Sunday 31 December 2017

Rockin'

Today I finally got some half decent garage time & made up the pulley / lever. Seems to work quite well with 2mm aluminium plates bolted on either side of the pulley with a rod end one side of the lever & a "nipple clamp" made from an M8 bolt the other ("nipple clamp" because it clamps the cable & acts as a cable nipple at the same time).

I am a little concerned about the bearing strength of the 2mm aluminium, but it's all bolted together, so easy enough to re-make the plates in steel if it deforms - we'll see. I'll be doing LOTS of testing as soon as the weather warms up.

Next job is to make up the chassis mount to attach this bit to the car & make it all work.

Don't know if you can use this pic & the ones in the last post to see how this works, but the turnbuckle (the stainless cylinder) is pulled by the pedal (vertically down in this picture, that pulls on the lever attached to the pulley which rotates about the centre bolt. so the cable clamp is moved round the radius pulling the cable round the pulley as it goes. The other end of the cable is attached to the clutch lever in the conventional way. So the only metal to metal movement in the whole system will take place at bearings designed for the job. Should be good - fingers crossed
.

Friday 22 December 2017

MERRY CHRISTMAS

For the first time in many many years I'm not suffering from a deep, dark depression in the run up to Christmas - Hurrah!

The clutch pedal has been made & fitted to the car - that sofa is BURGUNDY by the way - the pedal has been trimmed a little more since that photo, with some more metal removed & it now resides in the car where it moves just the right amount. The pull rod in the picture fits through the hole in the bulkhead at the moment, but when the next part of the system goes in I may need to enlarge the hole & I have a rubber boot ready if that's the case. at the bottom end of the pedal you can see three holes so the weight & throw of the clutch can be adjusted.

The other parts are drawn up & look like this, (the final shape of the pedals is in this picture) there's a turn-buckle between the pedal & the lever for adjustment & the lever is made from an ex-aircraft control cable pulley so the bearings are of very high quality. The lever then clamps the cable & runs through to the clutch. The bracket will be bolted through the pedal box side wall & to the chassis.







 It's pretty difficult to show this even with the CAD model, but in this picture the body & engine are hidden & the chassis shown transparent so it's as good as it's going to get. I know how it's supposed to work anyway & that's the main thing. This picture also shows the mods to the brake master cylinder that's the next thing on the list.

 

Friday 1 December 2017

Clutching At Straws

Some time ago I decided that something needed doing to the clutch actuation. It was way too heavy to push & operated over far too small a travel, making it awkward to drive slowly in traffic. Two of last winter's mods were swapping the Zetec clutch for a pinto one & ball-racing the pedal. These actions certainly helped, but didn't cure the problem.

One of the problems was the clutch cable. It leaves the pedal, passes through the footwell front bulkhead, then loops through 180deg to the clutch fork about two inches from the bulkhead exit point. So there's a lot of drag on the cable outer. I hatched a plan to do away with the cable outer altogether. In plan one, the cable (without the outer) would run from the pedal, directly forward to an aircraft control pulley, then back to the clutch fork. There were risks, the cable would be pulling the engine forward on it's mounts, would that matter? The cable may transmit vibration to the chassis or pedal. Engine movement might make slipping the clutch impossible.

I made up a prototype system & tested it on the car - none of these things happened, so the design has been refined to have a pull-rod on the pedal, pulling a rocker, which pulls a cable, which pulls the clutch fork - that's the plan anyway.

I've also started re-making the clutch pedal with a little more leverage (pronounced leeeverage). It'll use the ball-raced centre section of the old pedal to support two new side plates. Looks good so far.
 

Friday 24 November 2017

It Works!

IT WORKS it works, it works, it works, it works, it works....



.....And I'm quite pleased about it.

Having finished all the linkage and the throttle stop that I kept forgetting about - and the airbox mountings & the stowage for the air-bleed hoses, I took the car off the drive & drove it up the cul-de-sac & back a couple of times & the non-linear action of the linkage works a treat, much much easier to drive slowly as the first 1/2 of the pedal travel only opens the butterflies 1/4, so when you need good control over the butterfly angle you have it, when you want a bootfull of throttle, they open much quicker, but the rate constantly varies from 2:1 at idle to 1:2 at wide open throttle, so there should be no nasty surprises mid-corner.

It has exposed a bit of a flat-spot just as the throttles are opening, but that's always been there & should be an ECU fix. I'll need to drive it properly to fully gauge it, but so far, so good. The pedal is as light as a maiden's sigh, so I may need some heavier springs on the pedal, or I may just get used to it.

I've now taken the clutch pedal off the car as that's my next project.

Wednesday 22 November 2017

Angry Unpleasant Deranged Idiotic

This morning I had to drive from my work in Guildford to our "satellite" plant (those who know me will see what I did there) down the A3 in Bordon. To get on the A3, there is a slip road from a small roundabout & on this slip road, two lanes merge into one.

As I approached the merge, following the car in front of me by a couple of car's lengths, I checked around me & there were no cars to my right so I began to move across when my attention was drawn to my rear view mirror - which was full of a German type of car whose drivers enjoy a certain reputation (there's a clue in the title). Note dear reader that my REAR view mirror was full of the car - so I continued to amble across into the one remaining lane at which point the driver behind me blasted on the hooter & drove about 6" off the back of my car with the lights full on.

I thought to myself "really? this is a 136,000 mile, 15 year old, faded Zafira with a robust tow ball at the back, how much do you think I care? At the top of the slip I checked the traffic on the A3 & seeing there was none in the first lane I moved smartly into it in case my new friend was harbouring ideas If getting there first & boxing me onto the slip road. Shortly afterwards he accelerated into the second lane, slowed down alongside me & spent some time gesticulating at me out of the side window before accelerating off - about 20 yards where he came up behind the next car in lane 2.

Anyway, the Fury is running nice & smoothly & the whole throttle linkage is installed & working a treat. The next job is the clutch pedal & cable.

Saturday 11 November 2017

Fuelling Sorted

........ Well almost

Hoorah! after a bit of a disaster yesterday (idling WAY too fast, backfiring, lumpy) I took the whole injection system off the engine, all the throttle bodies off the mountings & adjusted one at a time & closed the air bleeds so that I couldn't blow through the main venturi (I know it's not actually a venturi because they're not carbs - but you know what I mean), so I knew each butterfly was SHUT - properly SHUT. Then carefully carefully re-fitted them onto the mounting rail & again checked they were all SHUT at the same time.

Only when they were all mounted & adjusted okay did I hook up the systems, open up the air bleeds & go for a start. IT WORKED -almost nicely. The four way manometer carb balancer was already on, so it was just a case of adjusting the air bleeds until they were all in sync & it was idling nicely.

There are still a couple of jobs to do, I need to adjust the pedal for travel & so it returns all the way to idle on it's own, make a cable support for the pedal end & some more fettling, then I think I'm done - it's been a lot of effort, but soon I'll be moving on the to clutch pedal.

Looks nice though.

 

Monday 6 November 2017

Close, But No Cigar

A busy weekend, apart from a minor service on No2 daughters car, hanging the exhaust back on the Zafira, mending my wife’s boots, cooking, cleaning etc,  I made new levers for three of the four throttle bodies, eased the sticking No 3 butterfly, hooked the other two TBs up to their levers & adjusted them so they all move the same amount & close when they should be closed (not as easy as it sounds).
 
I fitted them to the engine, hooked up the cables & found that with full movement of the pedal, I could only get ½ movement on the larger pulley, this didn’t come as much of a surprise, I thought I might be able to adjust the throttle stops, but it wasn’t going to be enough. Then I realised that ½ movement on the pulley is only ¼ movement on the butterflies because of the non-linear motion of the linkage. I checked the Throttle Position Sensor was still correctly calibrated – I’d turned it through 180deg so the wire was pointing down rather than up, where it had been getting in the way of the fuel hose. Also added to the to do list was four new jubilee clips for the hoses that mount the throttle bodies, to replace the four that stripped.
 
But I could still go for the start yes? No, the battery was flat & the TBs popped out of the hoses when it did turn over.
 
So I got on with extending the throttle pedal back to the length it was when the car had a X-flow (sigh), it was my usual standard of welding - 15 seconds with the stick welder followed by 15 minutes with the angle grinder to take the lumps off. Which is why I don't weld structure.
 
That done I retired to the house to let the battery charge.

Sunday 29 October 2017

Nearly Throttled

Yes, yes, I know this seems to be taking an age, but the throttle bodies are nearly finished - as long as the engine starts when it is finished.
The majority of the reason it's taking so long is that usually I have a clear plan & drawings - often a CAD model of what I need to make or do, this time apart from working out the lever geometry in CAD, I'm winging it - making it up as I go a long, so parts have been scrapped, re-modelled, changed into other parts & slowly (very slowly) a working system is emerging from the fog. I've also taken the opportunity to improve things as I go.


I've trimmed all the "flags" which will become levers on the throttle bodies, I've lowered the airbox so (hopefully) it won't rub on the underside of the bonnet, that meant trimming all four trumpets to clear the airbox top skin. I had to re-make the cable mounting as I realised the bonnet would foul what I'd made, fortunately work was having a clear-out & several exquisite lightweight machinings were being scrapped before I liberated them & was able to work them into the new cable mount design - which is better than the old one in a number of ways.
Still can't turn pictures sideways
I've also modified the pulley to take a longer return spring mounting so I can fit two return springs, so (assuming the enjoined works), I won't have a repeat of the "stuck-wide-open-throttle-on-the-M25" incident from this year's Rogue Runners trip.

I'm now just waiting for the arrival of the turnbuckles & I can set up the main shaft, drill & trim the levers & adjust, fit the new cables & go for the start.

Sunday 22 October 2017

Cable Man

After a day in the garage making small metallic bits & bobs, (which is one of my favourite ways to spend a day) the No.1 throttle body is now worked by the cable. I’ve made up all the “master” levers & all the “slave” levers, some of them had to be cranked to gain enough space for the turnbuckles, but I've left a load of metal on them as I don’t know where I’ll want the hole until the new turnbuckles arrive – probably Weds.


So at the moment they look like flags & hit all sorts of bits of throttle body as they travel, but once I have the hole location, I'll be cutting all the excess off.

Also on todays list was the cable hanger, which is riveted to the extrusion which is bolted to No. 1 throttle body. At the moment it's hanging out in space, but when it's all finished the airbox will sit behind it in this photo taking away some of the visual impact (which is good).

Cable relaxed
I need to order another two cable inners as the ones I have are less than straight & frayed, I also need another bracket riveted to the airbox to support the cable outers & then I can go for the start & see if all this cunningness has paid off.
 
 





Cable pulled - butterfly open

Saturday 21 October 2017

The First Of The Links

This is at idle.
On the excuse that I was going to make up a part to stop the exhaust knocking on Mrs Blatter's car, I went out to the garage & removed the airbox from its’ backplate, then removed the back plate, with them safely separated I was able to trim parts of the backplate & airbox & seal up the hole where the air temp sensor goes as it was in the way of the linkage.

This is at Wide Open Throttle
I then dismantled the throttle bodies from each other, which was a bit daunting, but gave me space to work out the geometry for the levers. I made up a couple of prototype levers & attached one of the pushrods. After messing about a bit I was able to make something that fully opens & closes the butterfly from the cable pulley, but at fully open the lever passes through one of the mountings, so I’ve ordered some shorter turnbuckles which should sort the problem out, but so far it’s working, it’s smooth & it has the rising-rate mechanism I was looking for, so when the geometry is finalised, there’s every possibility it might work!

Thursday 12 October 2017

A Little Progress

I've been trying to do a little to the car every day, so to recap the last few days:-

I took off the original Suzuki pulley & found it had a second job driving a return spring, so I made up a "washer" with the tabs needed to do the same job, if you look at the picture, there's a vee between the top of the bracket & the spring, well the washer / spring is above the point of the vee.

I've also made an aluminium angle to act as a stop for the cable outers & made up a "peg" screwed into the engine block to anchor the main return spring. So far the movement seems pretty smooth, but the next job is to connect the new shaft up to the Throttle Bodies & disconnect each TB from the next.
 

Sunday 8 October 2017

Pulley

Today's stint in the garage revolved around (see what I did there?) fitting the pulley to the end of the shaft for the new throttle linkage. I cut away some of the alloy bracket so the pulley could rotate, then when I was happy with that, I trial fitted it on the car.

AH! The pulley fouled the alternator in a serious way. The options were to move the alternator (no good as the alternator pulley needs to be where it is for other reasons). Dramatically reduce the size of the throttle pulley (not ideal as gearing it up was part of the reason for doing this in the first place). Rotating the pulley by 90 deg on the shaft (it'd work, but the cables would come in from above, possibly fouling the bonnet). Or move the shaft outboard so the pulley centre moves away from the alternator - which is what I decided to do.

Having done it, the pulley just clears, but a little filing will give a practical gap.

The next thing is to make up the levers that will operate the throttle bodies, then I can get all the geometry finalised.
 

Saturday 7 October 2017

Snail Mail

Obviously I'll need a something to rotate the shaft from the last post. At the moment the throttle pedal is too sensitive, so the thing-to-rotate-the-shaft needs to be lower geared than the Suzuki motorcycle quadrant currently fitted. It also needs to be a "snail" quadrant i.e. lower geared at the start of the travel to allow for finer control with small throttle openings, then getting higher geared as the pedal get's further through it's travel. I measured the Suzuki quadrant & the gearing at idle was 1/2 that at Wide Open Throttle (WOT) so I copied that, but also doubled the gearing throughout the range. No idea if it'll give the results I'm after, but it's a start.

It's a piece of alloy the width of the cable, with a piece of thin stainless either side, then repeated so I can run two cables. Here's what it looks like:-



On the car, the M6 bolt lower right will be replaced by the shaft & the cable nipples will go in the hole bottom left (I need to cut a small slot to make that work). At the moment it weighs 81g which I'd like to reduce tomorrow if I get a chance.

Friday 6 October 2017

Winter Upgrades Begin


With the car officially off the road for winter maintenance & upgrades it was time to start cutting metal. I took the throttle bodies off the car & fitted an alloy angle to the existing strip that holds the throttle bodies in a lump, this angle locates two old aircraft rod ends chosen because they are self aligning & can be adjusted for position. They support a length of 6mm studding which will be the main shaft, to this will be fitted the levers that will move the levers on the throttle bodies
 

Then cut, drilled & fitted an alloy channel across the end, fitted it with another bearing to support the shaft, next job is to make up the twin pulleys & the cunning return springs. When I have all the elements positioned, I'll cut away the metal that's not doing anything, making it look techie & loosing a lot of the weight.
 
So far so good.

Saturday 16 September 2017

Shroud

Once again it's been a while since I've posted, but then nothing much has happened car-wise. I've been on two holidays, my marriage has all but broken up twice & I've met my long lost son - but not much to report car-wise.

However, when I have used the car, I've noticed the oil light come on under hard acceleration, Distressing, as I thought I'd cured this with the sump mods. On the up side, whenever it happened I found the car was low on engine oil & a top-up cured it - for a few weeks.

So why was it using so much oil & where was it going? It wasn't dripping, it didn't seem to be smoking, then I checked the catch tank, it was about full. The catch tank has never filled, even when the car had a cross flow.

Thinking about it, I had removed the enormous Ford oil separator & replaced it with a plate & a banjo fitting, so I looked at that & found a lot of oil inside, could the oil be splashing into the vent & being carried up to the tank by the pressure? There is only a gentle up-hill in the hose, so it was possible.

I thought of putting an expansion tank in the hose run, but that would achieve no more than the catch tank, I thought of another couple of ideas, but went off them. Then I remembered a similar blanking plate for the crossflow. The cheap ones are just a plate, the more expensive ones have an "oil deflector" presumably to stop the oil hitting the seal directly & leaking. What if I put a "shroud" over the vent, to stop the oil splashing onto it directly, only the fumes would get to the vent.

So I found some very thin titanium sheet in the garage & drilled it for the  vent size, then wrapped it round as you see here:-

The fitting is still wire-locked inside the sump so can't come apart, so I'm hopeful this will fix the problem I gave myself (sigh).

Saturday 22 July 2017

Show Business

The Fury's been in three car shows in about a fortnight, the first to by invitation!

There was the Clandon Classic Car Show (in Aid of MacMillan) A baking hot day & I got bored by about 2:00 & left, but there were some interesting cars there including a very standard looking 109e Classic with a Rover V8 superbly engineered into it. Then there was "Wheels Day" at work (in aid of the teenage Cancer Trust) where I gave a very nice young woman a ride round the Research park, she was petite & fitted perfectly in the Fury & giggle appreciatively when I briefly floored it in second. Made an old man very ........ ratty that he's quite so old.

The third show was the "Summer Action Festival" at Castle Coombe race track, the Fury has only been on a race track once, for some slow parade laps at Brands Hatch - & then we were taken off after only two laps when a guy lost the back of his MkII Escort, so this was to be mine & the Fury's first foray.

I arrived way too early, went & got some petrol & when I went back Crunchie had arrived & had made a new friend - a guy who was hard put to believe the Ultima's engine was 7 litres, then enquired if it was a diesel & finally told us that a while ago - some time ago - maybe last year, he'd seen a Ferrari (spoken in hushed tones as if he was describing seeing a dragon).
IMGP1273.JPG

So, in for breakfast & await the others, the breakfast was good, the café was VERY Irishwith green painted walls & Gaelic proverbs, Guinness posters Leprechauns etc. Strangely the music was mid 50's pop & rock, not the "diddly-diddly" music I would've expected from the décor.

Arriving at the track, Crunchie & I parked on an empty stand next to some other kits. When Neil arrive he commented that we were on the wrong stand & after a short investigation I ascertained that we were, in fact, on the Caterham club stand. We decided that was OK & re-arranged some signs to make it look like we were in the right place.

I took the Fury down for a sound check & was told that it had "just passed" which I took to mean it had just failed but they weren't going to make an issue of it, back to the stand only to realise time was short for my track session, so off to the driver's briefing & dash about to get the car into the queue - where we sat for 40 minutes wondering how they had got so late when they'd only been running for 1 3/4 hours. Perhaps the time slots were organised by a team of doctors?

The track session was OK, quite slippery, but there were only a couple of opposite lock moments, the R888Rs coping admirably & I did get up to 90 at least once (only looked at the speedo once). However, on looking at the video when I got home, it shows me in the wrong bit of the track, in the wrong gear most of the time :oops: .

More photos:-
IMGP1274.JPG


IMGP1285.JPG
I like 100es - generally I like them more subtle than this one which was a drift car.

IMGP1294.JPG
 
IMGP1299.JPG

 IMGP1308.JPG
 

Thursday 6 July 2017

An Evening In The Meon Valley

A call went out on the SKCC forum - there was to be an evening blatt, so having got the route I took the long way round to the Shepard & Flock roundabout where Crunchie was already waiting, his newly returned Ultima sitting at the kerbside ticking as it cooled. After a chat the other two in our party turned up & we set off. Luckily I was at the back as my satnav immediately told me to go the wrong way. I ignored it & followed the light-aircraft-grey Ultima.




There was a fair bit of traffic about & it was mostly dawdling, but occasional gaps gave the opportunity to open the car's up a bit. We stopped on a country lane high on a ridge with the sun setting - it was a beautiful spot, but soon enough we were zipped up & back in the cars. there wasn't far to the Pub-With-No-Name (it's called the White Horse) but there was no traffic as we swept through the villages & countryside, the Ultima in these settings looks like it's just arrived from another planet & locals were looking at it bemusedly as it rumbled past.

Then some bikes came from the other direction & in the middle of them was a red Ultima, guess who'd just turned the camera off & thus missed the chance to have a photo of the back of one in focus, with the front of the other blurred - RATS.

We pulled up in the pub car park & went it. I was last in this pub 30 years ago, it seems to have quietened down a little, though maybe that's just because it was a Wednesday. I said to Crunchie that the Ultima sounded really good, when we were accelerating hard I could hear the high pitched whine even over my own car - he said "I wasn't accelerating hard" - Ah.

Sunday 2 July 2017

Was'apnin

Not a huge amount to report, today I went on an SKCC run from Newlands Corner to a pub called "The Bull" near my Dad. They are trying to establish a "breakfast club" type event, so there were a bunch of Hot Rods & yanks from the "Blood sweat & gears" group, four kit cars & a TR4. As the TR4 was being driven by Matt's Dad, the pace was more relaxed than can be the case. The route was pretty good, considering we traversed the South East of England, there was little traffic & plenty of thatched cottages. If it wasn't for the pot-holes I would've thought we were in Devon. Well, the pot holes & the hoards of Lycra Louts cycling four wide & getting in the way. But the pub was good & the car park looked like this:-







































Having some time to spare when I got back, I decided to tackle the high idle. The car idles fine when it’s cold, but at about 1200RPM when it’s hot. I’d faffed with things a couple of time with no success & had tried to balance the throttle bodies only the other day, but found that No4 was screwed right in. Thinking about this, I wondered if the wildly over-complex throttle linkage was holding No.4 butterfly slightly open, making the idle screw redundant & meaning there was too much air getting into the engine when all the screws were adjusted to balance No.4. This did indeed seem to be the case, but the engine was still running too fast. Doing a similar adjustment to No.3 made all 4 idle screws effective & had the engine idling nicely at about 900RPM. When I make the new throttle linkage, all this faffing will be a thing of the past – Hurrah!


 

Tuesday 13 June 2017

HillClimb!


The forecast hadn’t been good – heavy rain overnight & showers on the day I was booked into the Gurston Down hillclimb school. When I got up the “heavy rain overnight” was just starting & coming from the west – the direction I was going in.

By the time I’d put the soft top & side windows on I was running a little late, by the time I’d turned round & gone back for my wallet & phone I was very late, the SatNav forecasting my arrival time as 09:15 (“Arrive at -8:30 for 09:00”). I decided to dump the plans for a scenic ride & let the SatNav take the direct route, but when I was sat in stationary traffic on the A331 with the car steaming up in spite of having the windows open, the wipers & screen heater on & trying not to breathe I came to rue my decision.
I shall gloss over the hell that was the M3 roadworks in heavy rain, by jiggling the route, I’d got the ETA down to 09:00, which was OK, but hadn’t read the last paragraph of the “GETTING HERE” instructions, which wasn’t. By the time I’d driven through Broad Chalke three times, found the small sign for Gurston Down farm & arrived properly it was 09:10.


Race number & a crash hat!
This didn’t seem to matter to the jovial old sort in a dayglow sou’wester who greeted me in the car-park, waved me into the assigned parking bay & showed me to the official shed for signing on. He even taped the race numbers to the side of the car to save me time. I was asked for the car’s MoT which I’d seen moments before when I got out of the car, but couldn’t find it, fortunately the glowing yellow chap found it still in the car & bought it over.
I was provided with a rather natty multi coloured crash-hat & pointed in the direction of the restaurant where the hill climbing sales pitch drivers briefing was happening. A couple of folks arrived after me, so at least I wasn’t the last.


In the '50s they did kit cars properly ......
....... here's another.
After a detailed description of the track, we were split into groups & taken on a walk along it, with the instructors telling us which cones to aim for, where to brake, where the car should be at any particular point, as well as what ridiculous speed the record holder was doing at that point. After this & another couple of showers, we got in the cars - myself & the ex-colleague I’d gone with struggling to get in wearing a helmet - & followed an instructor car along the track at about ½ race speed, desperately trying to remember where I should be & when. What did bother me was the oil light coming on while accelerating up Deer’s Leap, if this carried on the sensible thing would be to abandon & watch from the side-lines. After arrival at the top we all processed back to the bottom & did that again but faster, again the oil light came on. I thought the problem was the oil was being held in the baffled compartment, but the amount of time I was accelerating uphill meant the engine was using all the oil in that area & the rest was staying at the back. In theory, doing it faster should cure the problem. Hmmm

Then we were let out for real.

Suddenly it all looks different, but I fumbled the car through the bend, & was relieved when the oil light stayed resolutely off. Up at the top I parked in the wrong queue & waited. The car had felt very stable & would carry a lot more speed yet. Convoy back to the bottom & form up (in the right queue), move the GoPro positions, take a few photos, talk to the others a bit, then engines start & we go again.
This time I was able to concentrate on some of the finer points & tried to put the car where it should be & again, the oil light stayed dark. Park at the top, convoy to the bottom, form up. Then the instructors walked the line of cars & gave advice, I was OK through Hollow Bend, good through karousel, not so good through Ashes – but I attributed that to staring at the oil light, not through the screen.
Another couple of runs saw me gaining in confidence, especially round Karousel, which the Fury seemed happy to take in one long drift (or so it felt to me). I still wasn’t getting Ashes quite right though. Back at the bottom & park up in the pits as Lunch was ready. Lunch was good with a choice of puddings (I had TWO) after which with the car slightly heavier we headed back to the track where the sighting & braking cones had been removed. The instructors were still at their vantage points, but now they weren’t looking to give us advice, they were looking to give us points.


Yes, a Panamera.
Well, the last four runs saw me increasing in confidence – even when the door opened at ashes - & having chatted & picked up my certificate (72% - no idea if that’s good or bad), I handed back my crash hat (the woman behind the desk checked it of with my name & "large helmet" which I felt was un-called for) I rushed home to look at the video. The runs aren’t timed, presumably because that would make it a “competition” but I could get a reasonable approximation from the GoPro.
So my run times looked like this:

45s 43s 44s 44s 45s 42s 43s - & the last run wasn't recorded by either camera. So in spite of trying harder & feeling like I was going much much faster, I wasn't. I guess the reason would be I was just trying too hard at times, the earlier runs were smoother, particularly round karousel, where on the last four runs I clipped the curb with the inner rear wheel & set the car wheelspinning.

 
But, the main thing was it was a good experience & the Fury was 5sec faster that my friend’s 1800 MkIII MX5. Looking at some of the previous competition day results, if I could shave another 3 sec off my fastest time, I’d be in among the hill climb Caterhams, which feels about right.