Build Diary - RCR Lola T70 Spider

[Jonathan S]

On some of the RCR configurations a clearance hole has to be cut in the frame for the stater.

[Ron Earp]

Hey Jonathan,

My car has the hole for the Audi starter configuration already, put it there a lot of posts back and there are some pictures. The G50/930 adapter locates the starter in a completely different place than a normal starter, due to the way a G50/930 flywheel has the ring gear done.

Bill, I'll get some better pictures but I don't think it'll work. The starter "hole" is right down at my frame rail and unless the starter is less than 3.5" in diameter total then it must hit the rail, no way around it. I'll take some more pictures.

I'd entertain another solution but it'd be best to put it back where it was intended to be. I pretty much bozoed this one and could have avoided it. It is always fun when you get to do things thirce!

R

[Ron Earp]

Here are a couple of pictures that might be interesting. One of the bolts on the 930 box is captive and you have to remove the side plate to get it into position. I think when the box and motor come apart for installation of the clutch I'll use studs to mount the box and avoid this issue. The other one is of how close I've got the assembly to the lower part of the chassis. Alternator again is my bane as it is way too high and I need to mount lower.

Ron

[Steve26]

Hi Ron,
Your Lola is looking great. I used a Ford shorty water pump and a top pully that is dished to the engine side placing the alt. and belt back further. Would that buy you anything? It gave me a few inches more to work with. I also used a GEO alt. that is very small which gave me additional room. Nice headders!!!

Steve

[Ron Earp]

Uhhh, you might want to drill some holes in that water pump pulley and stick some bolts in it, it'll help turn the pump! Just kidding!

Thanks for the shots there. I like that alternator setup - I might be able to do something like that, let me look. And what pulley set did you use? I had a dished set but it would not fit on the shorty water pump, the pulley would hit the water pump without a ton of spacers.

Ron

[Steve26]

Hi Ron,
I had to make the water pump pully but just as I was finishing it I found one that would work from Zoops. I left out the bolts so I would have less rotational mass!! I tried to use the March set you have and it would have caused a very large bulge in the firewall so I made the one you see. Zoops makes a set for the Ford shorty pump you are using. I will see if I can find a link to send you. Your car is looking great.

Update:
Just went to Zoops and they don't make a pulley like mine. I can send you the dimensions if you would like to have one made. The crank and Alt. pulleys are March, I can send you the #'s if you would like. Sorry Also, if you want the year and model for the Alt. let me know and I will get it to you.

Steve

[Jim S.]

Ron,

Now from the pictures I see you do not have a shortened bell housing.
Guess I didn't need those measurements from you after all.

I thought your 930 had been shortened.

Oh well.

[Ron Earp]

Originally Posted by Jim Sheren

Ron,

Now from the pictures I see you do not have a shortened bell housing.
Guess I didn't need those measurements from you after all.

I thought your 930 had been shortened.

Oh well.

Hi Jim, I didn't know you were looking for a shorted bell housing. Might want to openly post in the transaxle area, someone probably does.

Ron

[Ron Earp]

Well, it has been a long time since an update. I was to have the car at the cage guy I'd waited a long time for but that isn't going to work out. He had a serious family issue that isn't going to be resolved in the near term therefore I'll need to formulate another plan.

I did shoot some pictures of the car on the trailer though, around the rear area that shows how things are setup for transaxle and rear clip, it looks good. The rear clip is about 1/2 pushed back from where it will end up but that shouldn't pose a problem. The shifter for the back of the 930 will need to be shortened a tiny bit, but not by much. The headers have TONS of room under the rear deck, about 3" or more, so that is not a worry. Quite happy with how all of that went together and it should work well.

Ron

[Malcolm]

hey Ron, is that ali sheet the start of a diffuser?

[Ron Earp]

It is the standard RCR ally piece that fixes the rear clip and is bolt to the chassis and also supported by adjustable stay rods. We are going to put some vertical pieces on it as a diffuser and simply copy a "supercar" diffuser design as best we can. Why not, it's there and is perfectly suited for that duty.

R

[Bill D]

Looking really good Ron! When you install the vertical diffuser pieces, be sure to post pictures as I want to do the same.

Cheers
Bill

[Ron Earp]

I apologize for the long time between updates but not much has happened – until now!

I’ve had a long and torturous path to getting the Lola caged. I won’t go into all of that here, some of it was out of my control, some of it was due to mistakes I made. However, we’re now on the right track.

This past week Jeff Lingle (SCCA Tech Chief for my area), Chris Schimmel (Competition Cages - Quality Custom Race Cages and Roll Bars), Jeff Young, and I met about the Lola cage. The meeting went a few hours while the design of the cage hashed out and we went through the rules. The car will be placed in SCCA SPO. SPO stands for Special Production Over, the over being over 2.5L or any motor wearing forced induction. As of this writing SPO is allowed to run the VIR 13 Hour Enduro, as well as a few others in our area.

The cage will be constructed to 2008 GT specs that uses some of the wording that was published in the July 2007 FastTrack. Those rules are out now to be used on car construction, but they go into effect in January of 2008. They had a number of things that helped us out with this project including some removable rear hoop stays, bends in hoops, tube thickness changes depending on weight, and so on.

For example, 1.5” tubing size is now good for 2600 total weight, as opposed to 2200 lbs, on the weight threshold for predicted car total weight. This helped fit the structure in the car, especially in the area where the sills meet the low rear “firewall” and help comply with the cockpit rule issue below. Since we don’t know exactly what the car weighs we would have had to step up to the next size tubing which would have cut into some space. The front hoop would have not fit under the bodywork at the next size up, it just makes it at 1.5” with the bend radius and touches the bodywork and chassis. But it fits like it was made for it.

The good news is that the car can and will be SCCA legal. There was some question of that when looking at various things, but Jeff Lingle really likes the project and wants the car racing so he spent a lot of time to make this work out. But there are a few snags of course.

One issue we had was the cockpit. The cage rule states that the roll bar must go the full width of the cockpit and that is defined by the part of the car that makes the most intrusion into the driver area. And, this is the doors (yes we could remake the doors but driver needs the room). To get around this we’ll be moving the main hoop stay up further to the front of the car about 1.5” forward of where it is now. The hoop will then have a bend or jog in it down low to the outsides of the car, then it’ll come up and go through the top of the door thus meeting that requirement. This sounds ugly, and I didn’t like it. But it beats the alternative which is push the hoop back, widen it, and have it come right up through the rear clip about where the corner of the air intakes is located on the rear clip.

Side bars in the door area will be good and will be NASCAR style bars with pickets between the two. They will push out to the outsides of the sponsons but you won’t see any of that since it’ll be hidden by the door. The front low tube will fit extremely well under the fiberglass middle piece. The front area with tubing and pedals is being pulled out to accommodate the forward bar 100 sq in plates and then it can go back in, although there is less room. Should work, but the pedals will be tight now.

The downside of all of this the cage will not be removable. Even though it is a “bolt in” cage, once in the car and the tubes welded it physically can’t be removed without cutting the tubes. And, another downside in my opinion is the front down tubes to the low hoop are welded in place, not removable. I had to think long and hard about this as it essentially makes it sort of “sports racerish” and cuts down on the attractiveness of the car a little. But, I want to race it so it is a done deal. Chris will make the cage as attractive as possible for street use though and I think it’ll look reasonably well.

Fuel system was covered and we’re okay with a 25 gallon cell in the passenger compartment with proper bulkheads and isolation. Two fire systems tied together will be required for the car to get the log book, tech inspectors preference. He did not like the sponson fuel tanks and although he would pass if they had bladders, proper rollover stuff, correct necks, another bulkhead, and some other stuff, he felt that some regions would not pass them regardless. Tech is like that from place to place. The rules are written, but there is a lot of interpretation in the rules. So, the car will have two fuel systems, those tanks used for the street (the most dangerous place!) and the cell bolted in place for racing. I like the idea anyhow as I feel it is safer.

Harness bar will have locations for dual harnesses so the car can be used for street and track day instruction. Many clubs are killing open cars for track days without cages so it is a good thing to have the Lola with a cage. Track days are fun for getting some seat time and working out bugs and I’ll be pleased to have a car to use for that since my race car is not always welcome at track day events. And, naturally the knock ons are goners for racing and that hardware will have to be replaced.

All in all I’m extremely excited about the project and ready to get moving on it. I was concerned about caging the car for quite some time because until the Tech inspector says “go” you just don’t know what will happen. I feel the way we did this, getting the technical inspector involved from the get go, was a very good thing to do before time and money was invested to start on the project.

So, barring issues in a few weeks we’ll have the Lola back with the cage and we can really start building the car. Should be a lot of fun!

[Fran Hall RCR]

Ron,

that is great news.....

I am surprised by the sponson concern from the tech inspector, but I am sure all vintage cars with saddle/sponson tanks would also not be eligible to race with CURRENT SCCA rules in place unless they were possibly grandfathered from previous years......interesting comment about an extra bulkhead too, even with bladders.

So we could make another aluminum skin to cover the sponson and that would, presumably suffice, as the bladder would be confined in its own tank(the sponson) and then the second skin would be the extra bulkhead....much like a NASCAR with fuel cell in the trunk space and the rear bulkhead separating it again from the driver compartment......
I would like some clarification from Jeff on this as its an easy solution to accomodate with the cars we have /are building with FIA FT3 bladders.

[charlie]

Thanks Ron for going through all the work with SCCA.

They have signifcantly changed the cage rules for next year. I am trying to get my FFR logbooked this year because next year it will not pass without a major rebuild of the chassis. Which means I give up on ever racing with them.

A Lola is still im my long term plans please post lots of pictures whe you get your cage done an approved.

Worst case there is always NASA who tend to be more reasonable than SCCA. You would probably be in ST1 or 2 which are national classes.

Charlie

[Ron Earp]

Tech inspection is part art, part interpretation, and part rules.

I was just reading “The Unfair Advantage” again (in between getting painted with lipstick yesterday) and ran across the part where Mark Donahue runs afoul of a SCCA tech inspector with the vinyl top on the Camaro. The vinyl top is hiding a acid dipped roof that is so thin it wrinkles and looks odd in paint. Camaros did not normally run with vinyl tops in Trans Am. The tech inspector doesn’t know what is wrong according to the rule book, only that “when he sees stuff like that it throws up red flags”. He didn’t have a specific rule to cite, but he wasn’t allowing the car to race. Subsequent protests with the stewards got the car on track, but the tech inspector still had the last word on another deal. Bottom line, keep your tech inspectors happy!

Fran, with respect to the side tanks let me clarify a bit as it is important. Jeff said he would pass them and they were fine, but, just from the overall car safety standpoint he didn’t like them as much as the tank in the passenger area since we’d have more of a crumple zone in a serious off. All opinion and interpretation. His other comment about region to region differences can or might be true since you know how this stuff works. Our tech inspector is old enough to remember the Lola’s at various circuits which is why he’s so interested in them, but I could see where a new inspector who has only been teching BMWs and Mazdas might not understand as well and get a "red flag" like the fellow in the above example. Bottom line is the tanks as they are if setup with bladders, rollover valves, and vents then they will be legal. If a given tech inspector won’t pass them then you’d have a leg to stand on and could move to another inspector for sure, there are many in every region. From his, and my reading of the rules they are legal.

Charlie there are some definite changes that could have effects depending on how your cage is built. I only listed a couple of small ones, but overall the cage rules are much better since it simplifies them into a homogenous group instead of many subsets. We’re green light on the Lola cage and I think it’ll be a good one. And, we’ll have a SCCA SPO car that will be street legal wearing a license tag as well. As far as we know, in the SE region we have info for, there are no other SPO cars that have a license tag and street registration. I just want it to drive to shows, drive to the alignment shop, drive to work on a nice day, etc.

We can take the car racing in NASA for sure once we get the SCCA logbook. But the NASA racing here is fragmented and has so many classes the competition tends to be a bit thin. But, I think it’ll be worth doing it from time to time for seat time and just to see a different crowd of folks, that is always good.