Further work today, mostly down to the ever impressive HansK, who has definitely earned his space on the car! While Hans was busy fettling and welding today, I headed over to Custom cages to pick up some more tubing to finish the other stuff such as seat rails and so on. We have pretty much all we need to get it built ready for the body shop in the next week or so, more on the bodyshop side of things later.

Pics for today, first of all, test fitting of the new rear bumper.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00444.JPG
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00445.JPG

All the holes (and I mean all of them!) welded up in the engine bay firewall. We will make new holes as we need them.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00448.JPG

Missing tubes now in, plus the new rear facing passenger seat rails ;)
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00449.JPG

No spare wheel I guess....
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00450.JPG

Hans busy starting to profile one of the cage tubes.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00452.JPG

How the car looks at the moment after sweeping up.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00453.JPG

Hans' workmanship close up.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00454.JPG

Not much else to say at the moment, the short engine is nearly complete. The engine build is being carried out by Pete Whitfield (Whitfield Race Enigines) using parts developed in conjunction with Lateral Performance. By hacing the likes of Pete and Hans in during the day, it takes the load of us, meaning we can concerntrate on customer work, currently no work is carried out on the race car by Zen staff during normal working hours.

Bodyshop services are being provided by Neil at Eclipse Motor Bodies (see Neils own project thread), as a result of their work with similar projects, meaning we can leave them to get on with it without worrying, or having to support them at every step. I hope to get some pics as the panel and paint work elements progress.

But when the shell comes back from EMB, it's going to be all hands to the pump to get the car built up in the few weeks left in time to get some testing done before donnington time attack on 5/6th April!

time for a beer!

Paul

Hans sure can weld!
Rob: look at that boot floor!

lol a bit at the bathroom scales....

Good luck with it all. Look forward to the suspension stuff. :D

I can't beleive how much prep is required. Hats off to you.
Just installing the bonnet catches will be enough of a task for me:)

Them bonnet catches are difficult I agree :)

Hansk is a very good fabricator and his Tig welding is very neat.I am saying this just by looking at the pic's

Gobstopper Zen style?

:D

Did Hans say that he found it a lot easier with the roof off too?

i'm excited :thumb:

If that is a question, then the answer is no. Zen GT car, impreza style.

Yes the roof being off made life a million times easier, and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again on a car that was having a respray, which any proper car build would involve. We should get the seat rails and done and finish the front triangulation today.

Paul,

have you decided upon a colour yet :norty:

The colour is undecided, but we are pretty sure teh car will look different to last years in the overall scheme of things.

Wasnt really a question as such lol, it just taking the shape of the Gobstopper. Im loving the amount of work thats gone in so far. Seeing as the gobstopper is currently the benchmark for a "Pretty" race car.

GT car eh?, so something more JTCC based?

I cant wait to see this done.

The gobstopper is indeed a benchmark for presentation, a worthy one at that. But to give you an idea of what's different this time around for us, last car we did all the paint prep and primering ourselves, purchased the paint and got it "painted" for just £300 cash. This time around we're getting it all done professionally inside and out, specifically to make it look nice. And we're doing all the fitting of "stuff" before it goes to paint, rather than build it up as we go along. Plug all the holes now, and make new ones later if required.

Paul

Nice,

Its nice to see you did all the hard work and research last season so you can do it once, do it right this season with a blank canvas.

Indeed the gobstopper is a stunningly built car with fantastic presentation.

However, as you have proven last year.

A pretty car isnt always the fastest:D A pro driver helps too. lol.

Best of luck with the coming season guys. Looking forward to following the progress of the car :thumb:

Paul

Car has come on leaps and bounds since i saw it in early Jan. Excellent work.

Look forward to seeing it in the flesh some time soon.

Best of luck for this year

Steven

can't wait to see the final product - amazing work

So is this car going to be a specific track car and the other a drag car ?? Or is the other one going to be shelved when this one hits the roads :)

Got to be a favourite for top 3 the Revspeed competition this year:)

This is being built purely as a track car, no compromise for the road or the drag strip, the only compromise is money. However, due to it's weight going down, and it's power going slightly up from where we were about 18 months ago when running 9.6, I do intend to see what it does on the strip.

We will initially pinching a few things off the blue car, possibly the loom, and the turbo/exhaust system. But there are plans for new designs in both areas (turbo remains same type), and once complete the blue car will be made whole again and sold either as a rolling chassis, or a complete car with the engine and drivetrain chosen by the customer.

The car is being built with that in mind, but I am not going to go to Japan this year unless we get sponsorship for the trip. Last year the trip cost us a LOT of money, as we only got around £1500 worth of sponsorship. We may look at competing in the US in 2008 though.

Work is progressing, I'm having a cuppa, and will post more pics later tonight of the finished cage, and more welding elsewhere.

looking forward to seeing this evolve; best of luck Mark et al.

...is it the same shell as Dinges?

Who's mark?

sorry Paul, I seem to have issues separating Zen and Lateral :brickwall:rolleyes:

Nice project...

Why not ask pat nicely to do you a loom :) Or Grant Steventon :)

Might as well do it right whilst you have the opportunity :)

David

I will be doing a full loom, but I may just pinch the current one and cram it in somehow!

Been working yesterday afternoon and today finishing off the cage, Hans has been away so leaving some of the welding to be done and tarted up next week before it goes to the body shop. We now have all the front triangulation in place, the main things to do before going to Eclipse now are:

brackets for the brake pipes and hand brake
brackets for the gear linkage
make and weld in front turret tops
reinforce front headlamp panels
create mounting for windscreen wiper
add mounting points for a bolt on front lower cross bar (below rad)
make boot floor/fuel tank box
airjack mounts
undertray mounting points
take templates off rear inner arches for kevlar moulds to be made (maybe?)
add fixing points for rear wing
add fixing points for radiator ducting
add fixing points for rad
tidy sills

Hmm, that's actually a lot of work!

Best of luck of with the build, Paul :thumb: It's going to be an awesome year for Time Attack, everyone's upping their game :cool: Be interesting to see how you solve lowering a mcpherson strut car properly.

Some pics from the weekends work.

Rear seat squab, all holes to the outside now plated.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00455.jpg
Same deal in the front footwells, in the case of the small holes, we have use punched blanks the same size as the hole, every one is fully welded.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00457.jpg

Someone's idea of a joke perhaps? ;)
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00458.jpg

Rear boot floor area now tidied up, all the cut edges shaped and deburred.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00459.jpg

Welding of the v-brace to the tunnel
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00460.jpg

Front triangulation
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00461.jpg

Same bars from the top, you can see the complete cage now, but there are a few bars such as seat rails and diff mounts still to go in.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00462.jpg

Interior of the shell as it stands.
http://www.zenperformance.co.uk/cms_...r/DSC00463.jpg

We weighed the shell on friday by weighing a rear corner, and the front seperately. I hope to get the completed shell to around 240kg, maybe less if I get more imaginative with the cutting tools!

Paul - it is simply awesome that you are documenting the build for everyone to aspire to. Thank you.

Why Paul fill all those holes in the floor when plastic grommets would work on many of them?

Huge prepping task, makes me and others I'm sure thinking of how tedious welding all those 'plates' into place.

Especially like the triangulation to the front struts/bulkhead.

plastic grommets might be nice, but these hoses will never be required, the welding a is a more permanent solution. In the bulkhead plastic grommets wouldn't cut it in a fire. In the other areas, many of the holes are not round, and I wouldn't want to be repairing them in future. Aluminium foil tape on both sides is an option, but only for the small ones, and they're quick and easy to weld anyway. The other problem is many of the larger holes are flanged, so grommets will not work.

Also, by the time I would have been able to change my mind, most of the holes were already done!