Another few days of work have produced some large steps towards completion of the car prior to testing on the 12th March at Snetterton.  The car is now fitted with the correct gears, the brakes and clutch are bled and checked, the steering rack has been checked over and refilled and, with the wheels and tyres fitted, we were able to drop the car onto the floor for the first time in a few months.  Racing cars look  a lot better sitting on the floor than 3 feet in the air on the rebuild trolley…

Despite the cold weather, and the layer of snow and ice on the roads, we’ve been getting on with the winter rebuild. The engine is essentially finished, and we have decided on our fuel system – we’ll be using throttle bodies and fuel injection as allowed in the 2010 regulations. A certain amount of work was carried out to determine which – carbs or injection – was best for us, and we have decided to go with injection.  Peak power barely changes, and indeed at certain RPMs we’ll have less power than on the carbs, but the fuel control injection allows will make up for this in driveability and response. Flow testing both systems, as well as a comprehensive dyno testing session helped optimise the inlet tract lengths (although variable length trumpets would help even further), and we’ve had the system fully mapped for our engine.

The chassis is coming back together now as well. A few carbon components had to have some rectification work done on them, which required the floor, plank and tub to be separated, and that has now been completed and refitted.