power like it has never done before (Steve Walford can confirm this - and I don't mind if he does) using the non-regulation ones - As we all know these engines even if built the same way can be different, if emulsion tubes where free then it may save some money for us. I am not sure about the C1 engine, how much development needs to go into it, will we need chassis alterations, brake upgrades, introduction of a radiator (i might need a couple of spares) exhaust, gauges etc. etc, yes the engines are cheap to buy , The economy class is a good way into the series and as Ash has proved he can keep up and pass some of the rest of us, which technically shouldn't happen or should it? although I don't know how we attract more cars into it, I am sure that someone knows where all the cars that don't race are - maybe as a club we should contact the owners and see if they are for sale and advertise them for sale: More into the future, if costs do carry on the way its going and 'we' allow it too, lets all be honest we all want to go faster I think that we may be in trouble (but as I said earlier I've seen this before) should we be worried about the BARC dropping us which overall may be more of a concern. I for one think the club do a great job considering they only get to meet a few times a year and they all volunteer, they really don't get the credit they deserve, most of us only have anything to do with them during a race weekend or given the club a bashing on the forum - I would love to be involved more myself but due to my job its just not feasible, I am sure that I will get shot down with this post if I have offended anyone 'thats racing'    

[Louis]

This suggestion  may not be popular, especially with people who put a lot into development. I suppose after all we are a driver's series.

In parc ferme the jets, emulsion tubes and air correctors are taken out of the top 5 cars. These are then published, anonymously or not - not sure it matters. If all aren't created equal I suppose it won't have any effect.

Maybe it would have the same effect as the rule in some series where one competitor can buy any other engine on request, but without people buying each other's engines for ridiculous sums?

Maybe we could standardise and air box?

I'm sure you'll tell me these are shit suggestions if they are!

[Peter Rundle]

I think Louis' suggestion is good.

It helps avoid people having to spend on development and is a disincentive to do so, yet costs nothing and requires no substantial mechanical change. It might not be useful but worth a try?

It could also be done this year as is not a technical proposal? Speaking of which, have the technical proposals for this year been published?

[Pete Sparrow]

Louis
suggestion is shit, you should know better.
Simon, in the post above, has already said that he struggles to get engines to run on the emulsion tubes we have available and yes it may be down to the heads. The cap on emulsion tubes was done to keep costs down, at more than £10 a pop and about 30 available thats a big chunk of anyone's money. Do we need to do this?
I dont have 2 engines that run the same jets. Everyone will have the same problem. I guarantee it would be the same if you use a Solex.
The Weber in my opinion, is easier to get right than a Solex. Look at a fuel curve of a Solex, its exactly the same as a Weber, the issue is the manifold length not the carb. People are confused by what they don't understand.
I, as most of you know, will give my jetting to almost anyone. There is no guarantee that if i give my jetting to you for your carb it would be right and generally it isn't. I am always available for help and advice if people trust my judgement in these matters.
The problem isn't the Weber exactly, its the fact that with Lambda readers and data loggers we can see whats happening, there wasn't really that option in the Solex era, we worry about it more now be cause we can see whats happening. The chase is on now that we know what air fuel ratio makes best power. You will do that with any engine in any championship.
This championship, is in the scheme of things, low cost, believe it or believe it not. We can build an engine, that done right, will last a year or normally longer for the price of some peoples weekend tyre comsumption.
And, why, are we worried about spending 2k on an engine (and i wouldn't allow mine to be used by someone else) when most of the top teams are running £1000 plus data loggers? do we need these? Actually no, lets ban them.
Lets get some prospective here please. I'm not saying there is an easy cure but we have visited these problems before and decisions were made to sort the issue out at the time (carbs, cams whatever), not perfect but it sort of worked. We are still racing our cars aren't we?
Lets not have snap decisions or it will be another 'that didn't work..' in 5 years time.

[Scooterman]

Could we not hire a rolling road (partly subsidised by the club) for everyone and tune each engine to an agreed bhp, within a few hundred rpm, regardless of emulsion tubes, jets, filters etc? The technical commitee would take note of the settings and ban any changes to carb or engine thereafter. This would leave us more time to concentrate on the rest of the car.

Also the cam welding mod is expensive and time consuming, banning that would make engines cheaper to build/rebuild.

[Nick clarke]

Anyone that knows me knows I race on a tiny budget and spend as little as posible. I built my engine for the 2014 season only new parts club cam rings and valves I did all season plus testing then a long time at spa this season I reseated the valves and have finished every single race this year including all day Friday and whole 24 hour race at anglesey now I will strip and check it before it goes to spa for another 24 hours.no cam mods no welding? I been in motorsport over 25 years and this is cheepest by far in engine costs.
In autograss a std mini 1000cc engine on average a season a good 1 is £3,500+ tyres £40+ last a couple of meetings.
I feel people are trying to fix something here that I don't think is broken.if people want faster cars there are lots of different series about but non are cheap

[steve walford]

Adam I think you are slightly off track with that one, when you visited us before croft your engine made the same power as ours both of which were 1 full bhp above the engine that was used martins sea lion car. unfortunately Pete still leaves us standing and drives off seemingly out powering us down the straights so the issue cant power but down to car set up and driver ability.  The main difference comes from higher corner speeds giving a better run on to the straight and being able to get on to the throttle earlier.

As for the costs really £2000 for a race engine is cheap, I have had years of experience building mini 1000 engines for Autograss class1. these are completely standard (no porting or any race parts) and prices are now in the region of £3500 for a completely standard mini 1000 engine. anything that uses race parts or ported heads start in the £4000+ range.

most of the problems that I have seen with 2cv engines generally fall In Three category's either driver error (over rev), lubrication problems or overheating.

The first is helped by using a rev limiter as many now do which at least helps with half of the over rev situations (if you fit one you will be surprised how many times you hit it). it wont help when the wrong gear is selected but that is the same whatever car you race.

As martin has stated in his earlier post using a good quality oil has a big improvement in the reliability I either use the Valvoline 10/60 vr1 or at least the Valvoline 10/40 Durablend semi synthetic. most of the high performance 0/30 or 0/40 full synthetic oils will be too thin and cause crank problems, cheap oils will cause piston/barrel problems if the engine gets too hot

The over heating problem is a more difficult thing to counter as it is generally caused by a broken fan or back plate don't really have a solution for these problems but the correct oil will help to minimise the damage caused.

I don't think there is an easy solution to this issue as every option has its good and bad points, I think that any major changes should have a decent trial before they are implemented. At the moment the sprint series is well supported and I think that we need to be careful that we don't harm that but we probably need to have a look at attracting more entries for the 24hr

[Scooterman]

Hi Steve, I really enjoyed sharing a drying track with you at Anglesey, it was good fun:-)

My idea was to keep costs down by setting the engines up and halting development after that. Caryl started this thread to discuss ideas for reducing costs.

Unfornately we didn't get chance to show how well you'd tuned our engine because of the misfire that plagued Croft and then the engine died in the enduro. It would also have helped if we'd had time to sort the handling, but it's all a learning experience for a novice mechanic (I have heard less polite descriptions of my spannering, but non are repeatable!) .

I'd be happy having the same as everyone else as the only thing to improve is the driver! I refer to the regulation point I highlighted in my first comment. I'm sure the order at the front will be much the same, the cream always rises to the top, but if we could keep costs under control it helps keep people in the middle and at the back (such as myself) racing.

[KrisTovey]

[ptaylor24hours]

Really enjoying the discussion on a post bank holiday work day, here are my ramblings. I think we are missing the point here, as someone who has raced in the series since 1990, never has it been so easy to be at the sharp end of the grid. It is possible to get a competitive engine built by one of our an engine builders, set up on the rolling road and be near the front of the grid. The series has never been this competitive, even in the 90's when we had qualifying races . The reason we swapped to webers was there was such a difference between the carbs available. If you were lucky you could have one that was 2-3 seconds quicker a lap, but it was finding those special solexs and people bought loads trying to find that special one, I know course I did.
For me what I would like to know is how do we improve reliability in the series? what are the reasons engines are failing? all failures should be recorded by the technical committee, so future rule changes are based on solid facts not proposition. I would say one of the things that needs looking at is cam wheels and the attachment to the cam shaft, as there has been a spate of failures this year. Maybe have a mandortory rev limiter?
For the record we have completed the last 3 24 hour races on the same engine without rebuild and after it was rebuilded, it finished third at Croft. Our other engine that had competed in all the sprint races this year up to Croft had an Cam wheel lose teeth in the 2 hour, causing the fire in the foam ai rfilter and melted carb. Sammie  rebuilt it for Anglesey, set it up on Paul R's rolling road and it ran faultlessly in the 24 hour race and couldn't recommend her more highly.
For me there is more time to be had improving our handling/driving than than engine development. Ask Pete and Geof Archer what they spent on trying to win the 2000 series and I bet its hardly any different.
Sorry for rambling on

[Paul]

Really enjoying the discussion on a post bank holiday work day, here are my ramblings. I think we are missing the point here, as someone who has raced in the series since 1990, never has it been so easy to be at the sharp end of the grid. It is possible to get a competitive engine built by one of our an engine builders, set up on the rolling road and be near the front of the grid. The series has never been this competitive, even in the 90's when we had qualifying races . The reason we swapped to webers was there was such a difference between the carbs available. If you were lucky you could have one that was 2-3 seconds quicker a lap, but it was finding those special solexs and people bought loads trying to find that special one, I know course I did.
For me what I would like to know is how do we improve reliability in the series? what are the reasons engines are failing? all failures should be recorded by the technical committee, so future rule changes are based on solid facts not proposition. I would say one of the things that needs looking at is cam wheels and the attachment to the cam shaft, as there has been a spate of failures this year. Maybe have a mandortory rev limiter?
For the record we have completed the last 3 24 hour races on the same engine without rebuild and after it was rebuilded, it finished third at Croft. Our other engine that had competed in all the sprint races this year up to Croft had an Cam wheel lose teeth in the 2 hour, causing the fire in the foam ai rfilter and melted carb. Sammie  rebuilt it for Anglesey, set it up on Paul R's rolling road and it ran faultlessly in the 24 hour race and couldn't recommend her more highly.



A standard engine reconditioned is £1200,so given the extra work of a race engine £2000 seems reasonable
For me there is more time to be had improving our handling/driving than than engine development. Ask Pete and Geof Archer what they spent on trying to win the 2000 series and I bet its hardly any different.
Sorry for rambling on

[Nick Roads]

Great debate and I agree with Paul Taylor that the grid seems to me closer than 10 years ago when I started.

I have the results from the first 24 Hour I did in 2006:
2006 @ Snetterton: Tete Rouge went round in 1.47 and Fine Print went round in 1.57 in qualifying. In the race Tete Rouge fastest lap 1.48 and the Crisis and Fine Print cars had a best time of 1.55 (fine print comfortably beat my car). In a grid of 32 there was 22 laps between 1st and 10th cars
2015 @ Anglesey: Crisis Too had fastest lap at 1.38 and the slowest 2cv was only 4 seconds slower. 16 laps between 1st and 10th cars on a shorter circuit.
So it seems clear to me we have closer racing than 10 years ago in 24 Hour.

New (eg extensively rebuilt) engine may = £ 2000 + but not everyone needs to have one or even wants one. I have averaged less than £ 1500 per year including buying 2 engines and webers in 10 years. I have 3 engines running now.  2 of them are race ready and the other did 24 hours at Anglesey so expecting to not spend a lot over winter unless I use them at Spa. Sammie and Tete Rouge to thank for all the engine work over 10 years.

The suspension I agree is being overlooked in this discussion. A lot of £ can and has been spent on different shocks, tricky to setup correctly and the Sparrows of this world will always be ahead of me with setup even if we standardise on some make. So if we are going down the simple route it should be standard 2cv dampers with no adjustment but surely a part of racing is letting people tinker with their toys?

Data Logging - think Pete missing the point of these. They allow a car to be setup and not much use in a race I would have thought. They can be used on a test day so not sure how they can be 'banned'. Predictive lap timers seemed to help people like me so maybe these are what he is worried about? They are however free or nearly free http://www.gps-laptimer.de/products if you have a smartphone so available to all budgets. I think they are very useful in allowing inexperienced drivers to learn fast as to good lines and style.

On the subject of a level playing field would like to see the weight limit increased by 50 kgs and strictly enforced. Ballast to go right under the seat as well so as not to allow the car to be better balanced. All those light people winning the races is annoying me and as I put on a couple of kilos each year need to figure out a way to stay competitive. Car 52 was 42 kgs overweight with me in it and I guess that is over a second a lap as opposed to cars that marshalls told me were within 2kgs of the limit.

Overall do agree with Pete that it ain't that broke so not sure we need to fix too much even the weight limit can stay.

Getting a couple of engines made up by the club and available to 'hire' for an hourly rate along with a rev limiter and those pesky data loggers to check engine not over revved next year would be interesting and useful perhaps to those who think its all down to engines - particularly if someone can run them on the test day before a race and prove they are fast.

With all this said off to Spa 24 Hour with Caryl to see if a BMW RS 1100 engine really can work in a standard race car for less than £ 3000 including all the other parts (fuel/ gearbox/ brakes) to convert and run for 30 race hours in 2015 - it has already done 6 hours in Holland and is just about on budget if we ignore the man weeks of development time...

[Pete Sparrow]

Just to clarify...
The point i was making was that why are people worried about a £2k engine when other things can cost half as much (the data logger was pulled out of the air as a reasonable expense). I agree that a data logger is a very useful tool. We used ours to great effect, not only for remembering stuff i can't while driving but if you can sit down with David O'Keeffe (Godfather) and show him where he needs to get his foot down and this results in a huge improvement in the race then its a brilliant tool.
Sorry to go off topic.
So some people spend loads on racing and some people don't. Its it the same in cycling or golf? Have you got to have the best clubs or do you feel like you are missing out? I hope the point is getting across.
Do we need to control costs then? if so how is it done? what would be reliable?
Personally i think we should look at success balast and the cars need to be weighed more regularly. I think the weight limit is already reasonably high, how about we look at helping the people who are overweight by chopping a leg off or better still take the engine out to save money.
The last one was a joke by the way.
Can someone make sure Kris Tovey is still alive please.

[Simon Crook]

Forget the success ballast route (although would help us that are little heavy than others) Lets go the stock car route - Roof grades sorry Pete your starting at the back current champion and all that - come to think of it Well done on that achievement. 

[Lien93]

Success ballast, there's an interesting idea. Sounds good to me.