The catch can has run like this for quite a while and I've never had oil Consumption issues before the cracked piston, so I'm pretty confident the system works. It will all be monitored of course though
Going back to the brakes, it seems that I have a fee strange fitment issues with my particular car.
Rich, who builds and maintains the TT in Combe Saloons with Bill, designed the bells as he is now using the same Ex btcc discs.
We discussed at length how much ball joint clearance was required, and Rich did a fair bit of testing and mocking up on the TT.
As a start, he made a totally flat bell from perspex to offer the disc up and see where things sat
With a totally flat bell this gave him 4mm clearance to the ball joint:
For good measure, we added 1mm additional offset to the back of the bells, which should give 5mm clearance in total. More than enough:
So, I built up the discs and offered them up, and all was not completely happy!
Argh.
Now, despite appearences, this did actually clear, although it was less than 1mm.
Not cool!
The first thing that struck me, was the shape of the joint casting.
Richs here seem to have a bevelled casting, where mine appear to be totally square.
Having looked, my first line ones seem like a fairly basic square casting. These febi ones I look more like the casting on richs joints:
Long term I have a few ideas and plan to change the joints, but short term I wanted to find a solution to get me going and make it all useable.
Not keen to grind material off the ball joint without any knowledge of what I'm working with, I decided to sacrifice a brand new spare ball joint I had on the shelf.
I clamped it on the vice and attacked it with the grinder:
It turns out there is a reasonable amount of material to play with without risking the integrity of the joint.
I set to my other spare joint with the power file to see how easily it could be reshaped:
By looking carefully at the sectioned joint of was able to take a fair bit of material off the face without reaming through the cap anywhere, and leaving enough material where I feel its needed. I took more off this joint than I needed to, to see if breaking through to the top cap was a likely risk.
With the theory tested, I decided to take the power file to the joints on the car.
I've gone fairly conservative on this initial shave, and we will see how things fare when the car is on the road.
We currently have 3mm clearance. Considerably better than before! I still need to dig out the keys and cycle lock to lock and check I've ground enough all round to give clearance whilst steering, but I'm confident it's solved for now.
Long term, I think my cheap gsf 1st line joints are of a fairly cheap materials and the casting size potentially increased to add strength. I plan to get some Febi joints which look more compact in the casting, as well as the wishbone- ball joint spacers that Rich runs. Whilst these don't change roll centre (as often thought), they do improve the camber curve levels, as well as improving the ball joint angle which will help me further with clearance.
Last up I installed my coilpack wiring protection. Depending how warm things get here I may also get one of the stainless covers you often see people using here.
Whilst looking at this with Dad, he very rightly pointed out that my new heat shield totally obscures the fire extinguisher nozzle facing the turbo, so I'll have to alter either the nozzle position of the shield here:
And extra lastly, I've also now wrapped my downpipe that's come back from Carl looking awesome
Ignore the fluffy bits near the top, these are where I had to trim it around the lambda and egt bosses. I'm going to trim these neatly and superglue them to lock it all in place before I apply the DEI silicone spray to lock it a on place like the manifold
slowly slowly, it's coming together!