| Alternative Glossary |
| Tonneau | Cover that goes over the cockpit |
| Blat | To go for a drive |
| Flares / Clams | Covers that go over the front wheels and down the sides of the car - Allegedly the wings of mortals |
| Cycle Wings | Round covers that go over the front wheels - Allegedly the wings of the Gods |
| Tin Top | Normal car |
| FIA Bar | Roll over bar which is significantly bigger than the standard bar and complies with FIA regulations (also a term for a pub owned by Max Mosley). |
| Boot | The space above the fuel tank |
| Boots | Tyres |
| Pixies | Boots |
| Rubber | Tyres |
| Commagirls | Heaven |
| Cat | Caterham |
| Catsuit | Commagirl |
| ACBIO's | Tyres with very little tread |
| A032R's | Tyres with a bit more tread |
| Yoko's | Tyres with more still |
| CR5OOs | Even more |
| Slicks | Puddles caused by oil leaks |
| Carbon Fibre | Lightweight parts for those with heavyweight wallets |
| Quick Release | Steering wheels that can be taken into the pub and used for posing |
| Tillets | Grippy seats |
| S-types | Less grippy seats |
| Bench | Found in a park |
| K Series | Engine |
| VX | Old Engine |
| X-Flow | Really old Engine |
| Aeroscreens | Two ridiculously small pieces of glass purporting to be a windscreen. Look good, but only to be used with a No. 1 haircut |
| Helmet | Essential for those with aeroscreens and hair |
| Minilites | Wheels |
| Prisoners | criminals behind bars |
| Ladies Day | Excuse for her to have the car all week (nothing to do with commagiris) |
| De-Dion | Form of rear axle |
| Live Axle | Older form of rear axle |
| Wishbones | The bits at the front that hold the wheels onto the chassis, a top bit and a bottom bit. The top bit can have two bits, and is known as a Double Wishbone |
| Billies | A "billy", or actually "billies" is the more affectionate (oooer) name for Bilstein shock absorbers (Term also used by racing instructors to describe punters regardless of whether their name is Billy or not) |
| BEC | Bike-engined car |
| Dizzy | A distributor - distributes sparks from the coil (which makes sparks) to the spark plugs. Except not all cars have them these days and use different methods like wasted spark etc... On an EU2 K series (pre 2OOlish) its the black tennis ball sized thing on the top back left of the block as you look from the drivers seat. (or a Billy who has spun) |
| ARB Anti roll bar | Anti roll bar (as opposed to Roll-over bar), can be on the front as part of the Double Wishbone, or the back. It sets the ride stiffness. |
| Camber / Caster / Toe | Wheels that don't point straight |
| Apollo Tank | Looks like a big (18" tall) old style fairy liquid bottle made of aluminium. Oil is pumped into the top (at the edge) and swirls round a bit and then sits there until pumped out the bottom. It gives you more oil capacity and also gives air bubbles in the oil (a BAD thing) a chance to float to the top and go away. Under hard cornering the oil pump will start sucking air/oil all mixed up. So the apollo prevents this being a problem. Is so called because it looks like an Apollo moon rocket |
| A-Frame bushes | Between the A -frame (bit of metal shaped like an 'A') and the live axle (which is located by the A-frame in the middle and radius arms at the end) is a lump of rubber - the bush. As things move about this gets worn and eventually fails. I think you replace them every 3000 miles. |
| Watts Link | A mechanism on the dedion tube that gives you (on each end) a radius arms going forwards (as usual) plus one going back and a cunning bell crank in the middle. It acts to prevent rear wheel steer (ie the dedion moving back and forth as it goes up and down). |
| 4 Pots | Brake calipers with 4 pushy-pad-onto-disk things rather than 2 |
| Camshaft | Some have one overhead one, some have two (Twin cam a.k.a. Twink (qv)) and proper engines have little rods that do it instead. As it rotates the lobes cause the valves to open and close in sequence |
| Harness | A fancy seatbelt |
| Fullharness | A well-filled bra, or regular Blachat poster |
| Loud Pedal | Accelerator |
| Spat | The bit of steel/carbon that covers the front of the rear wing, or an argument caused by getting lost. |
| Damper | The plunger thing i.e. the cylinder, the rod that goes in and out of it and the connection to the chassis on each end (or being wetter than someone who remembered to put the hood on when it started to rain) |
| Spring | The coiled bit around it. Hence the name "coil over damper" (or the best time of year, when the car can come out of the arage once more) |
| Platform | A collar on the damper that may be on a thread and so be adjustable. The connections to the chassis can either be by a rubberised or plastic filled thing called a bush or by a solid metal thing thats free to rotate called a rose (spherical) joint. (Nothing to do with shoes or trains). |
| 40s / 45s | carbs (q.v) Weber (q.v.) DCOE 40s (also 45's) "So, What you got mate... .crossflow on 40's?" With carbs (or Throttle bodies) there will be a number such as 40/42/45/48 that refers to the diameter of the hole. So bigger lets more air in and so more peak power. However, too big and driveability suffers. So a 1600 is fine on 40s (two carbs, each with 2 holes so all four cylinders get fed). The K throttle bodies (TBs) are 42 mm, although if you port the head you also port the hole a bit to make it match so it will be a bit bigger. 45s are big. 48s are only used on BIG power race engines where peak power is the only real concern. Both carburettors and fuel injected throttle body systems have the dimension of the throttle body (the housing) measured and stated in mm. This affects the driveability in carburretor systems because accuracy of the fuelling is determined by air speed and hope. In fuel injected throttle body applications there is next to no driveability issue because the fuelling is determined through mapped electronics. In carburretors, the (Weber 45 DC0E) 45mm bore feeds a venturi (reduction in profile to accelerate the airflow) which reduces the bore to anywhere in the range 34-38mm -the smaller the better for driveability, the larger the better for power. Fuel injected throttle bodies get a straight shot, with a smooth profile blending into the port shape - ultimately better for power. |
| Weber / Carbs | Air comes in here and is mixed with petrol |
| Twink | Lotus Twincam engine (very, very old) |
| Roll Over Bar | The bit behind your head that stops it being pulped if the car rolls |
| Throttle Body | A throttle body is a general term meaning "a housing containing a throttle mechanism". So all our cars have throttle bodies anyway - a plenum car has a single large throttle body that admits air into the plenum chamber. Usually, the housing is "a tube" and the throttle mechanism is a flap on a spindle (or butterfly valve). Roller barrel throttle bodies use a drum with a hole in it. The throttling of the airflow in a car fitted with carburettors is accomplished by butterfly valves within the carb itself; the term "throttle body" is seldom used in this context as 90% of the complexity of the carb is related to fuelling the air so to pick out the rather trivial 10% for special naming seems inappropriate. The term "throttle bodies" therefore comes into common usage as an abbreviation of the term: "multiple throttle bodies, arranged one per cylinder in a fuel injected application"; each cylinder gets its own "tube" and its own "throttle mechanism". |
| Plenum | Single throttle body |
| Dry Sump | All the oil is taken to a separate tank that is tall and thin (but bigger than the apollo) and the oil is taken from the bottom. Since its tall and thin the pump always gets oil to pump and never air. The scavenge pump keeps the tank topped up. There may be more than one of these - eg one for each end of the sump and one for the head of the engine. (Not a wet sump with no oil in it). |
| EU2/EU3/EU4 | European emissions standards that get tighter each time. EU3 is currently in force and I think EU4 comes in 2005. the EU2 K series is the early one (until 2001 ish i think) and the EU3 is the later one. Visual difference is the lack of a distributor and a much bigger plastic cover on top of the engine. Also a different connector to the ECU and presumable it puts out less hydrocarbons etc. |
| Radius Arm | From the live axle or dedion to the outside of the chassis, just inside the wheel arch. It's about 18" long, 3/4" thick with a bush on each end. Has two positions it can be bolted into to control how much rear wheel passive steer you want. The so called comfort and track postions. |
| Bell Crank | Hmm... You have to see one really. It fits between the two radius arms and the dedion on a Watts linkage equipped car. It lets everything move in the right direction but not in the wrong direction have a look at one, one day... |
| Rose Joint | A solid thing to replace a bush. Think of a metal sphere with a hole through the middle. Now you put that in a cylinder that's JUST big enough to hold it. But the cylinder is actually shaped with a groove in it so the rose joint can't move along the cylinder either, it can only spin. The cylinder is connected to the end of the damper (or suspension bit should you so wish) and the sphere has a bolt through it that goes into the chassis. dead easy to explain if you are looking at one... hard otherwise... (nothing to do with flowers or drugs). |
| Diesel | Fuel used specifically by Chalers, you can rest comfortably in the notion that fuel for a 7 is called 'diesel' and comes from the black pump. If any fool offers or suggests that you should be using a green nozzle, or red, then tell them that they're talking nonsense and should go talk to Special People Who Know and Understand these. |
| Nut | Driver, aka the 'nut' that holds the wheel |
| Progress | Driving quickly |
| Discreet Progress | Driving very quickly and not being spotted by a camera |
| Understeer | You go through the hedge forwards |
| Oversteer | You go through the hedge backwards |
| Upgradeitis | Incurable desire to improve handling and performance of 7, resulting in purchase of all the items previously mentioned in this glossary. |
| TDV | Track day virgin... First timer on a trackday, not a trackday driver who is yet to have sex. |
| TDJ | Track day junkie: what you become after your first session on a track day. Not a trackday driver with a coke habit. |
| TDPJ | Track day passenger virgin, a compliant and willing stooge/victim for a TDJ to induce a reaction. Also known as ballast. Not a trackd... |
