With the Kutukans largely sitting out 2011 we have turned our attention to a few other projects, and one of the things we really wanted to do was to help bring someone along a little, to share some of the experience we have gained over the last 4 seasons.

 

Enter Philip Comer, a man who fitted our particular requirements, a brave, committed driver, who on occasion should probably have been committed. Enthusiastic, but mechanically - and we say this with the greatest respect – clueless, but he has a good go. Really that’s what we’re looking for, it pretty much describes my first season in the series, driving a hunk of junk and crashing, blowing up or just driving too damned fast for the equipment, and not knowing what the problem was.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So we nicked his car off him. It is an ex-Bob MacVicar facelift 4 litre, but who originally prepared it I don’t know. I know they were professionals, but quite which band of misfits that refers to in our paddock I don’t know. I know it was in a state when he bought it, and that some considerable money has had to be thrown at it during the season to make it capable of even rolling out of the pitlane at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was our job to take it away and tune it, and we had a few ideas about what it would need. Usually some better front dampers, maybe a tweak to the roll bars, tighten a few other bits up to just bring it along a bit. Filipe is resolutely a second in class runner usually, regularly outpacing the Seaths and Drages, with only that dastardly cheating* Harrison fellow daring to defeat him, but it wouldn’t take much to find him another second of lap time.

 

What we didn’t expect was to find his car to be such a complete deathtrap. Having paid a lot to buy it, then spent a lot to correct the more obvious and gross problems with it, the state we discovered it to be in was rather a shock. We are picky, and yes, we do counsel perfection, but this was not just a few niggles, the car was downright unsafe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In general the car is roughly in the state my beloved old car “Angelina” was when I first bought it, but that car was at least feasible on the fundamentals, whereas this one, in  my opinion, was deeply flawed.

 

Starting with those fundamentals, the cage itself was dangerous. It was mounted to the car by simply welding its feet direct. Attempts to fit mounting plates had been made, badly. They were far too small, very badly welded, and in some places the feet had been welded to the plates, but the plate not welded to the car. How it passed scrutineering I don’t know, there seemed to be a lot of disguising the lack of weld with paint and filler. I know of nobody that thinks that fillering a weld is a substitute for welding it properly in the first place, the worst, slaggy, spattery weld ever done is still better than bondo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More than one of the bolts that held it down were fake. We could tell there was a problem because one bolt was missing, and there was no hole beneath the hole. Some of those that were real were not tight. The door bars had undersized bolts that upon removal showed threadless, shiny, worn shafts from movement within their holes, the cage was moving relative to itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rearmost feet, where they penetrate the rear wheelarches, were my personal favourite, demonstrating complete misunderstanding of what it's all about. There were two lovely mounting plates fitted, precisely what you need. Except they were fitted between the cage and the wheelarch as spacers, instead of inside the wheelarch. The bolts themselves therefore went through the wheelarch, where the nuts were applied without washers. Worse than that, they had actually pulled through the metal, which means this 6-point bolt-down cage was a 4 point semi-welded cage.

 

There had obviously been a problem keeping nuts and bolts tight in the cage itself, because they were sporadically welded in place, and in a couple of places the cage was welded to itself. Not well, a sharp hammer blow was enough to break it. This car, in a heavy crash, was fundamentally dangerous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The harnesses were out of date, which is fine, they do that, but it was just a 4-pointer, and in our world a 6 is better. Fortunate that it didn’t have a 6-point in already, because the mounts for the crotch belts were themselves a joke. Anyone who has read the blue book knows that the location of the lugs for the crotch belts are somewhere underneath the seat. They have to be there, or you don’t actually get the anti-submarining protection you pay for. Thick, heavy brackets at about £1.50 each are welded under the floor, it’s easy to do, and robust. Plus they come in a cool anodised gold colour.

 

This car had nuts welded to the top of the floorpan, badly, and the lugs screwed into them. Not only that, but they were a clear foot in front of the seat. In a crash Philip would have still broken both his ankles, with the added excitement of castration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The seat should be retained by thick spreader plates beneath the floor. That's pretty fundamental, you don't want the seat to just pop the bolts through the floorpan and leave you swinging in the harnesses. The floorpan is not thick steel, it has to be helped out with something substantial. We like the big washers you get with some front shock absorbers, they work well. This had penny washers. No use whatsoever.

 

 

This is a common failing in many cars on our grid, and it is not the first time that seat mounts have come under scrutiny. You might almost forgive it in a home built machine, but not in one that has had this sort of money spent. It’s just a question of putting a bigger, thicker washer on, it’s not hard to do, it doesn’t cost a lot of money. Bleating about weight is silly, the safety parts of the car should be massive in construction, you might be throwing 1.6 tonnes of car head on into something at high speed, economising on the safety is simply stupid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had I turned up with a car prepped like this one, the rest of Kutuka would have beaten me to death with my own jack.

 

Within ten minutes of it entering the garage then we have discovered that it has three serious safety faults. Good start.

 

A bounce on the car reveals that the front offside and the two rear nearside shocks are all utterly kippered. Deceased. The offside rears were set fully stiff. It must have been a complete pig to corner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anti roll bars are Jaguar standard items. Not Harvey Bailey, but stock. Standard roll bars, with ropey bushes, plus dead shocks. Nice.

 

The car is far too low, it is obvious once we remove the front skirt that it’s wrong in there.

 

This is all without taking anything off the car, we have not at this point even looked at spring rates, or bushes, or indeed anything we set out to consider.

 

If this car was doing what it did with this many faults there is a good chance that simply repairing the parts that are broken to the standard they should have been will make a huge difference.

 

It is fair to say then that we found ourselves more work than we had intended. At the same time though, when we’re done there is a good chance that at least one man on the XJS grid will live longer. Put that way it’s worth a few hours.

 

Part 2 on the way  - the horrors continue.