Small powerhouses and old school

[Elnef]

Great report thanks
congrats with the 10sek 

[dive!dive!]

Just what I needed on a Sunday morning while I drink my coffee! Awesome stuff. Driving something like this on the street (when you get there...) will be terrifying.... :-) I took Mrs Dive!Dive! for her first spin in my 1776 since the headwork and EFI install yesterday, pulled onto an straightish road and gave it some in 2nd/3rd, I shut it off well before I would have if it was just me, looked over and she was gripping the sides of the seat and just said, 'that's enough now, lets go home'....what fun!


Cheers
Steve

[Peter Shattock]

Steve, you are right the street driving is the big thing I miss, I've not done enough of it over recent years and I don't expect to do much to improve that stat this year as the list of to do jobs is getting longer[color=][/color] not shorter but I hope my plans for 2016 see the car back were it belongs.

My wife has not been in the car since it had the type IV in it she hated it then and its difficult to see how I have improved the car to her liking in that time but you never know perhaps it was just the type IV she didn't like all along and she might love it now!?

P

[Neil Davies]

Interesting what you say about your wife hating the car - mine says that the roll cage freaks her out with my car! She's perfectly happy driving my other beetle so who knows,  maybe the cage is just a reminder that things can go wrong?
Hope to see you at some point this season Peter, and well done again on the 10!

[dangerous]

My wife has not been in the car since it had the type IV in it she hated it then.
Perhaps it was just the type IV she didn't like all along and she might love it now!?

 

[Type1/DVK]

Had my ''mouse motor'' on the dyno this week:  1776cc weekend warrior > 141hp - 171nm 

turn down your volume 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNk-9S3ukF0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlLdUhjMnR4

Just a fun cruiser and for a few drag's here and there... in somewhat sleeper look 

[dive!dive!]

My wife has not been in the car since it had the type IV in it she hated it then.
Perhaps it was just the type IV she didn't like all along and she might love it now!?

 

Indeed!

[dive!dive!]

Had my ''mouse motor'' on the dyno this week:  1776cc weekend warrior > 141hp - 171nm 

turn down your volume 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNk-9S3ukF0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlLdUhjMnR4

Just a fun cruiser and for a few drag's here and there... in somewhat sleeper look 

Nice! I see the 48's but what about heads and cam ?

[Type1/DVK]

specs in the discription vid.

w130 and 044 heads on 10.5 CR

[dive!dive!]

specs in the discription vid.

w130 and 044 heads on 10.5 CR

Ah, yes, missed that!

[Pas]

Great write up on "The mouse that roared" as usual Pete 

Hopefully you get sorted for Volkslife and I will see you there for some more 10 second action!

[Peter Shattock]

Race 2 2015

Having organised fixes to most of the problems I had last time out I set out for the track with some optimism that I could start setting up the ecu things I was meant to be doing at UKDD. Once again it was all a bit last minute, but basically the car was ready.

It was a lovely day for a drive to the track on Friday, which made the fact that I was towing the car and not driving it all the more frustrating.

We arrived in good time though and thanks to help from Alex with the tent for the car we got set up and ready for the morning. It was windy Friday night so it was a strap everything down job before we turned in, hoping that it would all be there in the morning!

Fortunately it was all there in the morning and it was clear that there was a serious tail wind and I was all excited about making a good start to the weekend.

Sadly for me I thought I would just have a go at adjusting the clutch a little in the fire up road and I can't tell you how much I regret that now! That small thought resulted in me missing the whole of Saturdays running!

Back in the pits it became clear that there was a problem with the clutch master cylinder. Fortunately Alex remembered that Dave Dinning had a spare cylinder at home and a few phone calls later Alex and I were on the 5 hour round trip to go and rob the parts we needed to fix it. Dave had all the bits ready and with a bit of mix and match we had what looked like a working cylinder again.

Back at the track we got the car back together ran it up and found some gears, all was not quite what it should have been, but it was basically working.

So back to the fire up road and no danger of a last minute clutch adjustment this time!

I did a quick burnout which resulted in no clutch again! So I was about to be pushed back but a peddle appeared again after a few pumps so I fired it up staged and went. It was all a bit manic, but it got to the end of the track. As it turned out it was just as well that I didn't need the clutch to change gear once on the move as by the time I was at the top of the track the  clutch had gone again!

The clutch re appeared again of sorts and with some more bleeding and adjustment back in the pits I had recovered a reasonable peddle again.

I did two other runs all without burnouts (to avoid the clutch drama) and basically hobbled my way through the rest of the day.

All runs had poor 60ft times but were respectable 11.1* with a bit more mph than at UKDD at between 120-121mph. The mph increase over the last time out was due to the lack of headwind I suspect.So this looks like a more realistic mph as any wind was across the track on Sunday, but it was a much calmer day than Saturday generally.

The car was on the rev limiter through the line at this speed so I have a bit to think about in this regard, but gear ratio changes will be a winter job, so the plan is to concentrate on getting the car off the line more consistently and quickly now.

Towing the car home on Sunday night was painful as it was a really nice evening for a drive through the Cotswolds again. It certainly looks like it will be next year before the car is on the road again now given its the middle of the year already and the to do list appears to be getting longer not shorter!

Having got the car home I took the motor out and found the clutch certainly was warn which hopefully was part of the problem, but there is still a hydraulic issue to resolve, which I hope to get on to this week.

The good news is that the oil looked good when the motor came out and there was very little debris in the filter. I don't want to temp fate, but the oil system looks to be coping with the abuse at the track and the pressure from the little pump is really stable so I'm gaining a some confidence that its up to the job.

Next outing is Dragstalgia in July, by which time I hope to have a clutch, and if all goes to plan one I can adjust too!

[ Attachment: You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Peter

[spanners]

Hi Peter, firstly, brilliant acheivement, well done and also a victory for original thinking.
 I've had various problems with hydro clutch systems, one seems close to as you described your problem, mine got worse with heat build up till I had to bang the gears through,  after many wasted hours down blind alleys, i found all it needed was a larger bore supply line, the often used brake line sized 3/16"  pipe is enadequate, it just couldn't shift enough fluid at the speed I needed it too, once I upped the supply line tube size, all the grief went away with the added bonus of less pedal pressure, might be worth a look in that area.

[Peter Shattock]

Hi Spanners,
Thanks for the tip about the hose bore size it might yet come to that, but I'm hopeful that I have found a problem which was causing the issue. I'm sure you are right in what you have said, but the frustration for me has been the fact that its been fine both for racing and street driving up until this point and I had literally not changed anything.

Having had the hydraulic side of the system apart at home I suspect there was a combination of events which caused the problem in the first place which was then compounded with some miss diagnosis and hastily put together fixes at the track.
The initial problem was clearly a seal failure and it was never going to work with a big hole in it! This may or may not have been caused by the clutch valve tampering on my part, but I've a feeling it was. My theory is that the valve will naturally create greater pressure at the master cylinder as the valve is closed and this I suspect forced the seal out into the bore of the master cylinder. The large hole which the seal is now modeling is a very clean cut circle which happens to coincide with the supply holes in the cylinder from the reservoir. As it happens there were a number of chunks of rubber from the seal in the fluid where these sharp edges of the holes had been taking chunks of the seal off as it passes by. Looking at the seal this must have been happening for some time.
The seal I nabbed from Dave was a slightly different design but was for the same size bore cylinder. It took a certain amount of part swapping to get it working but it did work. I remember thinking it felt a bit sticky at the time but at that point I just thought it works just strap it back on the car and there is a chance to race on Sunday.
That is exactly what I did but in my haste and my brain telling me I wanted it to work I ignored a couple of signs which should have triggered some alarm bells.
Firstly we struggled to bleed the clutch I just put this down to it having been troublesome before and then there was the inconsistent peddle. This was the opposite to what you might imagine in that it got worse with pumping. I was fairly confident that there was no air in the system at this point.
Leeping forward now to when the car was at home I noticed the peddle was sitting down a little and had some more mechanical free play. Its at this point where my brain starts to piece things together in the calm of the garage. I went to look at the master cylinder in the tunnel (its one of the SACO in tunnel kits), and noticed the cotta pin was not quite back in the hook of the peddle shaft which normally has the eye of the clutch cable over it. Its not the best of designs this but in fairness to SACO it does work and it would make the kit a lot more expensive if they were to supply a new peddle shaft with a nice eye for the cotta pin. I might well modify mine at some point now though.
Having discovered this I took a closer look with the peddle going through its travel and sure enough the piston in the cylinder was not returning fully so it could not grab a full gulp of fluid before it went forward again hence it getting worse with successive pumps of the peddle.
So that is my theory.
The master cylinder rebuild kit I ordered from SACO arrived so I tried it with the right seals to see if I was right.
I also needed to round the edges of the reservoir supply holes in the cylinder so as not to pick up the seal again which is easier said than done given how far down an 19mm diameter hole they are. I got a small Dremmel ball end bit on the end of a pick set handle and rounded the edges of the holes in a hope that the seal would not pick up this time.
Incidentally I would not want this to put you off buying this kit from SACO as I think overall its a decent product. But do take care with the seals as there is an issue there with mine although this may be a one off or an earlier design fault that they have since sorted as I've had mine for some time.
I don't have one to hand but I was wondering how sharp the edges of the fluid supply holes are on a regular master cylinder?
I did what I could to adjust the hook and cotta pin to best effect and to prevent anything from binding, greased it all and put it back together. The clutch bleed fine and I had a decent enough peddle again.
I also decided to change the clutch pressure plate and centre disc for a steel plate and black magic disc so I could manage the clutch better on the start line whilst I had it in bits.
This is where I made another error as I did not appreciate there was a small, but important difference in the position of the clutch fingers on the pressure plate which meant the slave cylinder was traveling just a little further than it was before.
Once I'd sorted a few other jobs I was all set for Dragstalgia, or so I thought.

Race 3 2015

It was another great day for the drive to the track which once again made it particularly irritating that I was not driving the car to the track.
First of all its worth saying what a good race event this is. There is a great mix of cars and bikes to look at on the track and the car park particularly if you are of a certain age as I am!
Once set up the track was open so I went down for a first run. I ran this weekend on BRM's given its a nostalgia event which also meant running on street tires (M&H dots) which is my intention now for the rest of the year. The plan being that I wanted to see what traction would be like relative to the new clutch, motor etc. as part of the master plan for the 10 second run I really want.
So the first run was a very solid 11.2 @116mph the mph was down again due to a strong headwind I think, but that's the best run ever for the car on street tires so it was a promising start.
The problem was it went down hill from there. When I got back to the pits I decided to try and adjust the clutch and guess what it all went wrong again and I was left with no peddle!
After a bit of head scratching and given the time Alex took me on a bit of a shopping trip in the local town to see if we could find another master cylinder seal before the shops closed as it felt just the same as it did the last time out when it destroyed the seal.
As it turned out we couldn't get a seal but Richie was coming to the track the next day and thought he had some spares. So that night I took the master cylinder out to be ready for the morning and to my surprise the seal was fine. Having realised there were no visible leaks anywhere else it meant the only other non visible place was the slave cylinder in the bell housing. As it turned out if I had looked in the engine drip tray earlier I would have realised it was this as the pad was full of hydraulic fluid which is another lesson learnt.
If I had not fitted an engine tray I would have seen a puddle of hydraulic fluid on the floor earlier and saved a load of time, but least we'd found the leak.
The gearbox has an internal slave cylinder not the external one you usually see that operates the standard arm so it was an engine out job to fix.
I put the master cylinder back together and back in the car Friday night and got up early Saturday morning and took the motor out and sure enough the seal on the release bearing had blown. It was clear that this was sure to the over travel of the bearing (back to the finger positions on the new clutch setup!).
Fortunately I had a spare release bearing and seal so once everything was cleaned and back together this just left the over travel of the bearing but this was easily fixed as I had a spare new clutch so just robbed the early ring to gain 10mm. the question then was if the 10mm would be to much!
Once it was back together we bled the clutch which seems to have been my favorite past time of late and we had a clutch again.
Annoyingly I missed the first run of the morning by no more than 10-15 minutes but at least I was all set again for round 2.
This next run was 11.5 or there about, but resulted in no clutch peddle at the end of the track.
Back in the pits it was clear that I was still leaking fluid as the reservoir level had dropped. I decided at this point that as the tray was catching the fluid and the clutch was not slipping to have another run just to have a bit of fun. This resulted in another 11.5*, but the same clutch issue.
I nearly went home that evening to use the time on Sunday to get it apart to have a better look in the calm of the garage, but decided to stay for the Saturday social and another run in the morning.
No surprise that the clutch did not magically fix it's self overnight, so there was no surprise no clutch after the mornings run.
At this point I decided to pack up and go home and get the car apart to see what was wrong.
The only other positive to take from the weekend was that the car has enough clutch and tire in principal which had been a problem historically so some positive progress made as well as the best street tire time for the car.
Once home I checked for leaks elsewhere but found nothing so took the motor out and to my surprise there was no fluid in the bell housing. This was not good news as it meant there must be an internal leak in the gearbox!
Sure enough I drained the gearbox oil which was contaminated with hydraulic fluid. Needless to say this is not good and I don't know what damage this has or hasn't done as I only discovered this late one evening before going on our 2 week family summer holiday so this is where I am today.
When I'm back next week I'll get the box out and assess the damage. I hope what ever there is its not to drastic as I really want to get to DDD this year having missed it last year.
Peter

[Olaf A./DFL]

Thanks for your really cool reports! Love to read them and fingers crossed you can fix the problem and come to DDD!

[spanners]

Nice one Pete, at least you are onto the real fault, it's easy to lose a whole season fault finding, ask McLaren Honda!! Just a thought regarding the black magic disc, disc thickness may be factor in your problem, this as you know governs were the diaghfragm fingers sit he aight wise in relation to the release bearing, a very slightly thicker disc will lower the finger height a considerable amount and increase the needed operating stroke of the two cylinders, I'm sure the BM discs come up thicker than other discs, may be an area to explore regarding over stroking the system,? Good luck with it anyway.
On a lighter note, you must also have considerably more self control than I have tho lol! , for me my savour was going trailer born with the original road legal spec of the first BBT cars, they encouraged ' spirited driving' shall we say, especially in the rain, so it would have only been a matter of time before my licence got posted away! The door handle rubbing  and long haul events made me buy a trailer, trailer towing has its own set of problems anyway, like the nut who came up the M1 hard shoulder and then brake tested me big time!!  It was way back in mileneum year, but may have been an early crash for cash job, I had room to miss him luckily, and he scarpered tout suit.

[wph]

Clutch plate fingers whipping up the fluid to foam has been an OEM problem in "new" cars too, different BM plate
thicknesses will not help it either. It doesn't create a leak always but you will loose the "pedal" .Your slave cylinder
is inside the bel housing, correct ?

Pekka     

[Peter Shattock]

Hi Olaf, I will be doing my best to be at DDD, fingers crossed its not to nasty once I get the box in bits.

Spanners, I have some options with disc thickness as they do come in different thicknesses but, I also have the option of machining up some varying thickness collars based on the early style clutch ring so I hope I have enough adjustment now I know what I'm looking for. On the lighter note point I'm OK just cruising around particularly with the 145's up front and the M&H's out back as its not best suited tire combo for spirited driving when corners are concerned. Its fine for a quick blast to shock the local fwd boys at the stop lights, but it really is pretty quick these days and traffic comes up fast when you give it the big one. My point about wanting to drive to the track and back is just a personal goal based on no sensible logic, but I call I a street car and to me street cars need to be driven to the track and on the street in general for fun. The race car only thing this year has been painful as there is so little seat time drag racing its not so bad for you roundy roundy guys at least you get more time in the car. Longer term I have plans for the car to go round corners and then spirited driving on the road with some proper tires might test my self control a bit more than it does currently!

Pekka, I have heard of problems with the bearings and seals struggling with heat and AP make a bearing and seal suitable for high temps which is on mt shopping list just to remove another variable. That said I'm not this is the problem I have now. The housing that I made for the bearing to run in is in two parts to enable me to fit it in the gearbox and given its design it is also sealed to prevent fluid escaping into the gearbox as part of the slave cylinder is internal to gearbox. This is the seal which I think has failed in this case but this is just a guess at this point until I get it apart. Perhaps the fluid is struggling but I'm not convinced as I can't see its getting so hot as we are struggling to get heat into the gearbox rather than trying to loose it, but I'll keep it in mind!

I'll report back once its in bits, but thanks for the comments and advice.

Peter

[spanners]

Morning Pete, forget the corners mate, whole new ball game and it NEVER stops on development, another thread needed for that one  , but good on yer for the differing spacer collar width ideas, one other thing springs to mind on the Hewland, is the clutch housing well vented? Clutch cooling is a biggie with the hydro release bearing I would emagine, more so than the side slung pull type cylinder type, I had to run ducting to my bell venting after I under panelled the trans and motor as oil and coolant temp increased, a few naca ducts normalised that ok, those high temp seals mentioned can only help you.

[andy198712]

Did you say you still have a clutch arm on there? Can you not convert to the external slaves?

[spanners]

Re read things now and it's just sunk in the fluids not overheating so it's not bell airflow and venting, Andy, it's a Hewland trans, no VW clutch levers.

[Peter Shattock]

As suggested there is no external clutch arm, so no option there.

I have also got holes in the bell housing to help with the heat 3 x 20mm on each side.

Its difficult to imagine that its a heat problem particularly when you consider the context in which its being used as I have literally started the car driven it straight to the start line and had no peddle at the end of the track after just one use of the clutch off the start line.

The question now is what is this new issue with the gearbox hydraulic seal issue, but hopefully all will become clear once its in bits.

Peter

[whirligig]

now I don't know , what a Hewland gearbox concentric cyl looks like or how its bolted in BUT had a prob with a customers saab when we fitted a new clutch. this was a fair few years ago , the pattern cyl (AP made in India) was machined 1thou to big where it sat in a recess in the bell housing, we tried 3 and they were all the same!!!!!! This allowed the back plate of the cyl to pop out,just a thought.Also you do need a bigger dia pipe to the slave with that volume of fluid moving and the small pipe will increase the pressure in the master cyl.imo.

[spanners]

I wonder if the seal is too narrow, I seem to recall from the mists of time the Oem seals are very deep, I've not seen one lately as I don't fit seal kits these days,  just complete cylinders, a narrow seal would have a higher chance of entering the cylinder ports and tearing itself off a chunk?

[1946vw]

Had a great weekend when 8.89 143 in the G/D 1700cc

[dangerous]

Sweet Brian! What does it weigh?
As in, what is the lbs/ci for G/D?

[1946vw]

8.4

[modnrod]

Had a great weekend when 8.89 143 in the G/D 1700cc

 
Looks like my mates 8.60 @ 160+ 1640cc Suzuki Katana has competition then............
 

Any vids or sound clips?
Please?
 

[Peter Shattock]

Small up date as I've had little time to work on the car since returning from our family holiday and trying to catch up at work then getting my bag nicked with my wallet and keys in it last week, with all the time consuming drama that involves but I have got a gearbox back in one bit!
As expected it was the static seal in the clutch housing which had blown. It was a strange looking failure as the circular seal had almost split along its length. The seal felt fine and had not degraded and was not out of shape as I had expected so it was not entirely clear how or why it failed. Suffice to say it now has a new seal and is back together and ready to go back in the car.
I've also made some changes to the clutch valve activation in a hope that it  helps the master cylinder cope better and I have more mechanical adjustment options too.
I'm away again this weekend, but hope to get the box back in the car next week so all being well should be on target for DDD assuming the clutch behaves itself!
Peter

[Peter Shattock]

Once again with another year flying by this is the final race report from me for a while, but I'm glad to be writing it as DDD if you are into ACVW's and drag racing is a must do event in Europe. You really do need to find a very good excuse if you are not going to do this event!
The Das guys put on a great show and there are loads of great people and cars to talk to and look at.
I don't really understand how the track is so good as for the lack of preparation relative to a full time track it really is unreasonably good.
So the car was all sorted with a decent clutch peddle and what looked like some adjustment, so it was all looking good. As usual it was all a bit last minute, and I did not feel like I was at all organised when I left but I was reasonably confident the car was in a good place.
After the comedy of realising I was not sure where I was going when queuing for the ferry in the pouring rain in Dover thought I would ask the all knowing lounge what to put in the sat nav to get me there. Henk was good enough to reply so I was all set. He did joke that I could follow him if I bumped in to him on route, but that was never going to happen. So when a grey Caddy with a green DDD sticker waved as it went by not more than 30 minutes into the journey to say I was surprised to see Henk was an understatement! Henk was good enough to provide an escort all the way to the track which was a nice start to the weekend.
Thanks also to Marc who saved me some pit space we were all ready to go before it was dark.
The Jarvis hospitality services were in full effect with a random selection of food  available with a 4 course meal which I don't suppose I will ever see on a single menu again.
Tech inspection was done first thing in the morning so it was just a case of waiting for the track as there was a lot rain the previous day and over night. But things soon got underway.
I got 3 runs in with varying amounts of clutch slip and or tire spin which ended with a best of 11.4* with a 1.8* 60ft which was not where I wanted to be but it was better than the two 12's I started with so I was heading in the right direction at least.
The first run was a comedy cock up on my part as when I reconnected the 2 step switch I managed to put it on the wrong terminal on the switch so it was always on hence the 8,000rpm limit on the 1st run and me on the rev limiter in 6th gear at what felt like half track! I had to scratch my head a bit at 1st but soon realised it was the 2 step when the data log had it bang on 8k in each gear. Round 2 was nearly as comical with clutch slip a plenty and a 2.5* sec 60ft. Its difficult to see this as  good news, but it was actually the first time the clutch management had worked all year. I had finally got to the point where I had too much slip. So perhaps other than the first 12 the car ever ran this was probably the most satisfying 12 I've run in years. It meant I had proven all be it at different tracks that I had enough tire, clutch and clutch adjustment and I had actually did if I come away from this weekend knowing this I would be happy. So I was sort of happy.

 I adjusted the clutch and headed out for another run after a short rain break.
This resulted in an uneventful 11.4* but with a 1.8* 60ft spinning the tires, so to much clutch now.
That was it for day one due to a late shower. I decided to leave the clutch alone and get a bit more heat in the tire and adjust tire pressures on Sunday to see where that took me.
The main reason for this was that the data logging of the clutch was not working so I was not able to monitor the amount of slip. So I thought as its spinning the tires I would stick with what I know more about and try and find some more grip to try and attack the issue from the other side.
There was plenty of good technical chat in the pits in the day  thanks to a few people who made the shower intervals and the day in general pass very quickly. There was certainly plenty of knowledgeable people and interesting conversations to be had which is always good!
Then I packed up and went and made the most of the Das hospitality and had a wander round the pits and catch up with people. This was particularly good this year as I missed last year it had been quiet a while since I'd seen people.
Sunday was much better weather dry all day so racing was only interrupted for lunch and with the promise of more consistent weather and hopefully track conditions I felt quite confident Tha I could make some progress.
I'd forgotten at this point that someone with far more experience than me did say it's quite difficult to get the clutch adjusted so its just where you need relative to tire and track conditions and it became obvious this was going to be the case.
I did do a number of quicker runs during the day but did not really make any progress in terms of finding the balance to get the car off the line. I'm going to blame this on the lack of data to enable me to adjust the clutch successfully for now so its high on the priority list of winter jobs to sort that out.
1st run I spun the tires for what felt like half the track, so I adjusted tire temps and did bigger burnouts whilst still leaving the clutch where it was. Over several runs this resulted in some improvements, but I was still spinning the tires and never got back to the point of the clutch slipping sufficiently to control tire spin. So what I haven't learnt yet is where that sweet spot of balance is, but I hope that will come in time With some more practice and data.
The highlightfor the weekend for the car was an 11.15 @190.58kph, which is the fastest it been on the street tires and given that was with a 1.688 60ft I think the car will be in a good place if I can get the clutch adjustment together and get back to some low 1.5* 60ft times.
That means the car finishes this season with a best of 10.97 @ 121mph on slicks and 11.15 @ 118mph which is all very encouraging for next year As both times were with poor 60ft times.
I think the biggest news of all though is the reliability of the engine. The car has done 20-25 passes (not sure exactly need to check)this year all but one at over 10,000 rpm in each gear and for a large part of the season off the line too.
As I said in a earlier post I had the humble pie ready to eat if it had all gone wrong and it had thrown itself all over the track, but of course that didn't happen.
Having changed the oil after each meeting this year I'm happy to report that there was nothing other than the usual amount of debris in the filter, the oil pressure has been really solid and looking in the DS tank at the oil straight after the run I'm happy the engine is getting a decent supply of decent oil rather than the limited supply of foaming mush the old engine got with the wet sump. It was actually a joy to see the oil in the tank looking so good. The real proof will not be known until its apart and the bearings are in my hand but I'm reasonably confident they will be OK.
The valve train remains the challenge and will be the focus this winter in terms of the engine to see what we can do to improve what we know has been reliable in the engine this season.
The main job for the winter though is to get the car street legal again next year. I said to a few people this last weekend that I don't know how the race car only guys can stand it. It has been by far the most frustrating thing about the car this year as I really miss the street driving. Its been a great reminder that a hot street car rather than a race car is definitely the way forward for me.
So winter tinkering starts tonight. As ever there is a long list but this year there is less than in recent years. The combination is roughly where it needs to be now so I just need to get it all working together which is a much better place to be.

Peter