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Found myself unexpetedly helping my brother out engineering at Silverstone


Guest Farnsbarns

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Guest Farnsbarns

My brother asked me late.last night if I'd help him out racing today. He's engineering for customer...

 

We have a pit garage which is nice. This is the customers car...

 

 

IMG_20140824_103636.jpg

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Guest Farnsbarns

These are all cars built by his company...

 

IMG_20140824_103709.jpg

 

IMG_20140824_103659.jpg

 

IMG_20140824_103604.jpg

 

Here's the pit garage with all the cars from the championship...

 

IMG_20140824_103744.jpg

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Wow,,nice craftwork on those,,although Id have to drive the ones w/roll bars! What series/class are those in? Looks like most have 4 banger mtrs{4 cylinder},,still ,,what great way to spend the day! Thanks for posting :)

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Guest Farnsbarns

Wow, those look awesome. I have always been into the caterhaom/lotus 7 style cars. What's the performance like?

 

Well, those are Austin 7s. All built on a 1920s Austin 7 chassis with 850cc 1930s Austin 7 side valve engines. As they have to qualify for a historic formula no modern tech allowed. They can run superchargers. The series is the 750 trophy.

 

The 850 CC, side valve engine was designed to deliver about 12bhp but by blowing them, tuning the heads, making much stronger crankshafts, shells, con rods etc we can get that up to around three figures (exact figures are secret because customers compete with each other and can't publish anyones numbers).

 

The 750 Motor club's "750 Trophy" is the oldest continuously running motor racing series in the world. They've been running races since the thirties and had the first British Grand Prix (long before F1 came about) in 1948. Back in those days Austin 7s were a great platform for a racing special and the 750 formula called for such a car.

 

In the 50s/60s some formula changes were introduced and the earlier Austin 7 cars became "historic". Now, of course, the later cars are also historic. It was in that period that Collin Chapman designed the Lotus 7 based on that formula. He drew on the experience of my father when it came to designing it.

 

My brothers customer car (the yellow one) is an Austin 7 but it's blown (supercharged) and runs on methanol (no petrol) and is so fast it was reclasified as a trophy car (the later ones I mentioned) he won yesterday, against cars designed 30 years later and allowed to run Reliant engines and sticky, wide tyres with a tubular chassis etc, by 28 seconds in a 10min+1 Lap format. He beat all other Austins by about a minute. Set a new lap record (for trophy cars, let alone Austin 7s) on the international circuit at Silverstone.

 

They've been developing the methanol/blown engine for about a year and had a lot of bangs and con rods sticking out but they've for it right now and the car is a beast.

 

The red, white and green car is my fathers current car (still racing in his late 70s) and is also blown although running on petrol.

 

The gray one is normally aspirated petrol engine but is still a quick car.

 

They are all bonkers. Did you note the lack of roll cage, roll over bar or even seat belts?

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Well, those are Austin 7s. All built on a 1920s Austin 7 chassis with 850cc 1930s Austin 7 side valve engines. As they have to qualify for a historic formula no modern tech allowed. They can run superchargers. The series is the 750 trophy.

 

The 850 CC, side valve engine was designed to deliver about 12bhp but by blowing them, tuning the heads, making much stronger crankshafts, shells, con rods etc we can get that up to around three figures (exact figures are secret because customers compete with each other and can't publish anyones numbers).

 

The 750 Motor Club is the oldest motor racing organisation in the world. They've been running races since the thirties and had the first British Grand Prix (long before F1 came about) in 1948. Back in those days Austin 7s were a great platform for a racing special and the 750 formula called for such a car.

 

In the 50s/60s some formula changes were introduced and the earlier Austin 7 cars became "historic". Now, of course, the later cars are also historic. It was in that period that Collin Chapman designed the Lotus 7 based on that formula. He drew on the experience of my father when it came to designing it.

 

My brothers customer car (the yellow one) is an Austin 7 but it's blown (supercharged) and runs on methanol (no petrol) and is so fast it was reclasified as a trophy car (the later ones I mentioned) he won yesterday, against cars designed 30 years later and allowed to run Reliant engines and sticky, wide tyres with a tubular chassis etc, by 28 seconds in a 10min+1 Lap format. He beat all other Austins by about a minute. Set a new lap record (for trophy cars, let alone Austin 7s) on the international circuit at Silverstone.

 

They've been developing the methanol/blown engine for about a year and had a lot of bangs and con rods sticking out but they've for it right now and the car is a beast.

 

The red, white and green car is my fathers current car (still racing in his late 70s) and is also blown although running on petrol.

 

The gray one is normally aspirated petrol engine but is still a quick car.

 

They are all bonkers. Did you note the lack of roll cage, roll over bar or even seat belts?

 

That's rather interesting. Thank you for taking the time to write all of the above, I appreciate it.

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Guest Farnsbarns

I corrected it, I got the details wrong. It's the longest running race series in the world.

 

I forget how cool it all is really, I spent most of my childhood weekends with it.

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Guest Farnsbarns

Good on you guys for keeping those open top cars for so long with all that driving on the wrong side in the constant rain you do over there.

 

rct

[-(

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