The Build

How it all started...

October 2002

Sold my Megablade, very sad to see it go.

November 2002

Started to look around for car to build so I approached Westfield for some costings, looked at the Suzuki GSX1000-R engine... dribbled a bit, also looked at GT40 replicas and the Ultima GTR. Both types are very nice but the GT40s don't seem to hold their price as well as the GTR.

Did the sums for the Ultima and with a 500hp V8 engine from the USA, the cost would be more than £35,000 depending on what goodies you used. Then did the sums for a BEC with a Busa engine and came up with a figure under half that.

So, a choice between another Westy, the Coram LMP or an Ultima. The Ultima I think would be built to be sold, so the next one I could keep... which even as I type that in, sounds bonkers.

December 2002

Looked at the Yamaha R1 engine... very nice. Would need to sort out a new cradle, loom, exhaust system and a 'rent-a-cat' etc.... is this too complicated? But 160bhp from a small engine sounds good, with the added bonus that the engines are cheap and the prop angles would be better than a Busa (I think).. The down side is the cat system I'd have to use to get it through the SVA/MOTs, still a R_pw  of better than 370 does sound fun.

Just found out that the LMP has the bike engine mounted the same way round as the Westfield! Why do that, the power pack is in the back of the car? This seems a bit of a wasted opportunity, but not only that you get no weight saving at all, as you still use (presumably) a RGB, prop and really heavy diff with really really heavy LOBRO CVs. Will have to wait until next month to have a look.

January 2003

Autosport show

Looked at the Ultima GTR, dribbled quite a bit but it wiped off easily enough, The chap on the stand was very helpful and answered all my questions, came away with a build CD and information on the engines. The Ultima is very tempting.

Also looked at the Coram LMP and while the chaps on the stand were enthusiastic about the car I must say I was a bit disappointed with the end product. I am sure though that the thing is well put together,  maybe it's personal taste, but just not the kit for me.

I also looked at the Westfield XTR2 but discounted it on grounds of practicality, (Edit: I've just re-read this bit.... and I'm doing a car with a Turbo' d 900cc engine - practical? Ha ha ha).

Researching light weight component suppliers for brakes, suspension, wheels and carbon fibre parts etc.

All but decided on a Megabusa and started looking for the best system to use for the dry sump. This started to sound jolly expensive just to pump oil round an engine! - £1500+

Received an email out of the blue from Holeshot (who had been a bit off hand last year when I was looking to upgrade mb919) - which was nice of them. Had a look on the Turbo Bike Forum - and those people are insane! Some of the systems they have fitted... absolutely bonkers. Found a chap in Holland whose website shows what can be done with a turbo and a bog standard Fireblade engine: 235bhp at the wheel. The bike has done a lot of miles with this system, so it seems reliable.

Decided that, if it was a practically possible solution a Turbocharged Megablade sounds a good bet. I like the concept of a really light car with a little engine that develops a lot of power, so made arrangements to visit Holeshot Racing, Play's Kool and Westfield in February.

February 2003

Started looking for a Honda Fireblade engine that was low mileage and was also pre-1995. Steve Porter replied to a request for suppliers I made on the BEC list. He had a 1993 German import engine that had done 13,000Km. Put a deposit on it and arranged to collect it on the 8th March.

Monthly Surrey WSCC meeting: Yukky weather, only Iain turned up in his Westy.... Visit Terry's new and mysterious Kit-car. Wow it's big, very nice - but big!

Visited Holeshot Racing. very useful to meet Jack and have a look at several turbo systems and bikes. Most impressed with his expertise and worked out a cost to install a turbo on my 'new' engine. Next went to see Paul at Play's Kool, loads of Kevlar and Carbon bits which I think went to my head, as I seemed to have ordered most of them.

Stayed overnight in Birmingham, had the car broken into - nice welcome. Next visited the Factory and had a very pleasant afternoon deciding on what to include in my kit, paid my deposit and off home we went.

March 2003

Received the order confirmation from Westfield, which said the kit would be ready from the 26th March onwards - wow, that was fast.

Pestered Ed C about his lovely wheels, he was very patient with me and provided the information I was after. Contacted Mike Barnby and sorted out what wheels I needed and the price.

Collected my engine from Steve Porter and it was everything he said it was. Very clean with no scuffs or scrapes and all its bits 'n bobs intact. Top chap - just waiting for him to ship my regulator.

Made the engine shipping crate - £30.00 in plywood! Still, it's jolly strong and quite light weight (a theme in the making I think). Phoned Jack at Holeshot to make arrangements, talked about which way up to mount the turbo unit etc and ran some A3 colour images off for him the have a look at. Engine should be on it's way up to Leeds next week sometime.

Talked to Paul at Play's Kool... he is shipping all my carbon stuff and it should all be with me by the weekend, another top chap. This means that I can lay the engine, wings seats and panels out in the garage and make brrmmm brrmmm noises!

Phone call from Westfield to confirm end of month collection, booked 'big' Luton van.

Got to wait until Monday for my carbon bits... ah well, more time to polish the engine.

Re-built the chassis trolly, but cut the legs down a bit so the car will be around 8" lower and easier to work on. Finished (so far) polishing the engine, just got to drop it in its crate and seal it up.

Got all the carbon panels from Paul at Play's Kool and I must say how impressed I am, they look drop dead fantastic! Very light (about 1/2 the weight of ali), all of them are pre-cut with some pre-drilled and the pedal box cover even has the steering column 'bumpy thing' molded in. The seats are comfies and look very nice. Another top chap.

Engine collected today and with Holeshot tomorrow.

The cycle wings only weigh 0.9Kg for the pair and the standard Westfield ones are 0.95Kg each!

Wheels not ready yet, so no trip to Hi-Spec on Monday.

Ordered: Electric water pump and controller, catch tank, shiftlight system, Loads of peel rivets / jacknuts / rivnuts / aluminum nuts & bolts, shock absorbers (AVO SA1000s), springs and suspension bush set.

Got the OMEX shift light system.... very nice, four LEDs to stare at now instead of just one.

The catch tank / electric water pump bits came from Merlin and boy what a comedy of errors this has turned out to be. The pump controller was missing it's relay, the pump just came in a placky bag - no pipe adaptors, wiring harness, clips, instructions etc and the tank was the wrong size (my fault) with the input pipes on the wrong side (their fault).

One phone call later and the relay will be sent on, once they receive the tank a 'correct' one would be sent and "no, that's how we get the pumps from Davies Craig", so no bits for the pump. I then ring DT and find out that "yes, the pump comes with adaptors, wiring, instructions, clips....". Order one from them and phone Merlin to return their pump. They say that they have been ordering the wrong pump kit from DC!

The controller relay and tank arrived today. Relay good, tank bad - right size this time but the input pipes are still on the wrong side! Back it goes again. I was tempted to ask "which bit of 'input pipes on the opposite side to this tank' don't you understand?".

Twiddling my thumbs a bit now.....(Thursday Thursday Thursday Thursday Thursday).... so I phoned Mike Barnby and my wheels are ready!

Thursday: Kit day!

Left at 0415, arrived at the Factory (after brekkies) at 0845, loaded the kit and was on my way by 1000, home at 1400, unloaded it and stored away by 1600 and the van back at 1630. Boy am I tired! And after all that I forgot to pick up the build manual :-)

Bit of planning: Need to put the drivers foot well bulkhead in and fit the master cylinder first, so I can start on the brake pipes. Did the measurements and drawing of the panel with all the cutouts and holes etc.

Start day! (Saturday)... Spray mounted the drawing of the panel to the carbon fibre (CF) sheet and cut it out using a Stanley Knife and straight edge for the basic shape (one blade per side!!! Wow this carbon fibre stuff is tough). Then used a Dremel to do all the 'adjusting'. Peeled back the drawing sheet and stuck Duct tape along the edges where I need to drill. Did this to stop the drill damaging the 'gel coat' of the CF sheet - and it works. Broke my 'heavy duty' rivet gun and had to use a 20 year old cheapy one (that always works!) - I really need to order an air driven one. Painted the edge of the panel black to finish it off.

Just need the steering column hole centre info - So much for the Boardroom :-) and this panel is done.

Also fitted all the brake pipe Tee pieces and painted the steering rack arms and all the ball joints. Very pleased with how this turned out as the Hammerite Satin paint goes off looking just like powder coat.

Pipe bending time next. I find this bit very stressful... oh well, best get on with it - tomorrow.

Pipes all went in OK with no major problems, I found heating them slightly (just warm to the touch whilst wear very thick welders gloves) with a paint stripper heat gun helps a lot. However, the AP master cylinder / brake pipe terminals are wrong. The 'holes' in the master cylinder are deeper than the pipe connectors, so they are not sealing correctly - phone call to the Factory on Monday.

Steve R and his son Simon dropped by in their cars just as we were finishing up. Had a look at Simons new exhaust system and was very impressed, both by the value for money and the quality. Dad^(tm) had a look at both Westys and liked them as they were "proper cars" with "proper seats and engines" - what a traitor :-)

Tried the rear bulkhead CF panel for fit, which was perfect and looks very very saucy. Showed Steve and Simon the other CF bits and luckily there was enough kitchen roll to go around. A good day.

Went to (Mike) Barnby Engineering to collect my wheels today. Two hour drive there, only to be told that he hadn't done them - this after telling me the previous Wednesday they were finished. He knew I was driving up today to get them and couldn't be bothered to phone me, what a nice man. He may make great wheels, but the customer service could do with a tweak.

He now says they will be ready on Thursday.... yeah, right.

Shock absorbers and bushes arrived from CAT today, very nice. Also sorted out my AP m/c problem, apparently I was given the only m/c on planet Earth that had the port holes done too deep - gone back to the Factory for replacement.

Bit of a problem with the Factory... when I visited to order the kit I worked on the "I'll have everything to finish the car completely, except these bits" principal. The Factory didn't and they had to plough through and add up all the bits needed, which was fine except the Factory 'forgot' certain items that are needed. Needless to say I was not impressed, cost me an extra £400 or so - just unnecessary and leaves you with a sour taste.

Finally found some where local that sells brake pipe clips - what a job that was.

Factory now says I need longer 10mm brake fittings - well there's a surprise. Why couldn't they sort this stuff out when you collect the kit? It is very infuriating. They are supplying new brake pipes with the 'new' fittings, so I have to re bend these ones - hmmmm my favorite job.

Fitted all the poly bushes into the wishbones.

Phoned Merlin about my catch tank.... boy was he stressed. All I wanted was the same tank with the fittings on the other side. Think it's all sorted out now.

Received the Davis Craig EBP kit from DT. A bit different to the placky bag version from Merlin, this came as a complete kit with all the extra bits n' bobs needed. Also got the rigid fuel line and sump baffle from the Factory. They may not always be cheap, but they do tend to do what they say.

Drilled and fitted the first brake pipe clip... The Factory have changed the chassis since my last kit and have put in a new diagonal top X-member. This makes drilling the front Tee to the flexipipe clip holes a bit awkward.

Sorted out the aluminum floor panel today. Sheet metal company in Portslade (PMP) will supply and cut to shape the panel for £29.38 - now that can't be bad.

Not been a good week so far with the kit... lots of disappointments and faffing about to achieve not a lot. Ah well, so it goes - I'm sure the weekend will be good. Off to Barnby Eng. for my wheels tomorrow.....

Phoned Mike Barnby and he says that the wheels are being assembled as we speak.... so off to Rochester I go again. The wheels were ready and are saucy, plus he was very contrite... Also gave me some centre caps that are "Mike Barnby" ones.... they are abrieviated to MB - OK OK I'll forgive him, damn it.

Took the wheels along to Hi-Spec in Dartford to sort out what disk rotors would fit under them. With the Ultralite four pot calipers, a 280mm disk will fit. Ordered the kit - to include calipers, fixing kit and brackets, light weight aluminum rotor bell and X-drilled 280 x 9mm rotor. I can't believe how light the brake kit is - wow.

Went to PMP to pay for the floor panel... ready tomorrow! Note to self "talk to Steve R about trailer loan". Dad^(tm) is already making a mould for the CF sump pan :-))

Fixed the front to back brake pipes and the rear pipes. Temp fitted the diff (gosh there's a lot of room around it compared to a Ford one!)

Fitted the steel fuel line, passenger footwell bulkhead panel and the top panel. 

Went to the Detlin Kit-car show - never again I think, as every time I've been the weather is freeeeezing cold!  Bought loads of panel edge trim and a big rubber hammer - as you do. Dropped in at Steve R on the way back to collect his trailer so I can pick up my 2.5 x 1.1 metre ali floor panel without damaging it.

25 Hours total build time.

April 2003

Phoned and emailed Steve Porter about my engine electric regulator, he says should be with me in a few days - we'll see. Dropped the trailer back after picking up the floor panel (and very nice it is to). Had a look at Simon R's freshly painted new M16 calipers.

Car club tonight, loads of Westys turned up - damn it! Had to go and tow one poor sole back to the pub... hit something in the road and cracked open his sump. Even for a Caterham owner that's not nice :-))

Got the AP m/c back and the 'new' brake lines with the extra long fittings today, so refitted/bent everything. Trial fitted the two centre tunnel main panels so we could drill all the holes and also did the side footwell ones. So, all the rigid pipe work is bent to shape and fixed to the chassis - yippeee.

Bit of an issue with how to fix the side panels as they need to be removable. Thought about tapping the holes M5, but you'd only get two complete threads in the chassis material at most and knowing me, the first time I tightened them up I'd strip the thread so I think I'll go down the rivnut route. M3 rivnut only needs a 4.9mm hole and the dish head cap screws have enough meat on the head to hold the panel OK. I really hate drilling holes in a perfectly good chassis! Ordered the rivnuts from RAF Ltd and the stainless bolts from PTS.

Tried to trail fit the radiator today. The last time round I had a ducted nose cone, so this is new territory. The manual says use the four threaded holes in the plastic part of the rad. Found the holes, but they are un-threaded. Also the supplied ally top brackets are so long they are going to distort the rad WRT the bottom mounts, so a bit of dremeling is needed I think. I've also ordered some plastic rad fan fixing thingys from DT as the steel 'nails' supplied look like they'll wear through the aluminum in no time.

Decided to put the Freelander diff in its adaptor mount with the proper fixings and found that instead of 8 x M12 plain washers I had 8 x M12 spring washers in the kit - ah well.

Cable tied the main loom so I can drill and fix all the cable tie pads with my new toy.... an air driven rivet gun! This is even better than 'Mr. Sparky'. However, it was so cold I gave up and went and had a nice cup of tea instead.

Decided on Yokohama A032 tyres against Avon ACB10s. Ed C says the 32s are 9kg heavier for a full set but I think the weight budget can cope with the extra if it means a better ride. Need to sort out who is cheapest/best to buy from and have fit to my lovely wheels.

Looking at getting new ignition coil packs and HT leads (from High Power) so I can mount them away from the turbocharger: £141.00 + carriage! Need to make sure the leads are marked to prove they are suppressed for the SVA.

email from Holeshot..... the engine is ready but the turbo bits will take another two/three weeks - he's just teasing me now.

Fitted all the 3mm rivnuts to the chassis for the footwell panels and sprayed all the stainless fixings matt black to match the CF. Tapped the radiator mounting holes M6. Bit of a tip when using taps... grind the shank of the bit down so it will fit a socket (5mm in this case) so you can use a socket set T bar. Much better than the generally crappy handles supplied with the tap/die kits. It also means I get to use Mr. Sparky which is always good news. Also tapped the overflow port in the rad 5mm so I can block this off.

Jobs for the weekend: Trial fit the aluminum floor panel, mark it up and drill and do the same for the rear bulkhead panel - yet more holes in the chassis. Once the floor is fitted I can start on the suspension components, so the car will start looking like a car. Trial fit radiator and nose so I can see how much room there is for the intercooler and tell Jack at Holeshot how big it can be.

Sorted out the intercooler size, position, inlet/outlet pipes but now have a bit of a problem with the oil cooler. May need to remote mount if and provide ducting to it. Not too happy with the lower rad brackets, so I think I'll order another set of ali ones from the factory and chop the steel ones off as 'bending them to fit' sounds like a bit of a bodge.

Fitted the rear CF bulkhead (first) and the floor panel - The bulkhead went in easily with no problems, the main event was the floor: We carefully laid the panel on the floor and then dropped the chassis over it, marked out the rails onto the panel and lifted the chassis back onto its stand. We then marked the hole positions (every 50mm) and drilled them. Next we turned the chassis upside down on the stand, clamped the panel in place and through drilled the chassis. Messy bit next - black silicone'd the chassis, carefully laid the panel back and then used five gallons of white spirit to remove the silicone from our hands - yuck. We then inserted the rivets (this was done to help hold the panel in place) and it was rivet gun time! All went in with no problems and the air riveter is fantastic. Took less than ten minutes to do the floor (200'ish rivets)!

Went to Brands Hatch to have a look at the 750MC meeting - which was fun. Met a fellow BEC owner (Furyblade) who designs/makes steering wheel mounted gear change systems (think Dax but better). Will probably go this route, but need the engine back before he cam proceed.

Front suspension fitted: I'd already fitted the bushes so it was just a simple nut and bolt job. Fitted the rear as far as I can - have a bit of a problem as I can't fit the rear hubs as the drive shafts then wouldn't go on (they are the Free lander type and 'push in' to the diff).... Solution: fit the diff - ah, can't do that as the I would not be able to get at the rear rivet holes for the tunnel panels. I don't want to fit these yet as I don't want to damage them when I'm sorting out the centre bearing mount on the propshaft and I can't order the shaft until I get the engine back. Oh well, there's lots of other things to do...

And Also...

Had a look at the radiator/intercooler/oil cooler issue. I'm very worried that putting two other radiators in front of the water rad will reduce the air flow to unacceptable levels (using the 'just bolt them in front of each other' system). Not only with the air temperature be raised but more importantly the air, by the time it hits the water rad will be 'stalled' and turbulent. I was never over joyed with the unducted nose system as it seems to rely on brute force to get air flow through the radiator. The standard Factory oil cooler bracket position this rad in such a way as to guarantee a stalled air situation (or so it seems) and I still have the intercooler to mount.

Steve R dropped round to collect my un-needed boot box - he's finally seen the light and is going to fit a proper roll-bar. In fact he's ordered two - one for Simon as well.

What I think I'll do is make up a duct system that carries all three radiators, evens out (as far as possible) the air flow and uses all of the frontal intake area of the nose. I'd like to use CF but don't think there will be enough spare sheet and spending lots more money on this doesn't appeal.

Boy what a job getting hold of Yoko 32s in soft compound (185/60R13). They only people that had them in stock were DT (they also were the cheapest!). Took the wheels and tyres to DTS tyres in Worthing to have them fitted. Given that the wheels are 'fragile' in Mike Barnby's words, this was not a pleasant experience... however, DTS did a very good job and it was all over in 30 minutes.

Steve R over to 'borrow' my RAC roll-bar as they have a trackday and he wants the bars fitted to both cars and only has one in his hot little hands. The Factory must have had a run on these :-)

As I had already roughly laid out the main loom, decided to fit it properly. Drilled all the holes and riveted the cable tie pads to the chassis and fixed the rear part of the loom. Did the same for the tunnel. Cut the holes in the scuttle area top panel for the fuse boxes, dash loom and engine loom and riveted the main loom in place. CF is a much nicer material to work with than aluminum - to cut the holes we spray mounted a paper template in place and drilled the centre of the holes with an 8mm drill. Next we ran the small sanding cylinder Dremel bit through to enlarge the hole and then sanded it to shape with the large cylinder. Three holes cut perfectly to size and shape in five minutes - marvelous.

Ran the loom along the top engine cradle and mounted all the tie pads for the front part of the loom but only temporarily fixed it in place. This job turned out to be very neat and tidy - just got to drill the engine cradle and fix the tie pads..

Piggy backed a 12volt supply from the immobiliser power supply for the regulator cooling fan.

Cut the CF panel (also need another pack of knife blades) for the engine black boxes, riveted the hinges to the chassis and covered them with neoprene. Drilled and mounted 3mm rivnuts into the dash hoop and fixed the panel in. Luckily all the black boxes still have their original rubber jackets with the mount slots, so I can use 15 x 2mm aluminum bar bent to shape to hold them in place. The regulator will need an aluminum plate and something to mount the fan on. Think I'll drill 'vent holes' in the CF panel.

Re-think on the ducting for the nose, need to make it lighter and move the oil cooler to another location. Need to talk to Think Automotive to see if I can mount the cooler high up in the engine bay. Ordered a NACA intake and cooler shroud which means the oil radiator can go almost anywhere in the bay. Latest idea on the nose ducting is to use the two radiators as structural elements and just use side plates to flow the air. Will need to block off the area just behind the water rad so the air can't escape the easy way and is forced through the two coolers. Also need to run a surface to guide air from the lower small hole in the nose to bypass the intercooler and hit the water rad.

Finally received the regulator from Steve Porter, so I can get on with mounting the black boxes and controllers. Spoke to the Factory today and the engine loom should be with me for the W/E. Also had a chat with them about the speedo pick-up when using a Freelander diff. I need to re-route the wires for the sensor and use a bracket that repositions it to pick up on a single point on the diff input flange.... why aren't the bits included when you get the kit? It seems fairly simple to me..... "Ah ha, Freelander diff 'ay? This chap needs the instructions, bracket and fixings to re-locate the speedo sensor!" But sadly no, this is too complicated for them.

Think Automotive says that the oil cooler can be mounted up high in the engine bay, so no problems there.

Should be picking up my front brake kit from Hi-Spec on Friday.

Quiet week on the car front - but the W/E should be busy: Front brakes, engine loom / black boxes and radiator(s) duct panels to do.

Fitted the front brakes over the weekend... the bells and rotors very fine, but the brackets that mount the calipers to the uprights need to be modified/redone by Hi-Spec. The near side bracket needs the recess pocket deepening by 2mm to centralised the disc rotor in the caliper and the offside needs 1.5mm. The offside bracket needs to be made deeper (front to back) by 1mm to move the caliper backwards away from the rotor. The weird thing is though... you can't get the pads into the calipers with the disk in place, the caliper spacer is way too narrow. How can a company the makes the disks, brackets and calipers and supplies the pads get it so wrong? Phoned Geoff and he says the he'll make the new brackets on Monday and I'll get them Tuesday.

The main thing is that the wheels do indeed fit the hubs and that the huge disc rotors fit inside them. Should have no problems with front/back brake imbalance (the AP m/c is tapered to give 60/40% front to back as well)..

Got the engine loom back from the Factory (very good service there - phoned me Friday to say the bits will be with me Saturday) and routed it - no problems. Made all the fixing brackets for the black boxes. Mounted the regulator and fan in a 'heatsink' type affair to help cool it. I've included the bracket drawings in the picture section.

Made a MK II version of the rad/intercooler ducting thingy - much simpler and lighter.... just need the intercooler to finish it off.

Dad^(tm) has made up some starter solenoid terminals from stainless, so I need to sort out the wires and battery pretty soon. Still not sure where to mount it... right up the front seems a bit silly given it's not a huge item, but I'm running out of room in the engine bay proper.

The NACA intake duct arrived today - trial fit it to the nose with the rad/intercooler duct mock up is the next job.

Should get the Hi-Spec redone brackets tomorrow.

Got to send Jack at Holeshot the list of things I expect back with the engine and the length of the air lines (turbo/intercooler/intake).

Note: I have had huge problems with Hi-Spec brakes, both with customer service and component fit. The kit has been returned to them for a full refund and I have ordered the calipers and disks from CAT Motorsport. A full report on the appalling service I received from Hi-Spec will be in next months update, in the mean time I would not recommend them as a company to use - for anything.

63 Hours total build time  -  6 Hours total design time.

May 2003

The Hi-Spec saga: I'd written a long report detailing the astoundingly bad service this company gives (as a matter of routine it seems), but then thought,  life is too short. Suffice to say "don't use them under any circumstances" - Really, don't use them I can't stress this too much - they are really really bad - in fact astoundingly bad, it's almost like they have a bet every week to see how many people they can hack off due to late delivery, rudness on the phone, total lack of customer service and a quite stuningly crap product that won't fit 'out of the box' and that they then can't fix.

So, DON'T USE HI-SPEC MOTORSPORT PRODUCTS IF YOU VALUE GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE AND A PRODUCT THAT FITS and DOES THE JOB. YOU'D BE BETTER OFF BANGING YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL RATHER THAN TRYING TO CONTACT THEM ON THE PHONE - REALLY, THEY ARE THAT BAD. NEVER IN HUMAN HISTORY HAS A COMPANY OFFERED SO LITTLE FOR SO MUCH MONEY WITH SO MUCH DISREGARD FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND ENGINEERING KNOW HOW.

The good news is that I've ordered the replacements from CAT motorsport: the bits arrived four days from them receiving the money and took 15 minutes to fit. Not as (to be honest) 'flash' as the Hi-Spec shambles, but they do look very good, fit the uprights, the disk are round not egg shaped, the pads/calipers/rotor all fit and the company does have a good reputation, plus the people at CAT do tend to instill a bit of confidence in the customer - which is worth a lot.

The CAT stuff however is great!

Holeshot racing should have delivered the engine/fitted turbo and all the parts, but have fallen somewhat behind.

Ordered a set of Dyncoils (high output ignition coils) from High Power (the NOX people) today. Also ordered an Omex revlimiter (with launch control, no less).

Decided not to use heavy metal seat mounts and fabricate some composite ones. This makes mounting the seats in the car much easier and in my view much stronger. I was never to sure about using 6mm bolts through the thin sides of my old Megablades seats. This revised method of fitting the seats should also make removing them a far simpler job.

We drilled 6mm holes through the lowest point of the seat base (measure, measure again - leave overnight then recheck again, drill holes THEN panic) and marked through to the flat steel crossmember. Once all the holes were drilled we got the correct seat position by using washers between the seat and the floor to give us a bit of room (needed a bit of meat as I wanted to use counter sunk bolts not hex head with washers) and used foam spacers between the seat back and the rear bulkhead to get a comfy angle.

We then cut some aluminum tube to the correct length to act as 'permanent' spacers (these would be drilled out later). Next .......

Seat base and former:

Use high density foam cut in to strips.

Form two seat bases approx 100x100mm.

Tape the strips together and cut extra  wedges that will follow the seat base contours.

Tape this form in to place and push through from underneath the fixing bolts and add seat height spacers. (this makes it easier to remove them - trust me).

Spray area/bolts with WD40 - poor mans release agent.

Over lay a thin plastic sheet on the form (use bin bag material cut to shape).

Resin/fibre mix:

Use polyester resin and catalyst/hardener.

Mix the resin & hardener together.

Mix in industrial talc to bulk the mixture - you can use glass 'micro-balloons' but talc is cheaper.

Using woven glass cloth, pull out some strands and cut in to 20mm lengths - mix this in the resin

You need a mix that will not flow - rather like meringue.

'Pour' the resin/fibre mix in to each base form and bolt the seat in to place.

Remember to roughen the seat base and degrease.

Once the resin/fibre mix has gone off, unbolt the seat and using a sanding disk, shape and clean up the pads.

Remember a 10:1 resin/hardener mix usually gives a 20min working time, but adding other materials will reduce this - work quickly.

What you end up with is an extremely strong pair of seat mounting pads that weigh next to nothing!

Seat front supports:

For these we decided that as the base pads would be taking most of the strain, the seat front supports could be made from carbon honeycombe sheet.... hang on, that stuff is near bullet proof, these are probably stronger than the seat bases :-)

We lined the seat up and marked the underside where the front support would go (so it too mounted onto the flat crossmember). Using arcane knowledge (OK, so it was a bit of cardboard and a pencil) we marked out a contoured template that match the seat and cut the carbon to fit.

We mounted some 2mm aluminum angle to the crossmember using three 6mm bolts. We fitted four 6mm steel rivnuts in the upright face and drilled the carbon support. Next we bolted the support to the angle and checked that the seat fitted and was in the correct position.

We made up some resin jollop and 'tacked the carbon support to the seat and let this go off (about five minutes). The seat and support were all unbolted and removed from the car. We made up some triangular fillets to beef up the support and help spread the load through out the seat base and fixed these in place with yet more magic resin. Once the resin had gone off, the whole thing was neaten'd up and refitted to the car one last time to check all was OK.

We found that the seat is VERY rigid in the car and once the seat back brace (yet more carbon honeycombe) is in place there should be no flexing at all.

Last job to do is cut away the honeycombe material where the front support has it's fixing holes, fill with liquid steel and re drill them.

I've yet to do the lap and shoulder harness cutouts but suspect that the all up weight of the seats with their mounts will be close to their original weight. It is also surprising how long this process takes!

Fitted the Dynacoils to the area just in front of where the scuttle will be on the passenger side using aluminum tube spacers, rivnuts and gold ali bolts. This removes them from the area of the turbo and neatens up the wiring.

Made up some carbon brackets that live up under the dash (drivers side) for the shift light system and the limiter. Used harness wrap (non sticky electrical tape) on the wires from these two boxes and spliced them into the engine coil wiring. The four wires now run through under the passenger top panel in the foot well (via a duct/support bar) and pop up between the coil packs in the engine bay - very neat.

Steering wheel centre crash pad (Factory supplied item): The covering had peeled away - new one supplied.

Holeshot still delaying me: Henry is waiting to come and fit the paddle and lever brackets for the gear change, I can't fit the tunnel side panels until the prop is all sorted out, can't fit the diff - getting to be a bit of a pain.

Terry's car passed it's SVA (two tests - same day) good result. and Tim came to a club meeting with his twin engined BEC... very nice (and loud).

I'm designing (well helping really - all this PIC programming looks jolly complicated) a gear indicator system that will also display warnings for out of range T's & P's etc, indicator warnings and change down point. The project started out as just a gear position indicator but may well have got out of hand ( - crock clips to bolts - check, lightning storm - check, apply power - check..... what have I created!!!? No No - put that scantily clad young lady down, bad boy, bad bad boy.) I've just found out that you can buy two channel accelerometers for under £40 and a company that does small size TFT screens for not too much money. Once the details are finalized I'll put up some images.

Bought a m/c battery from Halfords, a nice little 10AHr jobbie. Made up an ali battery box and riveted it in place just behind the steering rack. All the big battery leads are in place and neatly sheathed in nylon braid.

I should have the engine back next month so I can get on a bit..... I hope. ordered a set of carbon wing mirrors and a lot of carbon cloth to make up the nose intake duct and cooler shrouds so should be kept out of mischief.

102 Hours total build time  -  12 Hours total design time.

June 2003

Cut the lap strap holes in the seats and finished off the fronts. Each seat and mounting structure now weighs in at 5Kg and I've still got to cut the shoulder strap holes..... pretty good I think.

The actual cutting was a bit stressful, it wasn't so much measure once, measure twice then cut, it was more like "you do it, no no you do it". The method use was to mount each seat in position and mark on the outside where the lap strap mount was in relation, use a bit of mental imagery and drill a hole where the centre of the strap should go (with me sitting in the seat - help, help). Next we made a template up with the hole in the centre, bolted it through and marked round it. To cut the hole we used a Rotozip (like a Dremel - but nitrous injected) and a composite cutting 'drill'.

Temporarily fitted the diff in the car (ready for the engine/prop measurements) and fitted the petrol tank (the Factory had 'forgotten' to put the rivnuts in, ho hum).... just thinking up things to do until we get the engine back.

The box arrived today at 10:30am!!! Turbo day:

The torture was I couldn't unpack it until 2pm! Work, work, work. First job was to see if the engine with its turbo would fit the chassis! Jack had emailed some pictures of my engine and it looked like a tight fit - bit of luck I didn't just have the engine back way back in April.

We blocked the engine above the chassis roughly in place and used a bob weight on the sump to work out where to cut the floor panel. Once this was done:

Fitted the top engine cradle - well..... after cutting back the rear/inside mounting lug, as the bolt would not fit in - then hoisted the engine into place. Sounds easy doesn't it? This in fact took two and a half hours to do!

First we had to enlarge the sump hole in the floor as the engine has to be tipped then slid into place. This was to get the turbo 'under' the chassis round tube bracing. We then found that the wastegate valve actuator fouled this bar. We tried to rotate the engine to give clearance, but this meant that the engine/prop to centre bearing would probably hit the chassis as it goes into the trans tunnel. So that wouldn't work. It also would have meant making a new cradle or modifying the current one.

Next plan was to remove the tube brace from the chassis and re-brace that section to give clearance - needless to say we weren't keen on that option.

Finally all it took was to remove the actuator from the cold side of the turbo - and it all slotted in. We now have the minor problem of remounting the actuator and working out a way to reattach it to the wastegate in the hot side of the turbo. Henry C. is coming on Sunday with the top part of the paddle shift system for a trail fitting, so I'll have a chat with him about using a teleflex type cable arrangement.

Fitted the airbox and carbs to the engine and had a look at the rather odd fuel regulator and temporarily fixed it to the top panel. Routed the petrol/air pipes and marked up the engine to frame for drilling.

We then found out that the regulator* needs a petrol return pipe to the tank! Bit of luck the standard Factory ones are now all the injection tanks. Ordered two new petrol pipes and a pipe fitting from the Factory. I think I will reroute both pipes (away from where the single pipe is at the moment) so that they exit on the drivers side of the trans tunnel in the front. This will simplify and neaten up the pipe runs to/from the carbs/regulator/airbox.

* The regulator uses the boost pressure in the airbox to alter the fuel pressure to the carbs - clever huh? Setting this up should be fun.

Next job is to remove the engine and take off the engine cradle to drill and rivet the cable tie pads and C-clips in place.

Mmmmmmmmm, air riveter.

Henry C. dropped by with the top bracket, cable and trial paddle shift horns - VERY well engineered, I was most impressed. He took the measurements he needed for the bottom bracket and then gave me a ride in his Furyblade..... big grins all round, what a noise, what fun.

Made an ali bracket to mount the Bosch fuel pump using the standard mounting points on the chassis. Also mounted the fuel filter that goes between the tank and the pump. While I was doing this I removed the 'old' petrol pipe in preparation of re-routing it and twining it with the new return pipe.

Also made a 'proper' bracket to mount the regulator. As I'm not using the Factory supplied gear shifter, I used the holes that usually fix the top pivot for the rod that goes to the gear change 'axle' on the engine.

Dropped the sump off the engine to fit the baffle and drilled the hole for the oil return fitting from the turbo. This fitting has an 'O' ring to seal against the sump, so picking a spot that was low in the sump and flat and clear of the relief valve/pick-up pipe was a pain. Used permanent thread locker and bolted it in.

Once the engine was lowered back into the chassis, we could see that this fitting and its pipe would foul the floor, so more cutting to get clearance. The sump hole in the floor panel is looking very strange - very Mr. Moore.

Started designing the centre bearing mount for the propshaft. Phoned Bailey Morris and ordered a centre mount (which arrived the next day - very good service), then bought some 5mm thick ali plate from PMP sheet metal (£9 for 300mm x 900mm, cropped to size, this gives me enough to make two sets). Had a chat with Paul A. and he sourced me some 100 x 100 x 6mm ali angle and some 50 x 6mm C section ali - top chap. I visited his company (Steel the Scene) to collect it and dribbled a bit at all the toys he's got - it's just not fair :-)

Centre bearing mount: Dad^(tm) Used his band saw to chop up the ali plate for me and cut the radius where the centre bearing goes (this thing is nearly as good as Mr. Sparky). I cut and drilled the C section and the plate and 'bolted it all together', just got to sort out some steel spacers and this job is done. Once it's all in place I can measure up for the prop, send the centre bearing and the Freelander diff to prop fitting to BM with all the dims and the prop should arrive within the week. Using 50mm plastic drain pipe as the prop, I checked that my sums were correct and that the angles were as shallow as possible while missing the chassis member at the front of the tunnel - looks good.

I can now fix in place the new fuel lines, trans tunnel carbon sheets and install the diff and all the rear suspension/drive bits and bobs! With any luck the car will be on it's wheels during the first week of July.

Got some rubber backed carbon fibre sheet for the 'carpets'... poserish or what :-)))

Next jobs: Sort out the wastegate actuator mount, engine cooling hoses/routes, boost air pipes to/from the intercooler and do the carbon mounts for the rad/intercooler. Also get the oil take-off plate to Think Automotive and sort out the oil cooler system. Once that's all done :-) I'll see about designing the carbon Venturi/side pods for the turbo side and the air intake system on the drivers side on the front body tub. Little did I know that building a Westy would involve calculus!

A good month.

157 Hours total build time  -  21 Hours total design time.

July 2003

Re did the fuel lines today... I have decided I loath bending pipes. Ran the return pipe along the bottom and exited under the diff and ran the feed along the top and exited it over the top of the diff. Put two ali brackets in the chassis to maintain a 300mm 'support centre'. All the rubber pipe connections are nice and short and very neat. Also think I've sorted out how to mount the in-line filter from the regulator to the carbs - 50mm plastic clip with some foam rubber to insulate the filter from any vibration. It means that I can route this pipe away from the boost and return pipes - it was getting a bit busy in there :-)

We also measured the prop length: Rear prop is 897mm and the front prop is 584mm. Going to order this from BM on Monday.

Next job is to fit the trans tunnel panels, fit the diff and all the rear suspension components.... should be a straight forward nut and bolt job - but we'll see.

Fitted the transmission tunnel panels... no problems - just messy, silicone rubber gets everywhere! Refitted the diff and petrol tank, just got to torque up the bolts and I can fit the drive and suspension components. Only fiddly bit left is the rubber petrol pipe runs to the pump and tank.

Torqued up the diff and installed the drive shafts, fitted the uprights and shocks (need to phone CAT to have a chat about ride height). The drive shafts went in easier than I thought - the 'manual' says "hit them with a big hammer", though a small tap was all that was needed.

Did the rear petrol rubber pipes. Ended up mounting the inline filter on the bottom of the chassis (rather than the top), which keeps the pipe runs neat and short and you can see it. The pipe from the pump to the metal line is also nice and neat (though in mid air). This now means that the whole of the rear section of the car is done!

Started the radiator and intercooler mount/ducting. Cut the honeycomb carbon to size, fabricated two ali brackets and rivnutted the chassis to suit.

Next job was the cut-outs for the fan switch and the overflow pipe - bit of guess work but the material is easy to work, so no problems.

Made up four brackets to mount the rad to the duct. These bolt to the four tapped holes in the plastic part of the rad, which is not fantastic but what can you do?

Time to fix the fan to the rad... used the plastic nails instead of the horrible metal jobbies, then mounted the rad in the duct and checked that the fan does not foul the chassis - all looks good.

Made some more brackets to mount the intercooler to the duct, then sprayed the centre bearing mount and all the brackets silk black - very nice.

Spent the whole day putting the carbon nose on and off the car (stressed out or what - don't scratch it, don't scratch it!!!!). We had to modify the duct system so it does not touch the nose and to position the intercooler so it was as far forward in the car as we could get it. End result is that the rad and cooler are in the car, so I just need to order some pipes and they can all be plumbed in.

And more...

And yet more...

Re-rethink about the turbo wastegate actuator: Think that re locating the bracket is a bad move as this is going to introduce flex into the pushrod and so cause all sorts of trouble with the boost. Had a chat with Paul A. about mod'ing the chassis but really not keen on this solution, so spent a couple of hours drawing up and placing the top engine cradle. I think that re-doing this frame is the best bet - until I come up with a better idea...

Bit the bullet and decided that I would remote mount the wastegate actuator. Made up an ali bracket (in 6mm) that mounted on the clutch side fairing mount. Had to drill this out as it is a bind locating hole with a (too) small threaded hole next to it. Used a 6mm S/S cap head bolt. We used a 30mm x 2mm strip of stainless that mounted onto the cold side turbine housing and ran forward to take-up on the bracket at the bottom. Having done all this I found that the bracket flexed downward towards the engine.

How to stop this? A few weeks ago I cut and tapped some 6mm ali rivnuts so they would take the small rose joints (used on the standard gear change linkage) such that they can be bonded into so 12mm ali tube. I was (and still am) going to use this assembly as support struts for the rad/intercooler, but an idea presented itself... Use these as supports for the actuator bracket.

I bolted one from the sump/fairing bracket on the engine up to the bottom of the short leg of the L, one from the engine face (there are two threaded bosses) to the top of the L and used the S/S strap. The bracket was rock solid, with no flex at all! - fan-flippin-tastic.

As a prototype this system works VERY well. However ali does creep under stress and fatigues quickly.... maybe not the ideal material to use in a hot/buzzy environment? Decided on stainless in 3mm and phoned B&G engineering to see if they had and 'spare'. Andrew said yes so a trip to Horsham the next day saw a chunk of 3mm S/S about 200 x 300mm placed in my hot little hands. While I was there I had a chat with Tony, who said "TIG weld it - very nice" (I'm para-phrasing here a bit obviously). The deal was I'd cut the brackets to size and Tony would weld it up for me...

After a bit of redesigning, I had the actuator bracket and its various flanges and the clamp/bracket for the main strut cut (well Dad^tm did the work on his band saw - I now owe him three blades! Boy, stainless is tough). Dropped all this off at B&G.

Meanwhile I had made up a 6mm ali bracket that took up on the engine face lugs.This meant that I could extend this bracket out, so the strut was almost square on and at the same level as the actuator take-up point. Very strong.

Phoned Tony and he says "an hour and it's done".... and what a job it is! The welds are small and so very neat (it makes you sick don't it :-) ) and he took the time to clean up the heat marks - which looked very sexy - damn it!

The two brackets are fantastic (once I polished them - Dremel/Tee-cut - they looked even better) and fit the turbo/engine perfectly. Just got to remake the support struts out of mild steel tube and flat bar, as I think the plastic thingy in the rose joint will melt if I use them on the 'hot' end of the turbo!

Plug lead time... Not happy with the High Power leads (as supplied) so I'm going to get new ones made up by a company called 'Formula Power' in Horsham. Also made a carbon heat shield (backed with some aluminum heat shield material) to protect the plug leads. Used two rivnut in the lugs on the front of the engine. Also made up an ali tube that uses these rivnuts to cable tie the leads onto.

Measured cut and welded up the mild steel brace struts for the actuator bracket and sprayed them with heat 'proof' paint. I bolted everything in place and check for movement - of which there was none - yippeeee, it works.

Just got to design the push rod and this bit is done.

Henry. C says the gear shift parts should be ready within a week, so I can get that all in place and bolted up.

When we were fiddling around with moving the engine in the chassis we had to cut a 'big' hole in the floor for the sump. This now looks very ugly, so I'm going to design a carbon belly pan that is contoured to the engine sump and fills the hole in.

Also thinking about the two side pods (one a Venturi and one an intake). Sorted out how to get a 3mm rolled lip on either end, just got to work out if these pods are going to replace the front of the body tub, fix to the body tub (which has been cut away) or replace part of the body tub. It really depends on how stiff/light I can make the mouldings.

Put the wheels on the car and dropped it onto the floor to check the ride height... ended up with 110mm front and 135mm rear with 30psi inflated tyres and no fuel, bodywork, props etc. which is fine. Had a sit in it and made vroom vroom noises, as you do.

Terry.M has done a terrific job with the gear position indicator/shift/warning system. All the programming has been done, the circuit board is made and he has tested it - just got to fit it to the car :-) At the moment it can tell you which gear you're in, when to change up and when to change down. it also gives you a high water temp warning and a two stage low oil pressure warning and has room for further expansion. Looks very good.

Jobs for August:    

Order the propshaft
Make up the pipe runs for oil. water and air using plastic tube then get the ali bits made and order the Samco piping
Plumb all the above in
Mount air filter and oil cooler - offside side panel
Make carbon belly pan
Bolt engine and prop in place
Fix front loom in place and connect up the battery (then disconnect it - see below)
Dash electrics
Ali exhaust deflector for engine start.

Probably looking for an engine start first half of September.

231 Hours total build time  -  42 Hours total design time.

August 2003

Bolted the actuator bracket/s in place, designed and fabricated the new struts and attached them. It all fits! So far anyway, just got to make the pushrod and this bit is done.

The pushrod was an exercise in 4D space.... boy was it fiddly to work out. I had to have screw adjusters on either end due to its odd shape and weld in two angles/three tubes to get it to miss the chassis cross member at full extension. The end result is very strong and works perfectly (what a relief!). I ended up testing the actuator assembly with an electric foot pump set to 8psi, the result was so good I video taped it (removed due to webspace limitations)!

The actuator and its assembly is now complete and probably the most difficult part of the installation (I hope).

Next job on the list is the cooling system:

Although I have made a carbon fibre mount for the radiator and it is in the same position as if I had used the standard Factory fittings... How in blazes do you get the bottom hose on and positioned so it misses the steering rack and/or the chassis!? Short answer is you bodge it or throw the Factory pipes away and start again - guess which route I went.

Ordered some 32mm and 25mm i/s dia. flexible Samco pipe, a 90deg reducing elbow and an ali joiner and off we went. To ensure the bottom pipe misses the car structure I had to make a 38mm i/s dia. ali bracket from some 15 x 2mm bar, which attaches to the rear wishbone pick-up upright. This bracket holds the pipe away from the steering rack and away from the chassis, it also means that the pipe is inside the chassis instead of looping over the rear wishbone arm, which is a system that for some reason worried me :-)

Worked out that the electric water pump can mount just in front of the oil catch tank (which I'd mounted on the front engine bay X member, driver's side). So I made up yet another ali bracket and used a 2" heavy plastic C clip to hold it in place.

Only problem was that the when I connected up all the pipe work, it pulled the pump out of the clip. Next fix was to use a black cable tie to hold the pump in the clip - now the pipe work bends the whole bracket! The solution was to spend five hours designing and making a braced bracket that uses the catch tank and the chassis to hold everything in place.

And there's more...

Next job was to cut up the Factory supplied pipe work and mod it to fit the new and improved layout. We cut the lower ali pipe and used the 90deg bend bit to run from the pump outlet to the engine face inlet using SAMCO 25mm flexipipe.  We had to drill this ali pipe and make up a M5 ali spiggot for the air bleed into the head. We also used the M15 spiggot and the A H fabrications straight joining pipe for the header tank which slotted in between the lower hose and the pump. We had to then block off the redundant oil/water cooler spiggot by cutting it off, tapping it and using a M8 cap screw and some liquid metal to seal it off. All the ali welding was done while I waited at B&G Machining and cost a fiver - can't recommend this company enough!

Next problem.... sorry, "challenge" was a heat shield for the flexipipe that goes to the engine face. This pipe is next to both the hot side of the turbo and the exhaust pipe, so would get very hot indeed. The solution was to make a shaped ali plate in 1mm sheet and cover it with ali/glass heat shield material. We used the wastegate actuator engine bracket with a length of 15mm ali angle and the redundant fairing mount on the rear end of the engine.

All that was left to do was to connect the water system up and make sure it was positioned so as not to stress the pipes. Once this was done we found that the hose from the pump outlet to the ali pipe was at the wrong angle, so we lifted the front end of the pipe with a spacer and Bob IS my uncle. This was the main water system finished, I still have to sort out the overflow pipe work from the engine and rad. Also have to sort out the intercooler pipes before I can permanently mount the header tank.

We had a bit of a panic with the intercooler pipe work: Would the 90deg rubber pipes clear the rad? The answer was yes (just!) however, once the pipes where in place we found that they foul the nose cone - AAAAAARRRRGGHHHHHHHHHHH! Oh well, lets just soldier on and get them all fixed then look at the nose.

We decided to use two 90deg pipes to clear the rad, then use 50mm o/s Dia. ali pipe for all the straight runs. This bit was a like using Lego and in no time at all the job was done - well four hours plus give or take to be honest.

I also drew up some S/S brackets to replace the cradle/engine washers so I could pull down the airbox using some S/S dingy rigging bottle screws. Looks very nice - but yet more band saw blades owed. All the pipes and the airbox were then polished using Tee-Cut.

I then realised that the air pipes from the turbo to the intercooler would probably foul the nose (as well), so had to re-route this pipe work - no big deal and the result looks nicer.

Put a 'wanted' ad on the Boardroom for a scrap nose cone so I can practice hole cutting before I have a go at the CF version - really not look forward to that! But I have designed the 'bulge' to allow for the air pipes, Dad^(tm) has got the CF bellypan plug well on the way and we have enough room to route the air intake pipe work across to the o/s of the car - it's all going very well.

Next job/s is the air intake side and the water overflow system - but that's next month as I'm off on my holidays.

301 Hours total build time  -  47 Hours total design time.

September 2003

(Well, the very end of August and then September anyway...)

Henry C brought round the 'finished' paddle changer system which was trial mounted. Bar a few issues it should do the job.

Re-rerouted the air system pipes and ordered some more 51mm ali tube. Needed to move it yet again to both clear the nose and give a bit more room for the air intake system. Just got to make up some fixing brackets now and this bit is done (who knew that 'O' level metalwork and a couple of years of mechanical engineering would come in useful? - annealing, hmmmmmmm).

Ordered all the 60mm SAMCO pipes for the air intake system - only problem is you can't get 60mm o/s dia. ali tube in the UK..... 57mm or 63mm fine, 60mm no, bit of a shame a standard turbo inlet size is 60mm then isn't it?

Mounted the header tank length wise to clear the air pipes... had a look and it's all internally baffled so should be OK. Also got a SAMCO 22/16 reducer for the tank to simplify the pipe routing.

All the ali pipe has arrived, so cut it all to the correct lengths and installed the 50mm 'out' line. The new and improved layout is... well, new and improved. Was a bit worried about getting 63mm pipe into a 60mm hole, but soaking the SAMCO pipe in hot water made it an easy job - you just have to get all the orientations done before the pipe cools as you'll never move it afterwards!

Phoned up Formula Power about my plug leads.... not impressed with the response, he's had them four weeks and it turns out he can't do it - great. Start again. I'll probably now use the ones supplied with the coil packs as I can 'sort of' prove they are suppressed as I've printed out the spec from their web site - we'll see.

Tried to mount the gear change (GC) bottom bracket... Oh dear. The side mount hole was in the wrong place by half a diameter and the way it is fabricated meant a spacer was needed. The extra length meant that the Factory supplied stud was about 30mm too short. After a bit of a think the solution was to make an extension bracket out of 2mm S/S with the hole in the right place and bolt it to the bottom bracket. The only problem now is how to tighten the bottom engine mount stud as it has nuts on both ends! Got this sorted out and the bracket now is in the correct position, uses the original stud and is in fact stronger. Henry .C is going to pop round to sort out some other problems with to top bracket and cable length at the W/E, so should have a working GC system soon.

Installed the 'in' line from the air filter to the turbo intake. I ended up routing it so the filter is up next to the airbox and so should benefit from the bonnet intake cold air. I've just got to sort a bracket out to hold the airfilter end steady.

Made another heat shield for the 'front' end of the header pipes. The fabrication took 30mins, installing it took an hour (for two bolts!)... I really need smaller fingers..... "Va - aaal"! :-) Also connected up all the other pipes today... the water overflow, air bleed and breather ones, I even had enough pipe clips! OK but looks a bit of a bodge.

I really dislike the way the Factory says to install the water overflow system (the one in my first car was much neater/better - Factory cutbacks I suppose), so using my trusty blow torch (and some heavy leather gloves) I bent some 10mm ali pipe to connect the rubber hoses. Much neater and more stable.

Dad^(tm) has done the belly pan male plug... very glossy... so I ordered all the necessary bits and bobs from ABL (and very helpful they were to). Ended up with 1M² 2x2 200gsm twill CF cloth, PVA liquid release agent (which we have to spray onto the plug), clear gel-coat and clear epoxy resin. Looks like a messy W/E in store.

Got to visit Think Automotive in the near future as the last plumbing jobby is the oil system. I need to have them re-drill and tap the sandwich plate, supplied by Holeshot in the Turbo kit to fit their pipe work. Also need to work out were the pipes will route and how I'm going to mount the rad in the side of the car. Once this is done the engine install is all but done, just some minor issues and the electrics re-routed - then it's "will it start" time! Bodywork and finish-up next then :-) Although I've still got to make the driver's seat adjuster kit (for the SVA) and the CF side pods.

Mounting the air filter up near the airbox simplifies things a great deal. It means I have much more room in the offside pod for the oil cooler and can get more air to it. I may well do this side as a through and through with no entry into the engine bay with the cooler mounted in the pod - or maybe with some Venturi slots at the back end. I also worked out how to attach it to the car! I can keep the body tub fixing flanges and cut away the rest, make up some CF brackets that fix to the cut bodywork and the pods mount on this (with ali bolts or quick release fasteners). This also means that once the pods are removed the whole engine bay is open.

Spent the day making a bracket to support the air filter/intake pipe work... a whole day!!! Still, it looks good and does the job. While I was making this masterpiece the package from ABL arrived - ordered Wednesday, they said it would be dispatched Thursday and with me Friday - what nice people. So it will be bellypan day tomorrow! Just got to drill a 5mm hole in the plug for an air hose fitting (to pop the moulding off) and we're ready.

Wait, there's more...

Decided to spray the ali air pipes with clear lacquer, so had to take the whole thing to bits again :-( Getting the 60mm SAMCO pipe off the 63mm Ali tube was a lot tougher than putting it on! All the pipes are now polished... so got the can of lacquer but the nozzle snapped off and the stupid thing jammed open - it went everywhere! All over me, the pipes, the wall, the floor, nearly the cat (he was quicker than me damn it)... Boy was that not good, still you've got to laugh.... yeah right.

Got a new can of lacquer - much better, the spray actually went were it was supposed to go.

Did the CF bellypan today - smelly or what(?) and you should see the warning labels on the chemical bottles! A case of "Just looking at this bottle will cause death - consult your Doctor". Still it all looks good at the moment... We used an airbrush to spray the mould with the PVA release agent (two coats - 30 minutes) then mixed up the clear poly gelcoat and brushed that onto the mould (quite thick). This went off in about 15 minutes (2% hardener by volume). We then laid the CF cloth while the gel was just tacky and mixed up the epoxy resin and 'painted' it on. The finish to the rough side is surprising good - just hope the finished side is too. The epoxy takes about 40 minutes to start curing but takes ages to fully go off (apparently), so we are leaving it overnight before popping the finished item off the plug and bunging it the oven for an hour (no, really - one hour at 100deg C or 7 days at room temp... which would you choose?) Besides it looks like a very hi-tech baking tray (light weight cooking!)

While we were doing this my cousin dropped round on his Kawasaki ZX12R - Hmmmm, now where did I put my spanners?  :-)))

Got the finished item of the plug - We had already drilled a hole through the mould before we started, so we screwed an air hose fitting into it and connected this to the compressor. the finished item (FI) popped a bit but not enough, so next step was connecting it to the garden hose - more popping... with a bit of brute force (and lots of ignorance) we finally got it separated! As a MK 1 it was very good - the finish of the plug was good enough so that the FI looked fine, but because of the 90deg corners  and sheer sides there were air pockets within the CF, too many to use it on the car. So, MK 2 has already been designed with more angled sides and a plug that we can dismantle to make it easier separating the it and the FI. The good thing about all this is that the PVA works, the mix ratios of the gelcoat were good and that we used the correct amount of epoxy resin and it cured! The next version of the belly pan will also have only have one layer of CF, as two layers is a bit over-kill (it weighed in at 300gms and you can't bend it!) - Good practice for the side pods.

Riveted the air filter bracket to the engine top frame and fixed the filter and induction pipe in place - very nice. Henry. C came round to set up the gear shift system and do the steering wheel spacer. He agreed that the cable needed to be shorter and that he would weld the modified bottom bracket for me - top chap. So, I should have the finished item in a week or so. While he was here he showed me his new 'ducted nose' system for his Furyblade.

Should have the new plug for the belly pan for the W/E and the carbon pan for Monday. Really must get the prop and oil system shorted out. Also phoned Formula Power about my cheque - gosh wouldn't you know it, it's in the post!

Sent off an oil system diagram (after a very confusing conversation) and the blank sandwich plate/filter to Think Automotive this morning, also sent the prop stuff and the order form to BM - efficient or what? Did the boost gauge line... didn't like running 1.5Mtrs of rubber pipe, so bent some ali for the main run. Also checked the boost gauge worked and the airbox/carbs for air leaks, of which there are none.

Phone call AND a fax from Think this morning - what excellent service. Ended up talking to Mathew who was extremely helpful and knowledgeable. Sorted out what was needed - phoned me back 10mins later with the cost and to say the sandwich plate blank (I supplied) was being machined as we speak and the 'kit' should ship that evening. Wow.

Did the petrol and regulator boost pipe work today... ended up using an alloy in-line filter and rivnutting two rubber coated P clips to the top engine brace to hold the pipes - very neat. Also did some small jobs that I'd been putting off:

Spacers for the water pump bracket
7mm ali angle to strengthen the CF black box tray
Redo the bottom hose 1st bracket so it offered more protection to the pipe - the sticky back neoprene was working its way off the bracket (and this was when it was cold!).

Dad^(tm) has finished the MK 2 bellypan plug, so in for a smelly Sunday.

Laid up the MK 2 pan in the morning and 'popped' it off the former late afternoon... much better but the gelcoat is cloudy rather than clear as requested (so the first version wasn't all air bubbles after all!). I'll call ABL and have a chat about this before we tackle the final version, just to see if it's something I'm doing or if we need a different gel. Using one layer of CF works well as long as you fix the finished item in shape until the epoxy resin has cured, otherwise it goes all twisty! The final weight of the new version was 150gms.

The oil stuff from Think arrived today... perfect! Would recommend this company to anyone. Now just got to find room in an already crowded bay for the oil stat/filter head. The other nice thing about this is that all the bits only weight 4kg!

Decided that the air pipe from the turbo to the intercooler is not stable enough and I'll have to make yet another bracket... ho hum. This time I thought I'd be a bit inventive and bend some ali 20mm angle so it mounts on the front brake Tee and the rad top pipe mount. To do this I need to bend the angle through 90degs (twice) so out with the blow torch. Considering that the last time I've done anything like this was in school, things went remarkably well. I heated the ali up until it was 'just' bendable, bent it a 'bit', hammered out the kink that appears on the flat side of the angle and repeated this process until I had the correct angle. Then I filed the 'extra' material away (caused by all the hammering) to match the rest of the material - easy.......apart from all the burns that is.

Made up an earth lead for the petrol pump case... one of the things I knew was on the list but kept forgetting to do.

The oil system: Worked out where to mount the filter head/stat and made another flippin' bracket (which rivnutted to lower engine mounting frame) and bolted it in. Measured up to oil line runs from the take-off plate to the filter inlets and cut the pipe (masking tape and a sharp hacksaw blade), worked out how the end fittings worked and made up the take-off ends. You slide the screwy end bit of the fitting over the S/S braid, pull it away from the PTFE inner pipe, slide on the olive thingy and screw it back on to the main part of the fitting - much easier than shoving the pipe in boiling water and then either burning your fingers or busting a blood vessel trying to push the pipe on the fitting! Just got to route the pipes and secure them with rubber coated P clips and this bit is done. Next job is working out where the oil cooler is going to go.

Spoke to Richard from Bailey Morris today, he's sorted out all the bits of the prop I sent him and will start making it tomorrow, so I should have it by next W/E.

Running out of things to do now..... this is good, isn't it? :-)

The final wet weight is now shaping up and even with errors caused by the scales etc, the final figure should be lovely and low. No matter what it will be under the 437kg/500bhp per ton magic number!

The gear position indicator cum warning system has under gone another revision... now it will use an 8x8 matrix of variable intensity green LEDS which, while will fit the brow dash are flippin' Huge! Yummy. Terry.M is just attaching a heat sink to the display! (And I was worried about the regulator!)

Had a bit of a think (spurred on by the cheque from Formula Power actually arriving - it was in the post after all!), The plug leads supplied by High Power are too big at the plug end, I.E.. the electrical contact in the boot was too big for the plug. So did the obvious and asked in my local car spares shop "do you have the screwy on thingys for the top of spark plugs?" The remarkable thing was not only did they understand this high tech jargon, but they actually did have the screwy on thingys for the top of spark plugs... for free no less. So now the rather nice silicone plug leads fit the spark plugs.

Had a look at the rear diffuser today, life was made easy as the suspension was at full droop so I could make a template that fitted the worst case.

Henry C. phoned today to arrange the final fitting of the paddle shift system, so come Sunday all should be well.

Jobs for the W/E: Pop the engine out of the chassis and fix the petrol return pipe to the regulator, check that the CF belly pan fits, tighten up all the oil fittings and make sure the take-off plate bolt has thread lock on it and the holes line up (I have an assortment of ali sump nut washers to help in this task), mark up, drill and rivnut the lower engine mounting frame to take two rubber coated P clips for the oil lines, cut and terminate the oil lines, tidy up the under scuttle wiring (easy while the engine is out), do the coil end of the plug leads, well get Dad^(tm) to do it as he's good at the intricate fiddly stuff that involves a BIG soldering iron (and man is it big), finish off the paddle shift gear change system, drill hole and thread the wires for the launch control button... hang on, that sounded so flash I'm gonna say it again..... launch control button, (ahhhh), in the paddle horn.... The funny thing is, in my minds eye I really can't see me using this button to any great effect as I know I'll forget... more like: "Ooohps, help, help, Oh bugger too late, I need new tyres, is there a fitter in the house?"  :-))

I think I going to create a new web page dedicated to the 'oh so very many brackets' I've made!

Took the engine out and fitted the CF belly pan... wow does it look good and boy has it strengthened the floor panel. Once the pan was in we tackled some other jobbies: Fitted and torqued up the take-off oil plate (and aligned the holes), tightened all the oil line fittings and routed the them to the remote filter head, filled the battery with nasty H₂SO₄ and fitted it in the car, ripped off the plastic blue film. We then popped the engine back in (after cutting the oil drain hole in the pan) and refitted (for the last time I hope) all the charge air lines, coolant pipes, boosted lines and fuel lines... I have to say, compared with the last engine which was a bit lost in the 'massive' engine bay, this one looks like a bit of a beast.

Because I had to remove the lower engine cradle stud, I also had to remove the electric water pump. I carefully hung the pump, still in its mount/bracket, from the body tub frame in the roof if the garage... just walked in, hit my head on it and knocked it to the ground. I now have an EBP that sounds like a tin can full of marbles, boy I can be really dumb sometimes - new pump on order.

The clutch cable: How difficult is it to measure up a two part cable? How long is the distance between the clutch bracket thingy and the bulkhead, and how much travel in the clutch lever do I need? The Factory seem incapable of even this simple task. The clutch cable, as supplied, has a too short outer (or too long an inner - take your pick) so the pedal hits the bulkhead before the clutch arm on the engine even starts to move! I think I've got used to me doing the measurements and fabrication and not relying on the Factory.... I mean, how long have they been supplying kits? Even with my first Mega the clutch cable fitted OK - not a lot else did for sure, but the clutch cable did. Phone call to MW on Monday - looking forward to the lame excuse he puts up. The annoying thing is, all the engine/turbo bits I've done are fine... they fit, they do the job and look good - first time in a long while I tackle something the Factory supplies 'as standard' no less and it don't fit... AAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Anyway, Henry. C brought the final version of the paddle shift over and it is FAB. Just got to drill a hole in the footwell bulkhead and route the cable. Drilled the paddle/main mount for the launch control button wiring, oh, and got to find a button mech that fits the hole in the shift horn.

Did the spark plug lead coil terminations (Uhgg!) and fitted them. Also shorted out the final petrol pipe issues with the regulator. Did I tell you about the clutch cab.... sorry, sorry. I also put the battery on charge today (and it holds it)... engine start getting near.

Had an email from Ric. L today.... he's doing a Blade to Busa conversion and turbo'ing the engine (think in straight lines here, gawd knows what will happen when a corner appears - well he is in the USA, so I suppose it'll be fine)... glad to see other people face similar horrible problems :-)) Sorry Ric, but I'm sure you'll sort it out.

Phoned the Factory this morning and spoke to MW. Pointed out the who ever did the measuring up for the clutch cables was suffering from dyscalcula, wasn't prepared to bodge it so what was to do... the answer was "measure up the cable length you need and we'll make one up for you". Can't say fairer than that, fax on the way with the new (correct) measurement, I.E. cut 21mm off the wire inner.

Got a little button for the launch control, soldered it all up and held it in place with an SVA bolt head cover with a 6.5mm hole for the button head to poke through - very swish.

Cut a 20mm hole in the foot well bulkhead and passed the cable through (with a grommet), adjusted and fitted the paddle shift system. I now can change gear with the right hand pull for 'up change' (this side also has the launch control button). The cable is again slightly too long by about 50mm, but is OK as I think the paddles will have to be moved closer to the steering wheel anyway. Given that the lower engine mount bracket is not securely attached to the engine yet, the whole thing is not bolted to the car and the top bracket is loose - the gear change is very crisp and direct with a quite frightening amount of leverage... Thank you Carr Motorsport.

Fitted the lower engine mount stud and torqued it up, covered the sprocket adapter bolt in thread lock and torqued it up (with the 'special' washer as per the manual), just waiting for the prop to arrive from BM.

Ordered some magnetic switches from Maplins today. As the gear shift doesn't have any where to mount a toggle bar for the microswitches, I thought I could glue a magnet onto the inner metal sleeve and mount some reed switches up under the dash for the gear position indicator thingy. Terry. M now has video of the green monster LED array working, so I'll post it up when he gets it to me.

Current functions are:

Gear indicator
Bar graph type shift light that runs from 6K to 9Krpm (this uses the other half of the display and runs all the time)
Big shift up arrows at 10.2Krpm
Switchable shift down big arrows at 6Krpm (think this has to be added and will work only on falling revs - but I may be wrong)
Two stage oil pressure warning (25 and 8 psi)
Single stage water temp warning (100 degC)

By the time the thing is ready to install in the car it'll probably have GPS navigation, voice command software and a voice like HAL.........."Hello John" :-)

Installed the throttle cable - seemed to go much easier than I remember for this job, only took five minutes - Think I must have been lucky. Just got to sort out a return spring thingy on the 'throttle off' side of the spindle cam

Still waiting for the prop... ho hum.

Phoned BM this morning and found out that the prop was made and sitting on a secluded shelf, forgotten and all alone (- doesn't bode well)... They're shipping it overnight for delivery tomorrow :-)) New correct length clutch cable arrived this morning from the Factory, good service there then. Just got to fight the old one off, which should be fun as it's now hidden under the air intake pipe - oh goodie.

New pump arrived so re-re-installed it (with the new spacers to keep the pump mount bolts away from the catch tank) and fitted the new clutch cable which is a perfect fit, (The old one was happy were it was, but an offer of a cable lube job and it was putty in my hands). Factory please take note for all the poor souls who buy a Megablade in the future and "sort out the cable length"!

Got the 'gear indicator' display video from Terry. M.... the new system is fan-flippin-tastic, all flashing LEDs an' numbers an' arrows an' everything :-))) Just a bit too big to post up on here for now.

Jobs for the W/E:

Fit the prop - when it arrives
Fix the wiring loom in place
fix the boost gauge pipe work in place
Fix the air bleed pipe in place
'Torque' up the front wheel bearings and fit the split pins
Drop car onto the floor (after putting it's wheels on) and torque up the suspension bolts
Bolt the seats in place
Have a sit in the car and go "brrrum brrrum"
Dad^(tm) to have a sit in the car and go "brrrum brrrum"
Val to have a sit in the car and go "brrrum brrrum"
Do a rough geometry setting thingy (so I don't damage the tyres)
Check all the torque settings on all the fittings so far - yummy, what fun, can't wait
Fluids (? - well maybe)
Sleep - if time allows - winter's coming damn it!

Prop arrived this morning... Bit of a shame Bailey Morris did it wrong really isn't it. They put the diff flange on the engine end (and vise versa), Oh well. What is wrong with this industry? It's almost like the companies involved do it on purpose! Kind of scrubbed most of the weekends 'to do' list. Fax sent to BM.... would rather be fitting the damn prop.

Richard from BM phoned at 0857 today... yep, they had put the flanges back to front and are making another one for me. A pain that they did it wrong, but no problems with them sorting it out. Prop in next W/E.

Gosh, the new prop arrived this morning! Customer service at its best.

Having yet another rethink about the petrol return pipe route. Ordered some hard line petrol pipe from DT and plan on running it above the rear brake pipe run, then across the tunnel to the steel pipe... it's got to look neater than the bodge I've got at the moment.

So, a very productive month... lots of jobs done and progress made. Will do the prop at the W/E and the 'tidy up' jobs on the engine, front/engine loom, drill and bolt the engine in place and then it's time to start thinking about the bodywork.

366 Hours total build time  -  58 Hours total design time.

October 2003

Re did the petrol return line with the hardline from DT... looks much better, is neater and more 'engineering' like. Bending the pipe was relatively easy - even used my disgraced pipe bending tool. The line now runs from the original Factory steel pipe across the trans tunnel (via yet another bracket), along the driver side tunnel well above the brake pipe, round the corner and up into the regulator.

The propshaft... this is Dad^(tm)'s moment of glory, with the simple phrase "'ere, isn't that a spline - that's just got to undo?" - He saved us hours and hours of work.

We were trying to slide the prop into position without taking the engine out again (and failing badly), when he uttered those now immortal words. Two minutes later, the prop was in position and ready to be bolted up!

The rear shaft of the prop has a slider in it and this is held in place with a screw cap thingy. Undo the screw cap thingy and you can slide the splined rear prop out... fantastic. The other good thing was that the props fits perfectly - Thank you Richard at BM.

Installing the centre bearing mount was straight forward, as we had previously used a bearing to get all the holes in the correct places. The front prop is bolted to the output flange with four 8mm cap head bolts, plain & spring washers and binks nuts. The rear is by four 10mm cap head bolts, plain washers and nylocks (as supplied by the Factory). We also modified a 10mm penny washer so it only shows a 5mm tab above the flanges (for the speedo pulse transducer). The whole thing was torqued up and job done.

As we are using the Freelander diff and it doesn't have bolts holding the CVs we have a speedo setup similar to the live axle cars: The speedo sensor bracket was bent slightly so it was central over this tab. We drilled two locating holes in the back face of the handbrake cable bracket and fitted it. We used an ali sump nut washer to shim the sensor to the required gap, modified the wiring loom and connected it all up. Another tick in the 'Jobs to do list'.

Drilled and bolted the engine top and bottom cradles in place. Sounds easy doesn't it... you try doing this when you can't even get your hand through all the pipes to touch the bay floor - makes a V8 installation look 'roomy' :-))

Also...

Re fitted the front loom and sorted out the engine wiring. As I'm not using an oil pressure gauge, I chased through the wiring from the pressure switch to the dash plugs and made up a new set of leads. A simple '12V ignition source, indicator lamp/gear & warning system, sensor, earth jobbie. I can also use the lamp leads from the unused oil gauge for the boost gauge... anyone want to buy a 10bar VDO O/P gauge and sensor? :-)))

Phoned the Factory for the diff oil specs and went and bought the engine oil and a battery conditioner. Fitted the conditioner and after about 30 minutes the thing finished charging and the green OK lamp flicked on... yippeee.

Filled the diff and engine with their respective oils (Hypoid 80W90 and 10W50 synthetic), did the coolant and found one of the bottom hose clips had stripped and the pipe was dribbling pretty blue coolant on my nice CF bellypan - shock horror. Once this was all done we made a decision to crank the engine over to circulate the oil round the system... brave or what?!

We gingerly connected the battery... well, I held the positive to the post and Dad^(tm) checked that nothing got hot and smoked. When we were happy with this the battery leads were set in place and the ignition switched on. Two seconds later, the very quiet petrol pump was disconnected and we started again :-)

The moment of truth. Would the engine (sort of ) come to life? The answer was YES!!! The little darling cranked over like a good'un and when checked later, the oil system was fully charging. We then decided to check the spark... It a big fat spark, boy was I glad I was wearing my welders mask and standing 30 feet away :-)) Fantastic. So all things being equal, the engine has no excuses not to start - we hope. Just got

Had an email from Tim D. today about the problem of the cloudy gelcoat. Apparently it's a "They all do that" deal. We had previously laid up a test CF strip just using the epoxy resin as the gel - which worked well - but it was great to hear from someone whose been there, done that. Bit of a weight off my mind, as I was not looking forward to doing the side pods.

Started to make the throttle return assembly today, 15mm C section ali cut and bent up at each end, holes drilled for the cable ferrule, spring fixing and the P clips. Hardest job was drilling a 1.5mm hole in a 2mm S/S bolt without breaking through the sides. Just got to spray the bracket and mount it.

All done, same jobbie as mb919 and works just as well.

Got some 1.5mm mild steel sheet the other day, so nipped round Dad^(tm)'s and got him to cut it up (and the 2" pipe) on his band saw. We decided that the temporary pipe will come out of the turbo and do two 45^o bends so it's at 90^o to the centre line of the car. Once the pipe was cut at 22.5^o it was a simple matter of welding the two joints and then welding the 'manifold' plate onto it. Got it all back to the car and bolted it on... I'd already spoken to Steve R. about borrowing his son's (Simon) old Westy silencer, as a bit of back pressure and quietness probably is a good thing. Pick that up at the W/E.

Decided not to put petrol in the tank for the first start, as it may well not get used again for five months! So, we're going to use a remote tank and run temporary pipes, with two big fire extinguishers (one foam and one CO₂) in attendance for the starting ceremony - as you never know.

I think I'm looking at an engine start this coming W/E.

Anyway, before then the next job is attaching the trans tunnel front side panels and putting in the last rivnuts for them... probably have a go at the CF 'carpets' at the same time. Once these jobs are done, I've got to drill the hole in the bulkhead for the choke cable and then fit the chassis CF side panels - Hmmmm, air rivet gun - and fit the choke cable bracket. We'll also do a rough geometry setting so we can torque up the suspension bolts. This then looks like the chassis/engine/suspension jobs completed.

Did the front trans tunnel panels... 'just' a matter of drilling out two rivets (that hold the main side panels) and replacing them with some 3mm rivnuts. What could go wrong did go wrong: Snapped of the rivnut ferrule thingy and then had to trust to luck wether we could actually fit the remaining three. Steve were are you, or at least your 3mm ferrule thingy, when I need you :-) Still, once we did install the rivnuts the panels looked awfully nice.

Fitted the CF/Rubber carpets... wow, does this stuff go through Stanley knife blades or what! One cut (about 300mm) equals one blade!!! Still, once they were done and glued in they look jolly saucy. We used carpet adhesive to stick them down and ran a silicon bead all round the edges to seal them. Just need to  fix a rubber heel mat on the drivers side.

Fitted the CF chassis side panels... We clamped them in place and traced round to get the exact fit (they were cut big). Five minutes with my trusty jigsaw and the job was done. Next we traced out the x members, marked them up on the CF sheet and drilled them at 50mm centres. We then re-clamped the panels to the chassis (after applying black silicon goop), drilled and (air driven) riveted the panels in place. Once this was done, we marked up, drilled and riveted the rest at 50mm centres. We also fitted the trans tunnel top panels. These are held in place using ali 5mm bolts and Velcro. The front panel was fixed in place with both, but the main panels has only the bolts. I still need to sort out a handbrake gaiter.

Just re-read the above... you wouldn't believe that the last paragraph took six hours of work time would you?

Also chopped off the tapered part of the front flexible pipe nipple (as per CATs instructions) and bolted them into the calipers.

And yet more...

Surrey WSCC meeting tomorrow, so should be collecting Simon's redundant silencer...

Not many cars at the meeting... shame as the weather turned out quite nice. Steve R. had brought the silencer along (blimey, it's jolly big) and some more spark plug end screwy things. Had a look at Steve's car (and an impromptu design meeting) WRT the carbon side pods. Looks good as I can get the pods further forward than I thought and the intake/exhaust apertures can be about 25mm deeper than expected. This does not effect the Venturi side very much, but means the oil cooler pod can be much bigger than previously designed - oh well, Autocad here I come - again.

The silencer pipe fits my 51mm dia hi-tech turbo link pipe perfectly... just need to sort out one of the trackday petrol tanks from the shed and we're just about ready - gulp.

Decided to put the wheels this afternoon... was all going well until wheel number three! 15 of the nuts have 10GG stamped into them, but number 16 has 6A. Phone call to Mike Barnby sorted it all out and a new nut is on the way

Finished off the pedal assemblies this evening and chopped off the main seat mounting bolts - sprayed them black too. Looks like Thursday is putting the car on the ground and trying to start the engine day!

The new wheel nuts arrived today - Mike ended up sending me a complete wheel set... top chap. Pulled the car out of the garage to have a play, but it was so cold I pushed it straight back in again and had a look at the dash.

Dropped the car onto it's tyres today and dismantled the trolley. Had to rearrange the garage so everything fitted again! Had a look at the scuttle and cut away some of the front return flange and face to allow for the steering column and the rubber grommets for the loom. Marked them off and used the 15mm sanding drum bit in the Dremel... the work of but a moment.

Next job is either, try to get the engine to fire up or the suspension/wheel geometry.

Did the front suspension settings this afternoon (you can tell I'm putting off starting the engine can't you). Did the front hub nuts first... just did the up until there was not decernable play (by waggling the wheel - again, a technical term) and pinned them. As I am only doing a rough setup as once the bodywork is on the car is off to have it done properly, I didn't want to spend too much time on this. Set to toe in/out first on each wheel using a guide rod lined up with the wheel rim and a fence post level for the camber. The wheels now toe in 'a bit' and have 'tad' of negative camber - these are of course are again technical terms. More importantly, both wheels now point the same way and look about right.

The W/E has arrived and it's engine start day!!!

Filled up a 10L can with petrol, pulled off the rubber pipes from the tank, stuck some spare steel petrol line in them, yet more rubber pipe on the end of this and into said tank. Used some of the S/S pipe that came with the turbo kit and connected Simon's old silencer (sticking out at a very odd angle). Attached the battery, turned the key and after about 5 seconds of cranking the engine started up. Bit anticlimactic I know, but what a relief! The oil pressure lamp switched off during the cranking and never came on until we stopped the engine.

Even with our 1mm thick exhaust manifold leaking like a leaky thing, the engine is remarkable quiet.

We then hit a problem.... the electric pump was not switching on = no cooling. Because I'm a clumsy twit, I have a spare wiring loom for the pump so we connected this to the battery and the pump switches on... but doesn't actually pump any water. Bit of a stumper that one. This leads us neatly to the land of 'air locks'. Because of the convoluted pipe runs for the coolant, we decide that unlike the other two Blade engines we've done, this one has a big air lock. We tried jumping up and down on the car, following the filling instructions in the pump manual (desperate I know - actually to read a manual!!) and finally invoked the Evil One, that he might come to our aid... (He said he didn't know and could we stop calling him as we were starting to make him nervous).

The solution was one of those "I HAVE THE ANSWER" moments. The engine has an air bleed pipe connected to the head (that used to run from the old mach. pump), we have it connected in the return water rail. We disconnected the pipe at the return rail and blocked this off, connected a one metre length of ali pipe to the head line (held vertically) and blew in the header tank. After a few gastric noises the header tank emptied itself and once refilled to the correct level, the pump did it's job - fab.

We then restarted the engine and waited for the pump to cut in - fat chance, even with me hopefully twiddling the controller's adjustment pot. By this time we were both cold and tired... so, sort it out tomorrow.

Right, sitting by my warm computer... I remembered a thread on the WSCC Boardroom about shunting the controller's sensor wires - asked the question and the very rapid reply was "36KOhms" - joy.

Moto GP at Philip Is. this morning... I know it's treachery, but I really want a Ducati V4, not the whole bike you understand (I'm not a greedy man), just the engine.

Made up a resistor and connected it across the sensor leads and started the engine (second crank), waited for the temps to come up..... and the damn pump still won't switch on. OK, plan B. Found a variable resistor in my 'Box-O-Bits' and put it in place. Ran the engine until the temp gauge said 75degC and reduced the resistance until the pump CAME ON!!!!! Fan - flippin - tastic.

Found that the resistance needed was a mere 13.8KOhms with the controller pot set at max cold. Ran the engine again and using a thermocouple temperature measuring thingy, tested the temps around various parts of the engine as it heated up, (the results looked fine - no thermal shock inducing slugs of cold water etc). The pump was switching on at around 80degC and boy does it pump! The rad fan switches on at 95degC and off again at 80. We then switched the engine off but kept the pump running and found that it switches off at 60degC. All looks good to me.

Connected up the Rev counter and ran the engine again. Whoops, forgot Simon's silencer... but didn't realize until myself or Dad^(tm) didn't trip over it while walking around the car. So either, the car is VERY quiet or Simon's silencer doesn't have any packing in it  :-) Personally, I think the car is in fact pretty quiet (and the silencer is just a hollow can). Oh, and the rev counter counted so that's OK.

Did the rear suspension setup. Same MO as the front, just more bolts to undo. Oh, we also did the rear hub nuts (250FT/lbs). Weirdly the Freelander drive shafts use the same thread either side, so our torque wrench was suitable for the job (it only 'clicks' one way). OK, I needed a sit down afterwards to make the flashing lights and star bursts go away, but it did the job.

Final job was to put the 'MB' wheel centres on... Ahhhhh, looking good.

Had a read of the manual and looks like rear arches to tub is the next jobbie.

Made up a dash template so I can sort the cutout for the paddle shift top bracket... this still needs a bit of a fettle, but nothing drastic.

Designing a centre tunnel/dash blanking plate... this will help block off the under dash stuff and once the car is through the SVA, will take the Terratrip intercom system box. Given all the under dash stuff is going to be pretty unaccessible, I think Velcro to the rescue.

Jobs for the W/E:

Put the body tub and have a look
Trial fit the scuttle, bonnet and nose
Take pictures :-)
Clean up the locating blocks on the tub
Attach the rear wings
Centre tunnel panel (Handbrake gaiter)

Drilled and bolted the rear arches on today. Filed off all the lumps and bumps from the locating pegs/seat faces of the arches and the tub, did some more filing on the pegs, re-reseated the arches and bolted them up using penny washers and 6mm ali cap screws - who does this stuff? A blind man could do a better job of symmetry (8mm out side to side, oh boy). Had a look at the 'carbon effect' rear light pods - Holey buckets!!!! does nothing fit?!

Also...

Ahem, calmed down now (a bit)... the light pods will need some 'adjusting' (how hard can it be to do the measurements right the first time BEFORE you give the go ahead to make these things???!!!!) and some rubber edging to finish them off a treat. The body/arch side to side measurement needs some thought, so decided to do this another day and make up another bracket to mount a battery cut off switch under/through the passenger side blackbox tray.

I've got a battery conditioner but am not keen to run it with the leads connected to the rest of the car, so decided on a cut off switch. This would be thrown before the charger is connected, so isolating the battery. The only problem I can see is the nice SVA man having a cow about the nasty sharp plastic red key poking out at groin level. The solution was to get a switch with a waterproof cover - come SVA time, I can short the switch, remove the key and cover the end of the assembly with its nice soft, round rubber cover... fiendish if I say so myself :-)))

I made the bracket out of 30mm ali angle, cut the angle off for the 'legs', bent it up, drilled and ali bolted it to the CF blackbox tray. I them marked round the switch shaft, removed the assembly and using my trusty Dremel, cut a 20mm hole in the panel. I now have a battery switch that will sit out of the way up under the dash (for the most part) and can be easily mod'd for the SVA.

Terry M. says the gear/warning system programming is coming along. The change to a serial display has caused some problems but having seen a prototype running, the finished jobbie should be good. Dare I ask for a launch control warning? Yeeeah, why not :-)

Designed the centre tunnel plate/intercom mount and cutout... should be fine for the SVA. Also accidently started the engine as well - this after we had run it dry... think it may be allergic to hydrocarbons.

Just spent £34 on Dremel bits and pieces!!!

Right, even though I hate doing the bodywork, this is the task for the next four days - tub, scuttle, nose and bonnet all fixed in position.

So... today is bodywork day. Followed the instructions regarding bolting the roll bar/riveting the rear tub, 400mm from the inside rear boot box/front Xmember with no problems. Came to the scuttle and thought "boy, that sounds jolly complicated", so we did it in a much easier way: Drill and seat the rivnuts, mark tub, drill and enlarge once your happy with its position. Then masking tape on the side of the tub and mark off the centre of the holes at right angles. Measure in from the side of the tub to the centre of the holes along the right angle line. Place scuttle in position and mark the front/back positions of the holes, then transfer the in position, drill and bolt in place. The take it off, sand down the passenger side locating blocks so you can shove this side forward a bit to make the bonnet fit correctly. Dremel off about 5mm of the front return flange of the bonnet so the nose can be moved side to side, drop the lot back on the car, mask up, mark up and the body is ready for riveting/bolting in place. Easy... I think not.

The bonnet is short one side, the bonnet base edges are not square, the tub top edges are know where near flat, the off side wheel arch is narrower than the near side... boy oh boy. Anyway, once it was done, it does look rather nice so it was worth the pain and anguish.

As an added bonus the intercooler pipes do in fact miss the nose cone (by about 3mm) so I don't have to cut a hole in it... relieved or what.

Made up the CF centre tunnel/dash panel. Going to use two 20mm P clips to mount the intercom to the dash/cockpit hoop and have a cutout in the panel.

Spoke to Jack (Holeshot Racing) today as I had some questions about the fuel regulator , the silencer and emissions.

Jobs for later in the week:

Bolt the nose in position
Rivet the tub to the chassis
Drill and fix the bonnet front locating lugs
Marry the bonnet up to the nose (again)
Sort the dash/paddle shift top bracket out
Make up a dash template and 'adjust' it for the paddle shift top bracket
Make a bracket to take the micro switches for the gear position indicator (I've just seen the 'finished' prototype and it really is fantastic)
Finish off the centre tunnel/dash panel
Mount the handbrake gaiter and any finishing rings etc

Oh, and last view of the bare chassis/engine installation...

Made up the intercom bracket this evening. Found I couldn't just use the mount holes in the unit as the weren't on the same centre line as the rivnuts were offset WRT the front edge of the box. So used a short length of 20x15x2mm ali angle and some ali tube to correct the positioning and to lower the box WRT the dash hoop. The intercom should now be in the centre of the panel rather than the top. The jack sockets will also mount in the tunnel/dash panel with a bit of hot glue on the back to keep the in place. Just got to wire up the aux AMP plug to the unit's power lead. Although the tunnel/dash panel and the bare bracket will be fitted for the SVA, the intercom and its panel cutout will be done post event for obvious reasons.

Wait, what about these ones then...

 

415 Hours total build time  -  64 Hours total design time.

November 2003

Moved the site... ran out of room on the old one. Will keep the old domain going, as I can use it to host images and video clips.

Programmed the shiftlight and rev limiter/launch control boxes this evening and made up a side pod template... they'll look jolly good when done in CF. Found I can mount the oil cooler at 45deg to the pod, which gives me lots of room for the ducting in/out to it. Decided on a 100mm intake with a 150mm exhaust, 335mm full height tub and a total length of 1020mm which takes it from just behind the cycle wing trailing edge to the rear of the scuttle as it turns in for the cockpit. Should shift a lot of air through that.

Bodywork day two!

Riveted the front of the tub to the top chassis rail and dropped the bonnet on then aligned the nose. We then found that the difference in height between the chassis (and its rivnut) and the tub was so great the nose would probably be damaged if we bolted it up. The solution was to use some of the CF/rubber mat we used for the interior as packing. The mat was cut to 100 x 25mm strips and the hole for the rivnut marked out (13mm). To cut the hole we used some 16mm O/S dia. steel pipe and filed the walls to a sharp edge to the inside (which was 13mm as luck would have it). Using a precision tool - hammer - we punched the hole into the mat and superglued it to the chassis rail.

We then marked up where the rivnuts were and transferred this data to the nose, drilled the holes and dropped it back in place - then it all went wrong. Could we get the bonnet to fit? Could we hell (and I'm using temperate language here, this is a family site after all). We spent the whole day trying (and failing). The main problem was that the bonnet had to twist to fit and this threw out all the shut lines. It didn't help that it was catching on the tail of one of the air pipe clips - which took 15 minutes to find and sort out - as you can tell, we were having a bad day.

Watched the last Moto GP race... still want a Ducati V4. Then, being big and brave, I thought I'd have a new and fresh look at the bodywork.

I found that by moving the front of the tub 3mm to the passenger side everything fits! OK, I had to file the front inside of the tub and it's not now central to the car, but it all fits!!! Thinking about it, my last car had one headlamp closer to the nose cone than the other...duh. Anyway, two hours later and I have a tub, nose and bonnet that all fit correctly. Although the bonnet/nose needed three pins not two - I've added one to the centre/top to pull the bonnet to the same level as the nose to get 'perfect' shut lines. It all looks rather good. Also found that the bonnet return flange was fouling the CF heat shield, so did a cutout to clear it.

Also cut the nose to clear the top front suspension components.

Next jobs are:

Dash and wiring
Cut-out wiring
Paddle shift top bracket adjustment
Cycle wings
Lights, mirrors and stuff
Boot panel and RAC roll-bar struts
Seat back braces
Top harness holes
Exhaust pipe bodywork hole

Then it's finding a company to do the turbo/silencer link pipe, finding a silencer (may be an Akrapovic jobbie after all) charging/bleeding the brake system, suspension setup and emissions check at my local MOT station.

On the suspension front, I think the rear springs are a touch to long as I've got 150mm ride with only 10mm of adjustment. Think I'll lower them as far as I can, put three gallons of water (In a can! In a can!) over the petrol tank and have a look - then may be talking to CAT motorsport about shorter springs.

Riveted the top tub flange to the chassis today. Also 'fixed' the bonnet/nose peg grommets in place using silicone and blasted the car clean of the GRP/CF dust.

Had a re-re-re think about the oil cooler/side pod design. Dad^(tm)'s idea (  :-)))  ) was to use a tall/thin cooler rather than a short/fat one as this would make the ducting easier and in effect flow more air through the cooler - blinder! After talking to Chris at Holeshot and Jeff at Think Automotive a new 115mm x 25 row cooler is on order.

I've done some drawings of the new configuration and found that the whole cooler will live in the pod. This means that the flow/ducting will be far more effective so I've started to do the sums to accelerate the incoming air to the front face of the cooler, (once I decide on: leading face/trailing face/Venturi/straight duct exhaust), so just got to sort that out - easy ;-|

Gosh! The MOCAL oil cooler from Think Automotive arrive this morning - only ordered it late yesterday - can't be bad. The new cooler can sit in the engine bay just for the SVA and will indeed fit wholly in the CF side pod - marvelous.

Trimmed the off side body tub top flange level with the chassis rail - Dremel with a large cutting disk and a smooth file - and cut the GRP pedal cover to shape to use as a template for the CF one.

Hoisted the car up onto some really high axle stands so we could get to the tub bottom flange. We masking taped the ali bottom and the tub, marked off the 200mm centres on the tub and married them up with the nearest rivet in the ali (saves on rivets). We then pushed the tub into place, marked off where the new holes were going and drilled them. One air driven rivet gun session later and we were done - the tub was attached!

Cut the hole for the exhaust... well, I turned my back for two minutes and Dad^(tm) had drilled loads of holes in my nice new tub :-))) Once I'd calmed down, we measured up, marked a 70mm circle and Dremeled it out to a perfect fit. Sounds easy don't it?

It was! The holes Dad^(tm) drilled were to find the centre of the temporary exhaust manifold/pipe, once this was done a suitable diameter container lid was found and used (with lots of trigano... , trigon... , maths) to mark out the final hole. Once it was Dremeled out, the pipe was found to be in the exact centre of the hole. We stopped at this point, having used our weeks quota of blind luck up :-)

Trimmed to size the CF pedal cover using the GRP template. This was a simple job of marking up the carbon one with the factory supplied GRP one I'd done earlier. I then glued some 1mm thick rubber strip to the panel, marked up the holes, transferred this info to the chassis and mounted the rivnuts. Looks very nice, very carbony. I've used some ali bolts to hold it in place but expect to have to cut it a bit when I fix the bonnet locks. Once the panel was fitted to the chassis, I marked up the scuttle holes, removed the panel and drilled them (carefully). I then used the 'special' fibre panel rivnuts in the scuttle and refitted the pedal cover.

Boot lid time...

We used the 'old' plywood template from the last car to mark up the carbon sheet and cut the holes in the tub return flange (to clear the roll bar stays). I'd bought a composite jigsaw blade a while a go, so used it to cut the panel (later, looking at the blade - it had been 'blued' with the heat!). We then used a drill with a sanding disk to shape and adjust the panel to suit. Once this was done, we cut the panel so we can remove the centre section. We riveted some 30mm ali angle to the two ends for the centre to rest on, drilled them, transferred this data to the body tub and again used the special rivnuts. The end section now have three ali bolts holding them in place (together with the HD Velcro, I can't see them going anywhere). The centre section now sits on the ali 'flange', so we need to drill and (counter sunk) rivnut/bolt to secure it. The front and back edges will be held by Velcro. Still got to do the seat back braces and cut the boot lid to clear it, but this bit is just about done.

Surrey WSCC came for a visit. Well, Terry A., Nick B., John L. and Martin 'popped' round after the normal Sunday meeting. Tea and biccys all round.

Contacted Mitcham SVA centre and got them to send me the application forms.

Seat back braces:

My original plan was to use some honeycombe carbon sheet and some angle ali bolted in place... Dad^(tm)'s alternative (and far simpler) plan was to use some 2mm ali sheet and bend the tabs the seat bolts to. Using the secret methods "that must not be told to any mortal man"  described earlier in this diary (you know, the one about an bit of cardboard and a pencil) we marked up the seat back shape on a bit of thin plywood, cut it to shape (and trimmed it using the sanding disk/drill thingy), then transferred the shape to the ali sheet. We jigsawed the ali and bent the tabs using a big vice and an even bigger hammer. Once this was offered up, we adjusted the angle of the tabs until we were happy. The next bit was a bit nerve wracking... we drilled/rivnutted the bracket to the cross member and marked up the seats. We then 'had' to drill the seats, not something I was looking forward to I must say :-) As I turned out, we managed to get the holes symmetric in the seats and the mount holes were in the centre of the ali tabs. Once again, we stopped at this point thinking "we do any more and it will all end in tears". The seats now are attached at the front via a carbon bracket, the main fixing point at the 'bum' bit of the seat with the light weight composite pads and 8mm S/S bolts and the seat backs with the nice new ali brackets... and they do not flex at all :-)

Chap (Nick) popped round to have a chat - he's building an Escort Hotrod racer thingy - and said that to over come the 'back locks up before the front' problem Sevens usually have, why not remove portions of the rear pad material to reduce its surface area? Apparently this is done as a matter of course in the Hotrod world. Nice one - if it works.

Got some black placcy angle from B&Q to finish off the back panel edge and hide the rivets. Cut, Dremeled to size and super glued in position. The CF boot cover centre panel now just sits on top of the braces and the placcy strips, so don't have to cut it to shape... yippeeeee.

And now the braces are all polished and shiny.

Super glued the rubber beading strip to the carbon bits (and my fingers)... this stuff has a mind of its own! Velcro next.

Trimmed the main panel of the boot lid, positioned the Velcro and glued the re-enforcing strips ready for 'carboning' to the panel. Then spent 15 minutes peeling the damn masking tape off, look jolly good though.

Finished off the boot lid today... cut the 20mm holes for the harness bolts which was simple really, (just gut wrenching to do - £80 a panel!!! - Must get it right, must get it right must get it right), we just masked up the panels, drew cross-hair centres and then transferred this data to the various panels, marked up 20mm circles, drilled and Dremeled to suit.

Sorted out the rest of the Velcro (decided not to Velcro the back edge of the main panel, just the front - as you'd never get it off again if you did!) and drilled/fitted the 3mm counter sunk ali rivnuts. Also glassed (tissue and normal poly resin) the wood stiffeners to the main boot lid panel (rather than carbon fibre, which was proving a right pain to work with 8 x 8mm square section pine), then painted it - not sure why as you can't see it, but there you go. The finished item, with the seats and everything looks rather good I must say. Just the harness holes to do... later :-) But we have a plan..............

We worked out a method to ensure symmetry with the holes. just got to cut the plywood and see if we're right :-)

Yet another re-re-re-think regarding the oil cooler position... think I can mount it at a slight forward angle under the rad/intercooler so it gets air from the smaller nose cut out. We'll see as soon as it stops raining and I can get the nose off to have a look.

Rain stopped, and.....

....No I can't, #%&$! back to plan M... odd how the little things cause so much trouble isn't it?

Did the hand brake gaiter or. Edged the pre-cut hole with U section rubber and super glued the leather gait or in place. May have to mount some thin foam padding inside the gaiter for the SVA.

Fitted the scuttle indicator repeaters... used CorelDRAW to produce a template and spray mounted it to the scuttle after marking the centre position of the hole. drilled around the inside of the template with a 3mm bit and cut through with the Rotozip. Shaped the main hole with a 10mm sanding drum (Dremel) and finished off with a smooth file. Wasn't too happy with the fit, as the repeaters presumable are designed to fit in sheet steel (which is a bit thinner), so taped and hot glued them - just to be sure.

Then again, these look good...

Last half of the month was a bit slow on the car, work and the weather getting in the way...

455 Hours total build time  -  74 Hours total design time

December 2003

IT'S STOPPED RAINING!!!! :-D

Got a Scorpion end can from cousin Al (of ZX12R fame) today... very gold, just need a link pipe and that bits done.

Think I've sorted out the side pod format (at last!), did the off side one first as it has the added complication of housing the oil cooler. Did a heavy card mock-up, fitted the cooler and designed its intake scoop, sprayed the end result black and hung it on the car - and it looks pretty damn good  - no piccies until the production CF ones are done I'm afraid though.

Decided (well chickened out really) not to do the seat cutout today and have a go at the fuel filler instead. Had a read of the build manual - giggled a bit ("cut a 65mm hole" - where, how, who? Could it be a bit more vague perchance?)

So, bit of 63mm o/s dia pipe cut to length and taped to the tank filler neck, mark the inside of the tub, box the circle and find the centre - errr then what, the marks on the inside of the tub, just where I can't get a drill to it :-)

I knew I bought that laser pen thingy for a reason! Shine the laser on the circle centre and mark up the outside of the tub on the red dot, a compass session later and a nice 65mm hole is marked up on the masking tape. Just to check, I drilled a 1mm pilot hole through the GRP and hit the laser again to make sure the red dot was in the centre of the filler neck. Drilled round a 40mm hole and shaped it with the Dremel as a final check, the did the 65mm hole in the same way.

Fitted the filler head and drilled it's mounting holes, cut the rubber pipe to size and assembled all the bits, fuel system is now finished.

I'd ordered a circular fog lamp from ESP Plastic Ltd (to match the pretend carbon rear light cluster) and decided to check that there was in fact enough room for this rather nice bit of kit. Offered up the driver's side rear light housing (also made by ESP, for the Factory) and thought - "oh boy"... to say the light pod thingy doesn't fit is an exercise in understatement worthy of a slightly stunned Yorkshire Terrier commenting on the pros and cons of joining the Euro economic zone :-D The new fog lamp thingy is very nice though.

The seat backs... tomorrow :-)

Or then again... Started to put the roll-bar stays on but found that the holes in the CF boot lid where too short and the stay was forcing the end pieces out of position (so much so that the locating holes were 3 to 4mm out!) - Luckily, I'd only done one side before seeing if the CF end piece fitted. The solution was to remove the stay (yet again), remove the end pieces of the boot top, remove the rubber U section from the holes and enlarge them by about 3mm... not too much fun. As I'd super glued the U section to the CF, getting it off again was a pain, but once done I marked up the new hole shape and Dremeled it to the correct size and replaced the U section. Remounted the roll-bar stays and dropped the centre CF panel back in. A bit of a tip when fitting the lower stay end: I found that using one of those telescopic rod/magnet thingies made getting all the washers and spaces in place an easy task. Also don't forget to bolt the top end up first, then adjust the bottom end to fit (for length). The lower end has a much bigger mounting bracket which means you can rotate the rose joint - which you can't do if you do it the other way around!

Was thinking about the dash... I'd marked the dash template with the 127mm exclusion zone and found that two of the 50mm clocks were out side and so would fail the 2.5mm rule if I used the CF dash. The original plan was to use the old Factory padded dash for the SVA and then swap it over with the CF one.

This was OK but a pain, so I made up a crash pad just for the little clocks. I used 1mm ali as the backing plate, some leather look material and a bit of foam from an old camping sleep pad. Cut 53mm holes in the ali (to allow a 50mm hole  when the material was pulled through) and 56mm holes in the foam to allow the bezels to sink in. Using carpet glue I stuck the foam to the ali then used super glue to attach the material covering, cut a star pattern where they go (in the material) and used the super glue again to make the clock holes nice and neat. The clocks push through and the foam comes past the edge of the bezel, so should be OK for the SVA.

I stuck the fuzzy side of some Velcro on to the back to protect the CF dash. All that needs doing now is to cut the some hole pattern in the CF dash and use the clocks to hold the crash pad in place.

Seat back day.... In fact, was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

First job was to mark the centre of the drivers inside harness hole (just the easiest one to get to), using the eye bolt and a pencil to get an approximate centre. We then (gulp) drilled it through with a 3mm bit and using the laser pen aligned the centre of the template with the hole ( I had printed out some hole templates which we could spray mount to the seats). The template was the 'adjusted' so the long bottom edge was parallel with the rear Xmember and the template was stuck down. The drivers offside template was then arranged to be symmetrical with the inside one by eye. It was then stuck down too.

We then removed the seat from the car. We drilled around the inside of the template with a 3mm bit and used the Rotozip to cut out the hole, Dremel/filed the cut edges flat and smooth. The passenger seat was done in exactly the same way. Three hours later and the seats were back in the car with the Willans harnesses attached.

End can, the Scorpion gold can is a bit beat up, so thought I'd see what also could be done, so went and had a look in the local bike shops this afternoon. Found a rather nice Remus road/race carbon can (you drill and remove the baffle pipe to make it a race silencer), only problem was it weighed a ton and cost lots! Then found another can made by Leo Vinci SBK* (whom I'd never heard of), 19" x 5" (4.6L vol against 6.4L'ish for the Factory can) carbon with S/S end caps, ali bonded film to the inside to protect the CF, re packable (with ceramic material no less) and very light... too good to be true? Even better it was on sale (cha-ching).

* Since found out they do (among others) the Honda V5 cans for Max Biaggi's Moto GP bike :-D

Went back bright and early Monday and bought it... £200 against a RRP of £325! Stuart (the owner of the shop) did in fact own a Megabird at one point, top chap!

Got the flu, yummmmy.

Contacted Powerspeed today and got the car booked in for early next year to have the S/S link pipe/tail pipe made up. Dave says they should only need the car for a few hours to get the job done and it should cost less than the end can. The job includes:

Supplied manifold/link pipe/90deg bend/flange/tape wrap
Link pipe/90deg bend/50'ish deg bend/flange
Mounting silencer
End pipe/90 deg bend/rolled edge.

Steve R. says I can borrow his trailer so this bit looks like it's sorted out.

Had a go at the rear light pods.... oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Who did the measurements for these? By the looks of things, the same chap that did the clutch cable and the bodywork mould tools. I think what I find really annoying is I've spent not an inconsiderable sum of money on the car, all the bits we've done are well engineered and well designed and actually fit... then there's all the rest: The bodywork is not good - OK, so it's easily fixable, but I shouldn't have to, the steel brake lines are the wrong lengths - again not a major problem, but annoying, components are missing and so on and on and on. It is very frustrating.

Right, Cycle wings... I'd found a number of faults in the GRP bodywork this time around which struck me as odd, as the previous car's mouldings were perfect. Nothing very bad, but enough to notice and need fixing, (in fact all but one are now fixed - see above :-D ). However come the time to fit the cycle wings you could say I was a bit bothered by the poor quality, so on seeing two areas of fault on one of the wings I'd had enough. The wings went back to the Factory together with prints of all of the other faults and a request to exchange the dodgy wings for CF ones as a gesture of good will. Phoned the factory the following week (I.E.now - they should have contacted me!) and got an 'OK' deal on the CF wings (due mid January) and an offer to have the car back to fix the GRP faults (which I won't be taking up and is not the best thing to say, as I live on the South coast it would a lot of time and money to transport the car to Birmingham and back. Bet the Factory wouldn't pay for that).

Just completed the near side CF pod mock up. Had a bit of difficulty in that for the life of me I couldn't work out what the 2D print out of a 3D quarter sphere looks like :-))) Both the pods look rather good in my view and should do the job they are designed for. I've also redesigned the off side pods' oil cooler intake after getting some very handy data from Tim D. Cheers mate! The N/S pod will have a downforce generating foil that will also act as the exhaust pipe shroud, while the O/S pod will have a similar system from the top of the cooler intake and from ducting within the pod. Won't be much, but at least it is downforce rather than lift :-D

Hope to get the rear light pods, fog lamp and number plate lamp done at the W/E together with the rubber beading for the harness cut-outs. Then it's dash/paddle shift final fit time!

Light pods - another nice bit of mis-direction is they need 4 x 5mm bolts to hold them in place using some metal clip thingys... the holes for these in the plastic mounting bracket are 4mm - not exactly insurmountable, but boy oh boy oh boy.

Bought some engine bits and bobs from Ed C: Another sump pan which I'll have a go at designing a plate baffle system for (and why not), another block water inlet fitting (you never know) and a complete head, which I'll get "turbo'd" up as a spare (as you do). Also got a CF Yamaha R1 end can from Cuz Al (thanks lots, now can we talk about your ZX12? :-D) which will come in very handy for the more rabid noise sensitive trackdays. It looks like I'll need two link pipe sets from the manifold as the cans are different sizes, but this shouldn't cost too much extra - I hope.

Rear, light pods: Just about got them done... It took four hours to mount them and they still need some work to make them look good. Never again! The process sounds simple and the quaint instructions from the manufacturer would be funny if the bits didn't cost so much money... Just a word of advice on that front: You can't make things fit if there is a big gap between the pod and the bodywork, filing just isn't going to do it - now, filling...........

A quick message to all you people ordering your kits out there and thinking that these items look jolly snazzy:                "Aaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!."                   Ahhhhh, that's much better :-))))) Anyway, moving on:

My fitting method***

The pods

You are going to have to file off some (well quite a lot in some cases) material to get the pods even close to fitting
The O/S pod is too big and the joint between the arch and body means you need to file off the top edge down to the mounting brackets to get enough 'meat' to allow this gap to be closed
The N/S pod is too small, so you're stuck - sorry
I used a half round medium/smooth file and went very very slowly
'Best fit' is probably the best you're going to get
Go slow and refit the pods to the arch to check progress - a lot

The holes

Mask up the area around the arch where the pod is going to go
Mask the top and bottom of the pods and transfer the hole position to the tape
Offer up (ha ha ha) the 'adjusted' pod and mark the position of the holes onto the arch/bodywork
Measure the distance between the top of the pod and the hole
Transfer this data to the arch/BW
Drill four 8mm holes at the marked positions

Mounting

Run a S/S or steel bolt down each of the eight metal thread thingys in the pods*
Position the pod and using four 5mm S/S pan head socket screws with penny washers, attach the pod to the arch
Repeat a lot... filing the mount holes to allow the pod to flex and align with the top edge of the light moulding in the arch - this is a 'best fit' jobbie

* You have to do this as the threaded metal thingys in the pods are a right pain and this makes it easier to run the mounting bolts in to fix it to the arch.

Light fittings

Mark the centre of each hole for the light fittings - I just ran a felt pen around the hole to mark the arch then did it by eye
Using one of those serrated hole cutters is probably the easiest method, cut a 40mm'ish hole in the arch for each light fitting and yes, you will clip the body tub
To attach the light fittings to the pod I drilled out the fittings to 5mm, positioned them in the pod and drilled the pod and bolted them in place**
Offer up the assembled item (you will probably have to enlarge/reposition the 40mm holes to suit at this point) and bolt in place

** I used matched anodised ali bolts - gold for the indicators and red for the tail/stop lights - just my little fancy.

*** I would not advise you to use the same method/s I have (unless you are feeling in a bit of a 'risk taking mood' AND you have read the disclaimer on the 'Legal Stuff' page). It is very easy to ruin one or both of the pods, the light fittings, the arches and/or the body tub - and I'm not responsible if you do. I would advise you contact the Factory for some detailed printed fitting instructions.

I've still got to mask off the pods and the bodywork and run a smear of black silicone rubber around the them to 'cover up' the pod/body joint and attach the wiring. Man, I'm glad that's over with! Still got to fit the fog lamp and the number plate light.

Mounted the N/S and O/S side pod mockups and they really do look rather smart. I've added the curved front edges now which matches the front curve of the body tub and ducted the O/S pod above the oil cooler. Just need the CF cycle wings from the Factory to check they miss at full lock and we can start making the wooden plugs for the GRP tools. I have designed them so I still have the option of mounting them to the bodywork or cutting the tub away and mounting them directly to the chassis, will wait and see what's easiest once they're produced.

Mounted the fog and number plate lamps... Number plate lamp is very straight forward, just pick a position, mark it up square for the two mounting bolts and the wire hole. The fog lamp was also pretty easy to do, well it was the way we did it anyway. Bit of string between the N/S and O/S centres of the indicator lamps and another down the centre of the fuel filler gave the centre of the lamp. Measure and mark the mounting hole centres. Drill the mounting holes and cut a 60mm centre hole to clear the lamp body. We used rubber fuel hose to make the spacers between the lamp surround and the body and for the spacers at the back (the recommended way of cutting spacers to shape sounds like very hard work), couple of penny washers and the job was done.

Plugged in the supplied harnesses for the rear lamps* and made up the lead for the fog lamp and the rear end is finished!

Also did the front flexi brake pipes so they miss the chassis/wishbones/bodywork. Just a case of putting the steering on full lock and adjusting the pipe to suit, they still need the black spiral wrap stuff on them though.

* Had a heart attack when we plugged in the O/S indicator lamp as it started blinking at a seizure inducing rate and the relay under the dash went bonkers - hazard warning was switch on :-D

As well as...

Dashboard time:

Decided to use 5mm LEDs instead of the supplied lamps (for indicators, high beam etc), so had to make up a junction box to connect the dash loom to, as the LED leads are rather delicate. This box also has the indicator beeper in it, with all the diodes and connections on a circuit board - much neater than the last time. The warning lamps to be replaced are the Neutral light (Green), Oil P (2 x Yellow - one in the dash and one in the brow dash), High beam (Blue) and the L & R indicators (2 x Green).

The green and yellow LEDs were 12V ones so didn't need a resistor in line to limit the current, but the blue LED did. The book says 20mA but this was so bright it hurt to look at! Ended up with 1/2 a milliamp. Note: The hole to be drilled in the dash for the LED holders is 7.8mm, the LEDs are 5mm and the bezel surround is 9.4mm.

Masked off and, using the old dash from the last car, marked up the CF dash blank. Also made up all the clock and lamp templates (referenced from the bottom of the dash). I've moved the three 50mm clocks over so the centre clock is in the centre of the dash and the head lamp/fog lamp switches are aligned central to the right most clock. The left most clock will be the fuel gauge, the centre clock will be the boost gauge and the final one will be water (and eventually double up as oil) temperature - just got to cut it out and connect them all up.....

Still waiting for a nice day :-(

Made up the intercom/head set spiral leads and checked that the intercom/head sets/crash hat mics all work correctly - and they do!

It's Christmas!!!!   gimmie gimmie gimmie  :-D

Marked up and cut the CF dash blank using a jigsaw with a composite cutting blade. Once we'd done that we offered up the dash to the scuttle and marked up the steering column hole - several goes later the hole was done and we marked up the back face of the dash to the exact shape. Using a sanding disk and the drill we shaped the dash so it was just under the scuttle profile.

We then marked up the dash with nine 4mm mounting holes, stuck it to the scuttle and drilled through (just to mark) the return flange. We then re-drilled the scuttle 6mm holes to take ali counter sunk rivnuts. After 'adjusting' the holes in the dash the whole thing bolts up and looks good.

Using the printed template, we arranged the clocks/indicator LEDs so they looked central to the driver (rather than actually central :-D ) and cut the speedo/rev counter clocks and the hazard, indicator, horn and high beam switch holes. Just got to do the 50mm clocks and the two light switches then wire it all up.

Next job was one I was not looking forward to, the gear shift top bracket, da da DAAAA. We had to move this thing forward, off-set it and get it central to the off-set Factory column and clear the wheel/dash/switches and make it change gear! Three holes and a lot of sobbing later the job was done - wasn't that bad, just seemed that way in the bloody hail stones! I've also re-wired the launch control button with a waterproof one that looks much neater, then I came over all SVA and edged the top bracket with U section rubber.

The unexpected bonus here was that we didn't have to cut a hole in the bottom of the dash as I had expected - It just clears.

Finished cutting the dash and installed all the clock, switches and lamp holders. Have also just about done the wiring, just got to neaten it up a bit. We then tested all the switches - and they worked!

Got the gear shift mech. back on, but it still needs a bit of adjustment so it sits centrally on the wheel etc - no biggy, just takes ages to do. Should have the dash/gear shift bits done in the next day or so then it's brow dash/aeroscreen time.

Gave in as it was soooooo cold.

Had a redesign of the 'Mega' logo - I wanted something that was similar to the mb893/919 MegaBlade logo but was 'different'.... Think I'm happy.

So jobs still to do for the dash/gear shift:

Cut out the top return flange on the scuttle so the big clocks don't foul it - DONE
Extend the water temperature gauge wiring harness - DONE
Neaten up the wiring 'under the dash' - DONE
Turn the light switch up the other way to match the fog lamp one - DONE
Velcro the indicator relay to the back of the dash - DONE
Glue the water pump variable resistor in place - DONE
Connect up and mount the idiot light junction box and fit all the LEDs - DONE
Cut a hole in the top of the scuttle for the shift light, indicator repeaters, gear position and brake warning lamp wiring to feed through
Extend brake warning lamp loom
Spray up some 4mm S/S dish head cap screws and washers for the dash - DONE
Bolt it all up - DONE
Make slightly shorter spacers for the gear shifter and adjust the rose joints - DONE
Re-wire the launch control lead - DONE
Rivet in the aeroscreen support bracket - DONE

See, nearly finished :-D

Looks like I'm not going to make the 500 hour build time this year - 485hrs and counting with three days to go. That makes 11h15m per week working on the car since March this year.

Re-re-re-re adjusted the gear shift top bracket and think I've got it just about right, the paddle now sits mid way between the dash and the back face of the wheel, misses all the switches and changes gear with little free play. It still took ages to do (two and a half hours!!!)

All most finished the dash wiring, just got the LED leads and brow dash wiring to do. Had to extend a few of the wire runs to the clocks as I've shifted them around but no real problems. So far all the switches work, the indicator buzzer buzzes and I am singularly lacking in violent explosions and billows of acrid smoke - so it's all looking good so far.

Done 2/3's of the out standing 'dash' jobs. Ahhhh, the joy of a fan heater - was still jolly cold but I was working mostly inside, so it wasn't too bad..

Wired up the oil, neutral, high-beam and indicator LEDs - a very fiddly job indeed, the soldering iron seem to have a mind of its own. Also worked out a way to stiffen up the front of the paddle shift bracket - of course, it means taking the whole thing back off again but then, I am getting good at it.

Got to try and get the brake system charged and bled this week. Done... DOT 5.1 and pure fluid from all the calipers and still got air in the system :-D been here, done this... see if we can beat the last car's record (think it was 10 bleeds). Left the car with the brake pedal block on - didn't work last time, but you never know. Bleeding the brakes IS a two man job, started with the N/S rear, then the O/S rear, then the N/S front (x2) and O/S front (x2). Used the rubber tube blocked off at one end with a split in it AND the "Keep the pedal pushed until I get the stupid nipple thingy done up again.... no no, push damn it, push" method :-))) Sunny day, nearly warm - quite fun really.

Measured the noise level (spot the Christmas prezzy) at 7500rpm and a straight through exhaust. The book says 120 dBA is the pain threshold and it's true :-))))) 120.6dBA at one metre and 45deg. It also makes glorious noises on over run. Couldn't resist and went for a quick spin... Ok ok, so Dad^(tm) had to push me backward and the car only covered five metres but come on :-))) big event even so. (The data: dBA 120.6 hi // dBC 123.3 hi // 10.4 DegC // 62.5%RH).

Right, this is positively the last time I'm taking the paddle shift top bracket off, no, really, it is!

Following on from having a look at the bracket piccies I'd worked out a way to stiffen up this bracket as it was flexing (mostly on the up change). The top steering column mount has an ali spacer in it, so if we make a new spacer that is longer, drill some more holes in it and drop down into the first mount holes (before we found out the whole bracket needed to be moved back), two more 8mm bolts and spacers and job done.

And it was. We ended up slotting the from mount holes both from a "My mind has stopped working cause I can't work out how to measure the gap with all the "%*&%$ dash wiring in the way - and I'm NOT taking it all off again" point of view and it would allow the bolts to find their own level. The new improved system is all it promised as the bracket is now rock solid, the gear change (was pretty good anyway) is now very direct, with very little play..... A nasty, fiddly and boring job but one well worth doing!

More, more, more...

So, the last build bits of 2003.... Probably got around 20 hours left to complete the car then a further 30 hours for the side pods/general modifications after registration, roll on the summer!

Happy New year!

496 Hours total build time  -  87 Hours total design time

January 2004

Not a good day... should have stopped at 1005 (started at 1000). three and a half hours to do the ~£^&# choke cable and mount!!!

The manual says mount it using the supplied fittings on the O/S upper chassis rail, simple. Except that the design of the scuttle must have changed since last time and the position of the indicator repeaters has also been altered. Either the cable mount was in the way of the indicator repeater or one of the two mounting blocks, so I made another @~&$^ bracket that was smaller and neater (and took an hour to design and make) and also didn't fit :-((  It was one of those days and I really should have stopped and done something else.

Anyway, then I found that the cable supplied by the Factory had a kink in it that didn't allow you to actually pull the choke on. Still I had a spare and mounted it in the panel that goes on the trans tunnel and just under the dash. As it falls inside the 127mm 'rule' WRT the steering wheel, it should be OK for the SVA. This new cable was very free running, until I mounted in the car - then it was rock solid! I found that I had pinched the cable when I used one the alloy cable mount blocks.... ho hum. Still it all works now.

I then thought "I'll start the engine and make sure the water pump controller is coming on at the right temp". The engine fired up and sloooooowly heated to the point where the pump starts to work. The engine sits at 80degC for ages before anything happens - like the rad fan coming on (which I also wanted to recheck). At this point I thought "be naughty and blip the throttle" - there was an audible pop and I just knew I had popped the temporary oil cooler bypass loop off (and I had). It sprayed about a litre of hot oil everywhere..... oh hell. Still always look on the bright side: plenty of pressure there then :-))) Two hours later the engine bay is again sparkly clean, the driveway has been scrubbed with nasty chemicals and the temporary loop has been re-thought and fitted.

So, seven hours to fit a choke cable all told - this just must be a record? :-D

Re re did the oil cooler loop with the proper fittings. Not going to have that happen again!

Decided to fit the aeroscreen. Was not looking forward to this, but turned out pretty easy (probably when compared to the rear light po..... no no, let it go). We masked up the scuttle where we thought the screen bolts would go, removed the plastic bolt protectors from the screen fittings and chopped of the very ends of these and put them back on the bolts.... didn't want to scratch anything. We then masked up the whole CF aeroscreen (after yesterday I was taking no chances).

We marked the centre line of the scuttle (using the centre dash rivnut for reference) and using a length of string, we found the centre of the CF screen and marked it up. We then placed the screen on the scuttle and lined up the centre marks, then marked the scuttle where the screen bolts laid. Looking at the way this lot was going to fit together we saw that the fixing bolts would in fact move down the scuttle, so requiring the holes in the scuttle to be slotted. We drilled four 9mm holes and using a round file, carefully slotted these holes until the screen lay in the correct position - easy :-D We used the CF disks (from cutting the clock holes in the dash) as backing washers together with small 6mm washers, spring washers and plain 6mm S/S nuts. I had bought some rather nice rubber edging from Woolies and it fitted the edge of the screen perfectly and seals the joint from the weather.

Easy maybe, stressful? YES! In reality the only way to muck this up is to slot the holes the wrong way so they show when the screen is in place. But you'd have to be nuts (or me yesterday) to do this :-D

Next we marked up and drilled the screen centre support and using two counter sunk 4mm rivets, fixed it to the dash mounting face of the scuttle.

Fitting the Perspex part of the screen to the CF body was simple, just tape in place and drill though the pilot holes in the Perspex. The Factory had supplied white placcy nuts and bolts (with 'black' carbon and a smoked screen? .....Ah well). Found five black placcy nuts and bolts from my previous build and fitted them. This bit is now done.

I had blocked the brake pedal two days ago (as per the Factory's recommendation) and to be fair, it seems to have helped some what. Still a bit spongy, so we bled them again (no air in evidence) and I've re blocked the pedal - next option is to take all the calipers back off again and raise them up above the M/C. A pain, but not too bad to do.

A while ago I bought a Halfords stick on rear view mirror - which I had to alter to fit. As this was the first time that all the bits were on the car we tried the mirror out.... no too bad :-)))

A rather good days work!

Think I've now got to do a real "to do" list as all the jobs now are small fiddly ones and knowing me, I'll forget to do some of them otherwise!

Cut and fitted the clutch and accelerator pedal stopper bolts and refitted the dash/scuttle/pedal cover ready for Thursday. Also did the template for the ali rear arch exhaust guard and sprayed up the rear view mirror and the dash fixing screws.

And, and...

Next up...

Phoned CAT this afternoon and made arrangements to swap the APA140 / 9" shocks and springs for APA130 / 8" set. This will drop the ride height by 20 - 30mm which will do me fine. The pain is I've got to take off the 'old' sets and send them back before they'll order the new ones... So I've got to make some box steel 'shocks', remove the seats, wait for the new ones, fit them and replace the seats. All in all I think I would have preferred the correct size shocks and springs in the first place - ah well, so it goes.

Also phone the Factory for some info on filling the SVA form out and spoke to the Croydon test centre - very helpful - They say that if I put the form in now, I should get a test date for the end of the month! Bit odd explaining that I didn't want it that fast :-)

Emailed Powerspeed with some images of the exhaust/engine/end can stuff and spoke to Steve R. just to confirm the trailer for Wednesday. I phoned Backford Blore and arranged some 'build' insurance - peace of mind for Thursday as much as anything.

Removed to CF heat shield/rad support bar from the engine (for access) and paired up the plug leads, collected the trailer from Steve R. (was very jealous of all the toys he got from Santa). Loaded the car and tied it down, cotton dust cover and tarp all done, car loaded with all the silencer bits - just seen the weather forecast, damn, damn, damn, damn. 75mph gusts and torrential rain - my luck stinks :-)

Oh well, this time tomorrow I should have the choice of not one but two exhaust systems.

Powerspeed day:

Dad^(tm) arrived at 0520 and we left for Ashford in Kent at 0530. Arrived at 0800 (just as it started raining) in the dark and couldn't find the place. Went and found some services and had a bacon, egg and mushroom bap with coffee.. do we know how to have fun or what!

Went back at 0900 and found the place first time. We uncovered and unloaded the car while Dave rolled out and covered up some customer's cars so our's could be pushed in the dry and then we got to work... I originally wanted the choice between the LV and the R1 end cans but Dave said that the R1 may be to restrictive and the LeoVinchi should be fine WRT to noise. We had a chat as to what I wanted and he translated all my semi coherent ramblings into proper engineering speak :-)

By 1130 all the pipework was cut and bent to shape (and looked very good), ate lots of mini sausage rolls and drank coffee while reading Private Eye and Autosport - this "building a car stuff" is really good you know. 

By 1300 the system was done. I now have a manifold that the link pipe attaches to (so I just undo one bolt to get the system off and the engine free to be removed) a shaped main link pipe that incorporates the LV gas tight seal thingy from the S/S pipework that came with the can, a nice 90deg bend with a rolled end for the exhaust of the can and a little loop thingy to spring the end can and the link pipe together. He also heat taped the manifold pipe (to protect the main block coolant line). I am very pleased with the result and would recommend Powerspeed to anyone - top chap.

It was also sweet that most of the workshop chaps came out to hear the car start up sans pipe work... Loud engines and flames - must be a 'boy' thing :-D

Got the car home and unloaded by 1530 but couldn't resist connecting the pipework up and starting the engine... oh boy does it sound good! Dribble dribble dribble. Not much like my old car, in fact a much deeper smoother note - I like it, I like it, oooh I've gone all weak at the knees!!!! Sound or video clip to follow.

Just got to give the link pipe a polish and mount the end can. Probably going to use a CF can hanger for a bike, has the benefits of looking good, being light and very very rigid. I've still got the Scorpion end can to play with, so I'll probably dismantle it and weld in some baffle'ets so I can do back to back noise testing with the LV can.

Going to give the Autosport Show a miss this year... I think (hope) I've bought everything I need to finish the car and I'd only do something silly with my credit card if I went :-))

Made the box section steel 'shocks' to take the place of the APA140s as they wing their way back to CAT Motorsport for replacement (£20 it cost to send them Special Delivery! Not a happy bunny) Used 25mm box section 323mm long with two 10mm (opened out to 11mm) holes with centres of 304mm. Straight forward nut & bolt job - just choked I have to do this, grrrr. I now have a ride height of 132mm against 150+ with the APA140 shocks (and this was at the minimum setting NOT the ideal one) - much more like it. I've worked out that the new ones should give a ride height of between 97mm and 197mm with 129mm at the 'ideal' setting of 1/3 - 2/3 of travel. I'm happy with this.

Started to polish the link pipe, used 600 then 1500 grade W&D then Brasso (using a polishing pad in an electric drill). As a first go it came up very shiny, couple more goes and it will hurt to look at in anything more than a gloomy day.

Had a look at some R1 end can hangers in P&H's showroom and think these should give me the correct overhang for the LV can, working out all the positioning and bracing for the can mount is the job for the W/E, well that and the seats and going to see Lord of the Rings and dropping the trailer back and the Surrey WSCC meeting and mending the garden fence and and..... :-))))

Rear ride height comparision:

Finished polishing the link pipe and fitted it to the manifold pipe. Had a look at the mounting band that came with the LV end can and think that an bike hanger and some rubber bobbins would do the trick. The can doesn't weigh much and the link pipe is pretty sturdy so it's just a matter of re-enforcing the bodywork to take the weight of the silencer. Did some drawings and found I need to know the offset of the hanger to find out what size bobbin to use... catch 22, so back to P&H's showroom armed with a ruler.

Just got to finish off polishing the end pipe on the can then will do another noise test next week to see what we've got and then decide on what to do with the Scorpion can. Quite looking forward to experimenting with pipes and baffles :-)

I was going to use a CF hanger for the end can but this was proving to be difficult to sort out. The gap between the centre line of the can and the bodywork is 50mm, but finding a hanger was next to impossible as the people who sell them just know what bike it's for and think that your insane for asking such a question. So, plan B was make our own out of ali and a couple of rubber bobbins.

We had some 5mm ali plate and 6x50mm C section left over from the centre bearing mount. We made a bracket that would fit to the bodywork (just like the old Mega, but nicer looking and lighter) and cut and bend the 5mm plate into a bracket that would sit on the main bracket and bolt to the mounting band on the LV can. Bending 5mm ali in my Clark sheet metal bender was going to be fun, then we came up with the idea of heating the ali THEN bending it - and it worked! We got a near 90deg bend with no cracking or tearing. Bit smelly though, as we were heating the plate while it was in the bender and the plastic coat was cooking.

We then, in honour of Mr. SVA, carefully rounded all the edges over to give 2.5 to 3mm radiuses and polished the two brackets. Next, the brackets were assembled and bolted to the can band and the position of the main bracket marked on the bodywork. We then drilled the three holes and using alloy cup washers, S/S counter sunk bolts, a 2mm ali backing plate, penny washers and nylocks, bolted this bracket to the car. We mounted the hanger bracket (via the rubber bobbins) and bolted the can in position.

A very nice job indeed. I find I keep finding excuses to go into the garage to have a quick look :-)))

Contacted the Factory (Gavin) regarding my CF cycle wings... The Fibreglass Dept. had a power cut over Christmas and all the CF had gone off - stunner! Should now get them in a week or so.

Dad^(tm) had finished the front indicator pads so I bolted the Factory units to them (after gluing the through drilled 8mm ali fixing bolts). While this was going on my new and improved shocks and springs arrived from CAT motorsport (top chaps). Tomorrows jobbies are fitting the new shocks, finishing the seat harness cutouts and maybe fitting the front indicators.

Did a noise test on the LV can and got 104dB - eeeek! Oh well I always knew it would be marginal - well I didn't, but it makes me feel better, damn it :-))) But it does sound fantastic. Had another chat to Dave (of Powerspeed) WRT the R1 can... he says it will be too restrictive, so we agreed on a repackable S/S can (-10dB'ish on the LV can) and link pipe for quiet days - so another trip to Kent is called for, but on the up side, another slinky ali bracket needs making - oooh it does look good, think I'll just pop out to the garage :-D.

Fitted the new shocks, again straight forward nut and bolt job. I had adjusted the collar to just take up the slack and found that I now have 131mm at the back with an empty fuel tank - so I'm happy with the new shocks... APA130/8" springs not APA140/9" springs. With a full tank the ride height should drop 15 to 20mm and this will require the spring seat/stroke to be readjusted to about 2/3 ^rds travel - pretty good or what?

Next we took the seats outs (hopefully for the last time) and marked up and adjusted the top harness cutouts. The originals were slightly too small and the belt was fouling the top outside edge when I was in the car. Dremel Dremel Dremel and the new version is fine.

While they were out, using clear heavy duty sticky back plastic we made up some bodywork protectors for where the seat backs touch, looks good, well you can't actually see it as it's clear plastic, but you know what I mean. We also trimmed all four cutouts (per seat) with U section rubber. We superglued the rubber to the face of the seat then folded and glued the rest to the back face of the seat... sounds easy don't it? It actually took three hours to get this looking good and I glued myself to the seats five times.

Stuck the Velcro strip to the rear underside of the boot panel and fitted the seats back in the car using all the fittings (back, base and front mounts) and the gold countersunk washer thingys. The final fit looks very very nice.

So, next on the list are the front indicators, nose cone mesh and brow dash.

Mounted the indicators today... tried the measurements the Factory give and thought it looked a bit funny, so had a look at some pictures of my old car and did it the same. The numbers where 130mm down from the lower nose cone crease and 170mm back from the front (not 130mm as the book says). I glued some rubber sheet to the mounting face of the indicator adaptors both to protect the CF and to give a little bit of grip. Drilled two 8mm holes in the nose (used a block of wood pushed against the inside to stop the CF splintering) and bolted the indicators in place. I then made up some lead extensions so I can remove the nose from the chassis and get at the loom plugs easily.

Next was the grill mesh, I'd bought some gold ali mesh from B&Q a while ago, so blew the dust off it, cut it roughly to shape and bent the mesh over the inside of the main 'hole'. A bit fiddly but not difficult. Did the same for the lower hole, which was much easier. Next use a hot glue gun to tack the mesh in place so all I have to do now is mask up the inside of the nose and use some black silicone rubber to hold it all down. Note, don't think I'm going to bother as the hot glue seems to have done the whole job.

Dropped the link pipe and end can back to Powerspeed and had a chat with Dave about the 'new' pipe and can. He says he'll weld a tab on the can for the hanger to mount, so I don't need to make a strap now. Due for pick up in a few days time.

Re fitted the inboard harness top eyes and the boot box lid and Velcro'd/bolted it all in position - for the last time for a while I hope.

Picked up the new can/link pipe today... nicely made but blinkin heavy! Just have to trim about an inch of the link pipe so the can will move forward and make a new hanger bracket and I'm back where I started last week.Dave also welded a neat hanger tab to the top of the can for me.

Designed, printed out and glued the new top hanger bracket to the 5mm ali plate and got Dad^(tm) to band saw it to shape, then back to the bending thingy and the blow lamp. Got it all bent to shape and drilled, so next job was polishing the bracket, the new link pipe and the end can. Got it all fitted to the car and I must say, it does look rather good - not as saucy as the CF can, but jolly good. Even better, when we did a noise test it came out at 98dB, 6dB less than the Leo Vinci SBK! That'll do me, (The data: dBA 98 lo // 8.5 DegC // 58.2%RH).

I can't recommend Dave at Powerspeed enough... he does very good work very quickly for very good money and no BS.

After running the engine at 7,000rpm for a while (neighbors not at home :-D and boy did it sound good) we found that the bodywork in line with the headers was hot to the touch and discolouring... See I told you we needed a carbon fibre scoopy/duct thingy... As a temporary fix until we remove the bodywork and replace it with the venturi pod we are going to use some heat resistant ali/fibre sheet in this area.

Did a trial spray of the gold mesh (black) which worked out OK and a lot lighter than any of the S/S mesh I've sourced so far, just got to do the bonnet locks and I can get this bit done.

More and more coming:

Wired up the front indicators and they all work! The Factory even sent me the waterproof boots for the connectors (omitted from the kit).

Then did the heat shield material to the inside of the bodywork... after having a look, it's the turbo unit generating the heat not the headers - which is better, as it's lower down and will not effect the CF pod when it's in place. I had a bit of a think and reasoned that if the turbo unit thingy is generating heat enough to effect the body tub, I'd better use some heat shield on the inside of the bonnet, used a 300 x 300'ish mm section.

Cut and formed to shape the front bonnet grill then sprayed it black and hot glued it into position - looks ever so saucy. Got to fit the bonnet locks before I can fit the rear vent grills.

Cut to shape and velcroed into place the drivers side heel pad. Don't think I'll do this with the passenger side as the matting is pretty sticky on its own.

Also filled up the fuel tank... ride height dropped to 110mm at the back and is 97mm at the front. Very pleased with these numbers as the spring seats are mostly at 'full droop', so this means that I have a bit to play with WRT shock stroke and ride heights to get the magic 2/3^rds ratio and 130/105mm ride..

Fitted the headlamps (hey, the terminals were already on - yippeee) and cut/shaped the rear bonnet vent mesh and sprayed it. Also got the GSX wing mirrors, only problem is they have 42mm hole centres and the SPA carbon jobbies have 37mm centres. Luclily it looks like there is enough meat on the GSX mounts to slot the holes to suit.

Fitted the bonnet locks, trimmed the pedal cover and glued in the rear bonnet grills.

The locks were a right pain! I'd drawn up and printed of the hole template (instructions/drawings fax over from the Factory), then followed the instruction on alignment and marked up the centre of the lock body hole. Using carpet glue (strong stuff) we afixed the hole template, drilled and filed to shape. Next we bolted in the lock mech. and the locking pawl thingy. Working out were to put the latch part of the locks was really fun. Luckily we've got the V8/Mega bonnet, so we could get to the bits easily enough. Once we had worked out that we had to cut away some of the body tub and bonnet return flange and how to position the latch bits it wasn't so bad. We found that we could trap/clamp the latches inplace through the rear bonnet vents, then remove the bonnet and mark up the position holes. A horrible and fiddly job and I'm glad it's done. We also had to trim the pedal cover to suit.

I had already cut and painted the rear bonnet grill mesh, so it was out with the hot glue gun and get them stuck down, 20 short minutes later the deed was done.

I also fixed the battery charger flying lead in a better (SVA) place - I also sent the form off this week, gulp.

Got a big box from the Factory and got all excited... but it wasn't my CF cycle wings :-(( They had sent me some of the pretend CF ones 'just to get me through the SVA (as "we are have problems with the CF ones") - nice gesture, but a bit excessive. They are now going to send me some 'used' wings for the SVA and arrange the return of the PCF ones.

The list of 'To do' jobs has almost hit zero! I've even started to think about the side pod design again... So, jobs to do: The 'Final' list for January ...

Got to sort out the replacement rear shocks with CAT, (finally realised that it isn't going to get any lower at the rear and the shocks are indeed the wrong ones)
Insurance
Dust cover to protect the bodywork from the tarp
Bleed brakes - then dismount the calipers and redo in all probability
Buy and fit GSXR wing mirrors (they have 45mm centres and the SPA carbon jobbies are 38mm - but should be OK)
Brow dash inc. hole in scuttle for the wires, brake warning loom extension, mounting bits for the 4 bank LED shift light thingy
Central aeroscreen mounting bolt - think this will be left until I remove the crash pad after the SVA
Head lamp pods - Talk to factory Ref the spacers, do I/don't I need them etc
Wiring for the front light sets
Front indicators Dad^(tm) has made some wood adaptors which are wonderful and should do the required job
Remove seats, wet&dry outside edges and afix clear plastic protector to body tub
Seat harness holes - enlarge the top ones slightly and either round over and spray or rubber edge them
Scuttle/tub edging in the cockpit area - the nice large C section rubber I've got will do the trick
A new set of spark plugs, new oil filter and an oil change is on the cards
Suspension setup
Emissions check at local MOT station (and then probably a chat with Jack at Holeshot - a waste of time as it turned out)
Secure the battery conditioner fixed lead in the engine bay
Velcro and bolt in place the main boot box lit
Carbon rear arch guards - either Factory jobs or sheet carbon - post SVA
Fit cycle wings
Fill in and post the SVA form
Email images to Powerspeed
Bonnet locks
Have turbo link pipe and manifold pipe fabricated
Polish exhaust system
Mount silencer
Make and fit steel shock replacement struts for the rear
Send APA140/090 shocks and springs back to CAT Motorsport for replacement
Indicators and grill, nose and bonnet

537 Hours total build time  -  93 Hours total design time

February

So, jobs to do: The 'Final' list for February ...

Bleed brakes - then dismount the calipers and redo in all probability
Buy and fit GSXR wing mirrors (they have 45mm centres and the SPA carbon jobbies are 38mm - but should be OK)
Brow dash inc. hole in scuttle for the wires, brake warning loom extension, mounting bits for the 4 bank LED shift light thingy
Wiring for the front light sets
Scuttle/tub edging in the cockpit area - the nice large C section rubber I've got will do the trick
A new set of spark plugs, new oil filter and an oil change is on the cards
Suspension setup
Emissions check at local MOT station
Fit cycle wings
SVA sharp edges kit
Adjust N/S bonnet lock
Mask up and apply silicone to rear light pods
Give the car a jolly good clean!

Phone the Factory to inquire about the second hand wings they were supposed to send me... They decide that, "to save bother just use the pretend carbon ones we sent you" - blimey.

Had a look and found that, whilst these will done they are in fact the ones for 205/225 tyres not 185s. Recontacted the Factory to ensure that the carbon wings (now due at the end of the month) will be the correct width.

Removed the nose and routed the indicator leads and topped up the coolant, also wired up the headlamps and routed these leads - they even work! Wasn't happy with how high the aeroscreen was sitting, so dremeled the mounting holes a bit and sat it lower.

Did the wing mirrors (both sets) and the brow dash today.

The brow dash was mush easier to do this time round - marked up a straight edge, then using the old card template, we measured the various heights for each station and transferred this to the carbon sheet. We cut the blank out using a jigsaw with a composite cutting blade and used the drill (mounted) and a sanding disk to shape the blank. We had left the aeroscreen on so we could judge the progress we were making and after four goes, we had something that look like it would fit.

 We then decided to fit the SPA carbon wing mirrors in place - this was done with me sitting in the car and 'adjusting' the position of the mirro until I was happy, then marking and drilling the aeroscreen. Once we had the O/S mirror mounted we just judged where the N/S mirror went so it match the O/S one, mark, drill and mount - job done. We then slotted the front hole of the GSX mirrors, remove the lovely convex lens carbon SPA ones and swapped. The GSX mirrors look OK but the field of view is markedly smaller than the SPA ones (which have much smaller lenses!)

We then removed the aeroscreen and made up some brackets to mount the brow dash (bd) to the scuttle. These were 65 x 15mm ali, bent to shape so we could rivet them to the scuttle and hot glue the bd to them. Once this was done we ran a line of hot glue along the back of the bd to secure it to the scuttle. Next job was drilling and shaping hole in the top of the scuttle for the other warning lamps to pass through. Once this was done we marked up the 'drivers centre' of the bd and drilled four 5mm holes for the sequential shift light, three 8mm holes for the indicator and oil press. repeater lamps and finally a 15mm hole for the brake warning lamp. The shift light system is a potted block of four LEDs, so we hot glued this in place.

Next we masked up the scuttle/bd joint and ran a bead of black silicone along it. Once this had gone off, we removed the tape and refitted the aeroscreen - job done.

And there's these...

Just got to fit the cycle wings.

Had a look at the ride heights on all four corners:

Not too bad at all, just got to find the C spanner and I can get the ride heights done and get the car booked in for the suspension setup for half term (Steve? Steve!... about that trailer :-D )

Did the silicone beading around the rear light pods... bit of trimming needed but not too bad at all - just &^$*$# unnecessary if who ever had designed them had done a professional job (big deep breath) No, No, honestly I'm fine now really, you can put the pill bottle away nurse. :-)))

Last jobs to do... Re re bled the brakes after gently tapping all the calipers with my rubber hammer (see, told you it would come in useful) and indeed got some bubbles. The pedal is now nice and firm and stays that way instead of slooooowly sinking to the end of its travel. We may well do this job again just before the SVA. Did an oil, filter and plug change - very messy :-D Replaced the roll-over bar's fixing nuts with nyloks and torqued them up.

Did the ride heights: Front 90mm  //  Rear 110mm all on 13psi cold tyre pressure, this should give me +/- 15mm without adversely effecting the suspension setup (due to be done in a few days time).

Cycle wing day! We used a bit of conti-board up against the tyre to get the wing position symetrical, masked up the insides and drew the position of the wing brackets. Measured half width of the wings, half width of the bracket and drilled a 5mm hole. Re-seated the wings on the brackets and marked the hole position with the drill. Removed the wings, drilled the brackets, shed loads of black smelly silicone and bolted the wings in place.

Used some big C section rubber and the hot glue gun the cover the scuttle/tub joint. Used some of that rubber that looks like a tadpole in cross section to finish off the removable panels in the foot wells. Torqued up the lower harness bolts and the steering wheel bolt.

Fitted the steering wheel crash pad - of which the Factory will be hearing more of after the SVA. If you remember waaaay back I returned this item as the covering was all peeling off and the Factory 'replaced' it. This 'new' item has spent the intervening time in its placcy bag awaiting its moment of glory. To say the colour of the crash pad and wheel don't match is an understantment and that the quality of this 'replacement' item is in fact worse that the item I returned really does make one wounder "whatt were they THINKING" :-))) Needless to say, it will be winging its way northwards in the near future.

Designed a temporary oil cooler intake pod that we'll do in GRP, just so while the carbon pods jobbies are being done (lead time of at least 8 weeks), I can at least drive the car.

Suspension day... off to Arrow Tyres and their laser/computer rig to get the car setup.

Front

Total toe out: 1.0 deg
Total camber: -2.2 deg
Ride: 90mm
Tyres 13psi cold

Rear

Total toe out: 0.16 deg
Total camber: -1.8 deg
Ride: 110mm
Tyres 13psi cold

A pretty good starting point I think, well it was on the last car and that went round corners like sidewinder snake in a all scale drift.

Then it was off to Halfords/AA for an emissions check, which they did for free - nice chaps that they are..

CO²: 3.62%
Hydrocarbons: 366ppm

The engine was only at 40 to 50^o so probably a bit cold, but we'll see what happens at the SVA (been reading up on what the air screws do :-D and have Dad^(tm)'s tester to play with)

The car now has been jacked up to 160mm at the rear and 145 at the front.... and it even self centres (with the tyres at 26psi cold) and we did the head lamp adjustments by lining up my tintop's lights on the garage door and marking the pattern, then doing the same to the Westy.... rocket science! :-))))

Did the SVA bolt cover/brake line/sharp edges kit thingy.... and.....

....... the car is finished....

I'll just say that again:      

IT'S FINISHED!  

557 Hours total build time  -  95 Hours total design time.... Total work time on project: 652hrs