February Update

Having recently spent days and weeks preparing the inside of the car for painting, it is now returned from Kevin the Painters garage with a shiney top coat of BMW Alpine White. I'm now battling with the wiring loom. Cutting out what's not needed, tidying up the loom wrap and trying to figure out what the hell all the wires do. Truth be known, I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing so I'm being very cautious. A good sparky would probably be a lot more brutal with the snippers.

January 2010 - New Suspension

The 318is came with non-adjustable 51mm front struts. They were well past their sell by date and just not suitable for racing, so off they came.

New Year - New Spax Adjustable Coilover Suspension. Thanks to Richard at Vision Racing Developments for hooking me up with Spax.

It's blinking cold out in the garage at this time of year, but the new Spax Adjustable Coilovers went onto the front of the car today. I took the old suspension apart myself as I had to send the struts away to be turned into the bright yellow coilovers I received back for Spax. Gareth, my brother in law, helped me put them on. Now I can measure the distance between the hub face and the spring/wheel arch extensions and pass on the dimentions to Revolution Wheels who are going to make some wider wheels with the correct offsets. Hopefully we can get a suitable wide track for the car without putting too much strain on the wheel bearings.

Next up is fitting the new rear suspension - also by Spax. I also have two new Cobra Monacco Pro racing seats (that Santa brought) and a 330mm OMP racing steering wheel that need putting in. At last! Nice jobs!

November '09 Update

Before

After

I've spent the last few weeks sanding and painting the rough interior of the car. It's now in primer (like the outside of the car) and ready to be sprayed BMW Alpine White. The Yamaha R1 you can see in the background is now sold and the money will finance the next steps for the Beemer - coilover suspension, lightweight wheels and the final paint job.

Some better pictures

New arches - some quick pics

Rear valance cut away, old petrol tank removed and disgarded - huge weight saving! Holes cut for the look more than anything else. We've discussed fabbing some sort of aluminium rear air diffuser like you get on modern sports cars to fill the gap that's left in the valance.

The car has been sprayed in white primer and is more or less ready for a flatting off and top coat of BMW Alpine White.

Front valance cut away to ape the look of a WRC car. Front wings now blend into the valance - meaning a bit more repair work if I smack into something. Notice that the rollcage is now in place and bolted in. Bonnet wasn't sprayed as it's going to be replaced by a lightweight GRP one.

Looking a bit funny with the original skinny 14 by 5.5 inch wheel fitted. A nine inch wide rear wheel should easily fit under the new arch.

Front wing rolled out easily . All the arch work is in steel and completely unique to my car. Brian kept all the cardboard templates in case I damage them in the future.

Quick update

The car is back at Brian's garage for some metal fabrication. We looked at fitting fibreglass Mk2 Escort arches, but they didn't suit the car. So, the arches were returned to West Wales Rally Spares and Brian is now fabricating some bespoke ones from mild steel. Whilst she's there, Brian will weld in the cage mouting points and strip back the parts of the wiring loom that I wasn't confident enough to have a go at. Pictures to follow soon.

Some photos of progress thus far.

Here are a few pics of where the car is at. I decided to remove the dash to save weight - I still have the heater matrix to remove. Also I made a start at removing weight from the rear of the car by cutting the spare wheel well out.