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 Andy Pipe
Is an electrician from Essex, so it’s no wonder that as a lad he grew up around Escorts and had a few on the road himself. Now blatting around the roads of Essex in a fast Escort isn’t any fun when you can’t go faster than the law allows, so with more than a little help from his dad, John, Andy decided to go racing for real. This was all back in 1992, a rusty, tired old nail was found in a scrap yard and painstakingly rebuilt as a race car to compete in the Falken Tyres Championship. Andy did quite well, a first in class and a lap record to his credit, all being helped by the fact that back then, Andy was 6 stone when soaking wet. At the end of the 1993 race series, Andy being the genuine nice chap he is, lent the car to Ray Donner who promptly sent the car flying through the air, the old adage "you bend it you mend it" ringing in his ears. Ray rebuilt the car into the Acid Yellow Escort we see today, it needed new wings, rear quarters, roof, back panel, oh and the rear suspension too. Ray flexed the wings out to allow a little more clearance and also took all unnecessary metal out the doors and other areas. The fuel cell is mounted under the car and this means the firewall can be left out, again saving weight. The front suspension hangs off a World-Cup x-member and includes all the goodies, rose-jointed TCA’s, fully adjustable struts with concentric spherical bearing top mounts stopping the 800lbs springs popping of the ends. The 2 sides are held together buy a 24mm roll bar held in solid mounts with anti-dive geometry, turning is by a 2.2 turns lock-to-lock rack. With all the trick stuff up the front sorted the back end is hampered by the rule makers, no cutting of the floor pan is allowed so the car was built using 3.1 RS Capri springs with additional spring helpers to balance the spring weights, anti-tramp bars with a Panhard rod help to keep things in the right places. Inside the English axle lives Quaife fully floating shafts and a 4.4 to 1 LSD. Now with all that hardware under the shell, Andy needed a 1600 cc engine that would hurtle this car around the tracks, and stay together for more than a few hours. Enter Dave Wells. He went to work and built a motor that screams all the way to 9000 rpm, yet has remained in fine fettle for more years than it should do really considering the numbers it produces. It’s an all steel affair inside with 50 DCOE’s fuelling to the biggest valves you can get in a x-flow. These are opened and closed by an A8 cam with standard Ford rockers, the roller ones kept on breaking! The exhaust manifold is fabricated with matching primary lengths and takes up most of the room in the engine bay. When it was first built the engine had its lifeblood sucked out of a heavily baffled wet sump by a high capacity oil pump, but with a change of rules allowing Dry-sumping, this has been changed to the far more efficient Titan dry sump system. The Carbs and Ignition timing where all set up by Steve Greenald of Race Engine Calibrations, 07774773824, This engine Idles after about a minute of warm up and sounds like it has a GT cam not race one. Stopping all of this was going to involve some better brakes than the drums the car came with, so in went the bias pedal box, to balance up the locking points of the Fiesta1100 calipers and discs at the rear and Wilwood 4 pots clamping 310mm vented and grooved disc’s up front. The Tyres have change with every race series, Falken’s in the Falken championship, Toyo’s in the Toyo championship, and now Andy is enjoying Michelin slicks in the Lydden Hill Championship, But he has kept faithful to his revolution five spokes, why? "Cos they work". Recent developments with the car Have meant Retromotorsports ltd, 01279 452799, getting involved with running the car, and along with a few other things the team is trying out different rear suspensions. Last time out the car was tried with a "ladder bar" set up, and although this gave excellent grip and axle control, the roll stiffness was too much, so next time out it will be using a different arrangement. Who knows where this development will end up, Perhaps a bolt in independent rear!!!!! Thanks To Ray Donner (Preptech Racing) for originally doing the body shell excellent job, still looks good. Dave wills for that peach of an engine Steve Greenald for setting up the engine John and Steve Pipe for all the enthusiasm and hard work not to mention CASH Dave white for the new wheels (nearly paid for them) Step son Alex for being an ace junior chief mechanic Oiley (Paul Lane) for the trackside support The missus for not getting the Hump every 2 weeks when I go racing Me, for being such a good driver Me Mum, for no having a headache the night I was conceived The Royal Oak, Highams Park, For the de-briefing Room (and post race piss-ups) Oh yeah, Gary @ Retro Motorsport, for his help, time, excellent fabrication skills, enthusiasm, etc etc etc in making an already great car even better. |
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