Clive's 3 Rotor 700BHP Monster Thunder Saloon Project

[clive]

Engines apart no damage except for the cracked Centre Plate that you can see arrowed.

Drove up to Pips to collect the broken centre plate, then drove across to this company in Coalville to have it welded.    https://www.castironwelding.co.uk/about-us/ which will hopefully be soon.

I have found Mazda Motorsports have had a limited run made, trouble is they want 9K just for the plate !!   

[Eccentric shaft]

9K?!?  Well, no-one claims racing is a cheap hobby, but that's insane!

[Hobbawobba]

Bugger . Best bet for a new fat plate would probably be billet these days aye

[clive]

Well finally thanks to Steve's excellent machining work on the Mill (DS Engineering) Pip's expertise  and a specialist Cast Iron Welding company in the Midlands we now have a usable 20B Centre Plate.

Other than the machining that Steve sorted, the biggest worry was that the plate was heated to 600 degrees for eight hours before welding and  was scared that the plate would warp, but its OK

Other issue was re-drilling the oil way that feeds the centre bearing but Steve sorted it     This was a pig to work out drilling it off-set to the dowel hole, hence the white witness line. 

The alternative with nothing used for sale anywhere was 9K from Mazda Motorsports who are making these long discontinued plates in small batches just for racers!

Yes, I know that there are Alloy plates out there but the Aussies warned me off these for circuit racing, telling me that the Alloy plates cause overheating. OK I suppose for road and Drag Racing but not proper track racing.

I will keep you all posted.

[clive]

Jim my No1 wizardy man has made the RX-8 much more professional looking, spending two days with me wiring and programming in this new Haltech Dash that even came with a remade RX-8 brinicle to locate the dash.

He even programmed the super clear dash colours to be the colours of the car. Yellow, Blue and Red.

Best of all he programmed it the read Racing Beat Europe on start up/ No excuses to say I cant see the revs or what gear I am in. Thank you Jim         

[clive]

It's alive again😁Thanks go to Pip for an excellent engine refresh, Steve for helping wrestle the engine back in the bay. Special thanks to Jim's James Metcalfe dedication for spending all day yesterday with me after travelling all the way from Wakefield to me here in Kent (again) to help get the car up n running👍.

[Eccentric shaft]

Great news!!! 

[Casey]

Well done to everyone involved 

[clive]

Good Test Day today, sorted a few electrical gremlins and covered 38 Laps, so all ready to go racing tomorrow 😁

[clive]

  Bit of an update about  Christeen ----------and the fight goes on.

Took the car up to Pip Wednesday for mapping and immediately the throttle issue that has plagued the car since the 3 Rotor went in reared up properly this time rather than a reset it packed up,
Jim kindly robbed his Race Car, drove over to Pips and fitted it and immediately no more bad starting issues ect.
 Pip believes that the faulty fly by wire throttle body has been causing all sorts of engine problems, indeed two years back after it would not work at Snetterton, we put the throttle into a set up mode, taking the safety parameters off, I then drove onto the track and Christeen really bit me, going full open throttle causing me to crash.
As said that manky throttle body has caused issues for a long long time!

So its now on the Dyno and all is going OK till Pip got to 6000 revs then the next disaster. The car is now shaking itself apart, so game over for now Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

All the indications are that the propshaft is out of balance so until I can get the prop back on the machine  the week after next we don't know what's causing this issue     

[Jamie R]

Christ clive when are you gonna get some good luck ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[clive]

Thanks Jamie--------------like you------------Never give up

[clive]

With thanks to  Pip PG Auto  for his ongoing help and Northwest prop shafts who have  built a much beefier shaft for Christine to replace the bent poorly made thing another company supplied, so finally we will be out again at Silverstone on Sunday.

Going to be a long day with qualifying @ 9am first Race 11.45 and then the last Race of the day 4.20     

[Casey]

Loving the Christine graphic   

[clive]

Wasn't a bad day on low power, picked the wrong tyres so abandoned Race I and started from the back of the grid. In Race two, managed a class win to get a trophy and 2nd overall holding off an ex works Bathhurst Holden 😁