New engine is now installed and upon firing up it seemed to start better than the last engine and sounded different. So fingers crossed it was just a duffer and i was just very unlucky. We will have to wait and see how the car performs at Mallory and if it survives before i draw my final conclusions!!
We swapped the engine over within a few hours, so pretty confident we could manage it in the paddock if the its ever required. I have sourced another engine with damaged gearbox, so will combine the 2 to hopefully make a good engine to carry as a spare.
The engine drama seriously affected the progress of the front splitter, this is were we are at the moment, lots of trimming and filling to do and the actual floor tray will not be as big as this.
With the time lost it means that at mallory and Brands (dad is on holiday the week after mallory, how dare he!!) i will have to run without. The problem with that is that the lower half of the bonnet is completely missing and open, luckily we kept the corners we cut of and have now bolted them back into position.
So the car is ready, but i want to get it on the rolling road to check the fueling is ok, so on the way to Mallory on saturday i have booked a session with HLM in Bromsgrove, i have no idea how good (or bad) they are, but they maintain and run Jedi Hillclimb cars, so hopefully know their bike engines. Bob is also going there on saturday so i will be able to get a sneak peak of his lovely new BDN!! And nick his corner weight scales to set the Fury up.
I was nervous about the the test day, Mallory isn't my favorite circuit and i find it the most intimidating, but i was more worried about a serious mechanical problem with the car. My concerns would soon turn into reality........
It didn't start too well, battery was dead on the bus, then i damaged the rear tub mounting bracket as i drove the car over it. The trip there was at least uneventful and we arrived bang on 8am ready to sign on. After unloading i took the car for a slow spin around the paddock and everything was fine. I went out for the first session at 9 and did about 3 laps, taking it very steady, but could already tell it was going to be a flying machine compared to the blade!! Coming back to the pits and removing the bonet showed i had a small oil leak somehwere around or near to the oil level sight glass. It was only a small amount of oil and the levels was still fine so i headed out again. I started to push a little harder, but was still taking it very easy, i had no gear indicator or shift lights as these were still set for the blade so probably went no where near the rev limit. Returning back in we then set about trying to track down the oil leak.
The oil leak was only minor, but was coming from the union between the oil cooler and hose and it wouldn not tighten anymore. So we decided to remove the pipe to investigate further, this showed that the end we had had fitted on the old hose was the wrong type and would never seal properly, bugger! The leak was very very minor so at least it wouldn't stop the day, but dad being dad, came up with a solution using an o-ring, and "bang, the leak was gone". Whilst dad was doing this i set up the shift lights and gear indicator, something that would have been less fiddly if i had remembered to bring my laptop along!! By the time this was all done the 2nd session was well underway, but it was still worth a run out, but as i went to use the reverse the car went dead, no power!!! Bugger!!! I thought it was the master fuse, but a flick of the master switch and it came back alive again, but as soon as i tried to crank the engine it died again. I started to fear a serious electrical sort, until a waggle of the battery terminals showed they were lose!! A nip up with the spanner and i managed to get out on track for 1 lap before the flags came out!!
We again checked over the car, the oil leak from the cooler union was cured, but there was still dampness around the sight glass, very very minor but a leak none the less. It was either the glass seal itself or the cover plate directly above it, but not something we could sort with stripping the engine down a bit. The oil level was still perfect and not dropped so it would be fine for the final session. With 15minutes to spare we set up the new video vbox camera system and refueled.
In the final session I slowly started to build up the pace and started to use the full rev range, although still not really ragging it, and getting to terms with the swapped over gear change. I saw Al in my mirrors and thought oh dear this could messy (actually i thought wahoo a race!!), the circuit was damp and i was still being cautious (as was Al), but now the purple peril was behind i was hoping to start stretching the cars legs, unfortunately the following lap, whilst going down the start straight, there was an almightly bang, a horrible vibration, plumes of smoke and no engine power. I quickly pulled off onto the entry slip road of the pits and contemplated jumping in the lake.....
Pushing it back to the bus i knew something big had happened, i was hoping it was an exploded diff, but was pretty sure it was the engine. After removing the bonnet the damage was obvious, a hole in no1 barrel and crankcase, bugger!!!!
I was pretty sure it wasn't oil starvation as i had been keeping a very close eye on the oil pressure around Gerrards during the day, but unfortunately my data logger wasn't running. Luckily watching back on the video, the oil light is just visible in the bottom right hand corner. It does flicker on coming into the hairpin, but this is because the engine revs have dropped right down due to changing all the way down the box. Nowhere else does it come on so i was then confident it was not oil starvation, but a strip down of th enegine would need to be done to confirm this. At least my new video kit worked well, and it captured the moment of destruction very well
Back home we took the engine out and stripped it down
As you can see the big ends and crank are perfect, so the conrod failure was caused by oil starvation and the a seizing big end. So we can only conclude there was a fault with the conrod, either in caused in manufacture or by an excessive stress load during the its lifetime in the bike.
So making Mallory race 1 was looking fairly dubious on Thursday, until i decided to take the bull by the horns and start a nationwide hunt for a replacement. Malc at Yorkshire engines who supplied this engine offered me a replacement at cost price, but hadn't got one in stock, Andy Bates was on the look out for me, but then i stumbled across one in Stoke for a good price, so i shot up there and picked it up the same day.
So its now operation fit engine 2 and hope for the best next time out!! Fingers crossed!!
With Mallory test day only a few days away there were lots of jobs still to do, mainly tidying and binding the loom up, plus lots of there bits and bobs. It was one of those times where you are 99% complete but still have about 25% more time needed to complete. After a long day of jobs and a blast up and down the lane in the car at full operating temperature, we decided that the 9th was going to be too early to test, a water leak from the lower hose exit from the block, the throttle not returning properly, plus a few other bits and bobs made us decide to put it back a week. This took the pressure off and meant we could be fully prepared for a good mornings run. It also gave another couple of days to have a go at the front splitter. We are creating an GRP front lower valance, that will replace the lower half of the bonnet, hopefully creating more down force and creating a new look for the car, The fury Evolution??????
Rather than trying to match up to the returning underside of the bonnet, we decoded to cut this off to make a horizontal flange to mate between the valance and bonnet. Bonnet pins mounted to the front suspension mounts now hold the bonnet in position at the front.
Using a plub line we marked out the silhouette of the bonnet, then added 50mm to this, this gives us a maximum projection for the splitter (to comply with RGB rules) and cut it out
We then added the upper parts which follow the lower edge of the now shorten bonnet. This gives a buck to build up a mockup of the valance.
Dad finished the bonnet off, including repairing the front after the falling of the scales incident last year, which has ended up looking pretty damn good, especially for a temporary solution!
Meanwhile i had filled the engine with fluids and been spending many hours scratching my head trying to figure out the wiring. A couple of evenings with the wiring diagrams and i had labelled the bike loom up and was fairly happy what i was doing. So after a few more hours, some hot wiring of plugs (side stand, clutch switch etc) and lashing up of light switches (temporary stop switch) I was ready to flick the master switch. I was waiting for a big bang, but to my amazement everything lit up, the EXUP valve rotated and the throttle body butterflies cycled!! But i couldn't here the fuel pump prime, a bit of digging a round showed nothing obvious, but then i had a thought about the tilt switch. I had glued the original tilt switch up so as not to cause the engine to cut to due to G loads while cornering, but stupidly filled the switch with sealant afterwards as the casing had cracked when i took it apart. This obviously altered the impedance of the sensors and was causing the ECU to think the bike was tilted. Luckily the sealant hadn't gone off by the time i had realised so i managed to scrape it all out and clean it all up. After doing this the pump primed! Next thing we noticed was that the scavenge pump (the old blade pump) had stopped, indicating that the system was pressurised, but as there is a return from the swirl pot to tank this shouldn't happen and it should run continuously. A bit of investigation showed that the hole in the tank i had tapped into, was actually a blind hole that needed to be drilled out, idiot!! With that sorted everything looked good, and it was time to flick the start button. I had removed the plugs so as to check i was getting oil pressure, which turned out i wasn't. Cracking the oil filter while turning over sorted this, but this then showed a fairly major oil leak between the sandwich plate and the block. Removing the plate showed that the adapter threaded fitting was holding the the plate off the block. You can see the marks on the plate where the nut head was chaffing. A bit of lathe time soon sorted this out
After this we were ready for a proper start attempt. A few attempts and the engine burst into life, and a flick of the light switch stopped it again. After restarting a few times and allowing the engine to tick over for a short time, I stripped it all out again and began to strip all the loom apart, just leaving the wires i needed
It was then time to lay it all in place and try to find homes for everything and then shorten and lengthen wires as required.
This went on for some time, and i was actually quite confident in what i was doing, apart from how to wire in the main feed from the master switch. After a long evening of sitting and scratching my head, plenty of swearing, declaration of giving up, followed by 2 ohone calls to Bob and Al i had my epiphany or Eureka moment when the penny suddenly dropped. A frenzied 15 minutes followed as i cut and joined various wires, not quite sure if i knew what i was doing or where i was going, until i had all wires connected.
The moment of truth was here, kill switch on.........dash illuminated, star button pressed.........engined turned over and burst into life, wahooooooooooo!!!! I then drove car 15 yards up my parents drive, and apart from the brakes being seized and the throttle sticking open slightly causing middle panic as i shot up the drive it felt great and we retired for the day happy!
