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7th Uniref Langebaan Gymkhana

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Jan Class H sharp rightThis is just one of those events that I enter light heartily, never have I arrived at this event and felt that confidence needed to achieve, properly because this is the one event on our calendar that has a track record with me. If the tarmac does not break up thru the day, it tries to tear my arms out of it sockets or has that ability to let small mistakes creep in that ends up in one little bakkie flying over truck tyres. One day

is one day that I will get to grips with you. On a more enjoyable note, I love the camping and travel that this event provide, nothing like a weekend away from the city.

Herman Mathee and Jan van der Vyver in Class F Datsun Bakkie

Herman Mathee’s View:

Herman and Jan Class F going straight

The day started of with the usual, setup the gazebo, help with the track preparations and get the track in-bedded in your head. After about 7 times around the track on foot I was confident I had.

Racing started and from the get go I was not lucky with the front end grip, tyre pressure up and down, but no difference, the set of slicks on the front was done, unfortunately I did not pack spare as this is away race and space is limited, I need to get tow vehicle. Luckily I was able to get 2nd in my class for the day. Navigating in the BMW and Skyline of which the owner and driver is Kobus Wilson Snr is always something to look forward to, or should I say sideways.

Jan van

der Vyver and Herman Mathee in Class D Golf 1.4i

Jan van der Vyver’s view:

Jan Class F sharp right 2Update coming

More photos of the day: 7th Uniref Langebaan Gymkhana

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Golf and Datsun on Top @ 3rd Fairbridge Mall Gymkhana

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Jan van der Vyver - VW Golf Citi 1400i_0The season opening event turned out to be one of the busiest events for me on the driving side but the most time was used on navigating for  some superb vehicles. This event also turned out to be the one that would change our lives, as it became the event that we won our classes, this particular day will not be forgotten soon.

The day started of with the usual changing tires, doing the necessary setup work on the vehicles, entry and getting into the spirit of fun and competitive racing. This reminds me, I need to get a easier way of changing tires, maybe I’m just getting more and more lazy, but hell it aint fun anymore that I can promise you.

The day started of with Jan competing in Class C (FWD up to 1400cc) and me navigating for him, from the first run we knew this is going to be a special events, no driver errors and no navigation errors that I know of. Well so much happens in a car on this tight technical course that I would not be able to pickup all the mistakes. As the day went on Jan’s times improved to the point were he took victory in the class, his personal best to date, good work Jan, this sort of achievement just helps to built the confidence and make the whole experience more fun. Not that it is not fun, but you can also have more fun. Jan also competed in the single seater class that really helped him figuring out the correct lines which in my opinion was the needed boost to give him that all important first class win.

Herman Mathee and Jan van der Vyver - Datsun LDV 1400The bakkies first run with Jan besides me doing the navigating turned out to be the second best time of the day.  Normally the first run is used to get used to the track conditions and learn the lines. The second round was about 1sec down on

the first run, tire pressures was crucial on the day, to soft and the rubber flex to much, to hard and the grip is down on the tight stuff, on the 3rd run we got it right and was the best time for the day. The whole day it was a battle to keep ahead of Anton Smit with his Toyota 4AGE powered bakkie. Luckily for me, my 3rd run was good enough to keep me ahead of Anton to give me my 1st Class win with a total time of only 0.33 sec faster for the day. On another note, do not go racing with a cellphone in the glove box, on my 4th run accelerating hard towards a pavement the low battery warning went of and we had quite

a laugh, the time for the 4th run reflected that if you’re distracted, you will lose time.

The rest of the day was used to navigate for Kobus Wilson Snr in his sideways BMW 535i and Nissan Skyline GTX fitted with a Ford V8, navigating int these sideways beasts was almost as good as winning my first Class win. Navigating for new comer and friend Riaan Snijman in his self build Lotus 7 kit kar fitted with a very nice Ford Kent machine took the edge of thinking what to do to keep ahead of Anton. This was the weirdest car to navigate for yet, it is so loud it is almost impossible to look at the road and also talking in the direction of the driver.

More photos of the day: 3rd Fairbridge Mall Gymkhana Photos

Photos from www.wbmk.co.za

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Personal Best @ 24th Casino Mykonos Langebaan Gymkhana

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Golf 3What a assume day it turned out to be for racing, the night before when me and Jan walked and learned the track the wind was hauling. The sky was clear and not a single cloud in the air that would spoil our day of fun and some serious racing.

At the end of the day, this event turned out to be one of my best to date. Everything just went good, excellent navigating from Jan, 50% of my achievement on the day could be contributed to his excellent navigating skills, the other 40% went to the excellent setup on the suspension that kept me and “Einstein”  awake way past our bed time the weeks before the event. The other 10% went to our support group of friends, I was just there to hang on for dear live as the bakkie was picking up inside wheels

left right and center threw the fast passed corners of Mykonos.

Just to give you an idea, the rear suspension on the bakkie was stripped and re assembled 3 times in a weeks time before this event, after each practice session it was stripped and tuned. On the Golf a lot also changed before the event. A set of coil overs for the front and rear was imported. I also made a front lower strut brace to stiffen things up a little more. The coil overs was fitted and I can promise you, this is what VW needed to do to all Golf’s, these coil overs transformed this car from cheap transport to something you can actually give to your children to get to school and back. On the downside, it is just a little bit on the hard

side for every day driving, but a absolute pleasure to drive from a handling aspect. I truly believe Jan is as excited as I am about the future of this vehicle.

Luckily for us, the previous night all our friends started to chip in and we made short work of prepping the vehicles for the following days racing, tires, camber etc was done in record time and a lot of laughter provided by Mr. Colbrin. This gave as the opportunity to use all of our time before the action started to concentrate on getting the track correct.

24th Casino Mykonos Gymkhana - B140The day turned out to be very tough on me physically, having to drive my own vehicle, navigate for Jan and Kobus Wilson with the very rapid Nissan 1400 bakkie asked me to navigate for him in the bakkie and his sisters Golf. But it was worth it, never have I enjoyed a day of racing more than this.

The times looked good for the bakkie and on the Golf, with each round and the confidence growing, the times came down, which is good on Mykonos as this is the one event that could catch you out faster than you think with all the side walks and fences. We struggled a lot with the Golf’s setup, especially in the rear department, with the beast breaking away on hard cornering, Isak van Zyl from Dynotech was kind enough to lend Jan a set of semi slicks to use on the rear, which made a huge difference. This meant Jan had to jump on his piggy bank to get some money for a set before the next event. Jan was able to place to place the Golf just out of a top 10 position. The second outing for Jan and the Golf, a very good result, keep up the good work.

The first event were the bakkie did not suffer from excessive wheel spin, due partly to the layout of the track, the full  slicks in front, semi’s at the back , the suspension and experience starting to kick in, why only now, but yes, it takes some time to learn this sort of thing under the conditions. When the final round arrived we already knew we have the 3rd place in Class F sealed, we approached the starting line, not knowing if we are going to attack or just drive to finish, with all the nerves settled we pulled away, what a lap, it was hard, smooth and very fast, until we came out of a sweeping left hand corner and just heard a sound like spanners falling around in the back of the bakkie. We took the caution decision to retire the from the round. It ended being a wheel spacer that snapped. The bakkie performed very well against vehicles with 1600 motors, limited slip diffs, etc. Our best time was only 0.30sec slower than these vehicles.

Thanks to everyone that provided a hand, some advice, a cold-drink when we needed it the most.

A special thanks need to go out to my Father that attended the event, without you, I would not be the owner of this bakkie and to “Einstein” for all the hard work when the garage doors close and Autocad is fired up.

We look forward to the return of Ruan and the very quick Ford Escort for the next event at Flamingos Langebaan, Saturday 28 November.

race-tech

2nd Mountain Mill Mall Worcester Gymkhana

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23F Herman Mathee - Jan van der Vyver_0What a event this turned out to be, not only the fun part of racing the Bakkie and the Golf but the planning, building of it to. Me and Ruan learned the hard way to not work on vehicles the week before a event, everything should be done and tested a week before

the event, but NO, this time I ignored my own advice and did a lot of work in the week before the event.

All started with the new front suspension the bakkie received a week or two earlier, we struggled with front end grip, once that was sorted it resulted in either the driver or navigator on the other one’s lap or a face against a  window, the standard seat and seat belts just wasn’t up to the task to keep occupants in there place to concentrate at the job at hand.

On Friday, the day before the event, Jan and I drove threw to Worcester, finalized all the paper work and learned the track, after that we where buy until 12 o’clock the evening adding another 25mm of height to the seats to allow me a better view of obstacles around the nose of the bakkie.

The day kicked of with everything on time and running very nicely, the bakkie went out first and I felt very unsure about the rear stepping out with the slicks on the very nice tarmac. After the run I did not know what to do, drive it harder, softer, I was lost. The golf came out a few minutes after me, Jan drove some good lines for a person that was competing in his first ever gymkhana,

not making one mistake on the route, always the first objective for a new person in the sport. He had a lot of trouble with shifting from 2nd to 1st.

Photographer: Johan Driver: Jan Co Driver: HermanThe day continued without any problems, this was the first time that I navigated for a front wheel drive vehicle, and boy I can tell you one thing, I was scared shiitless when we entered a few of the corners on normal street tires, we actually hit the tarmac with the outer lip of the wheels, leaving some nice fresh marks on the alloys. I was just reminded why we spend a lot of money on good racing tires and try to get rid of body roll, it is just not fun hanging on when you need to concentrate on driving or navigating. After the first run with the Golf, it was decided that a the poor little Golf need at least 2 Semi Slicks in front, that will help a lot with traction and confidence.

After the second rounds was done, we where informed that there is only time for a third, automatically this meant that the last round was the most important one, and indeed it turned out to be exactly that, The bakkie had to get a time in the 1m 6sec bracket to finalize a 3rd place. I was so excited as this would have been my first 3rd place. As I completed the run I knew the time was good, but then, I stopped 20mm to far and received a 10sec penalty and lost 3rd and had to settle for 4th place in my class. Jan finished the day with a 5sec improvement from his first run to his last one, indicating that he learned heaps on the day.

Lessons learned: Always compete against your own abilities and never against other people or there times. Mistakes are way to easy to make.

Please feel free to have a look at a in car lap of the bakkie going around the route. Link

Ruan indicated that he will be present at the next event in Langebaan @ Mykonos Casino as he is deprived of the smell of racing in Zambia. We look forward to the event and hope that all will be in order to make it a very memorable event for us.

race-tech

Datsun Coil Over Build

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ery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=684&g2_GALLERYSID=TMP_SESSION_ID_DI_NOISSES_PMT” alt=”DatsunCoilOver089″ width=”307″ height=”230″ />Just have a look at these. They are an absolute blast to drive with, but do believe me, it took way more time than needed to plan and source the correct parts for the build, in fact the build went off without a hint of trouble.

All parts where sourced from local RSA suppliers, in my opinion this was the hardest part of the whole build, especially the shocks.

The biggest success to the build can be coupled to good planning. My biggest single piece of advice to anyone that plans on a build like this, spend a lot of time on the planning, it makes life easier.

Parts Used:

  • Datsun B140 LDV original

    Struts

  • Volkswagen Rabbit Shock Cartridge Inserts
  • 250lbs x 8inch Race Springs
  • Thread Tubes
  • Retaining nuts and cap
  • 14mm Rose Joints

Have a look at some of the images – Datsun Coil Over Build

Keep an eye out for a complete HOWTO on building a set of coil over's. The HOWTO will be based on the set in question, but will

be easily adobtable to other makes of vehicles with good planning and some forward thinking added to the mix.

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race-tech

3rd and 5th at the 5th Glomix Bricks and Blocks Langebaan Gymkhana

The 5th Glomix Bricks and Blocks Langebaan Gymkhana started of on the wrong foot.
It all started while we were packing and getting ready on Friday afternoon just before we left for Langebaan. We fired up the Escort to for a fill up with fuel for the

journey, she is particularly thirsty at about 7km/1lt, all of a sudden we noticed that the motor is not performing as should be. After a while of searching for the possible culprit we ended up pulling the wiring harness and noticed that this fixed the problem, so we had a loose wire somewhere between the ECU and the supporting wires. Unfortunately we did not have time to fix the loose wire as night fall was approaching and we still had to get to Langebaan and setup tent.

63_1We set of on our little trip, Ruan in front and me at the back, this was the first time that the bakkie's new motor was going to be driven further than 10km non stop, my eyes where fixed to the heat gauge and oil light. Just as we got out of the city Ruan phoned and told me to move to the front as his wipers is not working. After the laughter passed, I moved to the front to clear the road for Ruan to follow (Some reasons why a dedicated street legal racing car should be towed and not driven).

After arrival at Lientjiesklip, we where greeted with a coldish wind and a bunch of rain clouds, we quickly started setting up our camping site before it started to rain. We quickly gathered that the more you setup camp the faster and easier it gets. The two of us got in the bakkie and drove down to Flamingos where we did our race entry and was provided with the route layout for the next days racing.

After the battle with the previous nights rain, we made a early start to the day and moved down to Flamingos where the days racing would take place. It quickly became apparent that the new camber/caster plates fitted to the escort does help a lot with camber and caster, but is not that good for shocks, after some further investigation it was apparent that the shocks are bottoming out. We raised the front suspension to overcome this for the day. At a later stage we fixed this by getting a new pair of gas charged shocks machined down the top to allow us more or less 50mm more travel, just what we needed if the suspension is set for lower 13″

wheels.

The bakkie proved to be a new beast to master with the modifications done to the motor, it even excited me so much that on my first run I forgot the track and my hands was so busy keeping the rear in place that I even forgot to listen to my navigator, stupid me, but it just goes to show, you need to know your vehicle. On the other hand, Ruan piloted

the Escort very good and was actually listening to me in the navigator seat as he made no mistakes. It went very well, until the last run, we made some huge mistakes and decided to burn some rubber.

After the days racing we ended 3rd with the Escort and 5th with the bakkie in class F.

To add to all that had us uncomfortable for the weekend, we had to inform the organizers of the Gymkhana's that this was the last event in which Ruan and the Escort will be competing for the next 20 months. This is due to work commitments, Ruan will be stationary in Zambia for the period of 20 months. It is just not feasible to travel from Zambia to RSA every month, so he made a decision to return to the sport when he is back.

I would just like to take the time congratulate him for the excellent results he achieved with the Escort and being a good friend, navigator and good racing partner. We are waiting on your return.

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It is a sad sad day to see a FWD vehicle on this site, but we have to be smart about it, they are fast and a lot of fun to drive, even if I have to admit this myself. On the other hand, even if it is just to comfort all the egos of the RWD drivers out there, these FWD drive vehicles is for the newer generation and those that can't handle a real man

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's car.

RWD will you stay close to our hearts and always try to stick a pole in the FWD vehicles.

Personally I feel for the FWD drivers, they chose the easy route and will never know what it feels like driving a fun car.

Ok Ok, enough of this mocking. Jan we hope all the best to you, when we started out at the beginning of the year it was mind blowing, from the first entry that we heard you need to walk the track to learn it, well, personally I do not see a problem with that, but when you need to walk that

track 5 times with bare feet it starts hurting. We learned a lot of this sport, not only racing, but ourselves and the vehicles, the endless hours spend planning, researching and time in the garage.

I hope we will be able to assist, share our experience and help you and your vehicle to perform to it's best – all in good time. I'll start searching for a few good modifications.

Jan will also be my new navigator, I'm pretty sure Jan will be as clear as Ruan, but Louder will not heard, as I have the tendency to

be on the deaf side from time to time.

Congrats on your vehicle and the addition to Team Race-tech.co.za I can promise you, you will have fun and never be able to get enough.

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problems

A12GX Head – A14 Sub – Dual SU's – Lightened Flywheel

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What a busy few weeks getting the Bakkie in order.

Just want to give all that provided me with tips and tricks some feedback.
Got the Datsun

Comps spec on the flywheel, took the flywheel and a new pressure plate to the dude that does my machining, he got it down to 5.78kg, he also balanced the flywheel and new pressure plate for me.
Installed the A12GX head with worked ports and valves.
Fitted a 4-1 branch manifold, already had a 50mm Stainless Free flow System
HS4 Dual SU Carburetors, intake manifold ports matched to head intake ports
Fitted a electric fan, switch comes on at 85degrees, removed mechanical fan on water pump
Had to purchase a new Temp Sensor, could not get the old one out of the A14 head.

Here comes the interesting bit, somewhere down the line, they changed the resistance on these sensors, from about 560ohm to about 360ohm at 16degrees.
This caused more than enough problems. All of a sudden the temp gauge needle climbed way more that it should.

We started it up, all was fine, no bolts, pistons or valves flew around, tuned the su’s. The electronic fan came on, everything working as it should.

Once on the road it was a different story, torque there is a lot of, it is clean, revs up nicely, pulls excellent from 2k rpm right thru to the limiter (currently at 7k rpm), there is not even signs that you are about to hit the limiter, this means all is working together, producing nice bottom down torque and decent top end power.

Then, all of a sudden the motor gets hot. After a day or two and enough swear words to make a sailor look like a beginner. We figured it out. Once on the road there is enough air travelling over the switch to cool it down and not switch the fan on. This caused me more time under the bonnet than needed.

Obviously if the water gets way to hot, pressure builds

and want to escape somewhere, the place it picked was between cylinder 3 and 4 at the water ports on the intake manifold gasket. After taking it apart, I also noticed that the one exhaust manifold washer was pressing against a piece of welding on the branch. Smoothed it down, reassembled the lot. Also re-fitted the old mechanical fan on the water pump to be on the safe side.

Took it for a drive, no issues what so ever anymore, the fan doesn’t even switch on after some heavy spinning and gymkhana practice.

Saturday we have our next race meeting and look forward to the added power and overall better A14-A12 inbreed.
Just hope I will be able to keep the wheel spin to a minimum, we are expecting rain also, and that sure as hell wil not help.

Thanks a lot to all that helped and gave advice. Special thanks to Einstein(My Brother), My Father and Ruan.

modifications

Datsun Head Prep & Engine Mounts

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=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=607&g2_GALLERYSID=TMP_SESSION_ID_DI_NOISSES_PMT” alt=”A12GXHeadSkimmed2″ width=”466″ height=”350″ />Look at it,isn’t she just beautiful. All shinny and almost completely assembled. With ports so big and smooth…….. almost got sidetracked there.

Received her back yesterday from the machining shop after a very gentle skimming job just to make sure all is in good

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order and ready viagra for sale for some serious hard work and alot of abuse on the gymkhana tracks. The only thing that is still in the back of my head is the water ports that show signs of damage, but at least this was approved by my father that has a lot more experience than me. Just need a final cleanup after the machining and the last few parts must be prepped before we can start with the rebirth of the A12GX head on the A14. What a nice combination these to will be, coupled that with the pare of SU’s waiting there turn. A nice change from the standard DCOE route in SA. Hopefully tonight the installation can commence.

RPMMountsFrontLast night Ruan and I installed the new set of engine mountings, the old ones started tearing, so we upgraded them to some serious mounts. This stuff is so tough, I wonder if it wasn’t made for V6 or V8 engines. Lets see if the poor 1400 can tear them this round.

Luckily for us, half of the engine bay is stripped, to get a grinder in next to the dizzy and the strut tower is a task of immense struggle. After a hour or two, both mountings was in place and a set of happy eyes starred them down.

My brother and I also finished with the CAD drawings for the Camber/Castor plates. We printed them, took a pair of scissors to it and trial fitted it to make sure the new wholes will be in usable spots. On the Datsun it was a success, let’s hope the same for the Escorts side. Then we can get the first sets lazercutted and assembled.

problems

Datsun is treated to a lightened Flywheel and bigger Clutch

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p?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=557&g2_GALLERYSID=TMP_SESSION_ID_DI_NOISSES_PMT” alt=”LFlyFront” width=”384″ height=”288″ />Last week I found an old Datsun A12 flywheel in my garage

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that my brother used a few years ago on A12 and A14 motors. This particular flywheel was lightened a bit, but the two of us thought that as the years went by, we can greatly improve what was done to it previously. In a moment of superior thought, I remembered I have a few pictures of lightened flywheels from

writing paper

“Datsun B110 Competition Tune-Up Manual, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., Tokyo Japan 1974″ that I have sourced from http://datsun1200.com site.

And so it began. I sourced a 190mm LUK clutch kit (had an idea the current clutch is only 180mm), found a a guy that does machining and dynamic balancing, made a appointment with him. I showed and explained the drawing to him, the next day I picked the super light flywheel up and was very pleased with the end results.

Here is a table comparison of the A12, A14 and Lightened A12 Flywheels

Component Weight
A12 9.0kg
A14 11.5kg
A12 Lightened 5.78kg
Old 180mm A-Series Pressure Plate 3.1kg
New 190mm A-Series Pressure Plate 3.1kg
Old 180mm A-Series Clutch 0.8kg
New 190mm A-Series Clutch 0.825kg
New Flywheel, Pressure Plate & Clutch 9.0kg

On dissembling, my thoughts where cast in stone, indeed the old clutch and pressure plate was only 180mm units. This meant that the clutch and pressure plate was still the original units. I need to give credit for Datsun, wow, that says a lot for quality.

After the gearbox was put back in it’s place and all the other nuts and bolts tightened up, my father and realized there was no clutch. And then it hit us, the A12 flywheel is much thinner than the A14 unit. This meant that the release bearing was unable to travel enough to get to the fingers on the pressure plate. This meant double work, one thing that really ticks me off. Work started dissembling everything again. After some serious measurements, we decided to increase the length of the pivot point that the fork pushes against. The original unit was replaced with a alancap with a shank and a nut to lock it in place, added some locktight and it is in place to stay.

Assembly started again, after all was done, clutch was good and we just double checked everything to make sure that the release bearing retainer does not move off, of the slide if the clutch is operated, that could lead to a locked clutch. Almost like trying to drive with the gearbox in neutral. What a lot of fun this could be.

Have a look at the pictures of the old and new Flywheels.

Mathee Auto Developments