The shocks were finally dropped off at my house a few weeks ago by Ted Garstang, South Africa's foremost shock and Bilstein specialist. Ted is in his early seventies and has been involved with Bilstein and racing for at least forty years – there's nothing anyone can tell him about shocks and suspension set-up.
I was absolutely thrilled with the result and they are beautifully made.
The bottom mountings are rose-joints with almost no play and the machined components are a thing of beauty. They fitted perfectly.
Ted built these shocks specifically for this car and they have variable damping adjustment. Ted helped me fit the shocks this morning and is very happy with the damping parameters that he had decided on.
There is a small adjusting knob on the top of the shock which is turned to either give soft or hard damping. It only takes one and a half turns to go from the softest setting to the hardest setting and the difference is absolutely notable when you push down on the car. He still has to supply me with the locking mechanism to keep the adjustment knob locked in the desired setting.
The front air suspension was continually dropping within half an hour of switching off the car, so I set about finding the problem, which was eventually traced to a leaking air bellow. It was a new part, so this was most unusual.
With the air suspension working properly, I set about getting the ride height where I wanted the car to be, judging from photos that I had of the ‘Rote Sau'. Once this was done, I sent the car in for wheel alignment, which absolutely transformed the car. Before the wheel alignment, the car was all over the show and a real handful on the roads around my house
The next step was to put the car on the track for testing and see how it would handle in terms of cornering and braking, and then do the required changes to the damping to achieve the best result.
The general idea is to start with the same tyre pressure all round and the same damping front and rear. If the car understeers or oversteers, then we will change the damping at the front or the rear in small increments, with the car being driven after each individual change is made to see what affect the setting change has.
The big day finally arrived last Sunday when I put the 6.3 on the track for its first track test.
My best friend, Chris, on the right in the pic below, joined me and my other half for the test day. (Chris is an inspiration: he turns 72 in December and started historic racing two years ago. There are no excuses, chaps!)
I was really nervous about this and expected the worst from the car. I expected it to be a handful with air suspension and basic street wheel alignment, as well as unknown damping settings.
What a surprise! After only about two laps of feeling the car out in terms of turning, braking and working out the gear pattern, I was able to start pushing it harder and the car was absolutely marvellous. I cannot explain how exhilarating it was. The car handles extremely well and it's tremendously forgiving. It turns in well and doesn't understeer, which is what I was expecting with that big cast iron lump up front.
Truth be told is that the car is not delivering the sort of horsepower that the chassis can handle. I have no doubt that a few horses have bolted in the last forty eight years, but the engine isn't revving freely enough over 4500rpm which is probably due to the fuel injection set up. It's been tampered with in the past, so I plan to get the car to a specialist to get the system overhauled and set up properly.
The car did start to get hot – just above the 100⁰C mark, so I will have to look at upgrading the radiator, even though it has been re-cored with a three row core. The electric fan works fine. There was also a lot of oil coming out of the power steering reservoir – I don't know if it was over filled or whether the oil is getting too hot and needs some sort of cooling system, maybe a re-routed pipe in front of the radiator? I'll start by bleeding the system again first.
I have to modify the brake pedal to sit closer to the accelerator pedal. The pedals are currently too wide apart and it's virtually impossible to heel-and-toe when changing down – it caused an interesting moment when I jumped on the brake pedal too hard when trying to heel and toe, unsettling the car and locking the rear brakes.
I had the 6.3 on the scale and it weighs in at a hefty 1548kg - she's certainly no light weight! I want to add lightness by replacing the front and rear screens with Lexan, but I will have to do some inventive stuff to get the weight down. The driver could probably start by getting some exercise and shedding 10kg….
Here's a YouTube clip that was taken of the car on its first outing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ2yptWsFa0