Oz Striker's Type S

[Shakeel]

Nice Ryan!! Three more sleeps to go .

[mugsee]

Almost there! Can't wait to see this out on track.

[Oz Striker]

Oh yeah. Nice one Ryan!

Thanks Felix!

Nice Ryan!! Three more sleeps to go .

Thanks Shak! Yeh not long now, so keen!!!

Almost there! Can't wait to see this out on track.

Yeah getting close now Michael! Hopefully i can put down some quick laps, and keep it on the black stuff this weekend! Lol

[M@lew]

Looking good as always. What brand are the canards? Been looking around for some that fit the stock bumper.

[Oz Striker]

Looking good as always. What brand are the canards? Been looking around for some that fit the stock bumper.

Thanks Matt not sure ill find out and let you know!

[MYDC5R]

Looks VERY similar to J's racing ones that fit the stock front bumper... i only know this as when i got my Type S J's racing ones for the J's front bumper i originally received the canards for the stock bumper..

[DanR]

They kind of look like the C-West canards but I'm not sure. This car is looking awesome mate, sad that I will be missing this one in action at nats

[Oz Striker]

Looks VERY similar to J's racing ones that fit the stock front bumper... i only know this as when i got my Type S J's racing ones for the J's front bumper i originally received the canards for the stock bumper..

They kind of look like the C-West canards but I'm not sure. This car is looking awesome mate, sad that I will be missing this one in action at nats

I found out they are actually custom made ones. BYP had them made when they got some carbon doors made. Thanks Dan too bad you missed H Nats man, at least there have been a few good write ups on the day though!

[Stephen_AUS]

Haven't seen an update here in ages, hows things going?

[Oz Striker]

Haven't seen an update here in ages, hows things going?

Hi Stephen, apologies for the lack of updates! I will put a post together in the next couple of days

[maintain]

Wow just read through all of this. Took me a good hour haha. Awesome man and very inspirational Kinda sucks with what happened with the coppers defecting and makes me worry for mine too with I/H on so far but awesome how you made it a positive situation haha. Keen to hear the next update !!!

[Oz Striker]

Wow just read through all of this. Took me a good hour haha. Awesome man and very inspirational Kinda sucks with what happened with the coppers defecting and makes me worry for mine too with I/H on so far but awesome how you made it a positive situation haha. Keen to hear the next update !!!

Thanks mate, glad you got some enjoyment from it update will be tonight after I finish work

[Timmy_B]

Its about time Ryan

[Oz Striker]

Long Overdue Update

Its about time Ryan

Ok, sorry for the lack of activity over the last 6 months, it's been an busy/interesting time both car and life related. Anyone who i'm friends with on FB will know partly where the car is up to already but there is some unshared info as well. So after a successful day at H Nationals, i was very happy with the car and myself and the overall result, placing 1st in class 3. I got the suspension setup/tyre pressure to a point where the car felt like it "just" wanted to oversteer and it pulled through the turns a lot better than previously. My driving had also improved a lot, purely due to getting to the track as much as possible, that was the most important thing. It felt like good reward for a lot of hard work that both the old man and myself had put in prior to the event. After posting video footage of one of the laps from the day on FB, Benny from BYP suggested there was more time in the car with further improvement of my lines, possibly into the 1:38's. I wanted to see if i could get below that on the current set of tyres before moving to semi slicks. The current set of tyres which will no longer be used had been on the car ever since the Wedsports went on, they went through roughly 5000kms of street driving and i believe 5 or 6 track days including H Nationals, they have hardened up a lot over time and even though they still have plenty of tread on them they have worn unevenly (still unsure as to why) and obviously have lost a lot of grip. Subsequently i left it one track day too long to change them and the following occurred at turn 11 on my third lap during a test and tune day :/



It was a rather cold day so i took a couple of laps to warm the car up, it felt fairly normal everywhere but as soon as i turned into turn eleven the car oversteered and in trying to subtly correct it, i managed to steer the car straight into the tyre wall in front of me. In that turn the car felt like it had no grip in the front or the rear all of a sudden, i've had a few moment like that before and easily corrected it but this really took me by surprise. Needless to say i was very disappointed, there were problems from the start of the day until the end but this just took the cake lol i was gutted at the time. But that's just racing. Although it wasn't an overly serious crash, (the GPS said i hit the wall at about 50kmph) loads of people from Clubitr were quick to offer their support, i just wanted to mention this as it goes a long way to showing the strength of our community and that's what it's all about.

Anyway, enough of the sob story. After assessing the damage, it was clear that it was mostly cosmetic (thankfully). Obviously the front bar/splitter was bent and broken, the front impact bar was all bent in, the bonnet is cracked in places being carbon and the fenders were all out of shape, both headlights snapped off their brackets and the radiator support was damaged as well. It took quite a while to straighten all this up and the more i look at it i can still see things a little out of place but it's looking almost spot on. After the stack i had a long think about where i wanted to go with the car, when i say long a mean about 5 months lol the car sat in the shed for ages as i just lost confidence and motivation to get everything fixed and get back out there. October came around and along with a couple of friends we made the trip up to Sydney to watch World Time Attack, the atmosphere was addictive, and we were all in awe of the machines on display over the weekend, so much work and time has gone into them and they were incredibly fast. It really ignited the motivation in me again to start working on the car. After walking away from the event i was so inspired, all i could think was "i need to enter and compete in this event". So that's the plan. Realistically it wont be possible until at least October 2015, or possibly the following year depending on funds so i'll just have to play it by ear. Owning a race car was always a dream of mine growing up but so was competing in a professional event, and this goal is definitely realistic, it's just going to take time.

After seeing all the custom body work at WTAC, I started thinking about what to do with the front of the car, and following many months of research i've decided to custom fab my own racing body for the car, from front to rear. I considered all the bodykits on the market including stock, but nothing is completely race orientated which is what i want. Plus a lot of Japanese kits are very expensive. I've always been intrigued by aerodynamics and how to create efficiency with it, and I'm a bit of a fan of "biting off plenty and chewing like hell" (when the motivation is there) and this is one of those times. My funds aren't adequate to start developing the mechanical side of the car yet, so while i build that up I'll be fabricating what i hope will be a very efficient aero kit for the car. No doubt it's going to be a huge learning curve, and will take plenty time. But after viewing this thread start to finish http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/view....php?tid=43112 i think I'm capable of doing it. Although this guy did start his build by using CAD, he did so much work with hand made templates i think it's possibly to go by a drawing and templates made by hand.

So I started by drawing all different possible designs, mainly focusing on efficiency but if you're going to all this trouble you need it to look good lol I think GT style race cars look fantastic, like the Revolution Garage RX7 and that's the look i've gone for. Here's a rough drawing of what the front will most likely look like. It's not symmetrical or in proportion and I'm still unsure of a few things so it will no doubt change but you get the rough idea *cough cough poor drawing skill excuses cough cough*



I started by purchasing some large sheets of foam to cut out of, i got 4 of these sheets of M grade 2400mm x 1600mm polystyrene for $160, foam is bloody expensive and this is classed as cheap!



I then grabbed an unused internal door and raised it to the height i wanted to use as a base. Then after a lot of measuring, and drawing i came up with a template for the main pieces. I did come across a problem very quickly as i am measuring off the wheel base of the car, the drivers side wheels front and rear, sit inside the car further than the passenger side, which meant that all my measurements would be offset by about 15mm, but after a few adjustments i was back on track. I am curious why this is though, i have noticed this in the past after getting alignments and eying up the USDM levels of camber lol are many other people cars offset like this too?

This is the assortment of tools i have been using to get the desired shape, further templates will be made along the way to make sure both side are symmetrical. The plan is to work mainly on one side, get that right, then make a template of it and copy it on the other side. Sounds simple lol

Anyway here is the progress so far, there has been about 8-10 hours total time spent on it so far so it's coming along quite well. I am currently looking for a good, hopefully cheap boddy filler that wont eat away the polystyrene, it's needs to be easy to sand to a smooth finish and paintable as well if anyone has any suggestions







I have also been doing some research into gaining sponsorship. I'm going to put together a portfolio of the car and apply for sponsorship at a number of companies that would be a suitable fit in this genre. I have some likely candidates in mind so hopefully it wont take long and I'll have someone committed to work with. Again another big goal but i think it's realistic and achievable.

So that's where I'm currently at. I've kept my promise and the S2K has stayed stock lol I'm just saving like mad at the moment, hopefully it pays off. Sorry if this update has been long winded, i'm bloody tired and there was a bit of catch up to do! Hope you're all well and hopefully I'll see some of you soon if I can get down to a meet

Cheers

Ryan

[dnapol]

This ^^^^
Love it man, love every bit! Keep up the good work man, ima comin'!