With a tight fitting seat that’s difficult to get in and out of I would worry about getting out in a hurry in an emergency situation.
It's not difficult to get in and out of the seat. It's difficult to get the seat in and out of the car. If the car starts on fire I have no plans to rescue the seat.
First post here!
Here’s my attempt at a seat insert solution. The expanded foam seat insert was supplied with the car, and I was lucky enough that it was moulded for a bloke who was a few kg’s lighter than me. I managed to squeeze myself in, and tried to feel where the seat was too tight (hips and shoulders mainly). After that I took to the insert with a ‘polyfan’ (flapper disc) fitted to a 4inch grinder. This worked really easily and allowed me to delicately remove the excess material. After getting in/out about 8 times, making smaller adjustments each time I ended up with a great fit.
I then got too smart for my own good, when I decided I would try and fill the cracks in the insert from where the plastic bag had been folded over when the seat was first formed. I thought it would be a good idea to use some spare Sikaflex I had to fill these. Went on well, and I left a bit of excess so I could smooth it over with the polyfan when dried. That didn’t prove very smart, as the Sikaflex caused the polyfan to grab and I had trouble getting a really smooth surface.
in the end I got it good enough, and then re-covered it in race tape.
I will probably try and cover it with some material once I’ve used it and proven it’s a good fit when on the track, rather than sitting in my garage!
Here’s a few pics....
@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com - thanks Charley.
I appreciate the effort you put into all the information being collected here - a helpful resource for someone on the bottom of the world!
@rjbender, I really enjoy hearing how people around the world use their Radicals. I know you live in Tasmania and might be the furthest south Radical owner in the world :). How do you use your car? Do you do Hillclimbes, or is it used on road courses? Are there other Radicals in Tasmania?
Charley
@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com - G’day Again Charlie,
Yes - I read your summary in the Register.... maybe it is the most Southern Radical... although there is an older spec car here somewhere in Tasmania.
My cars story is long a bit complicated really... and a little bit sad for all the wrong reasons (work and health)
I purchased the car directly from Chris Preen, who many in the UK would know, while my wife and I were on holidays in Europe. Chris was really helpful and had two RSX spec cars for sale at the time. I purchased chassis 981, but had Chris swap a long stroke engine out of the other car he had into that chassis. Freight to Tasmania ended up being fairly expensive, but that’s the price you pay to shift a 20 foot container all that way. I purchased a few key spares and new rims and tyres, etc, and Chris did a good job to get them to the Port and packed safely. At least that made better use of the container space!
I’m a little bit OCD, and also get as much pleasure from fiddling with my cars, etc as I do from driving them. So once the car arrived, the plan was always to strip it down (not completely, but enough to get a feel for how it worked and how it was built, etc), tidy things up and then set it up for its intended use.
I originally purchased the car with a view to race in the State Championship Hillclimb Series in Tasmania, and so purchased a set of the softest Avon slicks and wets that fit the Radical rims, had a shorter gear ratio fitted, and softened all the springs and Nik-link bars in the car a fair bit to cope with the roads/tracks where the Series runs. Two of the five events each year are run in North Western Tasmania on a short Hillclimb course on a closed public road. My concern was always that the Radical would struggle with the rougher surface, and may struggle with grounding out over some of the bumps and heavily crowned/cambered corners. The other three rounds each season are run on a really nice little closed race circuit, Baskerville, in Southern Tasmania about 30 minutes from where I live.
I have a job where I work around 55-60 hours per week, and about the same time the car arrived in Tasmania I moved into a new job with the same Company I’ve worked with for 30 years. The new job meant that I travelled away from home (mostly between Tasmania, New South Wales and New Zealand) and would be away from home a lot, travelling Mon-Fri around 20 weeks each year... it’s fair to say that put the brakes on my plan.
I wasn’t that stressed or in a rush, as I have another car (shown in the background of the Registry pics - chassis 981) a VW Golf R with 310kw’s at all 4 wheels... 0-100 in 3.2 seconds reliably, and did a 10.8 second Quarter mile before I set it up for local Hillclimbs and Time Attack events. It’s a great little car!
So as a result of all that, and real life getting in the way, I haven’t yet driven the bloody thing!
unfortunately, about 6 weeks ago I was diagnosed with aggressive bladder cancer, and started treatment two weeks ago - fingers well and truly crossed!
As a result I’ve decided to push on and try to get the car on the track, at least while I can.
Over the last few months, pre Covid19, there has been a new class of ‘Sportscars and Open Wheelers’ started in the local circuit racing series. At the first event in a March there were about 12 cars entered which wasn’t bad for the first event. So now I’m planning to change the set up on the car back to something more suited to race tracks (rather than goat tracks) and have a go at these events instead. By doing that I will at least get to use the car for a lot more hours (=more bang for buck/effort) on track! ... compared to if I was competing in just Hillclimbs, where after each day you may have done about 6 to 8 minutes of competitive driving! .... and I can still use the Golf R for those events anyway...
So sorry for a long story, but safe to say I’ve got a renewed desire to get to the track in Springtime here.... a couple of months away.
... So after all that I have a couple of questions that I’m hoping others can help with.
- does anyone have a guide to removing the GDU from the SR3? It’s probably not that hard, but any tips would be appreciated. I’m thinking of getting mine serviced before use. I’ve got the GDU service manual, just wanted tips on extracting it in the easiest way.
- I read somewhere in the last two weeks that there was an ‘auto-upshift’ function that could be programmed into the ECU.... is that correct? I’d certainly never heard of that before!
- I’ve heard there may be an upgraded starter (or starter years that are in the casing?) that protect against being stripped if the car runs backwards after a spin - any info/advice on that would be appreciated.
- And a question for you Charlie, ... I read on a post a few weeks back that you had a coverking cover made for your car. Did we ever find out if they still made them, who to contact, etc??
.... any help appreciated, as is your interest in what’s happening all the way ‘down under’!
Rod
Thanks for sharing your story Rod (@rjbender). I enjoy hearing how these cars are used around the world. I am so sorry to hear about your illness and wish you a speedy recovery!
Regarding your other questions:
Unfortunately I can't help with the GDU removal as I haven't done it. But I agree it looks pretty straigforward. The torque values are available in either the owners manual or the Mechanics manual (available in the Resource Library.
I can't help with the Auto upshift function either. To be honest I have never heard of it or know why it would be used.
Regarding the upgrades starter. I believe you are talking about the "Spin Safe clutch" that is being offered by Radical. Here is a copy of the installation manual for it.
Regarding the cover, I spoke with Cover King a few months ago and they said that they couldn't find the information. They told me they would dig around for it but never got back with me.
Stay healthy "down under" and keep us up to date on your progress!
Charley
@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com
Thanks Charley!... appreciate your best wishes too.
On the subject of the 'Auto Upshift' I hadn't heard of it either, but it was recently mentioned on a Facebook Radical page (I think) and I asked if I had understood the post correctly and was told I had... but no further info was then forthcoming....
Related to this, or at least a slightly related question, I have just asked John A who posted a recent video of him racing his SR3 a few minutes ago, whether he has some sort of 'soft' rev limiter programmed into his ECU. In the video (particularly at 23:05) it appears there's a soft-cut at close to 10k rpm's.
I haven't driven my car yet, so no idea if it's the same, but then I can't work out how these engines sometimes over-rev, unless that only occurs on an early downshift?
The ECU data log in my car shows that the "Over Rev Engine Speed" level is set to 10,500 rpm. It has not recorded any "Off Load" over revs, but has recorded 31 "On Load" over revs, with a peak of 10,708 rpm.
I would be very interested to see if anyone knows if there is a way to program in a 'soft limit' ... or if indeed there is an 'Auto Upshift' mode we could turn on as a fail safe (at say 10,250 rpm?)
Rod
@rjbender, I just ordered and received a car cover from car cover planet specifically for the SR3, however all my fiberglass is at a body shop so I have no idea if the cover fits right but I’m pretty sure at one time car cover planet was related to coverking.
@crit - great to know!
.... maybe once you’ve got your fibreglass bits back on the chassis you could take a few photos for us?.... what was the rough cost if you don’t mind me asking? .... otherwise you could email me privately at rod.bender@norskeskog.com
I’d love to get a reasonably good fitting cover...
Rod
@rjbender, Hi Rod, I had asked Charley about his cover and he posted some pictures HERE, I will definitely shoot some pictures once I get my car back together. Because they’re working off of a template they can make different types of covers. I got the indoor satin stretch but Charley made a good point in his post that he recommends getting an all weather cover in case it rains unexpectedly when you’re at the track and you need to cover your car. Here’s a pic of the prices for the different types of covers:
Hi everyone, thank all of you for your help in previous post, I finally found place to order custom license plate ( https://adhesivereplica.com ) but I still have one question to ask, are resized license plate replicas legal? I saw a few different sizes available except the standard one. So now I’m curious.
