All Ready for the Big Show - Stoneleigh 2014

Just a last few jobs done this weekend to get the car ready for Stoneleigh next week!

First was to insulate the diagnostic cable from the exhaust heat. Tried several prototypes in the vice to come up with the optimal method. (heated a piece of steel to about 400°C with a blowtorch and held it against it) The foil backed polystyrene insulation just melted and so was ruled out. The self-amalgamating tape did withstand fairly well, but did go quite soft; but by far and away the best for the job was a plumber's blowtorch soldering mat, designed for normal usage up to 600°C. So I cut into strips and wrapped it around the cable, finishing with lockwire.

Not desperately pretty, but will do the trick and thankfully sharp edges aren't part of the test under the bonnet

 Next I had to fill the gap on the rear panel left by what would have been the normal light mounting arrangement. I made up an ally blanking panel and got some natty badges to put on it.




Despite then spending an hour painting the panel I realised it was just a bit too small to get both badges neatly on it, so gave up and just glued the badges on covering up the holes

 

So that completes the last few jobs, other than a clean and polish! Results of which below, although the keen eyes amongst you will spot that the above jobs are missing from these photos, and that's because I did them after cleaning and polishing :-)

The rest of the day was spent arguing and fighting with the trailer to get it ready, including a modification to the jacking mechanism to aid loading and unloading the car (pics to follow) and freeing all the brakes off which were jammed solid.

Busy couple of weeks ahead then - Stoneleigh next weekend, which the orange peril will be gracing the GKD stand (hope to see loads of you there) and then IVA the following week!

There's that horrific steering wheel again - will take off for the show, but put back on for IVA

 Et Voila - Finished! Although I'm sure there'll be another to-do list after the show when everyone points out all the obvious IVA fail points that I've no doubt missed!!!

Thanks for reading...

IVA Date Booked - 9th May

Hello all

Great news - IVA has been confirmed as 9th May! Although it wasn't exactly what you would call a "smooth" application process... The sheer futility and hopelessness of government departments never ceases to amaze me.

After sending off the application I had a call back a few days later to collect payment - although the admin clerk who took it had no real clue about what the test was for or how my application was progressing - not terribly useful or comforting when you're handing over £450.00 for sure. 

I then had another email confirmation, which was fairly bland, but used words like "due to the nature of your application it has been passed onto Technical Assessment team". the NATURE of my APPLICATION? Meaning what exactly? It was a shining example? So poor it needed extra special help from the technical team? Who knows.

Then it finally found its way to my local centre who were very much less than helpful, simply informing me that the "tester was off long term sick" (tester singular... so, what, there's only one person who can do an Basic IVA N1?) and therefore not to expect an appointment for an unspecified period of time!! and that I was to try Britsol (110 miles away) or Southampton (170 miles) for an alternative!

Suffice to say I was less than impressed. I did contact Bristol and Southampton (by the way you can't contact them direct, you have to go through VOSA's call centre who relay messages to and fro... why can't I just speak to them??) who were both exasperated with Exeter's unhelpful attitude and sick of the now backlog of other referral tests they were working through with a circa 8 week lead time...

So with a few more phonecalls and politely suggesting that Exeter might want to look at alternative methods of carrying out the test... they've managed to squeeze me into a slot where an inspector is coming down from Manchester for a half day. Could work to my advantage, pass it quick and then get back on the road home again?? Could work massively against me... "Why have I been dragged down to the back end of nowhere for this chump's car, fail it quickly and then get home" I guess time will tell....

Timetable of events for those of you who are interested and will no doubt follow the same sorry routine:

28/3 - Application sent off, recorded delivery
1/4 - phoned me for payment, essentially just an admin clerk, no help or knowledge of anything to do with the test at all.
2/4 - email acknowledged receipt of application and passed to TaSS (Technical Assessment team) in Swansea
7/4 - passed from TaSS Swansea to Exeter Test station
10/4 - Exeter confirmed appointment
10/4 - email received and letter followed the next day:

 

I'll get up some pics of the car (once it's clean!) of it in its pre-test state and I'd welcome any suggestions or comments people have had as to what they think any likely failure points are.

Slight dilemma in that Stoneleigh is the weekend before this test - do I risk sticking it on a trailer and dragging it 400 miles round trip in case it gets damaged the week before???

Cheers,

Steve

Paperwork....

Well it was a bit of a mission but it's done now... Application sent off to VOSA!

With a bit of help from Peter, a fair bit of form filling, some obits and a LOT of receipts, it's done. Just need to wait for them to call me back and take all my money!!

Jobs That are definitely not sexy, but necessary...

Greetings...

Just a very brief update this evening, last few bits on the car finished so it's essentially at status "complete awaiting IVA" :)

I had trouble with the self centring on the last outing, as in; it was non-existant. I had some helpful suggestions from Dave (rodgling) that it could be the track rod ends. I suspect he was right, because when I took them off they were stiff as anything - "could hardly move them in the vice with a large spanner" stiff. So with replaced TRE's and 40psi in the tires the steering is indeed much lighter now, but still not sure on the self centring bit. The manual states that it has to show "some sign of self-centring above 10mph", slight flaw as I can't really get much past 10mph in my yard without risking smashing into something; so it will have to be what it will be for the day. See what happens!

The exhaust randomly started blowing at one of the joints, but then I realise that I might have caught it on a low kerb and twisted it off a bit - but that was an easy fix.

Finally, an extra bonnet catch either side - I had a not-so-hilarious incident on one of the outings where the front clip popped itself open and the bonnet nearly flew up and smacked me in the face. Mildy amusing at 20mph as it was, but not so much at 70 and beyond. 

I imagine the fault lies with myself - either the way the bonnet is bent or the positioning of the clips, but the extra clips stop the problem I had before where under vibration the whole bonnet was slipping forwards. Works like a charm now, and actually holds the bonnet much more neatly towards the shut lines.

So the massive paper trail has now begun to gather together all the necessary docs for IVA. As well as the application form(s) themselves I've filled a lever arch folder with relevant documentation:

• Info from the donor (V5 etc.) BMW info ont he powerplant and gearbox ID codes, EWS anti-theft principle of operation etc.
• Insurance
• GKD instructions and build plan
• Wiring loom info and basic car dimensions
• Previous MoT info (1 x fail, 1 x pass)
• Receipts and invoices
• scrap metal receipts from donor (Made £240, woo hoo. When you couple that with the eBay sales of donor parts at £255 and I only paid £410 for the car itself, I'm £85 in profit and still got all my base donor bits for free)
• Certs. of confirmity for seatbelts, battery etc.
• Relevant Correspondence
• Photo story board of the build

Quite possibly OTT, but I don't want to leave anything to chance in terms of being able to prove it's an amateur build, evidence of the provenance of components, and also giving that confidence factor that I've thoroughly researched their processes and I know what it's all about!!

So all that is most definitely un-sexy, but very necessary. Just a few last minute outstanding queries with Peter and then the forms and the very lumpy cheque can be sent off.

In order to leave you on a high I'll show you what arrived for me in the post this week - my wife ordered it for my Birthday a few months back but it only showed up now - full nomex and colour matched to the car. She's awesome isn't she...?

 Thanks for reading

MoT Pass

Awesome news!

2nd round of the MoT was a thundering pass :) That's made me one very happy Engineer.

The drive there was much, much nicer this time on account of the weather being "almost spring", there was a bit of blue sky and sunshine - even better.

Arrived with plenty of time to spare, didn't want to get stopped by the police (which didn't happen) and be late

We had a good chat about what I'd been up to (I bring 5 cars per year there, normally twice each test as well so we tend to get along) and then he got it on the ramp.

Steering wasn't a problem as the new rack was fine. New nuts/bolts were also fine too. Handbrake cable routing was much better, and the front brake flexis were deemed fine as well. As for the handbrake efficiency, well I was still having trouble with it, but as I'd effectively paid for a full test and all he was doing was checking a few bits; he was very kind to help me adjust it up correctly. The trick is to let all the slack out of the cable so the lever on the caliper hits the back stop, pump the pedal and THEN take up the slack in the cable. That worked a charm, and the handbrake pulled 20% efficiency. (MoT limit 16%, IVA limit 18%, so all good on that front).

So finally just down to the emissions then. This is the scary bit because if that ain't right, then who knows what's wrong with it? Clear conscience on the error codes and a new MAF and CPS?

To start with, it wasn't good:

Still High CO...

 Mercifully, after much revving it started to come down a bit, but at 0.307 still over the BET limit of 0.2000

Coming down...

 But then finally, it dropped and settled below 0.200 and finished at 0.195. I then had a chat with the tester who explained that if it fails the standard BET test you can go onto an extended test which takes about 10minutes, and allows a lot more revving and a higher limit of 0.300, which is what happened at the first test. Although at 0.600 it was massively out last time. The IVA limit is 0.300 as far as I can make out from the manual, so I should be OK.

This time though, settled down below and passed fine. Hope it does this on the day of the races though!!

Passed!

 So in the end it was a pass, and now the car has an MoT - awesome news. (but no tax or a number plate yet... lol) Gives me confidence that an IVA is indeed within reach.

Whilst out and about and "legal" to drive with my letter from VOSA, earlier in the week I booked in a four-wheel alignment at another garage on the way home from the MoT. Something else you can't really do in your shed, at least not with any degree of accuracy. This garage has one of the most sophisticated bits of kit in the area.

Because of the nature of the car, and the fact the garage staff had absolutely no idea what to do with it (also possibly because it was a sunny Saturday and mine was the last job of he day and perhaps they couldn't be bothered) I ended up helping to a large extent. The camber adjustment isn't easy as you have to take the wishbone off, so I ended up doing that and taking the wheels on and off with their tools, in their garage with me paying them!!!! The supervisor joked "don't think this makes the price any lower". Cheek!!

After a great deal of faffing we got it pretty good, except the n/s/f camber which ended up 0.7° negative instead of the 1° of the other side - but it literally wasn't playing ball. Of course all the measurements for camber and toe are linked, so when you adjust one, the others all jump around. that's "within tolerance" I feel (a posh way of saying "close enough"). Or at least I'll give it a go and see what it drive like. I did get them to put a rather substantial -1.5° of toe in on the front, hopefully that will help with the self centring issues.

4 wheel alignment kit

A rare moment: garage staff working isntead of me

computer readout, in this instance, rear toe

So that was my exciting Saturday out. Achieved a lot. EXCEPT the self-centring issue. It's still not even budging when you let go of the steering wheel. With a brick for the accelerator pedal the car would happily drive around a roundabout without me in it - not good news for the IVA. Further investigations required I feel... Other than that, the car is driving very well indeed -most lively now. I did take video footage on the way there, but it wasn't a clear run - lots of traffic and crawling in queues, not particularly exciting and hardly worth the effort in editing and rendering the clips. 

This was truly a kit-tastic weekend - On Sunday, I did another exciting thing.

I went forth and collected the S50B32 engine like-wot-I-won on eBay earlier in the week :)

Nice chap all the way up in Kent sold it to me - very reasonably as well I feel. (Why is Kent is some sort of mecca for me and BMW car stuff? hah.) He had it in a track car and spent a fortune building up the engine, only for a tiny piece of metal the size of a grain of rice get into one of the cylinders. Being the fastidious sort he immediately stripped it down and then promptly decided it was lower priority than other stuff - hence me stepping in. It's missing a few key components, but it'll do nicely for a winter project and phase 2 of my car

Fit an M3 engine they said... it'll make your car faster they said. Didn't work though.

 I fetched it back to the workshop and had a quick look - yes it's damaged and will need some machining and yes it's missing a few key components, but nothing insurmountable. Although the first few bits I've tried to seek out is like hunting horcruxes or pieces of the devil's soul, so a formidable challenge it will be!

Block and head

"Piston broke". Note numbers 2 and 3 have some chattering on the top face

Exciting stuff....

Thanks for reading.

Video from "socks blown off"

Link to Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fJcE3kiLkw

Might have problems viewing it on mobile, apparently the owner of one of the songs I've "borrowed" won't let me share it with you on your mobile - best watched on a PC.

I'll do another vid some other time and won't use any music.

Socks... blown off

Greetings readers.

High time for an update, especially since it's been about a month and I'm nearing completion with the MoT fail list.

To refresh your memory, the following was picked up when I took the car for its first MoT:

1. Play in steering rack (excessive)
2. Nuts too short for nyloc x 6
3. handbrake cable fouls on spring n/s only
4. parking brake (low efficiency @8%, excess travel)
5. steel braided brake hoses chafing on cycle wings
6. Emissions 

In order of tackling them, easiest first...

Nuts were easy enough to sort. two I replaced with longer ones, two I removed washers (not needed arguably), the remaining two I replaced the nyloc nut with a plain nut and used threadlock to secure.

Handbrake cable was re-routed, and the steel braided hoses had a rubber sleeve put on where they secure to the cycle wing bracket.

Now the harder ones...

Steering rack I took out and there was definitely some play inside somewhere (manufacturing fault?) , but Peter was a star and exchanged it for me without any fuss. That took 2 evenings to swap out, but not overly complicated.

Emissions... where to start? Well a good place is to get some OBD software or else you're just stabbing around in the dark. So I purchased a set via eBay from BMcables.com - having spent about 4 hours trying to persevere with a downloaded copy, a 60-page instruction manual "auf Deutsch" and a VW cable that was never going to work... this was like a breath of fresh air. Completely works 100% out of the box and one-click installation. Brilliant.

And the INPA software is very comprehensive:

Car-ception - car within a car

Sowing some of the live analogue data displayed whilst the car was running.

So what did it tell me? A great deal as it turns out. Many error messages at first, but once you whittle down through and clear the obvious ones ( e.g. Your electric windows aren't working, the rear seat is missing etc) I learned that the MAF and Crank Postion Sensors were giving error codes, both transient and long term. So I replaced both of them, fairly easy tasks, and hey presto - all fixed :-)

It now starts, runs, and idles much much better. It's the most significant improvement I think I've ever seen on an engine, and in some respects it was a miracle it would even run before. The MAF readings were off the scale and I think it was running using the cam position sensor to get a basic reading of engine position. Clever really, in that the whole system can adapt to live with the failure of two main sensors, and had defaulted to a basic fuelling map so you could get home in the event of an emergency.

Difficult to say with any certainty, as of course I'm relying on my own sense of smell, but there seems to be a lot less un burnt fuel coming through the exhaust as well. So hopefully, that's all mended too. 

Finally, the handbrake needed some attention. I'm still not 100% happy with it, but I managed to reduce the amount of travel by fitting some spacers on the handbrake cable which helped with the adjustment. Although now, if adjusted for a positive handbrake, the callipers are still grabbing at the discs when the handbrake is off. Cure this and you get about 9 clicks of travel on the lever. Sort of tinkering with the adjustment, the only thing I can think of is that the pads needs to bed in, after all the discs are so new they have still got their machining marks on. Might need to bed them in with some gentle application of the handbrake to rough them up a bit. 

So I decided on another quick trip to the MoT station (sic) for a test drive. Straight away you can feel the difference. Before it was flat and down on power. Now it is completely electric!! Definitely found the "blow your socks off" vibe this time. It accelerates insanely fast, wheel spinning in 1st 2nd and nearly 3rd... Incredible. It's going to be entertaining in the wet!!

So with that, a short video to entertain you all:

Video uploading to YouTube... Update this with the link in a minute.

Think we're ready to start the process of getting it tested now.

In other news, just purchased the bare bones of an M3 3.2 Evo engine - exciting things ahead with phase 2 of the project!!,

Thanks for reading