CSMA Autosolo and other mumblings!

A busy Triumph time at present.

Last weekend was the first event in the Club Triumph Autosolo Mini Series, I entered using the GT6 and shared the car with James Carruthers.

I started well even with the timing being well out-something I could not work out as she ran perfectly well to Bovingdon from Chertsey? I had to advance the ignition by some 8 degrees, very strange. After the first Test I was leading the Class B Historics and all the Club Triumph cars. After that it all seemed to go awry and as I sort of expected, Mike Helm started to claw back the times and eventually acheived the best Triumph times. Paul Hughes showing some demon oversteer beat me to win Class B Historics.

All the Triumph drivers did very well, James Cooper, Joe Welling, Andy Martin and James Carruthers all showing that they are fast drivers and will be competitive this year in the series. I have decided that I must use the Spitfire, so will now attempt to get that ready for the forthcoming Oxford MC Bocardo Autosolo at Silverstone. At present only 5 Triumph cars are entered for that event, I hope we get a few more?

Anyway, well done to Mike Helm for beating us all, he's some driver!

Otherwise I have to change the Clutch on the GT6 for the June 'International Auto Ecosse' , I have ordered the parts from Canleys and hope that they will arrive tail end of next week. The car did disgrace itself at Bovingdon when the starter solenoid packed up, so I had to fit another one this week. I have stated this before, but I really enjoy driving the GT6, its such a good old thing, and after 27 years, driving her is second nature.

I have now taken the head off the 2.5, I need to measure the depth from the block surface to the top of each piston at TDC, these figures will be given to Roy Burrell who is preparing the 2.5S head I bought years ago from Andy Pearce. On stripping this head I found that it has Chris Witor 'penny on a stick' stainless steel valves, bronze guides and A series oil seals. Roy is going to do a minor bit of combustion chamber work and reduce the height of the head so I can run a 9.75:1 compression ratio. He will also fit hardened exhaust valve seats to prevent valve recession. The head I have taken off is showing up to 1.5mm on some valves, still not quite up to the 2.5mm that Craig Gingell's head has shown!!!

Then its back to some 10CR work for the car. I took James Cooper and Richard Brake up to The Plough the other night and they were laughing at the state of the door furniture all held in place with split pins and the like. Also the front passenger dear locking mechanism has failed, this results in the driver assuming Chauffeur duties and rushing around to open the door for the passenger!!! 10CR co-driver dave Kent has told me that he will pop over and help put the doors back together with me, he recklons I am a lazy sod, not wrong there Dave!!!

Also I have started to price up the cost of fitting the Lucas pi gear back on the car. I have decided that I do not want to use a Lucas pump, so will go the way of many a PI owner and fit a Bosch pump and gubbins!

By the way I love the photo at the top of this posting, James Carruthers took the photo, I like the way it is out of focus at the front and clear at the back.

HCR and all that!

Well that was interesting, had a fun night's driving with Doug and Katie. The old car went well, apart from running abit rich-well in fact very rich! Jeez, fuel is expensive eh!

The event seemed quite weird. It started at about 06.30 when I missed two calls from Doug and Katie that would have told me that Doug had blown his Passatt up near Manchester. Doug was driving down from JOG where he had dropped a nephew off who was undertaking a bike ride to Paris in aid of a charity that supports Hodgkinson's disease. So it was arranged that Katie and I would meet up with Andy Martin and Michael Stern at Andy's house and then we would go to pick Doug up at a motorway service area. This ended up being Hopwood services on the M42. Anyrate we made the start venue at the Old Stone Trough, poor Doug looked shattered after his antics-still these Foremans are hardy creatures!

Once up in Lancashire, Katie drove the car for the first time for a mile or two to get used to the car, as the first part of the HCR was a Test, and Katie was driving we thought she had better drive the old car. Considering that her only experience of a saloon was driving Fred Slezak's mk1, to come 4th in this Test was top stuff-well done Katie. The event then consisted of driving around the UK attempting to get to all the Counties and venues indicated upon the listing that Dale Barker had given us. We were shocked to see that from Barnoldswick we had to visit various reservoirs that serve Manchester and Lancashire, then go to Nottingham and Lincolnshire and end up in Shropshire at Telford-blimey!! Once we had visited the Reservoirs, time was short so we decided to skip Notts and Lincs and get to Telford, which the car did with ease, in fact we were the first car at Telford! the car was not pulling full revs, so I had taken off the restrictive aftermarket air filter, this released some air and gave us more power. Bloomin' nice to see Dave Kent up at Telford, he's good lad is Dave really keen on CT events. Also withn him was his faithful dog called Brandy, she looks abit older than when they took part in the HCR last, but is still going strongely.

Doug and Katie had alternated the sleep up to this point, however Doug was still knackered so it was decided that Katie would drive and I would nav. This next section was great fun, trailing down to A483, A470, A479 and A40 towards South Wales, we had to visit various Castles on the way, all accomplished with ease. Katie was throwing the old car around with verve and seemed to be having a laugh! Before leaving Wales we used a great RBRR road, the A466 from Monmouth to Chepstow, for my mind one of the great UK roads if driven in the middle of the night. So far it had all been a bit weird, Katie when not driving, she had been 'flat out' on her iphone and had bathed the car interior with blue light from the device, and Doug kept waking up and appearing like some spectral vision in the back (Doug as many know is a big unit and takes up alot of the rear seat space),I started to think the 2.5 was haunted! Also for most of the night we had been experiencing a methane problem, reckon Doug had been at the scotch pies when in Scotland. One of the issues with the car is that I had put new door window seals into her, this caused the front windows to fall out of their guiding mechanism, making it tough to push the windows up or down, gotta say I wish I had sorted this problem out. Sound affects were added using the squeaky passengerr seat belt reels, yep, we were aboard the 'Fart Express'! Next was the M4/M24/A12 section to finish through dusk.I fell asleep at this point and was surprised to find out that whilst asleep Katie and Doug had been having fun, the car had gone up to highly illegal 3 figure sum. This car is fitted with a 28% J type overdrive and 3.45:1 diff, this results in 112mph at 4K in overdrive top-mile eater eh!

When back at Woodbridge, Katie drove the car in the second test, she has obviously got these saloon cars worked out as she came second on the timed section, however for the distance part of the test she could not see the cone and slightly mis-judged the distance from the bumper to the cone resluting in a 5th or 6th place. It was fascinating to see the car being thrown about and I had no qualms about letting her drive the car like this, the car sounds good. So that was the 2011 HCR, I have now done all of them and must say I do enjoy the event. Back in 2005 I found out about a 70/80s CT event called the 20 County Challenge, so we decided to run the event in 2005. The HCR is a evolution of that event. Dale Barker has now organised the last 4 number and has decided that a rest is needed. Ellis Stokes, Mike Helm and Andy Martin will organise the 2012 event, be great to see more CT types taking part.

After this event I have decided that I must sort out the cronic valve seat recession the car is suffering from. With this in mind I have taken the 2.5S head I bought from Andy Pearce to Roy Burrell this morning and have asked him to stick in some hardened valve seats, reduce the depth of the head to raise the compression ratio and do some mild porting. The head has stainless steel valves, bronze guides and A series valve seals. Should give the car abit more go, this should help on the forthcoming 10CR.

One mistake I made for the HCR was to take too much stuff, the boot was full!!! 3 up with this load made the car feel sluggish, 'turn in' was affected by this mistake. I will attempt to do the 10CR with a lighter load-I hope Doug may try this next time!!! It was good fun doing this event with the Foremans, they are a funny pair, at various points it was difficult to drive and concentrate as we laughing so much! Next year, I imagine Katie and Doug will be using their mk1 saloon, I will miss their company. That car should be something!

Next up is the CSMA Autosolo, I have entered using the Spitfire, however I would like to use the GT6 so will spend tomorrow working on that car. A few jobs need to be done: 1. Rebuild the clutch master cylinder. 2. Change gearbox mounts 3. Fit new propshaft 4. Change diff mounts 5. Re-fit the interior. A busy day then, so reckon I need to get some sleep!!! This edition of my blog does not seem to like paragraphs-I will sort this out asap-sorry!

HCR: A hard days night!

This weekend sees the running of the Club Triumph Historic County Run (HCR), as organised by Dale Barker and Andrew Martin. This event improves every time it is run and I must say I am looking forward to the weekend.

For this year I have entered the event with Doug Foreman and Katie Foreman, obviously we will be using the 2.5 saloon. This is now running very nicely, James Cooper popped over and after scolding me about not tightening the link bar we managed to get the old thing running very nicely. I have reverted to the use of a mechanical fuel pump as I would like to use the HUCO electric pump on the Spitfire. It has been great fun using the Saloon, owing to its high gearing it is able to 'mix' it with moderns on the M25. I always get looked at weirdly by some as I go steaming past, its almost as if some think that one should not drive an old car at modern day driving speeds?

For the HCR Doug will be sharing the road driving with me, however Katie is to drive the 'Tests'. It will be interesting to see how Katie does, she is very experienced at competitive driving in Heralds and GT6s, however the big saloon is a larger machine and she may find it a bit bulky. However as I have found out at Autosolos, she has a talent that should enable her to make light of the saloons larger dimensions. Hope so, as Doug and me did the best time on last year's HCR test!

I have been driving the Spitfire recently and I must say I have enjoyed the experience. A new exhaust should be winging its way down to me soon, so I will hope to fit this before the forthcoming CSMA Concorde Autosolo at Bovingdon. James Carruthers is sharing the car and I welcome his opinion on the car. James is very good at being able to analysis a car's performance and identify improvements. Bit worried about using the present engine as it has a long stroke Triumph 4 pot at present, it would be prudent to fit a rev limiter! When taking part in these 'solo events, one's attention is fully taken by looking for the next cone position and thinking about the line one should drive. To worry about the engine speed is an unecessary problem and will result in slightly slower speeds. I understand that alot of CT members are taking part in this event and I look forward to meeting up with lots of friends and ultimately beating them!!!!! James has started work on his mk3 Spitfire which has the potential to be a fast car, he hopes to get her up to Scotland for the IAE.

I have also entered the Oxford MC 'Bocardo' Autosolo, this will be my 5th Bocardo and I hope to do well, looks like the main 'Historic' competition will be from Mike and Matt Helm as not too many CT members are entering. Oxford MC run a superb event, the whole event being well streamlined and easily understood by entrants new to the event.

Whilst talking about Autosolos, I cannot wait for the CT event to be held at Bovingdon, this will hopefully build upon the very successful 2009 and 2011 events. Its great to see so many CT members having a go at competitive Club motorsport.

So off we go, the next 7 months offer some superb chances for fun and fast driving in the old cars, excellent!

Where does the time go?

A rather belated posting.

The last couple of weeks have been very busy, mainly getting stuck into work or work for the car club. Therefore the cars have suffered. I have done nothing to the GT6, she is still in the garage waiting the fitment of a new gearbox mount and other bits and pieces in the vain hope of curing the vibration that started just before the 2010 RBRR.

On the subject of the RBRR, bloomin' overjoyed that all the entrants have managed to scrape together a staggering £50K for MIND. Last Saturday was the CT Annual Dinner held at a Hilton at Milton Keynes, we presented the cheque to Rachael fom MIND and I think all had a great evening out. As is the way with CT social evenings, many seemed to enjoy having a drink, many matching the intoxication of Rolduc on the 10CR!!!! Mentioning Rolduc, I am really looking forward to the 10CR, talking with Ellis it looks like he will have done the usual high standard job and be able to offer us some superb driving roads. I have done all of the previous 3 official CT events and the inaugural event in 2003 and have enjoyed them all. However the last one was special, luckily I had teamed up with Dave Kent, if anyone wants to do an event with someone who knows the way to drive these long distance events, get Dave to co-drive. We were 'blessed' with dizzy problems and I am sure that without Dave's never say die attitude the 2.5 Pi (SU) would have been shipped home. I hope to have been able to prep. the car better this time, however finding time for the cars these days is getting increasingly difficult-Dave bring the spanners!


On the subject of the saloon, I am a bit down hearted at present, I cannot get the car to run that well. Underload she just does not want to 'rev out', quite happy when in neutral? I have decided to go back to basics with her and fully tune the car, starting with a compression test, valve clearances etc. I have just taken delivery of some new carb spindles and butterflies from Andrew Turner, the fitted butterflies have those awful anti-run on poppet valves fitted. Othewise the car is fine, she passed the MOT test the other day, this followed an evening of welding by James Cooper around the base of the 'B' post, James is a top bloke and bloody keen!


The Spitfire is proving to have been an inspired purchase, bloomin' fantastic little car that cannot help but bring a smile to one's mouth when being driven. I have yet to drive the car with the roof down, however I used to feel a little self concious when I used to drive my previous convertible with the roof down, this was my first car a Vitesse mk2, still older now and it does seem that as one gets older one starts to not give a toss! I have entered the forthcoming CSMA Autosolo at Bovingdon and will be sharing the car with James Carruthers, it will be interesting to see how we do-can I cope with a car that handles but is not as fast-a worry! The Autosolo events start to come thick and fast as the Oxford MC 'Bocardo' event at a Silverstone car parkis due in early May. I have taken part in the past 3 'Bocardos' and cannot wait for this event, always slickly organised and lots of superb machinery! I have number of jobs to do to her, these include fitting some nylon bushes to the radius arms and the roll over bar I purchased from Dave Pearson, I also need to drop the front of the car as she is a tadge high at the front. As previously written I bought the car from Dave Picton, boy oh boy I saw his latest creation at Stoneleigh. This is a gorgeous mk2 GT6 that has a 2.5Pi lump in her-fit a nicely tuned revvy 2000cc engine Dave-you don't need torque. Dave has fitted deep dished 6J wires and de-bumpered the front and rear, this coupled with strategically placed driving lights creates a mini Ferrari 250SWB look, this might sound crass, but the car is in my opinion the best GT6 I have yet to see. The stance is correct and some of the details such as cream writing for the number plate letters/numerals are inspired (These 'plates' coupled with the maroon paint give off a slight pre-war Alfa look), nice one Dave! I will take some snaps soon and post on here, she really is a beauty. I have always thought that the mk2 GT6 was Triumph's best looking car and this one re-iterates this opinion.

Here are a couple of poor pictures of the Spitfire!

2011!

Jeez, how did this happen-2011, my fiftieth year on the planet! Some sage stated that time goes quicker and quicker as one gets older-he's not wrong!

Car stuff:
Just spent 3 sessions working on the cars and I have managed a few tasks as follows:

GT6:
Stripped out the dashboard and gearbox tunnel to enable access so that I can change the gearbox mount and renew the seals on the speedo drive. All very simple work, I have stripped this part of the car alot of times over the last 27 years and I reckon I could do it with my eyes shut! Whilst working I noticed that the Clutch master cylinder had dropped all its fluid over the carpet, so I took that off and will re-new the seals once these have purchased from Canleys. I also took the opportunity of cleaning back the bulkhead around the base of the master cylinder and painted this with Finnegans No.1 and then some matt black paint I had on the shelf-not too worried about appearance at present. One day I will strip the bulkhead and paint properly.

Whilst working on the car, James Cooper popped over in his Mk1 GT6. He had just done a engine swap and was complaining that he had no real power, we firstly carried out a compression test (All ranging between 155-165psi), then suspecting carburation issues we did all the usuals, cleaned out the carbs and balanced them. Nothing seemed wrong. James had re-set the timing and the AC Delco dizzy seemed ok, must admit I did not rate the plug leads as they seemed loose. James has a spare set so will fit them and check the valve clearances once the engine cooled once he got home. Like many of us, James has too many Triumph cars and is spread too thin (Bit rich coming from me eh). However he is a man of discernment and owns a royal Blue mk1 Pi saloon, this used to be owned by Bob Maddocks and did the 98 and 2000 RBRRs. Since purchase, James has put sills on both sides of the car and made many other bodywork repairs and once re-painted it will look the bees knees. It was painted the other month, but was rushed by the paint shop that James chose, nice to report that they have agreed to paint the car again. Whilst chatting in the garage having a cuppa, we struck up a nice deal, James having the spare mk1 bonnet that I have and me getting a set of early mk3 GT6 seats. These will be used in the Spitfire-out of period, but alot better at holding me in place compared to the poor condition mk2 seats presently within the car.
It is nice knowing that James and Richard Brake are fairly local, both are resourceful people and always willing to help out when problems happen.

Spitfire mk2
Had a list of jobs to do on the little car, the main ones being:
A) Fit mocal oil cooler
B) Fit stick on number plates
C) Tale out the CD player
The first job seemed to be going well, I had bought a kit with pre-cut braided hoses and casually decided to fit the oil cooler where I fitted one to a Spitfire 1500 I worked on years ago-this was great until I attempted to attempted to fit the smaller hose, too blasted short. Therefore I moved the rad backwards towards the water radiator and upside down as this seemed to be the only way I could fit the kit-why are oil coolers always a pain? The GT6 has rubber hoses and I think I will go back to using those next time, never had a problem with rubber hoses in 25 years. Many will question the use of a oil cooler, I think they are essential and definitely help increase the longevity of an engine
Number plates: Blimey, this job went well! The car looks so much better with the regular sized plate stuck across the bonnet -'E-Type' style. Dave Picton had put a small stick on plate onto the car, in all the time I have known Dave I have not known him show such a lack of taste-I think I know why though!
CD Player: This had been put into the car by the guy who owned the car before Dave, god only knows why as it is impossible to hear the thing especially with the wheelbarrow exhaust that presently is under the car. Now I am partial to soul music and do like the strong vocals of the late 50s and early 60s singer Wilson Pickett, but someone had jammed a Pickett compilation CD into the machine and everytime I started the car I would get a blast of the first track, 'If you need me', I started to get really fatigued by this track. Also the CD player seemed to be controlled by some form of higher entity (Maybe, Wilson coming back to haunt me), everytime I hit a bump in the road the volume would go up, or worse still if switched off it would switch itself on, got to say I have started to loathe Wilson! I would not have minded but the CD player only wanted to play that one track-why? Listening to music has always been a major pleasure of mine and when driving the Focus, I always have my ipod connected to the stereo, however in the old cars I find it impossible to listen to music so none of the old cars have radios or the like.
Whilst under the dashboard I cleared out some extranous wiring, all old cars seems to have this stuff, reckons bodgers during the 70s using scotchlocks are to blame, reckon many a car hit an early death owing to these devilish pieces of plastic and metal.
I also changed the throttle cable as the old one did not seem that progressive, making it difficult to drive the car smoothly at low engine speeds.
I also had a good look at the carbs, paying particular attention to the float chambers, these had a fair amount of crap in them, so I will fit a small fuel filter.

I took the car down to the New Years Eve lunch that CT member Nick Jackson organises at a picturesque pub in Woodford, near Salisbury. I met up with James Carruthers in his megasquirted 2000 and James Cooper in his mk1 Pi saloon just of the M25 at Chertsey, and took them down one of my favourite roads the old A30 that runs from Popley to Stockbridge and onto Salisbury. I have a theory that Triumphs should always be driven down single carriageway A roads when one gets the chance, the A30 along this stretch really does hit the spot. Coming out of Stockbridge, there is a sharp right hand turn on a nice inclined bit of road, the little Spitfire went round the corner and up the hill very well and I think surprised both James in their faster saloons.
James' 2000 is turning into a real beastie, I helped him purchase this car and have always had a soft spot for the machine. Megasquirt seems to have transformed the car, I must get him to let me have a drive at some point. When he purchased the car the previous owner was worried that James was going to thrash the nuts of the thing, well I think it is fair to say that he has/is!
Its fascinating to see what lots of CT members do to their cars, all seem to be in a constant state of modification, some like James' 2000 turning into impressive machines.
Got to say the NYE lunch is always very pleasant, a great opportunity to have one final drive and meet up with CT friends before the end of the year. I was pleased to see Nick Jones and his family in his recently acquired 2.5Pi mk2 plus Alex Chandler in his 2000 mk1 and Mark Bland in his very nice early 2000 mk1. That was the first time I have seen Alex's car and it just goes to show what can be done with enthusiasm, a top car that needs to be used on next years RBRR-are you reading this Alex?
On the way back James, James and Alex seemed to enjoy chasing each other up the A303, what a great sight, 3 mk1 saloons being driven with verve! The little Spitfire's top end is not all that great, so I stayed back and cruised home, a nice relaxing way of ending a day out and about.

Back to the Spitfire, I like this car, reckon its a 'keeper'! The car is looking better sitting on its 5.5J solid steels and correct number plates. I will post some pics soon, just need to take the camera out with me!

Next Year and Ford Focus ST

I am presently sitting at home and looking out of the window I see that we have approx. 5'' of snow-bloody horrid stuff. Snow always makes me laugh as it does seem to affect the speed of drivers on the UK roads, some people get so worried. Anyrate enough moaning!

I have been thinking about next years motoring plans and what events to have a go at in 2011. At present the following come to mind:
March: Oxford MC Bocardo Autosolo @ Silverstone (Spitfire)
April: Club Triumph HCR (2.5) and CSMA Autosolo (Spitfire)
June: International Auto Ecosse (GT6)
July: CT Historic Autosolo (GT6) and Warwick MC Autosolo (Spitfire)
August: 7oaks & DMC Autosolo @ North Weald (Spitfire)
September: Club Triumph 10 Countries Run (2.5)
October: Oxford MC Autumn Autosolo @ Silverstone (Spitfire)
Plus I also hope to have a go at the two MGoT Track Days that CT will be invited to participate in.

Regular readers of this Blog will know that my company car is a Ford Focus ST, a car that I can honestly say is possibly the best everyday vehicle I have ever used. The car is a 5 door model and has no extras at all, no tracction control nothing is a blast to drive. The car has now done 100,000 miles and apart from a one new driveshaft replaced under warranty has been extremely reliable. I am not sure how much longer I will have her as she was due to be replaced last March, luckily for me my employers have stopped leasing new cars and told me to stick with the Focus for another year until March 2011. I have been reading in the motoring press about the new ST that is due at the end of next year and I do hope that I can manage to get one of those. The only issue being that the new one will dispense with the characterful Volvo 5 pot lump and be fitted with a 4 pot Ford engine. This will mean no more 'Quatrroesque' 5 pot induction roar at engine speeds over 3,000rpm-not sure if I will be able to take that! All my work colleagues take the mikey out of the ST, but where else can you get 230BHP for such little money, it makes cars like Audi A3s, Golf GTis and the like seem over priced. I'd love a Focus RS, but these are outside my budget and only have 3 doors which is not acceptable to my employers.

So next year will be hopefully an interesting time, with lots of change in my motoring life.

The next use of my cars will be when I attend the informal New Year luch that CT member Nick Jackson puts together down near Amesbury in Wiltshire. This is always a nice little meeting and I hope that Nick's efforts are rewarded by a good number of people pitching up.

Spitfire mk2: Plans

I took the new car out for a drive the other Sunday when I popped over to see fellow CT member, Richard Brake. An interesting drive in the car that brought about the following list of tasks, many that follow on from my thoughts that I stated within my last Blog posting:

1. Sort throttle cable, the action is not at all smooth.

2. Change the exhaust to a single pipe system. I will probably go for something like the Canleys Sports system, this type is fitted to my GT6 and whilst louder than the standard exhaust it does not 'boom' like the old SAH/TriumphTune twin box types.

3. Buy a hardtop. Had a long chat with Dave Pearson at Canleys about this and I have decided to order a Honeybourne Mouldings fibreglass example, the all in price of £395 is considerably cheaper than restoring a steel unit. Honeybourne do the hardtops in two colours, these being white or black, I think that black will look better. Mike Banks has a wedgewood blue steel hardtop on his car that certainly looks good, I have always thought that 'roundtails' look nice with 'bubble' hardtops.

4. Fit a rollcage: Luckily, Dave Pearson has one of these that needs repainting. Once I have it I will take this to my brother in laws place to get it powdered coated, probably light grey as not too intrusive. This cage is not the correct diameter for current racing regs., but as I will only be doing Club sport in the car, I am sure it will be fine.

5. Suspension:

Front: The front shock absorbers are Spax, that seem to have the very low bottom mount. I have some AVOs that will be put onto the car, I have found a company called Franklin Springs that sells coil springs of all types, so will fit a set 480lb items, hopefully by fitting these I will raise the front to give the car a better balanced look. I have also got a set of rose-jointed arb links and a set of tubular top wishbones, these will all be fitted to the car. I have fitted two of my 5.5J solid steels to the car at the back, once I have the front a bit higher I will fit the other pair to the front, I am worried about the wheel to wheelarch clearance and think I will have to have the wheelarch lips 'returned' to create sufficent space.

Rear: The rear units will also be changed for a set of AVOs, again I have these in my store. At the rear the car has a de-cambered rear spring, this will stay. I have been looking at Jigsaw Racing Services adjustable length radius arms, for Spits, these are based upon the GT6 mk2 items, so I will probably buy some. I have some solid nylon bushes which I will use with these, more control over toe -in/toe-out.

6. Change the steering wheel. I have a nice 13'' leather rimmed alloy wheel in the store, this will be fitted. I will also take the opportunity of changing the switch covers as those that are fitted are decidely rough looking. I am not that happy with the overdrive switch, this does not seem that positive, I will change this for the works replica toggle switch on a gear knob that I have in the stores-umm, I seem to have a lot of stuff in the shed! I have one of these fitted to the GT6 and have always found it to be a good mod.

7. Fit chrome over-riders to the front and back, this will involve re-siting the spot lamps.

8. Windscreen Wiper: Blimey, the existing is bloomin' lethargic, this will need to be looked at. Until done, I think I will have to break out the Rain-Ex!

9. Supplementary gauges: I think it would be advisable to fit a oil pressure gauge. The tacho has been converted to an electronic unit, this saves a job then! Whilst thinking about the oil system, I will fit a thermostatically controlled oil cooler, I will mount the rad. just inside the grille. The car has two lugs welded onto the chassis for a the rad to be mounted near the cross members, I have my GT6 oil rad mounted here, however it does seem vunerable to damage from road debris, so I will mount in front of the water radiator as the space exists.

10. Seats: The standard seats do not offer much in the way of lateral support, so I have two options: Mk4 Spit seats, I use these in the GT6 and they seem fine, however a set of Corbeau Classic seats may be the answer, however the price of these does seem quite dear. I do not want to fit modern race seats as these in my opinion will look garish and wrong. I think it is important to keep the car looking relatively in period.

11. Fit the Luke 4 point harness I bought for the GT6.

12. Fit alloy calipers, again these are in the shed! Also change the brake fluid to normal mineral type, at present silicon is fitted-ugh! Actually the brakes are bit soft at present, so I may look at rebuilding the brake master cylinder and fitting new wheel cylinders.



I have lots of other ideas about the car, however the above list will more or less spend my budget, but future plans are as follows:

1. LSD: Blimey this will cost, but I am sure will reduce Autosolo times considerably.

2. Fit the battery into the boot and fit an external isolator switch.

3. Look at modifying the front suspension so that more castor can be dialled in to aid 'turn in'. I have been talking to Mike Helm about this, this will be difficult to achieve as I do want to use the car on the road.

I'd love to post some snaps of the car, but the snow has made this difficult.