@pHanta: I forgot that you had wanted yours reviewed, too. (I'm probably forgetting someone else, too.) I'll probably try to do the same for you, too. Meanwhile, here is the belated review of AshleyBlack's BRC 1955 racecar.
[Edit: correcting pronouns from 'she' to 'he' - sorry, Ashley!]
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First off, the styling is a bit curious, but interesting. It's the most minimal design we've seen so far - glossy white paint, white headlights, red taillights, an almost-invisible body-colored grille for cooling, and that's it. Honestly, it feels even more minimal to me than the competition build of Lothoren, which was missing all the fixtures besides the front grille due to saving issues.
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But enough about the aesthetics, on to the vehicle.
On the model tab, we have the standard minimum-weight choices: -15 on the body, hand-made aluminium panels, 0 quality chassis, 0 quality fixtures. Nothing to note here that we haven't already, so on to the engine.
On which note, I should point out: the Top Trump card is incorrect due to yet more saving issues - the actual reliability at the design redline is 27.8. Lowish, less than 30, but nothing to sneer at. More on that later.
The engine is a V8 Flatplane, SOHC 4v, 1394 cc, slightly short-stroked. Solid valvetrain setup - lighter than DOHC, cheaper than DOHC, but almost as much revving and almost as good airflow.
The bottom end is all-cast, no quality; the engine isn't being revved high enough to require that. There's 0 quality on the top end, too - this engine is a lot less revvy than most that we've seen, with the concommitant savings in production units.
However, the major reliability boost from keeping the redline down to 7400 RPM, and the lesser one from using single-barrel carburettors, is more than countered by a very racy decision: wide-open bell intakes. This is a race engine, and that fine-mesh grille is pretty much doing the whole job of keeping the intake air clean.
Checking my ignition timing cheat sheet, timing advanced all the way to 92 is very high, but my experimental didn't actually lose much power at 60 cam profile going with super-advanced timing. (Although, strangely, at 70 I did, so it might be a matter of having to hit very tiny targets.)
On the octane front: I have here the engine at a 97.6 RON - which means there's room for at least a point of leaning out on the fuel mixture. (At two points, the engine starts noticeably knocking, but minor changes elsewhere might compensate.) Given the importance of fuel conservation, running rich here isn't what I would have done.
Going on to the exhausts, in a move that shouldn't be surprising but somehow is, AshleyBlack uses properly sized pipes - dual 1.00" exhausts, fed by race tubular headers. These are heavier than but better sized than a 1.50" or 1.75" single exhaust pipe would be. Naturally, the car has no mufflers.
Overall, the engine is on the large end for competition not-Sprite microV8s, but is remarkably cheap at 59.3 production units and $500.59.
And on the trim tab, we can see that pay off: AshleyBlack can afford a +10 quality on his transmission. The final drive ratio is just a little bit shorter than would give peak top speed, and as with my own entry the gearing is very tall - 0-100 kph in first. I suspect the motives for this are very similar, given that, as with my own entry, the car is running an open differential (wheels keep spinning literally all the way to 100 kph); still, it keeps the car in the power band above 70 kph, which is valuable.
The car is running on semi-slicks; 10" rims allow for 175 mm width in the rear, but the front tyres are only 165s, with no offset front or rear.
On braking, though: +15 quality. That's not an exaggeration: this car literally has
all the quality on those brakes.
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That's actually in excess of $2000 spent on brake quality, and with that much money invested, it is hardly surprising that it stops faster than anything else in the competition - 38.3 m from 100 kph. AshleyBlack takes a bit of a drivability penalty from not playing with the rear pad type, however: going from 100 to 32 would bring Drivability from 36.2 up to 38.7 with no increase in braking distance, and going all the way down to 0 would be less than a tenth of a meter and take Drivability up to 39.5. That said, even with overaggressive rear pads, he's got a favorable drivability/sportiness ratio. Brake fade is -14.4%, brake cooling airflow having brought that down from -14.8% for an extra 0.2 Drivability.
On the subject of cooling: the engine is fully cooled with minimal surplus, but oddly there is 0 Quality on the slider here. Aero quality is relatively cheap, and I would expect it to be advantageous to lap times to drop brake quality to +14 and spend some of the $400+ that saved here. I haven't done the experiment, however.
Inside, AshleyBlack uses the standard -15 Basic cabin and uses the -15 Standard 50s Safety for further weight reduction. (The complete lack of entertainment is built at +0 quality.) The final weight of the car works out to 555.1 kg.
On the suspension, Progressive for drivability, -5 quality for cost savings, and a very aggressive camber combined with stiff springs and sway bars - not nearly the stiffest, but at or above the standard settings. This allows a low ride height without bottoming out, which in turn helps keep body roll minimal. Looking at the yaw rate curve, the high camber, and the semi-slick compound, I expect this car to have significant tyre wear compared to other lightweight not-Sprites in the competition. The drivability is good, but that understeer and that camber is going to promote significant wear.
However, at least at first, the car is reasonably sharp in the corners - 1.19 in the small circle and 1.11 in the large circle - and with its staggeringly good brakes, AshleyBlack might make a fair few passes on corner entry. His overall reliability, at 54.7, is toward the lower end, but nothing particularly terrible. His lap times are 2:41.09 on the Automation Test Track, a little toward the slow end, and 2:21.31 on two laps of Brands Hatch Indy (1:07.62 on the flying lap), which is toward the fast.
Mon Jun 29, 2015 9:11 am 
After watching the reviews, I learned a lot more. Next time do the reviews before the final submission! hahaha
