[Tamar]

THX Jason, and contrary to what I thought in July...one that's not finished ....

Ford GT LM: Play it again Sam
When my part in the Organisation of the DiSCA Finals @ Igualada become more time consuming than provisioned, Plan B, a.k.a the by now trustworthy #18 Ford GT LM had to be called upon once again.
The Ford had been one of the test mules for the Policar evaluation we did on the Slotracing2go track so I had a base set-up to start with, but that test run also reminded me that there still remained some unfinished items on my Ford's "to do list".

To do list: Rework Lights wiring
Clean up and rework the lights wiring was one of them. May look like small detail stuff, but bad wiring can actually seriously f-up your car's handling.
And its almost always something that you notice post race and makes you think "will do that for the next one". And then you forget about it until its too late, and off course and you have to run with it again.
So...not this time mate.


On the left, lights wiring after Rockingham, on the right after Igualada, also noticeable here the front splitter now attached to the body


On the Ford we had two sets of wires crossing over from left side of the body to the right. The red & blue were for the green position lights, the yellow and blue were for the Flaming exhaust led's.
During the hectic 05:30 hrs Saturday morning fit the lights before the lM 24hr race session..both had been cut a bit too short.
Not by much, but I later discovered that they did interfere with the body float. As the Finals would not have a night session I carefully removed the position lights and wire from the body.
Did not want to miss my flaming exhaust pipes (great indicators of you brake points when you car runs parallel to your driving position) so I rerouted those.
I also remounted the Z-Machine light chip on fresh pads a bit higher in the body. Turned out that the Capacitor kept the body from resting square and flat on the body supports.
Last but not least. I used more flexible wires for the connector to the chassis. The stock ones on the Z-machine chip can be a bit stiff, stiff enough to lift the 20gr body from the supports.
With the chip remounted and cleaned up (softer) wires the body now rested rock solid on the 4 support mounts.

To do list: Remove Front Splitter from Chassis.
This modification had intentionally been left on the to do list. In general I prefer to run my cars with the front splitter attached to the body and not on the chassis as with most RTR cars.
But as Stefan Nalbach had copied the Scalex chassis in its initial ProSpeed design, we ran the Ford @ Le Mans in this configuration..what can I say...it makes one hell of a great bumper.
As John Ny would join the team and make his debut in DiSCA racing @ the Rockingham 6hrs, I though it might be best to keep that bumper for one more race.
John proved himself as a very stable driver and didn't put a scratch on the car so when it became celar that we would run the Ford again in Spain..it was time for the splitter modification.


The reasoning behind this modification is that I want to be able to set, adjust and control, body & chassis movement independently.
On the Ford that big splitter works great as a bumper, but it also works as a snowplow, grabbing every unevenness on the track.
It would also lift the front of the body every time the guide encounters a bump on the track.


So off came the 3dp splitter from the chassis, and onto the body I crafted the Splitter I had cut from the OEM Scalex chassis. (also see top picture right with the bodies on the scale)
Works better and looks much nicer. As usual my preferred method to attach the splitter to the body was BisonTix Neoprene glue. Tough as hell  but it always remains a bit flexible,
just enough to be able to give a bit in a big crash. Picture above right was taken after the Igualada race, the splitter did take a few hits...but didn't move an inch, not even a 1/32 inch.
DiSCA WEC Finals, Catalunya  6hrs: I just love it when a Plan ( B ) comes together.

 
With all the mods and detail jobs done the Ford was ready for its first run on the lovely Catalunya Policar track. Nice track, nice lay-out with some wide open corners some of which were taken almost flat out.
But surprisingly during the practice sessions the Ford struggled a bit for grip, mostly on the 2nd half of the circuit. It was still one of the fastest GT's, but we had much less grip than usual compared to the Flat-6 engined LMP1's.
With hindsight and for reasons I have explained in more detail in this post, we lacked a bit of magnetic downforce.
The smooth and flat Policar track gave us a higher ground clearance as the distance between the motor and the track rails was bigger than on Ninco. 
 

Top picture the Ford GTLM on fresh 20,6mmø trees, Bottom picture with the rund down 19,2mmø N18's after 6hrs of hard racing...but still with ample GC under the diffuser.

After running for 2,5 hours on the same N18’s did the Ford finally started to behave. With the SW MX16 configuration the lower the tyres got, the better the car handled.
So when I handed the car over after 3 hrs Marc (Wiggers) asked should'nt we change tyres? A quick check for GC showed we had more than enough, so we ran the whole 6 hrs on the same set of N18’s.
In fact he smooth and flat surface of the Policar track allowed us to run the tyres down from 20,6mmø to 19,2 mmø with still ample GC at the end of the race.
I tested the magnetism of Ford GT pre and post race and it went from 1773 ut at a GC of 1,7 mm on a tech block, to a whopping 2330 ut with a 1mm GC.
Off course the only reason we were able to do so was because our Diffuser Mod to mount it on to the motorpod.
Had it been attached to the main chassis we would have been dragging our ass on the track after 3 hrs.  
 
As Hannibal used to say I. the A team:" I just love it when a plan comes together."



With kind regards
Tamar