Certifiably (__________)

certifiable |ˈsəːtɪfʌɪəb(ə)l| adjective
1 able or needing to be officially recorded:
2 officially recognized as needing treatment for mental disorder.

I'll go for option 2...

Certifier visited last Tuesday. Only several questions raised: turbo heat insulation, front indicator visibility, seat mounting rails, drive shaft loop etc. Overall, Don was damned impressed with the build quality.

I had planned to keep the final power output and 'full race-car spec for the road' plan quiet, but decided to 'fess up with a view to getting permission to run at least some of the 'track' items on the road. 560hp, Don. Methanol injection, Don. Full roll cage, Don, 6pt harness and no inertia reel, Don. Roll cage mounted wing, Don. Front wing mounted low and dangerous, Don. Hydraulic-line hand brake, Don. ...Sat back waiting for the inevitable "I don't think so, Tim". Instead, I got the "Go get yourself a Motorsport NZ licence and a log book, replace the end plates of the front wing with a thicker metal with a minimum 3mm radius and you can run everything you want on the road". Well, push me over with a feather! Yee Har.

Now I have my pit lane speed limit button and all of the Hot-Wheels wings to go with it!

Happy 13 year old idiot. Brrrrrm, brrrrrrm!

Capacious Vessels ~ Show us the Twins!

Twin Tank:

Good Ol’ Donny in the Good Ol’ U S of A is currently fabricating the swirl/meth tank. We have had a few discussions about converting metric to imperial. I hope that the tank arrives safely and is somewhere between the size of a matchbox and a barn. Once this is in place, I can design and fit an alloy mounting plate for all of the fuel system components, including the methanol pump.

Catch Cans:

Bought a couple of really good looking Mishimoto polished ali catch cans from Summit. For the PCV and oil reservoir. Still trying to find out if I need a PCV from the cam cover and another one from the top of the rear mounted dry sump oil reservoir? Maybe just a breather on the top of the oil reservoir? Any takers?

That's it for now, Folks. Hopefully next week will be filled with the joyous squeals of delight from Gaz when the Über Séxy Cãrbön Fïbrė et all arrives at Chez Bollocks.

L8R, Ladies and Germs.

Length and Width Matters ~ S/S Lines.

Intercooler

Had a go at connecting up the charge cooler system. 1/2” braided lines everywhere. I know they are heavy, but I just loooooove braided s/s lines. Sex. I need an additional -12AN head (what do you call those things? Fitting? Boss? Male Connector (ohh, err) welded onto the left side of the IC reservoir where I have the short hose connecting the res to the inter cooler. Add that to the long list of jobs. Ran out of -12AN hose, need to find another meter from somewhere. Anyone? Also need to find a nice hose/chassis clamp for the -6, -8, -10 and -12 lines that I have running around the car. More research. Added to list.

Fuel

Another order from Summit arrived with hose couplings and fuel lines. -8AN from the pumps to the rail and -6AN back to the tank. Hopefully enough room to run them through the tunnel, alongside the oil lines. Note to self, find some thermal sheathing to prevent the fuel lines heating up.

Oil

Connected up the -12 and -10 oil lines to the oil reservoir. The lines connected to the dry sump pump and were running through the tunnel, so I had to set up the work bench close enough to the car to work on the lines. It looked primitive but worked a treat. Woo Hoo, look at me, Mum! I am a Hydraulic Engineer! I will eat those words when every fitting pisses hot/flammable fluids everywhere on start up and the house disappears in a loud and newsworthy fireball.

'You, Yooou light up my life, Yooou...etc'

Ahem. Blame the beer.

Headlights. ... and I am not talking about the wife's cardigan bunnies.

Have been searching for headlights. I didn’t want to go with the traditional Bug Eyes, and saw these Highway Hawk units on Hahlin7 (that berserk 750hp Swedish 7, do a YouTube search for it) and liked the look. They look dodgy in the pics, but pimping in the flesh. I have x2 6000K H3 HD kits for them. Still trying to find a tail light that suits. I want LED. Also looking for something a bit different to the de-facto Land Rover light for the indicators. Searching, searching.

One of the lights is winging it's sad way back to the UK for replacement. High Beam needs a couple of Viagra obviously.

Electrons. Stupid wee things.

Electrics

Aye Carumba. Dragged out most major electrical sub-systems and stared at them for several days. Trying to get my head around where to start. Wiring looms (ECU and Chassis) are the obvious choice. Measuring up the likely path of the main loom around the car and will go buy a 2400x1200 wooden panel and start marking up, then start hanging the looms up on lots of small nails, adding circuits as I go. Joy. Love electrics. Staying positive. Staying positive. But grounded at the same time. Bidda Boom Tish. Small electrical joke there. Sigh.

Car Loom:

I shaved years off my life and created a whole dictionary of new swear words the last time I wired a car, making up the entire loom myself. Not this time, Buckwheat, no sirree. Bought a 20 circuit waterproof Painless Wiring loom from Summit. Impressed. Very tidy fuse box, every wire labelled and all of the ancillary bumph included along with a very detailed install manual. The job will still be a right bitch, but this loom kit will take the sting out of it.

ECU Loom:

Yee Har. I hate wiring. No, no, stay positive. I kept the Link wiring loom when I sold the G4 with a view to modifying it to suit the DTA. The AMP Superseal connectors were compatible between the two ECUs . I swallowed a bottle of brave pills and got stuck into it recently. The AMP connectors took a couple of beers to work out how to unlock the terminals and start swopping wires around. Quite a clever design, I have to say. The terminals have a small shoulder and once inserted into the plug, you lock them in place with an inbuilt sliding key. 2 gaskets inside the plug keep everything water proof. Very clever. Created a spreadsheet to keep track of everything. The treadmill is a useful loom-cradle...the floor is a useful place to untangle all of the shit when it tangles on the treadmill...small white stickers are useful when labouriously labeling every wire. I have to sit down (without a beer) and carefully check every connector/wire for continuity and function label. Joy. A small mistake at this stage would turn into a right headache later. I need to re-read the DTA manual and get more familiar with the various functions to make sure I have everything covered. Damned thing even has a pit-lane speed limiter! Imagine that button being held down cruising through the Mackers drive through...

Did I mention that I hate electrics? :-(

Air Hair Lair There

As you can see, there is feck all room for the air filter. I had to box the big K&N ‘oil drums’ and grab an oval number that had the requisite surface area for my evil power target. The exit of the Garrett’s compressor housing is 4” and the 90 deg silicone coupler had to sit at 30 deg to horizontal to clear the rear waste gate assembly. Tricky. Tried a 4” ali tube bend cut to allow the filter to sit vertically, ... but the filter sat too high. Smaller filter? Hmmm. Then tried a very short straight 4” coupling, leaving the filter fitting under the bonnet but at a very odd angle. It would work, but fabricating the cool air box would be more of a challenge. More thought needed here.

Small Steps.

Hey, Team.

Intercooler (sorry, 'Charge Cooler' for the purists) ... actually ... fits ... well ... f*** me ... My very dodgy measurements and calculations gave rise to the birth of a Spearco i/c. I had my fingers crossed that it would line up with the Garrett and the throttle body.... phew. Had some ali bent up from AutoBend (10 deg bend i/c to t/b as the i/c sat a smidge lower than the t/b. Fits. Had to go for an unusual 100 degree bent to go from compressor outlet to i/c inlet. Fits. Working on the placement of the i/c water pump and associated hoses/fittings. Another order to Summit for more FPS fittings is necessary, but we are close to having all of the bits now. Note 'Man Sized' 4' silicone coupler. Arrrrgh.

Spent a day working put how the hell to get a reasonable sized air filter under the bonnet and then feed it with cool air. Lots of calculations relating to CFM and air filter surface area were completed, then a long beer-drinking session working through the K&N cattledog looking for a filter that had sufficient flow and would fit. Found a 7"(L)x4.5"(w)x7"(h) oval K&N. Bought directly off the K&N site, no parasitic middlemen, with free freight to NZ. Go figure.

Ordered the roll cage, aero screen, front/rear carbon guards, dash board and sill protectors from Frasers. Carbon, mmmmmmmm, carbon. Ida and Scott wisely ignored all mentions of 'trade in' value on the fibre glass guards, ;-) so I gave them away to a good home. Chap called Adam. Building his own 7 from scratch. CNC genius. Look ... at ... the ... pedals ... oh, and the elliptical a-arms. 'Nuff said. I need to completely redesign the water pipe system to accommodate the K&N, so feel that I may have to knock on Adam's door for a very special 'water manifold'.

Swopped the 225 50 15 fronts for 205 50 15. Look much better and will give me a wee bit of 'slip' front to back.

That's it. Stay tuned. Gazzzzzzzzzzzzargh!

Exhausting

Exhaust system. Don't ask. Still pretty darn gosh grumpy with the (un-named local exhaust centre), too grumpy to give you the whole sad tale, so some pics and a mild grump will suffice. 6 weeks to complete 6 hours work while Gran's Corolla and Pop's Landrover kept jumping the queue. !@#$%^&*. I picked all of the kit up today and told them that they could hide their invoice somewhere very dark.

Dark Faced Gaz. Seethe, seethe, fume, fume.