The list may be quiet but the new race engine in my Oxford isnt it is
beautifully noisy (and meets the noise meter requirement).
After last years disastrous run of DNFs in the Oxford I had an engine
rebuild planned ready to be back out in January. However, the bloke
building the steel billet crank let me down time and time again.
For the first two meetings of the year I had to run my MGA instead January
at Oran Park I had an old Falken FK-65E tyre delaminate going over the
dogleg and in March at Oran Park I had the throttle stick approaching the
dogleg all very character-building! However the new Yokohama A539s fitted
in March work a treat on both track and road.
Back to the Oxford. Instead of the steel billet crank we found a NOS MGB
5-bearing crank (to fit my 3-bearing block) down in Melbourne and had an
engineer build up the lazy sections with weld and then reprofile the crank
before treating it. Result is that instead of going out to 7000+RPM Im
limiting the engine to 6500RPM. The engine was run in on the bench dyno and
is putting out 120+BHP which loses a fair bit going to the rear wheels.
The engine was put back in the car at 2300hrs on a Thursday and the car was
trailered down to Wakefield Park (3 hours south of Sydney) on the Saturday
for scrutineering. I had entered for the all-British Race Meeting and was
in a group with other Group Na pre58 Classic Saloons Austin A30, MG
Magnette, Morris Major and Wolseley 1500.
Qualifying on Sunday morning was wet, wet, wet and the old tyres werent
ideal for the conditions (I had more A539s on order but they werent
available in time). Anyway, I survived several lurid slides and managed to
avoid reaching the dirt and the engine felt strong.
Had one great race with Don Titcume in his Morris Major with me sitting
one metre from his rear bumper. This all worked well until we went up the
hill and Don braked furiously and pulled over to the right and I just had
space to get past a Triumph TR7 that was rolling backwards across the track.
Final race of the day was 8 laps swapping positions with Bruce Smith in his
MG Magnette he won but we sure had a helluva time. Bruce is still running
the Magnette on Avgas whereas my new motor is tuned for Mobil Synergy 8000
in anticipation of the demise of unleaded which means that the Magnette is
about half a second quicker per lap (unless Im testing Bruce in the
corners).
Good to be back on track you betcha!
Next time on track will be the Council of Motor Clubs Display Day at Eastern
Creek Raceway in Sydney on 24-August, followed by the HSRCA all-Historic
Race Meeting also at ECreek on 5/6-Sept (at which Ive entered both the MGA
and the Oxford). If any Oz-based listers, or better still overseas
visitors, are in town drop by the track and say gday.
Keep on revving.
Andrew Axeman Pursey 1955 Morris Oxford, 1956 Morris Isis, 1958 MGA+ and
2000 Land Rover Discovery V8
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