Jul 01-15

Sunday July 4th 2004

I haven't got much done on the car since last weekend as I have mainly been preparing my Blue Genesis for sale. Now that the Blue baby has been sold <sob> I can start to concentrate on the racer. Going into the garage today and finding the blue car missing was a bit of a shock but the extra space to work is very handy indeed.

On Tuesday night I had a long discussion With Matt and Tim from Cam7 about what's left to do now that the engine is running. Mainly it just seems to be

Complete the wiring loom, add the last few circuits, the power commander, bind it up and P clip it into place.

Complete the brakes, specifically get some brackets made for the front uprights, and P clip the pipework into place.

Tidy the interior and engine bay.... more p clipping

Ali panelling, over the fuel tank and front cockpit area.

Make seat, fit harnesses and extinguisher

Suspension setup and steering

Tidy bodywork some of the mounting points need re bonding to the covers etc etc.

Matt's response to most of these jobs was "That's 10 minutes work, cmon get it out on the track!". In fairness the car is beginning to feel finished and I really do need to get my finger out and get it finished if I am going to get on track this season.

So today I started finishing of the wiring loom.

The engine management loom is on the nearside of the car but has simply been draped in place to get the engine running. So this was the first to get positioned, passed through the bulkhead and have it's connectors fitted.

Needless to say it will be P clipped into place, and I'm even considering covering it in convoluted tube as there's a fair bit of water and debris that can be collected in the side pods. Certainly the Main ECU will get an ali cover to shield it.

I also fitted the Power Commander Auxillery ECU, and tapped into the 7 wires of the gear position switch to drive my Digital gear indicator. then I began to bind the loom up in loom tape. I got about half of this done before my hands started to go numb so I packed it in after that.

After my hands had calmed down a bit (carpel tunnel trouble I think) I brought the main dash into the kitchen, checked that I had all the necessary circuits and then bound it all into place. I think it looks rather neat.

Tomorrow I hope to finish the nearside of the car as far as the engine bay, refit the dash, and then make a start on the wiring on the offside which is much much simpler. Hopefully by the end of the week the car will be electrically complete.

Tuesday 6th July 2004

Tonight I spent two or three hours finishing off the engine management wiring loom. Not much to say really except that this involved lots of cable ties and convoluted tube trunking. I added the latter to try and prevent stone damage to the wiring, judging by the star cracks in the bodywork there are quit a few high energy stone chips flying around! However this side of the car is now complete, so tomorrow I can move to the Offside where the main power feeds, FIA switch, Speedo, Lap timer and rear light cabling is routed. All this side now needs is a ALi protective shield for the ECUs

Thursday July 8th 2004

Before going to the Cam7 P&F meeting in the pub tonight I turned the car around in the garage and removed the front uprights. You may remember that I need to get some additional brackets made up to mount the Hi-Spec callipers to the cast uprights. Well this picture perfectly illustrates the problem. The mounting holes in the calliper are offset by 17mm from the holes in the upright, although the whole are at the correct seperation from each other (130mm).

In this picture the calliper is correctly positioned on the disk, and it shows that the gap between the two mounting faces is only about 5mm. So I basically need a flat bracket 5mm thick with 4 holes drilled in it for the mounting bolts. However two of the holes have to be tapped M10 for the bolts that come through the calliper as there is no clearance for a nut.

I took the hubs to the P&F and dumped them on the table in the restaurant. After much debate we decided that making the brackets out of ali was a non starter, as they were so thin, and that even if they are made in steel then an 8mm bracket thickness is a much better option. However a quick calculation shows that brackets of this size in steel will weigh nearly 650g each and I will have about 2mm of pad overhand so I will need to periodically check the pads for wear ridges. Gulp. I think I'll revisit these callipers after my first season's racing and try for a lighter solution but for now I think this is the best I can hope for. So tomorrow I'll be sourcing some steel bar 1x3\4"x5\16th\155mm. Steel does seem to still be manufactured in imperial width and height sizes but ordered by metric length measurements <boogle>. Incidentally I was somewhat out done at the P&F for oily bits on the table. Chris met my bid of a pair of Genesis uprights and trumped me by dropping a Cosworth cylinder head on the table! This is a bit like Mornington Crescent ....Your game sir! Well played.

Saturday July 10th 2004

Today I made a real effort to complete the wiring. With the engine running, I was mainly left with running wires to the rear of the car for the lights, electric reverse, rain light, 'brakes on' sensor for the Digidash data logging and so forth. Along with finalising all the FIA switch wiring and fitting connectors into appropriate places into the loom. It doesn't sound much but seemed to take all day. Anyway by the end of the day I'd got it all completed bar a few crimp on terminals, but my hands hurt so I'll leave these until next week. However the offside of the car now looks like nice an neat with everything nicely clipped down, and encased in protective sleeves.

Sunday July 11th 2004

As I spent most of yesterday in the garage I tried to spend at least some of today with my family but I did get a small job done while watching the British Grand Prix.

I added the connection wiring and made the installation plate for my gear indicator. The display will sit above the steering wheel in the gap created by the regulation 74mm high aeroscreen. As can be seen in this picture the display is very bright, which is great for bright sunlight but would be a problem in the rain, so the toggle switch on the left will switch it to dim, so that I can uses it when there is lots of spray. The other toggle switch is an on off switch.

I also started on clearing the "build cr4p" out of the inside of the car, so that I could prepare for mounting the extinguisher and making a seat. With the wiring now 90% complete the last major system that is still untouched is the brakes....and I'll hopefully be making progress on these next week.

Tuesday 13th July 2004

I didn't get much time on the car today, the first dry day in about 14 meant that the lawn needed some attention before it reaches rainforest like proportions.

Anyway I did manage to finish off a few little odds and sods, and start on the extinguisher installation.

Firstly I finished the last of the connections for the dash installation, on the drivers side of the car, I'm waiting on a 15way connector from VWP before I can finish the nearside wiring.

I also fitted the connector for my Optimate battery charger to simply allow me to plug in and charge the battery without any need for cumbersome croc clips.

You can also see in this picture the mounting plate that I made for the electrical extinguisher button.

Then I removed the existing pedal setup, This is one of the few parts of the car that I haven't already cleaned and painted, mainly because removing it required the draining and removal of the reservoirs which are fitted on the opposite side of the bulkhead. It transpired that these are pushed up very tight against the bulkhead. So tight in fact that it's extremely difficult to get the reservoir tops off, which must make bleeding the brakes a bit of a faff. When I refit them I'll be fitting the reservoirs remotely and connecting them to the MCs using a suitable brake tube from Think Automotive.

I'll clean up the pedals tomorrow and check the operation of the balance bar. If necessary I have a complete balance bar assembly from a previous project.

Then I started work on laying out the extinguisher cables ... but by then it was 9pm and time to read my daughter her bedtime story.

So here's the last photo of the car sitting on the floor with the front uprights removed, for some reason I think it's slightly comical.