Things are coming together ....to do list

So, with just nine days to go before the start of the race meeting, we still have no race car. This does not present a major problem because I am working that day anyway. That gives me an extra 14 days before I can actually race, but will it be enough?
I have the car booked in for the roll cage fitting next week. You may recall that whilst I can weld, it is only pigeon shit welding, and I wouldn't trust myself to fix something as important as the roll cage, so it is being sent to Full On Fabrications in Pickering to get fitted out. Let's hope they live up to the reputation the recommendation suggests. They need the bare shell, so the doors and bootlid need to come off, and the seat needs to come out so they can weld the cage in without anything in the way.
The seat - oh the pains that has given me - literally. The car has to fit my 12 year old son as a junior, and myself as a 6 foot 1 inch adult, and as the seat cannot have a sliding adjustment mechanism and has to be firmly bolted in place the seating position has to be a bit of a compromise. After trying several ideas with the original seat base frame and a quick release bolt mechanism i eventually welded a mounting system in place.
The doors meanwhile have been skinned - i.e basically reduced to the outerskin, which reduces weight as well as freeing up room for the roll cage side protection/door bars. The hinges have to be retained (regulations) and at present the door locks are in pace simple to keep them shut, but once they are refitted they will be welded closed and the locks can be removed too.
So, in the remaining two weeks or so, we have the following list to complete;
Brake light (easy enough)
Towing point to be added front and centre (easy enough)
Battery box to be added (spill proof and secure) - costly in Aluminium, might come up with an alternative.
Seat belt harness (hopefully I have a date expired FIA harness being donated for free, which is adequate for autograss)
Door numbers and roof numbers - Vinyl numbers and a pucker roof pod are about £50 - I may have a cheaper solution - watch this space.
That just leaves the wiring to sort out and whaddya know - What was a runner with the replacement ECU and harness has now decided it doesn't want to run again - damned NATS system.
However, I'm confident that with a mix of the ECU's (3 off) and wiring harnesses I can make it go again.

Licence and number

Work on the car progresses slowly, mostly planning and preparation due to the weather, and also due to a really tender finger end which now has no fingernail on it where I managed to trap it under the trailer ramp.  It's the second finger of my right hand, so it looks like I tried to say goodnight to the boss whilst standing too close to a ceiling fan. Also it's bloody cold and wet outside.
Still, last night was licence night, so I am now £85 lighter in the wallet, for a junior and a mens licence for our team of dad and Son.
And we now have our race number S99Y. Thomas is working on fantasy paint schemes. At present the car is purple, but I'm fairly sure it will change to something lairy once he's finished with his felt tip pen sketches.

We Have a Runner!

With the correct fuel pump arriving today, even though I had just finished a night shift I couldn't resist going and fitting it on and trying to start the little Micra. How rewarding it was to hear the old girl chug into life for the first time n months, with the little 1.0 litre power plant revving like a good 'un. Young Thomas has been through a tough weekend due to problems at school, but at least I can cheer him up with the news his car is now a viable race car once more. So, after a little tidying up of the wiring loom and fixing stuff down it will be ready to go for a roll cage very soon.

Under pressure

The title sort of reflects the fact that the new season starts in just over six weeks and at present I still don't have a car ready.
But I think I have finally diagnosed the problem. The wiring is all replaced and correct but the car will only tick over for a few seconds and refuses to rev at all. This strongly suggests that not enough fuel is getting through. A quick check on the fuel pump and my original bargain buy proves to be a bit of a error. Somewhere in translation (I bought from China - big mistake) 0.3 Bar has become 3 Bar. The Micra fuel system runs at 2.5 bar, so a 3 bar pump is just fine, but one that can only provide a tenth of the fuel required is not. No wonder the poor thing wouldn't run, I had it on a weightwatcher diet. The new part should arrive Friday from a reputable UK supplier, and I expect the engine will then roar like a lion.

Progress at last

At last a little progress on the Micra Autograsser. You may recall that I had some major wiring issues resulting in what Rolls Royce engineers would undoubtedly call a failure to commence. The troublesome NATS was removed, but still we had a refusal to start, probably due to me using my fists of ham to cut out what i thought were unnecessary parts of the wiring loom.

In desperation I decided to start again from scratch and bought another Micra, reasoning the the first could be used as a donor of spare parts, such as wheels and body parts as and when the shell inevitably took damage. I bought unseen off Ebay, always a good idea (not!) I then realised I had bought more trouble, in that not only was the car rotten in the rear sills and both front wings, but more seriously the front crossmember had more holes than a Swiss cheese. To cap it all the cut off date for Autograss Micras is January 2000 and on receiving the V5 I found this one was registered in May 2000. striping back some of the interior trim showed a date coding of around September/October 1999 so I could probably have argued the date of manufacture prior to January 2000, but the general state of the car meant it probably wasn't worth it.

So plan C came into play. This meant stripping all the useful parts of the second Micra and scrapping the remainder, the most useful part being the wiring harness and ECU, which have now been transplanted into Micra number 1. I ran out of daylight tonight, but first impressions are good with the engine now starting but running rough, probably down to the air filter system being off the car and it being very damp, plus the petrol has probably gone off.  Tomorrow we'll see if we can get it running right, and if so I then need to find the man to build the rollcage.

Still stalled but a little progress.

The racer project is still stalled. But a little progress has been made.
The engine starts but only if the engine is primed with a little fuel poured down the throttle body. Then it runs roughly for a short while. I think it is a wiring problem somewhere, any suggestions welcome.
Meanwhile Lee at Boyes Lane Engineering has worked magic on the Engine Management Unit and removed the troublesome NATS system. This will make things a lot simpler, once I find the other wiring problem.
Then it will be a race on to get the roll cage in and the paintwork done before the new season starts.

Stalled project......

Quite literally the autograss project has stalled. We were about to remove the fuel tank the other night and decided to check the engine one last time before we removed the fuel lines and replumbed them to the new small underbonnet tank. Well the car fired, ran for about three seconds and died. Investigation showed a good fuel supply and a spark at the plugs, albeit a weak one, but it just would't fire. Suspecting an immobiliser or electrical fault I checked through all the wiring joints we had moved and else everything I could think of, but came up blank. Then in a back to basics attempt I removed the distributor cap to discover it was held with only two screws instead of three, and had been on at a slight angle, not seated properly. The rotor arm had been mashing away at the contacts and I presume had eventually worn to the point where it no longer made good contact, hence high resistance and a refusal to start. As the cap looks fairly new I'm guessing the previous owner had it replaced by a lazy mechanic who didn't bother with the awkward to reach bottom screw.
A new arm and cap have been acquired, and just as soon as I get chance after our holiday I'll replace them and see if that fixes things.