Scuderia Ferric Oxide

If you are leaving the fuel tank where it is, then do me a favor, Put a piece of kevlar or something between the transmission and the tank. I remember seeing a post from Steve H on this as well. Just some extra prevention in case something goes wrong and you have clutch and metal pieces flying around behind you.

I am really excited to see how this turns out!
a scatter shield was always one of the pieces of safety equipment being fitted... standing up in the background is the sump guard from my 128 rally car from many years ago... I knew the time would come to recycle it (or pieces of it) onto another race car one day.

20210214_155803.jpg

SteveC
 
A few reasons,

I can't see any advantage to change it for this build, I don't need more capacity as 40 litres is the max amount of fuel you can have at one fill up.

and I kinda feel Marcello took a lot of time / effort to package the fuel tank where he did, and I don't think I can get a tank of the same capacity to package up front as well.

plus, although it's not currently a requirement in lemons to have a fire supression system, it will probably happen and this way all the flammable stuff is in one place.

SteveC

Better check LeMons regs on the on-board fire system. It is now required for LeMons racing in the USA.

Fuel cell is a really good idea.


Bernice
 
Better check LeMons regs on the on-board fire system. It is now required for LeMons racing in the USA.

Fuel cell is a really good idea.


Bernice
On board fire supression not yet required for lemons in my part of the world, minimum requirement is a 1kg hand held in reach of the seated / strapped in driver. (all my road cars have this already so that was a given anyway)

it's just packaging for the tank, it really is in the best place already IMO. I'm fitting a roll over vent valve / fuel return from the carb, and the clear breather from the 2l litre alloy fuel surge tank into AN fittings, all three into an alloy plate that bolts where the original fuel sender / pickup is on the tank

The standard tank already has good roll over anti siphon venting, a conbination of those two lines and the (roll over) vent valve, plus where and how the tank (and my whole fuel system) is mounted make it pretty safe in any sort of incident IMO

SteveC
 
Engine mountings. making sure everything stays put.

The top engne torque rod is "solid" bushed with two urethane bushes

I use a superpro SPF020 bush.

While totally crap for their intended application as a suspension bush in a 124 / 131 (they are an EXACT copy of the rubber original, so when the OE steel sleeve is press thru the bush effectively locks solid) they work great as a replacement "dog-bone" bush for a 128 / X19

Take to the edges of the SPF020 with a hand held grinder (I mount mine in a vice, I don't like to use my bench grinder for plastics/alloys) a bit like this, it's not rocket science, just so it goes in a little easier.
20190613_122138.jpg20190613_122148.jpg

To get the old bush out of the torque rod, press out the centre steel sleeve, make sure you clean the old sleeve p they are usually a bit rusty
20190613_122326.jpg

simply by hand slip one end of the slightly modified SPF020 bush into the torque rod end, it should be a snug push thru the hole... I usually run a hand file around the inside of the steel bush ID to make sure there are no rough edges... and rubber grease is always a good thing.
20190613_122758.jpg20190613_122914.jpg

next step I actually forgot to take a pic of, but it makes the job much much easier... slip the inner steel sleeve into the urethane bush...in this pic it would be in from the right hand side... but ONLY PUT IT IN ABOUT 1/3 OF THE WAY....then put the whole lot into the vice again with some appropriate sockets and give it a squeeze to push the bush home, and then to push the sleeve thru the bush
20190613_123258.jpg20190613_122936.jpg

after a bit of jiggling, you'll get this....now the bush is actually a tiny bit too wide, so take to it again to trim it for length with the angle grinder...
20190613_134535.jpg20190613_134905.jpg

I've done this a few times so it took maybe 20 minutes from start to finish including stopping and picking up my phone to take the pics to do each bush., with two urethane bushes installed
20190614_140717.jpg

Front engine mount upgrade.

I use a bush from some Alfa romeo that I had a few of in a job lot of parts I bought. the other parts with it are needed for the "conversion" they are a cople of seat belt spacers, and an M12 bolt to replace the standard M10
20210222_202234.jpg

You remove the old worn out rubber from the mount, there are two types too, one I think must be for late model air conditioned cars, it's just a minor relief to the casting for some extra clearance for something.
20210222_202419.jpg20210222_202437.jpg

the alfa bush is a little smaller in OD, but if you leave the original outer steel sleeve in, it's a snug press in fit

20210222_202245.jpg20210222_202153.jpg20210222_202208.jpg

I drill the seat belt bush to 12mm ID. on the smaller stepit's 14mm OD. I trim it down for length, I drill the centre steel sleeve on the rubber bush to 14mm but only do a depth of maybe 10mm, and then press the stepped bush into place which sits snugly in the standard engine cradle. You need to drill the body to M12 hole size

engine cross member modifications

Still a work in progress but my usual"go -to" mod for a 128 in the past has been to add additional fasteners and plates. Handy size is the captive nut / spacer plate from the shifter linkage on an X19/128. Lower cross member gets reinforced a little, jack lift poibt removed as I dont want it to be used for that, (I dont want someone putting a jack cradle thru some component.).

Lower engine mount for the monment is standard original Fiat part. I have some old OE parts that I've removed the rubber from and may cast in urethane. Twice as many fasteners, in two different planes makes for it never falling out or coming loose... can be a bit of a jiggle to get it all to line up to start with as well.
20210222_202513.jpg20210222_202532.jpg

I thought I had a 128 cross member in my workshop to take pictures of and compare to this X19 one, but it's dark outside so I'll find it to show everyone the differences in the next few days.
20210222_203103.jpg20210222_203119.jpg20210222_203138.jpg20210222_203217.jpg20210222_203225.jpg

SteveC
 
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This afternoon I drilled a few 3/8 holes, and fitted some M8 nutserts from the el cheapo $22aud delivered alloy nutsert kit I bought online to mount some of the lighter components. It worked suprisingly well

The empty spare wheel well has started to look busy.

20210223_184222.jpg20210223_184313.jpg20210223_184416.jpg20210223_184455.jpg20210223_184505.jpg

SteveC
 
I lifted the lemon chassis up onto a steel frame this morning. It was just sitting on the ground on some old tyres, but the time has come to have access underneath and have the chassis level and square.
20210227_121935.jpg20210227_122031.jpg
A quick view of my workspace, I don't want to be grinding / welding / painting inside my shed, and the extension isn't finished yet, so this my solution.

In the background you can see a "donor" car.

Regata 85s, purchased recently, not registered and it wasn't running (but it does now) it's not specifically for ths project as I allready have all the parts from another of the same, but this is just to show how a chunk of parts can come from another model. This one has dealer fitted air conditioning too, so gets the huge radiator same as I'm using in the lemon, same electronic ignition, same 5 speed tripode inner axle transmission, etc etc...
20210227_122052.jpg20210227_122148.jpg20210227_122235.jpg

this was $350 for a complete car, I was in the right place at the right time...

It's a 1300 block and four speed sitting in there now so I can fabricate the exhaust front pipes I want to make. So before I take all the "race car" parts off again, a few progress pictures showing the layout of some of the parts
20210227_174435.jpg20210227_174359.jpg20210227_174258.jpg20210227_174059.jpg20210227_173821.jpg


SteveC
 
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Dummy fit up of the components up the front of the car.
radiator trial fit b.jpgradiator trial fit.jpg
Positioning the last few of the major components now has me thinking about suspension setup, and in particular spring rates that I can use with the available struts in my price range. With the freedoms to build what you like in lemons, I've tried to get all the components positioned as close to the cars CG as possible. Things like the exhaust beng moved forward and the radiator back, as well as removing as much weight as possible from the cars ends, improves the Polar Moment of Inertia.

20210308_192304.jpg


I dont want to go thru endless math to figure it out, I just want to know that I've done the best I can to make the numbers as low as possible.

It also affects my springing requirement (once again I don't want to do all the math) as I'm sure the lower weight of my car - hoping for / aiming for 700 to 750kg / 1550 / 1650 lbs on the grid with a full tank of fuel - as well as the lower PMOI and (hopefully) a lowered CG ( which affects the weight transfer both forward and lateral) so with this in mind I'm looking for a recommendation for springing ( @Steve Hoelscher )

Car is LHD and local track is CCW racing. Steering rack is 2.75 turns lock to lock with the exact same tie rod travel as the X19 rack. I don't have aproblem with converting the outer TRE to a rod end and making this adjustable for height.

I have a very small / light sway bar I may add to the front, attached to the LCA at the outer end, routed thru the area under the steerig rack, it's only 16mm or so (I think 850 / 600) to tune the roll stiffness

Upper strut mounts I have someT3 tuning ones from some Japanese car, they were on special with an ebay discount and quite cheap at about $140 a pair.
camber plates.jpg

all other suspension is OE / rubber bushed
Rims are Lancia Beta coupe 8 spoke by F.P.S. (same people who make the wheels for Ducati) 14 x 5.5
Tyres are limited to a certain treadwear number...I've been holding off for as long as possible to buy the tyres so they have half a chance of being fresh for October., but likely 185/50/14 or 185/55/14
short 4.82 final drive

Now most discussions about springs and spring rates usually lead to a side discussion about struts and dampers, and how most need some modification to work with a "lowered" car. I want to do it a little differently, moving the body sheetmetal surface the upper strut mount bolts to, upwards by maybe 40 or 50mm, effectively lowering the car by the same amount. I need to rework the metal to fit these camber adjustment plates anyway, and most people would reinforce this area anyway, so I figured why not use some stout steel pipe of the right diameter sliced on the bandsaw, and a new top surface exactly parallel to the original, moving the whole face upwards

The trouble with very short springs (as discussed many times) is
a) keeping the spring captive on full suspension droop
b) having sufficient strut shaft travel with the shorter spring

raising the mounting surface lets me find strut inserts that work with a standard length spring / stock lower spring perch height.

I will (eventually) get around to adding adjustable lower spring perches, but only to fine tune and corner weight the car, not for wholesale ride height changes, but not sure if i'll have a chance to do that before october so it's second option right now.

What do you think? Am I missing something?

SteveC
 
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It's not difficult to move the upper strut mounts up in the rear, but you can't move the front mounts up without going through the frunk lid. May not be a problem with a lemons car? Might look a little funky.
 
Might look a little funky.

bulges in the hood / bonnet to cover the strut towers wouldn't be a problem... I don't mind funky as long as it's 100% functonal.

There are a few other racing X19's I've seen out there in pictures with small bumps and bulges / nipples in the bonnet / hood about where the centre of the strut shaft would be, and yes lemons "freedoms" and a fibreglass hood makes that no real issue for this case.

SteveC
 
I dropped the dummy engine / trans out this afternoon, a little bit of panel beating and grinding / welding I want to get done, and then lift a 1300 block into place so I can jig up for a 4-2 front exhaust pipe I've been wanting to manufacture for sale...this big empty space is a good opportunity to design / fabricate it and ensure the item will fit perfectly.

How's this for Cavernous!
View attachment 42853

I'm thnking I may cut a second duct hole on the left side of the car as well, purely for thru engine bay airflow.

A mock up of the engine cover, of course the sides will all need to be sealed as there is no rear window, so you can't see thru to the engine bay at all from the drivers view... but a vent at the rear is OK.
View attachment 42854View attachment 42855View attachment 42856View attachment 42857

I'm also planning on cutting out and meshing a lot of the rear panel between where the tail lights used to live.

The stock engine bay under shields all still fit, and I'll use them or something similar to seal the "underside" air. Air passing thru the ducts (well three of them) is "topside" air, and it will be able to flow out thru the vent in the engine cover and a lot of opening area at the rear of the car.

Both spots I'm hoping / guessing / figuring are low pressure areas and this will help pull air into the side ducts, as they work best if you manage the pressure differential in the low pressure area behind the car. (in the stock car that's alos the area behind the rear window)

The fuel tank now fits in from the top as well, so I can seal the floor area under the tank and smooth the underside air there.as best as possible.

SteveC

What will you need to add in terms of cross bracing to offset the targa removal? Looks pretty cool as a convertible....
 
Dummy fit up of the components up the front of the car.
View attachment 44247View attachment 44248
Positioning the last few of the major components now has me thinking about suspension setup, and in particular spring rates that I can use with the available struts in my price range. With the freedoms to build what you like in lemons, I've tried to get all the components positioned as close to the cars CG as possible. Things like the exhaust beng moved forward and the radiator back, as well as removing as much weight as possible from the cars ends, improves the Polar Moment of Inertia.

View attachment 44249

I dont want to go thru endless math to figure it out, I just want to know that I've done the best I can to make the numbers as low as possible.

It also affects my springing requirement (once again I don't want to do all the math) as I'm sure the lower weight of my car - hoping for / aiming for 700 to 750kg / 1550 / 1650 lbs on the grid with a full tank of fuel - as well as the lower PMOI and (hopefully) a lowered CG ( which affects the weight transfer both forward and lateral) so with this in mind I'm looking for a recommendation for springing ( @Steve Hoelscher )

Car is LHD and local track is CCW racing. Steering rack is 2.75 turns lock to lock with the exact same tie rod travel as the X19 rack. I don't have aproblem with converting the outer TRE to a rod end and making this adjustable for height.

I have a very small / light sway bar I may add to the front, attached to the LCA at the outer end, routed thru the area under the steerig rack, it's only 16mm or so (I think 850 / 600) to tune the roll stiffness

Upper strut mounts I have someT3 tuning ones from some Japanese car, they were on special with an ebay discount and quite cheap at about $140 a pair.
View attachment 44250

all other suspension is OE / rubber bushed
Rims are Lancia Beta coupe 8 spoke by F.P.S. (same people who make the wheels for Ducati) 14 x 5.5
Tyres are limited to a certain treadwear number...I've been holding off for as long as possible to buy the tyres so they have half a chance of being fresh for October., but likely 185/50/14 or 185/55/14
short 4.82 final drive

Now most discussions about springs and spring rates usually lead to a side discussion about struts and dampers, and how most need some modification to work with a "lowered" car. I want to do it a little differently, moving the body sheetmetal surface the upper strut mount bolts to, upwards by maybe 40 or 50mm, effectively lowering the car by the same amount. I need to rework the metal to fit these camber adjustment plates anyway, and most people would reinforce this area anyway, so I figured why not use some stout steel pipe of the right diameter sliced on the bandsaw, and a new top surface exactly parallel to the original, moving the whole face upwards

The trouble with very short springs (as discussed many times) is
a) keeping the spring captive on full suspension droop
b) having sufficient strut shaft travel with the shorter spring

raising the mounting surface lets me find strut inserts that work with a standard length spring / stock lower spring perch height.

I will (eventually) get around to adding adjustable lower spring perches, but only to fine tune and corner weight the car, not for wholesale ride height changes, but not sure if i'll have a chance to do that before october so it's second option right now.

What do you think? Am I missing something?

SteveC
I've read the PBS book (raising suspension mount points to retain spring travel and geometry while lowering CG). Seems like your approach is excellent Steve.
 
I've read the PBS book (raising suspension mount points to retain spring travel and geometry while lowering CG). Seems like your approach is excellent Steve.

FYI: What PBS did in raising the pickups was not well thought out and cause more problems than it solved.
 
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Steve, a few motes on suspension setup:

To facilitate using an OE type strut, retain suspension travel while lowering the car, raising the top mount is the easy solution. On my blue car the ruleset prohibited modifying the strut turret but any mount could be used (so long as I didn't have to modify the turret to install it). So I mounted the camber plates on top of the turret, extending the strut shaft through the hole. The plate set on top with a spacer between the plate's mounting holes and the top of the turret. I assume you can modify the turret so simply cutting away the setup for the center hole provides for mounting the plates with whatever spacing you need to retain travel. You will have to either clearance the hood (front bonnet) to clear the camber plates or, as I did on another car, simply cut a hole in the hood and allow the top mount to extend through it. The rear shouldn't be a problem.

I noted you are going to use 14" wheels. I should note, at least in the US, 14" tires, especially performance tires, are very difficult to find.

A note on lowering the car. The struts bottoming internally are certainly a problem on a lowered car. However, once that problem is solved (per above) the next problem is the top of the tire hitting the under side of the top strut turret. This is especially true if you are using a taller tire (as noted by the 14" comment). Once you have the specifics of the front spring/strut/mount worked out, perform a range of motion check with a tire fitted and see if it hits the top of the inner fender (strut turret underside). If so, you will want to add a bottoming pad to the strut to prevent the tire from hitting the inner fender panel.

Spring rates will be in part determined by what tire you choose. The lower the grip level, the softer the springs. So understanding the tire you choose will be important. That said, I have often run a light front swaybar as a tuning aid on the front of road race X's. If you can run the bar dimensions through a sway bar calculator (there are some easy ones online) and let me know where on the control arm you want to attach it, I can use that value along with the tire info, to give you a starting point on rates.
 
Good to know Steve. Interested to know what problems were caused, if we may prevail on you to opine on the root issues created.

I think I have discussed this previously, but PBS raised the front control arm pickup points significantly without moving the track rod (radius arm) mounts. In the rear they did much the same, raising the rear lower A-arm mount but only raised the front mount slightly.

The front track rod/control arm assembly duplicate the function of the rear A-arm. The axis drawn through the two pivots determines the suspension's anti-dive characteristics. To create the appropriate anti-drive geometry the front "A-arm" pickup must be above the rear. On both the front and rear PBS raised the rear pickup enough to be above the front pickup. This reverses the anti-dive geometry and wrecks the braking characteristics.

The other problem is there is no need for the roll centers to be raised significantly. I was able to lower my blue car to about as low as was practical from a ride height perspective and still position the roll centers at slightly above ground level. The PBS mods place the roll centers significantly above that, even with the car lowered.

I have driven and setup cars that had the PBS mods as well as cars that didn't. Mine included. The car's with the standard pickups were noticeably better.
 
Just so everyone can visualise the IC and RC on a strut suspension...
20210309_143247.jpg


as there are two possible points of adjustment for camber (1. strut lower mount to hub bolts and 2. the strut upper mount to body bolts) is there any advamtage to altering the angle of the strut turret to position the IC differently or change the strut inclination? i.e slot the upper strut mout holes to induce excessive negative camber, and then pull the top mounts pivot point out towards the outside of the car to bring the negative camber back to spec...

I've never sat down and drawn out the myriad of possiblilties of the double jointed style, but it would seem the most effective way to alter the strut axis centreline and the tyre contact patch / ground line crossing point of the same.

My plan was to lower the car so the front LCA was level between the pivot points and leave it at that for the front, then set the rear height so the car sits level, and deal with any bump steer remediation after that.

Tyres for Lemons / BEERS australia are 220 UTQG (treadwear) or higher, so down at the performance end of passenger car tyres, but by no means a true performance tyre anyway.

I've just sent a message off to a friend (and fellow X19 owner) who owns / runs a tyre shop in the city, askiing him what's available in Australia, but I'm thinking along these lines..

http://www.tireshot.com/tire/Dunlop-SP-Sport-01-185-60R14-82H-tire#
http://www.tireshot.com/tire/BFGoodrich-G-Grip-185-60R14-82H-tire
http://www.tireshot.com/tire/Michelin-Energy-XM1-Plus-185-60R14-82H-BSW-tire
http://www.tireshot.com/tire/Pirelli-P6-185-60R14-82H-BSW-tire

only linking to this site as it gave good search for size and UTQG numbers facilities, but US based. Nothing at the lowest UTQG numbers as I want them to have some reasonable wet weather ability too, so aiming in the 240 -300 range for good grip, reasonable wear, reasonable wet performance.

14 inch rims to clear the 257mm x 20mm vented discs up front and 257 x 12 discs at the rear....
Lancia rims because they are cheap, and I have 8 that cost me zero... and they are quite light and strong, I have some alloy spacers to correct the offset.
20210309_150558.jpg

I'll dig out the sway bars I have and do the calcs, take some pictures.

lunctime today I broke out the MIG and tacked this together, my firewall door, which now swings down and clears the drivers seat.
20210309_150629.jpg20210309_150649.jpg


SteveC
 
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The relationships between the top strut mount (which is actually the angle of the strut), the control arm, instant center and roll center is an interesting one. This is exactly the relationship that I spent time modeling on my MR2 to get the desired roll center height and camber curve.

Moving the strut top toward the centerline of the car (which increases the angle of the strut) will raise the roll center because the instant center moves closer to the wheel. A side benefit is it does improve the camber curve due to the change in angle of the strut. Which also produced more static negative camber.

Your comment about slotting the strut towers to move the strut inboard, and then adjusting camber at the point where the strut meets the upright is a key method of achieving the desired combination of roll center height, camber curve and static camber. However, there isn't a lot of room in the existing tower to do much with this.

A tire with a UTOG TW rating in the 250 to 300 range isn't terrible. I might start with spring rates in the 550 to 600 lbs/in front and 450 to 500 rear. Along with your light front swaybar.
 
It seems everyone in the states uses the Dunlop Direzza tires instead. UTOG of 200, which for us is the lowest you can go. They are a great tire and there is a 185/60/14 size as well.

All Specs​

SIZE
UTQG
TIRE WEIGHT​
1,047 lbs​
51 psi​
8/32"​
17 lbs​
5-6.5"​
5.5"​
6.3"​
6"​
22.8"​
931​
JP
 
It seems everyone in the states uses the Dunlop Direzza tires instead. UTOG of 200, which for us is the lowest you can go. They are a great tire and there is a 185/60/14 size as well.

All Specs​

SIZE
UTQG
TIRE WEIGHT​
1,047 lbs​
51 psi​
8/32"​
17 lbs​
5-6.5"​
5.5"​
6.3"​
6"​
22.8"​
931​
JP
220 UTQG and above is the specs for lemons in Australia - which is now called BEERS - Budget Extreme Endurance Racing - as lemons went into receivership and is now being run by a different organiser but using the same format / rules.

unfortunately there are no non stop 24 hour events planned for my state (or possibly australia wide) at the moment, I believe it's an insurance issue.

Collie motorplex is only about an hour from my home, recently had a major injection of funds and improvements. I haven't driven there for nearly 20 years and I recall it was very rough and bumpy club circuit, but looks world class and smooth now.

In the last few years motor cycle racing had no place to run as the major circuit close to perth (wanneroo raceway) couldn't get approval for bikes as there are some big earth and concrete walls very close to the track, so Collie was developed as the home of motor cycle racing in W.A. Has a short and long formats. Racing is CCW

redevlopment took place in 2017
2017-extensions-plan_orig.png


So the racing format for Octobers event is
Thursday free prcatice, only four vehicles on track at once, short track only
Friday 8 hours of racing - short circuit
Saturday 8 hours of racing - long track

I've never driven the long track, and none of the "test and tune" days run by the Collie motorsport club are long track days, so first lap of racing on that circuit is going to be my first lap period....apart for the track walkaround I'll do .

16 hours of racing over two days is still a lot of driving, but likely with a fresh set of tyres for day two of racing, and after a good nights sleep.

SteveC
 
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