Ok folks, firstly an apology for not updating this thread for over 2 years, I will attempt to post more often in future. So what's been happening in that time? Well anybody who saw it at the Volksworld show would have realized it was far from finished, no plumbing, wiring, suspension geometry set etc. What wasn't so obvious was the car was pretty much mocked up, so following the show the car has been rebuilt correctly.
First up was getting the car plumbed and wired, enter good friend and all round awesome pensioner, Bernard Newbury. A couple of weekends at Bernies and we had the car sorted on those fronts. I will post some pictures when I can, but needless to say it has all been done to his usual perfect standards.
As I mentioned in a previous post the NOS Front Wilwood brake kit I bought wasn't playing ball and I just couldn't get it all to work together. I came to the conclusion that whatever this kit or kits was it wasn't going to fit without some fabrication work. So, out came the whole beam and it was delivered to Jim Smith at Cotsweld who made new caliper brackets and fitted new, billet Wilwood Dynalite calipers (very sexy
) Beam back in the car, next up was a trip over to Chris Isaacs for a few small jobs and the fitting of a JCL style steering set up and Cromoly steering column.
This brings us up to this year and the realisation that, with hardly any chance to get into the garage due to work and family commitments, I was facing yet another racing season without a finished car, so I bit the bullet and took the car over to Phil West to complete the 1001 jobs still to do and to set up the engine and suspension. While the car was at Phil's he also weighed it and it came in at 525 kg all up race ready weight, lighter than I ever thought it would be. I must say Phil has worked his magic and the car looks, and more importantly, feels like the race car I had always hoped for.
This now brings us up to September this year and a race ready car waiting to go. VW Action was chosen as the first meeting, but unfortunately things didn't quite turn out as hoped. A rained off Saturday meant I had a chance for a single run on the Sunday morning before I had to pack up and go home. Having not done any drag racing for nearly 30 years and with a completely new car, a gentle check out pass was the only option. No burn out, gentle launch then a little more gas, 1st to 2nd then couldn't find 3rd! run aborted, but crossing the finish in 4th under power.
I decided that I would do one more meeting this year, the National Finals test and tune day. Conditions were perfect and I decided on another gentle check out pass, this time I got all gears and ran a very sedate 15.5, but more importantly everything felt great and gave me the confidence to do a harder run. 2nd pass, no burn out and a reasonably gentle launch then more gas and aggressive gear changes. Waiting at the top end to be towed back, I thought "that felt better, I think that might have been a 14 or maybe even high 13" when Dave Nicholls turned up and told me it was a 12.84 @100 mph I was completely stoked! A 3rd and final run resulted in a 12.67.
So, 10 years after I started I have achieved what I set out to do, build a light, small cubic inch car capable of running sub 13 sec quarters.
The Cal-look Lounge
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