Well I was at Prescott Speed Hillclimb again today greeted by beautiful weather.
First practice was great put in a 54.77 just over 1.5 seconds quicker than my previous fastest run in April.
Second practice out of the esses and huge knocking from the bottom end limped over the line no oil pressure and the engine cut out
Got back into the paddock just! Pushed back into my slot by 5 of my fellow competitors and a marshall (who are all such a friendly bunch) as it was up hill.

Phoned the AA said please send a flat bed it finished! An hour and half later a patrol turns up! I said bottom ends fucked will you put it on the VRS? Nope it's too low you need a flat bed! No shit mate that's what I asked for!
2 and half hours later the flat bed turns up and I've just got home at 18:05 after ringing them at 12:22

I can't afford to have it rebuilt so i'm either going to try and sell as is, not sure how much a knocking bottom end devalues it? Or break it.

What's more as I didn't do a competition run I don't get a signature on my licence.

Rich

 

Shame that

Don't give up

 

Bad times mate! stick her in the garage and cool off before you make any harsh decisions.

 

bad times mate

 

Sad to hear this Rich, what Sump's on it Rich??

 

Its only a bottom end mate, can have that done in a week, crank grind, set of shells and bottom end gasket set!

 

Sounds like a plan if ya sell it you WILL want another and it will cost you more....

 

Yes as above Rich, DON'T sell it mate, i know what you've thrown into that car, your heads in the shed i'm guessing right now, don't do anything impulsive mate..

 

7 litre wide winged sump with TCS baffled section

Crank has already been ground once to a .25, this is the bloody 4th time it's happened last time it scrapped the crank and a rod.
It sounded horrific god knows what damage is done.
Rich

 

But we know what caused the other failures, this isn't the same.

 

I have spare rods you can have, the crank will go to .5 quite happily. I can come and help you take the engine out & strip/build/install it.

However, you need to find out what is happening if you have had this happen 4 times somthing somwhere is not right, what oil are you running, have you got a high pressure oil pump? Do you have an oil temp gauge?

 

Sorry to read this mate, but like whats been said, place in the garage, go away and cool down before doing anything silly

 

Which was?

 

Rich's big capacity sump leaked and to cure this his guy double skinned the bottom sadly this put the pick up too close to the bottom of the sump and restricted flow, Rich got his man to sort it.

 

Really gutted for you mate, thought I'd leave you alone as you were obviously really pissed off. I've heard far worse so keep your chin up, I know it's not cheap to fix but don't think it's over really.
Here's the kiss of death vid I took.
http://youtu.be/JqtA9iWBY90

 

really sorry to hear this mate ,stick with it though as its a beauty

 

Sorry to hear Rich after all the work you have put in to it over the years

 

this looks like a job for the PF collective

Don't give up you will just regret it

 

Sorry to hear this mate.

Don't give up. If theirs anything I can help with please let me know. Their are some decent people on here who I'm sure would be willing to help too

 

Putting it bluntley, stop feeling sorry for yourself, its an engine, if you can't afford one today then put it away, the events will still be available when your ready to rebuild it.

Motorsport does suck when it all goes wrong, ive got particular vengeance with an event, four times ive sat on the start line, and ive had four DNF's lol Other than that ive finished every event ive entered.

It will all come good, if you sell now because of cost, it will cost you 4 times as much when you feel the need again.

 

exactly

 

Get it rebuilt. It wont take much doing.

 

Gutted for you mate but as markk said I agree.

 

Gutted for you mate but at the same time if you couldn't afford to fix it the last thing you should have been doing is a Hillclimb ! You nedd deep pockets to do any kind of sports with cossies ! Stuck to away until you get the funds

 

Thanks for all the surportive comments guys, i'm not feeling sorry for myself, I am upset and was seriously pissed off yesterday as I was well within a shot of winning my class.
But i've spent a fortune on this car for it to continue to fail on me over and over again.
I love Hillclimbing it's such a great sport, so I think i'm going to sell the cossie or break it and buy something suited just for Hillclimbing.
I'd like a single seater something like a Jedi or an OMS with a 1100cc engine in.
Rich

 

Hillclimbing is a damn site easier on a car than any trackday.
Rich

 

Come on Rich lets have the engine out & at least see if it's a relatively cheap fix?

 

you should try gravel rallying if you think hillclimbing is expensive

 

Surely if you're gonna enter any competitive form of motorsport you should expect component failiures, and allow for that within budget....was never gonna last long if not tbh
Sounds like you've had some bad luck, haven't we all with modified cars...track days or racing always finds any weak links sadly, not many people run biggish bhp turbo cars faultlessly....hope you get it fixed and back out there again

 

He wants to sell/break it man, listen to him...

Buy if off him if you have the bits, problem solved...



Rich,

You'll probably hang me for saying this cus it's Jap

But Scooby Type RA's mate great hillclimbers mate...

 

I'd say, get the parts, build it yourself. I couldn't afford to have engine built so I read up on here and other forums, got the tools and did it in the garage, but I did get the head skimmed, bolted on and the timing belt done because I thought I'd cock that up, but all in all, if you take your time not too hard.

 

It was only rebuilt 500 miles ago!
Rich

 

As said, get stuck in to it, it will cost nothing to whip the engine out and have a look whats wrong, motorsport can be an expensive pain but when it goes right it makes up for it in a huge way.
look at me for example win round 2 of the championship.. round 3 wreck a gearbox in qualifying, spin and destroy my front bumper then have a water leak and retire in race 1, race 2 finish well happy in 6th out of 31 with another wrecked gearbox!
It's all ups and downs! lol

steve

 

Don't be daft, it could be a fairly simple fix for not a lot of expense , no point making rash decisions in the heat of the moment.. As said, I can give him a few bits and bobs towards the rebuild foc, might not work out expensive at all.

 

Mate i totally know where you're coming from, trust me but things like that do happen don't they!!!
I know people who track/race big bhp evo's that have spun shells during the first meeting/trackday for example or had turbo's let go after spending 10k plus on a 600bhp odd build....it's total shitbox but they just get rebuilt or left ot one side for a bit while the funds are raised and off they go again.
As you've mentioned, might be a better option to go for something more purpose built and possibly more reliable than a cossie but would you be as happy in something more common that you might not have as much love for as you do the cossie.....bet you get so many people looking/asking about it

 

who built it bud?

 

I did... and because of Rich's previous disasters everything was double and tripple checked so its not a build issue, we never get big end issues tbh. If it was a build issue I'd have expected it to have happened way before 500 miles and those would be hard miles knowing how Rich drives it!!

 

is 500 miles enough to run a new engine in though?

rich gutted to hear it, but you have never give up in the past, so just take a break, pull engine out and see whats happened, then decide from there, be shame to give up on the old girl now after all the work you have done to it, are you still on that huge turbo aswell?

 

you need to get it stripped then decide,you have been offered a crank,so the price of a re grind,some new shells and fix the problem that caused it and maybe a little more run in time so unless there is mega damage you might be lucky but totally undersand how you feel

 

who built it bud?