erjones

Yeah i saw the whole XR2 bit on UKFN, was good read, would love to get in to racing or rally but for time being cant afford it, maybe sometime soon

rsjonny

iTrader: (1)

Thats interesting Im thinking about a mk5 fiesta at the moment I was all set to go karting but for 5k I can buy a mk5 fezza with a trailer hardly seems worth spending 4k going karting. I think I would build up to doing the ARDS test gradually as I have never been on track in a car. Think the best option would be to do some novice track days in a race prepped car. I do love the st's though there like mini touring cars Good luck with the build I will follow it with interest.

BlairM

Cheers Jonny.

ARDS test isn't that hard buddy, wouldn't worry about doing too many trackdays. I'd done one of those racing experiences at Knockhill before I sat mine. Instructor keeps you right.

BlairM

OK well I thought I was going to have nothing to do on the car this weekend, the plan originally was to leave the removal of the remaining sealer to be sanded pre-paint inside. After speaking to the guy who'll be fitting my cage for me, it was suggested this would save some money in prep time for painting, and he also asked me to remove fuel tank - this needs to come out for the cage fitting anyway.

So this weekends probably been the most work I've done on the car. Less a few tea breaks I spent 11am - 8pm Saturday and 11am - 4pm Sunday on it. Cream crackered now!

Fuel tank is relatively simple. 3 bolts hold it up, there are two hoses from the filler neck and then there are a few fuel lines that need to come off. These are basically click and release sort of things, no threaded connections to contend with thank god!

Tank looks surprisingly small I reckon


Free area left by tank, that is the rear axle along bottom of picture, the filler hoses are at the top



At the advice from others went and bought a flap disc that fits onto the angle grinder - to clean up areas sealer has been removed from. I then found out my dad had a box of them in the garage, they were 120 grit so ideal for this job. A flap disc is somewhere in between a grinding disc and a sanding disc. More aggresive but not too much.
















After all that work there was a lot of dust. Today I took the car out of the garage and using the air compressor hose, blasted out as much as I could before hoovering the rest. So took some pics of the car in the daylight. It was the first time I've seen the car outside in daylight, I know why I chose Frozen White!









Car should be going off for cage this week, all depends on when the other ST that is having a cage fitted before me is finished.

Homer.

Getting there

TimC

iTrader: (1)

Its getting there

H7 CYA

iTrader: (3)

Looking good.

jonny s2

iTrader: (12)

nice bit of cage you have there matey!

erjones

Looking good, you wouldnt think the tank holds 45ltrs!

Do you have to keep the tank or you allowed a fuel cell?

BlairM

Just keeping the standard one, you are allowed an option of fitting a guard to the tank.

Andrew Gallacher's ST had one - see the pics on the ebay auction page
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...STRK:MEWAX:VRI

BlairM

Car was collected today for the cage, hopefully this time next week it'll be done.

Hope to get some pics of the cage fitted pre paint but no promises sadly.

erjones

Got you, yeah know of them when working on a Grp N FSTi car but guess in track use you don't really need it

nice one!

BlairM

You don't know how many gravel traps I visit..


I can use a lot of the bits that M Sport make for the rally ST's, I had a look on their site and using the 2008 price list parts I need come to about Ł800.. door cards, tank guard, steering wheel and boss, uprated driveshaft nuts etc..

erjones

you can soon see why a Grp N ST rally car sells for about Ł20k with all the prices for parts lol

BlairM

Yeh there was actually one ST up here that had absolutely everything top of the range on it, rumoured to be 20k worth in build costs!

Most ST race cars seem to fit in the 12 - 15k bracket.

Hezz

hope you're not planning on using those wheels!!!

BlairM

Funny you should mention that, last year a group of us took some ST's to Crail airfield, 50psi in those space savers on the back = lots of lift off oversteer!

BlairM

Big update this time!


Rollcage has now been fitted, over the weekend I was fitting plates to the holes in the car that have been left by removal of rubber grommets, including a large plate over where the heater unit would be, around rollcage to suspension strut pick up point etc. There are also some holes that have been filled in with sealer to stop water getting in - 11 bolt holes on the boot floor.

There were a few things we weren't happy with regarding the rollcage and felt it would benefit to add some extra tubing. These were the pick up points to suspension - making one horizontal tube to suspension from rollcage (normally just two diagonals), will add strength in the event of a frontal impact. Also added was a horizontal tube on the boot floor running between both B pillars. Again, this would help should there be a large side impact.

I will let the pics do the talking now!































Seat mounts:


Additional tube along width of car I mentioned:



Front Suspension pick up:


Plate over bulkhead, & o/s suspension pick up.


Small plates. 4 of the circular type, 4 of the oval shaped ones. Plus I had to fill that vent thing in the top middle with sealer again!




Car is off to paint this week and should have it back in the next fortnight to start re-assembly. Decided on using a facelift dash to give it a more modern look.

michael harbour

you would be better cuting and pre fitting dash before it goes to paint mate...

BlairM

Would of done that if I'd been fitting dash myself, but luckily got a wealth of ST dash fitting experience to draw on.

Miller 3

iTrader: (4)

Nice work there Blair mate

Ginge

Good looking cage that!

Keep up the good work.

Ginge

erjones

Looking good! in the pic above, is that addition on the tube for the harness to go between?

BlairM

Absolutely. Keeps them secure, infact I'm unsure if it is a stipulation in MSA regs or not now?

My old XR2 had a cable tie between the two to stop them from getting tangled up lol!

M K

iTrader: (9)

Same cage as mine from custom cages, with other bars to suit,
is yours the t45 or cds?

What is the difference between the dash's mate mine is a 53 plate so assume I have an early dash,

erjones

Fair play lol i havent a clue on them, all i know is from the Grp Ns and never had that, well not that i know of but would need 2 for the Grp N for the co driver lol

look forward to more progress

BlairM

Mine is T45. As I'm 14.5 stone I need the car to be light, as both driver and car count towards minimum weight. Not sure if I'll need any ballast, but more I can have at a lower level the better. Need to get on a diet to lose a couple of stone!

The dash's changed around the 55 plate. Easiest way to differentiate them is that the pre facelift had the in built 3 slot type radio / cd player, facelift has a more normal double din unit. Dials also got changed, it all looks more modern IMO.

Cheers

BlairM

Some pictures now of the interior painted. These were taken at the start of the day before I started work on fitting the wiring loom back in. It's fairly logical where the loom goes though as all the clips / fixing points match up when you lay it out. You just need to plan how it goes round about the rollcage first before you start clipping it in place.

















Pedal box and brake servo are also fitted back in place and connected up the loom - unfortunately it was dark when I finished last night so no pics of my days work sadly.

Had hoped to get the dash back in as well but this will need to wait. The original dash is going back in, was planning on fitting a facelift dash but there's none available. That brings me onto the reason why I'll need to fit it, my other piece of news is that I will be racing (hopefully) at the first meeting of the season at Knockhill on April 18th. In between work etc I have 12 days (11 now!) available myself to complete it, luckily Easter falls early this year and I'm off work for one week so the car will be getting blitzed then.


Also if there are any sponsors out there interested in sponsoring me give me a shout!

Allyc85

Coming along well mate

Richy888

looks brilliant!!

Alot to get done by April 18th!! no testing prior to this?

rsjonny

iTrader: (1)

excellent work looks great painted inside now!!

I have a question Ive been looking at these for sale on fordracing.eu and there around the 12-13k mark which is not bad i dont think. What do you do insurance wise with the cars is motorsports inurance for the value of the car or is it for the driver to cover injuries e.t.c.? what im thinking is if you put all this work into the car and get caught up in someone else's accident surely you dont have to then fork out anouther 13k to buy a new car??

Rsmat

iTrader: (2)

looking well good blair mate..

BlairM

Cheers for the comments

Maybe some on Saturday 17th providing car is ready to go. Hopefully not cutting it that fine!

Sounds about ok for these cars that rate.

You can get insurance for the cars but it's very expensive because of the high risk involved. Talking like 2k I think for one weekend, don't know anyone who bothers with, crash your car you just need to pay for repairs, same with if you get tangled up with someone else, every drivers pays for their own repairs. Just the way it is. Personal injury would be covered by the MSA and your racing licence, although I remember reading some of the compo rates for losing your sight, limbs etc and they were shockingly small sums of money.

If you did damage your car and provided you could salvage a lot of the parts from it you could easily reshell the car for a lot less than 13k. I reckon about 4k for one of these ST's.

Richy888

The first time you will drive this will be that saturday? Bit too close for my liking but no doubt it will run superb!

Wish i spent all that time removing all the sealer!! Might do it over the winter still lol.

BlairM

My hope is I will have the car well ready by the previous weekend, talking Saturday 10th, and I may be able to get it on track for a shakedown if I ask Knockhill nicely. If not then the 17th it is!

Richy888

Shame it's at knockhill and my birthday weekend or I would of love to come up and given you a hand over the weekend

Good luck!

BlairM

Thanks!

TimC

iTrader: (1)

Cage looks superb. Looking forward to seeing it all completed

BlairM

Got some more pics of the interior. Didn't really get much done today as I am getting someone to do the wiring for me but unfortunately something got in the way for him. This stops the dash etc going back in.

Nevertheless, first race is 3 weeks tomorrow. There is a test day in 2 weeks time I wouldn't mind getting the car out for a shakedown on too (said before lol).

BlairM

A little update here, a few pics from last weekend although the car has made a lot more progress than shown in these pics. Basically I've been away from home working on it but am home tonight, haven't had any net access in between.

We (I needed help..!) got the dash in on Sunday - it needed cutting in half to fit around the rollcage, then in below the dash it was tie wrapped up to hold in together, as well as a small alloy bracket at the bottom of the windscreen mounted onto bodyshell to hold the dash in place.

Fibreglass door cards were also fitted, this involved cutting out holes for electric window switches and door handles.






























Another job was where the rear suspension mounted onto the top of the wheel arch, this needs to be opened up to accept the race AST suspension kit. The hole originally was just larger that the nut you can see, now it's the diameter of the rollcage tubing.






That is all the pics I have for now as I've been too busy so far. The car now has the ST engine fitted, Milltek exhaust & flexi pipe, fuel tank back in place, glass fitter arrived today and new heated windscreen has been fitted along with both rear quarters, now the car is water tight. Whilst getting a hand on the more difficult items I have been doing some smaller jobs.

Scuttle panel now has two holes cut ready to fit the external master switch and extinguisher switch, I have been preparing a plate to fit over where a standard radio would go that houses the internal master switch & extinguisher switches. I have also been making up some plates to secure dash where it has been cut.

Around 8pm last night we did manage to fire up the engine to make sure it all ran fine. It sounds OK so far but until the front panel arrives tomorrow to enable the radiator to mounted the engine won't be able to be put through a proper test.

Hopefully have more pics by Friday night.

Oh and the stripes are also ordered...