Engine Bay Pictures of the Plumbing

A few pictures of the engine bay plumbing for a 2014 Build 2.0 Duratec 175.  Not easy to photograph all the connections due to other components covering things up.  A good source of info is Tom Woods blog and his pipe diagram.  Tom Wood Blog

Can't beleive how nice the weather is.

Many many more drives, so many roads to explore and pictures to take.

Near Sheffield

Forty Acre Lane

Bowland Forest

Bowland Forest

Wayho Reservoir Edgworth

Wayho Reservoir Edgworth

2.0L Duratec Oil Breather Plate

In April 2017 I noticed some oil on the garage floor and it turned out to be the orange valve in the top of the breather plate which is bolted to the side of teh duratec engine just beneath the air intake.

https://caterhamsevenbuild.blogspot.com/2015/05/an-oil-leak.html

Last week I saw another drop of oil and a quick check showed the leak appeared to be coming from the same place.  However closer inspection showed the problem was that the right angle pipe had come away from the orange valve on the breather plate.  As I re-attached the pipe to the orange valve I realised the pipe is 15mm too short and is essentially being pulled away from the orange valve.  Given that the pipe carries oil vapour and a bit of oil to the air intake then it gets well lubricated and before you know (well in about a year) the pipe has come away from the orange valve.

I cut a new pipe today and the extra length means the pipe is essentially pushing itself onto the orange valve.  Time will tell if this works.

This is the old pipe.  The new one is just 15mm longer.

The old pipe had come away from the orange valve.

Hebdan Bridge, Atom Panopticon, Skipton and Barnoldswick

Another fine morning provided another fine 6am drive around the lanes of Lancashire.

Pondon Reservoir

Widdop Reservoir

This weather is just perfect.  Up at 6am, 2 hours of driving and home before the family get up.

Blatting to a Boulder

A few weeks ago I had a great drive through Bowland Forest area again but I headed towards Bentham to see the Boulder.  #Tick 

MSV Trackday was First Class

With the arrogance and bollocks that is the L7C decision to insist on half an FIA roll bar without actually caring about it's quality, age, installation or whether your head sits above it !!!  I have been left trying to find a trackday supplier as L7C trackdays are not an option.  With that in mind I started looking around and the most surprising thing was how much cheaper non L7C trackdays are, also there is a fantastic choice of tracks and days.

I decided on a midweek trip to Oulton Park in early March and it was first class.  The organisation was spot on, not too many on track (16 tops at any one time), there were 7 No. 20m sessions for each group of cars and it was plenty of time in the car.  £129 well spent.  I will be doing some more with MSVT.

Roll Bars

This 45mm diameter bar is currently not allowed for a L7C trackday.  See blatchat for the ins and outs / rights and wrongs. 

3D Printing Centre Caps

I ordered a new set of 14" Minilites but didn't like the push through centre caps that came with them.  They push through by just over 40mm and didn't look right.  So having wanted to try some 3D printing for a while I have built a crude (24 segment) centre cap in sketch up and sent it for printing as a trial.  If it seems like it may be the answers I'll smooth it up in Blender and get it printed to a higher resolution.

So the 3D printed prototype arrived, see the pictures below.  My first thoughts :

1. The printing is very accurate as the facets of the 3D model has shown up clearly.  This will mean a new model using 100 or maybe more segments for the circles and curves.  

2. The surface finish is quite smooth and so maybe a switch to the 100 micron material will give a smoother finish.  This prototype was a 200 micron material.

3. The legs have been hollowed out.  That is something the software does which is clever with regards saving material, but not so clever with regards removing the strength where it is needed.  One leg broke just putting the unit in the wheel once.  

4. The dimensions are spot on with the exception of 0.5mm needs to come off where the leg clip sits against the wheel.  How repeatable this technology is I am about to find out.

5. The inside of the seven is very rough.  I guess the software needs to add another face to where the seven has been removed.  On the other hand my plans are to fill this void with an enamel which will hide the lines of the print.

Caterham Motorsport at Oulton Park

By luck more than planning we found ourselves with a day free of any other activities and commitments and that happened to coincide with the Caterham race series attending Oulton Park.

The day started at 8.30am with the first qualifying sessions although we only got there at 9.10am.  The day finished at 6.30pm ish and had passed in a flash.  As always with Caterhams there were clusters of very close racing in every group.  Sir Chris Hoy was there and did very well in his second race getting from 13th or 14th up to 6th.