New member - Bought an RA107

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Steven
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Joined: 19 Aug 2002, 18:32
Location: Belgium
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Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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Well that's an impressive buy, congrats!

After the good news though, I believe it will be quite a daunting task to get that car running again. I would assume the first thing you will need is find out which ECU it's using and getting all information on that. Another concern is perhaps the gearbox.

As for the engine, I would initially suggest to try to fit it with a compact road-like engine which is easy to install and operate, and does not put much strain on any of the other components.

The most interesting idea perhaps is to fit a 4 cylinder turbo engine in that, it would be a nice thing to do considering the 2013 regs.

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Ciro Pabón
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Joined: 11 May 2005, 00:31

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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Well, congratulations! You know, the difference between men and children is the price of toys... and you are still playing with cars, like almost everybody in this forum!

I sent an e-mail five minutes ago to Begoña Elices, an executive at Repsol. She's spaniard, like myself. I know she knows Shuhei Nakamoto. Repsol and HRC (Mr. Nakamoto's motorcycle racing team) work together.

So, I asked her for his e-mail: as soon as she answers something, I'll tell you. Hopefully, we (by 'we' I mean F1Tech forum) could contact you with him, this could be helpful. I don't have high hopes, but... who knows? It could work.

For the members of the forum: Mr. Nakamoto is the RA107 chief designer. As they say: "it's not what you know, it's not even who you know, it's who knows you". 8)
Ciro

marcush.
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Joined: 09 Mar 2004, 16:55

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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the task you are facing is exactly what all the formula BOSSGP guys are facing .so a lot of solutions are around and a lot of people avaialable to share information.

in Racecar engineering Vol 15 2005/ july No 7 there was a n article about a Bennetton converted to a Judd engine retaining the gearbox (but deleting all the hydraulics!)-so going to a simple sequential shift..
http://www.bossgp.com


Í´d think one of the main tasks will be to simplify the car as much as possible to be able to run it .
Last edited by Steven on 10 Jan 2011, 13:07, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Fixed bossgp link

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adrianjordan
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Joined: 28 Feb 2010, 11:34
Location: West Yorkshire, England

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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I can't help but think that something like this would make for a great Top Gear Challenge...

...I mean how hard can it be?
Favourite driver: Lando Norris
Favourite team: McLaren

Turned down the chance to meet Vettel at Silverstone in 2007. He was a test driver at the time and I didn't think it was worth queuing!! 🤦🏻‍♂️

Patriiick
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Joined: 29 Jul 2008, 08:54

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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Incredible..
I love the pics of the chassis in your garage with your dog !!

I saw this very chassis being run at the Singapore GP in the pits, barely 2 years ago. This was state of the art back then.. Amazing to see that it is now yours..! congrats ! :)

Patriiick
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Joined: 29 Jul 2008, 08:54

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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adrianjordan wrote:I can't help but think that something like this would make for a great Top Gear Challenge...

...I mean how hard can it be?

The challenge in an "unreasonably priced car" ? :D

ESPImperium
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Joined: 06 Apr 2008, 00:08
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Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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Congratulations and i must say very very cool!!!

If you are looking for an engine for it, what about something from Cosworth as you could probably squeese in a TJ2005/12 in there that Toro Rosso used from the 2006 season. I do however aggree with Tomba and would like to see a good 4 cylinder engine with a turbo for the 2013 rules.

And from the data you have given out, it was Rubens Barrichello that raced in that car, so its either RA107-02 or RA107-05 by my data sheets.

RA107-02 did 10 GP (AUS, MAL, BAH, SPN, MON, CAN, USA, JAP, CHI, BRA)
RA107-05 did 7 GP (FRA, GBR, EUR, HUN, TUR, ITA, BEL)

Rubens had his least successful year in those cars as he finished in P20 in the drivers championship, whitch he had 0 points that season.

Altho im not sure its a RA108, it may be a RA108 personally, if it raced in 13 GP and did over 8000km its more likely to be the RA108-04 that did 13 GP (AUS, MAL, BAH, SPN, TUR, MON, CAN, FRA, GBR, GER, HUN, EUR, BEL) and did 8631.455km to my data sheet data. That would be the car that went on to P3 at Silverstone in the wet as well.

Giblet
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Joined: 19 Mar 2007, 01:47
Location: Canada

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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If a motor was put in that was half the size like a 4 cylinder, would the suspension be able to be adjusted to work inside it's range, or would you need to find something of similar weight cog for the car to be able to work within it's window of adjustment?
Before I do anything I ask myself “Would an idiot do that?” And if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing. - Dwight Schrute

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F1snake
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Joined: 04 Jan 2011, 23:58
Location: Bath, UK

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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Thank you very much for all your responses and excellent suggestions. I certainly have much food for thought now.

I try to reply to some of the questions, which I have the answer to!

adrianjordan

The car is in the 2008 livery as it was used by JB at Goodwood FOS 2008. They always make the previous years cars look like the current ones for that event! I don't think I'll go back to the full '07 livery, I quite like wht its wearing at the moment, but who know, maybe we'll do something radically different sometime.

Formula None

Didn't know it was possible to obtain a modern F1 car for that sort of money, and we feel very lucky that we weren't outbid.

As you mention, MC dampers is the way to go, torsion spring might be a bit trickier, but not imposssible and for tires, there's a good soft hill climb tyre from Avon which will fit, otherwise we do know where to find some of the original Bridgestone Potenza's.

I pressume the 'road legal' idea is a joke....can't quite see the car with headlights and indicators!

I do think that the H1V8 would be the way to go. I like the thought of a V8, and there's almost nothing else out there's as compact, light and powerful. Apart from a real F1 engine of course. Don't fancy the rebuild cost of those, though! Quite fun with bio-diesel or electric. Maybe something for the future. Thanks for posting the photos, looks the business!

marcush.
Tomba


You're right, serious mountain to climb, but we'll get going on it ASAP, just in the process of selling two other cars, so we can finance this project. Don't yet know if it will be ready this season, but we'll try!

Gearbox is a concern, but we have a mate that's doing what we're doing to a RB2 car. He's slightly ahead of us in the process, so we'll let him make all the mistakes first!

Ciro Pabon

Many thanks, how amazing it would be to have contact with Mr. Nakamoto himself.

ESPImperium

Our car is the RA 107-05,and as you can see from the included document below, the dates slightly differs from the ones you suggest. But you're right about it being the least succesful year for RB, best he managed was 9th at the British GP.

Image

Carlo's
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Joined: 29 Dec 2009, 12:06

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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Is it really RA107 or RA108?

EDIT: Ok sorry then, some things are similar or even from RA108.

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F1snake
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Joined: 04 Jan 2011, 23:58
Location: Bath, UK

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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Giblet wrote:If a motor was put in that was half the size like a 4 cylinder, would the suspension be able to be adjusted to work inside it's range, or would you need to find something of similar weight cog for the car to be able to work within it's window of adjustment?

Sorry, Giblet, just don't know about that one.....but probably be best to stick to something around the weight the car was designed to take.

ESPImperium
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Joined: 06 Apr 2008, 00:08
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
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Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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That is intresting.

That now has mede me alter my data sheets for Rubens. I have put the 02 chassis as the T-Car chassis as i can only think that 02 was then put to the T-Car from then on.

One other interesting fact on the RA107, it was the first Honda to have a carbon gerabox casing as they had a Aluminium/Titanium casing for the successful RA106.

Can i ask one question, how did you find out this was for auction???

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F1snake
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Joined: 04 Jan 2011, 23:58
Location: Bath, UK

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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ESPImperium wrote:That is intresting.


Can i ask one question, how did you find out this was for auction???

Pure luck! We happen to be at Brooklands for a different reason a couple of days before the sale, and saw the car there, in a pre-sale display. Weirdly, people there seemed much more interested in the Renualt van, which was used to transport the RA 107. It was quite nice, but from 2001, 60K miles and had been crashed. It went for the about same money as RA107! Unbelievable.

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Tim.Wright
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Joined: 13 Feb 2009, 06:29

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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I would definately stick with the torsion bars for structural reasons. The damper mount on the rocker arms would only be designed to take the damping forces, not damping+spring forces that it would see if you put a spring on the damper. There is a very real risk of breaking a rocker if you switch from torsion bars to springs on the dampers.

Are the springs dampers all absent? Is the snti-roll bar there?

It could make the initial setup interesting if you don`t know what spring rates to use.

Tim
Not the engineer at Force India

marcush.
159
Joined: 09 Mar 2004, 16:55

Re: New member - Bought an RA107

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ESPImperium wrote:That is intresting.

That now has mede me alter my data sheets for Rubens. I have put the 02 chassis as the T-Car chassis as i can only think that 02 was then put to the T-Car from then on.

One other interesting fact on the RA107, it was the first Honda to have a carbon gerabox casing as they had a Aluminium/Titanium casing for the successful RA106.

Can i ask one question, how did you find out this was for auction???
I ´d like to differ here.
BAR 006 of 2004 had the Carbon gearbox already ...and even received an innovation award for it:

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/6799 ... r-gearbox/

As for the inline4 turbo..that might be the most complicated conversion of all ..

You need to find room for the intercooler .. the installation of an inline 4T will be VERY different to a V8Atmo ....

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