Team ZEN

Team ZEN Time Attack Impreza FOR SALE

D-Day: Part II

We have kept up a steady work pace all afternoon and thankfully we have not encountered any serious issues thus far (touch wood, fingers crossed, 4 leaf clovers at the ready etc). The to do list is looking miles better…

14 or so hours till track time, hoping to leave in an hour or so...

It has been a case of constantly finding new things that need doing, in order to achieve items on the list! It has also taken time to dig out the trailer, clear the trailer of all our packing materials and random bits of car and pack up stuff for tomorrow. Luckily we have an abundance of helpers (cheers Mike, Sam and Gareth) so work on the car has progressed while the packing etc has been done.

This is how the car looked 10 minutes ago…

Wheels on, nearly ready to drive to nextdoor, after 3 months or so of inactivity. Those CE28Ns are still looking uber lush!

And now…

Touch Down!

Paul is literally reversing the car on to the dyno as I type. So naturally I am in my office hiding and not taking any photos. Sorry, it’s just too much excitement for me With luck, a 3rd and final update will be along shortly. Keep everything crossed for us and all your lucky charms close at hand.

D-Day: Part I

This is it, the last chance saloon day to get the car ready for warm up at Snetterton at 9 something am tomorrow! That’s less than 20 hours away…

Paul came to bed at around 3am this morning and all he said was ‘it’s been running’, I squeezed his hand and went to sleep. If Paul was home, he must be happy!

I am told that there was a lot of cursing and stressing last night, as the team tried to chase down a wiring issue… At some ungodly hour, once everything was on and connected, Paul went through and tested the function of everything from injectors to cam and crank sensor, which is where a gremlin seemed to develop. It was sorted enough to get the oil primed and at about 2am the car was fired up. Tongue in cheek Mike commented to me this morning that it ran surprsingly well on 1 cylinder! Although he hastily added it went well on 4 too

Unfortunately the scavenge hose from oil tank to pump leaked as soon as the engine was commissioned. Serious blow with a brand new hose and only Saturday to sort a replacement. Teflon lined, braided stainless hose in -12 is not something we have just lying around because it is too damned expensive. After bacon and egg and a late start this morning, Paul was on to it - a puncture in the hose that looks like it may have been there since we bought the hose at least, if not a manufacturing defect! Phonecalls were made and fortunately, Trident Racing Supplies at Silverstone were open and had hose. Hooray for that!

It’s quiet here at the moment, with Mike and Paul getting on with various jobs. Gareth and Sam, race mechanics for the weekend, will be over later after they have done various family things. Everything still to do!

20 hours to go till we are out on track

Sorting the connectors

Spot the missing parts!

Ren woz ere

Cracking on

Playing catch up as ever, today has been one of running around, making things, collecting things and fixing things. Its not a lot to talk about but quite a lot to do, if you know what I mean! Richard O’Donovan is here again, along with Mike Latimer. Cheers lads.

Oil pump (number one on the list), was stripped and rebuilt by the manufacturer at ZEN this morning. A simple pinched o-ring was soon set to rights. On dropping the oil from the tank, Tim found ally swarf. Despite being cleaned 3 times, we clearly had not got the tiniest last bits out of the tank! So, off with the tank and all the lines to be re-cleaned, checked and cleaned again. A slow but absolutely vital process. Although the pump had been turned over, the medical grade filter inserts in the pick-ups ensure that no nasty debris can get any further. Amen.

Next was speccing and ordering the turbo oil feed line and speccing and manufacturing a washer to keep the oil pump drive belt in place (a simple off the shelf item that despite plenty of advanced notice ordering, was still not available from the supplier!) Next the remade exhaust manifold had to be wrapped (no time for ceramic coating which would always be our first choice) and then start getting everything re-assembled and back on.

Exhaust manifold on - a mix of ceramic coating and wrapping

Turbo is on

Space at a premium as ever!

Super tidy engine loom via David Wallis

Talking of which… David has done a thoroughly tidy job on the loom. He has been texting me quite a lot these last couple of days. Variations on the theme of ‘is the engine running yet?’, ‘has it fired yet?’ and of late just simply ‘now?’ He is like an expectant father stuck away from home! I keep telling him I will let him know when it is up and running. I’m sure I can have some fun with that

Its 6:30pm now, so about 36 hours until we definitely need to be well on our way to Snetterton for the final showdown. Here is the to do list, slightly smaller than the one I posted this morning…

36 hours to go!

I am off out now. Hopefully when I get back, the car building fairies will have popped by I will leave you with a funny quote from someone working on the car…

‘Cars? I fookin hate em. Horse and cart, that’s the way forward! If anything goes wrong, shoot it through the head and sell it for glue!’

All is frustration (again)

At 1:30am I wasn’t very communicative…. whilst at 8am neither was Paul So it wasn’t until I got to ZEN this morning that I found out that there had been a few problems the night before. The oil pump was leaking! Here was the to do list as of 9am:

With just 48 hours to the warm up session at Snet, we still had a fair amount to do

I will let you mull that over for a while

Slow and steady… but will it win the race?

On Wednesday we were sure the car would be running by Thursday night. As Thursday wore on, we knew it wouldn’t happen A few small but vital pieces of the puzzle were missing, without which the engine could not be fired. But not to worry, still huge amounts to do!

A small and determined band (Paul, Tim and Rich O’Donovan) worked late in to the night finishing wiring and the long task of fitting the engine ancillaries - dry sump pan and pump, oil tank and associated lines, oil cooler and remote filter, coolant header tank (front), intercooler, turbo, and so on and so forth.

Oil cooler and remote filter

To accomodate the dry sump pulley system, we needed extra clearance between engine and turbo, so the location of the oil cooler and remote filter needed to be reworked. This was no easy task, given that we have side exit exhaust silencer and side exit wastegate. Everything is a compromise  - we are happy with this one thus far.

Custom dry sump oil tank

The custom oil tank is a piece of art. We are reluctant to offer an ‘off the shelf’ tank with our retail dry sump kit as every application is so different. The exacting spec of this tank is proof of that.

Mmmmmmmmm Perfect Pizza!

That night when the pizza delivery driver said how often he cames to us late at night, I seriously thought about getting some Perfect Pizza decals on the car. Coriander Chilli Chicken pizza FTW!!

Fettling the dry sump oil pump

Assembled and ready to fit

Whilst we had already completed one dry sump installation on Duncan’s Club Challenge car, the set-up on the race car is slightly different and hell, we are still learning! So, slowly and methodically, Tim and Paul assembled the pump, fitted the pump the sump pan and fitted the whole kit and caboodle to the car…

Dry sump pump and pan fitted to the car

Close up of the pump and pulleys

View of the drive pulley from the front

At which point I cleared off home leaving Tim fitting oil lines between oil tank and pump, Tim and Rich finishing and tidying the wiring in the engine bay and cabin. Paul was not home till 1:30am, so lots obviously got done!

Sorting it out!

So I got it in the neck from various people for abandoning the blog and only updating Twitter.  Sorry, Twitter is easier I can do it in 1 minute from my iPhone! Anyways, I am simply going to stick all the photos and twitters on here, micro-blog style.

I will fix any random photo sizes later - got to be a mum now!

OK David?

Liz

Accidental discharge!

HUGE shout out to Lanan Racing (F3 cars and stuff) for lending us a fire extinguisher cylinder for the weekend! We accidentally discharged ours at midnight - they take 4 days to refil due to the pressurising and freezing process.

Cryogenically frozen nads were the order of the night I believe

Engine in!

Cheers Gareth and Tim

Time for the Team ZEN Roll Call!

Think it’s time for a roll call of all our amazing voluntary helpers…

Thanks David Wallis, Sam Eaton, Steve Fullbrook, Duncan Graham, Andy T, Mike Latimer, Rich O’Donovan, Nick Butt, Pete Whitfield, Gareth Pritchett… and whilst they are ordinarily on the payroll, whilst they work on the race car it is gratis - we thank Tim Farmer and Rich Cope.

Team ZEN is a small budget / mighty results team! We have the vision, achieved with the help of hours on hours of work and amazing support of friends