There’s a new season arriving

Velocity stacks-003So, here I am again with a few things to write about. The new season is approaching fast and, what’s more, it’s not quite so bloody cold in the garage and as such it’s rather easier to spend time in there.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it but I stopped working full time at Christmas and that’s supposed to make it a lot easier to do car things. Doesn’t seem to have quite worked out that way yet though…Jaunty inletI’ve pretty much finished the airbox inlet stuff now. As you can see from the photo above, I’ve even re-installed the velocity stacks. I must admit, that I now remembered that the intention was to spray the duct black. However, I seem to have forgotten to do that and I doubt I can be bothered to take the airbox off again. One problem, to be honest which you can see in the next photo, is that I managed to get the airbox and the inlet not attached to each other quite right with the consequence that the inlet is positioned at rather too jaunty an angle. However, there really isn’t time to fix that.

Header 1You may remember from the write-up of the Birkett that I had a problem there when the number 1 exhaust header fell to bits. I bodged it together at Silverstone but now there was a chance to sort it properly. You can see the horrible mess I made in the photo just here. However, you can probably also see that, for some reason I don’t understand, Andy has made the #1 header to be rather shorter than the #2 one. I’ve been looking into this and I think I’ll try and re-make this particular header. I’ve still got all the bits for the exhaust system I made for the J15 and, as such, I can probably do it without too much difficulty. That can wait, though, as it doesn’t affect things really.

Lambda bungWhat I will do, though, is to wrap the exhaust. I had a lot of issues with it just getting too hot in front of the engine last year so it’s probably a good idea to try and make the heat go elsewhere. To help, I’ve bought some exhaust wrap of a different variety than I’ve used before. I’m hoping that it won’t be so nasty to use… While I was looking at the exhaust I took the chance to weld a lambda bung into it, as in the photo, which should mean that a rolling road session is a good idea.

Front ARB loweringOne of things I’ve really wanted to do over the winter is to get rid of the horrible proboscis in the front bodywork, necessary to cover up the front anti roll bar. As part of that, I’ve managed to drop down the ARB so that the actuating links go under the front of the chassis, as in the photo. You can probably also see that to make this work I had to buy some high misalign angle rod ends and, of course, remake the drop links. I think it’s sort of OK now, although time will tell on the rates. You can also see in this photo that, as requested by the scrutes for reasons that escape me, I’ve panelled under the dampers. (Their argument is to stop me being injured. I reckon that if a damper breaks then a little aluminium panel is going to be no good at all…)

Painted sidesOf course, the really big thing is to make the car look a bit better. As such, I’ve broken out the spray gun. I spent ages wondering what colour to make the car but I eventually decided that I’d stick to the norm and use red. (Especially as I still had some of the paint I’d used last time.)

Here’s the two side panels, which you might noticed have been allowed to rest in the spare room. The next photo is of the entire front clip. As part of doing this, of course, I’ve put some time into grinding off (or, I guess, DAing off) the split lines which makes the panels look much nicer.

Red frontI reckon that means I’ve now done 3/7 of the panels. Time to go back in the garage…

Apart from one thing. Originally, my cars always used to be red and yellow. I’m still wondering about whether to put some yellow on this. (And, I do have 7 litres of the paint in question.) Any suggestions as to what bit I should yellowify?

 

 

2 thoughts on “There’s a new season arriving”

  1. I think left side red, right side yellow. Just to make it interesting for other competitors.

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