We have had a really busy first half of the year and it has been way too long since our last blog! We rebuilt our Formula Ford Festival winning Van Diemen during the off season and thought it would give you guys a nice insight into our journey with this the car to date. We bought the car only a few weeks before the first event of 2013 and always intended on a full rebuild at the end of the season. The car exceeded our expectations with Niall winning the biggest Formula Ford event of the year – The formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. We got the car three weeks before the first event and after moulding a new Schroth HANS seat for Niall we headed to Kirkistown for a test only to realise we had a broken piston ring in the engine. Steven Patton quickly rebuilt the engine and we had it back within a week. Another issue was that the car was not near the minimum weight of 420kg. We looked at simple ways we could reduce weight before the first event. We replaced the dry cell battery with a Super B Battery Litium 10P where we reduced 5kg and also benefited from a better performance battery. Such was the performance we could remove the cable and plug for jump battery which reduced weight further. Then we replaced the heavy harnesses that came with the car with Schroth Profi II 6H which have alloy adjusters compared to steel on the previous harnesses. As a team we are big believers in data. It is a massive help for any driver and also helps us to understand what the car is doing so we fitted an AIM Evo4 GPS data logger c/w steering wheel and added throttle and brake sensors. Like most teams we were always playing with the setup to try find improvements. As formula ford was completely new to us Niall would sometimes have to drive around a badly balanced car! But I’m glad to say that by the end of the year we proved our car was on the pace. We changed spring rates and adjusted the valving in our Ohilins dampers several times during the season until we were happy with them. Having our own damper dyno in-house is a huge benefit for us. During the winter rebuild almost every nut and bolt was removed and the car was practically down to the bare chassis. We replaced the old worn floor with a new alloy floor we custom made. Again this reduced weight and we riveted and bonded it on which would give the chassis a little more rigidity. The engine went back to Steve Patten for a rebuild. We rebuilt the gearbox and diff. Dampers got their annual service and all worn joints etc were replaced. The cockpit of these cars is not very spacious so we relocated the gear linkage giving the driver a bit more space. We changed the old rubber hoses with Samco Silicone hoses for the water and JLS Aeroquip hoses for the oil and fuel. We have the benefit of better performance here and again a bit of weight saved! The bodywork was a little tatty and I never liked it in black! We got some new panels and repaired some existing ones (again with weight in mind!!). Eric Fleming Crash Repairs painted the bodywork white. We do all our own graphics in-house (this is a bit of a hobby of mine!). We used florescent orange and blue which match nicely with the colours of the Murray Motorsport logo. The car has been out for two events this season in the hands of Rod McGovern. New to this class Rod adapted really well and showed strong pace. The car will be out for more events very soon.....watch this space! You can find some further pictures on our Facebook page. Till next time! Eoin