Today is another one of those big days in a kit car builders world. I got the engine started for the first time since it came out of the donor. Many thanks to the guys on the Haynes Roadster Forum for their advice and encouragement, I was tearing my hair out with this thing last night.

Here's the vid:

I had to retreat from the garage as soon as I stopped it as the smoke was getting thick, as you can see, it's pouring out of the doors.

On cloud 9 right now - WOO HOO!

Some more pics from Stoneleigh:

Here's a nice MEV Rocket. Ford RS200 replica

Royale Sabre - I really like the shape of these. Rumour has it that these will be going back into production soon.

A couple of reaaly gorgeous Marcos cars.

And an Ultima.

Here's some more pics.

This is a one off special called "Enigma". A bit wierd looking, it's running a Ford 2.9L V6 engine.


AGM WLR on the AGM stand. I really like this car, I have even considered building one next. It has a very similar chassis to mine underneath but can accept a huge range of engines. Speaking to the AGM staff, they tell me they have just been commisioned to build one with a Merceded V12!!

Tiger Aviator on the Tiger Stand. I like the wedge shaped bodywork.

An original Lotus Seven

And here is about half of my wiring loom. Now you can see what I'm really up against. The wife wasn't exactly thrilled about me spreading it all out on the living room floor!

Yesterday I finally cracked it - I finally got the starter turning properly. Having charged the big battery and trying it again with no success, I traced the problem to the jump start point. Here, the battery wire bolts to one side and the main power lead to the engine bolts on to the other. When I was trying to start it, I saw sparking across it, So i removed both leads and connected them directly to eachother and eureka, it works, consistently. One problem less to deal with.

I also continued to work on the rear loom, separating out the obsolete wires, and making up a multiplug connector for the rest, this will allow me to separate the rear section of the loom with ease whenever required. I picked up this tip from the John Dickes seminar at Stoneleight last week. The connector is a PC ATX power connector kit from Maplin's - £1.79 including connector block and pins. I must confess that the crimp on pins re really fiddly but so far it's going well.

Yesterday was amix of some failure, with a big success.

First the failure.

Continuing from my last posting, I hooked up the fully charged booster pack and tried turning the engine over - nothing. The starter continued to click as before but no rotation. I managed to get it to turn a few times, slowly, and gave up when i found that the boosters wires were getting hot.

I have now concluded that the booster pack isn't powerful enough to provide the amps I need to crank that big engine. So what i have done is put a bit of a monster battery on charge overnight. It's thebattery of my old BMW 540i (same car as my donor but with a 4L V8 instead of the 3L I'm using here) so it should have more than enough kahunas to crank the engine. I'll find that out this afternoon.

Secondly the success.

I have been struggling with a mass of wiring in the centre of the car. At the front I have the front lighting loom, engine management loom and dasboard loom, all of which I need. At the rear I have the rear lighting loom and fuel pump/fuel level/speedo sensor wiring loom, again, I need these. In the centre was a secondary fuse box containg some fuses, relays and 2 big control modules. These were for the elecctric windows, heated rear screen etc. - don't need them. Also a large bulb failure module - don't need that either, however, if I removed it, would the lighting still work?

My theory was that this bulb failure system was an optional extra, not fitted to all BMW's, so removing it, and bypassing the wiring may get the rear lights working. I set about tracing all the wiring colours from the rear lights, forward into the loom, then finding the same colours at the front and tracing them backwards, the same for the fuel/speedo wiring. I grouped them together with insulation tape so not to lose them. I carefully cut out all the other wiring, as evetually was able to completely remove a whole armful of wiring that wasn'r required, along with the secondary fuse box. This has made the loom much more manageable, and the task suddenly seems a lot less daunting.

To test my theory, I reconnected 2 cut off ends between the front and rear sections (bearing in mind that there was formerly a bulb failure moduel in between them), only choosing just 2 wires of the same colour, and tried some lights. Hey presto! One of the rear indicators works! So the theory is sound, the rear lights can work without that pesky module. The next task here is to reconnect some more, and hopefully get all the rear lights and the fuel/speedo section working too.

Finally some good news - that starter motor works!!!

After bench tgesting it and seeing it spin normally, I refitted it, then removed, cleaned and refitted the main earth leads, connected my booster battery directly to the engine jump start points and turned the key - and bingo, the engine spun over. Well, it spun over for a few seconds, slowly. The battery booster had died.

It's now on charge overnight, I'll try again tomorrow.

With the engine turning over, I'll be able to test if the spark plugs and fuel injectors are firing, if they are, I only need to get the fuel pump running and I may be able to give the engine a test run.

I'll keep posting!

I spent this past weekend at the national kit car motorshow (aka Stoneleigh) and bought quite a few nice new bits for the car.

Lovely little wing mirrors - £15
Conical Air filter - £10
Fuel hose and clips - £8.50
Fuel Filler cap £17.50
Harnesses - £70
2 second hand Slick Tyres - £20
electrical guide book - £20
Rear light mounts - £15

I think that's about it. also got to meet loads of other car builders and share information, etc. Hope to meet plenty more at a trackday at Llandow in 2 weeks time.

So now it's back on with the build. At the show, i attended a seminar on kit car electrics, how to construct your own loom etc, and now feel a little more confident about completing my own wiring. I have a few ideas left before tearing my hair out completely.

I'm going to remove the starter and bench test it. Hopefully it can be saved as a replacement it about £180. Once that is done I'll have a look at the rear lights as they simply aren't working at all.

The I'll try and get the dash disply working. That i simply havent a clue about, but I really hope I can get it working.