New member - Bought an RA107

[F1snake]

Hello,

As the title suggests, I'm a new boy, and this is my first post. I am very impressed with this forum, so packed with knowledge and F1 excitement. My girlfriend and I have been racing for a few years now, mainly GT cars.

We have wanted a frisky single seater for some time, and we recently took the plunge and bought one.

Most people's first single seater will likely be a Pilbeam or Reynard or something similar, but we did something slightly mad, and bought an ex. works Honda F1 car from 2007. The RA107(ex. Barrichello) probably was the worst performing Honda F1 ever, but for us, it will be totally awesome.

The car was sold to us without engine and steering wheel, but apart from that, it is remarkably complete. The car had a simulator kit installed, and and it was probably destined to be an exibit in a bank foyer, or be a spoiled kid's toy. But we are going to return it to the track! If you are interested, a few pics can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fan6s/sets ... 463307033/

The car raced in the Earthcar livery with race number 8, and did 12 out of 18 races in 2007 with RB driving. It clocked up over 8.000 racing km's on circuits all over the world. If you have/know of any photos of the car racing, or have any interesting facts, I'd obviously be very interested.

Looking forwards to exploring this great website further and hopefully make some new friends..

[adrianjordan]

Wow!!

I have to ask this, but I don't really expect an answer - how much did that set you back??

Also, I'm intrigued, was it sold through Mercedes as it looks like you were picking it up from a MB dealership!!

Final question, where in the UK are you? Once it's up and running do you plan on taking it to any tracks?

[F1snake]

We bought the car at a Bonhams auction which was held 6th December at Mercedes World, Brooklands, hence the Merc dealer signs. With regards to price, anyone can look up the sales results, so I might aswell let you know that it cost me £37K. We put in the max bid we could possibly afford, and to our great surprice we actually got the car! Perhaps because it was the only modern car in a classic car sale, wasen't publicised very well, and perhaps didn't attract enough possible buyers.

We're based in Bath, Somerset and our local circuit is Castle Combe. We are likely to do some shake down testing there once we have the car ready. But, we're happy to travel all over to get on track.

[timbo]

Great pictures!
Do you have ECU installed in the car?
I'm interested in how wiring is made. In older cars wiring loom was huge and was located at the floor, in your pictures it seems it's somewhere else.
Congrats on your purchase!

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I will second everyones sentiments and say WOW!!

Secondly welcome to F1Technical and I hope the tech guys can come up with a few solutions for you. I would start by asking 747 heavy , xpensive , marcush , mep and a few others to get the ball rolling.

Good luck.

[Tim.Wright]

Very cool

So do you have any immediate ideas on what powertrain you will run? This seems to be where the most amount of work will be, especially if you want to keep the suspension geometry.

Tim

[F1snake]

Many thanks for the warm welcome! I'm sure this forum will be a great source of help and info. I can see from the postings that people on here are very knowledgable indeed, and I'm sure there will be plenty of questions from me!

I haven't yet got an ECU in the car, but one will come with the engine we're thinking of using. I'll make sure to do a photo-log when it comes to installing everything.

The engine we have in mind is the 3.0 L H1V8, which is about the correct size and weight to replace the original 2.4 L Honda engine. Its also a very capable unit, which can be made to match the original engine's power output. We plan to start with a milder tune(500 rather than 750 BHP),at least until we are confident with the car. We'll have to make a frame to take the stress loading between the bulkhead and gearbox, as the H1V8 is not really designed to be used as the main stress member.

As for trans, the car still has its original X-trac, but we are probably having to replace it with pneumatic sequential we can have built into the existing carbon housing. Then we can keep the original suspension pick up points.

[Giblet]

While you are being very understated about this, congrats on achieving what must be a sort of dream for you, pardon the pun with the cars livery.

Now all you need to when you are done is arrange an F1Technical track day.

I would be willing to pay some money for a few laps

[adrianjordan]

We're based in Bath, Somerset and our local circuit is Castle Combe. We are likely to do some shake down testing there once we have the car ready. But, we're happy to travel all over to get on track.

Wow, me too!!

If you would be so kind as to let us know when you're intending on doing some running up at Castle Combe that would be awesome. I'm in St John Ambulance and we provide the First Aid cover for the circuit so I could arrange to be on duty that day - always a treat to see an F1 car in action!!

Another question - obviously the car has been refinished by Honda in their 2008 livery, probably for promotional work or something. Do you have any plans to return it to it's 2007 livery?

[Formula None]

Whoa, nice find dude! I didn't know a chassis could be picked up for that sort of price. Given all the bespoke components made of exotic materials, I can't help but think you got quite a bargain.

Considering this forum's interests, you should disassemble it, measure, photograph and make drawings for all the parts, then post them here!

What are you planning to do for:

-Dampers?
-Torsion springs?
-Tires?

I imagine motorcycle dampers will get you into the size range you need, while being relatively inexpensive. Torsion springs I'm sure will be a challenge, if their not on the car already. Hopefully you can fit larger diameter wheels and run non-F1 tires.

I don't know of any way you could race this, but money no object you could restore it and make some appearances in classics events. I'd say aim to make it road legal.

The H1V8 is nice and compact, as you say (and is already dry sumped), but are you sure you don't want to get up into the 700-800hp range this chassis was designed for?

75° odd fire V8 2.8 LITER, 170 cu. in. displacement (3.0 liter optional)

84mm Bore X 63mm Stroke (67 stroke optional)

4 cams, 32 valves via internal silent chain

530mm wide x 485mm long x 530mm high

400HP @ 10,000 rpm with stock street cams (higher spec. is available)

245 ft-lbs torque @ 7500 rpm

200 lbs engine weight

Billet nitrided steel 180° crank

4340 H-beam con-rods with ARP bolts

Billet 6061-T6 aluminum crankcase

Dry sump 0il system with 4 stage pump

7.25" or 5.5" Twin disc clutch

DTA S80 full sequential ECU

How much room do you have between the monocoque and the front face of the gearbox? If I understand correctly, the length of the engine (and whatever subframe you create) will only affect the fit of your bodywork. Everything else is flexible, being attached ahead of, or behind, the engine.

A turbo Mazda rotary could be another option (compact, high output):

20B dimensions:

Length 675mm x Width 549mm x Height 520mm

An LS-series V8 would be the most compact big engine you could fit (like what run in LMPC). How amazing and unexpected would it be to have that sound coming out of the Earth Dreams car?



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox9RdYp27O4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs8O4Lk0OXw[/youtube]

LS6 road engine dimensions:

730mm length x 627mm width x 717mm height

Sponsorship may be another way to complete your project. You could turn up at races and car shows with a new sponsor livery. Say, find a biodiesel supplier and drop in a turbodiesel. (again, how cool would that sound?) Find a battery or electric motor supplier, convert it to all electric.

Nice pics by the way, its always difficult to find high res imagery of modern F1 components:

[Paul]

Wow, congratulations on the buy! Although one of the worst F1 cars of the decade, still much cooler than any road car, at least in my view. =D>

[Giblet]

My understanding was this car's biggest problem was a serious lack of stability under braking.

[marcush.]

wow ..congrats for the decision and the balls to dig into this..

maybe you can ask ross brawn for one of their 2009 Mercedes engine installation kits

seriously the mountain to climb will be enourmous.I think i have read about a company who does do a complete modern ecu/engine installation which can be handled on amateur level .They have done a lot of cars already as far as i know
(so the whole shebang with paddle shift etc).
I´d think something like this is the way to go if one wants to drive and not design and build for years..We should not forget just how many man hours go into a f1 car to design and build nowadays.

[ajdavison2]

It might be a bad F1 car, but lets not forget that a bad F1 car is still a very fast and very good car by other standards

[Paul]

My understanding was this car's biggest problem was a serious lack of stability under braking.

Shame that torque transfer thingy from 2004 wasn't an option.