sumps up

The weather have been fantastic for the garage lately, a night or two throwing the spanners round after work and Bianca is all but buttoned up again. Last week the super special sump went on to save the main bearings from our sticky kumhos.

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Thanks once again go to John for letting us know this had to be done!
Dyno bloke will have be called upon shortly.

A long time between drinks

It feels like a glacial age has occurred since the last efforts to get Bianca’s motor running. And it kinda has been. Finally though, we both have the ability to throw some time at the problems which have faced us. Winter’s almost over and you can venture out into the garage again without fear of frostbite.

Now that Bianca has mean rubber (Kumho V700’s) the time has come to bastardize a set of wheel nuts to get them on. And in true ER fashion, we set to work on the lathe. If it was simple, everyone would have one. End result is a car with probably more rubber than it will need. I mean to test that in the near future. Dyno this week, wish her luck.

Jets

So we missed another deadline.

With the motor now being buttoned up the challenge is to get the thing running well. We got our greasy hands on some bloody expensive dellorto jets and stuck them in. That just proved to us that the carbies need going over with the screwdriver as it runs like a bucket of rubbish. Screws should be turned this weekend so it can visit the dyno man. Why is it the more you spend on a race engine the unhappier it sounds?

Edit: Changed the fuel, and it runs much better now. Apparently BP Ultimate doesn’t cellar well…

A quick aside

I was reading “The Grapevine” at Autosport.com and came across this story. It’s second story the article.

http://www.autosport.com/news/grapevine.php/id/74664

Apparently we’re not the only ones naming our race car (Not that I’m claiming that we invented the phenomenon). Let’s hope we don’t total Bianca and have to contend with building Bianca’s Dirty Sister. Although if we built up a Motec fed 1600…

Deadline set – 30 May

We managed to spend a couple of hours on Bianca yesterday. She got a re-shim, and we realised just how well the head had been machined! The shims were all within about .05 mm of one-another.

The next job was to pay John a visit, and he pressed our wheel bearing into the new front stub axle. Once more, the small jobs on the list are taking the time, but we’ve set a deadline.

30 May, Alfa club sprint at Phillip Island. We will be there, rain (probably) hail (likely) or shine (with luck). This means that we have much to do in 5 short weeks. The car will be at the Island, whether it is going or not!