Well I've finally got the car all taxed and registered, after collecting the kit a little over 3 and a half years ago, having initially thought it wold only take 6 months!
I couldn't be more pleased with the car, it still has a few niggles like the engine splutters a little right after putting your foot down (i think it may be the accelerator pump on the carb or the old dizzy) and I need a new water pump. But on the whole it was brilliant to finally be able to get the car out on the road this weekend, and a very chuffed feeling at having put the whole thing together myself. I am trying to be careful with it to start with but it is a little scary how easy it is to get the wrong side of the speed limit in a light car.
On the subject of building it, I probably could have got it done a lot sooner if I had built it to the manual and hadn't made the entire exhaust system and all of the guages myself, or trimmed out the interior. Or if I was single and hadn't bought a house to re-decorate. etc etc. I am absolutely in awe of anyone that can build one of these types of car when they have kids etc too.
But I guess life isn't all about doing just one thing, and I wanted to do the car my way. Had it not been for this forum giving me the confidence to try to do a few things differently then I suspect I would have ended up with something a little closer to the build manual tho, so thanks to everyone (whether they realise or not) who helped.
On the whole I've found the build very satisfying but found myself very frustrated at times with some of the gaping holes in the build manual and parts list or poor design, there were quite a few times when i found myself cursing myself for not choosing the westfield seight kit (the initial kit price wasn't far off that of the viento).
But i must admit driving it over the hill behind portsmouth yesterday took away any doubt or frustration that I ever had about the car, it was just pure engrossing fun! And the noise it makes at 3000rpm is just fantastic.
Even though the car is finished there is still plently left to do, I'm sure in the next weeks and months I will find little things to fix and things to improve, like the cold starting. I also intend to get a windscreen fitted and probably a tonneau or hood to make the car a little more practical for trips.
For those that are interested here are a few pics of building of my car:
Summer 2005, Purchased Xr4x4 donor car to strip (mainly for the guaranteed LSD diff), ended up only really using the back axle and steering column, as I bought all new/refurbed brakes and needed different front stub axles anyway.
Donor Xr4x4
Sept 2005, collected the kit from (old) luego (thanks to my mate graeme and his towball), slight snafu was luego thought I was coming on a different day (no idea who's fault but my own for not ringing to confirm the day before) so we had a small parts and powder coat issue, all sorted out tho!
kit collection day
Spring 2006. The engine had mainly been rebuilt before the kit had even been bought, but it was the fitting of the engine/gearbox that i found one of the main let-downs of the car design, I must have had the engine/gearbox out of the car 10 time before it fitted properly becase of clearance problems in the tunnel despite the car apparently being designed to take the standard RV8 box.
inserting engine
inserting engine
Autumn 2006. I started to run into cash issues at this point and really couldn't bring myself to spend the 1300 quid for a full luego st/st exhaust system, so after much reading up on here bought some flanges from ebay, lots of st/steel from milner/hpe and metal supermarket and had a go at building a set of headers based on the dax style. The primary and secondary lengths were calculated using an online calculator that put the primary length at 1metre to get power at ~5000rpm!
tacking headers together
completed headers
Summer 2007. Had to move house, the place I was moving to had no garage so the car had to live in my mums garage 15 miles away, was great to have some where to work on it but it did make nipping out to work on it somewhat difficult.
moving house
Summer 2008. House redecoration and busy work meant not much progress but i did manage to take a whole week off work and get practically everything finished off.
silencer ingredients
silencer construction
completed silencers
Spring 2009. Finally managed to get all of the last jobs tidied up and get it in for SVA and then retest in feb and april.
SVA retest
waiting for sva retest
Summer 2009. Finally registered in June 09, managed to get it out for a drive the day after getting the plate athorisation in the post.
Finished and on the road
Parked next to my other slightly impractical car...
Next to my corvette
Sorry for the long waffle, writing this I can't beleive its taken me so long to build the car, but I'm sure most people can understand how it happens!
Cheers,
Dan
[Edited on 7/6/09 by DanP]
