Well, it’s not that long since the last update and I have made some progress. I’ve been a bit spurred on by going to the RGB race at the weekend and feeling that I was missing our rather a lot. The objective now has to be to get the car ready, in whatever expedient way is possible, just to be able to go racing. I can tart it up after that. Assuming I don’t biff it of course.
I’ve spent a lot of time recently working on the sidepods and how they support the bodywork. To be honest, I didn’t originally make the bodywork buck to include these parts and it’s taken so long to 
fabricate things that I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have just done it originally. The problem is, I’ve always thought there were lots of design variants in this are that needed experimenting with. Just making something in aluminium takes ages though.
Consequently, I’ve frequently ended up with a positive forest of Clekos holding things in place before they’re finally rivetted. I also seem to have for ever kneeling down which isn’t doing me much good.
Along the way, though. I seem to have come up with something that’s at least holding together for a while. I’ve decided to build some simple Coanda style ducts into the sidepods to hopefully shove air into the radiators. At some later point (possibly once I go testing and discover that the sidepods are 
working like parachutes, I’ll refine this a lot. I spent some considerable time working out where to put the two radiators. The problem is, this affects the weight distribution and I don’t know where that needs to be. In the short term, though, I’ve guessed.
The photo with the radiator in gives a bit of a notion of the improvements that are going to be possible. It’s all a bit slab-sided aft of the radiator, something better must be achievable.
That all means, though, that one side of the car now looks like the next photo, taken on a nice sunny day when I could at last open the garage door for working. Seems to be chucking it down again now though.
The other side of the car is almost in the same position as this one now, although there’s no photos as yet. (See comment about the weather above.) It does look rather different though because the oil radiator is a different size to the water one, and it didn’t seem to make sense to completely block off the sidepod for a smaller radiator. Hence, the duct is also smaller.
With the radiators in place I’ve also finished all the plumbing. I’ve even wired up, and tested to ensure it’s not the wrong way round, the cooling fan. (Yes, I know I don’t really need one but if I haven’t got one I spent all the time while waiting on the grid fretting about overheating.)
I got Andy to make me some exhaust headers and I spent a while fitting them the other day. They’re quite a pleasing arrangement although it’s hard to tell if anything’s going to leak. I’ll just have to try it to see that.
The big problem, though, is where I’m going to fit the silencer in. I had some trouble trying to see my way through this but after a chat to Andy at the weekend I may have worked it out now.
I haven’t had the time to effect it though, mainly because of doing the sidepods.
What I have done, though, is to make the seat back boards. This is just a structure of aluminium waiting for a foam seat to be made. I’ve also made a sort of centre panel, which is way oversize at the moment, mainly to act as something against which to make a foam seat. (That’s my excuse for it looking kind of wacky.)
I do now feel that I’m getting down towards the end game. Hence, I’ve made the inevitable jobs list. At the time of writing that stands at 40 jobs. That sounds a lot, and it is, but some of them are just things like “buy a new cordless drill”. Problem is, it’s also got things like “make a rear floor on it”…