January 2016

I've ordered the vinyl for the race car. I'm sticking with matt black and matt charcoal grey vinyl, something quite subtle, to stick on the black gloss. I wrapped the front winglets in chrome vinyl last weekend, and they look pretty good. I'll wrap the rear wing elements in chrome, and I'll remove all the stickers from the rear wing end plates, so I can place the running numbers on them.

We have a test session booked at Blyton for March 11th. Pete Goulding will be there with Juan Rosso's car, wearing a nice shade of orange all over. Pete's had some carbon panels made for the car too, as he has replaced the intrusion panels and various other bits, and we're all waiting to hear what it weighs after all the expenditure. Chris Norton will also be attending to trim my Schroth seat, and it will then be sent to Cobra to be upholstered, with a big G embroidered on to the front.

My entry for Rockingham on the 20th March has been accepted. Again Pete will be there, with his Mygale, and Andy Laurence and Andrew O'Malley are joint driving the third Mygale (the ex Ashley Sutton Jamun car), so it will be a great opportunity to compare the three cars, on and off the track. All three cars won races in 2014, so we've lots to live up to.

I'm making a pair of front wing endplates out of Alupanel, which is the ally foam ally 3mm thick composite material supplied by Coalville Signs. [PDF here]. So far, before I even trim them to the right shape, the rough cut panels are around 250g each, and the 10mm thick Nylon end plates from the car weight 880g each. This will be an easy combined 1.2Kg weight saving for the pair, and I may also make some to replace the rear wing end plates too, as they're both huge and must weight a couple of KGs each.

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Today I removed the rear suspension and the gearbox. It took me just a couple of hours. After raising the rear of the car, and placing a spare front wheel under the engine/chassis, I lowered the car back down to allow me to work on it. Next job was to remove all the suspension links, and the rear shock absorbers, and undo the oil lines to the engine, and drain the sump, capturing about 1.5 litres in total. When I pulled out the drive shafts, I expected to see some oil leak out, but it appears to be a seal around the diff that prevents leakage. Either that or the box is empty. The plan now is to get the LSD fitted, but I notice that the driveshafts have a different number of splines to the LSD, so I'll have to buy a couple of new sun gears so they match.












I also finished the fuel pump cable off, and drained the tank. I didnt get as much fuel out as I hoped, so the car is pretty close to the 465Kg as quoted by the manufacturers. Still, with development I expect the weight to gradually decrease. The cable features a pair of crocodile clips, and an inline fuse holder, all from RSWWW.

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Weighed the car. Its approx 475Kg if I include the weight of the undertray which isnt currently fitted. I need to empty the fuel tank to find out what the dry weight is. So I'm making a cable that will allow me to provide power to the fuel pump, to run the pump without the ignition switched on.

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The Powerflow diff arrived from Dirk Jenichen in Germany. It is in perfect condition, and many thanks to Dirk for supplying it to me. I shall make arrangements to have the diff and the bearing carrier fitted. A trip over to JP Race Center at Silverstone is on the cards.

I've borrowed a set of Intercomp SW500 digital corner scales, and I'll weigh the car before I remove the gearbox. Any guesses as to how much the car weighs? It should be 475Kg less the 7Kg I've removed, so around 468Kg, with what little fuel is left inside the tank. I'll weigh it with me sat inside too, to get a more accurate measurement. This, with the motion ratios, should allow me to calculate the right spring poundages to give the wheel frequency I desire.

I took the nose and suspension cover over to Faircharm on Saturday, to allow Shane to work his magic with the spray gun. I'm sticking with gloss black for now. They should be ready in about three weeks.

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Renewed my MSA competition license. To drive the Mygale in competition I need a Speed National 'A' (Open) license, which I obtained in 2004, after gaining all the upgrade signatures. 2016 will be the first time I actually need the license. The reason why I upgraded before was the Sports Libre class split. Had I rebuilt the engine to take it over 2.0 I would have needed the higher Speed 'A' license. As it happened, I never took the engine over 2.0, though I maintained the license just in case.

I've also renewed my HSA membership, and I've entered the Rockingham Sprint, on March 20th. I will be testing the car at Blyton on March 11th, so as long as I dont break it or discover some problems that prevent me from racing on the 20th, I will be racing the car for the first time at Rockingham, which has to be one of my favourite venues to drive.

The FTR202 gearbox cover has turned up from Radical. The idea is that I can now run without the carbon crash box, and the replacement carrier allows me to run the rear wing without needing spacers in place of the crash box.

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Happy New Year :D

SBD has been working on their 1.6 EcoBoost project, and have so far developed 300BHP and 300ft/lb of torque, with yet more to come. Imagine that in the Mygale? Here is a linky to their FB page. Its a shame the FTR gearbox is only rated to 240ft/lb of torque....

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