Hi Everyone,
Time for an update.
I have been working feverishly in trying to get the car ready for painting, which, by the grace of God s due to be done on the 1st August. Now to get the car right for the booth, is a big task as you want every hole drilled, every weld done, everything installed so you wont mark the good paintwork when you reinstall everything. There is nothing worse than getting your car back from the paintshop only to realise you have to drill some holes somewhere because you forgot something
Anyway. I started on the ICE install. I didnt like how I did it last time so I redid the whole thing. The speaker arrangement hasnt changed, just the way that they were done. I wasnt overly fussed on the carbon fibre in the end, so I just redid all the three enclosures in MDF, which will eventually get painted.
And from the back:
Next up was tackling everything that has to be done under the engine bay, and that means pipework. All the charge air pipes are in 2.5" polished alloy, so I enlisted the help of my good friend Cameron (Cazmo on here) to do some alloy welding for me. Now, doing pipework is not easy and it takes a fair bit of time to do it right. This is where we got to at the end of day 1. The pipe from the intake plenum to the intercooler almost done.
The airbox was also installed, and holes drilled into it to take the inlet and outlet pipes. A reinforcing ring was welded onto the grill louvres to secure those seeing that a 2.5" holes was cut into them:
We had to do a bit of alteration to the radiator to make the pipes fit. Now the radiator was designed way back when I was going to run the standard CT9 and top mount intercooler. Not that we are running a different turbs and intercooler setup, the inlet throat and cap fouled with the pipework from the airbox to the turbo. So, that had to be moved into the corner. Also, while we were at it, we needed to weld some tabs on the radiator to mount the thermo fan.
Talking about alloy welding, I drew up the design for the FMIC water spray tank. Using 2.4mm alloy sheet, I cut it out and bent it up so that Cameron could weld it up. Here it is in position. It still needs to filler neck and outlet barb for the pump welded on.
The last job I have been tackling lately is the doors. I wanted to make new door cards up that were flush with the inside of the doors. I had removed the pockets from the doors a long time ago and really liked the pocketless look. It makes it look a bit more streamlined and purposeful. At the moment I am having trouble with the clearances with the door opener on the inside, and also the window winder fouling with the speaker pods for the 6.5" component speakers. Just something else I will have to sort out. I am thinking abut running electric windows and doing away with the winder altogether. This would compliment the central locking. Now, before the doors are installed, I have to make sure the door handles work, the central locking works, the keylocks (which are integral with the Civic flush external door handles) work, the speaker pods are gragfted onto the door cards, and the cards drilled and fixed to the door. All this before any paint hits the door. Big ask.
Anyway, I will post another update soon. Anyone had any success with electric windows in a Mini??
Cheers,
Tricky
It's the little things, quality 
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