Simon, this looks very impressive! Can you tell us more? What are the goals you set yourself?
Cheers,
BertR
This is nearly 10 years ago now.....
The primary goal was can I build a car that will do a 24 hr race...
Well I'd already proved that a year earlier with the Aero8, so I suppose this was about getting a trad car through...
Also it was about giving a final step in the progression myself and Richard Thorne were trying to provide to the new customers buying Roadster Lightweights for racing.
Our plan was that you could buy a factory built Roadster Lightweight and go and campaign in Class R of the Morgan challenge
If that wasn't enough for you, then you could upgrade the car to Class B specification, more power, bigger brakes, etc
You could then further upgrade to Class A, more power again, significant chassis reinforcement, etc etc
Our aim was that people would eventually (if so inclined) want longer races, or endurance races, so we built the Roadster GT to show what could be done...
Did we achieve it?
Well, I certainly built a car that could run 24Hr races, it was faultless (although the handling left a little to be desired- frankly it was a bit over tyred on the Aero8 wheels).
The only things that broke, were a weld seam that split on the airbox, you can see the missing part in the pictures, and a bonnet catch fatigued to failure.
It was the most fuel efficient petrol car on the grid- the organisers had to return some of our fuel bond, because we used so little fuel
And it was quick...very quick in a straight line, the aerodynamic modifications I designed and fabricated made significant reductions in drag
The Mosler team (that were eventually taken out by Richard Hammond from Top Gear) actually came and petitioned us to move out of the way, as whilst we held them up in the corners, they couldn't get past us in a straight line....and that was with 7Ltrs of Chevy V8 powering them.
How much was left of an original Roadster?
The axle was original- albeit I modified the rear suspension
(NB. I've just uploaded a new picture of the rear suspension- 9 years ago I designed essentially what the factory have just done on the AR4 and 6 cars, albeit with different lateral location. The factory uses a diagonally mounted Panhard rod, whereas I used a Mumford link so that the rear rollcentre would try and mimic the crazy movement of the front...)
The rear axle had infact done a season and a bit racing. The gearbox was stock, and had again run over a season.
The body and chassis were original, albeit modified
It was definitely an evolution of the car rather than throw everything away and start again.
I did make a proper wiring harness for it though, and make sure that everything electrical talked to every thing else...
Simon @ SiFab.co.uk
