Update on ‘new’ RP31M
I wanted to post an update on my ‘new’ Royale RP31M, the replacement for my RP16 that was stolen last year.
last weekend I was able to finally put the wheels to the road and get a feel for how the car felt. The rebuild had so many setbacks that it would be difficult to list them all, but here is a short list:
- SAAB slave cylinder leaked the night before the race while doing final bleeding.. couldn’t find the spare rebuild o-rings.. luckily a fellow racer at the track had a spare they offered up
- for some reason one axle had a smaller spline than the Lobro joints used. A friend with VWs had a new spare…
- previous owner modified the rear of the chassis and mounted the engine askew by about an inch at the nose.. fixing that required the frame to be modified to clear the oil pump…
- transmission I thought was good had a severely worn ring/pinion.. Apex member to the rescue here..
so many other things kept popping up I didn’t think I would ever get done.. as it was, we (team members) performed miracles and got the car ready for the Pacific Northwest Historics Saturday race (missed the Friday practice/qualify and one race). Car performed much better than expected, no nasty setup issues or reliability problems! Had to guess at spring rates and first session was nerve racking since I wasn’t sure brake bias was even close! We were very close and only had to make minor adjustments. Worst issue was a hard shimmy under braking that I thought was rotor run out - turned out to be a loose front a-arm bushing..
I held back from pushing too hard until I felt comfortable with the set up and things didn’t fall off. I was able to get to within 1.5secs from my typical lap time at this track.. not bad for a car that hadn’t set a tire on the ground until Friday!
short video of the start of race 5 on Sunday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHwv-NKh6no
so many people have stepped up and helped me out, this is a great community! I’ll try to list as many as I can remember, apologies if I miss someone…
-Tracy and Kenny Dye at DND Fabricating. I couldn’t have done any of this without them…
-Jay, Cameron and Colin Ivey (and crew) for a great engine and the support
-Garth at A-N-T Trackside Tire for making sure I had a set of Avons when they were getting scarce
-Matt Boian for taking a huge loss on my shocks
-Randy Hartmann for spare shock parts
-Rick Iverson for additional shock parts and other help
-Todd Cook for replacement 10:31 ring/pinion
-Don Jones for replacement rear upright
-Tony Garmey for rear spherical joint on short notice!
-Roland Johnson for advice and info
-Jim Johnson for gearsets and emotional support!
im not sure how I can repay all of you, but if you need something - reach out
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Graham
Originally Posted by CTR28
