Rf 117

[Iain]

Howard,

Thanks for your message I will pass it on to the guys who have actually done the work. If I get any closer than 10 yards they all growl and I am formally banned from even touching the tools, well its not quite that bad but you get the drift ! Is that your car in the "avatar" ?

Iain

 

[Russ Noble]

The information dribbles out........

Hewland VGC

Serious stuff, what's going to sit in front of it Iain?

Cheers

 

[Iain]

Russ,
We are oblidged to use the same configuration as the "original" (RF) car so a Windsor is the starting point, we are however allowed to use the Ford Motor sport "R" series Windsor block which comes with the usual upgrades already in place, 4 bolt mains etc etc, we have a maximum cap on the cc's at 6000cc, so we use a stroked assembly that takes it out to about 5700cc's we use a billet crank with horrifically expensive rods & pistons (sorry dont know which manufacturer). We have to use the heads as per the original RF supply. We are allowed to do whatever we want from that point so they get some serious work done to maximise their flow rates. We can use whatever intake system we want so have a full cross over system running 52mm butterflys. Exhaust sytem is also free so as long as it meets the db requirements on the track. I plan to do an update to my thread with the engine when it is finalised which I expect to be about 1 month.Some pictures attached that might interest.

 

[Russ Noble]

RF # 117

Mission Statement:-
Build a car capable of winning in Group 2 Racing in Australia

.

Iain,
Looks more and more likely all the time! epper:

Good luck, can't wait to see some action vids!

 

[Duncan Potter]

Thats the first time I ever got a chubby over a crankshaft!:

 

[Howard Jones]

Iain, Yes it is. That's "Betty" Think of a 40ish truck stop waitress on Tuesday night at about 11:30PM in your local pub. She's sittin on your lap, a little heavy, getting really loud and starting to look real good! She's an old broad but she's my old broad!

Again, great build!

Howard

 

[Iain]

Howard,

I wish I did'nt know what you mean but I am ashamed to admit I do !

Iain

 

[Iain]

Front & Rear suspension

I think of all the work we have put into the project the suspension has received the most attention. I will not go into the technical details of how and why because I very quickly get out of my depth. The components that appear as CNC milled items are "signed off" the components that are in fabricated format are, we believe, correct but untill we have proved them with some track testing I do not want to commit to the CNC process quite yet.

 

[Iain]

I think of all the work we have put into the project the suspension has received the most attention. I will not go into the technical details of how and why because I very quickly get out of my depth. The components that appear as CNC milled items are "signed off" the components that are in fabricated format are, we believe, correct but untill we have proved them with some track testing I do not want to commit to the CNC process quite yet.

 

[Iain]

More pictures attached

 

[Iain]

Rear Hubs

 

[Russ Noble]

I think of all the work we have put into the project the suspension has received the most attention. I will not go into the technical details of how and why

Iain,

That's a pity, there's some fairly 'trick shit stuff' that is pretty interesting both front and rear. Design and execution is first class. You must be really proud of your creation! I would be!

What do you reckon it's going to tip the scales at?

Cheers,

Russ

 

[Andrew East]

Hi Iain,

You must be thrilled with progress to date. Certainly demonstrating excellance in design and engineering! Really looking forward to seeing the completed package running on the track. From what been shown to date you and your team must feel confident of being on track to the mission statement.

Caught a sneak view of a small section of the rear clip which appears to be composite, would this be correct?

Keep posting as you progress the build because you are certainly leading the way (IMHO) in concept,design and fabrication in a race GT40.

Andrew E

 

[Dave]

Wow Iain
I wondered if I would ever see a real race prepped kit GT40 by a serious contender that knows what they are doing and lucky for us all on the forum we are seeing one built right before our eyes.

A truly professional job and I'm looking forward to more pics and updates.

 

[Ross Nicol]

Wow Iain
I wondered if I would ever see a real race prepped kit GT40 by a serious contender that knows what they are doing and lucky for us all on the forum we are seeing one built right before our eyes.

A truly professional job and I'm looking forward to more pics and updates.

MMmm I would say my car is a real race prepped kit GT40 and I consider myself a serious contender who knows what he's doing. My mission statement is no different to Iains. The difference is I've chosen to develop my car while racing it. Iain is accutely aware that although he will start racing with an extremely high level of equipment, his development path may still be long like mine. I am a little offended by your statements but do understand the wow factor of Iain's car.I suppose I'm a bit jealous he is able to afford to pay full time staff to build it for him whereas I spend all my free time working to make the car faster and to improve the engineering. One thing Iain and I have in common though is we both hate Porsches.
Ross

 

[Peter Delaney]

Iain, that is some car - you have managed to combine art & engineering in the one package !

I was fascinated by the front suspension setup : the height-adjustment rod fitted to a rocker arm, the other end of which holds the bottom of the coil-over assembly. I assume that there is an advantage with this setup, as opposed to just winding the spring base up & down on the damper.

Any light that you can shed on this innovation would be greatly appreciated (but I understand if it falls under the veil of "secret racing men's business") !!

BTW - Where in Sydney are you located ?

Kind Regards,

Peter D.

 

[Russ Noble]

Well Ross, not sure you need to be offended by Daves comments. If I can make an objective observation......

You have taken a basically standard road going car to race and over the years have modified it to overcome deficiencies in the original design, as they have been exposed, and as the car becomes faster on the track. You are getting miles under your belt and are getting faster all the time. And it is hugely satisfying to be able to progressively overcome the failings of the standard setup. Making the relatively simple solutions available to this forum is a benefit for all RF owners and maybe many other replica owners as well. We all follow your exploits with interest.

Iain, on the other hand has had a hard look at the car before he has built it. He obviously wants to go fast from day one. There is virtually nothing standard about RF117. He knows where he wants to go and appears to have access to the right technical people and engineering equipment/expertise and presumably the cheque book to achieve this. I'm sure this car will be fast on it's first appearance and become faster with subsequent fine tuning and development.The workmanship and attention to detail is outstanding and his car must be the standard by which all other non 'genuine original' race GT40's will be judged.

But at the end of the day, like the originals, it is being built to do a job. How well it does that, as with any race car, will be judged by results on the track. Iains car may be too complex, too difficult to set up, may have the wrong tradeoff between weight and stiffness..... Only time will tell.

Regardless of all that there is no doubt that Iain has raised the bar with regard to workmanship, construction and design. He is using the very best bits and is building the car 'his way' in a design direction dictated by him. It's not like bolting expensive bits on a Porsche and knowing exactly what you are going to gain. He is backing his own judgement and developing his own solutions and it's great to be able to see this build progress.

But for me it's the ontrack performance that counts and I can't wait to see some incar race vids from Iain! If we want to see any action, Iain may need to mount the camera pointing rearwards so we can watch the opposition as it disappears!

I'm sure we all wish him luck

Cheers

 

[Iain]

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your comments, in no particular order my reply as follows:-

Dave S. Yes the body is a carbon / kevlar composite mix that is designed to reduce weight and provide some flex just in case a Porsche fancies his chances under brakes, Ross will know what I mean here !

Ros Noble we expect the dry weight to be around 1000kg, we will have to add lead to acheive the minimum power to weight ratio that applies in NSW (This cap does not applly in Victoria) but at least you can put the lead where you want it !

Andrew E :- Thank you for your comments I will pass them on to the boys who deserve them.

Peter D:- The "rocker" assembly you are asking about is designed to minimise or remove a phenominum (is there a spell check on this forum ?) called 'rising rate' if I have understood the explanations given to me it is generated when the wheel swings thru its arc, if the shock/spring moves through a different arc it means that the shock which has only linear adjustment is unable to provide the same effect all the way through its travel. If there is some one out there with a more lucid explanation please chip in because this is definatley ouside my comfort zone.
I live in Killara and the workshop is in Wetherill park, just behind Eastern Creek, If you would like to come and have a look please send me an email

Ross N:- I owe a good deal of the progression of the car to date to Ross, having "been there done that' he is able to provide invaluable fed back, which he has unselfishly done for the last year. Ross is quite correct in stateing that his car is a fully race prepared RF which I understand he has done himself. I have been through the same process with my Cobra and wanted to avoid the same pain and expense the second time around. As Ross has quite rightly pointed out the car will hit the track with a fairly significant amount of "baggage" and I am under no delusions about how much development we will have to go through to make it reach its full potential, but I hope that this time around we have built in enough "adjustability" to find the sweet spot. I try very hard to ignore it but I can't forget that Applo 13 had a team of "experts' design it and they didnt even make it to turn one !

Regards

Iain

 

[Iain]

RF 117

Exhaust System

A few pictures to update the build progress, we have now finished the exhaust system, one of my key objectives was to ensure we built a system that enabled me to drive at full "noise " at all the race tracks we use. Presently there are a couple of tracks where I am oblidged to back off as I go past the noise meter. This as you might imagine is not the optimum way to go racing !

 

[Iain]

A few more pictures