Flick the Hillclimb Beast.
Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2017 3:22 pm
So, late 2015, I was having a discussion with Jeff (the owner of SO863, and the guy I co-drive for the the NZRC) about how I missed driving a AW and wouldn't mind a AW racecar..
A Motorkhana and Autocross later driving SO863, Flick became available on Trademe. A few people were guttered that they missed out on it. Re: http://mr2.org.nz/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13431
Flick is running a standard 20v Silvertop with a gearbox(unsure of what just yet, haven't looked too much into it at the moment) with a nice tight LSD!
First order of the day was actually get some legal harnesses as the ones in the car where expired by 3 months(no further extensions possible).
Then replace the single radiator fan with a double fan setup, and rewire the fan's to run through a relay rather than the small single core speaker wire that was running from the battery, through a switch and directly to the fan!
A few drives up and down the driveway at the old workshop (read: It may have been the road, not quite sure now. .) managed to diagnose that the shift arm was used to lift the engine and gearbox into the car at some point, and had bent the driver arm! Yanked that out, and straightened it with a press. Wow the difference shifting from 2nd to 3rd! was night and day. And now reverse was easier to get into!
A few hillclimbs and bentsprints from June 2016 to Jan 2017, Flick was running a standard steering ratio. aircraft carrier locks. Made driving on gravel really interesting as it felt like the car was driving me rather than me the car So when the motor cried enough in SO863 at HCMC annual weekend away, the decision to fast track the upgrade was made and 45 mins later columns had been swapped out. the next day's autocross was completely different from previous events. I could actually throw the car around more and control the car how I wanted.
The difference could be measured in valuable seconds on an autocross and better on hillclimbs. (Paiawa Rd bentsprint this year was 45 seconds quicker than last year).
Recently a brake bias adjuster was placed on the front lines to get more pressure on the rear, to really slide the rear into corners. Unfortunately this hasn't worked as well as hoped so the next step is some SW20 calipers and AW front rotors on the rear for more braking force. (will mean machining the hubs and making some dog bones to fit.) The most recent modification has been taking the sunroof out and replacing with a hardtop. This was a pure driver comfort / fit problem.
Why Flick? Well, that is a funny story. Its not just because that is what your meant to do on Gravel.
It comes from the 1937 Disney movie Snow White, more over it was one of the unused Dwarf names.
Flick has ~6 entries on the log book since it was caged in '04.
Enough Ranting for now.
Back to Work and thinking about throwing some gravel.
A Motorkhana and Autocross later driving SO863, Flick became available on Trademe. A few people were guttered that they missed out on it. Re: http://mr2.org.nz/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13431
Flick is running a standard 20v Silvertop with a gearbox(unsure of what just yet, haven't looked too much into it at the moment) with a nice tight LSD!
First order of the day was actually get some legal harnesses as the ones in the car where expired by 3 months(no further extensions possible).
Then replace the single radiator fan with a double fan setup, and rewire the fan's to run through a relay rather than the small single core speaker wire that was running from the battery, through a switch and directly to the fan!
A few drives up and down the driveway at the old workshop (read: It may have been the road, not quite sure now. .) managed to diagnose that the shift arm was used to lift the engine and gearbox into the car at some point, and had bent the driver arm! Yanked that out, and straightened it with a press. Wow the difference shifting from 2nd to 3rd! was night and day. And now reverse was easier to get into!
A few hillclimbs and bentsprints from June 2016 to Jan 2017, Flick was running a standard steering ratio. aircraft carrier locks. Made driving on gravel really interesting as it felt like the car was driving me rather than me the car So when the motor cried enough in SO863 at HCMC annual weekend away, the decision to fast track the upgrade was made and 45 mins later columns had been swapped out. the next day's autocross was completely different from previous events. I could actually throw the car around more and control the car how I wanted.
The difference could be measured in valuable seconds on an autocross and better on hillclimbs. (Paiawa Rd bentsprint this year was 45 seconds quicker than last year).
Recently a brake bias adjuster was placed on the front lines to get more pressure on the rear, to really slide the rear into corners. Unfortunately this hasn't worked as well as hoped so the next step is some SW20 calipers and AW front rotors on the rear for more braking force. (will mean machining the hubs and making some dog bones to fit.) The most recent modification has been taking the sunroof out and replacing with a hardtop. This was a pure driver comfort / fit problem.
Why Flick? Well, that is a funny story. Its not just because that is what your meant to do on Gravel.
It comes from the 1937 Disney movie Snow White, more over it was one of the unused Dwarf names.
Flick has ~6 entries on the log book since it was caged in '04.
Enough Ranting for now.
Back to Work and thinking about throwing some gravel.