Mid winter in the factory this year has continued to be a busy time for the guys with some good progress made on lots of cars.
Graeme is the proud new owner of Monty and he has dropped the car off to us to make a few modifications to suit him. This is an older Fraser that has had a bunch of work done to it over the years, to the point where I have no idea what it started out life as. Currently it is powered by a fairly angry sounding fuel injected 3SGE mated to a 5 speed sequential gearbox, a button clutch and a very short diff ratio. It is set up as a hillclimb car and Graeme intends to use it for road touring so we are removing the sequential, fitting a more friendly clutch and potentially a new diff ratio. It is good to see these older cars out being used and we look forward to seeing Monty back on the road again soon.
Chris has dropped his Caterham in for us to get the car road legal. Chris’s father has done a bunch of racing in this car in the UK and has given the car to his son to enjoy in NZ. We have doe a bunch of these now and have them pretty down pat, however each car seems to be quite different to the last. There are some things that we need to modify on each Caterham to bring them in line with NZ regulations like driveshaft safety hoops, brake pedals and then every car has its own quirks that need sorting out. While we can do them quite efficiently, building and modifying cars is now a lot like the building industry – you cannot progress to the next stage until you have the last one signed off so it can be a very drawn out process, especially when the certifiers have 2 month waiting lists! We will get there but patience is a virtue in this game!
Bruce has been getting some good progress on Will’s Lancia Stratos replica that we are building, he has made up some sexy cones for the rear mufflers to mimic the original cars, fabrication has begun on the cooling system and alternator mounting as we start to work through the list of things that need making and mounting. Lots of progress but still a long way to go!
Alun Chevy Malibu has had the guys busy with a custom dash pod made up and lots more progress on getting the new fuel injection system installed and wired up. All the new engine components have been HPC coated black and reinstalled, hopefully by next month it should be making noise again and be looking more like a car and less like a pile of parts and wires!
