Air jacks on a Leon Cupra Cup car

[XLR Motorsport]

I'm in need of some technical help re: the air jacks on my 2005 Mk1 Cupra Cup car. The plan is to use a compressor, but I don't know what lance I need, or even what compressor, hose or any other equipment to successfully achieve jacking the car up in this way. And I haven't got £hundreds to spend either.

I've looked through the manual and trawled the internet for any ideas, but I'm none the wiser. And what confuses me more is that Demon Tweeks sell a lance for over £260 and I can get many different types from an specialist for under a tenner.

Any help would be so gratefully received, or I'm stuck with a good old fashion trolley jack...

P.S. Sorry admin if this has landed in the wrong place.

[BenElliottRacing]

Your compressor won't do the job I'm afraid. On the g50 it took 25 bar of pressure before the car woud start to lift.

I had a diving bottle. Regulator and then one of the lances that you have seen in tweeks.

Expect to spend a few hundred ££ on the kit.

[XLR Motorsport]

OK, thank you very much for your advice. I think for the time being we'll stick to the trolley jack and I'll consider it later in the year.

Does it have to be that stupidly expensive lance on Tweeks, though? 'Normal' lances don't come anywhere close to that price. What's so special about that one?

[andy rob]

I went trough all of this last year, I got the lance & matching connetor for car a fiar bit cheaper than tweeks, cannot remember who of top my head ??
Got a 2nd hand bottle that had been pressure tested, bought a ac nitrogen regualtor off ebay (goes to stupid psi), got my local -pirtek- type place to make up the hose & get my bottle filled with air @ my local dive centre for £4 (no good if you dont live near the coast)
One bottle fill lasts a race weekend as long as you dont waste it

Edited by andy rob on Sunday 16th January 20:25

[andy rob]

here you go:
http://www.lister.co.uk/ecommerce/response.asp?qry...

[drmotorsport]

I recall hearing that the Leon's use 30 BAR or pressure to lift. It's worth checking out the air jacks carefully as that kind of pressure is mighty dangerous.

[jonamacg83]

The pressure entirely depends on the size of the jack - bigger jack piston area equals less pressure needed for a given weight - also depends on the number of jacks you have.

[XLR Motorsport]

Thanks for all your advice. It's a three-jack AP Racing system in the car, and talking to AP Racing it sounds like it's a discontinued one. Found a couple of lances but too expensive. A £30 trolley jack and some axle stands are fine at the moment.

Saying that, the car seems uncomfortable being trolley jacked...

[marshal_alan]

bit of a long shot but it might be worthwhile speaking to teams that ran those cars for advice, Total Control racing, Tom Boardman/Special tuning and barwell were big players back in 06

out of interest who's car is it you have

[XLR Motorsport]

The car was originally Dave Pinkney's, so it's an ex-Motorbase car. I'm just the road from them and have a couple of contacts there, which is handy. The car is pretty straight forward and 'bomb proof' apparently. I've spoken to the car's former mechanic and he is a top bloke, very friendly and approachable (which is more than I can say about some motor sport "organisations" I've dealt with of late).

[marshal_alan]

that car never did many races when dave had it, was out a few times in 2005 but dont think it did the whole year as Dave bought a integra for 06. you might have got a good un there mate, best of luck

[mat205125]

XLR Motorsport said:

The car was originally Dave Pinkney's, so it's an ex-Motorbase car. I'm just the road from them and have a couple of contacts there, which is handy. The car is pretty straight forward and 'bomb proof' apparently. I've spoken to the car's former mechanic and he is a top bloke, very friendly and approachable (which is more than I can say about some motor sport "organisations" I've dealt with of late).

What do Motorbase say about the requirements of the air-jack system?

[Some Gump]

We used a CO2 bottle (refills cheap via local pub landlord), and a "normal" snap fit, rather than the posh lance. Woks on 993 and 996 factory fit jacks. No idea what pressure was needed, it was 9 years ago!

[Scuffers]

drmotorsport said:

I recall hearing that the Leon's use 30 BAR or pressure to lift. It's worth checking out the air jacks carefully as that kind of pressure is mighty dangerous.

30Bar is pretty low typically, a lot run between 30-50Bar, just depends on the weight of the car and the size/number of rams.

[XLR Motorsport]

Mat: the young guy I spoke to at Motorbase who has worked on the car previously didn't really tell me anything more about the system that I'd already been told. I was still resigned to the fact that, although quick and easy, getting all the equipment is just too expensive right now.

Some Gump: how cheap is a CO2 bottle and how easy or good an idea is it to use a cheap lance? I've been under the impression that a £10 lance from Bodgit & Leggit wouldn't work (trust me, I explored that avenue early on).

Scuffers: the car is 1100kg dry and has three rams - nothing particularly big.

The car is jacking on a trolley OK. It's not ideal, but where it's so stiff, you can jack it at the rear corner and get three wheel off the ground at one. A couple of axle stands later and a tyre change is effortless.

[mat205125]

If you aren't going to use the jacks, there is a good amount of weight to be lost by removing them!

[Some Gump]

XLR, that depends on how well you know the landlord! Ours did the swaps for free because he wasn't brewery tied, and our driver (and his mates) were regulars - he made whatever cost back pretty much on a weekly basis anyway.

Re. lance, we just had the snap fit coupler, not the wole "long stick thing" - we got ours from a company that did compressed air for industrial machines, as I recall it was a lot more than a tenner, but a lot less than the tweeks job - maybe 50 quid plus vat?

[TimCrighton]

I can't recall whether we have any MK1 kit left off the top of my head but might be worth talking to Andrew in the workshop. We have run both Mk1 and Mk2 cars over the past seasons in the UK and Europe.

The pressure will need to be c.27 bar to work properly - we've always used the tall (c. 6ft) cylinders.

www.adventmotorsport.co.uk or email [e-mail]