October 14th 2017
We went to the trial at Firbank.
If you don't know it, it's a bit of a steep and brutal site, in amongst the trees. The weather had been a bit damp previously, but on the day wasn't too bad.
I had been mulling over the problem with the car not revving-out properly and thought it may be that I had set the soft cut-out rev limit too close to the hard cut-out rev limit.
I'd set the soft one at 6800 revs and the hard one at 7000 revs.
It looks like the engine even when misfiring on the soft cut-out can still accelerate up to the hard cut-out and just die.
So I set the soft one at 6700 and the hard one at 7200 (which is about as much as the standard engine should be allowed to go to).
When we got to the site we went for a chug up the bank away from the Hills and tried both trickling and blasting. It still pulled like a train at very low revs, but now would whizz up the wheels if I gave if some proper throttle. It didn't die, but didn't really start misfiring either, so the soft-cut out isn't as obvious as some other ECU's available.
The trial began badly for me with a high score on the first Hill we were on. My fault for not attacking the early slope fast enough. It was a bit wash-boardy and I am so used to the rear suspension crashing through so possibly held back a little. It turns out the new (to me ) shocks are great and there was no uncomfortable crashing-through.
The next Hill was even worse as the simple turn uphill from the start defeated me with a slimy, greasy surface. I was bit annoyed about that until Mike Salton following us, did the same thing. He would normally do very much better than me.
Further up the site the next Hill was more of the sort of thing I like with some long, steep, traverses, between trees and then back again with a short blast to the last four poles. Ok I didn't get past 3 but not many others did either.
Bryan got a 1, four got 2 and ten of us got 3 the rest with other scores. Strangely that didn't appear in the results, but I forgot to hand in my card, so no surprise really.
We struggled round the rest of the Hills and back to this one again, as the first Hill of the second round. This time I got across the first traverse, but the 180 degree back again went all wrong and I turned too far, ending with my axle against a bloody great big tree.
A bit baffled, it didn't take long to see that the front wheels looked a bit (extremely) pigeon-toed.
Initially I thought the steering rack had broken, but it turned out to be a steering arm. Either way the wheels had taken over and we weren't going to be doing any more Hills.
This gave us a bit of a problem getting back to the pits, but as it was down a very steep hill we managed with John walking along side knocking the wheel in the right direction and a little brake pressure dragging it back as well. It was completely uncontrollable, wanting to steer across the front of the car. To get it on the trailer we tied some cord from the chassis to the mudguard stay to keep it from turning in front of the car.
So we had managed 9 hills. I wasn't too sorry to finish actually, as we had realised a couple of Hills before we retired that we were completely knackered. John has a bit of hip problem and I have a chronic back complaint (since 1990).
We arrived at a Hill start and neither of us could get out of the car to go and have a walk up the Hill!
Until John managed to struggle out, I was stuck. Then I could roll across the car and wriggle out.
The nature of Firbank is that you spend a lot of time walking across the very steep and slippery site doing the "Firbank Shuffle" which is an attempt not to slide down the hill by doing dad-dancing backwards.
You do fall over a lot though.
This episode has left me with a legacy back pain which hasn't really gone off yet. Usually a couple of nights of spasms and it fades away.
I have repaired the car though and fitted a new Mini steering rack which I had ready to go.
It's weird. Working on the car doesn't bother my back, but something about the Hills upsets it, sometimes a lot.
New Mini rack with old (Escort) one.
Any way the car is raring to go, but I didn't think it wise to do this weekend's trial, now at Eden Hall so I cancelled the entry. It wasn't going to make my back any better. In fact, I couldn't see myself finishing the event.
As I am probably going to limit myself to dry trials on open sites, I am thinking about selling the car. I'm not going to get enough experience to improve my skills. On the other hand, if I keep it, it will be there for the odd events, which I enjoy.
But, I have put it up for sale. If anyone wants to pay the price it's theirs. I couldn't possibly expect to get a return on the work I have done, but as I really enjoy the fettling and it's a hobby, that doesn't really matter.
Details here. https://trialscarforsale.blogspot.co.uk/
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