Racing at the NSK Classic & Sportscar Meeting

Utterly professional, social and enjoyable. Incredible food, incredible racing. Huge grids. All handled by a handful dedicated enthusiasts in a very competent way. Unfortunately, the event has not been the economic success we all hoped it would be, and the hurdles that needed climbing have grown too tall.

I have been lucky enough to have experienced this event a few times, and was very much looking forward to it next year. For me, racing in Norway just lost it’s sparkle. The other national races cannot hold a candle to the CSM. The Goodood Revival of Norway if you like.

It’s back to the future for us, as it’s more likely we’ll head out to our neighbouring countries for racing again. But we can always hope for a resurrection one day.

Thanks to all you magicians who have made this happen.This is one for the history books.

Pumpkin Mk2 - waiting for it's HTP

We’re still knee-deep in getting the HTP for the yellow Imp. As soon as this is in place, work will continue on the Imps. I know we’ve said this before – but we hope to get some racing done in 2012. In the meantime, Doc has been working on his Jags – the mk2 due for paint and an engine overhaul. The process of getting the C-type road legal is also progressing.

Vegar is converting his Abarth for a F.I.R.E-engine for next season, and Tore has made major progress on his 69 Cooper S racer. More to follow!

Original Magazine Ad for the Imp - Norwegian style

The ad translates to:
For just NOK 14.950,- (about £1200)
You may now purchase a small 5-seater of hypermodern standard, packed with practical advantages, sporty and fast, and extremely economical.

Hillman Imp – The World’s Most Advanced Little Car

I think we more or less exhausted the internet and overseas gurus trying to find the cause, and nobody came up with a proper solution. First, we found that there are several types of clutch forks. We had at least 4 variants…and there’s only one that should be used. Secondly, we’ve pulled the engine on both cars so many times now, I’m sure we’d win an Imp engine swap World Championship easily! Everything that could possibly cause the problem was changed, and UPS had a field week posting overnight stuff to us. We changed slave pumps, master cylinders, bearings, slave cylinder pushrods, made adjustable pushrods, etc ad infineum. To no avail. The pedal would feel ok, and it would all release when pushing the car about in the garage.

Due to an apartment located on the floor above our shop, we’re not allowed to fire up the cars indoors, so, naively we thought everything was ok. So we had quite a logistics project each time we had to move the cars outdoors for a test: moving several other cars, parts, winching them back up the hill to the door and so on.

Finally, after weeks of this, we talked to our gearbox guru Dave Weedon, and he had a few tips that helped with regards to modifying the fork. We run AP sinter clutches on both cars, and have done so for many years without problems. So we put our heads together, chopped down some trees to get a peek at the forest, and found that the only difference to last years’ setup was that we’ve changed the engine blocks from B1 to old straight-edge Imp blocks (#¤”%#¤!!! HTP). And therein lies the answer.
On a B1 block, the clutch sits quite a bit closer to the gearbox – so much in fact, that it is necessary to use special bolts on the flywheel so it won’t foul the box casing. A sinter clutch is much lower than a standard item. Out problem has been that the release bearing and fork sit too far away from the clutch, so when the engine fires up, the vibrations will make the release bearing operate at a bad angle, hence not proper operation.
With Dave Weedon’s tricks of adding a Mini-style adjustment/stop bolt to the fork, and a spring to hold the bearing straight, then setting everything up nice and tight, we’ve nailed it. So last sunday, we had the pleasure of doing some dirt-tracking around the shop.

It would be nice to give the engines a mild start with a proper rolling road test/setup plus a shakedown test, and with only one race remaining this year (and Doc out travelling the weekend before) we probably won’t fork out (ha ha) the dosh for licenses etc just to do a test race, but rather aim for a track day and some time at the rollers. Then NEXT year (again!?) we’ll be ready from the outset. We think, pray and hope!

The short run in the Imp certainly helped me gain some motivation back – it’s been all to long doing carpenter’s chores in our house rather than fiddling with racecars. This will actually be the first year since 2004 I haven’t entered a single (car) race. Uuurgh!

I was very impressed with the track on foot – it looked quite extreme in areas. But from inside the car it is still quite slow, apart from the two straights. But it has some lovely, challenging corners, camber and elevation changes. Apparently the drop on the straight to the angstkurve is 44 metres! A real headache for setup, rythm and a wee bit intimidating to get a proper lap in. Excellent passing opportunities, but still very much a RWD power track.

The Imps are progressing. The yellow car has been ready and waiting for it’s HTP since early june, and we finally got the engine from the UK for the blue car a coupe of weeks ago, and fitted it yesterday. We did have some clutch issues on both cars, and this seems to be resolved now. We had to figure everything out for ourselves as various inquiries and forum posts didn’t expose any cures. Keeping fingers crossed!

We are currently hoping to run the Classic & Sportscar Meeting in a forthnight – unless we run into something major.

HTP photoshoot and a trial run. Hopefully, everything works out as planned.

Doc's Pumpkin is no longer orange

As for the blue Bevan replica, I’ve at least found time to swap the front springs and brake pads. Going for stiffer springs all round, and fitting milder Mintex pads and adjusting brake bias a fair bit rearward to try and get it working for a FWD-addict.

We’re still waiting for the engine to arrive from Reg Patten. Starting to get just a tad nervous, as Velodromloppet is up in less than 4 weeks…