…and eventually you’ll have a car to enter a race with. We have the slow part NAILED and we’re working on the ‘steady’ part by going up to the shop and doing a couple of hours of work each week. Right now we’re working around not having a down pipe with a cat so we can pass a clean air, which will be a help in terms of progress. Plus it’s been cold and WRC and Top Gear are back on so we’ve been watching that and this: http://blip.tv/shawncalgary
Despite those distractions we picked up some new – to us – parts off Kijiji (timing belt kit, couple of fuel pumps, ECU) to go with the wheels and tires we got from Don in the fall and the oddly substantial number of spare parts the car came with, and this week we’ll be doing some shopping for the next batch of stuff we need – wheel studs and bolts, brake rotors and pads (probably Hawks unless someone has any other suggestions). We also got the interior of the car stripped and did some wiring to go with the exhaust (the less you know about this the better) so there has been some progress.
Once we get the down pipe finished and the brakes working, get the compression checked, and (hopefully) the timing belt replaced we can wander over to HotBits to talk about suspension some more. We changed the oil once and did some other basic stuff, and along with doing the brakes and wheels we have some horrible aftermarket electronics to remove – turbo timer, alarm – and more to pull/label. However, we’re treading a thin line between removing stuff and not being able to drive it at this point.
If you can’t drive it you can always haul it, right? Well, that’s the theory. Unfortunately the rear brakes on the van follow the Mayan calendar and died just before Christmas. Not a big deal normally but they released all the brake fluid and there’s still a leak somewhere, so when it needs moving we rely on the trailer brakes. Consequently we will not be driving THAT any more than necessary and definitely not hauling any cars until we fix that. Hopefully on a when nobody is at the shop to notice that we are again working on the van instead of the race car. At the same time we could put some cardboard over the rad to allow the coolant to get up to temp and maybe even fix the vacuum hose leak that keeps the ‘climate control’ from doing anything other than defrost. And since we have no heat and no AC pump (that died a couple or three years ago, on the way to our first rally – Black Bear – so we immediately roadside repaired it and left it that way) that defrost is pretty weak.
More updates when we have pictures of new parts in boxes!