Historic replicas. A sensible discussion please

[Paul D]

Yes John, I take your point.

I really only used the word 'series' loosely! Perhaps I should have just said if there was a suitable 'place' to race it.

[Peter Mallett]

Spa is, I think, a very suitable place. ;-)

[phoenix]

Certain clubs do allow certain replicas to race. Some Porsche races allow "replicas" (or evocations) of the 935 for example.

I would think that to most UK based racers, one race per year - and at the fairly large cost of going to Spa - would not be very appealing to many who might want to race their non-HTP compliant car. I doubt that many would want to race at a UK based "Historic" meeting either - and certainly not at any 'prestigeous' meeting. Just a race during a regular club meeting at a UK circuit.

There are plenty of Mk 1 Escorts racing today in various series but modified far away from any original spec. No-one begrudges them a race, do they? In fact there seem to be more racing opportunities for the owner of a modified saloon car than the owner of a modified Sports/GT. I guess that is just down to numbers?

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by phoenix

There are plenty of Mk 1 Escorts racing today in various series but modified far away from any original spec. No-one begrudges them a race, do they? In fact there seem to be more racing opportunities for the owner of a modified saloon car than the owner of a modified Sports/GT. I guess that is just down to numbers?

I think this is an interesting point. When we started going to Spa with Barry Sideways, there were GTD40s and other stuff. I know not why they stopped going.

[johngee]

Originally Posted by phoenix

I doubt that many would want to race at a UK based "Historic" meeting either - and certainly not at any 'prestigeous' meeting. Just a race during a regular club meeting at a UK circuit.

There are plenty of Mk 1 Escorts racing today in various series but modified far away from any original spec. No-one begrudges them a race, do they? In fact there seem to be more racing opportunities for the owner of a modified saloon car than the owner of a modified Sports/GT. I guess that is just down to numbers?

Spot on. As I've already said, if sufficient numbers can get their act together and agree on some kind of acceptable eligibility and a broadly acceptable format, one of the organising clubs would run it. What the organising clubs probably cannot do, is to trawl the potential racing population to find the potential entrants - they simply do not have the time or resources.

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by phoenix

Certain clubs do allow certain replicas to race. Some Porsche races allow "replicas" (or evocations) of the 935 for example.

I would think that to most UK based racers, one race per year - and at the fairly large cost of going to Spa - would not be very appealing to many who might want to race their non-HTP compliant car. I doubt that many would want to race at a UK based "Historic" meeting either - and certainly not at any 'prestigeous' meeting. Just a race during a regular club meeting at a UK circuit.

For me my couple of trips to Spa, where I am always made very welcome, each year plus racing in the championship and challenge races I do in this country is all I want and have time to do. In these races I go out and I have a bloody good time with close racing with some of the nicest people you'd want to meet, what else could you want?

I have no desire or interest in competing in any prestigious historic series and tbh we have more problems finding a suitable historic series for the "real" cars than we do for mine.

[Clive Brown]

So just how is a 'period' Lister Chevrolet accommodated? Is it not a non-original hybrid?

What if someone took an original Lister, dumped the Jag engine (max. horsepower ???), and put in a modern day small-block Chevy (at least 750bhp on a single four barrel Holley?) Clearly not within the spirit of Historic racing, but permissible within the regulations?

What if you remove the original bowtie motor from a Lister Chevrolet, and replace it with a state-of-the-art small block motor?

[Lancsbreaker]

I think PaulD's initial response was dangerously close to answering what I naively took to be the original question:

"Who owns what, what is under the skin, how old, race history and where do you compete with it now ???

Problems, issues, HTP papers.

Sensible ,constructive posts please. "

Do you think he should be banned for staying on topic?

[Al Weyman]

I love when people talk of monster power from Small block chevy engines, 5.7 litre Gen 1 engine I would say max power for a circuit race engine 500 to 525bhp on a 4 barrell Holley a 750 works best on circuit engine the way I see it and you wont get much more than that through a 750cfm carb. Put a bigger one on and you will get such a hole in the torque curve it would be hard to live with. Dont get confused with drag racing engines spinning up to 10k and a life span measured in minutes before a rebuild and running on a 1000 or 1200cfm carb.

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

I love when people talk of monster power from Small block chevy engines, 5.7 litre Gen 1 engine I would say max power for a circuit race engine 500 to 525bhp on a 4 barrell Holley a 750 works best on circuit engine the way I see it and you wont get much more than that through a 750cfm carb.

That's still 75% more than you'd get out of a Jag XK engine and probably a lot lighter as well.

[Clive Brown]

Al

As I understand it, NASCAR SB2 Chevy motors at 358 ci gave about 750bhp and spun up to 9000rpm on a single four barrel Holley. Moreover,they would run a 600 mile race (Charlotte), plus three practice sessions and qualifying all on the same motor.

The SB2 has now been superseded, but the historical record surely speaks for itself.

Best wishes

Clive

[Al Weyman]

American BS figures or they have an odd way of measureing them, also as you say designed to produce power at 9000 rpm and probably running within 500rpm of that at all times on the oval, absolutely no good at all for a road race car. Also new engine every race. I have a cam in my yellow car that drops off much below 4500 and I would like something with a wider band as I have in the black car as its so much more drivable. I frequent an american no BS site that deal only with 3rd and 4th gen road racing nothing else and no one there makes these bhp claims and some are using LS7's and IMHO they are knowledgable sensible people on the whole.

[Clive Brown]

True, they were stripped and built for every race, but look at the total mileage covered through practice and the race.

Bear in mind too, that few NASCAR events involve the motor running WOT throughout every lap on every circuit- Bristol, Martinsville, Sonoma, and Watkins Glen to name but four tracks- so torque has to be a consideration.

When I win the lottery, I'll buy you one, Al!

[midgetman]

Al, to us brought up on A Series, that's monster power!

[Mike Bell]

Ahhh, sensible discussion! I thought for a while we were going to have to call on Harry Hill- 'Well, I like replicas, but on the other hand originals are good too. But which is best? There's only one way to find out. F.........!'

[andy97]

Several people on this thread have asked for a series designed to accomodate replicas, re-creations, facsimiles (or whatever you want to call them) and I have said, several times, that it all ready exists; SR & GT
http://www.srgtc.org.uk/ why re-create the wheel? Go & race in that, a grid full of "GT40"s, "Lola T70s", "Lotus 23"s, "D Types", Evantes, Geminis, Mambas and 917s etc etc etc would be great.

[Simon Hadfield]

But Andy, one of the problems with this particular thread is that if you say something the previous poster doesn't want to hear or that it suits him not to register it simply gets disregarded.

[Simon Hadfield]

For Clive Brown,s benefit the Lister Chevrolets are supposed to use the correct, period, block and head castings - the one gentleman who took a rather more modern development path has simply been uninvited to the one series that matters. As an F5000 racer I did a lot of research into Nascar development so we knew, more or less, how to prevent this technology being bought into our part of the sport, and Al is absolutely correct - the parts and methods they use are totally incompatible with what we can use, further the carb they use is as near a standard Holley as a Road Ford V6 is to a GA!

[John Turner]

I think on the whole, the discussion has been reasonably sensible and constructive, but it has certainly moved around a lot, and not sure that we have yet responded to parts of the original question.

As far as where to run these cars, we've had an offer from John from 360MRC, Tim Falce can certainly point you to a series where many of them can and do run, also 750MC, plus Eamonn's Crossle boys are also putting something together, so it's not exactly a lost cause.

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by Simon Hadfield

But Andy, one of the problems with this particular thread is that if you say something the previous poster doesn't want to hear or that it suits him not to register it simply gets disregarded.

That's pretty much the same throughout any threads or forums, most people are only interested in their own small world and can't or don't want to see outside it.

A classic example from another forum is with the MOT test, someone will ask a question, you give them an answer directly from the VOSA manual and 2 dozen other people who have no knowledge of testing will say something different and completely wrong.

[johngee]

I think another aspect (which we, as in 360MRC, were 'victims' of) is that the majority of competitors across the board, are not subscribers of this forum and don't even use the internet! There's a number of important and influential 'players' on here but they actually represent a small proportion of the total market and it's all too easy to be seduced that the views expressed on here represent a 'groundswell' of opinion.

[Al Weyman]

Originally Posted by Clive Brown

True, they were stripped and built for every race, but look at the total mileage covered through practice and the race.

Bear in mind too, that few NASCAR events involve the motor running WOT throughout every lap on every circuit- Bristol, Martinsville, Sonoma, and Watkins Glen to name but four tracks- so torque has to be a consideration.

When I win the lottery, I'll buy you one, Al!

Well I know for a fact during my own sourcing of parts that the pistons they use are scrap after the race and several heat cycles (check out with JE, better to use their little brother product for what we do) and I would suggest they use different engines on a road course like the Glen or at least a cam change.

[Al Weyman]

Originally Posted by andy97

Several people on this thread have asked for a series designed to accomodate replicas, re-creations, facsimiles (or whatever you want to call them) and I have said, several times, that it all ready exists; SR & GT
http://www.srgtc.org.uk/ why re-create the wheel? Go & race in that, a grid full of "GT40"s, "Lola T70s", "Lotus 23"s, "D Types", Evantes, Geminis, Mambas and 917s etc etc etc would be great.

That looks very good so whats the problem? I like the way they do the drivers profiles on the website I have been asking CTCRC to do this for several years now with no result.

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

I like the way they do the drivers profiles on the website

I must say it's an absolutely fantastic website run by a really nice bloke.

[Peter Mallett]

Last time I looked it was about two years out of date!

John makes a good point above.