Not Your Everyday Race Car - The Mighty Citroen
Discussion
Mega-update time....nearly there.
First off, I said I'd have more time on the car then managed to inflame an old back injury which means nothing much got started after the previous update, and with race weekend looming I've had to farm out the heavy/awkward stuff to a local garage - namely the clutch and front suspension work.
However, there was still plenty to do, starting with the final plumbing in of the extinguisher. Rich had run pipes for it into the driver's footwell, but on inspection I wasn't happy that they ran behind the pedals - too much of a chance for them to foul the pedals and at best distract the driver so I re-routed them and bolted in the extinguisher (this was how I did my back in, trying to do up bolts under the car without a helper).
Footwell brackets (notice also the ally holding the dash steady where I had to cut into it):
And joining the pipes and the pull cables into the extinguisher:
With a bad back the jobs I could do were limited, but I fitted the AIM Datalogger to the dash and refitted that section:
...cut and glued the air vents back in place (no air will flow through these, it just neatens up the dash a bit):
So then a few days off for the back to heal, and Rich came up for an intensive two-day session in the garage, our aim was to get all the outstanding work done except the stuff we're farming out.
We started with the brakes, new shoes and drums on the back, pads and discs on the front plus new fluid.
I've never done more than adjust drums before, I never want to do this job again. Horrible, horrible combination of needing 4 hands and superhuman strength and dexterity to refit springs and pins.
Drum off, hardly any wear on the shoes, it crossed my mind to leave them as it's clear they get little use. I should have listened to myself. Instead we removed shoes, springs:
...which sprung everywhere and refused to go back into the little holes they were supposed to. I don't have any more pictures of the rears being done, we were both sick of the sight of them. Here's a picture of a new drum in situ instead:
Then on to the fronts, unfortunately Rich jinxed the process by predicting we'd have them done in no time compared to the rears. We probably would have until......:
...that's a snapped locating screw which had to be drilled out and retapped, making the job just that little bit more annoying.
Eventually though the calipers were off, and onto the bench to be cleaned up:
...but at least everything went back together OK:
We then changed the fluid using a pressure bleeder (no pictures), the fluid coming out of the car was surprisingly clear, it looks like this car may have had new fluid recently.
After the brakes, it was a series of miscellaneous jobs, such as.......
Front tow straps (yes, still the blue ones, we'll take our chances for the first race). Also notice the brackets for the spotlights poking out and rivnuts for the number plate as we're required to put sponsor stickers where the plate goes, but we want to keep it road-legal for testing etc:
Instead of a second rain light, you can use the foglight on the right hand side and change the wiring to make the reversing light on the left into a fog light by colouring the lens red. So a coat of my wife's 'Celebrity Bash' nail polish and we have a pair of rain lights.
Ta da!
Bumper back off and wiring made up for the spotlights:
Bumper on, spots on!
FIA regs state the car has to have window film on all non-laminated glass - so out with the water spray, squeegee and sharp blade. Not a simple job with the cage in, if we do another one this will be the first job after stripping the interior. We also messed up the rear windscreen by trying to do the whole lot in one sheet of film, the compound curves just mean it creases and bubbles. We ran out of film so the rear is still to do but more research needed first I think:
Tidying up the cutouts in the doorcards with blue edging:
Then on with the wheels (and a rare picture of Rich with his hands dirty).
And we're pretty much done, other than the stuff at the local garage next Monday - but what a transformation.
From this:
To this:
Test day at Croft on the 28th, then first race on May 7th at Snetterton. Before that, once the front suspension and clutch is done I'll be testing it on the roads around here (taxed and insured yesterday) so that we can concentrate on setup at Croft.
First off, I said I'd have more time on the car then managed to inflame an old back injury which means nothing much got started after the previous update, and with race weekend looming I've had to farm out the heavy/awkward stuff to a local garage - namely the clutch and front suspension work.
However, there was still plenty to do, starting with the final plumbing in of the extinguisher. Rich had run pipes for it into the driver's footwell, but on inspection I wasn't happy that they ran behind the pedals - too much of a chance for them to foul the pedals and at best distract the driver so I re-routed them and bolted in the extinguisher (this was how I did my back in, trying to do up bolts under the car without a helper).
Footwell brackets (notice also the ally holding the dash steady where I had to cut into it):
And joining the pipes and the pull cables into the extinguisher:
With a bad back the jobs I could do were limited, but I fitted the AIM Datalogger to the dash and refitted that section:
...cut and glued the air vents back in place (no air will flow through these, it just neatens up the dash a bit):
So then a few days off for the back to heal, and Rich came up for an intensive two-day session in the garage, our aim was to get all the outstanding work done except the stuff we're farming out.
We started with the brakes, new shoes and drums on the back, pads and discs on the front plus new fluid.
I've never done more than adjust drums before, I never want to do this job again. Horrible, horrible combination of needing 4 hands and superhuman strength and dexterity to refit springs and pins.
Drum off, hardly any wear on the shoes, it crossed my mind to leave them as it's clear they get little use. I should have listened to myself. Instead we removed shoes, springs:
...which sprung everywhere and refused to go back into the little holes they were supposed to. I don't have any more pictures of the rears being done, we were both sick of the sight of them. Here's a picture of a new drum in situ instead:
Then on to the fronts, unfortunately Rich jinxed the process by predicting we'd have them done in no time compared to the rears. We probably would have until......:
...that's a snapped locating screw which had to be drilled out and retapped, making the job just that little bit more annoying.
Eventually though the calipers were off, and onto the bench to be cleaned up:
...but at least everything went back together OK:
We then changed the fluid using a pressure bleeder (no pictures), the fluid coming out of the car was surprisingly clear, it looks like this car may have had new fluid recently.
After the brakes, it was a series of miscellaneous jobs, such as.......
Front tow straps (yes, still the blue ones, we'll take our chances for the first race). Also notice the brackets for the spotlights poking out and rivnuts for the number plate as we're required to put sponsor stickers where the plate goes, but we want to keep it road-legal for testing etc:
Instead of a second rain light, you can use the foglight on the right hand side and change the wiring to make the reversing light on the left into a fog light by colouring the lens red. So a coat of my wife's 'Celebrity Bash' nail polish and we have a pair of rain lights.
Ta da!
Bumper back off and wiring made up for the spotlights:
Bumper on, spots on!
FIA regs state the car has to have window film on all non-laminated glass - so out with the water spray, squeegee and sharp blade. Not a simple job with the cage in, if we do another one this will be the first job after stripping the interior. We also messed up the rear windscreen by trying to do the whole lot in one sheet of film, the compound curves just mean it creases and bubbles. We ran out of film so the rear is still to do but more research needed first I think:
Tidying up the cutouts in the doorcards with blue edging:
Then on with the wheels (and a rare picture of Rich with his hands dirty).
And we're pretty much done, other than the stuff at the local garage next Monday - but what a transformation.
From this:
To this:
Test day at Croft on the 28th, then first race on May 7th at Snetterton. Before that, once the front suspension and clutch is done I'll be testing it on the roads around here (taxed and insured yesterday) so that we can concentrate on setup at Croft.
Krikkit said:
Is the front suspension supposed to be fit and no mods? Be happy to do it for you if you drive it down to north Lincs. 
Looking good though, the race lights and towing eyes make all the difference!
Yes, the lower wishbone is extended to give some camber (I forget how much, 2 or 3 deg I think) so you need to fit extended driveshafts and extend the steering arms by adding a spacer before the track rod ends. All easily do-able if you're fit, even easier with ramps but being on the garage floor and risking doing my back in further (then missing out on actually driving the thing) means it's sensible to take it to my local indy.Looking good though, the race lights and towing eyes make all the difference!
While it's there I'm getting them to do the clutch - another job I don't fancy doing on my back under axle stands.
I'll snap some pictures of the parts before I get them fitted to illustrate.
liner33 said:
I hate to be one of "those" guys but are those fire system brackets staying like that in the footwell , look really sharp and could be nasty in a shunt ?
No, you're quite right. In order to get the plumbing in I needed to make them up quickly but they're on my list to do. I was going to round off the sides and put some of the edging on them.Mark Benson said:
liner33 said:
I hate to be one of "those" guys but are those fire system brackets staying like that in the footwell , look really sharp and could be nasty in a shunt ?
No, you're quite right. In order to get the plumbing in I needed to make them up quickly but they're on my list to do. I was going to round off the sides and put some of the edging on them.Got an hour or so at the weekend to tackle the extinguisher mounts:
Floor mounted one just needed some edging:
The upper one I trimmed and smoothed off:
So it sits much more neatly away from the driver:
Dropped the car off this morning to have this lot (plus a new clutch) fitted:
This is the fillet of steel welded into the lower wishbone to give camber...
...necessitating an extended driveshaft (doesn't look the neatest welding but I hope it's been balanced, certainly no-one has complained of any vibration on the cars fitted so far):
More pics from the test day on Friday I suspect.
Floor mounted one just needed some edging:
The upper one I trimmed and smoothed off:
So it sits much more neatly away from the driver:
Dropped the car off this morning to have this lot (plus a new clutch) fitted:
This is the fillet of steel welded into the lower wishbone to give camber...
...necessitating an extended driveshaft (doesn't look the neatest welding but I hope it's been balanced, certainly no-one has complained of any vibration on the cars fitted so far):
More pics from the test day on Friday I suspect.
My garage man called yesterday afternoon to ask whether I'd forgotten to take some parts, apparently the Gaz setup doesn't fit the standard top mounts. Nothing came with them to adapt the aluminium top of the strut so he went down the road to an engineering firm to get them to machine them to fit.
Glad I got someone else to do this now, and glad I picked them as he has the wherewithal to engineer a proper solution, not just bodge it.
Should be ready for me to pick up today, trip home will be a test drive.
Glad I got someone else to do this now, and glad I picked them as he has the wherewithal to engineer a proper solution, not just bodge it.
Should be ready for me to pick up today, trip home will be a test drive.
All done.
The steering arm needs shortening a small amount, then an extension is added, then the track-rod end is screwed onto the extension, this is how it ends up:
I did this on the ramps at the garage, they were reluctant to modify standard parts as they weren't sure where it left them regarding insurance, so the solution was that I did the cutting and fitting of the extensions, they'd do everything else. I now want a ramp at home, so much easier.
The car was then tracked, we went for 1 deg toe out but we'll play with it on Friday and see what works best. The drive home was very noisy, the coilovers were set too low and the tyres rubbed on the arches, when I checked they were about 3cm below the minimum ride height so out with the 'C' spanner and set to just over 57cm from floor to the top of the arch (regulation height for Gaz suspension cars) the collars were nearly at the top of their range:
Hard to see, but it's 57.3:
Once they were set the same each side, the collars were locked off and marked up so we'll see any movement. Last job is to go round and mark some of the more crucial nuts and bolts with a paint pen, mine's dried up so another is on order.
The steering arm needs shortening a small amount, then an extension is added, then the track-rod end is screwed onto the extension, this is how it ends up:
I did this on the ramps at the garage, they were reluctant to modify standard parts as they weren't sure where it left them regarding insurance, so the solution was that I did the cutting and fitting of the extensions, they'd do everything else. I now want a ramp at home, so much easier.
The car was then tracked, we went for 1 deg toe out but we'll play with it on Friday and see what works best. The drive home was very noisy, the coilovers were set too low and the tyres rubbed on the arches, when I checked they were about 3cm below the minimum ride height so out with the 'C' spanner and set to just over 57cm from floor to the top of the arch (regulation height for Gaz suspension cars) the collars were nearly at the top of their range:
Hard to see, but it's 57.3:
Once they were set the same each side, the collars were locked off and marked up so we'll see any movement. Last job is to go round and mark some of the more crucial nuts and bolts with a paint pen, mine's dried up so another is on order.
Very good of the garage to allow you to do the mods on their ramp. I know what you mean about wanting a ramp!
The steering arm extension looks like it will made the rack arm the weak link - don't hammer the kerbs to much!
Toe out should help the understeer but I'd watch tyre wear.
Can't you get spacers for the shocks to give you more adjustment?
WRT marking nuts and bolts any bright touch up or Tippex work fine.
Hope Friday goes well.
The steering arm extension looks like it will made the rack arm the weak link - don't hammer the kerbs to much!
Toe out should help the understeer but I'd watch tyre wear.
Can't you get spacers for the shocks to give you more adjustment?
WRT marking nuts and bolts any bright touch up or Tippex work fine.
Hope Friday goes well.
skeggysteve said:
Very good of the garage to allow you to do the mods on their ramp. I know what you mean about wanting a ramp!
The steering arm extension looks like it will made the rack arm the weak link - don't hammer the kerbs to much!
Toe out should help the understeer but I'd watch tyre wear.
Can't you get spacers for the shocks to give you more adjustment?
WRT marking nuts and bolts any bright touch up or Tippex work fine.
Hope Friday goes well.
We don't have Ralston driving, so kerb hopping should be kept to a minimum Steve The steering arm extension looks like it will made the rack arm the weak link - don't hammer the kerbs to much!
Toe out should help the understeer but I'd watch tyre wear.
Can't you get spacers for the shocks to give you more adjustment?
WRT marking nuts and bolts any bright touch up or Tippex work fine.
Hope Friday goes well.
Also, the control tyre lasts a long time on the cars built so far, 6 needed in total for the Spa24 last year (and only £40 a corner, so positively bargain basement compared to the 888s we were going through on the Clio) so assuming we keep the toe as it is (subject to Friday's testing) then it shouldn't be too much of a worry.
test drive last night:
Testing on the road is useful as far as checking for leaks and that everything remains bolted down and bedding the brakes in, but jeez it's bumpy. I felt 6" shorter after I got out, the amount of spine crushing bumps I bounced over. Definitely a track car.
There are four outlets on our extinguisher, 2 in the engine bay - one over the fuel rail (most likely source of flammable liquid) and one over the exhaust manifold (most likely source of heat to ignite an oil leak) then the other two route internally and point at the driver.
Make sure if you're planning to go to Spa that you have the FIA 4 litre extinguisher, as the MSA compliant ones won't be accepted by the Belgians I believe.
Make sure if you're planning to go to Spa that you have the FIA 4 litre extinguisher, as the MSA compliant ones won't be accepted by the Belgians I believe.
Test day went well, car ran faultlessly for a total of 2 hours in 30 minute sessions.
We agreed I'd go out for the first session as I know Croft, coming in after 10 mins just to do a quick check over - in the event I stayed out, the car running well but it's clear it needed a bit of fine tuning on the handling, as it was prone to understeer.
We had an alignment gauge but no batteries, and by the time we'd messed about for a while it was clear a quicker way of doing things - and more accurate - would be to get it to a local tyre place in the lunch break.
So at 12 o clock, the Northallerton branch of Kwik Fit had it up on the ramps and we discovered the alignment was way out - this was corrected and Rich brought the car back to the circuit.
Handling was much improved in the afternoon, but to me it needs more testing. I think with a better setup we could knock a couple of seconds off a lap (I know it'll never handle like a touring car, but I still think there's potentially more in there) so we're going to treat the Snetterton race on Sunday as an extended test day and make some setup changes during the race to see what each one does to lap times.
We agreed I'd go out for the first session as I know Croft, coming in after 10 mins just to do a quick check over - in the event I stayed out, the car running well but it's clear it needed a bit of fine tuning on the handling, as it was prone to understeer.
We had an alignment gauge but no batteries, and by the time we'd messed about for a while it was clear a quicker way of doing things - and more accurate - would be to get it to a local tyre place in the lunch break.
So at 12 o clock, the Northallerton branch of Kwik Fit had it up on the ramps and we discovered the alignment was way out - this was corrected and Rich brought the car back to the circuit.
Handling was much improved in the afternoon, but to me it needs more testing. I think with a better setup we could knock a couple of seconds off a lap (I know it'll never handle like a touring car, but I still think there's potentially more in there) so we're going to treat the Snetterton race on Sunday as an extended test day and make some setup changes during the race to see what each one does to lap times.
Well, a pretty good weekend all told:
We arrived on Saturday evening and waited for the Britcar teams to vacate the garages so we could take up residence - it was quite incongruous seeing Ferraris and C1s parked up next to one another - both ends of the motorsport scale but as seems usual with the C1, the professional teams were just as interested in the cars and the series as anyone else.
All we had to do when we arrived was to check fluids, put a set of race wheels on and wash and sticker up the car:
As we do most of our testing together at Donington (owing to the fact it's about half way between where we each live) we're calling this outfit 'Craner Motorsport' as it's likely we'll sell seats for some of the races so we felt it should be a semi-commercial entity, although for this race, it was to be just Rich and I, supported by one mechanic.
I don't have any race pictures, I was a bit busy, however we had a disappointing qualifying session, the understeer apparent at Croft really hurt us at Snett and we managed a poor 13th out of 15 starters. I was disappointed as I expected us to be mid-table but we'd planned this race as an extended test session so that's clearly what it was going to be.
For the race proper, I was to start, and then we would swap each hour and come in for adjustments as and when we felt we needed to. I decided to give myself and the car a good long period in the first session before changing anything as the circuit in a 68bhp C1 is a very different one to that in a 270bhp Porsche, which was what we raced there last year.
From the line I was involved with two other cars in a 3 way fight for last place, which unfortunately slowed us down but fortunately allowed me to explore the handling of the car and where it felt poor - understeer, lots and lots of understeer. Understeer turning in, power understeer coming out of a corner and the inability to brake as late as the cars I was racing in a straight line.
So - we have a car with the most frustrating of vices, I can't outbrake (my preferred way of overtaking), I can't undercut in a corner and I have less traction coming out of the corner.
So I completed my stint and while Rich was out, I had a think.
We made a few changes to damping, to the rake of the car (raising the rear spring platforms) and to our style of driving to combat the understeer and it certainly improved things, but the problems never really left us. I'm not unfamiliar with FWD cars, having raced a Clio Cup for a couple of years so while I know understeer is always a possibility, I feel we can do better, even in a C1.
I'm left to conclude that the springs (bought through the club, who have since decided to use softer ones) are too stiff for the car as it's set up so we're going to book some more testing time and see if reducing some of the camber and toe will help. We could swap out the springs, but as we can only use club mandated parts, we'd probably have to change the dampers too, which would cost us another £400 and we'd have wasted the £600 we've already spent.
Anyway, back to the race - we were lapping consistently and with some intelligent fuelling were slowly making our way up the order, despite the odd stop for setup changes - some thanks to retirement (at least one clutch), some on the road. We were up to 8th by the midpoint, where we hovered for most of the remaining race but in the last stint something clicked for Rich and his lap times dropped dramatically (by 9 seconds on his initial times and somewhere close to mine) and he made another place, reeling in the car in front at 7 or 8 seconds a lap then dicing with him until he made his way past for good and put a good gap on him 10 minutes from the finish - we were about to settle for 7th when, on the last lap one of the leading cars ran out of fuel and Rich brought the car in 6th.
I'll take that as a success.
I'm sure with some testing time we can do better, but I'm very proud to think that a car I built in my garage, with no prior experience not only ran for 4 hours at race pace but finished 7 places above it's grid position.
Mention too to Duncan and his friend who sought us out having read this thread - do it chaps, you won't find a more rewarding way into racing in terms of cost or satisfaction.
There are now a total of 41 kits sold by the club, so the future looks pretty good for this series and it deserves to succeed, what a great weekend we had.
We arrived on Saturday evening and waited for the Britcar teams to vacate the garages so we could take up residence - it was quite incongruous seeing Ferraris and C1s parked up next to one another - both ends of the motorsport scale but as seems usual with the C1, the professional teams were just as interested in the cars and the series as anyone else.
All we had to do when we arrived was to check fluids, put a set of race wheels on and wash and sticker up the car:
As we do most of our testing together at Donington (owing to the fact it's about half way between where we each live) we're calling this outfit 'Craner Motorsport' as it's likely we'll sell seats for some of the races so we felt it should be a semi-commercial entity, although for this race, it was to be just Rich and I, supported by one mechanic.
I don't have any race pictures, I was a bit busy, however we had a disappointing qualifying session, the understeer apparent at Croft really hurt us at Snett and we managed a poor 13th out of 15 starters. I was disappointed as I expected us to be mid-table but we'd planned this race as an extended test session so that's clearly what it was going to be.
For the race proper, I was to start, and then we would swap each hour and come in for adjustments as and when we felt we needed to. I decided to give myself and the car a good long period in the first session before changing anything as the circuit in a 68bhp C1 is a very different one to that in a 270bhp Porsche, which was what we raced there last year.
From the line I was involved with two other cars in a 3 way fight for last place, which unfortunately slowed us down but fortunately allowed me to explore the handling of the car and where it felt poor - understeer, lots and lots of understeer. Understeer turning in, power understeer coming out of a corner and the inability to brake as late as the cars I was racing in a straight line.
So - we have a car with the most frustrating of vices, I can't outbrake (my preferred way of overtaking), I can't undercut in a corner and I have less traction coming out of the corner.
So I completed my stint and while Rich was out, I had a think.
We made a few changes to damping, to the rake of the car (raising the rear spring platforms) and to our style of driving to combat the understeer and it certainly improved things, but the problems never really left us. I'm not unfamiliar with FWD cars, having raced a Clio Cup for a couple of years so while I know understeer is always a possibility, I feel we can do better, even in a C1.
I'm left to conclude that the springs (bought through the club, who have since decided to use softer ones) are too stiff for the car as it's set up so we're going to book some more testing time and see if reducing some of the camber and toe will help. We could swap out the springs, but as we can only use club mandated parts, we'd probably have to change the dampers too, which would cost us another £400 and we'd have wasted the £600 we've already spent.
Anyway, back to the race - we were lapping consistently and with some intelligent fuelling were slowly making our way up the order, despite the odd stop for setup changes - some thanks to retirement (at least one clutch), some on the road. We were up to 8th by the midpoint, where we hovered for most of the remaining race but in the last stint something clicked for Rich and his lap times dropped dramatically (by 9 seconds on his initial times and somewhere close to mine) and he made another place, reeling in the car in front at 7 or 8 seconds a lap then dicing with him until he made his way past for good and put a good gap on him 10 minutes from the finish - we were about to settle for 7th when, on the last lap one of the leading cars ran out of fuel and Rich brought the car in 6th.
I'll take that as a success.
I'm sure with some testing time we can do better, but I'm very proud to think that a car I built in my garage, with no prior experience not only ran for 4 hours at race pace but finished 7 places above it's grid position.
Mention too to Duncan and his friend who sought us out having read this thread - do it chaps, you won't find a more rewarding way into racing in terms of cost or satisfaction.
There are now a total of 41 kits sold by the club, so the future looks pretty good for this series and it deserves to succeed, what a great weekend we had.
Edited by Mark Benson on Thursday 11th May 08:16
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