Ho ho, been to Newark this weekend, what a hoot! After a little rain during Friday night Saturday was cloudy and windy but today has been glorious. Got home safe, warm and dry!
Big thanks to all the Locostbuilder peeps I bumped into and it was a lot better than Stoneleigh (and free!) I was mightly impressed with R1pete's turbo motor on th rolling road, put the TVR to shame!
I tried to take a lot more pics this time so click HERE for my pictures.

I still have some thoughts about improving the MNR but atm its all about driving. I may leave some to the winter when its off the road.

In the meantime I'm starting a new kit car project, all be it more of a conversion. I've always fancied a Jago after lusting after WWII jeeps and now I'm on the road to getting one. It has to be 4x4 for me so I've got a Suzuki SJ413 off ebay that will be stripped down to the chassis and built up with a Jago body to replicated the Willy's.

This is the starting point.....

Ive started a new blog, HERE, just need to see how much work I get done on it the rest of this year.

I've been busy driving! Been down to Stoneleigh for the car show, camping 2 nights. Nice 450 mile round trip, wet coming back. No drama's to report, car behaved perfectly, was comfortable and despite the downpour and truck spray I managed to stay dry!

Wilwoods are starting to feel better than the OEM Sierra brakes but the pads squeal very loud at low speed. Need to see if that improves with bedding in.

Pics from the Stoneleigh show can be found HERE! I only really took pics of things that caught my eye and stood out like the beautiful SS100 rep. And the V8 engines... yum yum. There was just too much to look at on the 2 days.

Got some tips lining the bodywork up and some ideas to make a new column shroud. More car building to come!

So, bodywork to do, steering cowl to make, switches to move and 10" drums to install.

I will have tons of time on my hands soon...

Sorted the lights, they didn't have a wiring diagram and I wired them up wrong. Sorted that out and all is good again.

Wilwoods are on and the brakes feel a little better, not sure if I have all the air out as I didn't have the correct size spanner for the bleed nipples 1/4" AF, American calipers you see. I'll be having another bleed before I go away this weekend.

I'm now in the possession of some new drums as well, 10" jobs off an XR4i. They look simply massive! No time to get them fitted before Stoneleigh kit car show tho, they will have to wait.

Finally decided to make a new gearknob after loking at my aweful broken Ford one for nearly a year! Saw some nice ones in Burtons catalogue and decided to have a bash meself.

Anyway an hour on the lathe and I'm well pleased!

New brakes arrived yesterday from Rally Design while I was out picking up my new Dominator headlights in carbon fibre effect. The lights are much smaller, 4", and are more of a 'torpedo' style than the rounded bowls of the 5 3/4" jobs.
Fitted them today and they do look smart, however I seem to have created a fault in the wiring, the main beam indicator on the dash is lit up all the time now. Little bit of investigation has found it not to be the lights or new wiring so I'm a bit stumped.
Great day out at Specialist Cars last Sunday, hundreds of cars and people, more Porches than you could shake a stick at. Excellent turn out from the 7's as well and we had a nice steady blast over the moors afterwards. Apart from the heavy frost on the morning it was thoroughly enjoyable.I have put all my pictures from the day in a folder inside my picture galley, just click the link on the right to see them. click the 'my pictures' in the gallery then select 'Yorkshire Breakfast 2009'

Ford RS meet tomorrow, and then I'll be cracking on installing the Wilwood 4 pots and bigger discs...

Got the carbs pretty close and the motor revs past the 8K ceiling on my tacho, need to keep that in check!

Had a run over to Specialist Cars in Malton today for an open day in aid of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance. Met up with fellow 7ers on the way down. Hundreds of people and some very exotic motors lying around.

I took plenty of pics, just click here to go straight to it: Yorkshire Breakfast 2009

Set of Wilwoods next I reckon...

Got the Lambda and AFR gauge working now. Haven't really done anything yet apart from see how it idles. With the new exhaust I noticed it hunts and drops down when idling, the Innovate lambda's telling me its very weak at tick over. I'll be having a look at tuning the carbs this weekend, even if its just near enough to get back down to Blogg Brothers for a proper set up.
Still need to complete the new inlet manifold tho!

Any, here's some pics of the exhaust I got from AAS in Newcastle. Sounds great, ticking over quite quite but once the revs build and the VVT kicks in it howls... nice!!I've constructed a copper heat shield for the sensor out of 28mm copper pipe as advised inthe Innovate manual.

Some pics of the sump chop on my ST170. Rear section of the sump boxed in to create extra capacity. I left the original part of the rear section, you can see the profile where the weld is and drilled holes through it to create a baffle.

Needs to come off soon as its leaking, making a mess on the garage floor!

New exhaust on last Wednesday, had a run down to MNR Saturday. I've connected the VVT to the aux output on the Mj and set it to switch a relay at 4K. This allows high cruising speeds without the cam kicking in and buggering the mpg up.

SO, couple of nice empty straight roads and 4K in third gear... whoosh! off she goes and pulls like train!
Carbs are not set up properly yet as there is a fluffy moment between 2.5~4K where I think it is running a bit weak. I need to get the LC1 connected so I can see the AFR and have a go at tuning myself....

In the meantime I've been kicking on with the log burner, bit late for this winter but will get rid of tons of rubbish in the garden and its there for next year. I got an empty 19kg bottle a while ago and left the valve open for a week, turning it upside down after 3 days. With tons of old engine oil I drilled a hole in the top of the bottle next to the valve and filled it with water. I then cut the valve off and left it full of water in the garden for 3 months!

I got a length of 4 1/2" 3.5mm pipe the other day so I've been cracking on....

Doors marked out a partially cut. Thought original marking out was too high.

Doors fully cut out.

Hole cut in the top for steel chimney pipe. Next step, hinges and welding up.
Its tight in the garage when all the toys are in!

Been for a drive out today, nothing more than a mile eating session, sitting in traffic, testing the new coolant pipe setup. Couple of burst in first and second some speedy motorway driving. All went well with no incidents and I took some pictures.

Its going in for a new performance exhaust next week, bigger primery's and beefy silencer to extract as much power as possible out of the motor.