54 and 65 in Australia

[StephenH]

Here are a few pics of the recent work,

Nice work Willa.

[Willa]

Hi JB
Already welded, however I will remember for next time, hopefully quite a few years hence.

[Willa]

Stephen,
You are welcome to have a look next time you come to Adelaide.

[StephenH]

Stephen,
You are welcome to have a look next time you come to Adelaide.

I'll be in touch before I'm next across

[Willa]

So I damaged my engine in my last event! Not Happy!
The event was a 3 day rally called AFM, on the third day I had a McLaren gaining on me as I was nursing the car due to overheating issues however I decided to up the pace to keep the Big Mac at bay. I managed to keep him behind me however after I crossed the finish line I thought I had blown the engine, there was a loud bang and lots of smoke. Louis my co-driver jumped out with the fire extinguisher, we waited a moment, no flames??

We had blown the welsh plug in the head, it was now lodged in the firewall. This was because I had modified the cooling system the previous day to fix an air ingress that was causing large fluctuations in the engine temp, not by best idea.

Following the rally blow up, I have had the car under repair for several months to fix the cooling, the drivability and the handling, this action has taken the last three months to complete.

I put a return line from the radiator to the coolant fill bottle as well as tapping a hole in the back of the head up by the firewall with a dash 6 back to the fill bottle. This system allows full flow to the radiator and if steam or pressure builds in the head it can vent to the fill bottle, this way the system will self evacuate any air and it seems to work. Further more we just dyno’d the engine and am happy with the results 136 hp the wheels on a single 45dcoe.
The engine is modified significantly, however I still have the Renault wedge head, block, crank etc. the cam is 305 degrees custom ground along with valves that are also custom made, extensive porting, modified chambers and modified oil pathways all add to the end result which I think are great, respect to Extreme Performance for all the work.
Attached are the dyno figures which we feel could be better with DCOE twins and lots of time tuning.
It feels great to drive with lots of power to accelerate and is easy to manage on the throttle, it’s time to fine tune the balance of the car so that it is reliable and quick, the new hill climb season is starting and I hope for some success this season.
Please see the dyno results attached
Cheers,
Willa

[Willa]

Dyno results

[Willa]

Dyno results

[Serge]

Hi Willa,

Looks very impressive!

Do you know what modifications that they did to the oil pathaways?

Serge

[Willa]

Hi Serge,
Happy to send you some details and further photos, best to pm me to discuss further.
Indicatively the oil return pathway is very bad so has been modified it is now much better. Also the oil from the oil cooler in to the block has also been modified to try to maintain an even oil pressure even under load, we did this because I heard that No1 bearing can fail order heavy race loads.
Feel free to contact me on my direct email.
Cheers,
Willa.

[gideon]

I'd love to see all the gory details about oil pathways posted here, if that's possible.  I'm planning a "warm wedge" build myself, when I get to it, so I'd like to learn about it and be able to refer back to it here in the future.

[Willa]

Hi Gideon,
What we did was to change the flow of the oil from going into the center if the block to going into two points, one at either end of the block. Also the return oil from the cam well is terrible, I.e it is flooded and must flow forwards to the cam chain then flow back to the sump. I have drilled holes into the block under the cam to allow better drainage. The effect of this is much better flowing oil and consequently lower oil temps. I am not sure if I have pictures of the holes, if I do I will post them. The engine is out at the moment having broken a rocker at a track day!!
I have resolved to design a set of roller rockers that will be available in original ratio 1:1.5 and 1:1.65
I will be using the larger ratio to obtain the lift I am looking for.
If anyone is interested I will be able to make them in either size going forward. Please let me know if you are interested via a PM
Cheers,
Willa.

[gideon]

PM sent.  What valve springs are you using?

[Willa]

Hi Gideon,
I am using beehive springs which are more stable at high res, I can run to 8k in short bursts if I need to. This is only where the gearing is wrong for a particular corner on a track or hill climb, when on the road for a rally the high revs are not needed.

[Willa]

Hi Gideon,
So what I thought was going to take a month has taken 6.....

I sent the cam to NZ to Kelford cams to grind and  nitride and had a local engineering shop make two sets of rockers at 1.7:1 ratio. All the bits go back together this week so I am holding my breath to see how it will perform. The goal was performance and reliability.....not sure this is possible but that was the aim.
Please see the pics of the rockers, which is anyone was interested I can have additional sets made.
After reassembly I will dyno the car and post the results.
Cheers,
Willa.

[Willa]

Photos of the oil system to follow