Debut Event

June 29th 2016

Getting Out There

So, as the club (Northern Phoenix Trials Car Club) has an event now in late June, optimistically called the Summer Trial, and I wasn't ready for the 2 day event in May, this was my target.

In the week before I went to a club member's farm and had a run around. Another member, Jeff, came along with his car and it was very helpful to compare the lack of torque that my little 1040cc Imp engine had compared to his 1300cc Suzuki.

The car did overheat a bit and got to a stage at which it wouldn't cool down again. I thought this was due to an air-lock developing in the radiator or the water pump, which is mounted quite high up (it's a remote, belt-driven, pump).
It also smoked more than I had been led to believe it would. On the plus side the oil pressure was up at 50 psi as soon as the engine left tickover. Everything else seemed to work fine.

Steering Wheel

He quite disliked my 10" steering wheel. I too, had found it a bit too small to easily aim the car with any accuracy.
And (violins in the background) as I have started to get arthritis on my left thumb, anything that would make it easier to steer would be a help.

Back at home I bid on a 13" steering wheel on eBay and got it for £13. Bit of a gamble as it's an Astrali and mine is a Mountney. I blew the picture up on the screen so the diameter was 13 cms and then measured the PCD of the bolts on the boss on the computer screen. That showed 4cms and as the Mountney is 4" PCD I was pretty sure that it would fit. (simply substituting inches for cms)
Turns out that I was right and it popped straight on.

It was also mentioned that the steering lock was fairly poor. I didn't remember having noticed that when seeing the car in action before. 

Whilst cleaning it later, I noticed some paint chips on the hub carriers I looked a bit closer and found that the bolts I had used to fit the mudguard stays were too long and fouling the steering swivels. I replaced the standard nylock nuts with some shallower nylock nuts, then cut off the excess bolt thread and magically I've got back the steering lock.
Bit stupid of me, but there you are, when you are doing lots of different bits at once, it's easy to overlook these things.

What I need is more cups of coffee and more pondering-time.

Overheating

Pondering is what I needed to do to get the cooling under control. I've already said that the water pump is a bit too high, so an air-lock could develop there. Also the cooling system is an open system. There is no pressurised expansion tank so any pressure release by the radiator cap throws out water which is then lost to the cooling system. Which makes the overheating worse.

A wander round the scrap yard produced a small expansion tank from some type of Vauxhall (I only have room for a small tank) and a load of moulded hoses to help me plumb it in. I also got a plastic "T" piece to connect the return from the expansion tank into the bottom hose. 
All for £5. 

Fitting all this took a while. I also raised the radiator in the chassis by 1.5" in the hope of preventing an air-lock reaching the water pump. Not that it's much better in the radiator, but if it's in the water pump all coolant flow stops.
Bleeding the system took a while, but I got to a point at which it would cycle between the opening and closing temps of the thermostat quite well. That isn't giving it any load under competition conditions though.

Summer Trial, Hartside

I managed to get a volunteer passenger from a forum I have followed for a few years. He was willing to drive up from Stratford on Avon to Hartside, North East of Penrith, for the event. Nearly a 4 hour drive!
Good job I did as when I got to the trial quite a few drivers had empty seats and as you are required to have a passenger that presents a problem. I think everyone got sorted out, but it is a constant problem. If your other half is a willing victim it's not so bad. Some drivers have regular and committed passengers, but many are in a state of flux and hunting about for a passenger in the week before an event. 

This was only the second outing for the car on it's trailer and that went well. On the M6 I could travel at 60 mph with no snaking or jittering and on the hills my rather breathless 1600cc Suzuki managed with a bit of gearstick-stirring.

The trial started well for the car, but not so good for me. My last car had a 1340cc Honda engine and the Imp motor hasn't the grunt to climb steadily. It starts to slow and the only option, of opening the throttle as the hill steepens, breaks traction.
After a few Hills where I stopped  bit early, I took to getting a lot more momentum on the initial slopes and this seemed to suit the little car better. The rear suspension is a bit harsh though and it was getting thrown off course a bit, the faster we went. 

I've not really delved deeply into the alternatives for getting round the sticks much before. Just getting to them has been the struggle in the past. On this occasion my passenger, Brendan, was much the same weight as me. This seemed to make the balance of the car and it's grip much better.  It is a new car to me of course, so perhaps that is the clue.

Others have told me that a previous owner of the car (Neil Metcalfe, I believe) did well with it, when small engines were popular, and seemed to really use the revs a lot. I determined to do less trickling and more attacking.

The smoking was a major issue. Every time we stopped after a Hill and then restarted the engine it looked like Red Indian smoke signals. I discovered that if I parked facing down hill they weren't as bad. 

On Imp engines if you have a Sport head and double valve springs the "top hat" valve-stem oil seals can't be fitted. No room. So a drain pipe was fitted to allow oil around the valve guides to drain along a channel and back into the sump. This was supposed to stop the inlet valve guides sucking oil in (caused by the manifold depression) to the combustion chamber.
The trouble is that in an Imp installation the engine lies over at 45 degrees. In a trial car the engine is vertical and so the oil pools around the valve guides and doesn't drain away.
I'll deal with that later.

The cooling wasn't being great either. The gauge was going over 110 degrees. We did go back to the pits and tried re-filling the system and bleeding it. This meant we missed the last three Hills before lunch and scored a maximum 12 for those hills.

It didn't get a lot better in the afternoon and we started slipping back down the running order as we let the car cool a bit between Hills. 
There was certainly no lack of helpful suggestions. The members who have been doing this for years have been through all these traumas. 

Also the slugs of oil were starting to foul the plugs, so at each Hill start I needed to try and clear them before setting off. This effected the last-gasp torque as we approached the 4 or 3 poles and the engine stalled prematurely.

Still. It kept going so Brendan didn't make his trip for nothing. We had great fun and I improved my technique a bit. Nothing else on the car gave any trouble and my new sumpguard proved invaluable in warding off the alien rocks.

After the event we all went back to the CoC, Andrew's, home in Melmerby for food and drink whilst the scores were calculated. 
We were, as usual near the bottom with 134 penalties. I know where I lost about 40 of those points, so I can concentrate on those aspects next time out. Apart from the obvious missing three Hills with problems, I had failed to walk the course before every attempt, so missed some poles which had been moved a couple of times.

To put it into perspective, Simon won, with just 3 penalties.

The next post will be about the work to overcome the smoking and the overheating.