New front tyres and tracking sorted.

Well, some progress has been made. The front rattle is because the exhaust downpipe is hitting the engine mount. I worked this out when I noticed that the weird rattle always accompanied acceleration in slow moving traffic. Having the bracket welded back on on Thursday.

The petrol smell is intermittant. Mileage doesn't seem too badly affected. So suspect breather pipe.

Handling isn't too bad, but not as good as it was. Picked up a spare manual rack from the scrappers - I'm going to fit this to see what difference it makes.

Fitted new rear engine mount. Whilst I was there I realised that the driver's side chasis leg still needed more welding. Luckily the garage that are doing the exhaust welding on Thursday should be able to quote for this as well.

My enthusiasm for this car is returning. I have to carry on now that I've spent so much money anyway.

Thinking about buying a MIG welder and then seam welding the whole car up at my leisure.

Went round garage to get quote for welding chassis leg. Whilst I was there we investigated the bulkhead and found that it wasn't flexing. The worrying creak turned out to be where the wing was touching the inner wing. A small amount of chassis flex is to be expected.

Things are looking up. I went out for a "scenic drive" tonight and it's going really well. If I have this welding done and check out the rack then things are going to be fine.

Chopped spring out of throttle cable to see whether it improves pedal feel.

The adjustments to the throttle cable have made a big difference to the 3.0 throttle. Before it was really difficult to pull away smoothly. Mainly because the oversize throttle is very sensitive and the spring on the pedal introduced vagueness in the relationship between pedal position and throttle position. It's gone from being annoying difficult to satisfyingly difficult. I'm used to it now, it takes concentration to get it smooth, but it also means that I hardly have to move my foot to get a load of more throttle.

Adjustable fuel pressure regulator arrived, and spare airbox.

Did a proper job on the airbox. Fuel leak still here. Rattles still here. Still trying to decided what to do with dash. Looking at bucket seats. In good spirits - car is feeling very rapid.

Busy stripping more sound deadening out. I'm well pleased with the accelearation of the car at the moment. Makes it all worth it.

The petrol smell is definitely coming from the rear of the car. I'm going to remove the tank and take a look. I still haven't fitted the steering rack. The dash needs sorting too.

However, I'm having a whale of a time driving the car. It's feeling very good, it seems to really pick up at 4K and then pull cleanly right through the limiter. I haven't found the lack of sound proofing too bad either. I'm wondering about removing more dead weight from the interior. Apparently a completely stripped GTE 16v can go as low as 770Kg, though I think 850Kg would be a reasonable weight to aim for. That's a 15% reduction. According to my acceleration model that should reduce my 1/4 mile time from 15.7s to 15s dead and take the 0-60 down from the 7.4s area to 6.5s, a startling result. Maybe in reality it won't be quite as good as that, but it is obviously significant.

Visit Santa Pod and manage to fit 4 runs in. All are in the high 15s, with my best at 15.65s. This is slightly better than the magazine quoted 15.7s for a standard GTE 16v. So I'm well pleased.

Not much has happened because I've been away on holiday for two weeks. It's always fun coming back to the car because it feels faster after being away. And some! It takes me at least two hours before I start to notice the annoying exhaust rattle, wanky steering and fuel leak smell. Not to worry. They will be sorted soon.

I've got totally used to life without the dash now. So I'm planning a lone instrument pod to house the digi display and the switches. I'm thinking along the lines of Plywood now. Covered in something. Either Alacantra or Carbon Fibre effect tat.

My plans are to sort the niggles out, sort the dash, fit a reconditioned gearbox with a 3.9 final drive ratio (3.5 is standard) and then think about weight loss. Also on my mind is seam welding, roll cage and lighweight seats.

Spent depressing evening sorting out niggles. First up: fuel leak. Jacked car up and took a good look round the fuel tank area. No evidence of leak whatsoever. Concluded that it must be the tank itself. Decided to wait for dry day, to brim the tank, drive round and then look for leak. Next up: exhaust rattles. Spent ages loosening clamps, moving bits of pipe (most of it rusted together), tightening clamps, loosening clamps, tugging, straining, heaving. Really fed up with exhaust rattles. Strongly suspect that it's the internal baffles. Finally tried to sort problem with exhaust downpipe hitting lower strut brace. Rear engine mount (new last month) seemed very soft. So I stuffed some old bush rubber into the space in the mount. Seemed to solve the problem.

Despite the niggles I've still had some fun driving the car. In the last few days I've roasted a Golf V5, gained on a Seat Leon 1.8 20v Turbo and had some brilliant foot to the floor moments overtaking. The Seat Leon driver seemed most annoyed and proceeded to overtake loads of people in a dangerous manner. Think I riled him. Ha ha.

Not a lot happening at the moment. Mainly because I've been helping another MIG member fit a 2.5V6 into their MK3 Astra, a not too difficult job since they share the same subframe. Only the radiator required some inventive slam panel cutting.

Back at the ranch: new exhaust hangers ready to fit, about to order new Quickrak, wondering about engine mounts (exhaust touches lower strut brace), going to clean K&N filter, do an oil change and fit adjustable fuel regulator. Also got to sort dash and some soundproofing.

Bit of an action packed night. Did an oil change. Then Idecided to clean and re-oil the K&N filter. Knock on effects....1)I didn't realise it would take an hour to dry out properly 2) The car didn't run right and ECU light came on. After a lot of faffing around and complicated theories I noticed that I'd partially pulled the injector wiring box of no1 injector. Sorted. Also treated some small patches of rust on driver's floor.

Gary turned up a few minutes later. Obviously been out "testing". An hour or so later after talking the rear wheels off an Astra I was homeward bound. Oh did I say, I managed to get the clocks up to 140 on a very clear stretch of dual carriageway. That bodes well, 2 "units" better than previous best and got there a bit quickerer. That suggests that power is indeed around the 153-155BHP mark. Which is nice.

Fitted adjustable fuel pressure regulator. Went down Power station rolling road.

By luck I'd set the pressure almost spot on. The results were disapointing though.

102BHP at wheels, 135 at flywheel, 123 lb-ft. This is way down on the 118BHP at wheels, 148 at flywheel, 135 lb-ft of the last visit.

Tried without air filter. Same result. Tried original non-adjustable fuel pressure reg. Same result. Gave up in the end.

The low power result confused me somewhat.On the road it didn't feel any slower than normal. Plus last night I managed a top speed of 140 indicated, which is what most good valvers get. My last 1/4 mile time was 15.65s which is around what valvers make. My 1/4 mile time at Santa Pod was 15.65s which is again what valvers make. Hence I'd suggest that my engine is making somewhere near 150BHP.

Anyway, the plan. Another top speed test. Book rolling road session at Interpro, see what happens.

Just bought a Momo Apache steering wheel on Ebay. Think the Momo Corse is top of my wish list though.

Spent ages removing rust from replacement fuel tank with wire brush on drill. Then painted with Kurust (rust killer). It's amazing how much better it looked after this treatment. From manky to good in one go. It filled me with a new found enthusiasm for derusting things, so I think the rear beam could be started on soon.

Took Quickrak apart to look for wear and found a bit on the pinion.

Spoke to Power steering services today about Quickrack wear. They told me that the Quickrack is only really meant for competition use and that after 35K of use they'd expect it to wear. The reason for this is that they only harder the gears so far so that they retain enough toughness to not break on impact. Safer for competition. Fair enough, I think £100 per year is worth it for the smiles of the Quickrack.

Painted half of fuel tank with Hammerite. Started on the rear beam. Feeling really keen about this now.

More fuel tank painting. Started derusting the new rear beam.

Time for a list of jobs.

• Replacement Quickrack.
• Recon gearbox with 3.9 final drive.
• 2.25" Stainless exhaust system.
• Bucket seats.

Rear beam derusting. Surprisingly good fun.

Painted rear beam, derusted both anti roll bars.

Painted ARBs.

Derusted both disc surrounds.

Painted disc surrounds. Ordered recon gearbox with 3.9 FDR rather than the standard 3.55.

Gearbox stuck in 3rd. Had to drive home from Devon to Gloucestershire in 3rd gear all the way. Started with a clutch smoking 3rd gear hill start. Was OK once on the move mind. A bit of careful planning so as not to stop and I was alright. Going through Taunton was entertaining.

Removed gearbox. Fitted spare one. It didn't work either. Day wasted.

Removed gearbox. Greased lower wishbone bushes. Sorted clash of lower strut brace with exhaust downpipe.

Replaced drive shaft outer CV boots. Fitted new strut tops.

Fitted rest of drive shaft CV joints. New dizzy cap and rotor arm. Painted disc covers and lower cross member.

Crazy day. Drove to Warrington (from Gloucester), picked up reconditioned gearbox. At 10pm arrived home and started the fitting process. Finished by 4am. Out for a quick test drive. Awesome! Handling is back as well - the result of greasing lower wishbone bushes. Seems to pull really well also. Rev limited top speed of 128 indicated.

This was a really important point for me. After months of holding on whilst trying to sort problems I just had to believe that it would come together eventually. The smile on my face as I pitched the car up the local dual carriageway made it worth it. And on the roundabout at the end the handling was back to the old, grippy standards/

Fitted replacement fuel tank, replacing all manky old jubilee clips with stainless items. No sign of leak on old tank. New tank does seem to have solved petrol smell. Also replaced exhuast mount rubbers and realigned tail pipes.

Big day out - Trax 2002 at Silverstone. A modified car show, track day and 0-60 challenge. Found most of show too boy-racery. Managed to get out on track. It was a Vauxhall session, so the other cars were all tuned up Novas and Astras. The people in the queue were all true performance enthusiasts rather than bass booming muppets. I found the car to be in top form, holding off all but 2 cars out of a 40 car field. The handling was back to the forefront. I found the behaviour of the car on tight bends brilliant - I could confidently have the rear wheels sliding out and the front pointing in and just it there on the throttle. I noticed an improvement in my speed as I got to know the track. The best part was the long straight past the pits where the walls either side made the car really feel fast.

On the 0-60 track I managed a 7.27s and 7.5 (in damp). I think that both of these are a tad optimistic since the timing seemed to start at 6mph.

I could resist no longer and stripped the rear seats and trim out. I managed to remove 40KG. Since the car weighs around 1000KG, then that's a 4% reduction. According to my acceleration calculator fitting the 3.9 final drive and losing 40KG should bring my 1/4 mile time down to 15.3s and the 0-60 to 7.0 dead. Which is nice.

I went out for a quick test drive and I loved the stripped out feel. The car did feel quicker. The noise wasn't too bad either.

Started work rationalising the wiring. Removed all audio wires, switch light wires and some wires that went to unconnected plugs. I reckon it was about 1KG worth in two hours.

At 1.00pm, post hangover I decided to go to the Pod. I was feeling pretty miserable by the time I arrived. It was overcast, my head hurt and I felt lardy. Post drinking miserablness. I arrived at 3.30pm. Things weren't looking good. I passed countless cars leaving the pod. I then decided that buying a pass wasn't worth it. Too late. Probably blow the engine up anyway.

Then I changed my mind. They said "no more passes". Then I said "awww go on" Then main man Ian said "OK then, tell them Ian said it was OK". So I signed in, though the woman didn't believe me and went off to check with Ian.

I joined the queue at 4.00pm. I managed to get 3 runs in. It looks like I did OK, 3 runs in 90 minutes. First was best. I knew I'd done well because I had 99mph indicated on the digi dash as I passed the end. I know that it overreads by about 8mpg there, so my terminal speed had to be over 90, whereas previously it was 88mph. Good result - 15.16s @ 92.66mph. The other two were a bit worse - too much wheelspin in 1st gear. They were 15.3 and 15.4s or something similar. My computer model had shown a "virtual time of 15.2s". So the calculator was about right.

Fiddling around with the wiring still. Bit of a love - hate thing with the car at the moment. When I'm tired it seems noisy, bumpy and annoying. When I'm fresh then it's a total blast. It is satisfying rapid - it pulls so well in every gear. First and second are rabid.

New steering wheel arrived today, courtesy of Ebay Auction. Wondering about going back to standard front suspension bushes since the handling is going a bit pants again.

Pay day looming. So I'm looking at my options. I've been playing with the acceleration calculator . AGAIN!

Currently 1/4 mile is 15.2s roughly at 92mph.

Effect of one mod alone:

• Lose 20Kg on seats and 15KG from sunroof: 15.1 @ 93mph
• Raise rev limit to 7200rpm: 15.1s @ 92mph.
• Make quickshift, reducing gear change from 0.5s to 0.3s: 14.9 @ 93mph
• Cam it adding 8BHP: 14.9 @ 94mph

• Quickshift and lose weight: 14.8 @ 94mph
• Quickshift and cam: 14.6 @ 96mph
• Cam and lose weight: 14.7 @ 95mph

• Quickshift, cam , lose weight: 14.4 @ 97mph.

Busy day sorting the wire spaghetti. Because I've moved the fusebox most wires are too long. So, one by one, I'm cutting and recombining them. Everything seems to work still. The box of stripped out wires is now about 3" deep. Pictures.

Boss finally arrived for Momo steering wheel. So I fitted the wheel. Took a lot longer than expected. I had to solder new wires to the horn button because the old ones fell off. The earth connection provided didn't fit with my wheel so I soldered a wire to the central washer. And aligning the wheel took ages since I had to trial and error it which involved removing the mounting screws every time.

Loads of things to do at the moment. Front sidelights don't work, temperature gauge is not functioning, steering feels rubbish, rattles from rear. Still accelerates nicely though.

Result! Both electrical problems were easily fixed. Temp gauge was multi connector in passenger footwell not pressed home. Side lights was one bulb gone and one bulb holder not in position.

More wiring. Moved immobiliser. Down to last stray wire now. Then it's time to tape the loom back up and I can move onto stripping out in car wires like electric mirrors, speakers and trailer loom. Then there's engine bay wires like front fogs (removed) and front headlamp wash (removed).

Got myself a gear lever from the scrappies so I can have a go at making a quick shift.

Travelled up to Shrewsbury to pick up another Quickrak, courtesy of Rallyusedparts.co.uk. Guy was a farmer with a 2.0 16v rally car in his cattle shed, plus four wrecks. He gave me another fuel filler pipe - I still haven't eliminated the petrol leak smell when filling the tank more than half full. I suspect that the filler pipe has a small crack in it, courtesy of the bodyshop.

Also looking into plastic windows.

Standard front suspension bushes arrived, courtesy of Autovaux mail order (very cheap and good). Can't wait to sort front suspension back to the good old days.

Whilst I was at the scrap yard I had the car on their weighbridge. Total came to 880Kg, a major result since the standard 8v car is around 1000Kg.

Picked up bits from B&Q for the new dash. The main material is going to be 4mm plywood. It's going to be trimmed in Alcantara or similar.

A little "performance comparison" with a GTE 16v showed that my car was faster up to about 110 but then got reeled back in. I'm wondering if I'm missing a bit of power at the top.

I also want to get started on a new bottom end. The current one has done 170K now and it's burning a little bit of oil.

• 16v bottom end, having stronger con rods and pins
• maximum overbore standard pistons, giving 2.05L
• crank regrind
• new bearings
• lightened flywheel
• bottom end balanced
• new oil pump
• ARP rod bolts for a safe 7750rpm

The plan is to create a strong bottom end for future power upgrades. The plans are to move to a fully mapped ECU with a rev limit around 7500rpm and maybe a more suitable cam for this. It is expected to get into the 160BHP sort of area like this.=

Eventually the system will accept full throttle bodies which should give around 175BHP.

Dash plans are coming on too. I'll post the sketches up soon.

Today I refitted standard rubber bushes to the front lower wishbones. I'd already replaced the front bushes on the front wishbones, but today I replace the rear ones on the front wishbones. The problem was that the wishbones were sticking in the bushes and not rotating properly. They squealed like pigs when I twisted them out.

I also fitted new rear brake shoes since the drums had been making nasty grinding noises. The old ones weren't that badly worn. I suspect that the problem was a build up of dust in the drums. Anyway, rear disc conversion coming up soon.

The last time I was on the 1/4 mile strip I managed 15.16s@92mph, the estimated weight of the car including me was 980Kg.  The car is now 880Kg, so for a total of 950Kg the results are 15s@93.5mph. With the next 40Kg gone the results would improve to 14.8s@95mph. Cool: sub 15s. The 0-60 would be somewhere in the mid-high 6's too. This is plausible since I made a 7.3s at Trax 2002.

I'm also playing around with my quickshift ideas too.

I went for a minimalist 2.5" single round tail pipe.

Secondly I carried out an autopsy on the rear bumper. Last time I removed it I noticed that it rattled a lot. So I cut into it (on the back). I found that the metal bar in it was loose. So I removed the metal bar, saving another KG or two.

Also emptied the car pond (water had been collecting in the passenger side rear wheel arch).

At the service station I phoned the local scrap yard and they had a suitable throttle in stock. I had my father bike it round to me. Unfortunately I couldn't undo the screws holding the throttle plate in. So I just bolted the entire unit on with a single bolt (I had to file out holes to make the modified unit fit my inlet manifold). Well the car went pretty well anyway, just had an idle speed of 3000rpm courtesy of all the air leaks.

At home I swapped the spindle into my modified throttle. I also adjusted the throttle potentiometer alignment. I'd always wondered about this. I set it so that at max throttle the pot was at its end stop. The car seemed to go a bit better as a result.

I finally bolted in the digi dash tonight.

Bolting the digi dash in properly has made the car a lot more tidy.

I've had a lot of fun driving the car recently. It feels faster than ever. Plus I'm getting an easy 28mpg out of it (and that's from a lot of hard driving). I attribute this to the new exhaust system and the properly adjusted throttle potentiometer.

On to Jan 2003