Managed to get the car ready for Mondays track day. Over the last couple weeks fitted finished off all the niggly little bits and bobs. Number plates on lights fitted up, sanity checks on the water oil, suspension bolts etc. Arranged the new front cycle wings leaving the back real close to the road.

All of a sudden its Sunday morning, the suns shining and nervously I'm behind the wheel driving to the garage for some fuel ready for Mondays track day. Found the back of the cycle wings fouling slightlty on undulations in the garage. Get home to find them scraping the top of the drive so out with the cutoff saw and trimmed the bottoms back to 4" off the ground. They seem OK like that and it does help keep the debri from the wheels down as I found out on a cold wet track Monday.

Monday dawned for an early start down to Teeside Autodrome in the fog and peak traffic round the Boro.

the track was soaking with standing water and not wanting to bin it on my brand new shiny Yoko's I was takign it fairly easy. Had a couple of moments round the chicane (everyone did) as it was very slippy there. You could tell who had been off by the amount of mud they were carrying back into the pits. Some nice cars there, including a really old 60's Lotus 7 and a mad supercharged Busa Westfield.

Pictures of the day can be seen here: http://petrolhead.fotopic.net/c1605837_1.html

Got home in one piece with a small list of improvements.. stop the horn blowing on left handers, stop lights not working and an intermittent Acewell. The dash kept going to 0mph, rev counter erratic and sticking. Hopefully its just the plug into the loom loose as these things weren't there before the crash.

Some observations. Since the rebuild and suspension setup by MNR the car feels very stable combined with the new Yokohama Pradas. However the car did feel quite slow compared to the zetec engiend Westies, but as my engine temp was a chilly 58 degress due to having no thermostat in certainly didn't help.

So, next steps are the ST170 engine install, then better brakes, maybe some lighter uprights Toyota gearbox, soem proper dials for the dash and a heater... well I thought how good a heater would have been on Monday, if the engine temp had been up.

I've just picked a FWD Escort gearbox up off the bay that will be engineered to accept the W58 box to go behind the new power plant.

I have decided the trailer has to go as its in the way now, along with all the other junk I've accumulated. I need room to move the car around freely to facilitate the upcoming engine swap.