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Many thanks to our sponsor, Paul Bunch at Perspective-I, for the photographs |
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For the best part of four years, a rather sorry looking 16 valve engine has been sitting in the corner of my garage, slowly gathering dust on a perfect engine stand that's never been used since the engine got bolted onto it. The plan had always been to transplant it into the 205 but thankfully we took the sensible route of uprating all the other parts on the car before we concentrated on the engine. So in early 2007, once we were happy with the rest of the car, I set about stripping and rebuilding the engine in readiness for a winter transplant into the car, and the 2008 season. There was no rush, so I took my time and was methodical about it all. Andy Baker at AB Motorsport helped, as he always does, with ideas and specification and come early 2008 we had it just about finished and in place. Some fun with a faulty engine management delayed things for a while, but we got there in the end. We lined up the Horiba D'Isis Stages, a nice local event that we know well, as the 'shakedown' for the new engine. The week before the event, we took a trip down to Richard Longman Engineering to get the car mapped. |
It was at this stage we discovered my torque wrench is completely knackered, albeit in a rather roundabout fashion. The car returned early from it's mapping session spewing smoke from the exhaust with a blown headgasket. Trailered home, we set about and discovered the head bolts weren't torqued correctly due to the aforementioned torque wrench, so with a new gasket and set of bolts at hand we put the engine back together (with a new torque wrench this time!). With a few days to go, the car fired up first time and thankfully we were all good to go. A quick drive around the block showed us to have significantly more grunt than we'd had with old standard 8 valve! | |
The day started a little damp
and I decided I'd like to try and destroy some old tyres I had lying
around, so we went out on some Yoko A032s and promptly broadsided it
around the majority of the bends. After the Dunlop CR311's we'd been
using in the past, it was clear going back to the Yokos was a difficult
adjustment, especially with 70+ more bhp than before. We came into
service and couldn't get them off quick enough! |
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| The stages came and went, Big Dan whooping with glee as we cleared a Subaru Impreza at the end of SS4, and a quick Mk.II Escort towards the end of a wet SS6. Going into the last two stages we had settled into our slot and didn't need to worry about the rest of the field. We'd discovered a tendency for the back brakes to bind, which at the time we adjusted out on the pedal box, but we've since discovered it's actually down to bent rear brake brackets. The engine was performing flawlessly and I couldn't believe the engine I was abusing was one I'd built with my own hands. Honestly, I was waiting to discover I hadn't done a bolt up tight enough! |
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The
final stages passed without incident for us, but over the course of the
day there was several retirements in our class that helped move us up
the order. Andy Baker was all lined up for a class win until he lost a
driveshaft on the final stage and trundled to the stage finished only
to lose class win by 2 seconds. We managed a 17th overall and 4th in
class, but moreover set my mind at ease that the car was a 'corker' in
its new guise. Thanks to Big Dan for guiding us round safely, and thanks to all the guys at AB Motorsport for their support on the day, who ran a tight ship in service and were on the button all day. Thanks must also go to Andy himself for helping spec and build a car that is finally reaching a level of competitiveness (shame about the driver!). Thanks also to Mike Morgan in the weeks preceeding the event, who helped get the head gasket swapped out in record time! Check out some in-car footage on our YouTube sight. |