IMI Member Associations provide opportunities for members to attend seminars and learning events, meet fellow professionals and exchange ideas and views. Many events count towards IMI CPD, Continuing Professional Development.

Details of regional contacts, forthcoming events and Member Association news can be found by clicking on the links to the left.

Member Associations are formed where there is sufficient support. Most are based on counties, with some on larger metropolitan areas.

If you would like information on the nearest Member Association to you, please contact Simon White on 01992 511521, or to simonw@motor.org.uk or via the contact us page on this web site.

Recent Activities

Mid Yorkshire

Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) Awards

The Mid-Yorks (Leeds) Centre of the IMI held its annual awards evening at the Technology Campus, Transport and Engineering, Westland Road on Monday 7^th June. This was a very successful event attended by employers, lecturers, IMI committee members, family and friends, and of course the winners of the various awards relating to motor vehicle studies.

This year's winners were:

George Reid -awarded the Brompton Trophy for the Apprentice of the Year

Matthew Alleyne- awarded the Peter Bickerdike Award for Achievement  

Carol Tainton also received a replica shield for the Peter Bickerdike Award for Achievement which she won last year.

The chairman of the Leeds centre Andrew Gledhill presented the awards. We were fortunate to also have Michelle Barrett who is the IMI National Manager, England who presented IMI shields and Certificates of Membership of the Institute to George and Matthew.

The event was particularly appreciated by the families who provided support to the winners throughout their studies and were certainly very proud of their achievements.

 A first class buffet was enjoyed by everyone and the amount of photographs taken should keep photo processors busy for quite a while.

 By Arthur Dwyer

Sussex

Thursday 20th May saw the 3rd presentation on Drag Racing  for over 70 members and guests of the Sussex branch of the IMI. The day had started earlier  for the teams with a presentation to the motorsport students of Northbrook College, and was very well received by all those attending. It was a good opportunity to combine two audiences in one day, and also gave the students something different to look forwards to at the time of their exams.

 The format for the evening this year followed on from the previous years successes, Steve Carey and his team with their Top Fuel Bike from Bexhill on Sea, Steph and Dave Milam and team with their Top Methanol Funny Car from Crowborough, new for this year was local racer from Sompting, Dave Day, and his Super Comp / Super Gas Chevrolet Roadster. The teams were also supported by Andy Rogers (Tog) from www.eurodragster.com who gave a talk on drag racing later in the evening.

 After a meal kindly supplied by the IMI at the Airport restaurant, the evening started off with introductions, then the members and guests split into groups to visit the workshops where the bike and two cars were on display. The groups spent time with each vehicle, Having the opportunity to ask technical questions and see just how they work close up, Talking to the teams gave the members an appreciation of the more detailed technical aspects, and the amount of time and effort needed to take  a vehicle down the 1/4 mile drag strip.  Just to give an example of the performance on show, Steph's car has run personal best time and speeds of 6.095 seconds and 235mph, Steve's bike has run 6.67 seconds and 207mph. 0-100mph is achieved in just over 1 second. Against the normal perception that drag racing is just purely a straight 'fastest and quickest' wins Dave Day was able to explain the differences in the classes that he runs in, and how they have to race within a bracket index time in super gas of 9.90 seconds, and that going quicker means you can lose.

 Once each group had seen the vehicles, it was time to take them outside for a 'Fire up' to give the members an appreciation of the sound of supercharged Methanol and Nitro burning engines.

 Following on from this, the evening concluded with the groups returning to the meeting room to hear a talk around aspects of Drag Racing by Andy Rogers.

 In support of the evening, raffle prizes were very kindly donated by Kelly Dormer from Santa Pod Raceway who gave two tickets for the Sunday of the Main Event, and Tim Howes from NGK who gave a selection of prizes, including a watch, bag and mugs. The raffle, and BEN elephants raised over £100 on the evening.

 Winner of the Santa Pod tickets was Kevin Miles from Dinneages at Haywards Heath, Steve says he saw Kevin and his son at the Main Event, and they were having a very enjoyable day on their first ever visit to Santa Pod.

Bradford

Peter Leake (UK Dealer Training Manager) gave Bradford MA a very professional presentation on design and development of the new XJ Jaguar to create a luxury sporting saloon.

He detailed the changes in Jaguar's new approach and innovation of design, lead by Ian McCallum, to make future Jaguars beautiful fast cars which began with the XF and XK.

The presentation detailed the new levels of luxury, new but intuitive technical innovations, making the car handle and perform to new levels, be a class leader and to appeal a wider customer base.

The XJ's bodyshell ( as the previous model was) is made of aluminium and has approximately 50% recycled content i.e. approx 9,000 cans saving 3.3 tons of CO2, production techniques are based around reducing the environmental impact and making the vehicle approx. 85% recyclable.

Following the presentation attendees were invited to look around the new car which Peter brought and was placed in Speedmaster's showroom.

It is clear Peter is a Jaguar enthusiast and his love and pride of the product was clearly communicated.

Shropshire and West Midlands

 PRODUCT RECALLS.

 We all hear about these in the media from time to time, but more usually when a major manufacturer is involved. I asked Tim Blakemore - Managing Editor, Commercial Vehicle Engineer to come along and tell us more about the mechanics of how product recalls are initiated. For instance, when does a manufacturers routine 'campaign' to fix a known fault through its own dealer network become a 'safety recall' and therefore involve VOSA. Tim has many years of experience in reporting product recalls and liaises on a regular basis with the small team at VOSA who maintain the Effectiveness Report as its known.

Car and light commercial vehicle recall effectiveness is continuing to improve from a very high level of (currently) 92.2 % but strangely commercial vehicle safety recall effectiveness is declining and methods to improve the effectiveness are being investigated. One of the suggestions has been for (VOSA?) to equip petrol station forecourts with ANPR cameras to advise drivers' of vehicles with outstanding recalls to contact their dealer to get the work rectified.

Somewhat surprisingly some European countries have no system at all for recalling defective vehicles in their territory and leave it all to the car manufacturer's dealers' to sort it out. Those countries that do have a system in place all lag behind what we have in the U.K. and VOSA are seen as the European leaders in this regard.

When reporting a known product fault to their dealers and thus VOSA, the language chosen by manufacturers to report vehicle defects is nothing short of hilarious in their attempt to cloud the potential consequences. The explanations become even more cloudy when they are the subject of inappropriate translation.

Many people will be surprised to learn that product recalls are covered by a Code of Practice and not legislation and thus all reported 'campaigns' are reported in the annual VOSA Effectiveness Report and whether they are elevated to the status of a 'safety recall' is open to interpretation. For more information email Tim Blakemore at timb@aztecxpress.com

 By Paul Jarvis

Norfolk

Tuesday 4^th May at 7.30pm 

A Visit and tour of the Hethel Engineering Centre followed by a presentation on the subject of the History and Developments in Fuel Injection and Combustion Technology by Jeff Allen of SCION Fuel Injection.  

The evening commenced with Paul Spinks of 'Active Technologies' giving us an overview of the work of the Hethel Engineering Centre and the companies established there. The Centre focuses heavily on assisting the development of new technologies including, wind turbines, controlling and cleaning solar arrays and developing viable anaerobic biomass generators, turning waste into fuel. A most interesting project under development is the conversion of kinetic energy into electricity, where floor pads absorb the kinetic energy of footfall and convert it into power. Trials are underway in walkways at underground stations to absorb footsteps and could recover 10kW per hour. Pads would be placed in car park ramps and under motorways to absorb the energy of passing vehicles, known as KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems), the system is already being trialled in Israel and is used by Williams F1 in its race vehicle. 'Active Technologies' works closely with funding bodies to raise development grants and place manufacturing with local companies, generating wealth in the Eastern Region from renewable energy projects. Paul later took the group on a tour of the facility which has state-of-the-art rapid prototyping technology available.

Jeff Allen gave a most informative illustrated talk on the history and development of fuel injection, showing its roots over a hundred years ago with British engineers Butler and Lanchester together with the German engineer Robert Bosch. The objective of valve control and fuel injection, he pointed out, is to manage and optimise airflow giving controlled, repeatable, complete combustion for fuel economy, low emission and power. Through a series of high speed specialist photographs taken on a test engine with glass block and piston crown at Lotus, he was able to demonstrate how, using conventional injection and valve control, combustion is far from complete and repeatable.

He demonstrated how, through Direct Injection, we are starting to control combustion and again through high speed photography, each fuel droplet could be mapped in a variety of situations leading to an ability to modify fuelling and valve control to achieve the ideal of controlled, repeatable, complete combustion.

This would be achieved by an infinitely variable valve timing controlled by hydraulic actuators, already being trialled in vehicles, and should be mainstream within 5 to 10 years. This homogeneous injection system offered by computer controlled valve timing enables the exciting possibility of being used for multi fuel engines running on a spark or compression ignition cycle and also offers a return to the further development and re emergence of the two stroke engine.

The process enables the exhaust valve to be closed early, trapping hot exhaust gas in the cylinder which initiates a 'chemical' combustion of the new charge across the whole combustion chamber, avoiding the unpredictable 'flame front' combustion of current vehicles. This system does not need a throttle valve and would therefore also improve volumetric efficiency as the intake is not restricted.

 He concluded by showing work he had carried out to develop an affordable fuel injection system for small single cylinder engines as fitted to lawnmowers and motorcycles' to improve emissions' and power in a so far untapped market. His gravity fed injector, a masterpiece of micro engineering, delivers a fixed volume for each stroke, and is therefore pulsed to vary fuel delivery, simplifying the system down to two components, throttle body and injector.

 Report written by Pio Altarelli BEd.(Hon's) MEd IEng. MIRTE LAE FIMI

East Kent

20th April 2010 Presentation by John Nash                                           

 The East Kent MA was treated to an entertaining account of John Nash's 5 year endeavour to build his dream car from scratch.

 John started by explaining how his background in technical illustration and history of owning and building three wheeled kit cars led to the building of his current vehicle, before taking the audience through a colourful step by step account of the project. John had also kindly bought the car along to the event so members and guests could get a closer look.

 Costing just £5758.75 to build and weighing just 510kg, the John Nash Special takes it inspiration from 1930s era Grand Prix Cars and is powered by a four cylinder Renault Gordini engine putting out 105bhp. John literally designed and built the car from the ground up, collecting and refurbishing parts from scrap yards and forming the bodywork by hand. As a result he was able to give a highly informative account of the processes involved in building a car and the obstacles to getting it on the road.

 Along the way John battled S.V.A inspectors, gassed his own house and risked life and limb mixing wielding gear and fuel tanks, but the result is a car which is a beautiful illustration of what can be achieved with a bit of technical knowledge, enthusiasm and, as John was at pains to explain, a very patient and understanding wife!

MA Activity Report - page 2