Sharing what you’ve just done. Not questions. No comments required.

[eggontoast]

1 hour ago, mega ade said:

Wow I've not seen that before in such a short time I purchased new 205 60 13 r888rs just 6 months ago from jd competition tyres £136 each and £8 delivery for all 4 when I spoke with the guy on the phone he said he had plenty in stock and they took 7 days to arrive hope this helps.

 

To clarify, although I can't see a date mark on the tyres (wwyy format) I believe they were fitted new by the previous owner in approximately late 2021. They were then not driven until I bought the car in may '23. So maybe they're 4.5 years old but haven't had a hard life. Bit disappointing. 

 

Thanks for the tip on JD. I did not know about them. R888Rs about £20 a corner more than AR-1s but they are seemingly in stock 

[mega ade]

31 minutes ago, DannyTGS said:

Toyo no longer supply the Uk, some companies will order container loads, these took so long to arrive 

 

hopefully having a drive out soon and track day in April too so will try to think on to review 

Should be good in the dry but not as good in the damp as R888R mk sportscars now use them on alot of new cars as they can't get toyos either their track car is almost a second  a lap quicker on the nankang over toyo but they say they wear alot quicker too

[Tim (Sideways) Johnson - Club Treasurer]

Couple of simple jobs today, swapped the oh so time consuming to adjust belts to some nice Sabelt ones purchased second hand from a forum member…

And swapped the ‘fried egg’ indicator bulbs for some silvered ones…

 

[Caldrin]

As we had a decent weekend weather wise finally managed to get out and fit some larger ignition leads from Burton along with some better matched spark plugs for the webers and finally managed to replace the old k&n filters with this one. 

Next on the list of to find a place to fit an oil catch can to the pipe that is just hanging down at the moment haha

[Hedley Bennett (HB46443) - Club Chairman]

I’ve been swinging around most of this evening. Now ready to remove the engine. 
Rear main seal I’m coming to get you!  Single garage fun!

[Tim (Sideways) Johnson - Club Treasurer]

Another quick job that I’ve been meaning to get round to for longer trips and euro blats, was using the empty underhood space to fit a tool roll including a jack and wheel brace. Just popped some M5 rivnuts in and used a couple of cycling toe straps, held down with stress relieving plates to hold this natty canvas bag from Amazon. Easily removed if out locally, but I’ll probably just leave it in there.

[Murraymint]

6 hours ago, Tim (Sideways) Johnson - Club Treasurer said:

Another quick job that I’ve been meaning to get round to for longer trips and euro blats, was using the empty underhood space to fit a tool roll including a jack and wheel brace. Just popped some M5 rivnuts in and used a couple of cycling toe straps, held down with stress relieving plates to hold this natty canvas bag from Amazon. Easily removed if out locally, but I’ll probably just leave it in there.

nice job Tim, I was looking to do something similar, how did you fit the plates on...

[Tim (Sideways) Johnson - Club Treasurer]

2 hours ago, Murraymint said:

nice job Tim, I was looking to do something similar, how did you fit the plates on...

I’ll take a photo tomorrow and all will be revealed. Then I’ll show you how I fitted the plates 

[Tim (Sideways) Johnson - Club Treasurer]

As simple as this. Four M5 rivnuts, two nylon straps, with plates on top to spread the load and prevent them trying to pull through. All nice and secure.

[DannyTGS]

So finally got the gear indicator sorted and tyre pressure monitoring system 

 

 

[Davemk1]

Winter is long here in Montana so it’s the perfect time to design and make stuff.

 

I complete in autocross with my car and one place that needed improvement was when braking from high speed (70 mph-ish - 90 mph-ish). If I simply stomp on the brake at that speed I tend to have one of both of the front wheels lock up. This never happens at lower speeds and the brake bias seems great. I think that there’s plenty of front end lift at speed and this could be the cause of the issue.

 

 

So I came up with a plan and using CAD (cardboard aided design) I made two different things - 

 

 - the first is what I suppose are called fender spats. The backside of the front fenders acts like a parachute and air being parted by the nose of the car gets pushed into the backside of the wheel and fender. This certainly causes a lot of drag and I suspect it causes some lift also. So I made a cover for the backside of the fender to keep air from going into the wheel and up under the fender. The material is 1/32” carbon fiber sheet. It was fussy to make cardboard template to fit but once that was done make the real ones out of carbon sheet was pretty simple.

 

 - the second and much bigger part of the system is the splitter/canard/diffuser mounted on each side of the nose. They mount to the splitter at the bottom and at the top they bolt to a bracket that is held by the front sway bar brackets. They are made from the same 1/32” carbon sheet and epoxied together to form a hollow box. What you can’t see in the photos is that the underside of these boxes is curved upward like a diffuser. These were not easy to make but it was a fun challenge.

 

 

I wanted the boxes to reduce lift at speed and to divert the air up and around all the exposed front suspension stuff to reduce drag and wind noise. And the air that spills over the sides can no longer go up and under the fender creating drag and lift.

 

I just drove the car for the first time with everything in place and I’m very pleased and there are a few unexpected benefits. The first is that there is noticeably less wind noise coming from the front of the car. I imagine this is from so much less air passing through all the suspension bits. It’s hard to say for sure but there’s less noise any way you cut it. The second thing that I noticed once moving is that I have less air hitting me in the face. I was shocked. It feels like air flow is now higher and further off to the side which makes it miss my head. It’s a pleasant feeling really and one I never expected. It’s much more calm now just cruising.

 

I’m very sensitive about adding weight to car and make every effort to keep the weight at the minimum for my race class (1400 lbs or 636 kg with me in the car) so making these new things as light as possible was important and worth the effort. In the end the fender back spats weigh 1.1 lbs for the pair and the two nose boxes weigh 2 pounds in total. So the whole mess added just 3.1 lbs. Not is bad.

 

Will it help with high speed braking? I think it will but will need to wait a few months until race season starts. Fingers crossed.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Dave

[Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO]

9 hours ago, Davemk1 said:

Winter is long here in Montana so it’s the perfect time to design and make stuff.

 

I complete in autocross with my car and one place that needed improvement was when braking from high speed (70 mph-ish - 90 mph-ish). If I simply stomp on the brake at that speed I tend to have one of both of the front wheels lock up. This never happens at lower speeds and the brake bias seems great. I think that there’s plenty of front end lift at speed and this could be the cause of the issue.

 

 

So I came up with a plan and using CAD (cardboard aided design) I made two different things - 

 

 - the first is what I suppose are called fender spats. The backside of the front fenders acts like a parachute and air being parted by the nose of the car gets pushed into the backside of the wheel and fender. This certainly causes a lot of drag and I suspect it causes some lift also. So I made a cover for the backside of the fender to keep air from going into the wheel and up under the fender. The material is 1/32” carbon fiber sheet. It was fussy to make cardboard template to fit but once that was done make the real ones out of carbon sheet was pretty simple.

 

 - the second and much bigger part of the system is the splitter/canard/diffuser mounted on each side of the nose. They mount to the splitter at the bottom and at the top they bolt to a bracket that is held by the front sway bar brackets. They are made from the same 1/32” carbon sheet and epoxied together to form a hollow box. What you can’t see in the photos is that the underside of these boxes is curved upward like a diffuser. These were not easy to make but it was a fun challenge.

 

 

I wanted the boxes to reduce lift at speed and to divert the air up and around all the exposed front suspension stuff to reduce drag and wind noise. And the air that spills over the sides can no longer go up and under the fender creating drag and lift.

 

I just drove the car for the first time with everything in place and I’m very pleased and there are a few unexpected benefits. The first is that there is noticeably less wind noise coming from the front of the car. I imagine this is from so much less air passing through all the suspension bits. It’s hard to say for sure but there’s less noise any way you cut it. The second thing that I noticed once moving is that I have less air hitting me in the face. I was shocked. It feels like air flow is now higher and further off to the side which makes it miss my head. It’s a pleasant feeling really and one I never expected. It’s much more calm now just cruising.

 

I’m very sensitive about adding weight to car and make every effort to keep the weight at the minimum for my race class (1400 lbs or 636 kg with me in the car) so making these new things as light as possible was important and worth the effort. In the end the fender back spats weigh 1.1 lbs for the pair and the two nose boxes weigh 2 pounds in total. So the whole mess added just 3.1 lbs. Not is bad.

 

Will it help with high speed braking? I think it will but will need to wait a few months until race season starts. Fingers crossed.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Dave

Very impressive @Davemk1 we look forward to seeing the update after you've tested at speed. I really like how you're incrementally improving your car for it's task.