Wakefield Park 6/7/2008
Posted by dave, Jul 10 2008, 12:26 PM
Wakefield was great on Sunday. Not as cold as I was expecting, and the 1600 performed faultlessly.
Got down to 1:20:1160, which I was extemely pleased with 
. I feel there's probably a bit more in it, as the tyres are just about dead. They were pretty much stuffed before this day, and are completely dead now.
The mixture problems that have plagued the car recently are (hopefully) fixed. It pulled cleanly out of the 3rd gear corners where it would previously feel very "fluffy". Also picked up an extra 15 miles per hour down the main straight, and about the same down the back straight. Played havoc with my braking though - had to adjust my braking points as it took a bit more to pull up.
One of the high points of the day for me was seeing (and hearing) a beautifull yellow 1600 fly past me on the main straight. Apparently it runs a quad throttle FJ24 which is good to 10,000 rpm, although he keeps it limited to "only" 8,000 for longevity. It was down there last meeting I went to, but I didn't really get the time to fully appreciate it then as I spent the day trying to get my car running right.
Low point of the day was seeing an immaculate RX2 roll (reportedly rolled 5 times 
) on a pretty fast lefthand kink. I go through here at around 75 mph, and this little car was a lot faster than mine. The RX2 was pretty much totally destroyed. Not a straight panel left - luckily the car had a roll cage and the driver was able to walk away.
More Carb Troubles...
Posted by dave, Jun 29 2008, 07:07 PM
Got the 1600 out of the shed today, ready for its trip to Wakefield Park next weekend. And its running rich again... 
Lift the bonnet, and its pouring fuel out of the carb float chamber again - but the other carb this tme. Pulled it apart, and this float has sunk to the bottom of the chamber too
Replaced it with another spare float, and the fuel has stopped pouring out of the float chamber, but its still missing and carrying on. Another set of spark plugs and its running sweet again.
Just hope I don't suffer anymore float issues, as I'm running out of spare SU's to raid for parts
One success, one failure...
Posted by dave, Jun 22 2008, 03:14 PM
Had a play in the shed this morning, with varying levels of success.
Started off trying to strip a spare U67 head in preparation for reconditioning / modifying / welding up / porting it, only to break my valve spring compressor with two valves left to go
So gave up on that and moved on to the 1600 which has been running very rich lately. Thought I'd better get it running properly for its trip to Wakefield Park with the rotary boys on the 6th July. Last time I went down to Goulburn, I thought I had it sorted when I found the float in one carb had sunk to the bottom of the float chamber and the oil catch can was full of petrol. Unfortunately, by the end of the day it wouldn't go more than a few laps without fouling the plugs.
Turns out I may have caused the problem myself 
. When I plumbed in the oil catch can, I thought I may as well run the pipes from the breathers / overflow pipes on the carb float chambers to the catch can as well, in case the valve stuck open and dumped fuel onto the extractors. Unfortunately, due to the pretty worn state of the poor old L18 I think excess blow-by was causing the oil breathers from the motor to pressurise the float chambers via my beautiful pipework to the catch can. Same effect as turning up the pressure on an efi setup - the extra pressure was dumping more fuel into the motor than it could handle.
I have a Gunson Colourtune on order from the UK, so as soon as it arrives I'll test my theory and see if I can get the mixture right.
Hope so, because I really want to find two seconds a lap somewhere to get under 1:20 around Wakefiled. I'll be stoked with that since I'm only running a 50kW L18.
My first Blog
Posted by dave, Jun 17 2008, 11:06 PM
Hello world...
Despite being employed in IT since before the internet was invented, I've never had a blog 
Anyway, I'll probably use this as much to track my own progress on my Datsun projects as for anyone else's benefit.
Bye for now....
