Blogs

The second round at Snetterton

By John Jones on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 10:42

It looks to be an early one, as we have 2 races in one day, the day in question is sunday 10th May, and below are the times.

Sign on : 08:30 to 08:45
Scrutineering : 08:45 to 09:45
Qualifying : 10:00 to 10:20
Race 1 (R 3) : 13:40 aprox
Race 2 (R 4) : 17:00 aprox

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Got the top mounts...

By John Jones on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 00:48

I received a box today at work, it was not unexpected, as the UK importers of the 'Ground control' parts had phoned me yesterday to tell me they had received my new top mounts from the manufacturers and were going to ship them on to me.
I had ordered the full set of 4 top mounts, in the pure racing format. The two rear mounts have adjustment built into them so I can slightly alter where the top of the rear shocks locate. The front mounts have camber and castor adjustment, so the suspension can be tuned to what I need.


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Got a photo today, but it was not my car, mine is next...

By John Jones on Wed, 04/01/2009 - 23:22

Ralph, another class 'D' competitor is having his cage fitted at the same location as mine, he got his booked in first, so his is getting the cage first. He kindly sent me a photo of his cars progress today. I can not wait for mine to start to have the cage now (its the same cage as this that my car is getting)

We have a new domain...

By John Jones on Fri, 03/27/2009 - 12:12

Well, although 8o8 was a catchy domain name, it was short, people kept confusing it with 808. To remove the confusion, I acquired a new domain name for this site, you will still be able to access the old url's but the new url is going-racing.com which matches up to the site title.

The first race of the season

By John Jones on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 13:13

The timetable for the first and second rounds has been released

Saturday 4th April, Round 1

Sign on - 09:15 09:30
Scrutineering - 09:30 10:30
Qualifying - 10:45 11:00
Race - 16:20 approx

Sunday 5th April, Round 2
Race - 12:55 approx
Full timetable

There are 30 registered drivers entered for Silverstone! Sadly I am not one of them, as the car is not yet ready.

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Got a few progress photos today

By John Jones on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 00:18

The kind blokes at speed religion have sent me some photos of the car before they start to fit the cage. They have removed the doors, bonnet and all the windows.

They are going to start to put the cage in, once they have done fellow kumho racer (Ralph's) car which went into there workshop 2 weeks before mine.

Once the cage is in the suspension will have to be sorted, as if you look at the car at present it looks like a 4x4, the cage will add about 50kg to the weight but I have removed about 125kg with the interior and soundproofing.



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Well its gone...

By John Jones on Mon, 03/16/2009 - 01:07

It got collected on Friday evening, and delivered to the company thats fitting the cage on Saturday morning, they both (www.wemovecars.com and www.speedreligion.net) called me when the car had been dropped off to confirm the location of the car.

All I can do now is wait for the cage to be fitted, then get the car shipped back to me so i can start to rebuild it (put the bits I removed back in)

I have asked Ant at speedreligion to keep me updated through photos, hopefully they will.

Its ready for the cage...

By John Jones on Mon, 03/09/2009 - 09:09
wiring-3.jpg
I finalized the wiring today by removing the loom that covers all items bar the engine, this loom also includes the fuse-box.
As you can see in the picture to the left the loom now resides in a plastic bag and will do until the car returns from having the cage fitted.
I also took the precautionary measure of removing the anti theft wheel locking nuts from the 4 wheels as I would not want the cage people to need to remove a wheel and the locking nut was lost in the transit of the car to them.
Also with all the bits removed that I can sell stored in the garage, and all other bits in the bin, you can see the full level of stripping inside the car.
The main item left in the car is the green temporary seat that will be going to the council tip, and the steering wheel that is being replaced.
stripped-front.jpg
stripped-rear.jpg

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Final push before the cage gets fitted...

By John Jones on Sat, 03/07/2009 - 22:49
engine-2.jpg
The car goes to get its cage next week at a company called Speed Religion this means that I need to have the car finalized, with the following done.
  • Inside the cabin everything removed
  • Brake servo removed from engine bay
  • Fusebox removed from engine bay
  • Sound deadening removed
  • Wiring loom removed.
  • Glass out (sparks from the welding mark the glass)
Speed Religion are going to remove the glass for me, and fit in my new heated screen (as I have removed the heating system if in the middle of a race the car steams up I need to be able to clear the front screen.)
Below are another couple of photos of the engine bay, please excuse the plastic bags that I have stuck over the holes, this is just to keep some of the water out of the main cabin, as the car is outside.
engine-1.jpg
engine-3.jpg

Started on the wiring...

By John Jones on Sat, 02/28/2009 - 23:28
wiring-1.jpg
As the car is booked in for a cage in 2 weeks (and counting), I needed to start on moving the wiring from the inside to under the bonnet (to allow the cage to be fitted).
This involved taking the wiring out of the vehicle and moving it to the engine bay, I thought I would take the opportunity to start to thin it out, there were certain circuits that I would not be needing, like the central locking, the electric windows and mirrors.
It took about 4 hours to trace the wires that were not needed from the passenger door back (just did the rear section of the car today) and got the bag of wires that you can see in the photo.
The wires that were the hardest are to be found near the centre of the car, these wires control the abs sensors on the rear wheels, and the speed control thats plugged into the rear differential, BMW has tie wrapped the cables to the chassis and to get your hand up to release these tie wraps is lets just say a mission. I think to put these wires back on I would need to drop the rear subframe, as it would be simpler.