Today I wanted to get the handbrake tested at a local MOT centre.
All back together and ready for a trip out.
All tested.. Only took a few minutes and I wasn't charged which was good.
For my IVA I need 18% efficiency, so about 85 kgs of force for my car of 475kgs. To I got 40kgs on the drivers side which was worse then the 60-65kgs I got on IVA day. The passenger side I managed just over 100kgs of force.
So a good results, just need to balance out the braking balance.
Pulled over ready to hit the road again.
Proper dirty, it pains me to see seats and harnesses this dirty.
All clean and tucked away.
I wanted to measure the force of the handbrake at home. I decided to do this with a torque wrench on the hub nut. With the handbrake applied I started off with a low Nm on my large torque wrench and kept increasing the Nm until the brake gave way and allowed the disc to turn.
The passenger side would hold up to 120 Nm of torque, at 130 Nm of torque the handbrake gives away and allows the disc to rotate.
The drivers side only managed about 50 Nm so this needed alot of work to match the other side.
I adjusted the balance and managed to get both sides up to a good 120 Nm.
All ready for an IVA retest. Will book up next week!
Got back from the garage. Had the emissions and alignment adjusted to help with self centering.
Emissions are so close now, its just balancing between the CO and Lambda going over. Its fine for about 20 seconds then one or the other goes over the limit. The chap at the garage said his machine was very sensitive so fingers crossed its more sensitive than the IVA centre.
Rained again, got soaked and very muddy! Can't wait to drive it not in the rain!
Sound is better but my meter was reading less than IVA Centre..
Wet and cold i've learnt today don't mix well with kit cars.. It results in wet bums, wet arms, pretty much wet everything. Still enjoyed the drive there apart from getting soaked. The rear end lights up really easy, took it steady.
Drove to the garage to get the emissions, handbrake and to look at the self centering issue if it was one.
Well straight away on the drive there the car still wasn't self centering at all. I thought this was to do with the stiff column but it must be setup but it can't be that as its now moving freely. On the previous alignment check we set it up with 1 degree toe in and 1 degree negative camber on the front end.
Dropped Marc a text to enquire what else could be done, apparently each wheel (Front and rear) should be 1mm Toe and 1.5 to 2 degrees negative camber. To confirm thats each corner front and rear. First time suspension was setup we did not do this.
I am alot closer on the emissions, didn't get any readings as it was a real rush and their machine started to melt so they had to end the test early. At one point I had all green results so nearly there.
Handbrake fine, 18-19%. So just strong enough. Brakes were super cold also.
Noise.. lets not go there.. Its going to be a problem!
I am booked in again this week, garage have allocated me a couple of hours. Should get it all done in time ready for retest on Monday.
The MOT tester wasn't impressed with my universal steering joint. It had alot of play it in. They said it would pass an MOT but being new with that much play it would only get worse.
To save any problems with the IVA I thought I would replace...
Heres the new one, pretty much identical just much better quality.
Fitted.. It feels so much better. No play in the steering at all now. Feels far more precise.
Turns out the digidash config was wrong.. Driving to the MOT yesterday I was apparently doing 130-150 most of the way and a max speed of about 170mph, it felt pretty quick but not that quick.
I was sent the wrong diff which is a 3.14 and not a 3.38. My config file was setup for a 3.38 when I doubled checked.
Right before my throttle detached itself from the pedal I tried to give it a good amount of full throttle, I was impressed with the acceleration as I launched up the road. Soon the red lights were flashing on the digidash to change gear. I came home impressed with the way it performed. It wasn't until later that day I started playing with the digidash config and noticed the max rpm was set to 6500 rpm. So yesterday when I was impressed with the acceleration to redline it was actually only half the rev range of the 13000 redline of the CBR engine. Can't wait to push it some more now.
Below is the laptop plugged into the digidash/datalogger.
The below odometer shows 72 miles, however it was only a 22 mile round trip. Will contact ETB to see if I can reset this. lol.
On the below screen I made so the SVA default LCD was selected. This enables the digidash to start up on the speedo as standard.
The low oil pressure alarm when off a few times on the drive yesterday. All the time I had oil pressure it just went down to 15-30 at low revs. I will keep these setting like this for now and ensure the oil is topped up to the right level. If everything appears to be fine I will set the minimum RPM to 3000.
I've changed to fuel level warning to 35% as I started to run out of feel at about 20% while it was on the driveway.
I might also consider changing the battery warning as the reverse gear seriously sucks the power!
For the IVA i've turned off most of the displays.
I set the Peak RPM to the correct 13000 RPM, currently the delta is set to per rpm. I'm assuming each LED will light 500 RPM backwards from the redline. Based on this the green lights won't show until 10,500 rpm. Might change it to 1000 so it starts at 8000 rpm and I see a light per 1000 rpm till redline. Need to make sure I don't get any lights show when on the motorway cruising. At 70-80 mph will I be doing more than 8000 RPM?? Using an online calculator, looks like i'll be doing 80 MPH at 8000 RPM.
Gear ratios found on Wiki..
With regards to the coil pulse, I see some people set it at 2 and others at 4. Going to get the power commander plugged in at the same time and check RPM on the digidash see if they are the same. Going to test this tomorrow when I am in from work.
The speed calculations are based on the wheels size, diff, here is where I had to change the diff details as it was 3.38 by default.
Been a little nervous about this day coming round.. Pre MOT was booked for 11:30 at my local MOT test centre. We've used the garage a few times for MOT's and servicing. They are a friendly bunch and when I mentioned the MOT on a kit car, they said pre MOT to check everything was ok before going to see VOSA. So nice not to explain what I needed and what I was doing.
From the MOT, I firstly wanted to make sure the car was safe, brakes worked etc and that nothing was going to fall off. Also wanted to test the emissions, brake balance, handbrake strength, headlight setup and get the alignment/tracking sorted.
Woke up early to the sound of rain, after an hour or so the Sun was trying to break through the clouds.
Getting close to going it looked like it was going to turn out to be a nice day. Roads were still very wet but at least it had stopped raining.
All set... Tank full, everything as ready as I could get it. MOT was at 11:30, the direct route to the garage would take 15 minutes but I wasn't going to go through our town so I went a different quieter route. We decided to leave 1 hour before incase we had any problems. The misses followed me behind in her car.
Decided to wear my new race shoes Didn't want my feet getting caught up in the pedals.
Here we go....
I made it!!! JUST!!! The drive to the MOT test centre was terrifying.. It was only 11 miles. The front alignment was so far out, I think I had far to much toe in. Ever small amount of input and road camber change and it would go darting off but apart from that no other issues, well apart from speedo miles out and oil pressure warning but I think this was down to digidash setup.
It got really dirty on the wet roads!
Arrived at just after 11am.
Up on the ramps in the test bay...
I plugged the laptop in while the emissions were being tested.. Increased the throttle up to 2500RPM, I was well within the limited which I was pleased about as I had no O2 sensor and no pair control value.
Jacked up to test all the joints for wobbles.
Moved over to the another unit to test the brakes and alignment.
The brake were fine, very even braking between sides and very strong. A pass here.
The handbrake pressure was low but apparently enough to get it through an MOT.
The rear end.. A little out so a bit of adjustment needed it.
The front end.. The toe in again was well out and needed adjusting.
Yuck!
All done, sounds like it would have got a pass if it went through a proper MOT. Maybe and advisory for the rear drivers wobble and steering top knuckle a little play.
Finished at 14:30 ish.. with a £79 bill to pay.. Complete bargain. Will 100% be going back to get the alignment finalised after a shake down.
Would 100% recommend PRC Near Farnham. Here's the link - PRC Website
Time to drive it home, hopefully this will be less terrifying..
Straight away I could feel the tracking/alignment was much better. It felt like a proper car and pointed where I wanted it to go.
Managed to give it a bit of a blast, not flat out but enough to get a feel of what it could do. I was a getting a little cocky and pulled out of a junction and gunned it.. All of a sudden I had no power, and the throttle pedal went very very light.. Something wasn't right. Bugger, had I snapped the throttle cable.
Luckily I just managed to free wheel into a layby.. With the bonnet off and head into the tunnel it was clear as to what had happened. The split pin had come out of the pin holding the clevis in place so the cable was no longer attached to the pedal.
So pleased the misses was with me, she had a hair clip that I nicked, upside down in the drives footwell I was able to fix it.
Steady the rest of the way home and I made it safe back in the garage.
Now with it complete dirty and in need of a clean..
