Kiwi scratchbuilt

[Randy V]

What dedication!!!!

You're doing an awesome job Russ...

Interesting baffles in the fuel cells!

A number of years ago I met up with another racer that created his own cells and he had one of the most ingenious ideas for baffling..
Wiffle balls.. I thought that he might have some trouble with the composition of the balls and the interaction with the 110 octane racing gas, but he said that he'd been doing it that way for years and never a problem.

Keep up the fine job!!!

 

[Russ Noble]

Jimmy M, talk to Lim about supplying parts when you are ready, I think he is planning on having a few spares on hand. I'm sure you can come to a suitable arrangement....

Randy, thanks for the kind words. Although "interesting" is one of those non committal words....A bit like "different".....

I just analysed what I felt were the problems and tried to figure the solutions. No Assembly Manuals for this build! In fact, if I just had to assemble things instead of designing and building them first, life would be a breeze!

Well, another milestone on the road to SFOS 2009. Earlier this week I received my 'Competition Vehicle Logbook' and Roll Protection Homologation approval for what is now officially my Noble-Ford Kiwi 40 ! This documentation is essential to race at any race meeting in NZ.

At the weekend I posted away my application for a 'Certificate of Description' which, when granted will allow me to race at Classic Race Meetings such as SFOS. Without it I am not eligible! Since I've built the car with the rule book in one hand, I don't think there will be any problems, but you never know.....

That is the last official hoop I have to jump through. Once I've got that, SFOS here we come!!epper:

 

[Jim Cowden]

Good stuff Russ.
I have always wanted to do some casting and pattern making (personal interest after watching the John Britain story)
You will have to post your sump approach.
Lim is a fine craftsman.

OK Randy im interested to here about your wiffle ball story maybe in the fuel forum.

Jim

 

[Russ Noble]

Well the muffler has been sitting around partially finished for months. Just waiting for the next time the body/engine/trans were all fitted up together so I could build the tailpipes to align with the hole in the rear clip. I've now done that and the muffler is finished.

The muffler design is broadly the result of a discussion I had with Jac Mac on the subject. The object is to be under the 95 decibel maximum noise level that is enforced at some tracks in NZ, and to do that without reducing the available horsepower. Mind you it weighs a ton and all that extra weight is up high.

Maybe I would have been better to take a horsepower hit and go for lighter and simpler. Time will tell. Just as well I've got 800 lb springs in the back.....

 

[Russ Noble]

And this is how it sits

 

[Leon]

Hi Russ,great to hear you've got your Roll protection and logbook,thats a couple of BIG ticks off your list.Thats one mean looking muffler,can't wait to see how it sounds.If you need anything or help give me a call.
Cheers Leon

 

[Randy V]

Randy, thanks for the kind words. Although "interesting" is one of those non committal words....A bit like "different".....

Russ - Nothing derogatory implied or meant.. Your fuel cell baffling is just not consistent with what I've seen in the past for fuel cells.. The trap door baffling is more in line with what I've seen used (successfully) in oil pans. Typical baffling in Fuel tanks / cells are bulkheads with offset holes in them to spoil the momentum of the moving mass of fuel, yet not pose such restriction that the the fuel pickup be left uncovered.
I'm believe that you'll be happy with the results of your work..

Soldier on - you're doing a phenomenal job!
:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[Dave P]

Go Russ Go

Noble-Ford Kiwi 40 :thumbsup:

 

[James McNutt]

Nice loking muffler Russ, used a similar design on an experimental stroked big block ford in a sprint car a few years back. Amazing how much it quietened it down even though it was such a simple design. Gave a nice bass tone too.:thumbsup:

 

[Russ Noble]

Hi Leon,

Well, an offer of help is hard to turn down. The pressure is really on at present! Maybe I should do what Ross is doing, encourage the guys on the forum to help. But in my case, with hands on help rather than monetary. It would have to be locals though…..Any and all help would be fantastic! Feel free to come round for an hour or two at any time. It would be most appreciated.


Yeah, getting the log book and rollcage homologation was important. Although I really had no substantial concerns about those. The COD is the one I’m hanging out for, that’s the key to SFOS. The time frame for approval is really tight. Ruapuna is not particularly forthcoming at this point in time. Have just sent my entry away for Levels. Teretonga have banked my Entry Fee So the further south you race, the easier it gets, it would seem!


I now have the car down at work in a closed off area in the back bay and work on it during the day whenever I get the chance. I carry on there after hours until about midnight, most nights, so any additional help would be most welcome. Between now and SFOS I am totally committed. The only days off will be Xmas Day and 3rd Jan for my daughter’s wedding! I am closing up work over Xmas/New Year from 24 Dec to 5 Jan so hope to make real progress over that period

Lim has just had to return to Singapore for a week or two, and he did an all nighter immediately before leaving, in order to finish off some machining that I needed. The program is really tight but we are both determined to get there. I feel I will be letting Ross down if I don’t!

Randy, I’m too thick skinned to ever be offended. I was just making a tongue in cheek comment….Hence the wink! With the baffles and trapdoor I want to be able to get two hours endurance racing out of both tanks so I need to suck them almost dry without any fuel starvation issues. Hence the “interesting” design and trapdoor. As always, I am confident that what I have done will work as intended…..

Dave, Good to see you’re making excellent progress with your scratchbuild too.

Jimmy M. Yeah I’m hoping it will sound good. It’s based on one Jac Mac built for J.O’s TVR and that sounds really sweet!

Cheers,

 

[Russ Noble]

Well the protracted dry sump saga is coming to a close with the casting of our own sump!

Lim has put a lot of time and research into this and we are confident that we can turn out something of a much higher accuracy and quality than I was able to buy. That's what it comes down to in the end for a race car, everything has to be perfect! And, if you do your homework and put in the hard yards, you don't have to spend the earth to do that. That of course is why we try to build as much of the components of the car ourselves, particularly if it restrains costs :thumbsup: But doing so tends to add to the build time . Secondly, and more importantly, we then have total control over the quality epper:.

Because I am running low ground clearance, low motor position and a Porsche size ring gear and a front mounted starter and a four bolt block and tight clearances to the chassis, the clearances on everything are really close so Lim decided to build a partial perspex mock up so we could see what is going on. This was covered earlier in post #110.

The intention was to build a steel pattern but in the end custom wood was opted for as it was easier to work with. Lim had some secondhand stuff lying round, so he used that. What we didn't realise was that it comes in different densities! Some of it machined nicely, some of it not so and that stuff also tended to split. In the end though, a very nice pattern emerged.

The first pic shows the pattern smoothed off ready for painting and in the second pic, finally undercoated and about to go to the foundry.

 

[Russ Noble]

I have just started final assembly of the motor after cleaning up the block to get rid of any unwanted residues from the manufacturing and block prep processes.

For one of my grunty waterblasters from work, I made up a small diameter wand that I jetted to spray in all directions and stuffed it all the way up every orifice that I could find... In the block that is! Oilways, waterways, threaded holes, I got absolutely totally bloody soaked!! But I can guarantee there's nothing lurking in the block that shouldn't be. Then I dried everything off with a duster gun and gave it a couple of coats of paint.

The first item to be painted with its final coat. Bit of a milestone!

I was just in the process of fitting the cam bearings when I noticed the threaded holes for the head studs were not counterbored/countersunk . Bit of a wakeup call, how I could have got this far with the motor prep and not picked that up before, I’ll never know…..When I think of all the silly little details I have been concentrating on to achieve good reliability with reasonable power; to almost miss something as basic as that, is a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees. Sometimes I have doubts about my ability……

Anyway, photos of the first item of the build to get it’s final coat of paint.

 

[Russ Noble]

The sump casting is back from the foundry and looks good. We had to build in a boss to take the scavenge unions as they need to angle up slightly to clear my chassis. That was added in after the photos in the earlier post were taken.
The boss will be milled off to the angle required and drilled for the outlets.

First pic shows the as cast sump on the right sitting beside the pattern.

Last pic of the sump shows in the background one of the drawings Lim did for working out the adjusted measurements required for the pattern, placement of flutes etc.

 

[Iain]

Russ,

I have the wheel rates you were after, are you on line ?

 

[Russ Noble]

Thanks for the email Iain.

Well Christmas Day wasn't the writeoff that I had expected. Managed to get my shortblock assembled. Family commitments were limited to late afternoon/evening.

Boxing Day seemed to be a good time to start on doing door hinges and mounting and aligning doors. I always knew this was going to be a mission, but it's turned out not too bad. Details and pics shortly.

Scott, sometime ago, wanted photos of the standpipes, so here they are, along with the just assembled shortblock. Specially for you ....

 

[Scott Calabro]

Absolutely first rate my friend!

You continue to produce amazing work Russ, and obviously Lim is no layabout either.

You even choose fine apparel

Happy New Year!

:chug:

S

 

[Russ Noble]

Thanks Scott.

Well, as indicated earlier,I made a start on the doors Boxing Day. Because I intend to road register the car and because I am not using approved hinges from an existing roadgoing production car they have to be designed and certified by an engineer to withstand specified loads. A engineer mate of mine, Neil Whitaker, came to the party and did the several pages of calcs and specs for my setup. Thanks Neil.

However because of the specified loads, the hinges have to be built like the proverbial brick shithouse, regardless of the fact that the actual fibreglass doors will be destroyed and torn off long before those loads are reached!!! Reassuring to know that if the hinges can be found amongst the wreckage that they will still work. Sometimes I despair this this car is turning into a fat pig!

Anyway, to the hinges.... Mounting brackets from 3mm MS plate. Pivot pins 16mm stainless welded to 30x6 stainless flat. Clamp plate 30x8 alloy tooling plate (7075). Pivot bush nylatron. Hinge tube 25x2 alloy

Of course building from scratch you don't really know where or how things are going to fit so I had to position the door inner in place where it needed to fit, then drill holes in the fibreglass where I thought the door hinge tube should go and then use that to determine where the chassis mounts should go. These initially wound up not being in a vertical plane so then the chassis mounts had to be lined up vertically and the pivot tube in the door altered to suit. Now I had a pretty good idea where things would go it was just a matter of welding on the mounting brackets and making and glassing in the hinge tube and internal door brace. Door brace from 25x 2.0 alloy tube and the reinforcement plate for the door latches 2.0 thick alloy plate. Without this brace there is no torsional stiffness in the door inner.

Then it was time to slip the outer skin on and cut to size and check the fit.

I had intended to glue the door skins together sitting in the outer mold but because I had to alter the shape by spreading the front lower corners of the spider to get a good fit for the RF supplied front screen, it meant the existing profile of the doormolds was no longer correct. So on to plan B, glue them up in place. This meant that for the most part I could no longer use G clamps, butterfly clamps etc to hold the inner and outer skins together during the gluing process and instead had to drill and screw them together. Never a dull moment, but got a good fit..... Glue, as before, was Plexus MA 425, which I also intend to use on the alloy panels.

 

[Russ Noble]

New Years Day yesterday saw more good progress. I released all the clamps and screws on the doors and everything is a nice fit. Gaps are good and the doors swing nice and straight.

I made the door latch mounts and fitted the latches. These are off an 80's Mini and as such I don't need engineering certification, so no 3mm plate! In fact I folded the mounts from 0.8mm sheet and they are really solid.

Lim has been putting in almost as much time as me the last week or two and, amongst other things, has just finished final machining of the uprights. They were a bit awkward to mount in the lathe but the end result is spot on. My lathe is smaller than his, but he is replacing bearings on his so here he is using mine. A picture of concentration and a man who enjoys his work!

Leon (haroo) has also been helping out one night a week too so it's all looking good.

Today and tomorrow will not see much progress because of my daughter's wedding but after that it'll be all go again. Still haven't heard from the organisers of the Skope meeting at Ruapuna that they will accept my entry, I think one of the officials on the organising commitee may be indulging in a bit of a power trip.......

On a brighter note though, I have recently received an "Interim COD" from MSNZ which in the meantime clears me to race in classic races until they have made their final deliberations and issued a full COD.

 

[Scott Calabro]

Russ,

Congradulations to you and your daughter!

Cheers,
Scott

 

[Dave P]

Russ:

Best wishes to Daughter and Your Family. You must be very proud of her.

Dave and Luana