The Build
up of Harry goes like this:
The engine was built by Terry Burnett at The Performance Connection, in Knoxville TN, USA, and is built to a very high specification with a Dirt Race setup. Dirt Race cars need good torque to get them out of the turns, and circuit race cars benefit from that "grunt" too. The engine has been modified to run on our poor quality fuel (we can't run 110 octane fuel over here in the sunny UK), thanks to Anglian Engine Services, and Geoff Scott-Coomber. The transmission is a GM Muncie M22,which I bought from 5speeds.com to replace the original M21 that Smax Smith supplied, and I chose a Quartermaster 7.25" triple plate clutch. Much help has come from Ric Wood in Stockport, without whom, a lot of this wouldn't have come together. The original Atlas axle was replaced with a Strange (Ford) 9" axle, supplied by Hauser Racing to bolt in it's place.
Here
are some of the buildup pics of "Harry"
It does fit, see!
An idea of how high the bulge will have to be.
With the shifter here, I bang my knuckles on the dash selecting 1st & 3rd. Doh! And that hole! Needs filler!
The hole in the tunnel is where the "footrest" used to be. As you can see, the starter wanted to be there!
I have found an alternative to the Hurst shifter that puts the shifter to the rear of the tail shaft, which should give me all of the clearance (for my mits) that I need. The M/R Racing shifter moves it all back about 4", which will save my knuckles.
After a whole year, I finally un-boxed the new wheels. I find that one of the rears has a bit of courier "bounce" damage, but I guess it's too late now!! I'll have to find a rim repairer to take the small dent out of the rim.
The fronts look fairly easy, there's a fair amount of room under the arches there. The rears were not so easy.
I had to cut the original arch to get the wheel to fit, and it'll require a little dressing to make it nice.
With a bit more dressing it looks like:
One thing I have found, is that the nearside rear arch is 3/4" narrower than the offside, so I'm going to perform surgery and open it out to be the same. Meep meep said the roadrunner
The front looks like:
Obviously, the suspension has a fair bit of droop being jacked up, but once the suspension is in running position, it looks superb!
The propshaft has been made. Bailey Morris in St Neots, Cambs, have done a very nice job, and have produced a split shaft with centre bearing which was going to provide me with a headache as the tunnel isn't as wide as the bearing carrier bracket. A bit of thought has it bolted up into position nicely.
The regs for the BARC-SE Track & Race Car Saloons specify how much of a hump I'm allowed in the bonnet (120mm). When I put the bonnet on with the airfilter for the first time it was 15mm too high. Add to that, I found that the engine/gearbox needed to move back 1" further.
With plasma cutter in hand, I rebuilt the engine mounts which has lowered the engine by approx 1", and it's back as far as it can go in the engine bay - just over 1" from it's original position.
The prototype "humpy" bonnet will have to be used for the first few races until I can get a nice pretty one sorted out. I have a standard steel bonnet to use to make a new moulding with a nice flowing shape.
*see lower down for a later version of the hump *
This is a front view of the beast as it is today (23rd March 2005). The hump/bulge is taking shape with some ali spacing strips to lift the piece I cut out of the bonnet up. I have to get creative with some grp to make a better bulge.
The view from the driver's seat is a bit better than a Marcos LM600 which is awful at the best of times!
Those oil coolers on the front corners are coming off. They are fitted with -10 fittings and are therefore too small. They may not be necessary for short races.
Custom Chrome have supplied a kit of parts to build the exhaust headers. My brother Brian has made up a set of headers, and it was no mean feat, with a lot of modifications required to make the flanges fit. Though after a lot of days work - they're done.
I finally have the airfilter, a nice K & N unit with a special drop plate which reduces the overall height of the installation.
This is the way the hump will have to look for the start of the season. I'm going to start on a new bonnet as soon as I can, as well as working on a fuel injection system to replace the tower of power that is the Quickfuels 850cfm carb, and the shiny K&N filter.
Some of the next jobs on the list are : To re-fit the airjack system. To get the exhaust headers connected to the rest of the exhaust system. To rub down the shiny blue paint, and replace it with some shiny yellow paint, ahh now there's a story...
Little did I know, but this car was environmentally friendly. How so? Well, you see...
In the rear corner here, used to be some corrugated cardboard. This was used to create the shape of the arch, following it's facelift from Astra/Kadette B shape, to Astra C shape. Moisture had got into the card, and it's swelling caused the filler to crack. The same happened on the other side. Liberal amounts of GRP & Polyester filler have brought it back to the correct shape.
The rear valence needs a little repair too. I don't want it flapping like the one on a roundy shape Mondeo repmobile on the M25!
The near side rear arch has been modded to cover the rear wheel properly.
It matches the offside arch now.
The gear tunnel required some mods to let the M & R Racing shifter fit. The shifter gives a nice positive change, though it's newness makes it a little notchy.
You've probably noticed that it's over to the left a fair bit. That's because it's designed for a US chassis. It's still nice and "to hand" for use Right Hand Drive types.
Somebody had to write on the paperwork didn't they!
Gonk - used to work for Empress Race Developments, and I haven't seen him since. It'd be nice to catch up, as he was quite a laugh. Where are they now.... Richard Salisbury - now Mr Stoddart's right hand man.... Geoff Denson - works for a dealer in Chatteris and Tony Frost - last known as working for himself, doing what he did best - engineer fast racing cars.
Another front shot with the new (Mk1) hump (similar to the one above for comparison).
Those nice people at Earls in Silverstone have supplied me with some shiny fittings and braided hose for the fuel lines, so that's one job almost sorted. They have also given me a great price on the oil coolers, but until I get the beast running, I won't know how much cooling I'll need. See here for them : www.earls.co.uk
Roll of HonourThe engine was built by Terry Burnett at The Performance Connection, in Knoxville TN, USA, and is built to a very high specification with a Dirt Race setup. Dirt Race cars need good torque to get them out of the turns, and circuit race cars benefit from that "grunt" too. The engine has been modified to run on our poor quality fuel (we can't run 110 octane fuel over here in the sunny UK), thanks to Anglian Engine Services, and Geoff Scott-Coomber. The transmission is a GM Muncie M22,which I bought from 5speeds.com to replace the original M21 that Smax Smith supplied, and I chose a Quartermaster 7.25" triple plate clutch. Much help has come from Ric Wood in Stockport, without whom, a lot of this wouldn't have come together. The original Atlas axle was replaced with a Strange (Ford) 9" axle, supplied by Hauser Racing to bolt in it's place.
It does fit, see!
An idea of how high the bulge will have to be.
With the shifter here, I bang my knuckles on the dash selecting 1st & 3rd. Doh! And that hole! Needs filler!
The hole in the tunnel is where the "footrest" used to be. As you can see, the starter wanted to be there!
I have found an alternative to the Hurst shifter that puts the shifter to the rear of the tail shaft, which should give me all of the clearance (for my mits) that I need. The M/R Racing shifter moves it all back about 4", which will save my knuckles.
After a whole year, I finally un-boxed the new wheels. I find that one of the rears has a bit of courier "bounce" damage, but I guess it's too late now!! I'll have to find a rim repairer to take the small dent out of the rim.
The fronts look fairly easy, there's a fair amount of room under the arches there. The rears were not so easy.
I had to cut the original arch to get the wheel to fit, and it'll require a little dressing to make it nice.
With a bit more dressing it looks like:
One thing I have found, is that the nearside rear arch is 3/4" narrower than the offside, so I'm going to perform surgery and open it out to be the same. Meep meep said the roadrunner
The front looks like:
Obviously, the suspension has a fair bit of droop being jacked up, but once the suspension is in running position, it looks superb!
The propshaft has been made. Bailey Morris in St Neots, Cambs, have done a very nice job, and have produced a split shaft with centre bearing which was going to provide me with a headache as the tunnel isn't as wide as the bearing carrier bracket. A bit of thought has it bolted up into position nicely.
The regs for the BARC-SE Track & Race Car Saloons specify how much of a hump I'm allowed in the bonnet (120mm). When I put the bonnet on with the airfilter for the first time it was 15mm too high. Add to that, I found that the engine/gearbox needed to move back 1" further.
With plasma cutter in hand, I rebuilt the engine mounts which has lowered the engine by approx 1", and it's back as far as it can go in the engine bay - just over 1" from it's original position.
The prototype "humpy" bonnet will have to be used for the first few races until I can get a nice pretty one sorted out. I have a standard steel bonnet to use to make a new moulding with a nice flowing shape.
*see lower down for a later version of the hump *This is a front view of the beast as it is today (23rd March 2005). The hump/bulge is taking shape with some ali spacing strips to lift the piece I cut out of the bonnet up. I have to get creative with some grp to make a better bulge.
The view from the driver's seat is a bit better than a Marcos LM600 which is awful at the best of times!
Those oil coolers on the front corners are coming off. They are fitted with -10 fittings and are therefore too small. They may not be necessary for short races.
Custom Chrome have supplied a kit of parts to build the exhaust headers. My brother Brian has made up a set of headers, and it was no mean feat, with a lot of modifications required to make the flanges fit. Though after a lot of days work - they're done.
I finally have the airfilter, a nice K & N unit with a special drop plate which reduces the overall height of the installation.
This is the way the hump will have to look for the start of the season. I'm going to start on a new bonnet as soon as I can, as well as working on a fuel injection system to replace the tower of power that is the Quickfuels 850cfm carb, and the shiny K&N filter.
Some of the next jobs on the list are : To re-fit the airjack system. To get the exhaust headers connected to the rest of the exhaust system. To rub down the shiny blue paint, and replace it with some shiny yellow paint, ahh now there's a story...
Little did I know, but this car was environmentally friendly. How so? Well, you see...
In the rear corner here, used to be some corrugated cardboard. This was used to create the shape of the arch, following it's facelift from Astra/Kadette B shape, to Astra C shape. Moisture had got into the card, and it's swelling caused the filler to crack. The same happened on the other side. Liberal amounts of GRP & Polyester filler have brought it back to the correct shape.
The rear valence needs a little repair too. I don't want it flapping like the one on a roundy shape Mondeo repmobile on the M25!
The near side rear arch has been modded to cover the rear wheel properly.
It matches the offside arch now.
The gear tunnel required some mods to let the M & R Racing shifter fit. The shifter gives a nice positive change, though it's newness makes it a little notchy.
You've probably noticed that it's over to the left a fair bit. That's because it's designed for a US chassis. It's still nice and "to hand" for use Right Hand Drive types.
Somebody had to write on the paperwork didn't they!
Gonk - used to work for Empress Race Developments, and I haven't seen him since. It'd be nice to catch up, as he was quite a laugh. Where are they now.... Richard Salisbury - now Mr Stoddart's right hand man.... Geoff Denson - works for a dealer in Chatteris and Tony Frost - last known as working for himself, doing what he did best - engineer fast racing cars.
Another front shot with the new (Mk1) hump (similar to the one above for comparison).
Those nice people at Earls in Silverstone have supplied me with some shiny fittings and braided hose for the fuel lines, so that's one job almost sorted. They have also given me a great price on the oil coolers, but until I get the beast running, I won't know how much cooling I'll need. See here for them : www.earls.co.uk
People and companies who have helped me get this far:
My Wife - Suzanne - for putting up with me!!
My Brother - Brian Compton - Better known for his Vehicle Air Conditioning Services (see www.ot2.co.uk for details)
Jon Mann - probably the most helpful individual I've met!!
Ric Wood - a wealth of advice, and a man who know's his stuff!
Martin Short - as always - "my mentor".
Terry Burnett - The Performance Connection
Geoff Scott-Coomber - engineering expert & craftsman
Watson & Brookman (Engineers)
EARLS at Silverstone
Grand Prix Racewear
Ian Claridge of Anglian Engine Services
Richard Salisbury - formerly Empress Race Developments, now MinardiF1x2 Team Manager
Al Weyman - ideas
Paul Cangialosi - www.5speeds.com - Muncie Transmission experts.
Rod Birley - for helping get the car to the grid - and giving me a target to aim for!
Andrew Sturry - for deciding to sell it!!!