Getting the car ready has been rather more fraught than we anticipated. We had a few problems of my own making (for example, when I connected the fuel pump to the breather rather than the fuel inlet on the carbs - unbelievably the car did actually run like this, although it threw some impressively big flames out of the exhaust while doing so), a few problems of Jedi’s making (for example, the fuel tank being in the wrong position and impossible, therefore, to connect up) and a few simply unforeseeable problems. At the start of this week, and with considerable help from my father and a few others, the car was finally in a fit state to hit the track.

On Tuesday, I took the car to a rolling road to have the engine run-in (much easier and less boring to do this on a rolling road than on a track!) and tuned. This went relatively smoothly, except for the clutch cable seizing just before the power runs. The rolling road operator ended up operating the clutch using mole grips on the clutch actuator (with asbestos gloves on - it’s right beside the exhaust!). The final tally was 136bhp at the rear wheels (which equates to something like 155-160bhp at the flywheel).

The current engine is completely standard apart from a few tweaks necessary to get it working correctly in a car (baffled sump, uprated clutch and rejetted carbs). I’m currently having a second engine tuned up, with a view to fitting it after the first couple of races. It’s going to be tuned to “medium” race spec - not so highly tuned to be unreliable (I hope!) but enough to make a considerable difference. It’s having a close-ratio gearbox, race cams, a ported head and increased compression. If all goes well, we should be getting something like 150bhp at the rear wheels (or ~170-175bhp at the flywheel).

And so yesterday, we took the car to a test day at Mallory Park. The main point of the day was to find all of the “niggling” problems which would undoubtedly be present, without trying to do this during a race meeting! On that front, it was a very successful test, in that we discovered a number of loose bolts, the exhaust fell off and the gearlever and pedals needed repositioning :-) The biggest problem was that the car was suffering from terrible fuel surge at the exit of Gerards. This almost certainly wouldn’t happen at any other circuit in the UK, as no other circuit has such a long, fast corner, but it would still be nice to sort it out. We tried increasing the fuel pressure to fix it, but this didn’t improve matters, so Jedi are currently making me a small reserve fuel tank which can sit above the carbs to address this.

So, with luck, the car is now ready for the season. The first Formula Jedi race is at Croft on 17th/18th April, but I will be at the Monoposto race on 3rd April as a further shakedown before that. If anyone wants to come along to either race, you would be more than welcome!

There are pictures of the completed car here:

Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4

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