News November 2002

30th November 2002

The seats have arrived from Demon Tweeks and they managed to send the right ones this time.  Im very happy with them and the 6.2kgs for the Evo and 6.3kgs for the Evo 2 is a considerable amount of weight that has been saved over our old Huntmaster seats, which have a steel frame in them.  We have had to settle for the steel mounting brackets as funds wont stretch to the alloy ones at the moment, but they can easily be replaced in the future by the lighter alloy ones.

The welding will start early next week and a trial fit of the roll cage will take place to make sure the strengthening plates are being put in the correct place. The roll cage wont actually be permanently fitted until after the car has been painted.

We have a plan to compete in the Old Oak Stages on the 9th March 2003, that's approximately 12 weeks to build and test the car in.  Keep your fingers crossed that we can make it in time. 

20th November 2002

Well im back from Munich.

Things are beginning to move ahead with the build of the new car.  A friend is making us a very serious set of brakes that should stop the car very efficiently, it will mean that we have to use 14inch wheels so we will lose a bit of acceleration but not too much.  The improvement in stopping power will far outweigh the loss in acceleration.  A new set of calipers will be fitted at the rear so we can use a handbrake cable, this is necessary to keep within the law as she shouldn't pass an MOT without it.  Its funny that the last car passed with no problems, but we don't want to take any chances.

My dad managed to get the deal of the century yesterday and got a substantial discount on a set of new seats from Demon Tweeks, the guy offered us a very good price and then had to give us a further 10% discount as we are still members of the pole position club.  To say they are not happy would be an understatement and they even tried to send us a cheaper seat to cover their mistake.  Im glad to say that it was noticed before the delivery and Demon Tweeks received a good telling off.

The two seats are 1 x Sparco Evo and 1 x Evo 2  and with the Seat Mounting brackets they came to £430 inc VAT and delivery.

Welding will start very soon so check back for our progress.

8th November 2002

The wheel arches finally arrived today, with no instructions as how to fit them!  Once they are fitted they are going to look awesome! 

The bits I ordered from Peter Lloyd rallying also arrived today, so we have a nice 2ltr AFFF hand held extinguisher and a dash mounted bias pedal adjuster.  The pedal adjuster will allow adjustment of the front and rear braking pressure whilst on stage.

Im off to an exhibition in Munich called Electronica for the next week, its the biggest electronics show in Europe and my company is exhibiting there. 

4th November 2002

I went to Snetterton for a Stage rally on Sunday.  It was an excellent days rallying for a friend of mine who was co-driving in a 2litre Mk2 escort.  I managed to take plenty of pictures over the day.

The only problem I had was some rather dodgy directions to another exit from Snetterton to miss the Sunday Market traffic.  This meant I had to drive down a very bad road/track which resulted in the lower x/member and sump on my XR4i meeting some solid concrete.  The result in this has destroyed the x/member and has cracked the sump. (to say I am not happy would be an understatement).  After a 2 hour wait the recovery truck turned up and towed us the 120 mile journey home.

It looks like the car can be repaired so I will take a trip to the local scrap yard and get all the bits i need to re build her.  Its a shame because I have been relegated to driving my fiancé's 998cc Metro for the time being.