Team Lotus 2011

McArlus Cars - 15

Not a lot has happened on the driveshaft front yet, although I now know where the mistake is and why it happened. I will do a further detail on that soon, when I have made a few more enquiries.

In the meantime I have been slowly ticking off a few more jobs.

I have always disliked how all of the dirt, bits of rubber and small stones flick off the tyres and sit in the sill panels, to stick there and stain when they go hard. I’ve made a couple of aluminium inner guards for the front wheels. Unfortunately, as they have to fit inside a complicated shape that is effectively closed on all sides, they are rather tricky to make. A cardboard template, then some 3mm MDF and finally the shape is OK.

Then I made a 25mm MDFbuck, with a nice round edge on it so that I could bend a small return all the way around, for the rivets to fix into, and for added strength. In addition the LH sill is where the radiator is located, so in order to maximize the airflow to it, I’ve cut the centre out of the inner guard and riveted a piece of expanded aluminium sheet in there.

I’ve made some rather nice, I think, mirror supports that copy those on the original Mclaren. The stands are made of an aerofoil type section that I couldn’t find, so I made my own out of a piece of 25mm round tube with a triangle shaped piece welded along its length. A bit of grinding and filling and a coat of aluminium colored paint and no one will ever know!

The webbing tow hook on the front will make loading and vehicle recovery (hopefully never needed) easier. Once I’d worked out the length of the webbing and the correct size loops, it is like a figure 8, I did a couple of stitches to hold it together, and then had my local Mister Minute sew it together in the same pattern as the webbing I have on the trailer winch.

Brake light brackets are folded aluminum and are nice and sturdy, with plenty of angles, so the lights don’t shake. The lights are trailer type stop / tail lights. Since I don’t need taillights, I loop the taillight holder to the brake light so that I can have two brake light globes and a nice bright brake light. I also fit the lenses by drilling them right through and fitting small bolts all of the way through the bracket, rather than the cheap and nasty self tappers that are supplied. I have lost a couple of lenses in the past.

The choke mount is another of those fiddly little brackets to be made. In the past I have simply drilled a heavy hex head screw into the roll bar. It is less than satisfactory, needing two hands to operate and forever coming loose. This time a piece of aluminium block has been shaped to the roll bar curve, but cutting it off a larger block with a holesaw, and a small groove machined in to take the standard Honda choke cable bracket. A couple of dome head stainless cap screw tapped into the rollbar and it is all secure and looks quite neat.

Finally I’ve hinged the doors. I think I bought the piano hinge about 12 months ago! I got a nice wide hinge that doesn’t come pre-drilled, so I could put all of the fasteners exactly where I wanted them. It allowed me to offset them so that the heads don’t clash on each leaf of the hinge when it is closed, so that I could use a decent screwed in fixing, rather than just pop rivets, that would probably work loose. The hinge secures to the door simply with nuts and dome head screws, while it is secured to the chassis into rivnuts. A couple of pieces of cheap webbing make perfectly adequate door stops.

The doors have fitted on really well. The RHS still fits exactly how it was cut out of the body and although the LHS is not quite as good, and I can’t work out why, the only problem is with a slightly wide door gap, that I will be able to tidy up when I eventually even up all of the door gaps.

It looked so good that I couldn’t resist sitting a couple of wheels on to see how it looked!

Oh Baby!

What do you think?

Regards

Simon

RHS Front Inner Guard.

LHS Fr. Inner Guard.

Mirror Support.

Front Tow Point Inside.

Front Tow Point Outside.

Brake Lights.

Brake Light Bracket Inside.

Choke Mount.

Door Hinge and Stay.

Body with Wheels on.

Grant at obp's Tech Talk - Drag Racing.

This is a little bit of info that will make you smile. 

 

Drag Racing Facts that will blow your mind!!

Did you know that......

1. The nitromethane powered engine of a Top Fuel Dragster produces more than 8000 horsepower. That's about 43 times that of the average street car.

2. Just one of the eight cylinders in a Top Fuel Dragster produces 800 horsepower. Equal to the entire output of a Formula 1 engine!

3. A Top Fuel Dragster accelerates from 0-100 mph in less than 0.8 seconds. Almost 11 times quicker than a production Porsche 911 Turbo takes to reach the same speed!

4. A Top Fuel Dragster leaves the starting line with the force 6 times that of gravity! That's the same force that the Space Shuttle leaves the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA.

5. A Top Fuel Dragster is slowed by a reverse force 7 times that of gravity when both parachutes deploy simultaneously at the end of a run (race).

6. 12-15 gallons of fuel are used in a single, complete run.
A complete run is made up of the following:

The Burnout - This is where the tyres are warmed up to race temperature.

Back-up-to-Start - The car is positioned on the start line ready to race.

The Race - 1000 feet at over 270 mph!

7. A Top Fuel Dragster can travel the length of 4 football fields in less than 5 seconds!

8. A Top Fuel Dragster accelerates faster than a Jumbo Jet, a Fighter Jet and a Formula 1 car!

9. A Top Fuel Dragster can exceed 270 mph in less than 660 feet!

10. The 17inch tyres on a Top Fuel Dragster wear out after 4-6 races or less than 2 miles! Some conventional road tyres are guaranteed to last for 80,000 miles.

 

Have a look at the Santa Pod web site to see when these cars are racing:Santa Pod

 

obp Sponsor a Drag Racing Tream Bennett Racing.

Geoff's Hunter sold.

Geoff Bott's J & S Hunter, the most famous one of all, has been sold and Geoff has announced this to Graham and Stacey.

Hi Graham

As a former member, still receiving the newsletter, I thought that you may interested to know that I have just sold my 1962 J&S Hunter, chassis no. PRH/005 recently to Luke Manton.  He is the son of Paul Manton who owns the Valano, so it has gone to good hands.

 

Only three were ever raced and this was the most famous, being built by Ian Hindmarsh of Kiama.  It was widely reported on at the time.  I have a large archive on all survivors still.  The only other car in good shape is owned by Stacey Nicolaou of WA, a Bolwell club member.

 

Attached is a few photos as I left it.  I can let you have larger format if you want.

 It really is a beautiful car.

For a while now I've had a fair bit of material from this car on my desktop from my own memories of it. I'll drag it into the blog this afternoon.

Ferrari F150

No it's not a pick up truck. This F150 is Ferrari's new F1 model for 2011.

Ferrari is the first team to launch their new cars for the 2011 F1 season, beginning in March.

CHASSIS

• Carbon-fibre and honeycomb composite structure
• Gearbox: Ferrari longitudinal gearbox
• Differential: Limited-slip differential
• Command: Semiautomatic sequential electronically controlled gearbox – quick shift
• Number of gears: 7 +Reverse
• Brakes: Brembo ventilated carbon-fibre disc brakes
• Suspension: Independent suspension, push-rod activated torsion springs front and rear
• Weight with water, lubricant and driver: 640 kg
• BBS Wheels (front and rear): 13”

ENGINE

• Type: 056
• Number of cylinders: 8
• Cylinder block in sand cast aluminium: V 90°
• Number of valves: 32
• Pneumatic distribution
• Total displacement: 2398 cm3
• Piston bore: 98 mm
• Weight: 95 kg
• Electronic injection and ignition
• Fuel: Shell V-Power
• Lubricant: Shell Helix Ultra

F150: DESCRIPTION

The F150 is the fifty-seventh single-seater built by Ferrari specifically to compete in the Formula 1 World Championship. The Maranello marque chose the name as a tribute and celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Unification of Italy.

Show and Tell, Victoria

The Healey Show 'n' Shine Feb. 13th.
It's a Bolwell do as well. Out of towners should get along too. They're very worthwhile. here's the flyer.

Kapunda - week 18

Today is Australia Day and the car clubs are all out and about on organised events. This Jeep isn't part of any of that. It's just come out into the sunshine because the kids love riding in it. It's a Ford version, not that they seem much different to the Willys ones. There's 3 of these WWII Jeeps in Kapunda that I know of. At least one of the other 2 is a Willys. I had one when I was very young. It was great to drive and cost very little. Back then nobody ever realised that they would ever be worth anything. My dad was one of those blokes that used to go up North and bring back army vehicles that had been abandoned after the war although he didn't get Jeeps, just Chev Blitz trucks mainly. There was a heavy trade in war surplus stuff right into the 70s I reckon. Eldred Norman was into the practice of bringing semi loads of stuff from up there and even the Double V8 was built from ex WWII gear.

Even the wheels look like army truck wheels. Notice it's road registered. Mudguards are essential now, don't know about back then.

One lump or two?

Back in the day, not all of the Buchanan bodies were ordered with the traditional MGTC twin cowl humps.

This is the Buchanan that Mark Wells proudly completed the restoration of after the long ownership by his dad and displays the single cowl.

Whereas what appears to be an almost identical car that Simon Wells built up has twin cowls.
This is better illustrated in this ad. for the Buchanan Amilcar.

Talking about "back in the day", this is my favourite Buchanan photo, taken at Baskerville "back in the day".

Untimed practice, Wanneroo, 24th Jan. 2011.

From John Harwood, today.

 After a few fuel and electrical gremlins we finally got the old girl onto a race track for the first time in a long time .What an awesome machine!No tacho and the pedals need a bit of adjustment (I wonder how Colin would have been able to get his feet in the foot well?)Five laps at about 50%.Can’t wait really terrify myself!I was starting to question why I had spent the money to buy the car in the first place, after yesterday I have no doubts.It’s FANTASTIC!

Hume Weir. Vol.4. - The Tin Tops plus a lone vintie.