Too close for comfort!

It’s Thursday afternoon, Time Attack starts early Saturday morning and I have just found out that there is absolutely no chance of our Rays wheels arriving in time This leaves us wheel-less, as Duncan Graham is running the Hyper Zeros from last year on his car! I have some limited options. The first, is to run a set of Hyper Zeros we have here with not quite the right offset… but we seriously need some spot on wheels for the Superbattle. Fear not, we have 1x Rota Torque Drift in exactly the right size. I just need to find the money to buy 3 more and someone that has them in stock for next day delivery! Erring on the side of caution, I have already chased down a possible source and I am waiting for them to call me back. But I am getting twitchy and having left umpteen message more than a little impatient! (How frustrating it can be to be a customer, I promise I will remember this!!)

In other news, today we have a complete engine to go in the car. On the downside, sometime between me leaving at 9pm last night and 3am this morning when work stopped, it became apparent that there wasn’t time to fit the Cosworth inlet manifold (as it requires some modification of the exisiting set-up due to the constraints of the front mounted turbo.) Ah well, at least we have something to do for Round 2

Paul was mapping a customer car at midnight last night, which he finished off this morning for the customer to collect at lunchtime. Now Paul and Richard are working through the other 3 cars requiring mapping and setting up this afternoon! Together with finishing off an exhaust install on a car that suffered accident damage in the snow in February. Tim and David meanwhile, are working on fitting the engine and modifying the brackets for the rear brake calipers. The latter ground to a halt however when the machine shop drilling the brackets locked up and went home for the day with our brackets inside their shop!

Still, there is an engine in the hole now Tim has sprayed the front wing and bumper with the rattle cans. Good enough colour match and OK finish!

All cars mapped and customers off on their way home come 7:45pm, so work stopped for a quick BBQ again, to recharge the batteries before commissioning the engine…

I think today is the only day where, despite progress, there has been an air of despondency. I hope that the mood will lift tomorrow once we have that engine running!

The build gains momentum

Just 9 days to go…

Another full day of work work - it’s nearly midnight and I am still here (complete with the 6 and 8 year old kids) trying to get the admin back log cleared!! Tim, Rich and Paul were all working on customer cars till 7pm again too!

So updates…. We sorted the brakes today, yeeeeha! Going back to the weight saving principle of our 2009 upgrades, one of our main concerns when choosing a new brake kit (apart from the obvious stopping power) was opting for something lightweight. So, after much research (and elimination of a lot of kits due to lack of funds) we settled on a front and rear system from Compbrake. With luck they will arrive tomorrow. That makes Compbrake the fifth new supporter for ZEN in 2009 and a new supplier for stock products too.

Andy T made a huge difference to the team effort again today by kindly picking up the block from the machine shop, post- bore and hone. Even better than that, he also delivered our Cosworth cylinder heads and pistons. Andy set to cutting out the frame around the drivers window and then together with Paul they layed up some carbon fibre to re-attach the frame as desired and with extra strength.

Leaving that to go-off, Andy scooted home and Paul has begun to build up the bottom end of the engine - he had hoped to use last year’s crank but as soon as he put it in the lathe for a cleanup it was blindingly obvious it was no longer straight! That’s the budget stretched again! Paul got the new crank out the box at about 10pm and now at midnight the bearings and rods are on. More tomorrow.

Whilst Rich and Tim attacked the aero fitment issues… Starting from the back, the bumper was cut to make way for the rear diffuser and new fixing points were found. Next the main piece of the flat floor was affixed as per last year and then on to deciding how to make the front splitter work (yeah we are still umming and ahhing this one)

Bedtime!

Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey

Hooray! Last night sometime after midnight Tim, Paul and Andy finished re-setting both rear quarter panels and the original WRC bumper fits and at last we have the wheel clearance we always intended. Paul also spent time taking a heat gun to the drivers door and has improved the fit no-end.

Today was another busy one at ZEN, with Paul mapping 5 cars offsite and myself, Tim and Rich putting in another long day. I did spend 5 minutes finalising a deal with Rays on a set of TE37s in bronze, for warm up / practice wheels. The set is half ‘old’ stock and half new, so the price was blistering

This evening was Richard’s turn to stay late, so after regular work was done for the day at 7pm, it was all hands on deck again on the race car.

Mr T busied himself with cutting back the drivers door to complete the refit and make a better recess for the perspex window. Rich made up a test rig for the 2x Bosch 10 bar fuel pumps he is lending us. Good news is they work, flow and run at the required pressures for our plans. 10pm rolls around all too quickly at the moment, so Andy and I left Paul and Richard to it….

10 days to go…

Got to bed at 2am this morning, having driven the 5 hours back from Cornwall through the night. Straight back in to chaos and fitting 5 very full days of work in to 4 again! we had an absolutely manic day with the phone ringing non-stop and plenty of booked and passing by customers to keep our minds clear off Time Attack!

Mr T did the honours of droping off the engine block halves and 2 pistons at the machine shop this afternoon - we hope they understand the urgency with this one! The full set of pistons is on backorder but assured will be available by the weekend.

Mr T came round at about 6:30pm just as Paul finished the final map of the day and everyone’s attention turned to the green car. First off we all admired the work of art that is the Cosworth Inlet Manifold. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Rich removed the fuel tank from the car, before removing the foam inserts and lifter pumps. We are upgrading the fuel system to increase fuel supply and pressure, more of that as and when. Then off home for Rich to get some rest, leaving Tim on (unpaid) nightshift duty.

Paul has drawn up a list categorised in to 2 columns: ‘necessary’ and ‘nice to have’. This evening I pointed out where we could save some more money and time by re-allocating some stuff to the second column! This means we might go for the 2007 StopTech brakes to the front and (borrowed) 2008 STi Brembos on the rear. Not as light as the brakes we are (still) trying to do a deal on but time and money is of the essence! I have also shifted the dry sump over to ‘nice to have’ simply because we don’t have the time to get it sorted. Fortunately Steven Darley had already agreed we could borrow his wet sump set up (we sold our 2008 Group N modified wet sump to fund the 2009 build!) Cheers for those that come up trumps when we beg, borrow and… no, we haven’t resorted to ‘steal’ yet! Another small bonus for the budget was a surprise post on 22b by one of nicest customers Steve Fullbrook. He was after a GT style wing for sensible money, so everyone is a winner as he was more than happy to take our Buddyclub wing (of blue car fame) off our hands, for a small cash boost to the Time Attack fund

Tim, Andy and Paul set about modifying the rear quarters to increase the wheel clearance… Unfortunately, there was an issue with the carbon kevlar panels at point of fitment way back over a year ago, which meant that the clearance that should have been offered by the wide arches did not fully materialise. The upshot was that a) the WRC bumper did not fit (hence ending up the Zero Sports one) and b) the wheels rubbed on the inner arches, to the extent that smoke was billowing out of the rear arches at Brands Hatch After much sweating, cursing and some bleeding, the near side rear arch was unbonded, freed and pulled out and the result is fab. Last year’s wheels can now fit inside the arch and the bumper we originally intended now fits on that side.

I was at work till 10pm, by which time my daughter and niece were getting a bit frazzled so I left Tim, Paul and Andy busy on the race car. I expect they have the off-side arch and the bumper sorted now. Perhaps they have also offered up the flat floor and rear diffuser. Will it work with this bumper or not?……

The build up has begun!

Survived April Fool’s Day (sadly my 1.4 Golf did not but my revenge will be sweet…) My day has been made – Tom got his dates mixed up and can do Knockhill, so that is him secured for the first 3 rounds, awesome!

Roy, demon detailer is here again and treating the car to some of his finest Carnuba wax and a machine polish. I cannot tell you how hard Roy works on keeping our car in the best condition possible. It isn’t easy keeping a racer looking top dollar, especially when there is no budget whatsoever for resprays. I think you will agree that despite the wobbly kevlar, it looks fab.

In other news, the brand spanker Solaris ECS turned up today. Solaris are a new sponsor for ZEN in 2009 – Paul is totally won over by this engine management system, it really does do the job in the best possible manner and we have fitted a few to customer cars already.

After hours and the lads are chipping away at the to do list. Santa’s little helper is here (names have been changed to protect the innocent) and he has whipped the brakes off. We are making way for new stopping power - we are currently trying to negotiate a deal.

Said elf has also started attacking the driver’s door fit. We had so many problems with these doors last year. At point of purchase we were led to believe they would fit like a glove but alas they did not and we had to modify and improve them a hell of a lot, just to get them to go on the car! As the season wore on the poor fit became more problematic, as can be seen in the photo below.

The front wing and bumper are being filled and prepped for paint by Tim, having sustained some damage in the final at Brands Hatch in 2008 (the famous gravel trap incident). Paul has put together a dummy engine to help with planning out the engine bay enhancements

Today I hacked more out of the budget, this is going to be a no frills season that’s for sure (we will be the ones in the tents out the back of the Holiday Inn ;)) Smiles all round though, as we had 2 crates of Alibi delivered from Olly @ Solution Sciences. That should keep us going!

Go out and buy the Pomegranate flavour and you will be supporting POM354, working to replace Afghanistan’s opium poppy fields with pomegranate trees. Nice work.

Final thought for the day: keeping all this secret is tough, as I for one am really very excited! Today we agreed a deal to provide Duncan Graham, Club Challenge driver #6, with on-event trackside support at Oulton Park. Go Duncan!   He doesn’t actually know yet that we are going to be competing too!

April Fools?

Today the emails are starting to come back. I haven’t found our Richard Branson yet but every little helps! A couple of small deals are already done and within another week we should have a solution for some shiny new wheels, get in! Andy Taylor, MD of AET Turbos will be giving us an extra cheer at Oulton Park, his local round of Time Attack and this year our car will be sporting Turbosmart decals. The ZEN car has run twin Turbosmart wastegates since 2007.

Turbosmart

AET Turbos Motorsport

I have had a few to and fro emails with Tom and I am gutted that he can’t make Knockhill. Tom is a great driver and a top bloke, he fits right in with the team mojo (work hard, play hard that is :)) The ideal is to have one driver and stick to it. It takes time to build up a relationship with a driver and it takes him time to get to grips with the car. Believe it or not even the most experienced and seasoned ‘racing drivers’ find Time Attack pro cars difficult - how many race series have tarmac munching 700+bhp, 4wd, turbocharged cars in them after all?! But we haven’t managed a year yet with the same driver throughout due to various other commitments. So anyway, I am pondering who to ask to drive (Phil Glew is unavoidably detained trying to win the Renault Clio Cup for the first 3 Time Attack dates.) Tom is thinking too…

After hours Paul has been pondering and thinking whilst looking over the car. He has whipped out all the perspex windows and rear screen. He has been playing with wheel sizes / measurements. The super duper carbon fibre front splitter is out and the challenge of how to make it fit has begun. That’s it - it has started

Meanwhile, I have done a billion spreadsheets for budget, expenditure, build list and timeline… And most importantly ordered a new webcam so I can record the build via time lapse