Here comes the weekend!

Umm, the last posting states 04/05/11, I overwrote a posting I had as a draft but decided was rubbish so wrote a new blurb. Therefore it should read 29/05/11.

Found this bit of Martin Randle (my co-driver for last year) and me in the GT6 from last year's event, car sounds good eh! (I think Mike Charlton filmed this footage-thanks Mike).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OCQep4L8Ws

Right oh, Scotland here we come!

Er, Scotland here we come?

Spending sometime getting the GT6 ready for next weekend's International Auto Ecosse as organised by the Caledonian Classic Historic Motor Sport Club, must say that I am thoroughly looking forward to that event. For me last year's inaugural event ended in a disaster owing to wheel bearing failure and a 18 hour AA relay trip home. Very galling as I was very near the top of the event's placing.

The GT6 seems to be running fine, in fact that the other day I had a little tussle with a modern 911 on the Chertsey by pass, when the 911 inevitably went past at some speed, the driver gave me the thumbs up and seemed surprised by the pace of the little Triumph. The car really does seem to have a sweet spot at 5500rpm and makes a gorgeous noise at both the exhaust and at the carbs. Those stub stacks I fitted have made such a difference creating a nice bit of extra power.

MOT'd her the other day, a pass not being a problem with no advisories, so all good there! So hopefully the GT6 is ready to go to Scotland.

Other great news is that I have sold the Herald to Richard Brake's daughter Jessica. Jessica has just had a little incident in her Herald 'Mildred' and needs a car to replace her. The Coupe will fit that bill and I must say I think Jessica has a bargain.

I had hoped to go to Duxford today, but a number of things have conspired to make that awkward, so I will stay at home, fiddle with the GT6 and watch the Monaco GP. The GP season does feel abit phoney what with all the overtaking aids, however one real stand out has been the quality of Brundle and Coulthard's commentary, authoritive without being all nerdy!

Absolutely gutted to see that one of my favourite singers Gil Scott Heron has passed on, I just love some of his music: 'The Bottle', 'The revolution will not be televised', 'Home is where the hatred is' and 'Pieces of a man' having such strong lyrical messages. First got into his music back in the early 80s and have continued to enjoy, must admit I found last years 'I'm new here' a bit difficult, but still well worth a listen and just chuffed that he could still make music. Scott-Heron had been a frequent jailbird (drug busts) and had massive problems with drugs so the last 20 years for him cannot have been easy, hope he has now found some peace.

On the subject of music I have been thrilled by this year's releases by P J Harvey and Radiohead, nice that quality music is still being made. Been interesting to see that Adele has been such a hit in the States, her lyrics being so English. I like her and admire her stance on celebrity, just need reading that she will never use her music to sell products for corporations-refreshing in these days of sell out and the chasing of the dollar at any expense.

Another long weekend

Been nice enjoying another weekend of 4 days, and have done a few of the jobs that I want to do to the Spitfire before next Sunday's Oxford MC 'Bocardo' Autosolo that is once again being held at a Silverstone car park.

The biggest job being the fitment of the roll over bar that I bought from Dave Pearson, this being a hard used Aleybars Clubmans type bar with a fixed diagonal, exactly the same as the one fitted to the GT6. Aleybars were bought in the mid 80s by Safety Devices, the UKs largest roll over bar/cage manufacteur, the only problem with this bar (as the one in the GT6) is that the tubes are of a too small diameter for some types of competitive motorsport, however for 'solos, sprinting etc it would be ok. I was going to get the bar blasted and powder coated by my brother in laws company in Colnbrook, but decided that for now she will be fine in her slightly scratched matt black finish.

The other jobs I have done are fit some 330lb front springs and larger diameter wheel studs. Fitting these studs is a pain as one has to take the brake discs off the wheel hubs to get the things into place, obviously necessitating taking the whole hub assemby off the stub axles etc. The picture above shows the car before the 330 springs were fitted.

The car looks better as it sits nice and level now, however I am not too happy with the front handling as it feels light at speed. I aim to fit the Canley Classics tubular front wishbones I have in the shed, some 480lb springs and will polybush the bottom wishbones, hopefully this will tie the front end down. Using the top wishbones I hope to be able to dial in some negative camber, 1.5 degrees being a starting figure.

One of the other things I dislike about the car is the way the rear end can be deflected when a small pothole or road irregularity is hit. To this end I think a set of Jigsaw's adjustable radius arms fitted with some nylon bushes I have may cure this problem. These radius arms seem a good idea to enable me to get the suspension checked to see how straight the car is running, I am not sure about faffing about with the standard system of shim use at a wheel alignment garage. A better fix will be the use of some Canley CV driveshafts and lower wishbones , I have a set of rotoflex vertical links to go with these. This would necessitate the welding of the wishbone mount onto the chassis and the radius arm mount onto the heelboard. At present, this is outside my budget so I will have to wait until next year to implement these changes. Of course whilst at it I might as well fit a LSD diff!!!!

A first for this weekend was that I drove the car without the soft top on her, at first I must admit I felt a bit self concious, but after a bit I must admit I quite liked driving her like that.

Yesterday was spent at Prescott hillclimb track watching a round of the Paul Matty Sportscars hillclimb series. I went along with my old friend Jon Stevens in his recently purchased AMG Merc CLK, this being one of the fastest things I have been in as it develops about 350BHP, what a car! Some of the cars at Prescott were truely mouth-watering, lots of Gould single seat hillclimb cars that featured Hayabusa engines and some very nice old Lotus single seaters. As ever I was attracted to the historic saloons, a couple of very nice 105 series Alfas, Mini Coopers and Lotus Cortinas. Also 3 Frogeye Sprites were taking part, be interesting to see how the Spitfire would cope with them! All in all a good day. One of the stand out events at Prescott is the VSCC event that is usually held in August, this always features lots of excellent old cars, Bugattis, Bentleys, Rileys etc. I may have to wander on down to watch that event. Excuse the lack of photos, forgot the camera!

This week entails a day working on Sptfire next Saturday in preparation for Sundays 'solo. Also I must start getting the interior out of the GT6 ready to pull the gearbox so as to enable the fitment of the new clutch I have bought from Canleys. The IAE is coming up fast!

Nothing to report on the Saloon, head still with Roy.