29th January 2000:

The bodywork is all done, so it's time to take the whole thing apart ready for painting. With the exception of the rear suspension, everything has been removed so that the inside of the shell and under the bonnet can all be painted. Just needs steam cleaning next week and off to the painter's it is! Oh, and that pile of tubes on the ground is the roll cage. Paul bent up all the tubes and tacked them into place before taking them all out again so the shell can be painted. The cage is to be painted as well, but in dark grey to match the wheels. The tubes all get sprayed, then the cage is assembled inside the car and welded in place. Then the welded areas are airbrushed to suit.

You can see that everything is out, even the steering column. Can't let anything get in the way of the spraygun.

There's a lot that has gone on in recent weeks that is not immediately obvious. The shell has been seam welded for extra strength. Last time I went over a couple of weeks ago, Paul was mocking up the radiator and intercooler in cardboard. Space was so tight under the bonnet that just measuring up wasn't going to do, actual 3D models of these parts were required. They have now been sent off to be made up for real.

Anyone want to buy an 8v Integrale engine? (too late - its been sold now!). The original plan was to assemble the car with the original engine and chip it - was looking at around 225bhp available that way, which given that the car will probably weigh less than a ton, would have proved interesting enough. But plans change, and as the engine had to come out anyway, ready for painting the shell, things worked out rather well when I saw an ad for a 8V Integrale engine with Group A cams, but smoky, in Fast Car magazine.

The engine was duly acquired and taken directly to Barry at Evolution Engineering for a stripdown and condition check. Barry reported that it did have a Group A inlet cam, but the exhaust cam wasn't so wild. This is probably a better road compromise anyway. However, the rings were gone, the bores were oval, clearly some work was going to be needed. Over the next few weeks Barry had the block re-bored, nice shiny new pistons were fitted, a little bit of porting was done and everything was generally made like new again - doesn't it look nice and clean above? Once it goes back in, and I've run her in, it'll be back to Barry to have the ECU re-programmed. Should be looking at around 270bhp apparently - time will tell.

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