On Monday I managed to get over to Martin at Studio 1 Grafix who I’d been in touch with about vinyl. He had a roll of green vinyl that looked a pretty close match so I got a nice length of that along with some advice on applying it. I then nagged David to produce the logos to get them cut out of vinyl and emailed them over to Martin. Monday evening saw the catch tank completed, then I altered the gearshift cable moving the attachment point at the paddle end in towards the pivot, meaning I had a greater throw at the paddle end but more leverage. There had also been a couple of locknuts missing off the rear suspension pullrods and I’d ordered some more from McGill Motorsports who supply loads of rod ends and half nuts etc. Fitting these actually turned out to be a bit of a PITA as with the spring fitted it was difficult getting the pullrod bolts back in.

I then made a start on the steering wheel button wiring. The DigiDash Pro comes with 4 little buttons to go on the wheel that control the functions of the dash and datalogger, for example setting the GPS lap split points etc. I’d got a length of curly cable to allow the wheel to be removed and once I had drilled the holes in the wheel I set about soldering the wires onto them. This was OK except I’d been a bit ham-fisted with the soldering iron and had got the terminals on one of them a bit too hot and the button was no longer working. I was all set to go to Maplin for a replacement during the day but in the end got one for the princely sum of 50p from the electronics stall in the market a couple of hundred yards from the surgery.

I fitted the camera next. The Neuros has served me fairly well but it’s not without its problems. The main ones are the requirement to power it up using the little infra-red remote, the lack of ability to see what it’s doing but most of all the fact that if it gets powered off while recording (for instance when you exit the car in a hurry and shut off the kill switch or simply forget and switch off) then you lose the recording. This was most frustrating. So I’ve invested in a new system from DogCamSport. With the bullet cam fitted to the roll bar it was easy enough installing the main box. The great advantage of this is that it runs on a rechargeable lithium battery so no power off problems. It comes with a cigar lighter power lead but i attacked that so it’s wired direct from the fuse box. It also has a nice simple 2 button remote that was easy to mount in the cockpit.

When making the seat I’d been a bit enthusiastic and rushed prior to the last test at Llandow and made a larger mix of the PU foam on one occasion. A larger mix reacts more quickly and I’d ended up dripping some of it on the bodywork. It had sanded off OK with wet and dry but had stained the paint and I’d had to take it back down more or less to primer. So I masked the car up and touched that up with the small spray gun. While that was going off I nipped down to collect the vinyl graphics from Martin at Studio1. He’d done an excellent job of these and gave me a very good deal. I also called in the builder’s merchant and bought a roll of lead flashing to use as ballast.

In the evening I revisited the ride height & corner weights. The rear had changed when I had to put the locknuts on the pullrods and the front had settled a bit and needed raising. Once I had it set at just over 80mm with my bags of sand in there I stuck her back on the corner weight scales. The car was now coming in at 471.5kg, but that was with 19 litres of fuel in the tank. With me and my helmet, HANS etc. in there it was 562.5, just 2.5kg over the minimum weight limit. Trouble is I don’t want to have to finish very race with 16 litres of fuel in the tank! So I reached for the roll of lead flashing. I decided to cut this into pieces that would fit on the floor at the front of the car – there’s a nice little space under the steering rack between 2 chassis rails that tapers as the rails come back meaning that with the lead cut out carefully it was a snug fit in there and couldn’t move anywhere. The 3 metre roll gave me 12 little sheets cut to shape with just a centimetre waste and this stack of 12 sheets just fitted neatly in the space I had intended for it coming to a couple of mm below the top of the chassis rails. I was pretty pleased with this and one I’d drilled through the stack of lead I used a piece of steel bar and a pair of roofing bolts to hold it down.

The car was now tipping the scales at 573kg meaning that I now need just 6 litres of fuel in the tank to make the weight limit which is just about perfect. Without me doing anything the corner weighting was pretty good too the scales showing the diagonal at 49.4%. A minor tweak of one pullrod saw it nearer to 50% and I then locked off all the locknuts. I think it’s quite amazing that the car needs 10kg of lead ballast even with my 90kg in it, with someone like Derek in it it would need loads more.

It was nearly time to finish for the day – the early morning starts and late night finishes were starting to take their toll – and I decided to indulge myself by fitting one of my nice bright green graphics and a race number. I went over the top surface of the bonnet/front cover with the polish first then after a load of measuring and masking tape I got the first BDN logo stuck on followed by my race number. And here’s the result. Rather spiffing I thought

I had a helpful chat with Brian after coming in on Tuesday, among other things we discussed towing eyes. Ian had come up with a couple of suggestions for these but I had decided using some 3mm steel cable was probably going to be the easiest to manage without having to cut bodywork away. After our chat I had a fairly clear idea of how I wanted to achieve it and on Wednesday morning I got the front towing loop fitted without any great drama – a 3mm steel bracket bolted onto the front sub-chassis with the cable running from this along the top of the splitter and exiting between the splitter and the bodywork without having to touch the GRP at all. Very pleased. the rear was a bit more tricky but I made a similar bracket to the front but at the top mount of the sub-chassis so the cable would run back through a hole in the aluminium U channel at the rear. I got it all set up but had only bought 2m of cable and didn’t quite have enough.

I then indulged myself a bit more and fitted the BDN S3 graphic to the nearside sidepod. I got a bit more cable from B&Q on the way home from work and soon had the rear towing loop done. Then I got the race numbers and the rest of the graphics on which was very satisfying and really transformed the car.

I then called on David for his opinion on what else I should add. His view all along has been that I should leave the car white and after walking round the car with him for a few minutes and both of us thinking out loud about where we could put some more green vinyl I did start to come round to the idea of leaving it pretty much as it is. The green graphics really do set it off transforming it from the base white and I’m really not sure it needs much more.

Thursday morning felt far less pressurised with only a couple of little jobs to do. I cut some wire mesh and got that fitted to the sidepod ducts to prevent rocks and bits of rubber etc. from either dinging the oil cooler on the nearside or getting into the engine bay on the offside. I held these in place with my tried and trusted method of poking cable ties through from the inside then pulling on them and sticking them to the bodywork with masking tape to hold the mesh in place. I then bonded them in place with some PU sealant. The last job of the day was to fit a little LED to act as an indication when the battery master switch is on, I also tidied up a bit of the wiring with some cable ties.

And that’s it, the car’s ready. Llandow Friday, Bromsgrove for mapping Saturday then up to Mallory for the first race on Sunday.

The Sunday after Llandow was mostly a pretty lazy day. The garage was an absolute tip after a few days frantic activity with no time to tidy up, so I cleared up in there before unloading all the tools and stuff from the car. The corner weight scales were still out so I decided to weigh the car, when I’d done it on Saturday morning I’d just been looking at the relative weights. It had been a bit of a palaver too since the ‘normal’ jack won’t fit under the car and the quick lift one pulls it along a bit rather than lifting vertically. So I made a set of ramps I could push the car onto and then roll it straight onto the scale pads. Once that was done I checked the weight. 453.5 kilos with an empty fuel tank, 542.5 with me in the car. I’ll need to add in the weight of helmet, overalls and boots but subtract the eventual seat weight difference (the one currently in there is 6kg) so they should roughly balance out. The RGB weight limit for a rear engined car is 560 kilos, so I’ll need to add 15kg, maybe a bit more. I can use surplus fuel for some of it but not all and using some lead will help even out the corner weights.

Once that was done I fitted the cowl. This was a nice straightforward little job I also cleaned up the bodywork where I’d spilled a bit of the polyurethane seat foam on Friday night in my haste. A bit of wet and dry and it soon looked a lot better but it needs a bit more work.

I then wired in the lambda sensor and connected the logging output wires to the DigiDash and connected the laptop up to check it was working OK which it was. I also sorted out a toggle switch to switch the data logging on and off. While monitoring all the sensors on the laptop I also spotted that the fuel pressure was way too high – Brian had noticed this on the little gauge attached to the regulator. The DigiDash said it was 80psi, almost double the specified 44psi. Turning that down had the effect of making the engine idle much more smoothly, unsurprisingly! This was an issue we’d been puzzled about at Llandow. It probably also accounts for the fouled plugs. We also decided that turning the airbox round had made it impinge a bit on the secondary butterfly valve motor so I popped that off and ground a bit of plastic off to make it sit better without causing problems.

On Saturday I’d run with the Power Commander disconnected. I’d sorted a map ready on the laptop but had then forgotten the laptop in my rather frazzled state. It didn’t really matter as it ran fine and I know Tony Gaunt has run his 06 ZX10 engine for 2 seasons without one. I do want to get it mapped though partly for safety’s sake but mainly to maximise driveability and get rid of the slight flat spot. So on Monday I connected the Power Commander up and uploaded my map to it. This was easy enough but as soon as I connected the PC inline with the fuel injection loom the engine wouldn’t start. I tried resetting it which made no difference then tried a firmware update but that failed.

Although the DigiDash has GPS it still needs the sensor with its magnets connected – it’s an IVA requirement but I think the DigiDash needs it to calculate the gear indication. The plan was to somehow mount this on one of the front uprights with the magnets glued onto the hub. Looking at it this would be easy enough mounting the magnets on the disk carrier but I was a bit worried what effect the heat might have on the araldite so I opted instead to mount them on the machined inside face of the stub axle itself. I made up some aluminium bracketry then removed the stub axle. Past experience tells me simply gluing magnets to the prop on the Fury led to said magnets disappearing, having said that that might have been partly due to the prop vibrating due to the yoke not fitting onto the gearbox output flange properly. So I drilled a couple of shallow holes for the magnets to sit in then glued them in place. Once it was all fitted I got David to spin the wheel and checked it was working.

I’d been hoping to get the Power Commander mapped prior to racing the car but of course couldn’t book anything until I could be confident it would be ready. So when I rang PDQ and they couldn’t fit me in I wasn’t exactly surprised. Austen has booked into HLM in Bromsgrove so I gave them a ring and Hamish there was very helpful and although he couldn’t fit me in this weekend he suggested I call there on the way up to Mallory a week Saturday. He also suggested the recalcitrant Power Commander might be a simple earth issue, he reckons they need a really good earth otherwise they play up. Interestingly he reckons they’re bomb-proof and was sceptical of reports of failures. I didn’t recite the list we’ve got in RGB, including the one in my Fury!

I hedged my bets and ordered a new Power Commander from M&P. On Tuesday evening I directly soldered the Power Commander earth to the engine loom earth. This time it started but there was much popping and farting and spitting back through the throttle bodies. I reckon the device is dead and need to recontact the guy I got it off.

The exhaust secondaries run pretty close under the rear cover and the heat was a bit of a problem, not so much out on track but once you come in and there’s no air flow. The plan had been to insulate it abve the exhaust so I got on with this. I’d got some high temperature contact adhesive from Car builder Solutions which did the job nicely.

The air intake temperature sensor has been dangling in the breeze since reversing the airbox meant the wire wouldn’t reach so I spleced some wire in and got that fitted. i’d been putting off removing the clutch cover – after the fix at Llandow it had been much better but was still seeping a bit. So I jacked up that side of the car to keep the oil over the other side, removed the cover, spent quite a while cleaning up the mating surfaces and the gasket and refitted it with some silicone sealant. Sadly my nice container of Wurth RTV had discharged itself inside the toolbox on the way back on Saturday Once that was refitted I ran the engine up to temperature till the fan came on and was pleased to see a nice dry engine and engine bay floor. I then hung around until the fan went off – it’s currently coming on at 92 degrees and going off again at 82 which seems reasonable for now. I can soon tweak it later if need be.

Wednesday evening saw the foam blank for the new seat completed. I then spent ages hacking it to shape – there was loads surplus and the foam adds a surprising amount of weight, it doesn’t seem to expand so much in some places. This ones considerably thinner meaning my bum’s lower and my shoulder blades are right on the bulkhead. Thursday saw it covered in black gaffer tape and refitted to the car. The good/bad news is that it’s 2.5kg lighter than the other one … so even more pies/lead required.

Once that was done I fitted an additional spring to the clutch – Brian had suggested it as the spring inside the slave cylinder is quite strong it will be exerting constant pressure on the clutch release bearing, not a good thing. After loads of unsuccessfully scouring round trying to find one my mate Phil came up trumps with an ideal one from his garage

Next was the fire extinguisher. I spent ages trying to work out the best place to put it and decided none of them were optimal. I eventually turned it round to find it did in fact fit horizontally immediately in front of where the passenger seat will fit. So after a bit of drilling and more bracket fabrication I ended up with this – it’s a really nice snug fit and the actual cylinder sits between the aluminium bracket and the chassis rail so it’s not tending to roll back and fore with acceleration or braking G forces.

Another blot on the horizon has been getting cold air from the intake in the rear cover to the aperture in the airbox. I ran it temporarily without and it seemed fine but Brian had pointed out that the scrutineers wouldn’t allow it as there are regs about both air filter holes and other holes in bodywork. Ian however said it’s not the case with a rear/mid engined car and indeed the regs refer specifically to front engined cars and to holes in the bodywork “forward of the steering wheel”. Whatever, I want an air duct so I set about making one. As usual I had an ill formed cunning plan and this one involved using PU foam to create a buck for a GRP duct. Here’s a shot of the airbox inside a black bin liner with a cardboard box on top to constrain the foam.

After much cutting and carving, addition of a bit more foam and a 4″ round tube laid up inside a plastic drainpipe I ended up with a GRP moulding that sort of snaps onto the air filter box. Trouble is it didn’t work as planned. I was hoping to attach a flexible hose to it and route this up to the inlet on the rear cover. Trouble is there simply isn’t room, the air filter box is pretty close to the bodywork and there’s no room for the hose. At least now it will be drawing cool air from the intake rather than from behind the engine and close to the exhaust. I think the definitive answer will be a custom airbox but I simply haven’t time for that now

Time had gone by exceedingly quickly and it was clear I was going to be pushed to get everything done in time. It took a good couple of hours sorting out the aluminium pipe, routing it, making up brackets for the nozzles in the engine bay and cockpit and connecting it all up. I routed the fire extinguisher cable and got that connected up – I’ve copied what Brian did on their car and routed it across the engine bay and down the nearside sidepod. I then made up a bracket for the cockpit cable and got that fitted. Next job was the external electrical master switch, this is simply a latching push button wired in series with the one on the dash but mounted on the offside sidepod alongside the fire extinguisher pull handle. That way both buttons need to be on for the system to be live. I say simply but the buttons are about £20 each – they’re waterproof and hopefully reliable. Neil C-B had trouble last year with a cheap one cutting out on him.

I bought a pair of universal steering rack gaiters a while ago and it was time to get those fitted – they’re definitely needed for IVA but Brian said the scrutes may well want them also. Simple job but by the time I had the car jacked up, wheels off etc. it was another chunk of time gone. I then got the transponder fitted – this took me a time scratching my head as it’s not so simple to mount as on the Fury as the BDN doesn’t have any open areas in the floor! I assumed it wouldn’t be able to ‘see’ through aluminium sheet but hope it should be OK through the plywood splitter. So I made up a bracket to fit on one of the tubes of the front aluminium frame. I also bolted the horn onto the front bulkhead then wired it and the transponder in and checked they worked OK.

The Fury had a little bracket welded onto the roll cage for the rain light but the BDN doesn’t. I was thinking of making up an aluminium clamp to hold it on but decided I the end to just make a small plate for it to screw on to then fix that to the roll cage with cable ties. It’s very light so they should be quite adequate. I then added a switch to the small dash panel on the driver’s side and got that wired in and tested.

The scrutes are apparently very keen on chainguards. It seems to me the only function of the chaingaurd will be to stop the chain wax from flinging off everywhere, I can’t see it doing anything else. First off when a chain snaps it’s apparently fairly undramatic and chains don’t actually go flinging off taking people’s heads off, they usually either just spool off onto the floor or if you’re really unlucky wrap round the front sprocket and wreck your engine. So here’s a shot of the one I made.

One of the problems from Llandow was the reverse – despite me being confident it was set up correctly after coming in from the first session the reverse gear was somewhat chewed up. I gather from Brian that he and Ian think the only way it can be happening is through engine mount flex. They’re working on some form of solution but in the meantime I needed to take the gear off and clean up the teeth. I got halfway through this rather tedious job when my weekend was over. I managed to get it finished and the reverse reassembled before work Monday morning.

The number of “absolutely have to be done by the weekend” jobs is now dwindling. Top of the list is getting towing points front and rear, also need to fit the catch tank, the rest are mainly niceties – fitting buttons to the steering wheel to control the dash/logger, fitting some mesh to the rear sidepod ducts, adjust the gear shift leverage, fit the camera etc.

On Monday evening I didn’t get long in the garage. Over the weekend I’d tried reversing the car without a lot of success – there was a lot of chatter and it was dropping the battery voltage enough to cause the electronic cutoff solenoid to cut the power (it needs 12v across its terminals to keep it switched on). So I dismantled the reverse mechanism to adjust it as I suspected the motor was a bit too close to the reverse gear and there was no more adjustment left. It took a while but eventually I had it back together again to discover that the battery voltage was low to start with – just having the solenoid powered up seems to drain it. So I stuck it on charge and left it for the night.

On Tuesday evening I decided it was time to tackle the undertrays. The rear one actually took me less time to fit than I expected, just requiring the removal of a couple of chassis bolts which hold it on followed by 4 M6 screws into the rear aluminium sub-frame. It’s nearly as smart as the one I made for the Fury

And here’s another view of the rear sub-frame. the front took a little longer to fit because … wait for it … Ian had dropped a small clanger and got some of the mounting holes in the wrong position. He had warned me about it and is getting a new one from the laser cutters, but it’s a very minor problem and I decided to go ahead with the one I have and measured up and drilled some new holes in it.

I then redirected my attention back to the throttle pedal and cable. I wasted quite a while rummaging round in my various boxes of bits looking for the return spring Brian supplied before deciding it had to have rolled under the driver’s floor panel. After undoing the dozen or so self-tappers it was indeed there and after a quick phone call to Brian followed by an emailed photo back I had just about worked out exactly where it went when it was time to head in.

The first race weekend is now less than 4 weeks away. My plan was to go to Llandow testing so I rang to see if I could go on Friday the 18th but apparently 5th Gear have an exclusive booking for the circuit for the day. They did however offer me a place on their trackday on the Saturday, these are usually initially sessioned followed by open pit lane and they said they plan a couple of test sessions during the day so I thought that sounded a reasonable plan and even cheaper than their testing at a very reasonable £90 for the day. It’s not about finding speed, I just want to have a shakedown and make sure everything’s working OK, keep an eye on the oil pressure and air/fuel ratio on the logger, set up the brake bias etc. and generally get a bit used to the feel of the car.

On Wednesday morning before work I got the throttle return spring fitted and made up a new cable. The one from CBS is actually a bit heavier duty and certainly feels better than the previous one I made up. However it just took quite a while making it up and by the time that was done it was time to go back in. That’s now it for this week really as I’m back in Croydon until Saturday evening. I’m then working overnight Saturday and heading up to Hereford Sunday morning to get the rear panel and the splitter from Brian. I then need to try to get everything done to take the car on track within the following 5 days. Starting to feel a bit of pressure now.

Before hitting the M4 on Wednesday evening I managed to give the credit card a bit of a mauling by ringing Demon Tweeks and ordering mirrors, harness and a few other bits and pieces including the HANS device I’ve been planning to get for ages.

I made an early start on Friday although it was b****y freezing! progress was hampered a bit as the Fury needed a bit of attention. Following a query by someone looking for a FuryBusa I’ve been in email negotiations with someone in Sweden who’s keen on it and is supposed to be coming over on on Saturday to buy it. It hasn’t moved since I parked it in the garage after Silverstone, apart from the faulty Power Commander it’s pretty much good to go but needs a good clean and checking over.

Having prepped the front cover the day before I did the same for the rear cover and the offside sidepod. I left the nearside sidepod for a while as it needs more work for access to the fuel filler. Interlink arrived early with the parts from Car Builder Solutions – a lockable flush mounting filler cap, some 2″ flexible hose, a 2″ to 1.5″ reducer and some clips. With the Fury and the BDN outside sunbathing I got the garage ready for some painting – a general tidy, some sweeping and screening off the far end with a couple of tarpaulins. With the front and rear cover and the sidepod resting on a variety of trestles, chairs etc. I gave them a wipe over with a cloth and some cellulose thinners then again with tack rags.

Actually spraying the primer took a surprisingly long time as the 2 main covers represent a significant surface area and the fairly deep valleys inboard of the wheel arches took a time to get a good covering on them. Once that was done I got going on the Fury, giving it a good wash and getting all the bits of tyre rubber from Silverstone out of there. She started first turn of course despite having been sitting for over 4 months. I also rewelded a new lug for the front ARB onto the wishbone as that had become detached at Silverstone.

By the time I’d finished with the Fury and got the tools away the primer was dry so I did a repeat of the rubbing down operation on the 3 panels but this time with 600 grade wet and dry. There are a few areas with little pin holes particularly along where the mould seams were and I may well give them a bit of filler and some more primer before spraying the topcoat although it’s possible the topcoat would fill them.

Another frosty start on Saturday morning. After slapping a bit of filler on the tiny defects in the front and rear covers I turned my attention to the fuel filler. This has been another of those problems that has been on the horizon that I had never really mentally resolved. IVA is the problem of course – the standard BDN arrangement is with the filler cap located in the tank top cover but IVA doesn’t allow the fuel filler to be in the engine bay. Stick it on the outside I hear you say … but racing regs say you can’t have the fuel filler cap outside the bodywork or likely to be damaged in a crash, and having it sit on the outside of the sidepod would be risky. Space in the top corner of the engine bay is extremely tight so getting the position right is critically important. On first glance the gear cable appeared to be the fly in the ointment but in fact it turned out not to be since the filler can only go so far into the corner anyway and there’s still room for the cable to squeeze through. I made a start by cutting out a little aluminium panel to fix to the chassis. After a bit of cutting, filing, bending and drilling etc. here’s what I ended up with. Pretty pleased.

Now I had to work out how I was going to create a tidy looking recess in the sidepod so I could get at it without removing the sidepod. As usual a cunning plan came into my head. What I wanted was a slightly tapering recess which at the inboard end was just about the same size as the filler cap surround but was a bit bigger at the outboard end to make access easier. Among my various empty containers in the garage I found a plastic pot that looked about right. After a bit of cutting and filing it sat nicely on the inside of the sidepod and I then laid up some of the very lightweight fibreglass mat and resin to create my recess.

While this was going off I touched up the primer on the front and rear covers. I wanted to round the edges of the recess so I added a thick fillet of glass reinforced filler around the base of it and left that to go off while I carried on getting the Fury and the spare parts for it ready. When I came back to it I used the Dremel sanding drum to sand away the rim of GRP on the outside which then allowed me to fairly simply pull the plastic pot out – it was a sort of polythene material and the resin hadn’t stuck to it.

What I needed to do next was trim it back so it fitted just shy of the filler cap and this bit I messed up by cutting it a bit too short meaning I had to build it back up with filler. This took a couple of applications but in the end I had it the right size and shape with a few imperfections. Meanwhile Fredrik arrived late afternoon and collected the Fury, my last job of the day was then to sand the recess down and add another layer of filler to it. I know this is all sounding pretty terrible but I reckon the final result will be fine

On Sunday morning I finished off the filler recess and then got going prepping the front and rear covers for topcoat and the nearside sidepod for primer. When I came to paint the covers my spray gun was playing games and made a bit of a mess of it, I couldn’t get it to spray in a useful pattern, it was spraying a sort of fan but with more paint at the ends of the fan than in the middle. It wasn’t all down to the gun though, despite spending ages prepping the panels there were lots of little dark spots on them, especially the rear cover. I’m not sure whether it’s tiny bits of oil coming through from the compressor or some remnants of grease or wax on the panels themselves. It then took ages for them to dry and harden off for me to rub the dodgy bits back.

While I was waiting for paint to dry I got the oil cooler sorted out, it had been temporarily swung round into the engine bay to keep it out of the way. I turned some small aluminium bushes to space the slight gap at the top mounts and bolted it into its housing. I then left the housing floating free until the sidepod it fitted, it’ll then bolt onto both the chassis and the sidepod floor.

I managed to get the sidepods primed, rubbed back and a few defects in the primer touched up again and by mid afternoon I was ready to give all the panels a layer of topcoat. I used my smaller touch up gun this time and it worked much better. While they were drying I got on with the fuel filler. The tank cover that’s on the car has a 12cm diameter hole in it where the filler neck is welded in on the race car so I made up a plate to fit over this and made a hole to take the 2″ to 1.5″ reducer. Once that was done I cut the respective hoses to length and fitted the assembly. It works rather well, all I need to do now is seal around the reducer with some PU sealant and wrap the upper hose with some of the reflective matting.

Definitely in sight of the finish line now. The paint on the bodywork needs some cutting back but that can be done once it’s fitted. I can also finish off the electrics – fit the headlight pods, rain light, front and rear lighting looms, horn, transponder, speedo sender, GPS antenna etc. There’s also a small oil leak from around the clutch cover somewhere that I need to investigate. I also need to get the rear finishing panel from Brian as soon as it’s done and get it painted and fitted and the rear lights mounted onto it.

I’d hoped to get loads done on Wednesday but it didn’t go to plan. I decided to nip over to see Clive the aluminium fabricator and sure enough he has a folding machine and was happy to fold my undertrays for me, so I left them with him. He didn’t have any suitable offcuts of round steel bar but he did have some 40mm x 20mm flat bar and let me have a length of that. So instead of going to the gym I hacksawed a couple of chunks off that to make my thrust washers for the drive shafts as in this photo. Here I hit my first problem. I knew my lathe had an additional 4 jaw chuck with it which I thought would come in handy for this but when I took the 3 jaw chuck off I discovered that the back plate is only drilled for 3 mounting bolts and the 4 jaw chuck has 4. So I had to hack my lumps of steel with the hacksaw into something I could roughly centre in the 3 jaw chuck. The next problem was that the normal jaws won’t hold a 40mm round piece and I had to use the bigger ones which meant that with a piece only 20mm thick I could only get at the last 8mm or so. So it took me ages of faffing to get to a round blank.

And then I had to stick a 20mm hole in it. Easy up to 10mm just using drills. But then I wasted ages trying to enlarge the hole with the boring bar that came with my set of Glanze tools. After lots of frustration I realised that although all the other tools in the set are at the correct height when just mounted onto the tool holder the boring bar is set too low. Once I’d packed it up with a shim it actually started cutting the metal correctly and I could get my washers completed. I then got them fitted and the hub nuts torqued up with my shiny new breaker bar and some split pins in. Then it was time to nip up to get the undertrays back from Clive.

I’d made a start packing the diff with grease the other day but my grease gun was empty as was the tin of grease I had so on my way to Clive’s in the morning I’d got some more at the motor factors. Once I’d got grease all over myself packing the grease gun I got going. The diff has about 6 grease nipples on it so as advised by Brian I removed one and filled it from the other side. I was pumping grease in for what seemed like ages and felt like I seemed to be getting nowhere but then the grease gun was empty and I realised the diff just takes a lot of grease. After refilling it and a bit more pumping I eventually got some oozing out of the hole on the opposite side then I went round the other grease nipples until the whole thing was full.

With that done I decided to fit the front stub axles next. The front hubs are identical to the rears but of course don’t have a drive shaft to hold the hub together, so Brian’s supplied me with a pair of stub axles, basically I think he’s butchered a pair of CV joints and machined a flat face on the ‘back’ of the spline. This looked a pretty easy job and I didn’t expect it to take long. But it did I tried to do the first one up and the shaft was just spinning (it’s a smaller diameter shaft than the rear so it just sits in the hole without the splines engaging) with no easy way to hold it. After a few goes I realised that the spline was just a bit longer than the width of the hub so the thrust washer was seating on the shaft and the nut tightening on it before it actually clamped the hub. So, back to the lathe to machine a small recess in the washer to allow it to seat on the hub. Next problem was that the washer wasn’t thick enough, but with both washers fitted on one side it was fine. I then ran out of time as I had a retirement do to go to so first job on Thursday morning was going to be hacking another lump of steel into shape for a washer for the other side.

Thursday was a much more productive day. It still took a while turning the thrust washer but no drama and I had it done and the stub axle fitted by 10am. My mate Phil came round for a nosey and gave me a hand with something I’d been looking forward to doing for some time – sticking her on the scales. So we jacked her up, connected up the plates and zeroed the scale then lowered her onto the plates. The moment of truth … 427.5 kilos Of course there are more things to be added to the car but nothing of any substantial weight – lights, rear trim panel, seat and harness, undertrays, fire extinguisher. Even allowing 17.5 kilos for these plus say 95 kilos for me in race suit with helmet leaves us at 540kg, 20 kilos below the minimum weight of 560kg for Class R in RGB. More pies then.

Once that was done I made a start on the headlight housings. These are a black plastic base moulding that fits under the wheel arch with a clear plastic cover that sits on top of the base and is a snug fit inside the hole in the GRP. So the cover is used as a template to cut the hole. After covering the left hand wheel arch with masking tape I worked out where I wanted it – the critical dimension is having the dipped beam cut-off a minimum of 500mm from the ground. Looking at the drawing Ian had provided he has the pod positioned so that the top of it is just below the top of the wheel arch, i.e. it doesn’t protrude up above it. So with a spirit level resting on top of the highest point of the wheel arch I slid the pod backwards until it just touched the level and marked this point. I then did some measuring to get it in the centreline of the nacelle down at the front. Once I was happy with the position I measured up and marked up the offside to match then marked the outline of the cover on each side.

After much checking it was time to take a deep breath and set to with the cutting disk in the die grinder which rapidly resulted in a large hole in the panel. I then tidied up the edges with the sanding drum and some wet and dry and confirmed that the light pod fitted nicely then it was on to the other side.

And here’s a shot of the whole headlight pod taped in position.

Before taking the bodywork off I marked up the rear face of the front cover which will be the dash area as it needed a couple of cutouts – one on the left for the switch panel, one in the middle for the DigiDash wires to come through and one on the right for a couple more switches and the lambda gauge. After cutting these out and checking I could get at the switches OK without the opening being too big (this should avoid the IVA tester’s sphere of doom coming into contact with anything sharp) I got the bodywork off and stuck it outside in the sunshine.

Time now to have a quick gander at the clutch – the system is bled and functioning but I hadn’t done any adjustment so far, so I stuck the seat in and started her up to try it out. And it worked nicely although the bite point was with the pedal quite a way off the bulkhead so I screwed the pushrod further into the clevis to effectively shorten it which put the bite point a bit closer to the bulkhead. This means firstly that the clutch arm isn’t being pushed too far (which isn’t a good thing) and secondly it maximises the disengagement of the pushrod so it won’t tend to make the clutch slip. It worked very nicely and I was able to select first gear and creep the car forwards in the garage then drop it back into neutral.

By now it was late afternoon. It was a nice sunny day so I made a start on prepping the bodywork outside, starting with the front cover. Once I’d tidied up the dash apertures I started rubbing down the surfaces to be painted. The front cover has a flash line from the mould running longitudinally down each wheel arch so I flatted those off then went over the whole panel with some 400 grade wet and dry with plenty of warm soapy water to both flatten it off and remove the residual wax from the mould. This actually took quite a while as its a fairly big panel and I wanted to get it right. By the time that was done it was time to clear up and head in.

With the car dropped off at Pro-Speed in Cardiff I headed home and gave the garage a tidy, it’s surprising how much easier it is without the car in the way. Sure enough Charlie rang me mid-afternoon to check it was OK to pick the car up in the morning which seemed very reasonable seeing as he’d lost an hour and a half this morning through me being late. Apart from tidying up (the bench is still completely cluttered) I can’t get on with anything BDN related until the car comes back.

One thing I forgot in the last blog entry was that I fitted the drive shafts on Sunday. This turned out to be initially much easier than I’d expected, I just undid the top 2 bolts on the upright, hinged the upright down, pushed the drive shaft into the diff, a couple of taps with the rubber hammer then fitted the other end in the upright and replace the 2 bolts. Then it got more interesting – there’s an awful lot of thread on the end of the shafts and unlike the Ford shafts I’ve been used to these shafts are drilled for a split pin and come with a castellated nut. The trouble was it looks like they need a very thick (maybe as much as 10mm) thrust washer and none were supplied with the shafts. It looks like Tim Hoverd had the same problem and machined up a pair. I don’t have a large enough piece of steel bar so I need to either find some bar or see if the Vauxhall dealer can get me some washers in, they must be a standard part. In the meantime I can’t actually do up the nuts very tight as they’re so far on the shaft that my socket won’t reach them.

Another job on the to do list is folding the undertrays. These are laser cut aluminium and need some quite long folds in then. My mate Phil thinks someone round the corner has a folding machine so in preparation I got the undertrays in the nice warm kitchen and measured/marked them all up.

While I was twiddling my thumbs waiting to go to collect the car I decided to have a look at the battery booster pack I got from Halfords some time ago. It was something like 25% off and has a 20AH battery but it’s never actually worked properly – all the bits like the compressor, light, AC inverter etc. work great but the jump leads never had. Trouble is it’s trying to be too clever. It doesn’t do anything till it detects that the leads are plugged in, then it doesn’t make them live unless it’s happy they’re connected with the correct polarity. I pulled it apart and there was nothing obvious wrong, no leads disconnected etc. so I decided it was the little circuit board that does the decision-making that was at fault. It turned out to be pretty simple to make it a whole lot stupider just by connecting the lead going to the jump lead socket direct to the 12V post bypassing the circuit board. Job done Mental note to self to try to remember to connect them the right way round when I use them …. drrrrrrrrr

I got over to Cardiff to find Charlie still quite a way from finishing the exhaust. He’s a busy boy and since he does all the critical work himself he gets delayed every time he has to speak to someone on the phone. Space under the rear cover is pretty limited. Because the primary and secondary lengths Tony gave me are quite long (about twice as long as most systems) that meant by the time the cat was in there we were already quite a long way back in the engine bay. When I got there he had the system made and in place and was sorting out some brackets to hold it. So I toddled off to Machine Mart which was just round the corner and got myself a 1/2″ drive breaker bar ready for doing up the drive shaft nuts.

By the time I got back it was nearly done. Charlie’s workshop is quite amazing, the amount of stock there, miles of stainless tubing in all diameters up to some huge stuff that must be 150mm or so in diameter. Also loads of ready formed bends, tailpipe ends, silencer box end plates etc. Here’s a shot of the roll of silencer wadding – us RGB boys usually pay up to about £30 for a metre of this stuff, the roll in the photo is about a metre wide. Incidentally my silencer isn’t repackable. I did encourage Charlie to make it packable but he is confident there’s no need. He reckons our exhausts blow the wadding out because we don’t pack them properly, specifically without enough wire wool around the perforated tube. He reckons with a double layer of wire wool the hot gases don’t actually get to the wadding. We’ll see, I’ve no doubt he’ll sort it if it does turn out to be an issue.

Anyway, here’s a photo of the completed work of art. Again it’s all in stainless and looks beautiful. As soon as Charlie had finished the system we reconnected the ECU and started her up. I’d been encouraging him to use as big a silencer as he could fit in there but I accepted that he knows what he’s doing and left it to him. I was very impressed, it’s really quiet, most of the noise I could hear was the mechanical engine noise until it’s revved quite high. The proof of the pudding will be in the first noise test of course but I’m pretty confident it will be fine.

And here’s another photo from the side. The drawback with this system is that it puts more weight on the rear aluminium subframe, although there is a bracket welded onto the main subframe just where the main pipe drops down after the cat. I’ll just have to keep an eye on it.

Once I got the car home I had another go at getting a photo of her out in the daylight. As Dave commented on my previous posts photographing white cars especially in sunlight isn’t easy but here you go. I think she looks fantastic! She’s a tight squeeze on the trailer and I can’t use the usual tie down holes in the trailer floor as they’re obscured by the sidepod floors.

Once I got her back in the garage I got on with finishing off mounting the sidepods – bonding the mounting plates at the rear end along with rivnutting the chassis to take them, also turning down acetal bushes to space the sidepods from the front chassis mounts. I also added a rivnut for the oil cooler housing. And that was the end of the day’s play.