Ford Racing Puma - Goes Racing
Discussion
Lovely project and nice garage Ross.
Think I met you as we were sort of collectively with the Ford guys at Cadwell in October '10. Cant believe how long ago that was. I spent a few laps out with Tony and Wes, went out in my rusty old Megane Coupe.
Lucky to have two of these FRPs anyway, they seem right fun!
Rich
Think I met you as we were sort of collectively with the Ford guys at Cadwell in October '10. Cant believe how long ago that was. I spent a few laps out with Tony and Wes, went out in my rusty old Megane Coupe.
Lucky to have two of these FRPs anyway, they seem right fun!
Rich
cjgreaves41 said:
Looks brilliant! What did you do for door cards?
I have removed the door cards, and just sprayed the door silver. I was thinking of making some carbo sheets to cover the metal but decided against it. i think i will eventually cut the inner door skin away and add a light weight cover, but not just yet.MagicalTrevor said:
I may have missed it but are you intending doing something about the suspension? It looks like it's too high with the additional weight removed
I know what you mean, the car does look like its sitting very high. Worth remembering that these FRP's do sit high as standard due to them meant to replicate a rally car. in fact the current suspension set is pretty good, very stiff, and very little body roll. Eventually i will either fit some coilovers and lower the car, or design some custom damper settings and change the springs to do the same thing,
CarsGoVroom said:
Lovely project and nice garage Ross.
Think I met you as we were sort of collectively with the Ford guys at Cadwell in October '10. Cant believe how long ago that was. I spent a few laps out with Tony and Wes, went out in my rusty old Megane Coupe.
Lucky to have two of these FRPs anyway, they seem right fun!
Rich
Pretty sure i remember that! was a long time ago. I love cadwell park its such a great circuit. I will definately be returning there this year at some point Think I met you as we were sort of collectively with the Ford guys at Cadwell in October '10. Cant believe how long ago that was. I spent a few laps out with Tony and Wes, went out in my rusty old Megane Coupe.
Lucky to have two of these FRPs anyway, they seem right fun!
Rich
UPDATE 03-06-12 – The Nurburgring!
Hi all. Well its been a while since I last wrote on here and lot has happened. Ive been back from my week long holiday to the Nurburgring for a few days now, and im still buzzing from it! So here is a full report of the car and the place!
So, Thursday 24th May, I finally finished the longest day at work ever, time seemed to stand still for the whole day, but once 5:15 arrived I literally ran out of the door like a child finishing school for the 6 weeks holidays!
First job for that night, load the car onto the trailer.
Friday 25th, was an EARLY start! Up at 4am and driving to Dover for a morning ferry.
A fairly flawless crossing with P&O but then an absolute nightmare of traffic through Belgium meant a 9 hour trip to our hotel.
We stayed in our usual hotel, a place weve been to for the past 4 years, the good old hotel wilhelmshoehe.
http://www.hotel-wilhelmshoehe.de/
Meeting up with the other two ‘Ring Warriors, Rob (Burfyboy)
and Adam (AWX85)
a few beers and off to bed, in anticipation of tomorrows track time.
Saturday 26th – Time to hit the track!
After a short and sunny drive from the hotel to the track we arrived, brought our laps, and after I collected myself from the floor after passing out at the cost of lapping this place, got my helmet on and jumped in the car.
I had forgotten just how made this place is on a public day. It was completely packed, and even though I had driven about 30 laps of this place over the previous 3 years I felt like I was learning it for the first time all over again. I spend more time looking behind me then in front, and after about 11 minutes the first lap of the year was over and I could breath again!
Clearly I needed more practice.
This year my dad also returned to the track with me, and after his ‘eventful’ year in 2011 (see my FRP 441 thread for details!), he had some demons to face. He did very well, I was really proud of him, and the first time he drove around the corner that he became a bit over familiar with last year I could feel a sigh of relief from him, and that we were gonna be ok this year!
So Saturday was a day of driving, we did 8 laps that day, with no issues. They were not fast ones. I had a GoPro in the car of most laps, and in the evening we reviewed our progress. We were getting more confident throughout the day and out times were improving, from about 10mins 30 down to 9:45’s in the first day. I was happy.
Back to the hotel, and time for a few of these
Sunday 27th – Back to the Track
This place is still rammed with people! Lots of crashes and closures, and only small opportunities to get on track before closures, and even when on track it was really hard to get a clean lap, lots of yellow flags and marshal’s. But we were getting more confident, not panicking when cars came to overtake, and managing to actually do come overtaking as well!
The worst thing was the car parking, we were forced on the fields at the back of the track, which was just full of dust. The weather was roasting (28 degrees) and the dust was unbearable. The cars soon were covered in it!
but we had time for some lunch in our amazing back up vehicle!
That day we managed 10 more laps, my dad did 2 and I did 8. My times were hovering about the 9min 30s which was ok considering the conditions.
Back to the hotel
Monday 28th – The last day on track!
This was the day I wanted that one clear lap, when everything could come together, I could flow through the 12 mile madness with full commitment, to hold the throttle flat through the blind corners with complete confidence and have no hold ups!
The traffic on track was lighter, lots of people had gone home the day before, and there were less closures.
We were doing well, I went out a couple of times without a passenger, and had two ‘ok’ laps, both suffered with yellow flags, but I was now setting 9 min 10s and 9 min 12s. Things were looking up!
My dad had his final couple of laps, and managed his target of a sub 10 minute lap. Again he did so well and was happy with his performance.
So, the time came, it was my last lap of the trip, and the last lap for the next couple of years (getting married next year means no ring trip!)
This was my last chance. My fastest ever lap of the ring was in 2010 in my old Focus ST 260, which was a 9 minute 2 seconds.
Could a little Puma, with only about 165bhp do a lap on a public day of the nurburgring, in less then 9 minutes?
Well have a look here to find out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zYk5mY2xdU
Yep that’s right, my last lap of this trip was 8 minutes, 55 seconds! I was so happy. It was a pretty faultless lap, but there was traffic (scope for a few more seconds off the time?!) but I loved it.
I know it should not be encouraged to time your laps at the nurburgring. Im not encouraging it here, and it’s a personal choice if you want to do that. I was not ‘live timing’ my laps, I just had a GoPro attached to the car and watched them back in the evenings to see how I did and what the times were. If you time your laps, be careful, don’t drive beyond your limits to chase those last few seconds.
So, we went home, with huge smiles. Back to the hotel
Tuesday 29th – A Day Off!
After the hangover, we went for a drive about the area, and first headed to the town of Nurburg, to see the castle.
The castle was closed!
So we went to try and find the out ‘south loop’. The Nurburgring used to be a 17 mile long track, with a large southloop. This part of the track was decommissioned and closed in 1927. Some of it is the new GP circuit, some is now the normal roads around the track, and some of it is just left to return to nature.
We had a look on google earth, and found what we thought might be a bit of track. So we drove off to try and find it.
And we did. Here are some pics of the old south track as it stands today.
it was really cool walking on the old forgotten track. Some sections were so steep, its amazing anything from the 1920’s could even drive up them!
We also went for a long walk along the main track and stopped at various places. Some of my pics:
So, after a good day, it was back to the hotel.
and on the next day we had a 11 hour drive home ☹
what an awesome trip, and an awesome car. All the efforts of the last 8 months have been worth it. The car was perfect, it performed amazingly well and im so happy with it.
Thanks for reading.
Ross
Hi all. Well its been a while since I last wrote on here and lot has happened. Ive been back from my week long holiday to the Nurburgring for a few days now, and im still buzzing from it! So here is a full report of the car and the place!
So, Thursday 24th May, I finally finished the longest day at work ever, time seemed to stand still for the whole day, but once 5:15 arrived I literally ran out of the door like a child finishing school for the 6 weeks holidays!
First job for that night, load the car onto the trailer.
Friday 25th, was an EARLY start! Up at 4am and driving to Dover for a morning ferry.
A fairly flawless crossing with P&O but then an absolute nightmare of traffic through Belgium meant a 9 hour trip to our hotel.
We stayed in our usual hotel, a place weve been to for the past 4 years, the good old hotel wilhelmshoehe.
http://www.hotel-wilhelmshoehe.de/
Meeting up with the other two ‘Ring Warriors, Rob (Burfyboy)
and Adam (AWX85) a few beers and off to bed, in anticipation of tomorrows track time.
Saturday 26th – Time to hit the track!
After a short and sunny drive from the hotel to the track we arrived, brought our laps, and after I collected myself from the floor after passing out at the cost of lapping this place, got my helmet on and jumped in the car.
I had forgotten just how made this place is on a public day. It was completely packed, and even though I had driven about 30 laps of this place over the previous 3 years I felt like I was learning it for the first time all over again. I spend more time looking behind me then in front, and after about 11 minutes the first lap of the year was over and I could breath again!
Clearly I needed more practice.
This year my dad also returned to the track with me, and after his ‘eventful’ year in 2011 (see my FRP 441 thread for details!), he had some demons to face. He did very well, I was really proud of him, and the first time he drove around the corner that he became a bit over familiar with last year I could feel a sigh of relief from him, and that we were gonna be ok this year!
So Saturday was a day of driving, we did 8 laps that day, with no issues. They were not fast ones. I had a GoPro in the car of most laps, and in the evening we reviewed our progress. We were getting more confident throughout the day and out times were improving, from about 10mins 30 down to 9:45’s in the first day. I was happy.
Back to the hotel, and time for a few of these
Sunday 27th – Back to the Track
This place is still rammed with people! Lots of crashes and closures, and only small opportunities to get on track before closures, and even when on track it was really hard to get a clean lap, lots of yellow flags and marshal’s. But we were getting more confident, not panicking when cars came to overtake, and managing to actually do come overtaking as well!
The worst thing was the car parking, we were forced on the fields at the back of the track, which was just full of dust. The weather was roasting (28 degrees) and the dust was unbearable. The cars soon were covered in it!
but we had time for some lunch in our amazing back up vehicle!
That day we managed 10 more laps, my dad did 2 and I did 8. My times were hovering about the 9min 30s which was ok considering the conditions.
Back to the hotel
Monday 28th – The last day on track!
This was the day I wanted that one clear lap, when everything could come together, I could flow through the 12 mile madness with full commitment, to hold the throttle flat through the blind corners with complete confidence and have no hold ups!
The traffic on track was lighter, lots of people had gone home the day before, and there were less closures.
We were doing well, I went out a couple of times without a passenger, and had two ‘ok’ laps, both suffered with yellow flags, but I was now setting 9 min 10s and 9 min 12s. Things were looking up!
My dad had his final couple of laps, and managed his target of a sub 10 minute lap. Again he did so well and was happy with his performance.
So, the time came, it was my last lap of the trip, and the last lap for the next couple of years (getting married next year means no ring trip!)
This was my last chance. My fastest ever lap of the ring was in 2010 in my old Focus ST 260, which was a 9 minute 2 seconds.
Could a little Puma, with only about 165bhp do a lap on a public day of the nurburgring, in less then 9 minutes?
Well have a look here to find out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zYk5mY2xdU
Yep that’s right, my last lap of this trip was 8 minutes, 55 seconds! I was so happy. It was a pretty faultless lap, but there was traffic (scope for a few more seconds off the time?!) but I loved it.
I know it should not be encouraged to time your laps at the nurburgring. Im not encouraging it here, and it’s a personal choice if you want to do that. I was not ‘live timing’ my laps, I just had a GoPro attached to the car and watched them back in the evenings to see how I did and what the times were. If you time your laps, be careful, don’t drive beyond your limits to chase those last few seconds.
So, we went home, with huge smiles. Back to the hotel
Tuesday 29th – A Day Off!
After the hangover, we went for a drive about the area, and first headed to the town of Nurburg, to see the castle.
The castle was closed!
So we went to try and find the out ‘south loop’. The Nurburgring used to be a 17 mile long track, with a large southloop. This part of the track was decommissioned and closed in 1927. Some of it is the new GP circuit, some is now the normal roads around the track, and some of it is just left to return to nature.
We had a look on google earth, and found what we thought might be a bit of track. So we drove off to try and find it.
And we did. Here are some pics of the old south track as it stands today.
it was really cool walking on the old forgotten track. Some sections were so steep, its amazing anything from the 1920’s could even drive up them!
We also went for a long walk along the main track and stopped at various places. Some of my pics:
So, after a good day, it was back to the hotel.
and on the next day we had a 11 hour drive home ☹
what an awesome trip, and an awesome car. All the efforts of the last 8 months have been worth it. The car was perfect, it performed amazingly well and im so happy with it.
Thanks for reading.
Ross
for the seats, if you come across any more PM me Some ace driving there, looked like you were really shifting. Nice and loud inside the car and it sounded good too, is it running a straight pipe exhaust? Any idea of what db it's putting out, and any trouble with the noise test marshals?
Looks like you had some excellent weather too.
Looks like you had some excellent weather too.
Thank you all for the great comments, really nice of you.
Regarding the noise, well yep its a bit noisy inside, i love it! Its running a full stainless exhaust system, a 4-2-1 manifold into a straight through system with no catalyst. At a recent snetterton track day it measured 89dB at 4500rpm. i thought it would be louder but I'm pleased with it.
Ive had to re-process my nurburgring lap video due to an error with the sound on the old one, so the new link is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYKa5pvJb_Y
Also, I've been contacted by Performance Ford magazine this week, and they want to run a feature on my car, so thats pretty cool. more to follow on that one.
thanks again
Ross
Regarding the noise, well yep its a bit noisy inside, i love it! Its running a full stainless exhaust system, a 4-2-1 manifold into a straight through system with no catalyst. At a recent snetterton track day it measured 89dB at 4500rpm. i thought it would be louder but I'm pleased with it.
Ive had to re-process my nurburgring lap video due to an error with the sound on the old one, so the new link is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYKa5pvJb_Y
Also, I've been contacted by Performance Ford magazine this week, and they want to run a feature on my car, so thats pretty cool. more to follow on that one.
thanks again
Ross
02-09-12 – UPDATE
Hi All! As it’s been ages since I last wrote anything on here I thought id just do a quick update on what ive been upto with the Racing Puma.
Since the Nurburgring trip the car has been cleaned and stored in my dads workshop where it stayed for a while, but has been out for a couple of notable things.
Firstly, ive been featured by Performance Ford Magazine, which was exciting! After a few chats with the guys there I managed to arrange for them to come to my workplace to take some photos and have an interview.
The full feature is meant to be out this coming Thursday (6th September) so I wont spoil it, but here are a few ‘behind the scenes’ pics! (can u guess where we are?!)
Im really looking forward to reading the magazine to see how the car looks! The guys from the magazine were really nice, and I was even lucky enough to have exclusive use of the track so I could give them a few full chat demo laps of how the car handles, it was awesome!
The other main thing ive done is my first taste of genuine motorsport.
I competed in the Lotus Hethel Sprint, which was basically a series of timed laps, against a whole range of other more exotic machinery, such as old Lotus F1 cars, Ferrari’s, TVR’s, various single seaters and a range of hot hatches.
My class had a couple of Clio Cup race cars, a Lotus Elan, 106 Rallye, and a few other things. I eventually came second in class, to a new generation Clio race car, so I was pretty happy with that. Here are a few pics of the car on track
So that’s about all for now.
I do have a trackday booked at Cadwell Park in October, so will do a full report on that with some Go-Pro videos to match.
Thanks for reading.
Oh, and look out for me in this month Performance Ford Magazine, available in all good service stations!
Ross
Hi All! As it’s been ages since I last wrote anything on here I thought id just do a quick update on what ive been upto with the Racing Puma.
Since the Nurburgring trip the car has been cleaned and stored in my dads workshop where it stayed for a while, but has been out for a couple of notable things.
Firstly, ive been featured by Performance Ford Magazine, which was exciting! After a few chats with the guys there I managed to arrange for them to come to my workplace to take some photos and have an interview.
The full feature is meant to be out this coming Thursday (6th September) so I wont spoil it, but here are a few ‘behind the scenes’ pics! (can u guess where we are?!)
Im really looking forward to reading the magazine to see how the car looks! The guys from the magazine were really nice, and I was even lucky enough to have exclusive use of the track so I could give them a few full chat demo laps of how the car handles, it was awesome!
The other main thing ive done is my first taste of genuine motorsport.
I competed in the Lotus Hethel Sprint, which was basically a series of timed laps, against a whole range of other more exotic machinery, such as old Lotus F1 cars, Ferrari’s, TVR’s, various single seaters and a range of hot hatches.
My class had a couple of Clio Cup race cars, a Lotus Elan, 106 Rallye, and a few other things. I eventually came second in class, to a new generation Clio race car, so I was pretty happy with that. Here are a few pics of the car on track
So that’s about all for now.
I do have a trackday booked at Cadwell Park in October, so will do a full report on that with some Go-Pro videos to match.
Thanks for reading.
Oh, and look out for me in this month Performance Ford Magazine, available in all good service stations!
Ross
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