Keyser Posted March 30, 2016 Share Posted March 30, 2016 Hi all, Welcome to the beginning of what will hopefully be a fun filled journey as we track and restore my aging ex-race Radical SR3 For those that don't know I picked the radical up in late November 2014 but due to family problems and a garage rebuild she only saw a handful of track days in 2015. So after being stuck on the trailer in a secure compound for 8 months we got her into the Zed Shed II for a once over before the 2016 track season starts. The idea for this year is to maintain her and do a few mods/improvements and hopefully a substantial rebuild at the end of the year if all goes well. Moving on to Part 1. The Battery Saga The problem - Yes it appears the battery in the Radical is not the one that should be there but apart from being a bit sluggish to start when hot it's been fine, I was never overly impressed with the zip ties to hold it in though The battery was completely dead and the tray has seen better days So I thought I'd make a new one to fit the nice new bigger better battery I recently purchased. I had this to work with made a nice square bit with the aid of "robocop" the milling machine I drew some lines and more Had a play with the hole cutter I got for Christmas Quick trip to the bending thingy Made some ends welded it together (my ally welding is in need of a lot of practice trust me!!! ) Made a strap Off to powder coating Finished up like this and finally mounted in the engine bay Next up is the flappy paddle pro shifter and the 3 days it took me to make a throttle blipper assembly (that's what I did Easter weekend) Hope you enjoyed it Keyser. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy james Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Looking forward to having a dice with you in it at some point this season! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetpilot Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Booked Bedford if you reckon you will be ready buddy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stutopia Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 In for the fabrication fun! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brillomaster Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 nice work! hope to see this on track again this year! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZMANALEX Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Nice work Chris. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leonk Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Nice work Chris, was the alloy welding with the TIG? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Hope to see you on a track day soon Chris, that's if we get another motor (Number 4 ) to play with. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian@TORQEN Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Awesome skillZ uncle! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaydnH Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Love it. If Adrian ever gets my car turbo'd I'll join you on track! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian@TORQEN Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Love it. WHEN Adrian gets my car turbo'd I'll join you on track! Corrected that for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaydnH Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Love it. WHEN Adrian gets my car turbo'd I'll join you on track! Corrected that for you. Exactly... WHEN?!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinyflier Posted March 31, 2016 Share Posted March 31, 2016 Must make a pleasant change to work on one of your OWN cars rather than our motley collection that rolls up! David 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser Posted March 31, 2016 Author Share Posted March 31, 2016 Booked Bedford if you reckon you will be ready buddy Still not sure depends on this weekend before I book but hoping to make it mate Nice work Chris, was the alloy welding with the TIG? No Leon I have an AC TiG that I am still very much learning on I'm better at MiG on mild steel my TiG on mild steel is coming along but ally is still a dark art!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glrnet Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 👠Sent from my Zed using Nangkang tyres front, RE040's rear Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeilMH Posted April 1, 2016 Share Posted April 1, 2016 Your new tray and battery seems far more appropriate for a Radical than the old one 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser Posted April 1, 2016 Author Share Posted April 1, 2016 Evening again, So as promised the flappy paddle pro-shifter and throttle blipper install. When I bought the Radical the guy gave me the pro-shifter kit for it (also available from the Radical website for a mere £6,000 inc tax ) Link - https://www.radicalo...-Shift-Kit.html Now it has to be good at that price! He said he could,t get on with it and had had problems with the throttle blipper but I wasn't going to turn it down so I put the box in the back of the car and thought I must fit it back on, the wiring loon, ECU and flappy paddles are all still fitted so it can't be that hard. The problem is there is no-where to attach the throttle blipper, well no where that I could find or that would seem to work well - maybe that was the problem he had had So you can buy all the replacement parts from Radical but the design has changed on the SR3. Pro-shift still sell the same blipper but without the adapter to fit the Radical - Refer to RPE (Radical Performance Engineering) so I did but they have the new model that is completely different the same one that is on the Radical web site! O I give up I'll just make one So the first hurdle to overcome is finding something for the bilipper - which is basically a solenoid with a flex pipe and a wire coming out of it - to push against that will open the butterflys in the quad inlets. Now this is the end of the inlet manifold - So my solution was to take a nut and bolt, half fill the nut with weld and file flat like so - take the bolt and place it on the nut the wrong way round, weld the two together and run them through the lathe - That now fits the end of the inlet - Two bits of ally and a milling machine Design 1 - The cup I just bent a bit of steel round a bar and welded the top closed The theory is good but the blipper is not strong enough to push the 4 butterflies against the return springs Design 2 Works but the bar is to long and may foul the air inlet and the amount of movement on the butterflies is very small due to the length. Design 3 I Forgot to take a pic It's halfway between and works fine on the bench so we now have a throttle blipper installation kit - and here it is installed Best of all it works so now when you downshift on the paddles the engine revs - it's like the syncro rev in the 370 but more mechanical Next up will be the solenoid mounting and the quick shifter another solenoid only bigger and connected to the gear lever The above may not look that much but took me most of the Easter weekend, but I had great fun doing it - I do love to fabricate and play with all my big boy toys Keyser 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo Posted April 2, 2016 Share Posted April 2, 2016 Good work as always 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
veilside z Posted April 2, 2016 Share Posted April 2, 2016 Well done Chris, a great job. As an engineer myself, i can appreciate the hard work you have done. Looks great buddy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davedutch Posted April 2, 2016 Share Posted April 2, 2016 I love your perseverance, most would have given up at the first hurdle. But then most of us don't have the skills to fabricate something from scratch without some form of template. Keep up the good work and the posts. Ifor you post up when you are taking this on the track, I for one would come along. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser Posted April 6, 2016 Author Share Posted April 6, 2016 Good evening, Something a little more light hearted tonight My long suffering wife is a bit of a petrol head on the side and quite often comes along to track days, she has driven the Radical once but say's she is not confident as she can't reach the pedals and if she slides that far down she can't see where she is going Now the seat is not very adjustable and it's a big job anyway but I sat her in the car to look at just how much of a problem we had, (the seat has about 3" of movement) now this is quite a big problem ..... So .............. Rusty old bar more rusty bar a bolt lathe a milling machine parts are formed more metal and a welder ahhh taking shape powder coat I give you the solution and fitted - takes about 5 mins to do the swap And it's a thumbs up from her More soon Keyser Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davedutch Posted April 6, 2016 Share Posted April 6, 2016 Chris, Is this a sign of true love or what !?!?! Most of us would have taken that as the perfect excuse not to let the other half behind the wheel!!!8 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wasso Posted April 6, 2016 Share Posted April 6, 2016 Epic 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattross1313 Posted April 6, 2016 Share Posted April 6, 2016 Looking awesome, however - this was all pretty much wrapped up when I saw you Saturday. What you been doing since then? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser Posted April 6, 2016 Author Share Posted April 6, 2016 Looking awesome, however - this was all pretty much wrapped up when I saw you Saturday. What you been doing since then? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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