Long time no see

sabre dash panel-004So, you might well wonder where I’ve been. The answer is, beavering away but not finding the time to talk about it due to all the other non-car work that’s going on. So, this is kind of a catch up post where I’ll probably spend too little time really telling you all the stuff that you’re desperate to know about.

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Slow progress

The chassis returnsSo, after a couple of weeks, I got the chassis back and put it up on stands in the garage although, as you can see, there’s rather of lot of junk in the garage as well.

The floor of the chassis has been bonded in, as well as riveted  with some rather natty flush rivets. Now, all I’ve got to do is to put it together. The only problem at the moment is that the grey semi-shiny finish seems to upset the camera I use and quite a lot of the photos look bizarre…

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Driver positioning

Pedal boxSo, it’s been a bit quiet hereabouts, but I have been getting on with things slowly. I’m now just about at the point where I need to get the chassis powder coated. So, this is a bit of a catch up post. One thing that is worth mentioning is that I’ve decided to skip this year’s Birkett race so as to get properly prepared for next year’s race season. I’m also in the process of losing my responsibilities as RGB formula rep which should mean I can concentrate on just racing for a change; which will be nice…

As a bit of catching up on a previous post, Nick at AB Performance managed to get the recalcitrant bearing cup out of my diff, with the aid of a 30 tonne press! I’m just hoping that the diff itself is OK.

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Controls

reverse_pedalsI think I might have resolved the pedal box conundrum. On the Fury I’ve got a pedal box that came from OBP which works pretty well. I had spoken to them about their top-hung pedal box but given up because it was too tall. Adrian mentioned in passing that they did a bottom hinged one with the master cylinders pointing back to the driver. After looking at their website they do indeed do so, so I’ve ordered one! This is the photo pinched from their website here.

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Differential suspension

diffI’ve been pressing on with the Spectre, albeit not making real progress although perhaps laying the basis for real progress. As I said last time I’ve been measuring up where to put the engine. Oddly, the big issue here seems to be access to the spark plugs and coils; everything else doesn’t seem to be much of a problem.

I think I’ve come to the conclusion that getting the engine as far forward as possible is actually more important than being able to easily access the spark plugs. I used to drive a Subaru Impreza. These have a fantastic flat four engine, I never was able to work out how they got access to the plugs in that, it must have been through the wheel arches because you certainly couldn’t reach from inside the engine compartment! I think for the Spectre I might have to make some access panels so as to get access from inside the passenger compartment. Even then it’s going to be difficult though and it might be necessary to slacken the engine mounts to shift the engine slightly.

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A Spectre of progress

spectre_back_homeI’ve kept you all in the dark a bit about how the Spectre is going. Sorry about that, I just don’t seem to have found the time to update this site.

However, lots of things have been happening. And, starting at the end first, the most significant is probably that I went up to Jeremy’s place yesterday  to pick up the chassis and the bodywork. As you can see from the photo we managed to pile it all up on the trailer but, to be honest, we should really  have rented a van. Still, it worked OK.

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