2000 restricters ?

[Russ]

The Renault is a capable car of being as quick as some of the Dallaras if the club would allow the car to run non restricted. It should be about giving other cars a half decent chance, other wise why not set up "Mono Dallara F3" class It seems clear that people are worried that a Renault in the right hands could start winning, and that would piss off a whole load of Dallara owners?

I find it very annoying when people keep saying I bought the wrong car. There is nothing wrong with the car at all, just allow the use of a non restricted engine and that is all I am asking for. Why should someone be forced to spend 20k plus just to buy a Dallara just to be competitive? The Mono 2000 rules at present favour the Dallaras with out doubt, I have a car that can be just as competetive but they are purposefully being disadvantaged.

I personally know a few other owners with Formula Renault's one one raced in BARC who is holding back from entering Mono 2000 on the basis of the Renault being penalised.

So, remind us again, why didn't you go to the AGM to put you views froward there?

All you are asking for is an advantage of more power than anyone else.

The Renault engine is a VVT engine, it has an inherent advantage over every other engine currently raced in Mono 2000. That is why it is restricted
If we allowed it to run unrestricted, it would be a 'must have' engine. It would be fitted in to many of the existing Dallaras and the FR would be beaten again.

[samier]

Maybe I should get Tristan to build a Toyota engine complete with TB's and bolt that to the back of my car instead!

[AndyY]

Well, I think he has plenty of suitable parts in stock, having bought most of Ray Rowan's TOMs stuff. I'm sure he'd be delighted.

[jimblockley]

yawn yawn

[Ian]

Jim,

ditto ad infinitum!

[stevengriffin]

Just come back from my holidays and had a look through this thread. I was amused to get a mention-alongside some great technicians! You have obviously never seen me operate...
So my 1800 Zetec should be the the dog's b******s in the 2,000 class then. I find having an 1800 engine very useful, it gives me a perfect excuse for why I'm always near the back. I recommend one to anyone who isn't regularly winning. I do have other excuses of course-no sequential box, no throttle bodies, old tyres, too heavy, no carbon monocoque, lack of skill, dislike of hospital food, desire to collect pension....I could go on.

[jimblockley]

steve

I am sure you could adapt heart bypass valves to fit your engine, surely if they give new life to humans they could win a monoposto race!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[stevengriffin]

Never thought of that.. Heart valves are lovely bits of kit, carbon ceramic/titanium and £1500 a piece. I am sure Dermot would be able to lay his hands on some if pushed.
I do use oxygen tubing for bleeding the brakes though and my elderly boat has been entirely replumbed with the plastic tubes we use in the bypass machines. It comes in 1/4, 3/8ths and 1/2 inch sizes and is highly resistant to solvents and general abuse. Great stuff.

[tristancliffe]

Never thought of that.. Heart valves are lovely bits of kit, carbon ceramic/titanium and £1500 a piece. I am sure Dermot would be able to lay his hands on some if pushed.
I do use oxygen tubing for bleeding the brakes though and my elderly boat has been entirely replumbed with the plastic tubes we use in the bypass machines. It comes in 1/4, 3/8ths and 1/2 inch sizes and is highly resistant to solvents and general abuse. Great stuff.

Soon your car and boat will be living, breathing creatures. Or more likely, something from the Terminator movies. Living tissue over a spaceframe chassis.

When your car complains to the Clerk of the Course itself, we know we're in trouble.

Never be tempted to fit weapons to your car, or an internet connection. GriffinNet (SkyNet) is not a good idea.

[samier]

Yours being one of the the legal ones, less than 205 and more than 200! Nice!!

I wish! When we first talked about injection with various suppliers, mappers etc they thought 215hp might be achievable with their products/services, and that 200hp would be easy. Sadly it turned out they were talking up their products/services up (marketing - who can blame them? Nobody would sell anything if they were 100% honest), because we didn't get that close to tge magic 200. We did use some bigger 42mm throttle bodies on tge dyno to see what would happen (they would have been outside the regs) and got 202hp, but the torque curve was more hole than torque.

So no, we don't have 200hp, but we do have more than a carburetted XE. Then again, so did the Toyota on carbs... Lenny is pretty quick in a straight line (until the Reynard's 1988 drag levels kick in).

BTW, having seen the onboard footage from Snett, the car really is working well. That is one beast of an engine that you have developed. You so easily out dragged your team mate out of Russle!

[tristancliffe]

Look at the video again, and show me where the power advantage is.

I get a faster exit from Murray's, and carry that advantage all the way up the straight. That's how racing works - corner exits define everything. Power had zilch to do with it.

Besides, Tony's engine has more power according to the dynos.

Edit: Oh, and Tony's top speed is pretty much identical to me in the session - certainly not different enough for power to be a determining factor, or enable an overtake by halfway down a straight. Tony simply ran wide that lap. Not bad, you have to admit, for the first weekend in the car in his second year of racing ;o)

[stevengriffin]

So you need a Dallara to win eh?
Formula Ireland 1st, Anson 2nd at Donnington on Sunday.
As far as I can see as long as you have a half decent car you just need to drive with skill and determination to win. Now all I have to do is get the two above mentioned attributes and I will be a winner.

[andrewcliffe]

Prior to Snetterton race weekend Tony had two tests.

The first was really a shake down test. The car had been completely apart and it was more acclimatisation exercise for Tony and to keep an eye on engine temperatures and pressures, making sure the brakes worked and that other bits and pieces all worked ok.
It gives a bit of time to adjust things or sort problems prior to the first race. There was a problem which meant the afternoon ended early. It was a very cold day and on old tyres with flat spots, times were in the 2m 1s region. As said before, it was not about lap times.

The second test was the Friday prior to the first race, and was an opportunity to go a little quicker. It was a full day test, so two morning sessions and two afternoon sessions. but the afternoon was blighted by red flags, so the amount of useful afternoon running was limited. As Dallaras don't run alternators, you can't pound round for the full session because the battery doesn't last that long.

Day off on Saturday, and then on the Sunday was the 15 minute qualifying session and the race itself.

I wouldn't class that as a huge amount of seat time in a new car.

Both cars run the same datalogger, so its possible to overlay one set of data with another. Comparing against Tristan's qualifying session showed that Tony for the first 3/4's of the lap was pretty close in pace to Tristan, and it was the final stretch out of the Esses, through Bombhole, Corum and the new Russell Bend which was where the time was being lost, and during the race his lap time improved by a further 2.3 seconds and his best lap time was just 0.6s off Richard's best time.

There was no testing between Snetterton and Donington either, and neither Tony nor Tristan had driven there before.

[Russ]

I have edited some of the above posts to remove insults and dubious comments.

May I remind you all, play nice on these forums.
Removal of an account is merely a button click away!

[tristancliffe]

Our engine is actually set up for torque rather than outright power. It does not have 200hp, and I don't mean that in a pedantic "it actually has 199.5hp" kind of way. The acceleration above 5500 is more to do with gearing. We don't even run at the throttle size allowed by the regs because 38mm throttles were cheaper (and are available off the shelf for anyone - I know Richard Purcell is now using them too, albeit 46mm throttles (with a downstream convergence acting as the 40mm restrictor). The engine is identical to the one used in 2009 (edit: actually, it IS the engine from 2009. In 2010 we used our spare engine, whilst the 2009 engine became the spare. Neither engine cost more than £200, and the expensive bits (sump, cam cover, front cover, oil pumps etc are not duplicated - i.e. the spare engine is missing these parts, and they would have to be removed from the race engine if we had a problem. I know it's nice to think we are spending our way to the front, but that couldn't be further from the truth.). We have a single injector per cylinder, and it's not a fancy or special injector either. No development work, other than defining the injection system, has taken place on anything engine, gearbox or drivetrain, other than fitting some bigger injectors (and correspondingly reducing the injector opening times to maintain the air:fuel ratio) to allow more acceleration enrichment headroom. I put a lot of videos online, with data overlays. I'm happy to tell you what bits we've used, and who from. Our engine has been checked by the eligibility scrutineer in a lot of detail. We don't cover the engine up between races, so it's not like we're hiding a Revision 4 engine like some have used in Mono in the past. I/we have nothing to hide. I don't know how much more open we can be with our engine specifications. I've even sent a multi-page 'dossier' on our engine and dyno work/results to the club (which I hope will remain confidential to the committee, but these things have a habit of leaking out), and that will confirm our engine does not have 200hp or a special power curve or anything of the sort.

When injection was introduced, everyone knew the advantages and disadvantages. Ultimate power is not really changed, as a carburetted engine can easily be sized/jetted to give the same power at high revs. What injection allows is greater control of the 'jetting' over the whole rev range, and hence can maintain top end power (above 5500rpm) whilst boosting lower rev performance. Having said that, the shape of the torque curves (measured in steady state remember) between carbs and injection is pretty similar, the improvements mostly coming from cleaner pickup and better throttle response (and improved economy and potentially reduced emmisions) which can't be measured on a normal, affordable dynomometer.

Jeremy is a great driver, but his engine wasn't healthy. He complained of a power disadvantage, but I suspect the bent valves were something to do with that.

Richard is pretty much as quick as me, if not quicker now. I was out-qualified by a Dallara newcomer in a carb-Vauxhall car at Donington. I was beaten by two Classic2000 cars, both on carbs on Sunday.

Tony has had virtually no seat time in his new car other than at race meetings. Do you think we test every week with him? My own testing for this year (probably) has been done, and amounted to 5 laps of Snetterton.

Why not concentrate on your own performance before critising others, complaining about power, or worrying about the minuscule weight of paint on your car. Antel proved last year at Brands that a more restricted Renault is competitive, so you should be fighting for pole.

**Added some extra stuff via Edit** (And I took some stuff out! Russ)