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Previous Build Diaries
October 2003
The picture in the logo was taken by Richard Crowe on a wet
day at Nutts Corner on the 24th of Febuary 2004. |
30 March 2004 Another
good day, Lucy passed the MOT re-test this afternoon! We
trailored her over to Craigavon about dinner time and unloaded
her. The tester only re-tested the part that she failed, and after
some nail chewing from yours truely I was presented with an MOT
cert! We took a while getting her loaded up onto the trailer - the
suspension seems to have settled down a little and reduced the ground
clearence just enough to make loading the car on the trailer very
tight. I think I'm going to have to modify the trailer at a later
date. Now the work begins to prepare her for the big one.
The SVA. 22nd of April. Here are some pics from Kirkistown and from today.
Got some pictures from Richard Crowe of yesterday's trackday at Kirkistown. As per usual click on the thumbnails for the bigger images. The
first pic is of me and Jay getting ready to head out. The car
behind me is a 300Bhp Darrian, used for hillclimbs and is very, very
quick. Thank God he was let out in front of me! The next pic
shows Paul, Jay and Jay's Dad as well as me (back to camera) and my Dad
all doin a spot of tyre kickin around Lucy :-) The third
shows me and Paul getting ready to go out. In the fourth pic I'm
behind the Darrian and a ZX9 powered hillclimb Stuart Taylor and in
front of a supercharged Toyota Twincam. Well at least I didn't get
lapped by the Darrian (just)!
Here's a series of pics taken of me tip-toeing around the infield
section fo the track which starts with a hairpin bend. It's a
shame with the pics you don't get an idea of the sheer lack of speed I
generate around here compared to the proper drivers :-) Finally
Ricky sent on an in-car video, but if you've ever taken a video camera
onto a roller coaster you'll understand how difficult a job it is to
hold it straight! You can download the video HERE.
It's about 5.3Mb in size. By the way that was easily my worst
start of the day - honest! Again
many thanks to Richard Crowe for all the photos and video.
Apparently there are more photos to come, but my hotmail account just
couldn't handle them all at once. I'll post 'em when I get 'em.
Wow!
Been to Kirkistown and had a fantastic day courtesy of the Thoroughbred Sports Car Club.
The car ran flawlessly - no problems at all the car just went round the
track like a scalded cat all day long. The only slow up was my
driving! I was getting much better towards the end, starting to
know what gear I should be in for each corner, how much speed to carry
into a corner and so on. It's great fun, and encouraging to get
gradually faster as well. There were a lot of very nice cars there
- I took a couple of pictures, but once the adrenaline kicked in I
forgot all about that! Richard Crowe was there with his video
recorder and his digital camera, and will forward me pics and vids when
he can. I'm looking forward to that. I'll post them when I
get them! I met a few folks from locostbuilders.co.uk - namely 'Paul McQ' and 'Crazy Jay', as well as David Cromie. I even got taking Paul and Jay out for a few laps - they seemed to enjoy the spin OK! The
weather was fantastic - it really was brilliant crack. Hopefully
the memory of this will see me through the MOT re-test on Tuesday and
then onto the SVA on the 22nd of April. 24 March 2004 Well
I rang the test centre in Craigavon, but they have no available
cancelation slots due to the strike. There's nothing I can do
except wait until Tuesday 30th. Ultimately it's not a big issue,
as I don't have to have the car passed the MOT on any particular
date. I saw on the news some folks are being forced to take their
cars off the road because their MOT has expired and they can't get them
tested. This would invalidate their insurance in case of an
accident. My case is not at all urgent so I think I'll just
wait. Just looking forward to the track day at Kirkiston on Sunday
now. The car is already up on the trailer, so there's not much
more left to do! 22 March 2004 Close
but no cigar! Lucy (despite behaving herself very well) failed
the MOT because I didn't torque up one of the bolts on the nearside rear
hub carrier correctly. The upshot of this was that there was a
little 'play' in the wheel, so the tester failed it for this. I
drove the car outside and immediately solved the issue by tightening the
nut in question, but I was unable to get a retest organised for the same
day - they're up to their necks because some of the other test centres
are on strike. I'm not too disappointed though, it was a simple
problem to fix and should be a straightforward retest as she passed all
other tests OK. On the upside the car started on the button all
day and behaved very well - the tester was a decent fella (used to race
carts apparently) except he did have a bit of a knack for stalling her
(she's easy to stall to be fair!). 19 March 2004 A
day of drama! I took the car over this morning to John Quinn,
only top find out that the headlamps I have fitted dip to the wrong
side! These headlamps are ideal for say Germany or France, but not
the UK. This would have been an instant MOT fail, and we returned
home with a lot of headscratching. Undoubtedly the hardest part of this build is the waiting. Waiting for the reciept for the chassis added about a month and a half onto the on the road date. Waiting for the SVA (still over a month away) seems interminable, still there are highlights! Taking the car for a short test run on a private lane last night was fantastic - the first time I've got out of 1st on something like a normal road. The down side of this is my Dad now will not get in the car again! I swear I didn't go too fast (well I'd say 50 or so) but the thing just seems so fast as you're not enclosed away from the elements. Mind you it was a sharp reminder of just how quick that car is. It really is wickedly fast. I
have the car loaded onto the trailer, ready to head over to John Quinn
in Tandragee to get the position of the headlights set using his beam
setter. The only problem is the rain - I'm waiting for a break in
the weather to trailer it over and back. Forecast isn't too good
for tomorrow, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. My MOT is
drawing near (Monday 22nd) and the lights need to be sorted. In
10 days time is another of those highlights - the Thoroughbred Sports Car Club
(which I have now joined) have a track / test day at Kirkistown on
Sunday the 28th. I can't wait for that and I'll try to take as
many pictures as possible. Talking
about car clubs, I am now also a fully paid up member of the Ulster Kit Car Club.
They organise track days throughout the summer as well, should be
good..... 17 March 2004 Well, made progress today. With a lot of help from my father we rigged up a temporary adaptor to allow us to use the silencer we received with the manifold we have.
This works very well, and the car sounds as quiet and civilised as a car like this can. I was able to try out the re-jetting mod at above 30mph this evening as well, now the car is nice and quiet, and I have to say she pulls like a train. God, that is a scary quick car. It
turns out what had happened with the exhaust is that the MK manifold
has changed since October 2003, when I received my manifold. The
silencer and adaptor pipe I was given yesterday is designed for the new
manifold which is longer and has a smaller collector pipe. I rang
MK and Bill Adair about this, and they are sorting out a more permanent
solution. I suspect the solution will be an adaptor like the one
we made, but I'd imagine it'd be done in stainless steel, and would look
a bit neater.
Tidied
up a couple of more things. I fitted the interior mirror
that I recieved from MAC1 motorsports.
Finally
a picture of the whole thing!
8 March 2004 Not
a huge pile to add today, I recieved my 'interior' mirror from MAC1
motorsport (5 quid inc P&P). It's got a smaller stalk than I
was expecting, but I was assured that these have passed SVA before and
it does seem to do it's job. Best of all it fits using a suction
cup, and looks excellent. I'll stick up a picture tomorrow. A
couple of old friends were in the vacinity during the weekend and I
took them for spin around the yard in Lucy - they all seemed very
impressed. I did notice the battery went flat on Sunday - it's a
bit odd, as it seemd OK on Friday, and had a good charge up then as
well. I've made sure that the battery was re-charged OK, now I 've
disconnected the battery. I'll wait a few days then see if it
holds it's charge, perhaps it's developed a fault. Hey, what do
you expect for 17 quid??? Well
I finally got my SVA date - the 22nd of April. This poses a
problem - Adrian Flux only will only insure a car on it's chassis number
for a maximum of 1 month. It looks like what I'll do is bring the
car to the MOT on the trailer, and get the insurance to start on 22nd
April. It doesn't make sense to insure the car for an entire month
for effectively 1 or 2 journeys. Still, that manages to push the
date of the first drive on the road back. So
those dates in full:- I
also spotted that the chassis number on my MOT test letter is wrong (18
digits instead of 17) - I've contacted them and they're sending out a
corrected letter - that could have led to a very irritating failure on
22nd of March! Feel
slightly annoyed as I had hoped the SVA would be closer, but at the
same time it's good to get a date at last, even if it does seem to be a
decade away! This waiting is a nightmare. 3 March 2004 Fantastic! Brian called round last night and re-jetted my carbourettors so the engine runs without the airbox, but with a set of airsocks. The engine is running better than it ever has - and the engine bay looks far better with a line up of Pipercross filters in place of a bare air filter!
The
3rd picture also shows my new plug leads - which I made up using
silicon based HT cable - this should satisy the SVA's need for radio
supression. The
mod itself consists of removing the carbourettors, fitting 132 sized
jets instead of the 120s fitted as standard (116s on the earlier
engines) and then using a cut down rivet to block off the pilot jet
hole. Don't take this for read however, I'm only repeating what I
remember - there's no guarentee I'm right! I should have taken
some pics when it was being done - but it slipped my mind in the
excitment. Sorry about that. Again
a new month, I've saved the previous months diary in this page. You can get at it from
the menu on the left as well. Well,
I recieved my new Mountney Steering wheel from MAC1 Motorsport this
morning.
I've
stuck in a coffee cup for a bit of scale. I'm very impressed with
it - although because I'm pretty sure it's not SVA compliant I can't fit
it for a while yet. The wheel was 20 quid, with the boss 23. I'm
still waiting on my 'bling bling' wheels to arrive. Once I get
them I'll pop down to Bill Adairs, and get the tyes swapped over and a
set of slicks fitted to the Fords for track days. The whole thing
should look very good. With any luck Bill will have my silencer as
well, which I can get fitted soon. I also intend to swap out the
master cylinder and replace it with the (newly refurbished) Sierra unit
this week - which should make the braking a bit easier. Still
no word on an SVA date. I guess they're waiting on my cheque to
clear - I should have driven down with the form and paid in cash.
I am developing a real dislike for beaurocracy.
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Alister Jackson | No Rights Reserved |
