UK Hybrid class in Europe

[Nick Roads]

UK Hybrid Class

Crisis (Caryl, Kris and Nick) took Car 36 to Zandvort to compete in the Belgian 6 hour race. The Belgian club were going to allow us in an experimental class but decided to run us in their Hybrid class.

The car was as it finished from Croft after first race with the following changes:
•   BMW 1100 RS engine.
•   Refurbished standard 2CV gearbox with a dyane diff 8:31 (that differential is legal under Belgian regs not under UK regs)
•   New adapters and mounts for engine, gearbox, ancillaries, high pressure fuel system and a new exhaust mating to standard 602 silencer (RC40).
All else was standard and within UK regs.

We did just under 2 hours testing in UK. Had concerns about cooling and brakes so added in more cooling.

1 hour qualifying went ok and car was 9th out of the 12 Euro class hybrids. This surprised and impressed the Belgians as while they run a BMW 850 engine they use 175 wide track tyres and lots of aero improvements. We used the same air restrictor on the engine as they do. Below is the start of second race:

https://youtu.be/-M_tc6lVflg

We raced for 5 hours until car suffered a sudden problem caused by an oil line coming off the cooler – an installation error by us. We believe that all the parts developed performed well.

Car 36 took around 1 hour to bring back to UK 602 class specification for Croft.

The same 'UK hybrid class' will run at Spa alongside the UK class and we hope into 2016 where we would do a couple more races within the 2CVRT series and the 24 Hour race.

Our aim was to see if we can have a car which we can convert to run either as 602 or BMW. To further be able to change in either direction within 3 hours which we have proved.

We were also interested in reliability and running costs as wondered if it will be cheaper to endurance race with the BMW engine than the 602. We are hoping that the engine is ultra reliable as the Belgians have had very few problems with the 850.

We went for the R1100RS engine because there is a large supply and is cheaper than the 850 which is now quite rare.

We have been working with a couple of suppliers to put together a standard complete 'kit' which would allow anyone to change from UK race spec to UK Hybrid for European endurance racing, it will come with support so that a reasonably competent team could convert a car with standard toolset and some simple wiring materials - the only extra cost is the time to undertake the conversion.

The current kit cost is around £ 2750 assuming donor gearbox and donor flywheel which need adapting. It assumes an 1100 RS engine and BMW ancillaries for less than £ 1000 within this price - ours was bought from the largest UK BMW bike breaker and was simply certified as being a running engine. The engine has an ECU and we have not touched this - Belgians have tried to 'map' the ECU's over the years without success and we liked their policy of swapping ECU's if there was any doubt between cars.

If anyone is interested in running a car at Spa 24 Hour race this year as a UK hybrid please contact Caryl or myself. At present we are expecting 3 UK hybrid cars but only have 1 car (ours!) confirmed so far. No-one has to use the kit and is free to develop their own providing they stay within the changes from UK regs at top of this post - we can supply all the details of what is in the kit.

The entry fee for UK hybrid at Spa 24 Hour 2015 is expected to be around £ 1700 - the same price as for the standard UK class. The consumables we anticipate in the race would be extra brake pads and extra set(s) of TOYO tyres compared to UK class.


Nick and Caryl

[Nick Paton]

Hmmmm.... more power... where is the "like" button?

Engine cost is materially below the cost to build and develop a 602 engine capable of winning races..

N

[Marty]

Hmmmm.... less Citroën engine... where is the "danger" button?

There is only one winner, but all drivers take pleasure to have a real 2CV, so...

BMW engine isn't like the fox minding the chicken coop ?