New member - Bought an RA107

[f1pilot]

Congrats on your car. How was the auction process? If you remember, there was a JV 2001 chassis that never made it to auction, well that was because it was already in my house. hahah LOL not exactly in my house but it was definitely mine.

Hopefully by next year she will be fully running but I will add some photos for you to check out if you would like. Subsequently, I bought a second 2001 chassis from Brawn gp and it has the full Monaco down force setup.

[F1snake]

Hi F1Pilot,

Thanks for your message and welcome to this brilliant forum. I didn't actually go to the auction when my car was sold, but simply put in a sealed bid prior to the auction. I never knew a 2001 BAR Honda should have been sold at the same auction? Its not actually listed in the Bonhams catalogue from the December 2010 sale at Mercedes World.

I'd love to see some photos of your cars, but rather than posting them on this thread, you should start a thread of your own, as it would be really interesting to follow your progress. As you hope to have a car up and running next year, it would be fascinating to hear how you plan to do that.

You may have seen that there is already another owner of a 2001 BAR Honda posting on the forum. His chassis is no. 005, a beautiful car with interesting history raced by Villenuve. Which are your chassis'? It would be great to hear more.

[f1pilot]

Thanks for the quick response. Both my cars never saw the light of day for the general public to know, and even the Bonhams guys never knew who I was.. I have some amazing relationship so I am happy with both my chassis.

I will take you up and start my own page, which will be fun, but I am happy to know someone else that is making the same voyage I am. I am actually not at my home but I have a few good pictures of the two Chassis. http://www.flickr.com/photos/53486426@N06/ One will definitely be a runner in original condition. We already have the Magneti Marelli ecu in the car, so it will have 200 recorded channels of data, (no lying about going flat in corners) haha. It will also have a V-10 engine, which is proper for the year.

The Chassis number is the 030 004 which was a points winning car for Jacques in 2001.

[F1snake]

Its been a while since my last update, there has been a bit of a pause whilst we are getting some more much needed funds together. It looks like a race car we've had up for sale for a while is now finally moving on to a new owner. The proceeds from this sale will enable us to get a move on, and hopefully finish the project.
We have now found a working gearbox solution, which is somewhat different to the original plans. When I have some further development and photos of this, I will post it here.

Meanwhile, Racecar Engineering have finally published the first of four consecutive articles in the Aerobytes section of the magazine. It was back in February this year we went to MIRA for a windtunnel test, and the first of the four articles are in the November issue, which came through the door today. I promised the magazine editor not to upload anything prior to the publication, but as the mag is now on the street, I am free to post my photos and video.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fan6s/sets ... 719672043/

Here's a little video from the session. Quite rare to see footage of a full scale GP car in a wind tunnel. Apologies for the at times unstable camera. It was really tricky to stand still, even at relatively low speeds, 30-35 MPH. Any faster, and it would swept us away.....The fans in this tunnel maxed out at 80 MPH, not the most powerful of windtunnels, but enough to uproot large old oaktrees!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-8HhloJTGY

Many thanks to Simon McBeath, a brilliant aerodynamisist. We learned so much about the car from this session.

[Tim.Wright]

Hi Bjorn,

I've seen that Hartley have stopped taking orders for the H1V8. Is this going to cause any problems for you?

I assume not because you ordered yours before March correct?

Tim

[F1snake]

Hi Tim,

As we ordered the engine prior to Hartley selling his business, we're ok. He will finish the engine for us, and now that we have the gearbox sorted, he will be able to design the endplate and finish the job. As we are 'old' costumers, John Hartley will also be able to help us out if and when we should need anything for the engine in the future.

Cheers - Bjorn

[coaster]

Another aproach for the gearbox could be to buy a GP2 box, strip the casing bare, and have a new casing cast and machined to accept the GP2 internals whilst maintaining honda geometry for suspension, floor attachment, etc.

[Tim.Wright]

That sounds more expensive than buying the car in the first place.

Tim

[silente]

I read with great interest RCE article on the wind tunnel testing you did with your car.

They are also showing interesting numbers, although they dont`t always specify clearly the reference area they take into account to calculate some real numbers out of the coefficients they show.

I was also wondering if there is any documentation about how big the mistake you have when measuring downforce and drag on a non rolling ground wind tunnel can be.

Anyone have any reference about that?

[coaster]

That timber ruler seems really off par, if you accurately measured the mounting bolts you could get some serious feedback on available options, some of the readers could do some homework for you, offer you realistic proposals. Have you used a set of vernier or digital calipers before?

[monty]

Im a tad confused.. the pictures you have submitted relate to the Honda RA108 car?? from the 2008 season.. also number 16 was Jenson Button.. Rubens was number 17??? Im from Frome (Jensons hometown) and im a bit of a nut for this car!! i want to come see it pweeeeese!!! and when you get bored of it id love to buy it (preferably before you crash it lol).. he he

[majicmeow]

Monty,

The car is an RA107 dressed up in the RA108 sceme as it was used as a show car after the 2007 season. From what I understand, it was decaled as a Jenson car (#16) for display and marketing, but the chassis number and history proves it to be Ruben's car.

Correct me if I'm wrong guys

-Aaron

[remydio]

Trully amazed by what i see all around here ...i love your cars man !

[george1981]

Any updates on the project?

[F1snake]

Its a bit slow on developments at the moments, hence no updates for a while. We are doing some other projects at the moment which we need to get out of the way before we will continue with the RA107. We do keep an eye out for any parts coming up and we were lucky enough to be able to buy an original RB spec 2007 steering wheel for the car. Only 8 of these steering wheels were made.






We went to Goodwood FOS yesterday and was lucky enough to get a close look at a couple of the RA107's forbearers, the 1964 RA272 and the 1967 RA300. Both cars had been brought over from Japan for the occasion. Absolutely stunning cars.


The RA272



John Surtees was happy to show us the cars. What a kind and modest person he is.


Gabriele Tarquini inspecting the RA300.



Tarquini trying the RA272 for size, and tending his 'hair' for the photographer! He has never driven this car before, and was very excited about taking the RA272 up the hill.


Both cars are immaculate and maintained by a large team of mechanics from the Honda Collection Hall in Japan.