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#Post#: 12195--------------------------------------------------
1936 Riley IFS
By: Ade Colmar Date: December 28, 2024, 9:59 am
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Now seems like it might be a good time to start my build journal
😊. Christmas has been given, eaten/drunk and our kids
and grandkids have gone home! So here goes! I hope that
starting to write before starting to build is not a hostage to
fortune!
My inspiration car is a ‘1936 Riley IFS’. Why? Well, the car
sort of selected itself. I had a number of design wishes and I
searched around for quite a while for a car that met as many as
possible. Number one on the list of wishes was a low centre of
gravity.
The Riley chassis goes under the rear axle and rises quite a lot
at the front. The chassis rails are widely spaced allowing the
driver and engine to be positioned between them further lowering
the C of G. The chassis is derived from the Riley TT Sprite
which employed leaf springs, but for this particular car, Riley
experimented with an Andre-Girling design of independent front
suspension. The same arrangement was used in the Daimler Flying
Fifteen and allowed the front end to the car to be lowered, plus
the engine could also be lower and further forward. The overall
intent was to improve front end grip. It would be nice to be
able to say that these improvements made for a very successful
race car, but there isn’t much evidence to support that, sadly.
However, it does mean that the Riley IFS does meet my second
criteria, which is that it should be a bit technically
different.
Each lower front suspension arm was supported on squat coil
spring external to the chassis and the nose of the car was given
a ‘pod’ either side of the radiator grill to partially
conceal/streamline these springs. This gave the car a ‘hamster
cheeks’ look and in doing so met my third wish that the car
should be distinctive.
#Post#: 12196--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1936 Riley IFS
By: jon.pearce Date: December 28, 2024, 1:42 pm
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Loving that inspiration car....
#Post#: 12197--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1936 Riley IFS
By: Ade Colmar Date: December 28, 2024, 3:24 pm
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I haven’t found much information on the who raced these Riley
IFS cars during their first year in 1936. However, in 1937 a
well-known driver by the name of Percy Maclure bought an
ex-works Riley IFS and modified in several stages it to create
his private Riley IFS racer. Percy Maclure had been very
successful racing the more conventional Riley TT Sprite and
Ulster cars in the early 1930s and his plan was to continue this
success. The new car was run with four and six cylinder 1.5l
and 2.0l Riley engines depending on the requirements of the
race. It ran in 1938 at many venues including Shelsley Walsh,
the Grand Prix at Donnington and the International Trophy race
at Brooklands.
At the end for the 1938 season, Maclure bought the ‘White
Riley’, a 1933 works car used for development purposes,
initially by Riley and then later by ERA. The White Riley had
an interesting and varied history in itself, including being
raced by a Canadian lady, Kay Petre. Quite an achievement back
in the 1930s. By the time the White Riley reached Maclure, it
was fitted with a 1.5 litre supercharged ERA engine developing
around 225bhp. Maclure transferred the ERA engine into his 1936
Riley IFS and further streamlined the car. These changes for
the 1939 season gave him a machine that was now able to compete
on a par with the ERA race cars, which by now were a dominant
force.
His ERA engined Riley IFS survived the war, but sadly Percy
Maclure did not. His car went on to campaign successfully in
the 1940s and 50s, but information peters out after that.
However, I have been able to find current YouTube footage of a
Riley Brooklands with a similar six-cylinder ERA engine racing
regularly under the name of the ‘Blue lady’. There are also
some relatively recent photos of silver six-cylinder Riley IFS
cars with race numbers 68 and 104 (probably the same car), but I
haven’t found any more detailed information as yet.
#Post#: 12198--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1936 Riley IFS
By: NewbieNick Date: December 28, 2024, 11:05 pm
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Very nice inspiration car. Looking forward to seeing this one
progress.
#Post#: 12214--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1936 Riley IFS
By: Ade Colmar Date: December 31, 2024, 5:09 am
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Thanks for the comments. Other inspiration cars I looked at
were the ERAs and Auto Unions, but they are already represented
in CKGB, also the 1926 Talbot Darracq and the 'Rounds Rocket'.
The latter being an American Indy version of an Auto Union. I
became fully sold on building the Riley IFS when I found a coil
spring of the right size and rating for the front suspension.
#Post#: 12226--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1936 Riley IFS
By: Ade Colmar Date: January 1, 2025, 8:49 am
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Morphing the inspiration car into something that works as a
cyclekart proved to be something of a challenge. I am envious
of those people who can simply launch into cutting steel and
then sit in a loose frame and work out where everything goes.
However, I’m a bit OCD and I have to know where I’m going to
before I set off!
The Riley IFS is around 3.9m long, with a wheelbase of 2.48m and
a track of 1.37m. A maximum cyclekart wheelbase of 1.8m and
track of 1.0m means that my cyclekart would be around 73% scale.
At that scale the total length would be 2.8m. Inevitably, the
two big challenges are that the driver remains 100% scale and
the engine goes in the back, not the front. There is loads of
room in the tail section of the car behind the axle for the
engine, but weight distribution calculations indicated there
would be too little weight on the front wheels with me as a
somewhat skinny driver in the original location of the cockpit
just ahead of the rear axle. With a lack of weight on the front
axle and the engine overhanging the rear axle, I wasn’t too
confident about the handling characteristics!
So far, I had simply roughed out the car’s proportions out on A4
paper. I had intended to transfer everything into ‘Sketch-Up’
(a free CAD package) that I have used on previous projects.
However, I was a bit rusty and I didn’t enjoy using CAD anyway.
So, I decided to keep it simple and carry on with pencil
drawings on squared paper. I reckoned that by moving the driver
300mm forwards, not only would that put enough weight on the
front axle, but it also left just enough room to put the engine
in front of the rear axle too. This one simple move should
sharpen up the steering and reduce the polar moment of inertia
at the same time. The trade-off is on the car’s proportions,
giving a longer tail and shorter bonnet, but I hope you still
think it works.
#Post#: 12229--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1936 Riley IFS
By: jon.pearce Date: January 1, 2025, 12:38 pm
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I simply got 99% of the component parts together and then drew
the CK Half size on a large bit of paper.
Working from a half size drawing means that you can scale
straight off the drawing with good accuracy.
#Post#: 12234--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1936 Riley IFS
By: Ade Colmar Date: January 6, 2025, 5:39 am
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I've got a lot of the main bits (engine, torque convertor,
steering) to help with sizes. My drawings are 10th scale and my
plan is to draw out the chassis full scale on a makeshift
welding/build table. However, at the moment I'm driving myself
to distraction trying to re-organise and rationalise my garage
so I have enough space to work. 10 years ago it was empty!
#Post#: 12235--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1936 Riley IFS
By: TomFDS Date: January 6, 2025, 7:47 am
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Ahh the eternal battle to make progress and have space to work!
I have never managed to do that, despite my best intentions. I
like the “real” drawings. Cardboard Aided Design is the limit of
my C.A.D. skill.
#Post#: 12267--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1936 Riley IFS
By: Ade Colmar Date: January 12, 2025, 6:15 am
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It has taken a while, but at long last I have been able to make
some proper progress! The first job was to remake an old
motorcycle lift table into a welding/build table for the Riley.
The four chassis rails rolled OK, despite being thin wall box
tube, and I've made a start on the welding. It feels good to
make a start after thinking about it for so long!
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