Okrasa Special

[Lightweight_911]

Someone that might be worth considering (or at least visiting to discuss) is Aubrey Finburgh (or it will more likely be his son nowadays) at Classic Autos in Kings Langley - they used to specialise in making new bodies for C-Types, etc but have built some amazing aluminium bodies (including 'one-offs') over the years.

One of the highlights of the Beaulieu Autojumble for many years used to be seeing what Aubrey would be exhibiting on his stall.

[Mike]

http://www.rodjolley.com/flash/flashed.html

[steve wright]

Thanks everyone for recommendations - will add them to the list of a handful of coach builders I've started discussions with. Car is being viewed by Andy & Luke Robinson before month end to work out roll cage, steering column mount, etc.

Al, thanks for the reminder - I've started a list of specifics to talk through with the coach builders. Amazing how many things there are to think about when you're building a car from scratch!

[Pandora]

tell me about it!





Al

[Pandora]

Any progress on finding a body builder, Steve?

Al

[Pandora]

Here's an interesting car on Ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/One-of-the-on ... 418f7fc581

Interesting, as it's one Steve & Barry and I spoke of whilst trying to resolve the 'broken back' issue, and I used it to ilustrate the need for a strong horizontal feature through the flank to give the design a solid line rather than the dragging arse. The Zimp has a slim pillar, light roof and a boot not too dissimilar to the Okrasa.

Rather than a defined crease as they used, I simply used a consistent curve so the light falling on the flanks will give that strong line through the door into the rear wing.

It's very interesting to se the last picture in the listing - a very rough sketch which has a very brutal line right through the middle - clearly the designer wanted that as a strong feature of the design from the earliest thoughts he had, and I have to say, it seems to work!

Al

[steve wright]

Hi Al, yes I've landed a few choices over the past 3 months, mainly focused around finding good partners to progress various aspects of the build.

I spent a huge amount of time visiting coach builders to find someone to create the bodywork. I went as far as the Czech Republic (huge expertise and very cheap) in looking at possibilities but focused mainly on Southern England as there's too much collaboration required to try and do it remotely half way across Europe. My goodness there are some hugely talented people in England, that's for sure. Anyone who says the old crafts are dying needs to get out more I reckon. I spent probably five or six days travelling, meeting and talking to coach builders before settling on someone reasonably local. A Ferrari 250 TdF, Aston Martin DB3S, Porsche 550 and Bizzarrini coupe spoke volumes about his technical competence and we instantly hit it off. He also 'gets' the whole philosophy of the Special so I'm thrilled to have found him. The only downside, like all these guys, is that because he's good he has a huge waiting list so the bodywork will not get done tomorrow! It will be worth the wait I'm sure and gives me the chance to get everything else sorted on the car. At least that's how I'm reconciling it for myself.

In some ways the delay is a good thing as it gives me time to get everything else done to prepare the car for racing - yes, I've also made the decision to race it, so that instantly means a focus and development path for the car. Ian convinced me that the old Shorrock supercharger I had sitting on the shelf would be ideal for extracting more power from what is effectively a 1,300cc Porsche Super motor: if we're lucky it has 60hp at present and while the car doesn't weigh more than 500kg's it still won't stand a chance against Coopers, Lotus and others that weigh 25% less and have twice the horsepower. Of course as with all things related to old cars the blower required a huge amount of time (read money!) to rebuild it consistent to allow us to go racing reliably but Derek Chinn of Precision Engineering, (who builds many blowers for old Bentleys, Bugatti's and the like) was intimately familiar with the Shorrock, having rebuilt and tweaked many of them over the years. It was lucky we didn't just bolt it on and use it. I was quite staggered at how much work was required. It looks like someone "rebuilt it" previously and intending to use it on a race car, welding the vanes to the main spline rather than just rely on the rivets. The thinking is fine, except welding obviously turns the metal brittle, so we would've ended up with a big bang and lots of errant bits of supercharger getting forced into the engine - bad! It also needed a complete new set of seals, bearings, etc, etc. and Derek also spent a lot of time fettling it to get it to perform better than it did in period. So a slight setback in that I didnt expect the work to be so extensive, but on the flip side I found someone who really knows their superchargers and wasn't fazed by the Shorrock or any of the things we wanted to do with it. It will now run at 25% over engine speed and up to 6,000rpm so will be perfect for the Okrasa engine. The rebuilt blower, new SU and pop-off valves will be delivered to Ian for mocking up mounting and manifolds in May. Oh and Ian is going to build a completely new race motor for the car, so we have a road engine and a mad, bad race motor. Amazing what you can do with the early fixed pedestal engines it seems… More on that another time.

With the Shorrock and a host of engine tweaks we should see triple horsepower figures! It's also period perfect - take a look at Land speed records from the Fifties and Shorrock-powered cars pop up surprisingly often, regularly powering similar capacity cars to over 150 miles an hour.

Finally I spent a considerable amount of time talking with Andy and Luke Robinson, owner and son of a fantastic race fabrication shop about the Okrasa Special when the 356 race car was in having a new roll cage fitted. Andy regularly creates roll cages for many front-running historic race cars, builds complete ground-up 3,000hp top-fuel drag cars, and does many one-off custom jobs. He will install a period looking FIA compliant 6 point roll cage, sort the dash bar (too close to my knees), sort the steering mount, create new coil overs and replace the rear trailing arm mounts which are rusty. The car goes to him in late spring.

So, a busy last 3 months. I'll post a few pictures in the next week or so

[Pandora]

Good show!


Al

[steve wright]

The welded and damaged rotors...



Proper machining…





Before careful reassembly...







Assembled and returned, all ready to go!

[neilbardsley]

"yes, I've also made the decision to race it"

You are a braver man than most. It will have taken you years to get the body sorted hopefully it doesn't go wrong in the first corner!

[steve wright]

yes that would be a bugger, but it needs to gain a bit of patina and character so the odd dent and mark on the bodywork will only blend it in with the rest of the car

[iledger]

Wow, what a project. And what a find. Going to have to get myself down to your workshop very soon! If you need any amateur assistance you know where I am! Ian

[Pandora]

"tune in next week for progress" he said?

I assume it's finished?

80)

Al

[steve wright]

Yes it's finished, and the pigs are fed, watered and ready to fly! Actually it's not that bad - the car has a new roll cage, bulkhead between the cabin and engine bay, and new trailing arms are being constructed. The latter because Andy found corrosion in the joint at the front of one of them which would've been catastrophic when it failed. Man flu precluded Ian and I visiting last week but we will visit late Oct and should have plenty of photos then... He says hopefully!!!

[steve wright]

Well there's finally momentum to the build of the Okrasa Special. The car has spent the past 8 weeks at Andy Robinson Race Cars (ph: 01256 883057). Andy and the team installed the beautifully made roll cage in the 356 race car and did a host of other small fabrication jobs which transformed the car. They build front-running race cars (both modern and historic) so are ideally placed for the complexity and one-off nature of the Special.

I removed the buck for ease of work and was reminded how small the actual car is - I'm going to be wearing this thing rather than driving it! Anyway, the first job has been to install a period looking but FIA compliant six-point roll cage with the main hoop acting as a divider between the engine bay and cabin. It mounts to the top of chassis tube that divides the cabin from the engine bay and is flush with the roof to maximise headroom and space in the cabin. It will features two harness mounts for driver and passenger as well and the headrests on either side will simply be attached to the aluminium bulkhead. The side bars were necessary to tie the front and rear hoops together obviously and beautifully follow the contours of the chassis, but they do further restrict entry to the car, so it's now a 'bum first, legs second' method of entry. Not the most elegant but then this is a race car, not something that requires an elegant exit or entry.



Andy also used the main hoop as the fixing point for the top half of a bulkhead dividing the cabin from the engine bay but whose lower half also provides a firewall between the petrol tank and cabin as the original set up would never pass scrutineering - having the petrol tank in the cabin of the car might have been acceptable in period but today the appetite for risk is substantially reduced! I take a slightly different view which is that if the petrol tank I'm sitting on does split and leak fuel then that's the least of my worries. Why? Well it's housed in the centre of the car and protected by a six point roll cage, so I'm almost certainly beyond help and fire is the least of my worries! Nevertheless it was a change that had to be made, so in best Colin Chapman style made it as close to the petrol tank as possible and made it double in duty as the bulkhead between the cabin and the engine bay, along with a Porsche 904 style rear window. We split the bulkhead in two as the lower half will be riveted in place but the top half is completely removable so we can get to the engine.



Next the team installed a knee-bar and new steering column as the original steering wheel was too close to my chest and too upright. The original knee bar was part of the chassis but has now been swapped for a much more substantial version that is now integral to the roll cage to improve strength and rigidity. So it made sense to move it forwards at the same time to improve leg and knee room. While fitting a new bracket for the column Andy and the team altered the steering wheel angle to give better ergonomics, although they re-used the original ally panel to keep a period look and feel to the cockpit of the car. We realised as well that the front beam needed more caster as it only had two degrees worth. It's not a simple fix though as the torsion bars are welded to the chassis tubes like the 356 and 550 Spyder. The beam was removed, caster shims installed to give 6 degrees and then welded back on. While the steering worked fine it made for an odd feeling and a constant shuffle to bring the car out of the apex of a corner. The team also modified the drivers seat to lower it's position so I could get in with a helmet on, something I couldn't do with the way it was originally configured. They've also created side bolsters on the bulkhead to support your body from lateral movement. We'll finish the seat off by making up a foam insert and then cover in it period material.



Unfortunately we found a small amount of corrosion in one of the rear trailing arms so we elected to replace both. It would probably have been fine in a road car, but in a race car you're putting so much more stress through the suspension it made sense to renew these.



The coil overs also had corrosion so we will replace them too. Finally they completed the petrol tank installation. The original tank was made by a tank specialist back in '59 but because the bodywork wasn't finished the tank spout was simply left as a open pipe without a cap or way of closing a cap on it. Andy finished the installation by adapting the spout to work with the '50's and '60's style filler car fuel tank neck and fuel tank cap. They also replaced the fuel outlet for a larger diameter version, replicating it on the other side so we can get the remaining fuel from the other side of the tank. Because the tank sits over the central tunnel of the car it acts as a natural baffle but means a proportion would always be left in the tank unused. While the car has been at Andy's I'm trying to get a host of other jobs completed. First up was to detail the original magnesium BRM's with flat black paint and the drown them in Gibbs, a rust proofing treatment used by the US Navy. It works wonders on keeping moisture out.



The fabrication work will be finished mid-December then we'll do a host of jobs on it over Christmas, before it heads off to the coach builder - we're confirmed for mid-Feb with Lewis Barrow. With a fair wind and a bit of luck we might be racing it in 2016!