Rebuild Time Lapse

[poppopbangbang]

For anyone into the older stuff. Post engine refresh rebuild of an old Minardi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_5hbKsLZDQ

[Shuttle Cock]

Very good, i hope they all have decent ear plugs in!

[peterzoom]

Fantastic, great to see and hear, thanks for putting this up for us to see.
Quick question, when the engine is started are the revs controlled by the laptop we see on the tool chest?
If so, why does it seem to vary so much during the sequence as opposed to a steady increase as temperatures rise and are confirmed?
Thanks again for all the brilliant information you have revealed on this thread.

[poppopbangbang]

peterzoom said:

Fantastic, great to see and hear, thanks for putting this up for us to see.
Quick question, when the engine is started are the revs controlled by the laptop we see on the tool chest?
If so, why does it seem to vary so much during the sequence as opposed to a steady increase as temperatures rise and are confirmed?
Thanks again for all the brilliant information you have revealed on this thread.

No the revs are controlled by a remote throttle in the engineers hand. The engine is already at temp when it is fired - there is no warmup as such as external heaters bring the engine coolant and oil to 80 degrees and the gearbox oil to 75 degrees before start up.

Generally steady revs are not held as all sorts of weird harmonics crop up at certain revs so it's best to keep it moving. We will do a steady state at revs known to be safe to check everything is stable and crank case vacuum etc. is where we expect it to be then an idle check with some adjustments to the base idle throttle position if required to keep it at circa 4000RPM idle.

[peterzoom]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer, I feel well schooled

[Some Gump]

Sometimes I suspect that PPBB has the coolest job on PH. Naturally, I'm choosing to ignore any form of wiring harness buggery, the lack of knuckle skin, working in the cold, and that fat bd with the clipboard on the dummy grid =)

[poppopbangbang]

Some Gump said:

Sometimes I suspect that PPBB has the coolest job on PH. Naturally, I'm choosing to ignore any form of wiring harness buggery, the lack of knuckle skin, working in the cold, and that fat bd with the clipboard on the dummy grid =)

I'm not going to lie, it's awesome. Made more awesome by the fact that everyone who works here has exactly the same "this is the coolest thing ever" attitude to what we do. We're all ex F1 people so being allowed to "run free" without the politics or ring fenced roles that exist in an F1 team with F1 cars is pretty special. Then we get to use all the technology and know how we gained tinkering with these wonderful things to make low volume road and race cars better. The only worry is what we do becoming more and more socially unacceptable and one day someone in the EU somewhere is going to ban our noisey, fast and really rather dangerous bits of history... until that day though

With regards to the downsides you mention, we always stock at least one complete wiring loom for each car we run so any wiring issues just get swapped out, likewise for controllers and steering wheels, knuckle skin remains intact as we build all our own workshop gear as well so each car has a trolley/lift for engine/gearbox installations, the workshop is heated to a constant 20 degrees so it's T shirts inside regardless of the weather and we don't run the cars in the rain or below 14 degrees which means if we're running in Winter it's time to ship some stuff to the south of Spain or similar......... fat bd with the clip board is unavoidable though

Really we love to share what we do, our garages are always open at circuit and if we have a minute we'll always have a chat. Seeing peoples reaction to the cars is really the best bit of the whole job!

[poppopbangbang]

For anyone wanting more noise start and gear checks are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ42Eu9hpXk

[Some Gump]

^ sounds like a better setup than I've ever come across then!
We were just club racers - so when the gearbox went pop, it was a cold garage, 2 halfords jacks and a tree stump to drop the engine and box. When electrical gremlins happened (lots), it was a multimeter, swearing, and bleeding knuckles. Still loved it though.

Sadly, I lack he skills to do what you do (although I'm sure I can out gaffer tape anyone) - but I'm still jealous of all of you - thanks for sharing the noisy bits with us mere mortals =)

[poppopbangbang]

Some Gump said:

^ sounds like a better setup than I've ever come across then!
We were just club racers - so when the gearbox went pop, it was a cold garage, 2 halfords jacks and a tree stump to drop the engine and box. When electrical gremlins happened (lots), it was a multimeter, swearing, and bleeding knuckles. Still loved it though.

There was a point in Dubai where we did an engine change with just people power as the flight case with all the trolleys and pit gear had gone AWOL in transit from the UK!

The cars are so complex and have such a small operating window that it's not just us being soft bds with all these creature comforts, it's actually pretty impossible to run them without! The preheaters for example won't get the fluids to temp if the garage we're in is too cold or there is to much of a breeze through it, the rads, engine castings, gearbox castings etc. are so thin wall that too much heat escapes through them.

Likewise with running in the cold, it gets very difficult to maintain the correct temperature window if the air down the rad ducts is very cold and too much blanking means the temps get too high on sustained throttle.

Wet running is another thing which is a pain, the bearing seals etc. are very "light" to minimise frictional losses so everything needs stripping and rebuilding if it runs in the rain. Needs to be a special occasion to sign off 500 hours of work to bang a few laps in!

As least to geat the gearbox out of our later stuff it's an autosport, two dry breaks, four half inch K nuts and two 7/16 K nuts :-)

[Mark-C]

PPBB - thank you ... a great video and an interesting insight into a world most of us will never see. I'm now off to fix my Landie in the drive with a lump hammer and some tape

[pozi]

poppopbangbang said:

For anyone wanting more noise start and gear checks are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ42Eu9hpXk

How "quaint" to see the shift check being done by a human being operating the steering wheel paddles, nowadays they just press a button in System Monitor and the software does it all for them

[poppopbangbang]

pozi said:

How "quaint" to see the shift check being done by a human being operating the steering wheel paddles, nowadays they just press a button in System Monitor and the software does it all for them

Seamless box these days though, a little bit more to that than a dual track pot and a PID loop driving an L030 Moog

To be fair we can do it in software but if it's a "known" box it's quicker just to bat up and down the box on the paddles and check it gets on target first time.

[HDM]

PPBB, thanks for posting this, it is very much appreciated that we get to see a peek behind the scenes to this incredible world, and technologies.

Best wishes to all at TDF for a happy, healthy Christmas & New Year.

[Sonic]

Awesome vid thank you very much for making/posting!

poppopbangbang said:

I'm not going to lie, it's awesome. Made more awesome by the fact that everyone who works here has exactly the same "this is the coolest thing ever" attitude to what we do. We're all ex F1 people so being allowed to "run free" without the politics or ring fenced roles that exist in an F1 team with F1 cars is pretty special. Then we get to use all the technology and know how we gained tinkering with these wonderful things to make low volume road and race cars better.

Living the dream...