oldschoolZ
Well-known member
Hey I thought this would be interesting to some of you motorsport fans. Last week I got the chance to go to the Autosport Show in Birmingham UK. I wanted to attend for the past few years but I never got the chance, usually this time of the year it's the pre-season testing for Sebring & Daytona. Sizewise it's like the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) in Indianapolis, except that there is no circle track stuff, no offense but the circle track stuff is not as nice I find.
The show is seperated in 2 areas, the engineering area, which is trade only and open only thursday-friday. You have to work in motorsport to go on those 2 days, it's not open to the public so there are no backwards Ken Block hat wearking dudes talking about air suspension ! (no offense) I got to go on Friday, lots of people but only indystry people. You meet all those guys you see at the track during the year, get to know who changed jobs, who works for who, good networking event
Then there is the non-engineering area which is open from friday-saturday-sunday. There's historic F1 cars, awesome MK2 Escorts, Colin McRae rally cars, Audi Quattro's. M-Sport has a booth with the Fiesta RallyCross, WRC, R5, Bentley GT3, etc. There's also a bunch of vendors selling air suspension and other garbage for ''street cred''.
Let's start:
This company was specialising in velocity stacks and ITB setups for all types of engines, I think this one is a Chevrolet 2.0l, 300+ horsepower at 9000RPM
This is a barrel throttle, first time seeing one in person. If you can imagine a standard throttle open 100%, there's always a restriction from the shaft and the throttle plate. When this is open it's just a rectangular port, it's not new technology for sure, it was used in DTM in the late 80's I think...
This is a Hollinger Gearbox from a GT3 Cup car with a paddle shift system. Unlike what we think, the GT3 Cup cars are basically a stock GT3 (street car) casing with a sequential mechanism on the side and straight cut gears with dogs. Cheaper than a bespoke sequential gearbox but still really nice.
Honda IndyCar engine, same block as your Accord V6, but as you can see there's a bunch of external machining done to the block...
Cross over pipes for the water cooling, the thing with the purple cap on the bottom is the water pump
The ribbed thing is the scavenge pump (I think) for the oil, the oil comes out the purple cap where it (probably) goes to a radiator in the sidepod of the car.
Nissan 3 Cylinder engine that they put in the Zeod RC. Around 80kg, 400+horsepower, direct injection, dry sump.
Turbo inlet with restrictor, the shaft at the bottom runs the scavenge pump for the oil. Tiny !
Intake side, neat wiring there. Every sensor is connected on a bulkhead with a twist (deutch Autosport) type connector. So if you have a faulty sensor, no need to splice the wiring loom to trace it back. Expensive but really good.
This company was selling crate engines for different applications. This is Ford Durated based engine that you would put into a Caterham, hill climb car, even an old Escort. They had different ranges from mild 2.0 200hp to 2.0 300hp. Note the tiny alternator, no more than 8-9cm diameter !
This is Radical SR8 engine, 2 hayabusa heads on a custom block with a flat plane crank. One head is reversed so it can have the intake side inside the V of the V8. It's a 2.6l V8 with 500 horsepower. Nice and light too !
The most impressive were the exhausts though:
Quaife was there with a complete range of gearboxes, they make more and more ''bolt-on'' applications for street cars like the FR-S, 350z, Nissan SR20. They're all based on the same sequential gearbox, but with different ratios and bellhousings. For around £8000 (14000$) you can get a complete gearbox, still expensive, but gearboxes like this used to be 30 000$+ and not available for mass market applications.
Judging from the axle positions, this one would be for a mid-engine application with the gearbox at the rear. Or maybe for something like a Porsche
Ohlins shock, tiny ! Typical on a Formula 3 car
I have some more pictures of the cars in the non-engineering section. I'll try to post them as well.
The show is seperated in 2 areas, the engineering area, which is trade only and open only thursday-friday. You have to work in motorsport to go on those 2 days, it's not open to the public so there are no backwards Ken Block hat wearking dudes talking about air suspension ! (no offense) I got to go on Friday, lots of people but only indystry people. You meet all those guys you see at the track during the year, get to know who changed jobs, who works for who, good networking event
Then there is the non-engineering area which is open from friday-saturday-sunday. There's historic F1 cars, awesome MK2 Escorts, Colin McRae rally cars, Audi Quattro's. M-Sport has a booth with the Fiesta RallyCross, WRC, R5, Bentley GT3, etc. There's also a bunch of vendors selling air suspension and other garbage for ''street cred''.
Let's start:
This company was specialising in velocity stacks and ITB setups for all types of engines, I think this one is a Chevrolet 2.0l, 300+ horsepower at 9000RPM
This is a barrel throttle, first time seeing one in person. If you can imagine a standard throttle open 100%, there's always a restriction from the shaft and the throttle plate. When this is open it's just a rectangular port, it's not new technology for sure, it was used in DTM in the late 80's I think...
This is a Hollinger Gearbox from a GT3 Cup car with a paddle shift system. Unlike what we think, the GT3 Cup cars are basically a stock GT3 (street car) casing with a sequential mechanism on the side and straight cut gears with dogs. Cheaper than a bespoke sequential gearbox but still really nice.
Honda IndyCar engine, same block as your Accord V6, but as you can see there's a bunch of external machining done to the block...
Cross over pipes for the water cooling, the thing with the purple cap on the bottom is the water pump
The ribbed thing is the scavenge pump (I think) for the oil, the oil comes out the purple cap where it (probably) goes to a radiator in the sidepod of the car.
Nissan 3 Cylinder engine that they put in the Zeod RC. Around 80kg, 400+horsepower, direct injection, dry sump.
Turbo inlet with restrictor, the shaft at the bottom runs the scavenge pump for the oil. Tiny !
Intake side, neat wiring there. Every sensor is connected on a bulkhead with a twist (deutch Autosport) type connector. So if you have a faulty sensor, no need to splice the wiring loom to trace it back. Expensive but really good.
This company was selling crate engines for different applications. This is Ford Durated based engine that you would put into a Caterham, hill climb car, even an old Escort. They had different ranges from mild 2.0 200hp to 2.0 300hp. Note the tiny alternator, no more than 8-9cm diameter !
This is Radical SR8 engine, 2 hayabusa heads on a custom block with a flat plane crank. One head is reversed so it can have the intake side inside the V of the V8. It's a 2.6l V8 with 500 horsepower. Nice and light too !
The most impressive were the exhausts though:
Quaife was there with a complete range of gearboxes, they make more and more ''bolt-on'' applications for street cars like the FR-S, 350z, Nissan SR20. They're all based on the same sequential gearbox, but with different ratios and bellhousings. For around £8000 (14000$) you can get a complete gearbox, still expensive, but gearboxes like this used to be 30 000$+ and not available for mass market applications.
Judging from the axle positions, this one would be for a mid-engine application with the gearbox at the rear. Or maybe for something like a Porsche
Ohlins shock, tiny ! Typical on a Formula 3 car
I have some more pictures of the cars in the non-engineering section. I'll try to post them as well.
