Classic Thunder Build - Duracel79 - England

[Duracel79]

Long time no update, after Shaarknose last year I got the car MOT'd and n the road and drove it up to the National BMW Car Club meet at Gaydon.
Parked up next to a 1M to see the size difference lol.







After that Kos (Pukar Designs) organised a Sharknose meet at the Ace Cafe so here are a few pics:



















Cheers

Ben

[Duracel79]

Now onto the next updates from this year.

Forced the E9 out of the garage to do some work on Taiga Thunder, luckily it was a very warm dry week.



Then started with the Marine Plywood splitter, which reaches back to the subframe:









Then painted it satin black to try and blend in a bit:



Graphics for the race series went on along with fitting the kill switches and extinguisher system etc.





Ran at a track day at Lydden Hill to test things out and met up with some old friends from the racing club:







Cheers

Ben

[uwbuurman]

Not my kind of mod, but it suits the car!

[Jeroen]

looking forward to seeing it live in a couple of weeks mate!

[Duracel79]

Well, not sure if many of you have heard about my mishap?

Couple of weeks ago at Brands Hatch, I was running the car and steadily gaining confidence then BANG!!! the engine put a leg out of bed in spectacular fashion as seen in the below video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c407U82BJu4

Bit gutted but that's racing for you.

Now its onto rebuild the engine (maybe improve at the same time).

Regards

Ben

PS All other cars made the next race without damage, they were all just annoyed that the marshals did not put out the slippery surface flag sooner. My oil and coolant were bang on the braking zone/racing line.

[Mihajlo]

if you thinking of improving and rebuilding the engine....

http://racehead.com.au/products-page/en ... rsion-kit/

[Duracel79]

if you thinking of improving and rebuilding the engine....

http://racehead.com.au/products-page/en ... rsion-kit/

Thanks for that, however there's no M20 in this car

[Duracel79]

So about time I updated this thread as well.

Got the car out for Rockingham and the CTCRC Classic Thunder races back in April 2017:









After Rockingham I decided to build a diffuser to get rid of the parachute style rear valence and maybe get a bit more rear end grip on track:



Then there was the trip to Sharknose and the meeting with Jeroen's Apple and an original Group 2 car:

[Duracel79]

Next up came the race meeting at Brands Hatch where I started to learn and understand the car more and more every lap:





Then disaster struct with oil starvation siezing a big end and snapping a conrod:

[Duracel79]

The S54 was toast, with not very much salvaeable:







So a large bill later with a replacement head/crank/block sourced and then some shiny new bits:

[Duracel79]

The engine builder insisted on air filtration so when the engine was back in the car I set about using my current trumpets to create an airbox with the biggest K&N filter I could sqeeze in the engine bay:









There was also concerns about cooling so some vents were added just behind the radiator to help draw the air out and also above the new air filter position:



And the result of all this after mapping up at Emerald:



I think I may need a big rear wing to get traction now

[Duracel79]

That is now all up to date, plans for now is a demo run at Lydden at the BHP show on Monday 7th:
http://bhpperformanceshow.com/

Then a race meeting at Mallory park on Monday 28th with the CTCRC.

I haven't yet decided whether i'l bring the car to Sharknose (depends how she gets on on track),
but I WILL be there, see you all soon

Ben

[uwbuurman]

Great!! For us to see your pics, just put ~original behind the .jpg in the link.

[Duracel79]

Great!! For us to see your pics, just put ~original behind the .jpg in the link.

I'm not sure what you mean I have modified the img codes slightly, has that helped?

[uwbuurman]

Just type ~original behind .jpg like I did below. Left out the last ] to show