Ultimate Frp? - No.70 FRP goes racing
#22
Posted 20 March 2012 - 09:24 PM
I thought there were no more new track rod ends, that was a good find
#24
Posted 21 March 2012 - 06:58 AM
#25
Posted 21 March 2012 - 12:21 PM
Car looks superb.
Is the write up on another forum?
#26
Posted 21 March 2012 - 02:20 PM
Its now clear from the photo's but have you got 120 cm2 plates on the 6 main feet of the cage ? Also did you manage to get 360 degree welds around the joints at the top of the main hoop ?
Keep the updates coming!
Stop being spoon fed and GOOGLE it!
#27
Posted 22 March 2012 - 10:44 AM
Thanks Lisa, I can't wait until the car is finished. I'd love to take it to Tintops, I think this year I might enter some sprints just to get a feel for it, and hopefully do the invitation race at the end of the season (once I've saved some more money for race gear!) the plates are all to msa regs and we did get 360 degree welds on all the joints. We cut two holes thorough the floor pan and lowered he main hoop through those so we could weld round the top. Was tricky but it worked!
My new gearbox should arrive this weekend, I can't wait to get it all built up and running!
I will definitely paint the cage, as you say to stop it corroding and to tidy it up a Little. I think I'm going for a matte grey interior with a gloss white cage. Should look pretty good, and clean.
Will update with more pictures after the weekend
Cheers guys.
#29
Posted 01 April 2012 - 07:44 PM
Hi All. well its been a good weekend once again. Got quite a lot done and things are really moving on nicely now.
Firstly the engine. This is now fully built up and ready. We've checked the cylinder pressures and port vacuums and they are all absolutely spot on. We did have an issue with one of the ports having not seated properly in the head (which showed up with a lesser vacuum value then the others) so the head was taken apart again, the valve re-lapped and the whole thing rebuilt until it was perfect.
Also my new gearbox arrived, which is a new FRP box from Pumabuild, which also has a new Quaife LSD fitted to it
And so, on friday we started to put the whole engine together and after a couple of hours it looked like this:
So the rest of the weekend was spent putting the engine back in to the car. And after lots and lots of effort by my good old dad it now looks like this:
Whilst dad was hard at work I was in the car cleaning up the welds and prepping for paint.
The really good news is that my Roll Cage installation has been given the official certification by custom cages so I've got the go ahead to paint it.
Here is this weekends progress on the interior. After a good clean up and de-burring the welds:
Then after lots of masking:
And then as time was running out i had one can of primer, so thought id do the rear of the car, which now looks like this:
So there we go, the engine is back in, its almost all connected and next week it will be fired up (fingers crossed!) and the interior is clean, masked up, and painting has begun. Next weekend i hope to have the whole interior painted. (Matte black cage, satin grey interior)
Its really coming together now! These are the good days, when the effort you put in starts to make a big difference!
Cheers
Ross
#30
Posted 01 April 2012 - 08:25 PM
Looking forward to the next update
#31
Posted 09 April 2012 - 07:24 PM
Well its been a brilliant bank holiday weekend, with me and my dad spending most of it in the workshop. And we've achieved loads more then i thought we could.
At the start of the weekend the car had its engine in but not fully plumbed in and not running, and the interior masked up and half painted with primer. Its amazing to see it now.
First job, primer the interior which went from this:
to this
here its all primer'ed and I've masked up the cage ready to paint the interior silver. At this stage I've already painted the cage matte black which looks really cool. here is the cage painted in matte black, before the interior was painted
once the cage was painted i masked it up
and began painting the interior metallic silver. at the end of yesterday it looked like this:
I'm really chuffed. its the first time I've done anything like this before and its come out really well.
next job was to put a seat in to see how its would fit, heres a sneak peak:
plus i trial fitted my new 6 point Luke harnesses which look amazing. no pics of these yet though.
So the interior is really getting there now. Onto the mechanics.
The engine is now in the car and is RUNNING it sounds sweeeeet, idles really well and is great.
We also got both driveshafts built up, both have brand new CV joints, and the right hand side blue shaft is also brand new.
Also, we fitted new wheel bearings in the front hubs, and fitted new powerflex bushes in the front LCAs
also, heres a pic of my shiny new gearbox (complete with new Quaife LSD) fitted to the engine, with a new 4 branch manifold
So all in all a pretty good weekends work, in summary since thursday night me and my dad have:
- painted the whole interior in primer
- painted the roll cage matte black
- painted the interior metallic silver
- wired/plumbed in the engine and got it running with no issues
- fitted new wheel bearings in front hubs
- changed CV joints in LHS drive shaft and build up a brand new RHS drive shaft complete with a new CV joint
- rebuilt the front end drive line
- measured up and installed the front drivers seat
- refitted the bonnet
I'm pretty pleased with that! still lots to do, and only one month today until the track day at snetterton, so its still a tight schedule but with progress like this I'm certain we can do it!
more updates next week.
cheers
Ross
#32
Posted 09 April 2012 - 07:36 PM
#34
Posted 15 April 2012 - 08:56 PM
Evening all.
Well yet another weekend in the workshop with my good old dad sees some more decent progress. Focus has been on the drivetrain and the seats. We've got the whole front end built up now and finished, and the driver seat in mounted (on custom built mounts) and the drivers harness is mounted in the car as well. so pretty good really.
On the front end, it was time to build up the brakes, so the callipers have been refurbished and cleaned and it was time to dig out some special parts id been saving. Time to get these out of the drawer!
and these
and get everything built up
Regarding the suspension, i was lucky enough to have 2 sets of FRP dampers. both had been used, with one set covering 70k miles, and the other 95k miles. So i needed to decide which set to install on the car. Now I'm lucky enough to have a job which involves suspension tuning, and have access to a machine which can rate dampers and show there performance. so i took my four front dampers to work (at Lotus) and rated them.
For those who are interested, this is the performance curve on a FRP front damper. (4 curves, one for each damper rated)
so, i chose damper number 1 and number 4 as they were the most closely matched. and these are now on the car.
Regarding the interior, my dad designed and made some custom mounts for the seats, and these are now installed. The seat is very low in the car now, much lower than the standard seat. its practically bolted to the floor (though some 1 inch box section), so its a really awesome driving position. We are also in the process of lowering the steering column as well (bracket designed) and this will make it just perfect.
here are some pics of the seat, and the harness.
Also, i splashed my final budget on some sticky tyres. I decided to go for Yokohama Advan AD08 in the correct size. I'm sure they will be great, one things for sure they look awesome!
So thats about it for now.
Next weekend the other seat will go in, and the rear beam will be out back together (once the new wheel bearings are in the hubs)
Only 3 weeks until the MOT, and 4 weeks until the track day, so not long to go. I can not wait to drive this thing!
thanks for reading.
Ross
#35
Posted 16 April 2012 - 04:14 AM
How much did the tyres cost you, if you dont mind me asking?
Lee
Currently.
BMW M3. www.tremonagarage.com
#36
Posted 16 April 2012 - 08:42 AM
Denso Iridium Plugs
Helix Clutch
Mobil 1
#37
Posted 16 April 2012 - 10:11 AM
#38
Posted 16 April 2012 - 12:16 PM
FRP 241 RINGMEISTER -23 LAPS = 296.7 MILES COMPLETED, MORE TO COME NEXT YEAR
#39
Posted 16 April 2012 - 08:05 PM
I got the tyres through my work, so had quite a decent discount. I did shop about first though before going direct to yokohama. On the Internet you can get them for around £145 each. They are not cheap, but we use them as standard fit on Elise's so they must be good!
I'll let you all know how they feel after my snetterton trackday on may 9th!
#40
Posted 24 April 2012 - 08:27 PM
Hello All. Its been a couple of weeks since my last update so i thought id share my progress.
Quite a lot has been done since last time. Now all the rear end is built up and the car is back on its wheels. The rear beam has had Powerflex bushes fitted, new rear brake discs and pads fitted, new wheel bearings, and all rebuilt.
So the car was looking like this:
On the inside the passenger seat has now been properly fitted along with the other harness, and I've painted the door skins silver to match the rest of the interior, its looking sharp.
So it was finally time to give the old girl a wash. After being sat in pour workshop for 6 months, and in the workshop we brought it from for a further 10 months it was pretty dusty! To make matters worse it didn't look like its had been polished much in the past either so the paint was knackered.
It started off looking like this:
and after a lot of washing, polishing, clay-bar, machine polishing, and waxing, it now looks like this!
I'm really pleased with it, but to be honest it needs a lot more TLC before the paint is anywhere near perfect. I really need to repeat the whole process a couple more times as there are still lots of swirl marks and scratches that will eventually polish out, but for now its a start.
Big news is MOT DAY ON SATURDAY! Thats going to be nerve racking, not sure if it will pass yet or not, but still have a couple of weeks until the track day so thats cool.
I also got my insurance sorted out today. I went with Adrian Flux in the end, got a good deal (in my eyes). Declared the full list of mods (cage, harnesses, exhaust, seats, etc etc) They recognise it as a proper FRP, 3000 miles a year, full breakdown cover including recovery from anywhere in Europe, all in for £500. Not bad considering its a modified and rare car.
Anyway thats it for now, i'll post more when i have an MOT and the car is out in the real world! (Cant wait!)
cheers for reading.
Ross