Before Brands we smoothed out the new front end into the bonnet and cast a mould. This meant the front was even heavier than before, but it means that we can now start the next step, reducing the car by 30kg! I doubt we will get this Fury down to the 530kg, although it would be very easy by just remaking all the bodywork, but the amount of time it takes will hold up the new car. But remaking the front endand using the lightweight front bonnet we have should reduce the car by about 10kg without trying too hard.
The front undertray was a bit battered n the existing front, plus we wanted to leave the existing front entact as a spare, so we made a new undertray. This was done with our existing mould, just a piece of hardboard and some D shape trunking. we tried using 2 layers of 300GSm this time, but it was just too floppy, so added another layer to the bottom surface, which also closed off the open sections left by the trunking.
Its looks good and very strong, but has turned out only marginally lighter than using 5mm ply, so next car we will use ply rather than going to all this effort!
Next up was the actual front end, 2x layers of 300gsm, with an extra single layer strip around the edges, produces a great piece, strong enough around all the curved syrfaces and corners, but the flatish front was still ver soft and would break if just pushed in with a finger. Adding another single layer to just this area increased it rigidity by about 3 times. With all the brackets and braces added the front is very stiff and only weighs 6kg, compared to old front end weighing 14kg! The lights are still to be added, but we should have saved 7kg making this front end!!!
Dads on holiday this week but will get it sprayed for Cadwell. Meanwhile i will be checking the car over, cutting down the the lower wishbones slightly to allow us to run slightly less negative camber and resetting all the geo based on this
We Arrived late Friday evening, pulling into a specially bus sized shape saved by our partner in crime Bob. It wasn't raining, but we heard tales of some monsoon type testing that day and a wet forecast ahead. After unpacking, a couple of beers and a general catchup with the RGB usual suspects we retired, expecting the worse when we awoke.
At 7am it wasn't raining, but it didn't look promising. By the time we went to scrutineering it had started to spit with rain and it slowly increased. Dad ran off to the Brands shop and bought a nice blue umbrella, which lasted until the first gust of wind before turning inside out. Over an hour after joining the line we were eventually scrutineered, i went straight back to the bus and got changed and just about made practice, but a few others who were at the back of the queue (like Bob) had to rush and almost missed the out lap!! Not good organisation, and definitely not good for the frame of mind! Practice was busy, wet and slippery, but i managed to grab 2nd in class for both races (11th and 12th), I was pleased, but again behind Al, should i just stop hoping i will ever get there???? The car is definetly more of a handful in the wet compared to when it was softer last season, but i was expecting that. Other than changing springs for wet races i cant do much about it.
As the day progressed, it got wetter and wetter and wetter! I was actually wondering if the races would be called off. There was an incident in the formula vee race, meaning all the subsequent races were shortened to 10 minutes. Initially i wasn't impressed with that, after all we do all this prep and travelling for the 30minutes or so of racing each weekend, and every race that is shortened means even less return for your effort and money. But within 10 seconds of the red lights going out i was wishing it had been reduced to 0 minutes! I dont normally mind the wet races, but this was just horrific, zero visibility (especially behind the Sabra of Lee's), cars spinning off left right and centre and several rivers running across the circuit! I had a reasonable start, but James Walker had a flyer and came steaming up the middle and tucked in behind Al. Gary Goodyear went spinning off at Paddock, then a couple of others went of between Druids and Graham Hill. I managed to close up over the next lap getting past a couple of cars, passing Matt G up the inside coming into Surtees and right up behind james, who then hit a deep patch of water and spun off, i then politely spun off in sympathy! My video wasn't working so i cant work out why, i think i just panicked and tried to change my direction to avoid James, causing the spin, where as in fact if i had just stayed online, i would have easily missed him and should have stayed on the circuit. I managed to get going again before James (who decided to do an extra 360 on the grass for show) or another class F car passed me, and then just tried to settle into just staying on the circuit. Of course this all went to pot when i saw Lee in his Sabre behind me, we had a good old battle for a few laps, after a mistake Lee got past and i tried to give chase, but the spray coming from his specially designed "rear spray deck" created less than zero visibility. During this time Stevie Bell and snuck up behind me, i hadn't even seen him in the mirrors, he isn't a vampire, but my mirrors may aswell have been made of toilet paper due to their usefulness! The first i knew about him being there was the nose of his car up my inside at druids, if i'd seen him i'd have never gone wide, but by the time i had seen him it was too late and he was passed. With only 1 lap left i tried to puch on, and in a last ditch attempt at surtees i ended up over cooking it and go grass cutting again, this time i just went straight on and rejoined the track without losing a place. So another 3rd in class, but at least i was alive and the car was in 1 piece.
Saturday evening was Steve Robinsons 60th birthday, so after cooking 300 animals for the RGB paddock i drank as much beer as i could get my hands on and stumbled off to bed.
Sunday morning was horrific, it had rained continual since saturday afternoon, it was blowing a gale and rain looked like something from an Anglesea holiday brochure! Dad and I went down to Fury sports cars to have a chat with Steve (the owner) and order our new chassis.............. Greenway developments will be building a new class F Fury, but not a as you know it Fury, but something radically different, maybe a bit mad, and maybe a bit dangerous, but it will be fun. Watch this space...
Somehow, by the time the race started it was dry, well apart from the small river on the exit of clearways. I wont go through the race in detail, as it will bore you, but also this time i have a video as i remembered to put the card in the Vbox! But to sum up it was fun, my driving was erratic and i got 3rd, again after a good battle with Steve but pipped by him again. So thats 4 races and 4 x 3rds. I want higher finishes, but at least i'm consistent, and the way to get a decent score at the end of the year is consistency.
A welcome return to Afghan Dan, whose trip home coincided nicely with the first race weekend of the year, saw him busy in the new kitchen knocking out numerous bacon butties for all the crew. Our paddock really isn't the same without him, so come on Afghans, sort your sodding country out so he can come home, look after us and take loads more pictures (of RGB cars!!)
This update is a little late so i will keep it short, unlike the videos. Qualifying was a little disappointing, 4th in class and 16th on the grid for both races. It was close between myself, Andy Grant and ex kitcar champion and RGB newbie Stevie Bell, but Al was again just that bit quicker. What was most disheartening was the overall grid positions, i hadn't been that low down the grid for a long time, but when looking at the cars on the grid this season, class R slightly outnumber the class F cars, and the newer R breeds are very quick. You have to get faster in RGB just to stay stationary, or in this case actually move backwards!
Like practice, Race 1 was dry and sunny, which is completely unheard of in RGB races at Silverstone, normally we are bailing the water from our cockpits while waiting for the red lights to go out! The race started well, i had a decent start, and then followed probably the most exciting race i have ever had! Unfortunately i had the camera angles set up wrong for the weekend, so you cant see how often there was a car alongside or tucked up under my backside! Myself, Steve and Andy had a great scrap for 2nd, swapping places numerous times, all very cleanly with no exchanging of paint, and looked as if it would continue until the chequered flag. But shortly after i passed Andy i came onto the pit straight and lost all power. I backed off and after trolling along until i exited copse it came alive again, only to die again along the Wellington straight. I knew then it was fuel starvation again, not through a low tank or cornering, but the low pressure fuel pump not being able to keep up with demand from the swirl pot by the high pressure pump. This was the same issue i had last year at Snetterton when the filter was blocked which then also buggered up the pump. What makes this so annoying is i had bought a facet style solid state pump and fitted this along with a new filter before the start of the season to ensure i didn't have the same issue again. But this time the failure was the new pump, the ebay piece of cr@p had always sounded a bit odd, but i just put it down the way i had mounted it causing the ali panel to vibrate. But under investigation it turned out it now wouldn't even prime itself and was fubared!! GGRRRRR!!!! I did manage to limp over the finish line, and due to Stevie Bells car setting on fire, along with his feet after a split swirl pot, i got 3rd place, so not a total loss!!
Back in the pits i refitted last years fuel filter and pump, refuelled, checked the car over, and then settled down for an evening of Bobs spicy slow cooked pork, and watched Dad and Jen (Bobs wife) consume vast quantities of Bobs home brew red wine!
Race 2 was lots of fun again, this time Steve got away from us at the start and put a couple of class R cars inbetween us. Andy and I had a good tussle for 3rd and we managed to reel Steve in a bit, but the flag came out too early to get to have a go at him. So i got another 3rd, and this time felt like i really had won it as i'd managed to beat Andy up to the line.
Afghan Dans pictures:-
So a great first weekend, and it looks like there will be some good battles this coming season, although we all need to focus on catching Al in his purple peril...........
After the frenzy of rebuilding the suspension up, and the unkown effects of the new front wishbone design we booked in for the full days testing at silverstone the day before the race. Initially the car handled like dog muck!! It had suddenly gone from a pretty neutral and predictable handling car with a touch of high speed understeer to a snappy, evil cornering handful of bolts!! The turn in was great, but then the car would suddenly snap the rear out. On returning to the pits it was obvious the front was way too soft (we had suspected this would be the case due to the shorter inner wishbones), the nose was dragging on the road under braking and cornering, and was undoubtedly the cause of the nasty snappy rear end. We bumped the front springs upto 275lbs and went back out, the car instantly felt better so i started to push on, but then at a high speed moment round Copse the back end bit me again and off i went into the kitty litter, closing the session (sorry everyone). Lesson number 1 learnt, build up steadily after major changes, lol!!! Getting the car back in the garage showed the front end was still bottoming out, and we suspected the 275lb springs were too soft still. We hadn't any stiffer springs with us so i started to hunt round the paddock. We calculated we needed 325lbs to be back where we were before, but the closest we could get were 350lbs. We fitted these as had nothing to lose and went back out on track.
The cars terrible rear end was now gone, but turn in was sacrificed slightly and we had a bit of understeer, but it felt like we were getting close. We have always run the car relatively soft so decided to try and even up the balance of the car by putting some 225lb springs on the rear, which would also give us the same sort of front/rear stiffness ratio difference that was on the car before. So in the final session the stronger springs were fitted and car felt much better balance. Initial thoughts were that the car seemed to have more grip after the apex of the fast long corners than the original wishbone design, but only time will tell as we had no dry lap times to compare to from the previous year, plus the new surface was obviously making the circuit faster than last year anyway.
Luckily we had another casing spare, but unluckily the brackets that needed adding were not simple, and cannot be bought from fury as they make them up on a jig on the axle. So initially i built up the simple bracket for the upper and lower pick ups on the bench. I used a piece of 40mm square tube, cut, notched and bent to fit the axle casing
After bolting all the suspension links back to the chassis and attaching the brackets to the links, we then lined the axle up in the car, using wooden supports bolted onto the axle flanges to hold the axle at the correct height and angle and aligned the brackets made into position. We checked the diagonals and centre lines relative to the front axle and centres of the chassis and adjusted it as required before tacking the upper brackets in place.
The axle was pulled out from under the car and the bracket welded in place a bit more securely and the tabs bending round the axle tube.
The same process was repeated with the lower brackets
The tabs were then trimmed and everything fully welded up.
The picture below shoes the jaunty angles everything has to be fitted at for the suspension to move freely and inline
We then added the panard rod mount (cut from original axle) and braced everything.
The diagonal checking showed that one side of the car (or wheelbase) was longer than the other by about 15mm, so we took the opportunity to resolve this by altering the angles of the axle mounts (rather than cutting off the front suspension pick up points and moving them. This does mean that they are not symmetrical either side and does look a bit horrible, but at least now the wheelbase is square!!
The new wishbones, panard rod and uprights had also arrived back from the powder coaters as had the replacement front discs from Hispec.
