Beta Coupe GCRE upgrade

[betabuoy]

And back in the garage with an old stablemate!

[Neil-yaj396]

Looking good Chris. Don't forget to wash off that salt.

[betabuoy]

Time for a bit of winter bodywork.  

I'd noticed some cracks behind the rear wheel arches so needed to investigate.  The result is the usual sill type deterioration.  Repair will be with three new fabricated pieces all coming together at the floor joint. Very pleasing, however, was the repair to the arch completed by Chris Bastow in around 2005.  The earlier filler has all been removed, and the picture shows a new layer of fibre glass around the joint, but otherwise it's all very clean and strong.

[betabuoy]

And the other side was just the same!

[betabuoy]

Nice progress this week.  Green should be going on today 

[betabuoy]

Finished for now.  Plenty of Waxoil underneath too.  Delighted!

[Neil-yaj396]

Looks great Chris.

[smithymc]

Agreed - Fab.

Mark

[squiglyzigly]

Lovely sleeper

[Clifford3051]

Looking lovely!

[betabuoy]

Thanks guys.

Next big event could be a run down to Sicily for my brother-in-laws wedding in April. I think it's a great idea to take the Beta... but I might need to convince my wife?!  A bit of post-Christmas thought/planning is needed.

[A Ross]

Looks absolutely stunning Chris!  It was a combination of seeing your car going around Goodwood at full throttle and Tony's and Mark's Coupé's at various points over the Betameeta weekend this year that swayed me to getting my own Coupé. I'm loving every minute of it so far and slowly, but surely getting there with making it perfect. 

Alex

[betabuoy]

Looks absolutely stunning Chris!  It was a combination of seeing your car going around Goodwood at full throttle and Tony's and Mark's Coupé's at various points over the Betameeta weekend this year that swayed me to getting my own Coupé. I'm loving every minute of it so far and slowly, but surely getting there with making it perfect. 

Alex

I'm pleased to hear it Alex.  Getting any Beta out on the road is sure to put a smile on your face.   

[betabuoy]

Just back from a superb round trip in the Beta to visit family down south, then on to see my brother-in-law and his family in France.

We left Stokesley in North Yorkshire on Saturday morning (8 Jun) to head south M1/A43/A34 for our first stop in Winchester.  It took just over 5 hours of mostly motorway and dual carriageway roads, but we arrived for lunch and the afternoon before jumping back in the Beta to head for Dorking in Surrey for night stop. Total distance after day one was 355 miles. 

Next morning saw a M25/M20 blast to Folkestone and a crossing with Le Shuttle.  This worked a treat.  Ticket was £111.00 for the car and 2 pax; we arrived 30 minutes early so were offered, and took, an earlier train.  On the other side, we headed for our next night stop at Rouen using the Autoroute and blasted along at 130km/h on near empty roads.  Our hotel was in the centre, but no emissions restrictions apply to a 'Historic' car (classed as over 30 years in France) and my Waze nav aids made the City a doddle.  Day two distance was 202 miles.

Next morning we were destined for the village of Such-sur-Edre and had the choice of a north coast route on a mixture of roads (estimated to be 4hrs 40 mins) or the Autoroute with Peage tolls (estimated 3hrs 20 mins). We chose the latter based on achieving an earlier arrival and that we'd be on the northern route for much of our final leg.  That said, it's 59 euro in tolls from Rouen via Le Mans and on to Nantes so worth a pause for thought.  Day three distance was 233 miles.

Departure was a couple of days later after a variety of property maintenance, gin, wine and cheese!  I was also able to collect my new 123+ ignition system that had be assembled in Tours and sent to my France address but more of that when its fitted later.  The next leg was to head north for the ferry port just north of Caen.  Good fast autoroutes kept us moving on a three-hour trip of just over 180 miles and the very crossing couldn't have been more pleasant.  Not only was the cost just over £70 for the car and two pax - Bargain! - But the weather was glorious and the crossing extremely comfortable.  We arrived in Portsmouth in the evening and returned to Dorking for night stop.  Day 5 distance was 248 miles.

Finally, next morning (today, 14 Jun) was the final leg  and heading north back towards Stokesley; having been ahead of the M25 traffic, the M1 was less delightful.  Regardless, we arrived home early this afternoon.  Day 6 distance was a 270 mile.

The total distance for our 6-day journey was 1307 miles.  I drove every mile, and the Beta was faultless on UK and French roads sitting happily at fast motorway speeds and in rain and shine.  When Guy Croft and I talked about the spec for my engine in 2009, I told him I wanted it to be hoofingly quick for track day fun, but I also wanted to be able to drive sensibly across Europe.  It worked extremely well, although one of the dis-benefits of the current ‘spring and bob-weight’ distributor, is the inevitable compromise (power vs engine protection) of across-the-range ignition timing. 

More to follow on that point when I fit the new 123+ system.

[Neil-yaj396]

Glad your trip went so well to plan Chris. How was the fuel consumption out of interest? Your new ignition might benefit that as well?

[betabuoy]

Hi Neil,

Averaged around 30mpg which I was pretty happy about.
The ignition might help, but it’s more for getting the blend of engine performance vs protection. I’m told the current system needs refining and this is an answer. Unfortunately, I can’t get the right expertise at the rolling road until just after the Betaboyz weekend but I’ll keep you all posted on how it goes. I’m anticipating some carb jetting changes too so the print out will be interesting.

[WestonE]

Interested to see how this works as many Betas have badly worn distributors.

[betabuoy]

Finally got to my turn with Mark Hardy in Stokesley (Automark, www.automarkuk.com) to prepare and fit the bespoke 123 Ignition, then re-jet the big 45s as required.

Before the old distributor was removed, we gathered timing data on the current set up.  This is standard Bosch spring and bob weights stuff.  Mark noted the advance at 500rpm intervals to build the current curve as a baseline. We know the car ought to be smoother running low down, and we noted that max advance was about 30 degrees at 3000rpm with little change after that.  An earlier set up had been to around 37 degrees advance at high revs but the standard distributor really couldn't look after the engine lower down so it was backed off to prevent any pre-ignition damage.

So upon fitting, whilst the new 'Beta' casing looked the same, and I had checked the length of the drive and the number of splines, I'd not checked the diameter of the body; it is actually quite a bit thicker such that the clamp wouldn't go over it. It took a bit of fettling but the oval was easily enlarged.  And notwithstanding the GC offset manifold, clearances around the block mounted distributor with this arrangement are extremely tight.

Tomorrow should see the engine running and we'll start to play with the 123 Ignition app, and build an appropriate curve to optimise through the range.  Mark has never been keen on the 38mm chokes GCRE prescribed and on initial set up the carbs saw a lot of jets swapped in and out whilst on the rolling road.  We'll see how tomorrow goes, but 36mm chokes have always been Mark's preference.


 

[HFStuart]

Mapped ignition and a bigger signal from the smaller chokes and I'd expect the low rpm driveability to be transformed. I look forward to the results!

[WestonE]

Very interested in this and Stuart is right about the low end with 36 chokes but your man needs to show you that you are not losing significant top end power and torque response. GC had strong opinions usually based on multiple tests on his engines. He certainly had knowledge gaps on supercharged setups as I compressively proved, but he had a lot more experience with twin carb TCs.