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thought id post a few pics of my car and various work i complete.
there is no one here with a successful/ seriously fast 116 here in nz.
this is my attempt at making a quick car.
state of tune at present is standard 2.5, although plans are to upgrade once im happy with the handling and improve the reliability. problems so far have not been major, but are still causing dnf's. the most recent being a cv failure. i have been running 2l ones and am going to start running gtv6 joints to try and fix this. i am looking at ways to improve the front roll centre. i have a few ideas im working on but nothing fully worked out yet.
beyond that ill build an engine for which i already have a steel flywheel made, which will be attached to a driveshaft i acquired with a cv at the front and universal joints attaching to the gearbox and at the centre. any ideas or comments are most welcome. im interested to hear what opinions are as i post more as progress is made. iv made sure the brakes and driveline are as best as they can be.
brakes are outlaw 3000 with 12" rotors and alloy hats. plus tilton pedal box with dual cylinders. stopping power is fantastic.
clutch is quartermaster 7.25" twin plate with custom flywheel and tilton hyd release bearing.

suspension is still torsion bars, with bilstein shocks.
the shell was fully stripped and sandblasted and seamwelded with a good roll cage.
there is still scope for some weight removal in various areas but all in good time.

more to come as it happens

That's not a 5x98mm PCD. More like a 5 X 114.3mm PCD like from a Nissan?

Good work Ben,

I was hoping to get to the pukekohe round early in the new year (30-31 Jan), but it looks like i may not be needed for the F5000.

Were the Alfa's racing at this meeting?
Might just fly up for a look/vacation.

Karl

benski105 wrote:beyond that ill build an engine for which i already have a steel flywheel made, which will be attached to a driveshaft i acquired with a cv at the front and universal joints attaching to the gearbox and at the centre.

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Is that your engine flywheel? Are you actually running that? I assume you have an elaborate scatter shield in place to protect the driver if it disintegrates at 6000 RPM. Your regulations and tech officers can probably assist whether this is allowed and inform you of necessary precautions. My guess is that it won't pass tech.

Beautiful car!

Jes

Zamani wheels are 5x114, had some hub adapters made to convert pcd from 5x98. makes wheel options much easier. they are also handy for widening the track.

jes, flywheel has been made out of billet, and was stress relieved once it was completed. it was made by a guy locally. i have seen a number a flywheels that have been lightened to this extent.
the balancing specialist i used remarked at what a nice piece of work it was and never once questioned its strength.
why do you have concerns about its strength? the outer reaches of the flywheel are only there to hold the ring gear.

benski,

Along with jes, I have been looking at your flywheel and thinking is it going to hang together? It would be true that with so much less mass than before, if it does let go the impact would be a lot less dramatic but not without possible danger.

I think my favoured approach remains the flexplate conversion with a shrunk on/welded ring gear.That would reduce the mass without the comparable hazzard.

Anybody made one of these that we know of?

I think the 105 Automatic Berlinas had one.

have been looking at pics of flywheels on the net and have found quite a few of similar design.
ill do some more asking around and find some more opinions on what i have.
here are some pics of ones iv found id appreciate any further feedback or suggestions on this. ill obviously be making some enquires about whether this will be ok. im not an engineer and had this flywheel made by someone using their expertise. i had no major input into its design.

most places are closed here for the next week so ill see what i can find out in a week or so.
having looked at some of the other designs online, i cant see that mine will be any weaker.

If it's made of good quality steel, there shouldn't be any problems. I have quite similar on my racer too. We've seen few times pictures about seriously lightened cast wheels, and those could been considered dangerous.

thanks kimmo
this is definately not cast. im not sure what grade of steel was used but ill find out.
i have had very light flywheels made in the past, all from steel, and have never had any issues.

Check your regulations regarding scatter shield or consider one regardless for piece of mind... BTW, I'm not sure finding pics of such flywheels on the internet legitimize anything - people do crazy stuff in ignorance... Anyway, sounds like you have it figured out, but I would make sure to get an expert opinion (from someone professionally qualified).

Still scares me, but I'm probably just being a sissy...

Jes

ill definately do some more research.
thanks for the input everyone. id much rather deal with anything questionable now, instead of when it falls apart.
will post what i decide. ill start by finding exactly what its made of and go from there.
cheers

ben

Kimmo, I am pleased to see that your radical flywheel hasn't given you any grief. I still feel you could go lighter and be safer especially with a scatter shield fitted. Here's a couple of pics of the flexplate and ring gear attached.

Benski, all you would have to do is obtain a similar flex plate and arrange to fit the centre boss that is already made to attach it to the crankshaft and fix the drive coupling.

That's true Mike. I left still plenty of safety margin on my wheel. If I would like to loose last hundreds of grams, then the scatter shield would be important. Now the axle coupling is probably more prone to explode and cause problems than the fly-wheel. Using scatter shield could be good idea because of that possibility too.

Few weeks ago I talked with a guy who drives VW golf rally car. He had just had clutch explosion, where the parts were gone through the clutch housing and bonnet.. He was happy because the parts decided to take direction up, not backwards. And that was 7.5"? racing clutch with steel flywheel. Flywheel was undamaged. Fortunately we are not sitting on clutch explosion danger area on transaxle Alfas.

went and talked to the guy who did the balancing on my engine today.
his opinion was that my flywheel was more than strong enough. he went on to say that he has seen much lighter flywheels on bigger gruntier motors which he knows have not had any issues.
he seemed to think that running my flywheel with 250 or so hp and 7-8000rpm would hardly even begin to test its strength. if it was cast he'd have concerns but seeing as its steel he has no concerns whatsoever.
this guy has done a lot of engine balancing and is very fastidious, so am feeling very confident in what i have.
thanks for the input from those who have offered opinions.
more to come as progress happens.

ben

following on from this topic, i have now run my car for 5 meetings in the last few months including a 1 hour race in which the car was flawlessly reliable.
the new driveshaft/ flywheel set up has been smooth and i have been extremely pleased with how everything has gone.
since the power upgrade, i have gone on to some suspension tweaking along with some weight saving and each time out the car has gone better.
my latest upgrade are the rear brakes. i have been wanting to get rid of the std rear calipers for some time now and have finally got around to working out a new system. i wanted to go to a vented setup and even though i could have used some 105 series rear calipers decided that some larger calipers would be better and lighter. plus i had some calipers sitting around so decided i might as well use them.
i had some rotors and hats made up locally. in order to give me some extra clearance i had the hats made with a bit more offset so i could fit the larger calipers in lower down instead of having them tucked way up high like the std setup.

here is the rotor and caliper mounting bracket that picks up the original mounting points from the side bolted up with caliper in place the setup from the back. there is just enough clearance between the caliper and rear axle.
the axle droops enough to make pad replacement easy. with any luck ill be able to test the new setup next weekend.
i went pretty conservative with the brake pads as i dont want to back end to be too over braked. i have a pedal box setup so should hopefully be able to easily get the balance right.
time will tell.