So, a little more work was done last night.
Earlier in the year I moved my oil cooler to behind the front grille. lots of people mount them here, and it seemed like a pretty decent place to me.
However, on track I've been seeing fairly high oil temps, reading 128 degrees at Thruxton in 30 degree heat, and 118 degrees at Rockingham in 24-25degree heat.
Not threateningly bad, but about 15-20 degrees higher than I'd really LIKE to see.
I noticed that the fan cowling actually covered almost ALL of the back of the rad pack.
This isn't something I'd ever really thought about before. They're designed this way to help the fans be more efficient when in traffic, but in free flow at speed it must really be hampering the efficiency of the rad.
This is the cowling before I started:
And this is it after being savagely attacked by a plunge cutter!
I've got a bit more work to do cleaning up the edges, but by leaving the main rings around the fans intact it's still retained about 90% of it's integrity and despite how it looks it's not flexy at all!
Next up was the PAS pump.
at rockingham, we had real issues getting Ollys 6 speed PAS line to fit onto my pump. However we tried the banjo just didnt' want to go in square and it was a real struggle to get it on.
With a bit more time on my hands, looking at it after rockingham it was clear to see why:
The 6 speed line on my A3 pump was jammed TIGHT up against the bottom of the pump body in 2 places. it wasn't just touching, but really hard up against, so we'd obviously had to flex the hard line to get the banjo in. No wonder it wasn't happy!
Comparing the 2 pumps side by side, I can now see why:
It's a bit tricky to see, but if you look closely at the pump outlets, the 6 speed pump on the left has a small ring, 2-3mm on top of the fitting.
On the 5 speed pump, this ring is more like 10mm, so lifts the whole line up by about 7mm, which is causing the clash.
Happy that I'd found the reason, I cleaned the new pump up and fitted it:
Followed by the new larger pulley:
My existing belt was a 6pk1120. I knew it was unlikely to fit any more due to the larger pulley, but tried anyway. it didn't fit, as expected.
I cut the belt and tried to offer it up to work out what length I'd need, but trying to hold the tensioner in an appropriate place just seemed impossible. I neeed to make up an adjustable length belt to work out what new belt I needed.
Que the drill and a zip tie, and hey presto! Adjustable temporary belt for mocking up!
This was plenty strong enough to fit the belt fully and release the tensioner, and with the belt under tension I was able to measure the distance between the 2 ends, and add that figure to the 1120 to get my new belt length.
After a bit of messing around, starting with 40mm additional length, I found the tensioner sat in a really nice place with around 18mm between the belt ends:
Looking at various belts available, and the manufactures and costs, I opted for a Dayco 6pk1137 to try initially. If this proves to be too long I could potentially get an 1130 on there.
I'm unsure if it's preferable to have the belt run near straight with the tensioner dead tight, or to let the tensioner swing down further increasing belt wrap on the crank and alternator. I didn't want to run it too tight and cause issues with the tensioner, so I'm trying this 1137 first, but will likely buy a spare or two to take to the first few trackdays.