Update April 28th 2021

 

Hood all complete

The hood fit completed. A bit of care and attention on trimming the excess material and vinyl edge has paid dividends. Car look better without the hood, but living in the UK, its essential!! I have ordered a cover for the hood, which will make it look a lot tidier when folded down.

Front Bonnet Handle

I have fitted the front bonnet handle, it required drilling out the hood which meant I had to peel back some of the leather trim that had been fitted under the bonnet. Should have thought about that earlier!. Just need to fit badge once it arrives.

Badges

I had the front and rear "Porsche" badges powder coated in the purple highlight colour that has been used on the rest of the car and have been fitted to the front and rear. I also had a new badge 3D printed for use under the hood. (see next section)

Under bonnet cover

I made some templates for a set of covers to go under the front bonnet.  I ended up with a main cover plus templates for trimming up the sides. Final cover and side trims have been made from scrim foam covered with a vinyl. Speedster logo on the electrics cover was 3D printed and then painted.

Steering wheel

The old VW steering wheel needed for IVA test has been removed and replaced with a nice item I sourced in the US a few years ago. I have the rim trimmed with the same leather as used in the seats.

Luggage Rack

Fitted the luggage rack that I got off eBay, two brackets bolted inside the lid. I have also fitted 4 self tappers through the grill cover to hold it in place.

Carburettor update

Long running saga of the leaking carburettor. Its annoying that it leaks under no pressure. I have even had it leaking on my bench being gravity fed from a bottle. 

My current theory is that because the carbs sit at a 2-3 degree angle, sloping towards the front of the car, the standard float setting whilst providing the correct level of fuel to be in the reservoir when the carbs are level, on this car with the 2-3 degree slope the fuel may be too high at one end and may well be the source of the problem. I'm off to to have another adjustment on the bench and try out my theory.

UPDATE - nothing to do with the mount angle, so it went back to the supplier, they have replicated the leak, but like me don't understand where its coming from!!!!

DVLA Registration

I'm still waiting for the necessary registration documents to come back from the DVLA. 

Next time

Full picture set of finished car and hopefully rolling road tuning results

IVA Results March 2021

5th March 2021

Nice to be able to drive the car (even if it was freezing this morning) more than just on and off the drive. a 55 mile roundtrip to the test centre and other than running rich all good.

The IVA staff were very helpful and I only had one failure due to brake balance. Rear brakes locking up too quickly. Everything else was ok. To rectify I'm going to fit a proportioning valve allowing me to adjust the break fluid pressure to the rear brake circuit. It will mean taking out the fuel tank but no biggy.

Brake Bias Valve 

Overall I'm pretty pleased.

Got the tank out and fitted the proportioning valve into the rear brake circuit up near the master cylinder. Scariest thing was carefully re-bending the existing pipework to a new route to allow for the valve. 

 

16th March 2021

Retested at the DVLA centre today, good new is it passed!!! The proportioning valve did the trick

. 

Update Sept 3rd 2020

Rear parcel shelf

On a normal Chesil, the rear "seat" is a simple trimmed cushion. As I have mounted the oil cooler into the base of the rear shelf I needed to create a raised base to protect the cooling fan and also hide the audio amplifier. I drew up a quick sketch, then made a couple of rough prototypes then with the help of my local furniture builder they made the final cover. 

Sketch

Formed cover made from layers of bendable ply

Waxoyl

Thought I would inject some Waxoyl into the floor pan before the trim is started. Although this was done by Chesil as part of the floor pan shortening, looking at it I wasn't convinced. I have sprayed into the rear warm air inputs; interior heating ducts and anywhere else I could get the probe into!

Oil lines, refit tinware and engine bay seal

The external oil cooling circuit has proved to be a bit of a pain. Once I fitted the exhaust then I found the pipes were going be too close to the exhaust. I have had the pipes remade with different angle joints. I have also added a bracket to support the pipes and heat proof protection.

I have refitted the exhaust back box which I had to remove to sort out the oil hoses, 

Exterior trim

Fitted the lower side trim, had to send back one of the pieces as the quality wasn't good so waiting for a replacement. 

Fitted trim to front bumper, who knew how nice the car looks with no bumper fitted!!

Fuse and electric cover

I have made a cover for the electrics in the front of the car. It may or may not survive the final trim, but I think it looks ok. Made it out of shaped hardboard and covered it with a dark purple vinyl

Geometry

Lots of work here. Firstly setting up the ride height using the adjustable front beam and rear plates. A bit of a faff. Front end suspension setup for camber and steering geometry etc

Petrol tank

The petrol tank has now been fitted and connected.

Car rolled outside

Car out in the fresh air!

Next Jobs

• Test the engine for leaks then refit remaining engine tinware and engine bay seal
• I might adjust the rear suspension to give a little more ride height
• Final fix on sway bars front and rear
• A few small jobs
• Interior trim finalisation

Update July 27th 2020

Its been a busy July!! Lots done and the car is nearly ready for the trimmers. As you would expect not everything came together as expected and there has been a few reworking parts that were fitted earlier. 

Pinstriping detail

I have some pinstriping added to the engine tinware and around the from bonnet (hood) latch area.

I have fitted the filler pipe, always nasty drilling more holes in the body!. Didn't quite line up initially, but quickly sorted it. I'm not going to do a final fit on fuel tank until I have finished setting up the ride height and steering geometry, the access is so much better without the tank in place 

Not quite aligned!

Seat belt fix points

Photo from Westfield Cars
showing the required bracket

Photo from Westfield Cars
showing the drilled out panel

The IVA test requires a specific minimum height for the part of the seat belt mounted over your shoulder.  

Having looked at what Chesil have done in the past, and with some measurements and photographs from Westfield cars (thank you Patrick), I drilled out the mount points and will need to fabricate the bracket. 

Rear parcel shelf

On a normal Chesil, the rear "seat" is a simple trimmed cushion. In my car as I have mounted the oil cooler into the base I need to create a raised base that will protect the cooling fan and also hide the audio amplifier. I drew up a quick sketch then have set about making some templates, with the help of my local furniture builder we are crafting up a suitable frame and cover. Pictures next month will make this a lot clearer.

Mock up drawing

Current state

Fit Exhausts

I did a trial fit of the exhaust and figured out what tinware needed to be modified. I did the mods which also meant crafting a couple of new brackets then had some of the tinware re powder coated.

Fitted the exhaust, getting hold of the 42mm gaskets wasn't easy, or cheap.

I am having to modify the oil hoses in order to route around the exhaust, during the refit I'm going to be protecting them with a heat protection sleeve.

Insulation.

I completed the interior insulation with a layer of sound deadening then another layer of the foam sound proofing material

Starting to fit the sound deadening

Both layers in place

I have fitted the soundproofing carpet underlay

Doors

Final fit on glass, with never ending adjustment on the winding mechanisms! Also fitted the rubber outer glass seal and inner felt seal.

Prepare seat mounts

I worked out the position of the fixing points for the seats (donored from the an MX5 courtesy of my local scrapyard) that I will be using to get the car through the IVA test. It's definitely a case of measure three times, drill once. All four mount points are now done and painted to avoid any corrosion.The custom seats need some work to figure out the best way to mount in the car hopefully ending up at the correct height.

Time spent on build

I have been keeping a log of the build time, bear in mind this is my first build so a lot of head scratching going on, but thought I would share my time log todate. This does not include research time!!!!

Next Jobs

• Fitting exterior trim (some of it)
• Refitting the remade oil pipes and heat shield
• Refitting remaining engine tinware
• Fitting engine bay seal

References

Drawing for IVA seat belt mount, I take no responsibility!!!! 

IVA seat belt mount

Update Jan 21st 2020

Happy New Year!! I'm now back on the car after a nice long break over Christmas. There are a lot of smaller jobs to finish off before I get stuck into the electricals.

Body Fix (did this work in Dec 2019)

The body is fixed by a number of bolts down both sides of the car, as well as a number on the subframe. The side fixing points need to be drilled out from under the car and it was quite an awkward job, a four point lift would have made the job much easier.

Side mounts

Rear subframe

Rear cross frame

Oil Cooler & Oil filter

The pipework connecting  the oil cooler and oil filter to the engine was mocked up using cheap flexible pipe, using these as a template I had the final oil pipes manufactured from really nice and much more expensive material.




Once the tinware on the engine was in place, and it didn't originally fit, taking a few hours of filing and adjustment to get it all on, I did a dummy fit on the tray that sits below the engine. I needed to get this in place before I did a final fix in position of the oil cooler pipes and as expected it didn't fit and needed some "adjustment".

Final piece of tinware fitted and lower engine tray clamped in place prior to adjustment

Once "adjusted I did the final fit of the tray using a seal from a T25 Van rather than the seal supplied which being much smaller and more rigid didn't give the final seal that I wanted. All fits well,  but I have removed it to give me better access to the engine bay for fitting the fuel pipes and wiring.

Van seal on the left original seal on the right

The oil pipes and filter assemblies were fitted to the subframe by drilling out and fixing using Rivnut fitting,

Oil filter mounted onto rear subframe

Final Fix of the coil pack

I had to adjust the original bracket to lift the coil back away from the engine tray. Once modified I painted it black to match the coil pack.

Before adjustment

After adjustment

Wiring Loom

I have started to pull the wiring loom through the car.I going to have to add additional working on for a number of items, this list may grow, but for now its as below:

• Heated seats
• Music
• Immobiliser
• USB chargers
• Electric heater