New member with racecar!

Mungous · Post by **Mungous** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 4:52 am

Hello to all lovers of weird boxy French cars!

I have a couple of valvers at the moment - a standard red Ph2 road car (sitting in a shed waiting for me to get it repainted) and a white Ph1 that is for track use only (caged, two seats and a pair of harnesses):

Whitey (as he is known) is currently fairly standard as well - just the bare minimum mods to get it onto the track. Other than the necessary changes to the interior, I have dropped it about 40mm front and rear, replaced the spheres with Hydractive ones (gassed to very low pressures), and popped a Constella sump baffle in it.

I'm wondering if anyone on here has much experience with track use for these cars, as I suspect there is a lot more that can be done fairly easily to make it a bit quicker (aside from additional BHP, which will come in due course).

Currently, I am battling with finding decent brake pads, high engine temperatures and a squidgy back end.

Any comments/suggestions/questions are welcome!

Cheers
Mungous

frog · Post by **frog** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 7:27 am

Welcome!

Hopefully Gary C will be along soon to tell you about Bertie!
I've not tracked mine so I can't really comment.

Nice LHM, fresh rear arm bearings and greased up front struts would help I'm sure.

A Quaife would make a big difference to!

Post by **Mike P** » Mon Jan 06, 2014 1:13 pm

Welcome to the Forum

As already stated, Gary C is the man to talk too and I'm sure he will be along soon.

Mike P

Mungous · Post by **Mungous** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 4:40 am

b*****ks. Broken cambelt caused by failed (new) alternator belt has lead to all 16 valves being bent.

Timmo · Post by **Timmo** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 7:32 am

Welcome matey! and Oooooops on the cambelt! ive one in the shed with a similar number bent from the belt splitting,

Gary C is our resident BX Racer, and his is a White p1 too!!

Post by **Mike P** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 2:09 pm

How did one failed belt cause the other to fail, was the cambelt cover not fitted

Mike P

Mungous · Post by **Mungous** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 9:29 pm

Mike P wrote:How did one failed belt cause the other to fail, was the cambelt cover not fitted

It seems that the alternator belt started fraying, and bits of it were flapping and rubbing on the bottom plastic cover (which is now pretty badly damaged as well). Once I took the covers off, I found a number of pieces of the alternator belt had been sucked inside the covers - these I suspect wrapped around the cambelt, causing it to break.

Mungous · Post by **Mungous** » Wed Jan 08, 2014 9:32 pm

Timmo wrote:Welcome matey! and Oooooops on the cambelt! ive one in the shed with a similar number bent from the belt splitting,

Gary C is our resident BX Racer, and his is a White p1 too!!

We had a bit of a white Ph1 racecar get together at the track a few weeks back:

No 65 and my car have almost consecutive chassis numbers!

White seems to be the fastest colour...

frog · Post by **frog** » Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:04 am

Great to see all the Valvers at the track!

Shame about your head! May be a good excuse to do some work to it?
I'm sure you've seen this.
http://www.taylor-eng.com

Post by **Mike P** » Thu Jan 09, 2014 7:40 pm

Nice photo, all non-sunroof cars as well

Mike P

Mungous · Post by **Mungous** » Thu Jan 09, 2014 10:36 pm

frog wrote:Great to see all the Valvers at the track!

Shame about your head! May be a good excuse to do some work to it?
I'm sure you've seen this.
http://www.taylor-eng.com

Yes, I know about Peter - he is a fountain of useful knowledge! Although I am currently much more interested in sorting out my handling and brakes at this point (especially given the mutterings I've heard about the 16v racecar that raced at Bathurst during the 90s).

There is a race class that has recently begun here that I am participating in - for almost entirely standard cars that are worth less than NZD2000 (GBP1000). I'm not really allowed to make too many modifications, but have some latitude in the shock/spring (ie. sphere) department.

Here's some footage of a race from last year:

http://youtu.be/GUv_w3zxIaw

Kitch · Post by **Kitch** » Sat Jan 11, 2014 12:24 am

Why BX 16v?

Because racecar.

frog · Post by **frog** » Sun Jan 12, 2014 3:36 am

This thread has the info on the bathurst spheres:

http://bx16valve.co.uk/forum/viewtopic. ... e+bathurst

Michael is still around here and on Aussiefrogs

Some more links for your perusal:

http://bx16valve.co.uk/forum/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0

http://www.aussiefrogs.com/forum/citro% ... print.html

Mungous · Post by **Mungous** » Sun Jan 12, 2014 9:30 am

Yes - I had seen those threads. Very interesting! I am not yet at the stage of making a set of adjustable spheres, but would be interested to hear what basic set-ups people use on the track. I have spoken with Michael, but he isn't sure of the pressures or the spec of the shims in those old spheres.

As mentioned, I'm running Xantia Hydractive spheres front and rear, with the rears dropped to 5 bar.

Has anyone tried fitting a 405x4 rear end to a BX? The single sphere must give a far higher effective spring rate. I've located a suitable rear end to use, but just have to get it sent up-country to me. The hydraulic side should be fairly simple to set up.

I've heard of someone running a Xantia hydraulic component that limits body roll or something? I know nothing further of this, but would be interested to hear from someone who does!

frog · Post by **frog** » Sun Jan 12, 2014 10:01 am

It would be far too hard to adapt the Xantia Activa setup to the BX. Better off starting with a Xantia Activa.

One of those threads had some peoples set ups.

I had Xantia double diaphragm's on mine but swopped back to regassed Valver spheres, which is nice for a daily.

BX16V.com Forum

BX16V.com Forum

New member with racecar!

New member with racecar!