Rotec Cycles

9th July 2010

Phew shop is finally back up and running and required many late nights (and early mornings!) for Si to catch up with the back log of bike servicing and rebuilds. He has managed to get back to work on the old car and we are talking about test days so fingers crossed......We will have to see if there is a suitable test day, if not it looks like he will race a tar meeting where he can get some practice time to run the new 496 big block Chevy engine. Ultimately plan is to use the old car on shale when I manage to complete the new one. You can see in the "New Car Build" section that things are getting close but as usual its work dependant. Next time home, I will drop in the engine, complete the sump guard, install the exhaust and exhaust/nerf bar supports (to install the Flowmaster silencers under the nerf bars). Then I will put on the gearbox and sort the floor, etc. I estimate 50 hours to have the car ready for paint so it just depends how that time comes available........... Si will maybe have a bit of time to help in the finishing stages so we will see how it goes!!

Regardless of the the long hours he's working, Si really wants to get out on track for some of the Sunday meetings - it might be optimistic to say "within a month" but he is trying for that. 

19th May 2010

Unit is almost there apart from being full of shop stock......... Si has been refurbishing the shop and just for a change this has taken longer than usual. When he has completed this theres not too much left to do on the old car so fingers crossed. Sounds like I will have some engine mounts for the new car next time home so the plan is to complete tacking on the rest of the chassis steel, install the engine/ gearbox, radiator, steering, cut roof plate, etc ,etc then weight the car and fix the final engine position. Looks as though I will have a few more days to play as I will not be away so long at work so I will see how I get on...... With engine fixed I have to sort out the sump guard, exhaust, brakes, front fire wall, floor,etc, strip the car and fully weld out and a final tidy up grinding session...then paint......

28th February 2010

So just for a change we will be in a bit of a rush to get the old car ready for the new season. Si located a warehouse that needed stripping of it's racking and we desparately need racking for our new unit. So a busy weekend + week to strip collect and start to reassemble the racking in our unit. Si was off on his free day today collecting a security shutter so it looks like instead of working on the new car when I get home next week I will have to complete the old one. Thought you might be interested in a couple of pics of the unit getting sorted......

To be honest its nearly there and we have a wad of spare racking to sell on. Like I've said before, we want to be out there racing but work has to come first.

Theres a Stock Car hidden in there somewhere......

You can also get an idea of the headroom we have so next plan on the agenda will be a full mezanine level.

It might look a mess now but you should have seen it before!!

Anyone want any racking give us a call - it will be going on E Bay soon

14th December 2009

We now have the 496 big block engine and hopefully all the bits to complete the old car - trouble is I will not be home before New Year and Si is working to midnight 7 days a week at the Shop - we will have to see if Si gets any free time to put the old car together to have a chance at racing at the December meetings. We don't yet know if we will need to modify the sump guard, steering, etc for the new engine as things were a bit close with the old one. We could also do with moving the engine to improve weight distribution with the old car. Anyway if Si does'nt get the time, next time home I might have to concentrate on sorting the old car to make sure it's ready for the new season - overall it will depend how stretched Si is after he gets over the Christmas panic! As I've said previously, the plan next season will be to race on Sundays and Bank Holidays as Saturdays are too busy in the shop and utimately the number of meetings he is able to do will still be work dependant.................The 434 small block is also ready for the new car and I might have to pick that up as well. Relative to the number of hours I have had available to work on the new car, things are not going too badly but theres no way I can complete for the start of the season - I should have brought it out to Abu Dhabi in a container to work on it here!!

13th November 2009

Back home and working on the rear suspension - still a lot of work to do at the new unit but heres a couple of pics of the car side of things. You really wouldn't want to see the stack of bike parts, we're in urgent need of storage shelves.

The new unit was urgently required to store our stock for the shop + operate the E Bay shop. We were fortunate after looking for some time to manage to find a unit big enough for the car stuff as well as the real requirement for the shop.

We have a 5m high door so access for RAM was no problem. Long term plan with mega high inside is to build a mezanine level to double the space.

Make a change to be able to work inside on the car!

Old car just waiting for it's new engine

12th October 2009,

We're almost sorted out with the new unit and it looks like RAM will be in it's new home soon - if I get chance next time home I will take some photos. We have an office and power sorted so we will soon be transferring all the stock car gear (except for the new car which I will work on at home) and more importantly for Rotec Cycles, we will be moving in all our spare stock. Strange how things work out but we will be able to drive our cars out of the unit, cross over the access road and into another unit where a new 800bhp rolling road has just been installed!! What a bummer!!

I said 'our cars' as we should soon have a big block engine for the old car - we have some more bits to aquire but we are getting there.

Also if you visit our gallery (ex 358), I found pics on 'BRISCA stox pics' site of the first car I built and the second car which was a part build all from 1975 - seriously if you want info on the cars and drivers through the history of our sport, thats the site to visit.

I have also made an update to the F1 Structural section and used a pic of the new car to explain a few things.

13th September 2009

A few changes in our plans - it looks like we will be keeping the old car to run on shale so are on the look out for another engine. With the new unit we will have plenty of room to keep and work on two cars and the old car is all ready to go if we fit a big block which is the plan at the moment. We had'nt stripped anything off for the new car build and have already aquired a second gearbox so from having one car not ready we've now got two cars not ready - not sure if thats progress or not!!

7th August 2009

Unfortunately looks as though Si won't be racing this year - we had hoped to have the new car out by the end of the season but thats not going to happen. I had to spend more time then I really wanted to wrecking our kitchen last time home and due to work load I won't have as much spare time at home. Shame but thats how it goes! We've also got to sort out the new unit for the shop + move Ram and the stock car stuff in there so we've plenty to do to keep us occupied.