Kit Car Build Blog

Hard to believe it has been a year since my last blog post about the largest Kit Car show in the World held in Stoneleigh (near Coventry) each May.

Last year my trip to Stoneleigh was made full of enthusiasm. I was halfway through my build, had a list of parts I needed and jobs to be done.

Twelve months on and the car is finished and has spent the winter in the garage gathering dust. I really currently don't need to get anything for the car and whilst I would love to start another build tomorrow, but with a new baby in the house and the current economic environment, I have no plans to start a new build anytime soon.

So with no shopping list and no new car build on the horizon, the trip to Stoneleigh was more out of interest than anything else, and that is probably why I felt strangely disappointed with the show.

All the usual suspects were there and the show was fairly crowded but I just struggled to get into the show.

Once again, I visited the show with my good friend and business partner Peter who is a hardcore 'off road' fan and is currently trying to persuade his better half to let him build his own kit car so one thing we did want to checkout was the Dakar 4x4 area.

As ever there was plenty of great cars to checkout and I remembered to take a few photos to include in my blog. Here are the highlights.

The first car we saw was a beauty. Not sure what it is, maybe a Beauford but not sure.

Cobras as far as the eye can see. The Cobra club was well represented and the sunshine ensured a good turnout.

Same thing for Lotus 7 style cars. Made me think I should have taken mine (except it is in bits at the moment but more on that in a later post).

One of the first cars we saw inside the hall was the new Storm Warrior which is a Hummer H1 replica. This is an enormous car but it looked cool.

Factory Five Racing had a pair of Cobras on their stand. I love this 'Les Mans' version of the car.

I also really liked this Murciélago replica by Extreme Cars which are based in my home town of Hull. Impressively, they had a real car and their replica side by side on stand, and they looked identical. I am not usually interested in this type of thing but I was really sold on this so I think it is certainly something I will investigate further over the next 12 months.

As I mentions, Peter has a great interest in 4x4's and specifically Land Rovers but anything 'jeep' like was worth a look.

We also saw this new monster by Dakar called the mutant. Dakar were also running passenger rides around an off road course in standard Dakar cars. We went round the course and can recommend it to anyone. It was a fairly hardcore course but the Dakar handled it with easy but it was a hell of a ride for£4!

More dream cars in the form of Ultima GRT's.

And maybe not everyone's dream car but I still love the old Nova kit car. I would love to buy an old one of these and restore it.

Just look at them!

And finally on dream cars (well mine anyway), Stratos replicas.

Westfield were running passenger rides, looked really exciting but there was a big line.

Plenty of Ferrari replicas.

Heading back in to the halls, there was plenty to grab our attention.

Such as Sebring,

Dax 427 &

And this XK120 replica.

Having exhausted our time at Stoneleigh, we decided to head over the the Motor Heritage Museum where there was a Land Rover show on. I don't know much about Landies so here are some pictures I took.

Great parking.

Modified Land Rovers used in the Judge Dredd film.

This is the actual Defender used by Angelina Jolie used in the Tomb Raider films.

Specially modified to look like the one in Shaun The Sheep!

And this is what Peter drives.

We then headed in to the Heritage Museum to see some fantastic cars.

Lady Penelope's car from Thunderbirds.

World record diesel car.

So that was our exciting day out.

More news on my car build very soon.

It has been many months since my last post about genuine work on the car but that is largely because it has been many months since I have actually done any!

Between preparing the house for our new baby, Christmas and then the arrival of our baby (Lilly), the car has just had to wait.

But spurred on partly by the slightly milder weather but mostly by the fact that Complete Kit Car Mag are coming to take some photos, I finally headed out to the garage to fit the last major component to the car, the air filter.

I have been driving around since SVA with no air filter fitted which is OK but it really is only a matter of time before something finds it's way in to the throttle bodies so before any serious spring time driving could be done, the filter needed fitting. It also finishes the engine bay off nicely.

I purchased an air filter kit months ago but as seems the norm with kit cars, no one makes a kit for a specific engine so instead you have to order a generic filter and base plate and then drill and fettle accordingly.

So the base plate for the filter looks like this.

And these are the tops of the throttle bodies that the filter base plate needs to be fitted to.

So as every, I started with a cardboard template.

There are several holes that need to be made. The actual holes for the throttle bodies obviously but also the holes for the bolts that hold the filter to the top of the engine.

The problem is that you cannot see where the holes need to be, much less mark where you need to drill.

I came up with the idea of putting rivets in to the drill holes with the shafts pointing up. I then placed the cardboard template on the rivets and pushed to make holes where I needed bolt holes drilling.

It kind of worked OK. When all the holes where drilled, a little fettling was needed to compensate for the some what inaccurate measuring method but all in all it did the job.

The larger holes for the actual air intakes were more of a problem so after some thought, I decided the best method was to give it my best judgement and cut the holes lightly large to allow for any discrepancies.

I cut the holes out of the cardboard template to make sure I was in the right ball park, I was!

I also had to mark a couple of little sections of the plate to be 'nibbled' away in order to allow the base plate to site without hitting existing engine parts.

Once I was happy with the cardboard template, it was time to get drilling on the real thing.

As ever, my drilling (and particularly my hole cutting) was a little wonky and a couple of the bolt holes had to be extended to allow it all to fit but all in all it went on to the engine without any drama.

So then the final job was to attach the actual air filter to the base plate using the provided clips.

Last big job completed in just a couple of hours!

Well almost.

The actual final stage was to see whether the bonnet would still fit on the car as the air filter sticks up above the engine quite some way. Luckily, it did.

Some guys from Complete Kit Car are coming tomorrow to photograph the car and there is going to be a two part article in the this and next months editions of the magazine charting the build of the car through to final completion. So if you are interested, pop down to WH Smiths and get your self a copy (out 20th Feb 2009).

Feels great to be back in the garage and working on the car again. 

It has been months since I finished the car but between DIY in the house, bad weather and most recently the birth of our second daughter, I just have not seemed to have the time or opportunity to drive the car.

So after hundreds of hours of work and a fair chunk of money, the car has effectively been sitting gather dust since it was finished.

All that changed today when everything finally fell in to place. Heidi was out with both of the kids this afternoon, it had not rained for several days (so the road was fairly dry) and the sun was shining (although very cold!). So I decided it was finally time to take the car out and give it the good run I have been promising myself for months.

So as soon as Heidi, Hannah and Lilly were packed off to meet with friends, I headed for the garage and rolled the beast out in to the drive.

As I had not driven the car since November, I started by checking over the car to make sure oil and brake fluid levels were ok. I should also have checked the water level but forgot (must remember next time). I also checked the brakes and had a general look over the car, then I twisted the key and jabbed the start button....and it did not start!

The engine turned over but did not spark, after 20 seconds, the started started to labour so I headed back to the garage to get my battery charger.

Mark from MAC#1 had told me that I should keep the battery on trickle charge all the time as the sealed race style battery I used was prone to discharging over fairly short periods of time. I didn't really believe him but turned out he was absolutely right. I think I will need to add a plug somewhere on the car so that I can plug in the car charger without having to mess around with 'jump' leads.

Actually, it only took 20 minutes to charge the battery but I was not idle during that time. I took a look at the throttle cable as I was not happy with the 'sticky' feel. I had intended to take the cable off and re-route it (which I still need to do) but that is a tricky job without taking off the dashboard so I tried just loosening the cable which did the trick nicely.

With that battery charge showing a full charge, I tried starting the car again and this time, it caught after just a couple of revolutions. So it was finally time to get out their with no distractions, no question marks over brake, no warning lights and no family members to worry about. Time to have some fun.

I started with a slow lap round the village followed but a long straight run out towards the coast. This road is always totally empty so a good place to go of you are unsure about the car but I need not have worried as everything ran fine.

So with a bit more confidence, I decided take a round trip to Withensea (local seaside town) via some nice, twisty back roads.

This nice route allowed me to start to get a feel for the car as it involved lots of hills and corners as well as some nice fast straights. Once I arrived in Withensea, I picked my way through the town centre and am happy to report I was able to get over the speed bumps. The route back to my home village was via more conventional 'A' roads where I spent most of my time behind a Range Rover. I should have overtaken but I was still getting used to the car!

So what were my thoughts?

Firstly, the car runs really well. The engine is easy to drive and gear changes via the sequential box are much easier and intuitive than I thought they would be. At lower speeds the car feels very stable and planted on the road but I am not so convinced once the speed heads north of 60 as it felt just a little unsettled. I assume this is a setup issue but I will ask the experts at MAC#1.

Visibility is not great and I am not sure I have the driving position correct but I can tweak the seat position over the coming months.

Brakes are another area that will take a little getting used to. They do work well. I know this because I tried an emergency stop from about 40mph and I certainly stopped quickly but because the brakes have no servo assistance, the usual light pressure that would stop my BMW had virtually no effect on the MAC#1, an altogether more positive approach is needed to apply the brakes, but that is just something I need to get used to.

There was also one slightly scary moment when I broke a little too hard while taking a bend which resulted in a very very slight slide, no problem but a timely reminder that playing Forza does not make you a race drive. I must make sure I take things steady and walk before I can run!

So I finally got a good run in the car and now I can't wait for the next opportunity. On the whole I was really pleased with the car today and now have a lot more confidence in both the engineering and about driving the car. Sure it was cold (and I was glad I had a helmet on) but the sun was shining, the roads were dry and I had a whale of a time. Now I am thinking about a track day sooner rather than later.

There are a few things I need get done and today's adventure has given me the renewed enthusiasm to get them done, which is good as a Kit Car Magazine is coming to review the car in just a few short weeks. More on this later.

:-)

By God it's been a while!

In fact it has been weeks since I last posted anything on this blog, the reason is that I basically have not done anything to the car since it was essentially finished. Since then it has been sitting in the garage waiting for the rain to stop.

But the British weather is probably a good thing as it has allowed me to concentrate on the house for a few weeks and with a baby on the way, a bathroom in a state of disarray and only a few weeks left to sort out the nursery, time spent on the house is well over due.

But that doesn't mean I have forgotten the car, there is still a few jobs to be done such as fitting the air filter, checking the idle speed of the engine and looking in to the short that means the brake warning light flicks on and off (well I hope it is a short!).

But one thing that did happen this week was that I received a package from an Italian publisher containing a copy of a popular mainstream performance car mag called Car Techo.

A month or so ago I got an email from a guy saying he was writing an article on UK kit cars for his Italian car mag. He had read my web site and was interested in using as the basis for his article. He also asked whether I could send him some higher quality photos!

I answered a few questions and sent him a bunch of pictures but didn't really expect to hear from him again but last week I got an email saying the mag was out and that he had sent me a couple of copies in the post.

And here is is.

So the cover car is an Aston, the car is in good company!

Nice looking article with a selection of famous UK kit car brands. I like the box graphic with a picture of my car on it.

On the second page is a number of pictures from my car build and the subsequent SVA test.

The pictures provide a rough snapshot of the major stages of the build.

Colin from MAC#1 even gets his face in on the action.

Of course the text is in Italian but you can kind of get the gist of the article as some Italian words are similar to English.

It was nice to see the car in a large glossy mag and I hope it can provide a little extra interest in MAC#1 and Kit Cars in general from our European cousins. But if not, it is still something nice to keep.

Now all I need is for it to stop raining and for me to get a break from painting so I can finally get out and get some miles under my belt.

Until next time.