I am not sure this will actually work but I thought you might like the colours....The GCU is Geartronics, the pump is a Thomas, the solenoids Norgen, the rest...the scrap bin. Titanium paddles courtesy of a chunk given to me by Spyder on this forum ( an all round good bloke).

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Very cool! Whats it all weigh out of intrest?

Very impressive....while I applaud the JIC fitting and braided hoses. 6mm push fit hose would be lighter and cheaper. Not as pretty I grant you.

Weight...that is an interesting question. Probably more than a cable but my reasons for going for paddleshift are more pressing than on many projects. I have a Xtrac transmission designed for pneumatic control (Ex Le Mans Cadillac LMP). The clutch is a 4 plate carbon thing which would last about 5 minutes if used for shifting and costs 16+ "ron champions" to replace.

It is not as light as it could be. The air tank is bigger and heavier than it needs to be. The weights are:

Valve block with solenoids 482g

Air tank with switches etc 1325g

Compressor with bracket and hose 1452g

3 hoses to actuators 358g

The main actuator 417g

Blipper ? Not yet made say 300g

Paddles and bracket 286g

The control unit (GCU) probably 300g

Wiring is lightweight but say 250g

Regulator 237g

Grand total = 5403g

That surprised me! Still I have a target weight of 900kg (LMP1 spec some years ago) so I have a little wriggle room which would not be appropriate in a lightweight sprint car. I can see why the hill climb/sprint lightweights dump the compressor. A carbon fibre air tank would probably shave 1000g or so.

I did once have a quaife gear sequential gearshift lever and cable. It was surprisingly heavy.

Jeff are you accusing me of pointless bling!!!!!! Errr probably guilty as charged hence the silly choice of anodising colours (that and they are the only colours I have - purple anybody?). That said I confess to looking at all of the professional systems and copying what they did.

I would never accuse anyone of pointless car bling....have you seen my car. I'm just looking a pile of black plastic tubing for my pneumatic shift system and had anodised envy

I started a xoomspeed install on mine but went back to mechanical for the summer as I don't get much time to finish. However, I have all the bits and will finish over the winter maybe if I return back to the uk for any length of time.

Some pics:








[Edited on 12/9/15 by ian996]

If weight is a concern, a Paintball air tank could be used. For example:
http://www.justpaintball.co.uk/air-co2/air-systems-regulators-for-paintball/safer-1-2-coloured.html

While being expensive (Shop around, I've never used justpaintball.co.uk - They were just the first that I found with a weight specified), the advantage aside from the weight (E.g. 1.2l in 690g) they have a height pressure limit (Usually either 3000psi or 4500psi) and have a bottle-mounted pressure regulator. Depending on the required run-time, you could fill a bottle to 4500psi before a race and have a consistent source of regulated air (They usually regulate down to 500-800psi, so you'd need a second regulator down to about 90psi) and not have to carry around a pump with you. To fill, you'd use a multi-stage compressor (The kind used to fill diving bottles) or have multiple bottles which you'd just take to a diving store to re-fill. You could also re-fill from a larger diving tank.

Another option would be to use a vacuum generated by the engine. We are talking about much lower pressures here (~10psi ?) so much larger cylinders would be needed but there may still be a weight saving depending on how much force is required.

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Originally posted by Theshed
I am not sure this will actually work but I thought you might like the colours....The GCU is Geartronics, the pump is a Thomas, the solenoids Norgen, the rest...the scrap bin. Titanium paddles courtesy of a chunk given to me by Spyder on this forum ( an all round good bloke).

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