Beta Coupe GCRE upgrade

[betabuoy]

Great advice Eric. The RHS was done over 10 years ago and is still pristine. This new work will definitely get the same treatment… but this is expensive!!  And I certainly wouldn’t want any of my family to have to revisit it for many years.

[HFStuart]

Expensive because it's time consuming.  There's no way to do it properly and quickly - if only! With Eric on the dinitrol I'll need a barrel of the stuff and as usual it will go everywhere, including me and the drive.

Worthwhile investment though - with luck they'll outlive us.

[betabuoy]

Really important to deal with all three sections of the sill.  Here we are fully cut back to good metal.  The centre section could easily be hidden but is so important for strength.

[betabuoy]

A patch was needed in the footwell too.

[betabuoy]

And after a little tidying up on the door bottom and at the rear of the sill, it was ready for painting.

[betabuoy]

All done.

[WestonE]

Nice to see a great car back together and not being metallic paint you have a much better chance of it being invisible even under sodium street lights.

Eric 

[Neil-yaj396]

Who did the work Chris?

[betabuoy]

Hi Neil,
It’s Auto Bodycraft in Stokesley. Alex has a great team and has been my go-to for the complicated bodywork stuff for around 15 years now. Colour match is spot on too!
Chris

[betabuoy]

Goodwood 2022 with the LMC was a great day.  The Beta was prepped in Yorkshire then took the 300-mile cruise stopping first in Surrey, for night stop, then an early start into West Sussex on Saturday morning.

The LMC Goodwood Track Day was fun… Good to chat to old friends and new, great to fully open the carbs without fear of other road users (or police!)... and the power and handling of the Coupe was delightful.  Attached picture courtesy of Tony .  I managed five track sessions in the morning, spoilt only by a low oil pressure indication on the final cool down lap. 

Subsequent inspection revealed some oil leakage near the filter housing, traced mostly to an ‘o’ ring on the sandwich plate; otherwise, a couple of unions on the oil cooler pipes took small tweaks and everything is okay.  So why the oil light?  We think that with the oil having warmed to about 115 degrees (very runny) combined with a lazy right hand corner in 5th gear and at low rpm, allowed the pump pressure to drop close enough to the 1.5bar to trigger the warning light.

Anyhow, after a bit of fettling, I’ve driven around 80 miles and everything has been spot-on.  So next event – be on the road early next Sunday to get to the Beta 50th! 

[peteracs]

Hi Chris

Great to hear it was not serious. When I was watching you were about the quickest on track and sounded pretty good as well!

Hope to say hello this coming weekend.

Peter

[HFStuart]

Glad to hear that Chris  - I feared the worst for you engine when Tim told me.

Right handers have always been the problem for oil in Betas  - Guy's sump helps but I guess it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of where the pickup is.

[betabuoy]

Glad to hear that Chris  - I feared the worst for you engine when Tim told me.

Right handers have always been the problem for oil in Betas  - Guy's sump helps but I guess it doesn't solve the fundamental problem of where the pickup is.

Hi Stuart,

Tim was spot on with his suggestion to give another crank; if we'd persisted, we'd have seen there was no problem.  And on the right hander, a blip of the throttle would have probably extinguished the light!  But you know how it is... thrash an engine for a couple of hours, then see an oil press light - the instinct is to shut-down and not increase rpm! 

Anyhow, it's about 4 hours for me on Sunday morning so it'll be an early start and I look forward to catching up with you, Peter and the rest of the Boyz.

[SanRemo78]

I had a similar issue with the Stratos replica when it had a VX motor in it way back in the day (1996?) at Aintree Race Circuit. I can't recall if the Barry Waterhouse built 200bhp motor had a baffled sump but I had a low pressure light flickering on a tight right and long opening right bend there. I "cured" it by adding another half litre of oil.

A couple of sessions later the crank seal blew with predictable results and was spectacular according to the owner of the Ferrari I'd been playing tag with all morning.

End result was he felt guilty that I'd "pushed the car too far" keeping up with him (he would go past on the straights but I was overtaking on a couple of corners) so I said if he felt guilty he could assuage that by taking me on a passenger ride the next time he went out for a 20 minute session. Which he did.

And so my first ever experience in a Ferrari was in a 250GTO being driven at race speeds on a race circuit for 20 minutes.

The VX motor? It survived after a seal replacement albeit in another replica as that day was already going to be it's last in my car - there was a Group 4 body kit waiting at home along with it's first Alfa V6 motor!

Guy

[betabuoy]

Just about 7 weeks ago now, but great to have been able to attend the Sunday gathering at the Beta 50th Anniversary.

[betabuoy]

Goodwood certainly didn't disappoint this year with some really challenging laps on a circuit that was extremely slippery at times.  The Beta was, however, magnificent and my last few laps on a bone dry surface were fast.

The build up to Saturday included a cam-belt change and some fettling by my local performance expert Mark Hardy (AutoMark based in Stokesley).  After inspection, he recommended slightly backing-off the advance on my standard ignition after seeing some evidence of pre-ignition.  The result was a little bit more lumpy at low revs but the useable bit is still great.  He also stripped the brakes and fitted a replacement rear wheel bearing.  Jobs for the future include finding some better front seats and upgrading the headlights.

Great to have our own Tony Harrison trackside in various locations... the superb dynamic pictures below were his work!  Also nice to enjoy lunch and a chat with Neil Priestman.  Thanks for your company chaps.

The overall round-trip to Goodwood was a faultless total 750 miles, of which around 80 were on the track.  A great workout and a tremendous car - testament to the expert engineering of the late GC and current management by AutoMark.

[betabuoy]

A couple more pics...

[peteracs]

Hi Chris

Good to see the oil light incident did not deter you from going again!

Peter

[chrisc]

Stunning. Should be my car though! (my initials are CPC)

[betabuoy]

The effectiveness of the old Koni's on the front has been questionable for a while so I decided to go for a pair of Mark's adjustable Spax inserts (which should match the recently fitted inserts on the rear). 

I've been using the Betaboyz lowered springs for a few years now, but aside from track days I've found them a little harsh!  There's also a big chunk of suspension travel I've been missing out on, so with the legs out I decided to go back up to standard level with a set of new coupe springs.  Initially, what a shock!  The car looked really high but when I dug out some old photos it seems about right.

Been out for a few miles today and it's nice.  No longer crashing over minor undulations, and hanging on really nicely through some spirited B-roads. I've set the fronts to 8 clicks (clockwise) for now which is lovely.  Anyone else on Spax?