Had the day and night off today so I spent the day doing the last few things on my SVA fail list.

Main one was sorting out my emissions, I took my weber 500 apart to change the jets and needles (used RPI's recommended 0.080 jets and 62-52 needles), and at the same time sorted out the accelerater pump and float adjustments. I've never really had my hands inside a carburetor before but I was really impressed how easy all the jobs were to do with the help of the edelbrock manual and an online guide. I also tried to set the idle mixture as best i could but hopefully on the day of the retest i may be able to tweak it slightly.

I also replaced the HT leads, dizzy cap and rotor arm, and then checked my timing was correct - had to make up a piston-stop to check my TDC pointer was set properly as I did it by eye when i built the engine intending to set it properly later - I was quite impressed because my eye was pretty much spot on! Making the piston stop out of an old spark plug was a bit of a mare, I don't think there is a substance known to man that is tougher than that ceramic they use for the core of the spark plug!

Hopefully I will have done enough to get it through the emissions test now! Engine definitely seemed to run and rev more smoothly than it did before.

Only things left to do are sort an oil drip from the filter (didn't fail on it but never good to have a leak!) and sort my speedo and tacho sensors out - they are triggering on noise/bounce and so read higher than they should do.

Had the car half rolled out of the garage and into the sunshine so that i didn't suffocate myself with the fumes, I was amazed how many people walking past stopped to ask me about the car, makes me wonder what its going to be like when I'm actually driving the car around!


And I'm now sat on the sofa reading this months PPC and playing on the PS3 (GF is out for the night!), its been a pretty good day i think!

Sounds good!

Didn't get far on mine today as I had a few other things that needed sorting. But fitted exhaust studs to the new head, fitted the head, new cam belt etc. and sorted the trigger wheel positioning (for Megajolt).

Hmm,

I built the chassis around my engine and box yet when it came to puting the engine in for the last time after paint the clearance at one point was down to 3mm
So it was out with the engine and box to take a bit out of the ribs on the box.

I dinged the brake line in the prosses so had to drill all the rivetts out and replace and move to make sure it wouldnt get knocked again. I also took the chance to add a few P clipps to the starter motor wire whilst I had access.

So to sum up two stepps back and then three forward.

I drank a lot of coffee, moved the top wishbones back to try and get some self centering, drank some more coffee.

Bleed the brakes and clutch, and still need to do it again, drank some more coffee and started to panic about sva in a month and 2 days !

Scooby

bit the bullet and started to sort my wiring did a little bit the other week, and put some plugs on my rear light units.
went well enough, so i started on the multi plug for the mega jolt. just took it slow. did the power cables. plugged it into a transformer, plugged it into the laptop, had it communicating and everything. loaded a map into it, disconnected it, powered it back up again and the map was still there.
awesome
went on to do the two cables between the edis and coil. put a little plug on the cable between. put some convoluted tube round it all, then went out to the garage to have a look at where to put the long lengths of convoluted tube to the back lights drilled the chassis, put in some tie wrap saddles, riveted them all in,

tomorrow, actually make the loom to the back lights! eek.
thing is, i haven't got half the switches and relays and stuff yet, so might be a bit ahead of myself. might get a sheet of thin perspex instead and look at making some side panels instead...

or see if i'll be able to get my diff machined.

in reality though, i'll wake up, the weather will be crap, i won't want to go outside, i'll put the computer on and waste most of the day on it. then go up to my mates tomorrow nite to work on our new tune.

Worked on my nosecone, finishing off joining the bit below the grill aperture (I had to cut an widen my bodywork by 4". Had a bit of a disaster with GRP resin which didn't cure but I managed to work around it by mixing up some more resin with extra hardener and working that into the stuff which didn' cure properly. Seems to have done the job now.

Finished off the day by painting my entire nosecone with high-build etch primer/filler. Should be able to rub it down with wet and dry tomorrow and maybe get some colour on it next weekend.

Job for tomorrow is to get the engine running again and check that all systems are working. Also need to wire up my side repeaters and pad the underside of the drivers footwell with foam. I'll then have about another dozen things to do before 3rd April when my SVA is due! Aahhhh!

Cheers,
Craig.

Got my front wing stays of and remodeled them for the lower profile tyres and the new front wings, then sprayed them ready for fitting. Just need 4 lengths of steel about 25mm X 6mm X 150mm that I can drill and tap and bolt to the stays so that they are ready to to have the wings/arches glued on to.

This will basically just leave me the SVA trimming to do. Apart from the cover over the column slot in the scuttle/top foot well cover. Wheel alignment and a few other minor finishing, things time permitting

Before i start building i needed to sort the lock up i'm renting out. So during the course of the week i have scrapped 1/4 inch thick bits of solidified oil off the floor, jet washed the floor, used and industrial floor cleaner neat on the floor agitated it with a brush, then scraped again, the used the jet wash again using the floor cleaner as the detergent. And at that point realised my shoes and jeans were sodden so i called it a day. Yesterday i installed (with some help from a mate.) A fuse box, 6 plug socket, lots of armour cable, and we just need to install the work bench before we complete the ring. It was a busy day. Oh and we ran a spur off into the loft for the lights in the, well, loft.

Replaced front wing on van
Removed broken camshaft bolt
Replaced timing chain tensioner after it fell to peices
Replaced distributor
Torqued head bolts

got some round tube bent (many thanks to colin cjtheman!) to form the top rail of the rear panel. I'll be installing it on the chassis later.

[Edited on 8/3/09 by aerosam]

140 miles on it

Although about 10 miles in first gear due to A1 being closed

Tested the cooling system tho

Did some SVA mapping. Car drives like $hi! now but at least it should pass emmisions!

Made some more carbon bits.

Following on from the saga ... Topic Linky

I fixed said alternator mounting - it was a take-it-apart-to-get-at-it job but very enjoyable - and then spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in extensive 'road testing' to make sure it was alright

What did I achieve today (Sun)....

A nice trip out to the East Anglian Kit Car Club meet in Diss (Norfolk).

Got almost home and the heavens opened on me (again)

Got cold and very wet for the last 10 miles to home.

Still I Got 50 bright and sunny miles (going)
40 dry and cloudy ones on the way home, and the last 10 were very wet and miserable. (No Windscreen)

Still... I did enjoy the trip out.