The enforced quarantine has given the team a selection of issues and opportunities.
A number of the team have been working from home, so for them life has established some routine all be it different to their old ones. Possibly this is practice once the restricitions are lifted and life finds its new normal.
For others the lack of structure has created its own issues.
Ian, with access to the car started off by improving some of the work already done.
He also found time to sort out the door net. Due to the non exact nature of the rules when we turned up for tech inspection last time with our new and shiny door net it was pointed out that the net had to be inside the rollcage not just inside the door.
The tech inspectors were kind enough to let us run with the net cable tied in the correct position but we thought it unlikely they would allow that again!
With our improved rear suspension and the rebuild of our front suspension we have been able to set our ride height. This is crucial to the plans for our aerodynamic package.
Racing at Bonneville has a few major advantages, one of which is the almost billiard table flatness of the salt. This allows us to have a wonderfully low ground clearance which any aerodynamicist will tell you is ideal.
The big issue with this of course is we must not be too low, dragging on the floor will seriously slow us down!
The simple answer is bump stops. Rubber buffers that will prevent the suspension from travelling too far. Doesn’t make for a very comfortable ride but that’s only one persons problem so not hugely important.
Now that the decision has been made to not race next year, this has allowed us to look at other parts of the car that could do with improvement if not for performance gains but simply due to the age of our vehicle and its rather neglected/abused history.
One of these jobs which we have been putting off indefinitely, was both doors which depsite the aluminium outer skin have steel frames. These frames have not aged well as every time it has rained in the last 55 years an amount of water has run down the outside of the window and collected at the bottom. But now we have the time and the inclination why not?
We have also made contact with a 3D scanning company in the region. They are very excited about the prospect of producing a 3D model of our car.
This is particularly good and exciting news as with an accurate model we can produce some CFD (computational fluid dynamic) models. Whilst this is not the be all and end all of aerodynamic prediction it will give us some really relevant information as to what we can expect in terms of lift and drag at speed.
This information will allow us to perfect our aerodynamic modifications and will also give Ian the confidence to put his foot down, knowing the car isn’t going to do anything too unexpected.
Once the lockdown is over and the bonnet is completed we will be taking the car down to Brighton and maybe on our next blog we’ll be able to show similar images of our car. Hopefully with a much less ‘draggy’ rear end than the one in these images!
