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Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 4:33 pm
by Stamford78
Impressive work indeed.
Well done.


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Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 7:29 pm
by gobbledygook
It's definitely not a delicate race car, that's for sure. There are plenty of lower powered cars out there that are faster around a track. It's not meant to be though, its meant to be a road car with back seats and boot space that's comfortable on the road, fun on the track and half decent on the drag strip.

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2016 7:59 pm
by Butter Face
Superb build mate, your brother linked me from pistonheads as I'm building a Rotrex ep3 at the moment. This has helped loads!

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 10:46 pm
by jamie91
Great thread. Love how you tackle all your own work. What manual did you use to help rebuild your gearbox?


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Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Wed Oct 12, 2016 7:18 pm
by gobbledygook
Butter Face wrote:Superb build mate, your brother linked me from pistonheads as I'm building a Rotrex ep3 at the moment. This has helped loads!
Nice one, good luck with your build. Keep the belt tight, keep it off the limiter and make sure you can dump the boost to stop any surge! Happy to help if you have any questions.

Added in 2 minutes 39 seconds:
jamie91 wrote:Great thread. Love how you tackle all your own work. What manual did you use to help rebuild your gearbox?


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I use a Honda workshop manual I bought on CD off eBay years ago.

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2016 9:59 pm
by Adi-R
Have you fixed the gearbox?

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2016 10:24 pm
by gobbledygook
Lol, I must have met you at Snetterton! How was the rest of the day that I missed?

I lost 4 teeth off one of the 4th gear cogs. The rest of the box looks sound, but I haven't had time to rebuild it yet. I'll be using an Albins or PPG 3rd and 4th gearset when I do. They are all so expensive now though, thanks to Brexit......

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2016 11:06 pm
by Adi-R
gobbledygook wrote:Lol, I must have met you at Snetterton! How was the rest of the day that I missed?

I lost 4 teeth off one of the 4th gear cogs. The rest of the box looks sound, but I haven't had time to rebuild it yet. I'll be using an Albins or PPG 3rd and 4th gearset when I do. They are all so expensive now though, thanks to Brexit......
Yea was good, got my fastest lap so far 2:16.

It might be a good idea to look into "Deep Cryogenic Treatmen" for the gears, should strengthen them. What torque are u making again?

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 8:01 am
by gobbledygook
I run 263torques on the map I use most of the time.

I looked into cryo treatment for Honda gears and the consensus seems to be that it makes them stronger but more brittle, so they break just as easily. Aftermarket helical gears have fatter teeth to make them stronger, but they make more noise.

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 10:10 am
by Adi-R
Strange your breaking stuff, I'm making 275ftlb at 7300rpm.

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 9:51 pm
by gobbledygook
It could be you have more mechanical sympathy than me. I'd expect your 4th gear to only manage 10 to 15 track days at that torque if my experience is anything to go by. Your lower rev limit might help things last longer though.

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2017 5:29 pm
by gobbledygook
So this was what the damaged 4th gear looked like:
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So I bought some chunky Albins gears to replace 3rd and 4th (Albins on the left, Honda on the right):
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This is how they look on the countershaft with the Honda gears they replaced above. Note, if anyone is using this thread for build advice the smaller spacer should be fitted to the right of 4th gear and not to the left of it as shown in my picture.
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I came across a problem when rebuilding the mainshaft, as the Albins gears need different synchros. Left hand side is a Honda gear with the double cone synchro above it and right hand side is the Albins gear. It needs a single cone synchro like the one I borrowed from 5th gear and placed above it in the picture.
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Double cone synchros have a lot more bits:
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Albins recommended buying Honda part 23444-PPT-315 from the 5 speed gearbox which is a 3rd gear sleeve assembly with two single cone synchros. The trouble is its expensive and not available in the UK. After a bit of thought and research I contacted Synchrotech to ask if they thought their carbon lined single cone synchros for 5th and 6th gear in the k series 6 speed gearboxes would fit the Albins 3rd and 4th without needing to buy any more parts. They got back to me quickly saying that they "should" fit. Not exactly the guarantee I was looking for but worth a go as Tegiwa stock them (part number SYNK20-5) for a reasonable price.

A few days later and it's time to rebuild. looks like it should fit:
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Box reassembled:
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The cars back on the road now and the gears and synchros work perfectly. The gear change is the same as when the box was standard, no noticeable difference between the double and single cone setups. 3rd and 4th gear now make a very slight whine when using them at low RPM, but nothing like what you get from dog gears. I doubt you would hear it unless you have a very quiet exhaust setup like mine. Now all I need to do is run the gears in a for a few hundred miles and it's time to book a track day somewhere in the spring.....

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 3:25 pm
by gobbledygook
With the gearbox fixed it was time to work on my original winter project, freshening up the 'back end'.

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New trailing arm bushes. I went for the hardrace rubber ones rather than polly as I wanted there to be some 'give' in them under hard breaking when on the road. The stock bushes were a bugger to get out but once they were gone the new ones pressed in easily.

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New polly bushes for my SPC rear camber arms. The original rubber was in a poor state, but these look like they will last a lifetime. I also greased up all the superpro polly bushes on the rest of the rear of the car, as its a few years since they were fitted.

Time for the first track outing of the year to test everything out. My first time at Cadwell Park:


There's a lot more speed to be had in some of the corners, and I was very careful on overtaking because the track is so narrow. I thought I wasn't going top like Cadwell because of all the slow corners, but it actually flows really well in my car and I had a great day. I may go back again sometime in the near future.

The good news was the gearbox held up perfectly. I had a few niggles - broken wire to my MAP sensor that took a while to find and my in car camera packed in. The main problem was the occasional lean cut, so there was something wrong with the fuel system.

When I got home I found that the in tank fuel filter had a layer of dirt on it that had stuck to it over the years. Once cleaned I was ready for another track outing.

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 8:33 pm
by gobbledygook
My next track outing was my annual visit to Croft last month. It was a cracking event and the car was flawless all day. I now have a funky new camera that can do speed and GPS overlays, so here's a few laps of Croft with the new setup. First ones a bit slow as its a warmup lap but I pick up speed after that.




I'm going to go to Snetterton next. I'd like to have a dry outing there without breaking any bits of gearbox before I can be happy to have got the best out of the circuit.

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:10 pm
by gobbledygook
Time for an annual update. The Snetterton track day last year didn't go quite as well as hoped, with yet another broken supercharger after half a day on track. The shaft snapped, so I removed the impeller blade for the drive home but to add insult to injury the charger gearbox seized about 20miles from the track. Luckily I always bring enough spares to return the car to NA should this sort of thing happen, so after an hour of tinkering at the side of the road I drove home.

I was about to give up on Rotrex when I found out they have made their chargers more robust, so as mine was out of warranty I forked out for another.

With the new charger fitted I took a trip to Donnington on 25/9/17, during which the car was faultless. It's an awesome track and I usually go there for shakedown testing of new parts.

My next trackday was to try out Bedford Autodrome for the first time. Unfortunately they have a pretty strict noise policy there. I could pass the static test bouncing the car off the rev limiter, but the 87.5dB drive by noise test is the strictest of any track in the UK. I didn't realise this until I saw the black flags waving during my first session on track, and that was the end of my day. I did get a free souvenir though:
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I've come close to failing noise tests before at Donny, so I decided my winter project would be noise reduction. Firstly the open cone filter right next to the supercharger was a cause of some major induction noise. The car sounds great, like a jet engine, but on full throttle at high revs it was loud outside the car. An air box around the filter would quieten it down, but there's very little space to work with. I decided to fit a small 'race' battery low down next to the gearbox, and use the space where the battery used to be for an air box. After many nights with the fibre glass it was ready:
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Inside it is some noise deadening foam to help cut down even more noise. I then made up the pipework and some cold air ducting from aluminium sheet, scooping cold air over the radiator, through a hole behind the Honda badge (when it's removed) and through the vent in the mugen grill.
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I filled the bonnet with expanding foam and covered the underside and the plastic trim under the bonnet with sound deadening silvered foam:
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It definitely made the car quieter, easily good enough for Donny but probably not enough for Bedford.

I then took the car out for it's annual trip to Snetterton. I managed to pick the one day where the whole country had glorious sunshine, except Snetterton which had a monsoon! It was a good day, but I had two big moments, one of which was pretty close to the barrier:





Time to try Bedford again. Looking at some of the skylines at Snetterton, they ran exhaust extensions to help reduce exhaust noise. If its good enough for a skyline its good enough for a civic, so I made up an extension silencer:

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It looks ridiculous, but it kept me on track all day. I was warned that I was close to the noise limit, but even when flat out I managed to avoid a black flag. Bedford is an awesome track at full speed, I think I'll be back again next year.


Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2018 8:45 am
by gobbledygook
I took a trip out to Anglesey Circuit the other week. Great circuit with amazing scenery, but more suited to a lighter car and more agile driving than I can manage. My next trip out will probably be Croft.

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Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2018 8:17 am
by bondyboy
Great track videos, Anglesey has been on my list of tracks to visit for a long time

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:45 pm
by gobbledygook
It's worth the trip, it's a bit of a treck to get 99ron fuel though, so if you are tuned for optimax/momentum it's best to take a jerry can or two.

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 11:51 am
by kinky_boy
nice videos ... what brake setup do you have?

Re: Super Nitro Methanol EP3 makes 479bhp

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 3:43 pm
by gobbledygook
Stoptech BBK up front and Rotora disks at the back. Ferodo DS2500 pads all round. My rear disks are very worn now, so I'll be fitting some new Stoptech rear disks before the MOT and my next track outing.