Headway

So the day after I picked up the car I placed an order for a maxi specific oil catch tank. Only to find the firm closed for the summer holidays. The Frenchies are back in work now having had all of August off on holiday so they’ve been in touch to confirm things.

They’ve agreed to make it up with -AN fitting connectors rather than push fit hose connectors so I called up Earls today to order the necessary and once they arrive I’ll get them shipped out to France. Of course because things are never simple they didn’t have what I needed in stock and the back ordered items aren’t in the next scheduled delivery.

The same firm are going to make me up one of the radiator air flow funnels that ensures that all of the air through the lower intake of the radiator is channeled through the rad and doesn’t escape into the rest of the engine bay.

During the week I took the dash out so I could get to the Accusump to remove it and to look at the electrical wiring. Getting the dash out proved rather tricky as talking to Bic he and Russ fitted the dash before the windscreen went in. As I wasn’t taking the screen out it was a bugger of a job. Fortunately carbon fibre is very strong and flexible when it is this thin so it came out without only minor stress being caused and a bit effing and jeffing due to getting carbon fibre splinters.

The carbon dash was riveted to a very minimalist chopped down original dash. It’s even more minimalist now, as I modified it so that the dash can be removed past the dash bar without having to be taken into the two parts each time. Nonetheless I replaced the rivets with some alloy dome head bolts and rivnuts so it can be taken apart if needed. I also chopped a bit more weight out of it. This is all that is left of a standard dash.

Coupled with the carbon moulding of the dash itself the whole thing weighs 2.38kg. I chopped the hell out of a standard dash to leave it looking standard externally and could only get it down to 4.1kg.

I’ve been working out what bolts I need to fit the engine mount. Having taken all the necessary measurements, tonight I did a mockup…

Took the TU5J4 engine mount off and fitted some Ti bolts to the block. Might benefit from a new set of TU5JP4 cambelt covers at some point as these have been cut to allow the J4 engine mount to fit.