Clive's 400 BHP Super GT RX-8 Race Car

[clive]

  As your going to see below we are up n running again thanks to help from a couple of friends in the shape of Philip with the loan of his workshop plus a hand and my old mate Steve who is a qualified tool maker (machinist) who dropped everything to help.

I ordered in a face plate and centre floater plate from Quartermaster via Mazdatrix to go with the spare drive plates I already had, as I expected the clutch to be toast, and  it was    (nothing is straight forward with this car )

With the new oil seal installed plus pilot bearing and a check of the rear stationary gear bearing which was perfect and just run in the flywheel was refitted only to find the face plate that sits in the alloy flywheel was machined wrong and distorted meaning the pressure plate would not fit and as you can see I couldn't put the old one back as it was blue from the heat of the oily slipping clutch thankfully with some clever machining Steve sorted the new plate and we are all back together

This means that one year on from its slow debut at Brands Hatch that finally at Brands Hatch on Friday I should be able to put the car through its paces to find out what I really have .

I know some have asked about a passenger ride but sorry there's no seat and I hope all being well to get a full days seat time in to learn the car now we have some proper power and handling which means that all this time on and with a lot of help from a lot of people I should start to be able to look at the lap times it should be setting providing its dry :o.

Below is a little video from Philip, checking the clutch operation, Wow it hits the rev limiter so so quick   !

Mod: Video now embedded 

[re japi]

SHE SOUNDS AWESOME!!!!! 

Btw, is she really street legal?

Oh, and I want to report admins about this video. It caused funny and fussy feelings!    (just joking)

[Grant Monkhouse]

One of the best sounds iv heard for a long time

[clive]

Sorry about that nasty noise that keeps us as addicts 

[shaunwil]

Roll on the new year

Shaun

[Grant Monkhouse]

How did it go at brands??

[seanp]

Sounds like he had another, unusual run of bad luck, with an unusual fluid leak! :-(

[clive]

Another bad day, game over, front plate cracked near the oil feed

[Grant Monkhouse]

Oh no!! Seen a car on rx7club suffer this. Wrong fitting used and over tightened, and also suffered from det??

[Mir]

Sorry to hear this! A guy called "mannykiller" on an Rx7 club (US) had a same problem. if possible please read his thread. Its not a big problem. Just change the front plate without opening the entire engine up!

Since your car has Carl's apex seals, it would be good to know what condition are they after all that hard driving.

We learnt from you this statement, "on wards and upwards".

Hoping to see you soon.

[boosted]

oh no sorry to hear this ....so engine front plate cracked...but what was the cause?

[Grant Monkhouse]

Clive can you log data whilst you drive?? That would be a great advantage whilst teething the car

Just seen something on FB, so one using an FD engine, in an rx8 using an adaptor if and keeping everything on the car working:)

[re japi]

Ah crap... Sorry to hear that. Hopefully there is no other damage...?

[clive]

As Sied says --- onward and upward ------- after all the abuse this poor engine has gone through with wiring faults etc etc the time has come to use another engine from scratch, huge thanks to Carl though  for getting me an engine to get me up n running, that lived through so much when a lesser engine would have let go.

Sied, thank you for looking around for me but a friend searched around last night and found from US forums that somhow the front plate has twisted up against a dowel to cause this, yes I could take a chance and just change the plate but the whole engine needs to come apart to check it anyway.

I have had a donation of a bone stock engine from a very kind guy up north who is not on the forum that will form the basis of my new engine.

Grant, no not data logging, maybe something to think about for the future also do you have a Face book link for the RX-8 thing ?

[Grant Monkhouse]

Try this to the FB page

https://m.facebook.com/LuckySevenRacing/photos/a.431768706891382.97611.137419512992971/739006599500923/?type=1