Visit to Clancy's Raceshop

[MiniDave]

I was invited to go with some other British Car Club members to visit Clancy's raceshop - turned out it was actually his son's raceshop - but no matter. Scott (the son) races a Spridget in vintage events and the purpose of our trip was to find out what it takes (besides $$$) to field a competitive car.

(BTW, Clancy supplied me with the new block I needed for Buzz)

This was a fun visit - Scott's shop is spotlessly clean, as it should be, with an attached kitchen and den where he can relax, eat and go online and such.

There were lots of tricks and cool engineering, but the highlight for me was a talk given by Ken Prather, somewhat of a local legend in British race engines...his shop has been building winning engines since the late 70's'

Most of his discussion centered around the engineering of the cylinder head and he didn't have a lot of new things to say there, but I did learn some important little tidbits. Remember, he builds race engines, not street engines.

He gets a reliable 138 HP out of a 1275 motor, one that will run all season and only need oil changes......one of the keys to longevity is balancing the bottom end properly, then using high end quality parts such as ARP bolts, nuts and studs. You can't scrimp on internal engine parts if you want to finish the race, and the season!

Another interesting thing, he runs no mechanical or vacuum advance on the distributor - he locks it down at 34* advance and leaves it there - all RPMs! Says running the cam that they do it starts easily and makes big reliable HP - there's that word again!

He also adjusts his valves hot - as in within moments of shutting the engine off. He does the exhausts first - quickly - then goes back to do the intakes. Of course the actual clearance is determined by the cam manufacturer......he runs one of Vizard's special race cams.

He runs a 3 into 1 header, rather than an LCB......and he runs a 45 DCOE Weber carb, choked down to 38mm - he said the carb was worth 10 hp over the SUs they'd run the last 5 years, just bolting it on!

He also runs exhaust temp sensors on cyl 1 and 4, just off the head attached to the header, this allows him to fine tune the carb for the conditions of that race weekend, and of course it requires a major investment in jets, emulsion tubes and needles for the carb, but given time he can get the engine dialed in for it's maximum performance and keep it alive.

Scott also runs a custom built transmission ($6K!) but where he used to go thru about 2-4 gearboxes a season, this one has now lasted 6 seasons without a failure....so sometimes the monetary investment is worth it.

There are limitations to what you can do in vintage racing, and the different sanctioning bodies all have different rules - such as you cannot cut holes in the body work. But nothing says you can't replace certain body parts with carefully painted aluminum ones!  ;D

All in all we had a fun day, and the highlight was getting to hear it run. I took a cell phone video which does NOT capture the true sound, but you can tell by the fact that everyone had their fingers in their ears - it was race car loud!

Scott's (the 6'5" guy in the blue T-shirt)  last name is Schmidt, and the car is named the "Schmidtbox"  ;D

[94touring]

I like the part about a clean shop with a kitchen  ;D. 

So I guess street wise 138hp is probably a bit overkill since it's a reliable race motor.  Looked like a fun time.

[MiniDave]

Well, it idles at 2500 rpm, and has little to no power tills it's around 4K or better.

It's geared so that 1st is good for 70 mph, too!

[MiniDave]

Found out Kent charges about $15K for each race engine.............






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