Piston Ring Club, 16 June 2013

Fossa Ford Anglia with all her trophies and her sister

Fossa Ford Anglia with all her trophies and her sister

Fossa in good company, our 3.0 Ford Cortina and two 'Stangs

Fossa in good company, our 3.0 Ford Cortina and two ‘Stangs

An exciting day with the morning flying past and quite a few visitors including Willie Hepburn. Might have a suitable welded differential for testing soon.

Fossa’s next planned outing, Classic Car Show, 7 July 2013 @ NASREC, Followed by Super Trax Day, Zwartkops Raceway, 21 July 2013 and race at Zwartkops the following weekend

Some never before posted pics …

Coming up to our racing anniversary, some never before posted pics from 21 July 2012 taken by Dirk Van Der Merwe …….

Zwartkops Historics 21 July 2012 070

Zwartkops Historics 21 July 2012 071

Zwartkops Historics 21 July 2012 071

Zwartkops Historics 21 July 2012 072

Zwartkops Historics 21 July 2012 072

Zwartkops Historics 21 July 2012 073

Zwartkops Historics 21 July 2012 073

Zwartkops Historics 21 July 2012 074

Zwartkops Historics 21 July 2012 074

Fossa looked mighty fine with these rims, pity about the offset!

Super Trax Day @ Zwartkops Raceway 09/06/2013 …..

Fossa Ford Anglia leading the modern out of corner eight

Forward to the Past – Fossa Ford Anglia leading the modern out of corner eight

Howdy, this is going to be a long post. We arrive at the Zwartkops Racetrack at 06h10, late by our standards. It is FREEZING cold. Chris Roach drives Fossa around the pit complex at just over idling and I get a chance to listen to a peaceful Fossa.

Then the usual, swop wheels, have some very welcome HOT coffee. Today we are here with big expectations for Fossa and we are expecting a visitor in the form of Thomas Falkiner of The Sunday Times in his official capacity as motoring journo! He is also famous for racing an incredible sixties Ford Mustang in the historics. This time for an interview and some pic’s of Fossa’s younger sister, our 3.0L Ford Cortina.

This time around the Renault Club is present in such numbers that the usual three groups are changed to five. Really not cool for us as we only get four shortened stints in the day.

Fossa on exit of corner seven

Fossa on exit of corner seven

Stint one: Nothing really special, run of the mill stuff.

Prior to stint two I am asked to “instruct” a “newby”. He catches on real quick. Stint two: Chris Roach is feeling off with a head ache and agrees to the “newby” taking the shotgun seat and another victim experiences Fossa on track.

Fossa's signature lean 1

Fossa’s signature lean 1

Stint three: Chris Roach takes the hot seat again. Once again, a run of the mill stint, nothing spectacular.

Fossa's signature lean 2

Fossa’s signature lean 2

Shortly before stint four we inspect the exhaust and find it still very lean. A rush decision makes us change her 38DGAS jets. The main jets are changed from 142’s to a mix of a 160 and a 175 as we do not have a matched set and the air corrections from 190’s to 210’s. She virtually refuses to run at all and we retain the mixed mains but return the 190 air corrections. She sounds brilliant. And Thomas arrives. He is promptly handed a helmet and obediently takes the hot seat.

Thomas Falkiner being brave in the hot seat

Thomas Falkiner being brave in the hot seat

Fossa feels extremely strong and the second hot lap proves it all. We run a best time of 1:28.20! And a new top speed of 129.9Km/h!

She very easily revs to 7000rpm in gear and a new challenge pops up. After running high revs for a while she splutters and not yet confirmed but I suspect her carburetor is running dry.

We ran the first stint of the day with tire pressures on 250Kpa all round and ran the following stints on 230Kpa on the front and 240Kpa on the rear. There still is the concern of the tires folding in on corners due to a lack of sufficient negative camber. This causes excessive wear on the outer edges of the front tires.

Cooling seems to be within acceptable limits.

Our best laps are always early in the stints. I still have to figure out why. I am thinking to try taking the valve clearance readings at cold and applying that to the hot setting.

Time and testing will tell!