Not terribly surprising but a pity nonetheless. There were a few minor things, many of which would have been fixable at the test centre but some more significant ones that definitely weren’t.

Listing them in approximate order of difficulty with the most difficult to fix first:

1. No self-centring on the steering
2. Handbrake not effective enough and no reserve travel on lever
3. Too noisy – 103dB
4. Needs a centre ‘interior’ mirror
5. Dash not displaying the repeaters for indicators, main beam etc.
6. Dash startup display doesn’t actually state ‘MPH’
7. Need tell tale to indicate when side/headlights on
8. Need clearer hazard repeater light
9. Need to trim lower edge of rear of engine cover
10. Number plate light and reflectors not radiused
11. Headlight alignment too low
12. Emissions fail at fast idle
13. Rear fog too close to brake light

The steering lacking self-centring was something Ian suspected might be an issue. The fix is probably to sort some wishbones that introduce more castor. In fairness he gave it a good few goes round the car park and even with quite a bit of lock on there wasn’t a hint of movement!

The handbrake was again something I was suspicious might be a problem. I’ll need to come up with something that gives more mechanical advantage at the lever.

The tester, who was actually great throughout the test, reckoned the silencer isn’t the problem but that it’s mechanical engine noise and suggested trying some sound deadening material inside the engine bay. He gave me a few goes at it and even tried a second meter. I’ll need to think about that.

The emissions I know can be sorted – it did pass at my local MOT station with the map that’s currently in the Power Commander. If there hadn’t been any other show stoppers he’d have let me fiddle with it today but it didn’t seem worth it.

The rear fog’s too close to the brake light cos I refitted the rear light units the wrong way round thinking I needed the indicator as far outboard as possible! That’s a 20 second fix by just prising each unit out of its housing and turning them round. The rest of the stuff is pretty trivial to sort out.

So on the face of it quite a lot of work with a couple of significant challenges ahead. I did even briefly contemplate abandoning the IVA but I think all the problems are fixable and there was lots of stuff I thought might have been a concern but wasn’t.

On the plus side all the bodywork was fine including the rear sidepod intakes and the front intakes. The seats, belts, steering wheel (including the quick release boss) were OK. The wiring and plumbing was all OK. After some discussion the steering column was accepted without any collapsible element or ‘weak point’.

I’ll have a chat with Ian and Brian about the steering and take it from there.

The next job was to prep for the chassis paint. I removed the fire extinguisher pipes, the brake bias adjuster, the ARB adjuster and unscrewed the steering column and the dash panel from the chassis. I then spent a while with masking tape and newspapers followed by some polythene sheeting.

Once the chassis was painted I gave the rear valance another coat as it was still a bit scruffy n places and I’d got a couple of runs in the first coat. Once I’d given the paint 48 hours to harden I got all the masking off again. One of the IVA requirements that has been giving me a bit of a headache is the lower edge of the dash. Currently it’s a square steel 25mm box section, IVA requires a 19mm radius or less if it’s padded. I had initially thought about making a GRP moulding but discarded this idea as it seemed like too much work! My next plan was to bend a strip of aluminium soi it could be fixed to the bottom edge of the chassis rail and bend it to give the required radius. I then came up with the idea of planing/sanding a piece of wood to use as a former to bend the aluminium. It was only when I got a suitable piece of wood in my hand that I realised I was being a silly boy and that the easy thing to do was just plane up the strip of wood and fix that onto the rail.

So after half an hour with the plane and some sandpaper I had a strip of wood with a nice radius on it. I cut it to fit each side of the steering column mounts (this area’s exempt anyway), drilled it and fixed it with self tappers. With that done I took it off again to finish it. I was thinking of painting it but decided covering it in vinyl would be a whole heap quicker. It actually looks quite passable

I’d dropped the ride height even lower than normal for the Birkett, less than 70mm. Even at the RGB regulation 75mm there’s little chance of getting it on the VOSA ramp and rollers so I slackened off the pull rod locknuts and screwed the rods to their shortest. It actually got the car higher than I expected, about 120mm. It looks a bit ridiculous but hey ho.

On to electrical stuff next. I removed the little aluminium sub-dash that sits to the right of the steering wheel and made a new one. Into this I fitted my ignition lock and a momentary push button. The ignition switch is required as part of the IVA security requirements, the push button is to test the low brake fluid warning. The DigiDash has an input specifically for this purpose and it didn’t take long to wire in the button along with the 2 terminals on the fluid reservoir lid.

Then I had to abandon play at lunchtime on Friday for a trip to London. When I got back on Sunday afternoon I got on with wiring in the immobiliser. This was another job that I thought could potentially take ages but in the end didn’t take much more than an hour. Here’s a shot of the new mini dash with ignition lock and immobiliser transponder thingy along with the button for testing the brake fluid warning light.

There are some complex rules around steering columns, basically it’s not thought to be a good idea if a frontal impact pushes the steering column back into your chest. Nor for you to fly forwards and impale yourself on a steering wheel that doesn’t give. I think I’ve already clearly demonstrated that in a heavy frontal impact the steering column doesn’t move backwards! Firstly the steering rack is actually behind the rather substantial 30mm thick billet aluminium bulkhead, then even if that does move the steering column traverses the cockpit diagonally at a fairly acute angle. However when I spoke to the inspector he was keen to see some form of mechanism for the upper column to collapse in the event of the driver being thrown forward. So I bought a collapsible boss from Europa spares. Of course it wouldn’t fit on the existing holes drilled in the steering wheel so I had to drill 3 more 4mm holes. An hour or so early on Monday morning saw the new boss securely bolted between the steering wheel and the QR boss. I don’t think the QR boss itself should be an issue, my Ultima was fine with one.

On Monday evening I started to feel like I was running out of time! With a half day on Tuesday I still had quite a bit of time but the to do list was still quite long. I got the seat and harnesses fitted (some horrid 4 point E marked ones) along with the headrests. Here’s a pic of the passenger headrest – it’s longer than the driver’s so it would span the roll cage tubes to fix it.

Tuesday was a busy day – I tried to do everything on the chassis before refitting the bodywork – sorting out the last bits of wiring, making sure the fog light would only come on with dipped beam, making sure the hazards worked etc. I uploaded the IVA map for the Power Commander and reprogrammed the DigiDash to get rid of the lap timing screens etc. I made up and riveted on a manufacturer’s plate, removed the masking from the VIN and stuck some clear lacquer over that. I locked off the brake bias bar with a roll pin and some lockwire along with fitting a sticker warning of the dire consequences of adjusting the brake bias, also a DOT 4 only sticker near the fluid reservoir.

Finally I was ready to refit the bodywork. The sidepods went on first followed by the rear cover. I could then check the valance alignment before refitting all the lights to it. I also added a number plate light and a pair of reflectors then the whole assembly got bolted on. I refitted the front cover and reconnected the lights to discover one of the headlights was dead. I thought it would be a loose wire somewhere but it turned out to be the bulb, so at 5pm I had to brave the rush hour traffic to get to Halfords. Fortunately it seems the bulb in my projector lamps is a common enough fitment so they had them in stock. Once back I got that fitted and tested. Next job was to trim the sharp edges. I glued some rubber U channel around the edge of the rear spoiler brackets and taped that in place.

This was followed by rubber edging strip around the dash apertures, the DigiDash bracket and the top edges of the air intakes on the front bodywork. The bodywork then got a quick clean and a tank full of fuel and she was pretty much ready to go.

With the last race of the season out of the way it was time to turn my attention to getting the car sorted for IVA. The first thing I wanted to do was actually a bit of cosmetic work, although Austen and Dan did a great job of sticking the rear valance back together it’s definitely not going to win any concours prizes any time soon! Also when Andy and I rebuilt the car for Oulton we only did a bit of quick patching up of the rear cover which needs some work. When I originally bonded the hinge plates into it one of them slipped slightly which means the bodywork has been impossible to completely line up correctly.

So with both parts off the car I took all the woodscrews out of the blocks of wood bonded onto the rear cover and using the heat gun and a long hobby knife I managed to free the hinge plates and remove them. In doing this I discovered a bit more damage around the nearside mount which I hadn’t previously noticed. With the hardware removed I needed to get the old adhesive off, I’d initially bonded the plates in with the acrylic glue followed by a fillet of PU sealant. The acrylic responds well to heat but the PU doesn’t. I therefore resorted to a new little tool I recently bought from Permagrit Tools, I’ve already got some of their excellent hand files which are great on GRP and this is the same sort of stuff, tungsten carbide brazed onto the tool so very long lasting and they don’t clog. This one is a bit big for my Dremel-alike so I used it in the air die grinder which made short work of the sealant and the glue.

I could then reinforce the GRP where the hinges mount with a couple of layers of CSM and resin, along with patching a couple of the cracks in the cover.

During the week I went shopping for paint, Andy and I had used up all the primer and topcoat I had pre-Oulton. Sadly the firm I used to get it from, Livermores, have gone bust so I’ve had to find a new supplier. They happen to be only a few hundred yards from Livermores anyway and the chap there was very helpful. So I’ve got 4 litres of high build primer, 5 litres of white and a litre of green. The large quantities were purely because they were good deals in the bigger tins.

On Friday I removed all the lights from the rear valance and did a bit of fixing with some GRP. I then spent ages refitting the hinge plates onto the rear cover, getting them bonded in with the 2 part acrylic adhesive by the close of play.

The rear valance took quite a bit of work to get it looking even reasonably tidy – it was pretty badly damaged at Snetterton then probably even more so at Silverstone. After some filler and a bit of elbow grease with the wet and dry it looked respectable again. I also filled and sanded the cracks in the rear cover. My plan originally was to just touch the rear cover up but in the end I decided to repaint the whole thing and removed all the vinyl graphics from it. Once both parts were ready they got propped in the shed and received a coat of primer.

The rear cover needed minimal prep for the top coat but I’d laid the primer on pretty thick on the valance to make sure I had enough to rub it back to a reasonable finish. Once that was done I stuck some sheets over the rear cover and painted the valance then once I’d moved that down to the garage to dry I painted the rear cover. I’m definitely getting better at the painting, it’s not perfect by any means but the finish is definitely better than first time round. The aeroscreen also got a new coat – when Andy painted it after Snett he got a great finish on the paint then when we left it out to dry it rained! The finish then was more like sandpaper.

Back down in the garage I turned my attention to the chassis. I removed both sidepods then stripped out the fire extinguisher, the camera and the external kill switch. I removed the race numbers from the sidepods and rubbed down a couple of rather big runs in the paintwork. I’ve also reinforced the offside mirror mounting area with some GRP then redrilled the hole and fitted a replacement mirror. The plan now is to clean the dodgy paint off the roll hoop etc. – you’ll recall when I repainted it after the Snetterton crash I mixed the 2 pack with thinners instead of hardener and it never hardened. Here’s a pic of a rather naked looking BDN.

So, still quite a lot of work to do. The IVA’s booked for Wednesday 23rd so only 9 days to go now.