Pimp2 - the rebuild starts

[The Nun]

Great photos. some really nice cars there, of course the weather helped, not your typical bank holiday sort, even 21C here

[Bobbycham]

Yeah certainly a few Bobs worth , would have been a good day out.
Thanks for making the pictures available to us.
Bob

[pimpdriver]

Had a great day at Crystal Palace. As usual a brilliantly run day by the 7 Oaks club. I didn't get to see much of the rest of the show outside of the Sprint as it was a quite a busy day. The car created a lot of interest, especially by people asking me what bike engine is in it. They seemed amazed that the car still had a little old original imp engine in it. Met lots of fellow Impers, including a guy who had a beautiful Classic Side-car with an Imp engine in. The only bit of the show I saw outside the Sprint was the Imp Club display which had a great selection of variants.

For the Sprint itself, the car was going very well with me having a tussle with a long time adversary in a 1380 BDA powered Ford Anglia. I came second in class at the end with the Anglia beating me by 0.2 secs on his last run. This was in the class for modified cars from the 60's , no cc limit, but the little cars find the tight track a bit easier than the more powerful larger cars. For the last few runs in the car it kept on jumping out of second gear, so I was having to hold in gear whilst negotiating the tight bends. I'm not sure what is wrong, but it being a Jack Knight 4 speed box, it is probably the dogs on the gears may have worn too much after years of abuse. Gearbox is now out of the car but I'll wait until tomorrow night to open it up.

Andrew Cairney was going very well in his well turned out less modified car and I think got 5th in class.

Only downside was the journey back, left the park at about 8 o/clock after too much chatting. Got lost trying to get out of the park, and then got stuck in London traffic on the way home and arrived back at midnight.

I've entered 2 events in a fortnight, I hope to get the gearbox sorted by then or else I'll have to cancel.

Cheers

Eric

[ImpManiac]

It was great to see you and Pimp2 at Crystal Palace, Eric. The car looks every bit as good in the flesh as it does in your pictures - and Pete's. It goes rather nicely too!

I took some video of one of your later runs. Do you want me to email it to you or shall I post a link to it here? PM me your email address, if that is your preference.

I too had a thoroughly enjoyable day at Motorsport at the Palace.

IM

[pimpdriver]

Paul
Feel free to post the link on here
Eric

[skamanfrank]

Eric, which events are you doing this year/championship do you compete in? I'm attending a few events this year with my boss who runs a Pilbeam in the British and the Midlands Hillclimb Championships, would be good to see the imp in action should you be at any of them!

Regards
Frank

[pimpdriver]

Eric, which events are you doing this year/championship do you compete in? I'm attending a few events this year with my boss who runs a Pilbeam in the British and the Midlands Hillclimb Championships, would be good to see the imp in action should you be at any of them!

Regards
Frank

Frank
I'm going to Loton Park on the Sat 6th of August - unfortunately the Sat of the IMP National, but i'll be at the National on Sunday.
I'll be at Curborough on the 21st of August and
The British Hillclimb Weekend at Gurston Down on the 27-28th of August (Bank holiday Sat & Sun)

Who is the boss ?

Cheers

Eric

[pimpdriver]

I took some video of one of your later runs. Do you want me to email it to you or shall I post a link to it here? PM me your email address, if that is your preference.

IM

Paul's Video - cheers mate

[skamanfrank]

The British Hillclimb Weekend at Gurston Down on the 27-28th of August (Bank holiday Sat & Sun)

Should see you at Gurston down then in that case!
The boss is Oliver Tomlin- runs a blue Pilbeam MP97 with Judd F1 engine (it's actually his Mum's car, Sandra, who also competes). I've assumed the role of chief tyre scrubber this year

[pimpdriver]

Update Time

I've done another 4 events since Crystal Palace.
A busy weekend with a Hillclimb at Barbon Manor in Cumbria and a sprint the day after at Curborough nr Lichfield in early July were the first two. Unfortunately it was a very wet weekend, but the car behaved perfectly at Barbon but a few problems at Curborough. The electric scavenge pump for the turbo oil decided to seize and blow a fuse, which let a lot of smoke out. A couple of fuses along the way and I finished the event without too many smoke signals . After my last run the gear linkage fell apart as I selected reverse to line up with my trailer.
So during August I examined the scavenge pump, and it all seemed fine. But when left running on 12 volts it became too hot to touch after 10 minutes. I had a new spare one, a bit bigger, heavier and more powerful but again left running on 12volts was still cool after 10 minutes. So the bigger one was fitted, which needed a new bracket of course
The gear linkage was one I made years ago and was a bit agricultural, so I've made a new one using carbon fibre tube and Igus plastic spherical bearings.



I have also made a mounting bracket for a 10 " tablet to use as a display screen for the Megasquirt ECU.




The beauty of this Tesco Connect, Windows !0 tablet is that it was £60 and I can use the native TunerStudio software and customise my own dashboards. You can configure it how you like, and on the set up I have on the moment, I have made the Boost fiqure the main display with all the others ( Water and Inlet air Temp, Battery Voltage, AFR, Throttle angle etc) all around it. I have configured each gauge to change colours at certain readings to help see problems at a glance. It works brilliantly, but as usual, i'm too busy driving to look at it too much during a run, but it does make problem solving and tweaking things easier.

Another busy weekend saw me at Loton Park at the Satuday of the National, where the car again worked perfectly, with me winning the class by 1.5 seconds against a very varied group of upto 1400 modified cars. There was a Mini, an Ford Anglia, A Fiat X1/9, Vauxhall Corsa, Opel Tigra, MG Midget and A Rover Metro. A great day out with a very friendly class and perfect weather.

Put the Car on the trailer and headed straight over to the National at Hatton.

It was great to catch up with everybody and what a brilliant event, I stuck the Pimp2 in the Competition Class on Sunday and was very happy to collect 2nd place.

This Sunday I was back at Curborough again for a club event. This was the Reliant Scimitar clubs National weekend and the sprint is part of the event on the Sunday. I've been Secretary of the Meeting for this event for the last 10 years, but having passed it on, it was good to back driving the car again. Not much chance of a pot here as the class I was in was me and a very quick Westfield. Practice runs were both damp but enjoyable, 1st timed was frustrating as part of my gear-linkage popped out so that gears wre impossible to find. Final run, gear-linkage fixed and had a storming run which felt great and very pleased with my time.

I did however collect some datalogs of my runs, and this year I have fitted a speed measuring system. So I checked my 0-60 times for interest.



The purple line marked 'Speed' is unsuprisingly the speed trace, and I've set the time to start as soon as this changed from 0 mph ( i.e. I was moving). The green line is the throttle position, the yellow line is RPM and the red line is boost.
To reach 60mph with the gear ratio's i have got now, I need two gear changes, but it still did it in 4.382 secs, which i'm very happy with. With i slightly higher 2nd gear I'm sure it would go under 4 secs. Not bad for a 1960's shopping car.

Eric

[617sqn]

Fabulous Eric. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this over my rice crispies this morning.

Andy G

[Lotus-e-Clan]

Yeah not bad for a 1960s shopping car -with 'brick' aero! - although clearly you have plenty of turbo power with which to overcome the resistance (who needs BMW power?)

The speed gradient is dropping off as speed increases (although it's still not too shabby!) - so I'd guess, as well as the gear change losses, the more aero Clan might have had a purely linear speed gradient?

I like the large tablet idea ...I might copy that for the TechEdge O2 /Canems Ignition logging/display software - when Clan is back on the road (MOT to do).

Does Win 10 still run old XP (32 bit) software - or indeed good old DOS 5.0? ( ! ) I've heard there might be issues with Win 10 running old s/w.

Maybe I could get an older tablet for even less, mind?

[chris]

Very impressive mate, Would love to see some on-board footage of your runs.

Hopefully my g15 version 58675.4 will have around 160bhp mark so wonder what 0-60 times Id get out of that! Although Im still running a completely std gearbox

Chris

[ImpManiac]

Fantastic, Eric!

It was really great to catch up ( ) with you at Hatton and to see the car. It really does look as good as it goes, which is saying a lot!

IM

[Turboimp]

Very impressive mate, Would love to see some on-board footage of your runs.

Hopefully my g15 version 58675.4 will have around 160bhp mark so wonder what 0-60 times Id get out of that! Although Im still running a completely std gearbox

Chris

well my 170 bhp turbo Imp which is certainly not light does just about 7 secs ... and most 20 mph increments under 100 mph were 3 seconds .in the appropriate gear

[skamanfrank]

Great to see you and the car at the weekend Eric, it was running pretty well by the sounds of it!

And your 0-64ft times were matching some of the single seaters too...!

[krm57]

Hi, I was interested in your post that you can run tunerstudio on your windows 10 tab. Can you use tunerstudio tune it for you on this as well?
I have megasquirt and my laptop keeps running out of battery! Not ideal.
Cheers
Keith

[pimpdriver]

Kieth
It runs tunerstudio fine, the full version exactly as on your laptop. The text is a bit small and hard to hit exactly with big fingers. I would invest in a cheap pointer pen, the ones with a plastic disc on the end, to make it easier. A cheap plug in keyboard also helps.

[skamanfrank]

I would invest in a cheap pointer pen, the ones with a plastic disc on the end, to make it easier.

I've got lots if you'd like one in the post!

[krm57]

Hi, thanks for the info. I shall investigate that route as I have fitted a usb power point it should be a good option for me.
Cheers
Keith

[pimpdriver]

End of season Roundup

I have done 2 more events in the car, Gurston Down near Salisbury at the end of August and Shelsley Walsh this Saturday. For both events the car ran faultlessly, I didn't have to open the toolbox during the events and between them.

I had a superb weekend at Gurston, the event was a 2 day one and part of the British Hillclimb Championship. I was originally put in the wrong class as the organiser though it must be a spaceframe, but I got it changed to the correct, upto 1400 mod prod class. A nice selection of cars, mostly Mini's with the 2 main contenders who are Gurston regulars with nice 16valve injected 1400cc engines (BMW k100 headed). Andy Russell was also in the class with his lovely orange 1140cc Ginetta G15.
The weather kept on changing over the weekend from dry (2 runs), soaking wet (one run but I didn't as I hadn't got my wets with me) to, on the Sunday, 1 practice in Drizzle, 1 timed run in damp conditions and a final timed run in the dry with damp patches. I havn't been to Gurston for at least 5 years so I was trying to learn/remember the best way to attack the course, not helped by the conditions constantly changing.
In the end I managed to get second in class, splitting the 2 mini's, which I am really pleased with. As the commentator mentioned to me after the meeting, this is probably the first ever time that the guy in third (class hill record holder) has ever been beaten by an Imp !!.
All the guys in the class were really helpful, in fact the guy in a mini behind me on my first start, noticed that off the line I Ieft 2 sets of 11's, one behind each tyre. This meant I have probably been running the rears a bit soft, so the middle of the tyre wasn't really doing a lot. The Clan seemed to like 15 PSI rear and 12 PSI front, but it looks like the Imp needs more pressure. I upped to 17 rear 15 front for the next start, which was better and the guy behind said that more of the tyre seemed to be working. I have now settled on 18 rear 15 front. These Avon Crossply Slicks don't like to be too hard and you run low pressures so they heat up very quickly, but It looks like I had gone too soft.

Last Saturday I went to Shelsley Walsh, A very special hillclimb course steeped in history. At is the oldest surviving motorsport venue (over a 100 yeas old), still running the same course. It is a very fast hillclimb, very steep with a couple of lower fast bends and the esses, a challenging s-bend with mot much room for error.
Again I was in the up to 1400cc Mod Prod class,but were amalgamated with the 1400cc to 2000cc class as well. 6 other competitors with different cars , A Peugeot 205 GTi (1995cc), a Peugeot 106 (1600cc), A Mini Cooper (1380cc), A Fiat X19 (1396cc), a MGF (1800cc) and a Alfa Romeo Giulia (1962cc).
A nice late summers day with conditions pretty much the same on each run meant I could concentrate on improving on each run. Again, not having been here for 5 years , I started slowish but really pleased with my final run to get a 33.81 second run up Shelsley's hill. I won the class by over a second and beat the championship class record and got within a second of the Class Hill record. The car ran like clockwork all day, the only slight problem is the slightly high air inlet temps at the end, hopefully something I can cure during the winter.
I got lots of positive comments during the day, about how nice it is to see a Imp out on the Hills. A lot of people, after seeing me run, had to be shown that it still is an Imp engine in the boot.

All in all, I'm very happy with my season, and it shows a 1968 Imp can be competitive against modern machinery. The class I run in is not for Historics or classics, it is for any car from earliest cars to 2016.

Cheers

Eric

[617sqn]

Happy days, Eric. We're all proud of you !

Andy G

[moose]

well done Eric

[colin rooney]

nice 1 Eric

[skamanfrank]

Great stuff Eric, well done!

[bks974c]

The car ran like clockwork all day, the only slight problem is the slightly high air inlet temps at the end, hopefully something I can cure during the winter.

That should sort it self especially if frosty out

You'll no doubt come up with a well engineered solution, well done on the results and hope 2017 is as hassle free.

Scott

[ImpManiac]

Superb, Eric! It was wonderful to see you and the car a couple of times this year - once competing. Keep up the brilliant work and see you soon, I hope.

IM

[pimpdriver]

The start of my season approaches, with my first event of the year being at Prescott this coming weekend
This year I am competing in the British Hillclimb Leaders Championship, basically going to all the top hills in the country.
I'll be in the same class as other championships I have been in, namely, Modified Series Production Cars upto 1400cc, but I thought I'd have a go at the top championship this year.
Over the winter (well after new year anyway) i've been doing a few changes/improvements.

Intercooler Rads.
Last season, at the end of some of the warmer runs the air inlet temperature was reaching about 55 - 60 degrees. This is a bit on the hotside for power and keeping the pistons together.
From the datalogs, I could see the temp rise in virtually a straight line from 20 degrees at the start to 55 degrees at the end of the run.
The car uses a water cooled intercooler, which is definately big enough, so the rise is how quickly the water in the system removes the heat. If I added more water to the system the rise in temp would be less over time as more water will absorb more heat. The system at the moment has about 3.5 litres of water in it, so I could just add a tank with more water in, but I though lets pur bigger rads in, more water and more cooling area.
I drew up a rad that spanned the whole width of the car at the front and got quotes of £500-£600 back.
Looking at the main radiator, Fiat Cinquecento, I thought maybe I could fit one of them as they are cheap and very light. Well as you can see below I could fit 2 in. They are a very tight fit, even to the point that I had to make supports at the end to pull the rads down to clear the bonnet. They are in and I don't think I can fit anything bigger

Original heater matrix rads, with the air fed only by the inner headlamp holes



New improved, slightly bigger rads, fed by all four headlamp holes.







Suspension
By taking the whole suspension off the Clan, the Pimp sits a bit higher as the Clan sits lower than an Imp, with the subframes and sping mount sitting higher up in the Clan shell. Also with the wide front arches, the wheels sat a little bit too far inboard for my liking, not filling the arches properly.
To lower the car, I could just get shorter springs, but the rears could be quite expensive, so I decided to lower the sping pans I had previously welded into the fabricated arms I had.

Original sping pans (wishbone upside down)


New lower spring pans,



These should lower the car at least 1.5 inches.

At the front, I couldn't fit wider, or bigger offset wheels, because on lock, they would catch the inner wings.
I decide to space the wisbones out, as well as the steering arms to move the whole hub 1.3 inches out each side.



I also changed the track rods to rose jointed ones



And I made a bracket to lower the bottom shocker mount on the fabricated wishbones.



I will soon find out if this has made any difference, All these mods have added a few kilo's to the car, but I have now fitted a set of split rim Allycat style wheels which being lighter should balance out the changes.

[The Nun]

On the rear arms youve made do you use the original bearing housing removed from a standard arm and weld back on to yours, or have you made up new ones and machined them after fabrication?

Just interested because on my Irish Clan that had their fabricated arms and they used the IMP rear bearing housing, removed from an old IMP arm and rewelded back onto the fabricated ones. they slipped up doing this, the welding actually made the housing bore slightly oval, only a few thou, distortion from the weld heat, hence the bearings were nipped tighter than they should have been and the inner bearings only lasted around 500 miles before they were in need of renewal?

Ideally new housings ought to have been fitted and machined after welding had been done as the factory did?

[bks974c]

Eric

Good luck, if your doing the rounds at Doune and need a pit crew give me a shout and I'll come along to give you a hand.

Scott

[pimpdriver]

On the rear arms youve made do you use the original bearing housing removed from a standard arm and weld back on to yours, or have you made up new ones and machined them after fabrication?

I didn't make the front or rear wisbones myself. They were supplied to me quite a few years ago by Pete Richards who had them made. The rear originally didn't have any spring pans in as they were fitted to one of Pete's Clans that used a coil over spring on the shock. I had to fit spring pans as I'm not allowed to change the suspension layout. I fitted the spring pans to suit the Clan I ran previously, but on the Imp they needed to be deeper.
Anyway back to the question - the housing were new as far as I know and machined after fabrication.

Eric

[pimpdriver]

Eric

Good luck, if your doing the rounds at Doune and need a pit crew give me a shout and I'll come along to give you a hand.

Scott

Scott, hopefully I'll be up at Doune in September. There is a round on 17/18 June at Doune but i'll be drunk in a tent at LeMans that weekend.

For Info, these are the rounds I'm planning to attend this year.

22/23 April Prescott
6/7 May Harewood
27/28 May Gurston
10/11 June Loton
1 July Barbon Manor
2 July Harewood
12/13 Aug Shelsley Walsh
26/27 August Gurston
16/17 September Doune
23/24 September Loton Park

It would be great to see anyone at these events - please say hello

Cheers

Eric

[The Nun]

On the rear arms youve made do you use the original bearing housing removed from a standard arm and weld back on to yours, or have you made up new ones and machined them after fabrication?

I didn't make the front or rear wisbones myself. They were supplied to me quite a few years ago by Pete Richards who had them made. The rear originally didn't have any spring pans in as they were fitted to one of Pete's Clans that used a coil over spring on the shock. I had to fit spring pans as I'm not allowed to change the suspension layout. I fitted the spring pans to suit the Clan I ran previously, but on the Imp they needed to be deeper.
Anyway back to the question - the housing were new as far as I know and machined after fabrication.

Eric

Should be ok then as that's the right way of going about it then heat distortion won't occur. Clan arms were a bit rough and only saved around kg hardly worth it really.?

[pimpdriver]

Update Time

I have done 2 events in the last three weeks, one at Prescott and one at Harewood.

Prescott
A brilliant start to the season with great weather and a great atmosphere.
I would like to say I had a trouble free weekend but I had a couple of disasters on my 3rd practice run.
At the start, a rear lens fell off - okay not too bad and the sctrutineers kept it safe for me.
Half way up the hill tho', I had a sudden loss of power and coasted to a stop with the engine running - throttle cable had fallen off at the pedal end.
Luckily an easy fix, so I could do my two timed runs in the afternoon. Not really disasters then

My two timed runs felt really good and ended up with me being 0.03 seconds of the class hill record as shown below.

Class C1 Modified Series Production Cars up to 1400cc.
Record Martin Depper Mini Cooper S 1400cc. 47.61secs. (30 6 13)
No. Name Car c.c. Run
78 Eric Morrey Hillman Imp 998T 47.64
79 Brad Drowne Citroen AX 1360 48.98
779 Paul Drowne Citroen AX 1360 49.18
76 Andrew Russell Ginetta G15 1200 49.73
80 Julian Harber Mini Clubman 1330 51.69
81 Ryan Eamer MG Metro 1380 52.97
82 Simon Cox Austin Mini Ritz 1380 56.27
77 Ian Sargent Opel Tigra 1400 56.97

Harewood
A cold weekend with dry runs, unfortunately I was the only car in my class which took a bit of fun out of it. I did manage to get inside the Class record in both my timed runs and set a new record.
Unfortunately the fastest time I set was in practice, but at least I know more is possible. The cold track didn't help times.
Car ran faultlessly all day,and attractd quite a bit of attention as there was the normal spectators for the event as well as a car show in the field behind the paddock.
Whilst my car behaved itself, my 2 friends car, who I was stopping with, had major problems which involved me helping them to replace 4 pistons in a bike engined single seater in the evening. It was all rebuilt and running by 11:30 on the Saturday night so they could carry on competeing on the Sunday.

All in All not a bad start, I'm glad of the rest with Gurston Down being my next event on the Bank Holiday weekend

Eric

[ImpManiac]

Class C1 Modified Series Production Cars up to 1400cc.
Record Martin Depper Mini Cooper S 1400cc. 47.61secs. (30 6 13)
No. Name Car c.c. Run
78 Eric Morrey Hillman Imp 998T 47.64
79 Brad Drowne Citroen AX 1360 48.98

Not too bad. You beat the second place guy by more than a second. Top work, Eric! You need to work with on toppling that Mini Cooper off its class record, though.

IM

[Teddie2003]

Hi Eric,

have you had final instructions for Gurston through yet?

If so, can you tell me what time practice will be starting on the Saturday and is Andy Russell entered with his G15?

Might be along that day, as on Sunday other things are planned.

Steve
Hants ACO

[pimpdriver]

Steve
Saturday Practice starts at 08:30 and will probably be over by 3:00 as they are also running a local event after.
Andy is entered and one of the 5 of us in the class, Imp, G15, Citroen AX, and 2 minis.

Come and say hello.

Eric

[Teddie2003]

Steve
Saturday Practice starts at 08:30 and will probably be over by 3:00 as they are also running a local event after.
Andy is entered and one of the 5 of us in the class, Imp, G15, Citroen AX, and 2 minis.

Come and say hello.

Eric

Hi Eric,

thanks for that info.

I went to Gurston last Sept for the first time since I used to run my Clan there in the early 90's and haven't seen Andy for years.

I've sent that info onto a couple of mates who were talking about going along and we'll have a chat about it this weekend.

Should see you on the Saturday and will have a chat with you and Andy.

Steve

[Impecunious]

That's a coincidence Eric; the Cooper S driver who's time you nearly beat was Martin Depper who is now driving a Ford Focus for Team Shredded Wheat in the BTCC. He had a big off at Thruxton last week you can watch on You thingy. Their number one driver is Mat Jackson who lives in my village and drinks in the local when he's, er, walking the dog...

I'm trying to get Mat into Imps and Clans

Dave W.

[Teddie2003]

Hello Eric,

nice to meet you yesterday at Gurston

Very "imp"pressed with the quality of your car, a real credit to you.

Hope today goes well and the weather at least holds for your timed runs, as it looks like it will be nip and tuck between you and the AX.

Steve
Hants ACO