On the Rollers

One of the things I have been waiting to do is to get the car on the rollers to see what BHP she has.  The local branch of the Westfield Sports Car Club (WSCC) had arranged a trip to visit Bradley's Garage, also known as BTEC Racing (http://www.btecracing.co.uk) to do an engine check and also a suspension set up check.  The garage is situated in the village of Shipton Under Wychwood in The Cotswolds, so it is a very nice place to have to get to ... well except for the pot holes in the road which I think we are all having to dodge around at the present time!!

The weather for the drive over wasn't too bad and at least the rain held off and I was there for about 11.00am.  There were a few cars already there but I didn't have to wait too long before it was my turn.  The front wheels were clamped in place with the rears on the actual rollers.

Here you can see the technician giving it some beans.  I have never been so nervous in my life as he revved the nuts out of my engine.  I kept waiting for it to go bang, but it didn't!!

Here is the result from run number 2 163.6 BHP @ 6067 rpm

Here is the result from run number 3 167.6 BHP @ 6182 rpm.

GBS had said that the standard 2.0 Zetec fitted with their plenum chamber should put out around 165 BHP so to get just shy of 168 BHP was very pleasing, especially as it is a bog standard engine.

On the basis that the car weighs 630 Kg (not the lightest of Sevens), that is around 265 BHP/tonne.

After the rolling road, I put the car on the ramp to have the alignment and geometry checked.  Now I have to be honest and say that this is all a bit of a dark art to me and all I really wanted to hear from the guys was that the set up was 'OK for the road' as I don't intend putting the car on the track, well not at the moment anyway.

So the strange thing on the steering wheel simply to set the it in the right position to measure where the wheels are pointing in relation to where it looks like I am pointing them, if that makes sense!

They then attached one of these units to each wheel and set about taking lots of measurements.

The net result is that it could do with a little bit of tweaking here and there but nothing massive and he did start talking about caster angles and toe in and degrees of this and degrees of that and I think I nodded in the right places so it looked like I understood.  I didn't really and when he said it is probably good enough for the road, I was happy.  I could book it in to them to tweak it, but it would end up costing me a lot and I am not convinced I am a good enough driver to really notice the difference.  Perhaps I will think about it one day.

Overall, it was a very enjoyable day even though I had to put the roof on to drive home as the rain had started to come down.  Oh well, you can't have it all!!!