AUTOSPORT HISTORICS 25 JULY 2019 31KW HERITAGE
THE LINK
TO REYNARD
KW Motorsport, KW Special Projects and KW Heritage all
have their roots in British racing car constructor Reynard,
largely through founder Kieron Salter, the ‘K’ in KW.
Adrian Reynard was a guest of honour at Salter’s
mechanical engineering graduation ceremony at Oxford
Brookes University and made a big impression. “It was
about his company and it sounded really cool,” says Salter
(above), who then asked Reynard for a job. Within weeks
he was on a graduate training scheme at Reynard.
Salter worked in all the departments and ended up
in the Formula 3000 drawing off ice and became project
coordinator. He also worked on special projects, including
the Panoz GT. At just 26, he was the chief designer on the
WSR-run Ford Mondeo in the 1997-98 British Touring Car
Championship, and worked on the 2KQ sports-racer. He
also met Will Phillips – later to become the ‘W’ in KW.
Salter was still at Reynard, working on an “MG-beating”
LMP675 project, when the company folded in 2002. The
fruits of that sportscar programme later became the
Creation (and later Zytek) LMP car, and Salter and Phillips
set up KW Motorsport “overnight” for the project, working
with Zytek and John Nielsen. “We pulled the sportscar
engineering team together that had recently been made
redundant by the Reynard collapse,” recalls Salter.
Zytek eventually went its own way, but KW Motorsport
supported several of the Reynard-based sportscars still
running in terms of engineering and remanufacturing.
In 2009 KWM was commissioned to work on a bespoke
Sports 2000 car, to be themed on the March 75S two-litre
sports-racer. Alan Hudd, the owner of 75S chassis 001,
wanted a Duratec-engined club racer, similar to the March
but with modern aero. The original car was scanned, then
CFD was used to apply modern aerodynamic thinking
while keeping key features from the original.
“When you see the cars side by side you can see the
diff erence, but on its own it looks like a 75S,” says Salter.
That job led to the formation of KW Special Projects in
2012 to use “motorsport tech in other areas – there are many
sectors that works in”. The firm was soon taking on new staff
and extra facilities and operating in three areas: motorsport/
automotive, elite sports and digital manufacturing.
KW Special Projects now employs close to 30 people
at its Bicester Heritage base, and its KW Heritage arm
is expanding into the historic racing arena.modern grade of metal with
superior mechanical properties.
“It’s relatively easy to make
like-for-like, but if there are some
fundamental problems we like to fi nd
out what they are and sort them. Some
owners want authenticity and some
people are more open to improvements.”
There are other, less controversial, benefi ts. Once scanned,
the data can act as an insurance policy, so that accurate
replacement parts can be made in future. In the event of an
accident it would allow a highly accurate restoration, or serve
as the basis for making reliable parts so that rare and valuable
originals can be preserved until required.
KWH’s techniques can also help in cases where reviving cars
might not otherwise be possible. The Nasamax Reynard 01Q
prototype ran at the 2003 and 2004 Le Mans 24 Hours on
bioethanol, but an engine change – from the fi ve-litre V10
Judd Series 1 engine to a 5.5-litre Series 2 unit running on
petrol – was required for it to get back on track.
Thanks to its links with original constructor KW Motorsport
and Reynard (see right), KWH had access to archive CAD data,
but that could only help so far. The switch of engines was not
a simple one and required many changes, including to the
exhaust, cooling and fuel systems. Again, the ability to modify
components digitally, before producing them, proved crucial.
Combined with the company’s experience in composites,
joining and additive manufacturing, its in-house 3D
printing allowed KW Heritage to provide mould tooling
and loose tool inserts for the manufacture of a replacement
carbonfi bre front engine mount beam.
“Concerning the modifi cations to the carbonfi bre chassis, the
use of traditional engineering and tooling methods would have
added time and cost to this one-off project, making it potentially
unviable,” adds Smith. “New digital manufacturing knowhow
is now enabling many more historic motorsport projects to be
undertaken, bringing back to life a whole raft of cars that may
have languished in garages and workshops for years.”
As with many developments in historic motorsport, care needs
to be taken, but the use of 3D scanning and CAD manipulation
could help keep – or get – more race cars on track. Q
Nasamax
sports-racer
needed an
engine change
to be brought
back to lifeCAD image of the engine beam
assembly for the NasamaxAUTOSPORT HISTORICS