Sprint racer

[Veesix75]

Some of you may know I bought the white Sprint racer that had been raced in the Scottish series recently by Rodger Motherwell's friend.....I'm hoping to race at Cadwell in it in 2 weeks time (27th) but as usual time is conspiring against me.

Here it is this weekend after fitting a new front screen (made me 'sweat' but went in well in the end), some different wheels, suspension adjustments and a few other checks and fettling.

We have rebuilt the brakes just to be on the safe side, but a rolling road session Friday highlighted a small oil leak and totally unrelated but sods law happenned on the rollers, a fuel leak. Neither are major but we have just next weekend to sort these out now but fingers crossed.

Ive only driven it once, so Cadwell will be as much about getting to the know the car as anything else (my excuse for coming last). Its running standard suspension config with Koni's all round, standard brakes with DS3000 pads (cant believe how small those discs are) and a 1500 engine with big cams so it revs high.

It is a good, solid car and should be capable in the right hands (which isnt me!). Fingers and toes crossed for a trouble free event in 2 weeks.

[PETROLHEAD]

looking very purposeful Tim, nicely turned out.

good luck with the minor niggles, if it were different i'd offer a hand this weekend, but its the last one before my stag do to follow, so brownie points need to be earned before i let everyone down hopelessly! ha ha!!!


best get cracking, both of us!

[Veesix75]

Thanks Shrew

I'll offer my congratul(commisera)ations on the impending sentence....err marriage!

[vecchioalfa]

Car looks great don't bend it..

[Veesix75]

A few pics from the CTCRC Pre 83 race at Cadwell Park that I found online, credited to Big Hairpin Photography.

[PETROLHEAD]

Great stuff Tim, Looking good!

[alfachris]

Looks good

[Spacenut]

Very nice!

And showing a clean pair of heels to a Capri and a Camaro too - impressive!

More pictures please!

Lauren

[AlfaCorseChris]

Nice to see this car went into good hands

Good job mate

[Veesix75]

It's time to give it another once over before the (hopefully) next race at Brands Hatch.

Exhaust only just scraped through its sound test at cadwell - 104.5db, limit is 105db so spare back box fitted and being noise tested tomorrow.

Front Springs and pans need strapping up as they managed to move at cadwell and possibly a leaky shocker - hoping not on the latter. I've got some solid rose joint top mounts so might try them while we're at it.

Other than that I'm hoping its just a dip of the oil and fluid levels.

Only been to Brands twice, over 10 years ago, so will have to take a deep breath for Paddock Hill bend.

[Veesix75]

A few updates and photos to take a look at with a cuppa....

The pre Brands check over mentioned above ended up being 2 days of rolling around on the floor mostly with front suspension woes. I'd forgotten how much time the prep and sorting niggles and worn out bits and bobs can take.

Anyhow, after taking a look a the 'leaky' front shocker we found quite a lot of play when putting weight on the front wheel (like when checking a wheel bearing for wear). With no idea what it was we decided to take the front leg off completely and have a better look. Turns out that the shocker is held in with a threaded top mounting that screws into the strut body (my other inserts are bolted in at the bottom).

It looked like it had come out while at Cadwell and shock was moving around in the strut body (and would pull straight out). All the movement had knackered / crushed the threads, or so I thought.

Anyhow, I went off to sulk and put the kettle on, while the 'chief engineer' got out his 45 year old needle files and proceeded to tidy up the threads, screw the shock back in and have it all ready before I got back with the tea.

With the strut off, we also decided to fit some rose jointed top mounts - bad idea! After taking everything apart, losing track of where the pans etc fitted, we realised that we had some parts missing and had to take them off again and go back to the old top mounts. Chief engineer is currently getting the missing bits machined up for next time Day almost gone at his stage.

Next job was a new back box - the old one tested at 104.5db and I had another in the shed so we fitted that and we tested it at 102db so all good.

Finally the fuel leak came back with a vengance and this time it was the pump itself seeping at the joints. It was a Facet and sounded loud and awful so I assumed it was on its way out - we replaced it with a new Facet - which still sounds loud and awful!

Anyhow, we were finally ready to go .....

Chief Engineer after a long day wrestling with struts and suspenion parts.

Rose jointed top mounts looking good on the tool box rather than on the car!

[Veesix75]

Racing was Sunday, but we went down Saturday, a really good run in 3 hours, got there just in time to see some Classic F3 racing.

Sunday we were met by just 6 other entries in the race, so 7 with me - not great for the spectator but 5 of us looked like we would be of a similar pace so looking good for some competitive racing for me at least (another Sprint 1.7, a 75 2 litre and 2 Bertone coupes). I expected to get left for dust by a 75 Turbo and a 3 litre 164

I'd only driven the Indy circuit once before 10 years ago so was all over the place for a couple of laps, then I managed to get on the back of a Bertone coupe and follow him for a few laps, getting quicker as we went on.

The 75 Turbo had a few issues and the 164 was out for the very first time (having been finshed the night before) so I was shocked to be fastest overall.

First race came, I had visions of stalling it from pole, but managed to get away well and pulled a small gap over the Bertone coupe and the 75.

About half way through I locked a wheel braking for Paddock Hill bend and thought my tyres had gone off, same happened again at Druids. I eased off mostly due to my self preservation gene taking over and the Bertone caught me up, at which point I realised it was oil covering half the circuit dropped by the 75 Turbo. So lead foot back onto throttle and managed to hold of the Bertone to finish 'first'.

Same routine for the second race, not the best start but once I got into second I managed to pull a gap while the other 4 cars tried to get past each other, and managed to keep the gap until the finish.

In reality, had there been more cars, and if the 75 Turbo had been running 100%, I would have been in my ususal position half way down the field. So the weekend goes down as both my first ever, and last ever, pole and race win - I'm not expecting to repeat this any time soon!

I still need to find another 2 seconds per lap to be on the pace in the pre 83 series.

Good news was the car handled really well after all the suspension fettling, and while I still cant quite get to terms with revving a 1500 cc to 7800rpm, the motor ran really well up until the last couple of laps in the second race - it didnt feel quite as sharp at the end (see next post).

A few pics

Brands 75 turbo.JPG (42.87 KiB) Viewed 27510 times

[Veesix75]

So, after feeling a bit awkward being interviewed on the podium after the second race, I got back in the car and started it up to drive back to the paddock - it sounded awful.

The sound was like a cross between a blowing head gasket and running on 3 cylinders. Expecting the worst we winched it on the trailer and set off for home as it was late (we got the grave yard shift on the event list for the second race- 6pm!).

Pulled the car out this morning and fearing bad news, had a good root round the fluids etc and all looked ok. Thoughts turned to a bent valve (lets face it 7.8Krpm is going to eat one at some stage) but after lots of head scratching we decided to see if it would start. 7 pumps on the throttle and flicked the ignition and it fired, sounding the same as at the circuit. I stuck my head in the engine bay and could hear air dragging from somewhere, the chief engineer then stuck his finger over a hole in the carb manifold and hey presto - it was fine. The blanking plug had come out and made a bid for freedom in sunny Kent (I hope it knows how much houses cost down there!).

So, good news all round (almost!!) as I had a spare motor in the garage with manifolds and whipped out the blank, fitted it to the Sprint and all was back to normal.

While fitting it we noticed that the engine was rocking like a see saw - front engine mount rubber sheared off completely. However small price to pay for the simple repair above so very happy.

Here's a pic of the spoils for the day, I feel a bit of a fraud really, but the kids like the caps...

It was a great weekend for both racing and watching, with classic F3, classic Fford and Historic Touring cars - I will post some links later.

We plan to go to Oulton Park last weekend of October with AROC again, I'm not expecting many entries again but going to give it a go.

I might also see if I can enter an all comers race first weekend of November at Silverstone with the HSCC

[vecchioalfa]

Very well done mate

[Veesix75]

A few more general photos and links to take a look at.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/116801775 ... 021/page5/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/autodelta/

Lovely.....!!

Also found a pic from Cadwell, trying to keep up with a quick Mk1 xr2

[Johnboy]

Great result and good news on an easy fix too

[KevJTD]

brilliant result, on track and off mate.

well done

[alfachris]

Nice one well done

[Veesix75]

Thanks....I don't want to tempt fate but the car has performed really well so far and I'm very happy with it. There are always jobs to do as everything is stressed when racing so things inevitably break or wear out faster than normal.

It could do with upgraded brakes as the discs are about the same size as my kids 1 direction cd. But, I've chosen to stick with the 13 inch wheels so options are non existent.

Having said that, I'm quite sure someone more competent than me could wring another couple of seconds per lap out of the car even with the 1D discs.....

If all goes well at Oulton I might treat it to a respray for next year, opinions welcome on :

1. Keep it White
2. Kwak green
3. Red

It will be done on the cheap so the inside will remain white, so not sure if a different outside colour will look odd.

[alfachris]

Kawk green would look good

[PETROLHEAD]

1. Keep it White
2. Kwak green
3. Red

All of the above!

Tri-Colour, in a fashion anyway


Very well done on the racing so far Tim, great news.


I do hope the loss of the manifold blank hasn't allowed that cylinder to run too lean though Tim, might just be worth a look a little further when the opportunity arises.

[Veesix75]

That's a good point Shrew...

Both plugs looked fine, in fact an unusually almost perfect colour for something that runs so rich in general.

I noticed the slight drop off for about the last 2 laps so in reality 2 or 3 minutes running (albeit flat out).

Will have a think as I don't want to take the head off

[PETROLHEAD]

If the plugs looked a good colour, you've very likely got away with it i'd say Tim, thankfully eh!

You're lucky though mate, you can pull those heads on in a jiffy! ha ha!

[Spacenut]

I had the same thing happen to me coming back from Brooklands one year, the usual bit of hose with a bolt stuck in the end fell off the vacuum servo take-off somewhere along the A3. Like you, I thought the worst initially, but (like you) I found the culprit pretty quickly!

Now, thanks to a spare set of manifolds I have removed the vacuum servo take-off competely and replaced it with a proper threaded plug...

Lauren

PS - Kwaka green would be my choice (can't think why... )

[Marlow Sud]

Hi Tim,

I was at Brands Hatch with the red Sprint. Congratulations on a great drive and win.
Three of us have just passed our ARDS and are sharing the car. I drove at Cadwell, Chris drove at Brands until his nearside wheel studs came out. Malcolm will be driving at Oulton Park.

We had the wheels re-furbished and the pictures show powder coating in stud locations. We think this allowed the studs to loosen. Compomotive have supplied new stud inserts and we will also be checking stud torque after each race.

We trialled brake cooling air scoops. They worked brilliantly. You can see them in the pic. They are like mini dust pans tie wrapped to the lower wishbones.

Hope you like the pics.

All the best,
Simon

[Veesix75]

Thanks Simon, it's been great to see you, your co drivers and another sprint racing. The pics are excellent, thanks.

I'm pretty certain you have a very good car also so it won't be long before I'm following you!

Hopefully see you at Oulton.

[Veesix75]

I think Santa may have pay a visit to this site to complement my annual pair of comedy socks........

http://www.cjm-photography.co.uk/cm5-30 ... 12755.html

[Veesix75]

Well, the weekend beckons and tools are being readied ........

This Saturdays jobs will be

1. New front engine mount - confident we can do this by lifting the engine up slightly?
2. New catch tank - scruitineer told me off at brands for only having a 1 litre tank, blue book clearly states 2 litre
3. Battery needs securing better
4. Oil change
5. Capillary oil pressure gauge - electric one erratic on corners
6. Check front brake pads

Tempting fate saying should it be a straight forward day !

[KevJTD]

sounds like a busy day tim!!

never tried to change the front mount whilst the engine is still in place but guessing you're right. or you could lower the front cross-member down and take it off from underneath, loads of space when the x/m is moved. you'll have to take the cam-belt covers off to gain access to the top 2 of the 4 bolts hloding it to the block....sure you already knew that
guess once the covers are out of the way then access from above shouldn't be too bad

[Veesix75]

Thanks Kev....fingers crossed but I reckon it's possible.