Lateral 2009 Build
 

I am starting this thread to show you what i, together with exceptional friends have created over the last 3 months.

As many will know, i have been the driver of the Grey Lateral Sti5 for the last 4 years, after Lateral bought it from Trout. Having said that, i only drove it twice last year, Scooby Shoot Out where i managed a 10.3 in full trim before breaking the gearbox, and then Ten of The Best where i ended up killing yet another clutch!

Driving the car, is the reward i get for making sure the car has run, as i, with the help of Mark and Pat, have pretty much rebuilt the entire car to its 2008 spec. However, due to me competing in Time Attack last year in my own wagon, Mark had Chy maintain the engine for the 2008 season.

So, if wabbling, to follow will be the story of my life over the last 3 months, which i hope you will be pleased with.

I owe a lot of people a great deal of thanks, and a great deal of return favours, they know who they are, and there names will crop up at random, but rest assured they have all been given thanks verbally in person!

To be continued ......

Steven

cant wait to see this, knew you were local but never quite knew how involved you were with all this!

Jon

What a tease... :D

Get the write up, erm up...

Anxious to see this, have heard a lot about your involvement with the Lateral car steve so when you get a chance fire some pictures up please.

didnt get to see it at totb steven, but i saw it go down the strip in the wet, shawy was with me and he saw it under the bonnet and i beleive that it is quite a piece of art under there, credit to you steven, well done in so short time

im a bit on the fence about the colour tho. lol

andy h

just testing something

can't wait to see this :) im hooked already :D

So, this is how the car finished 2008, looking like this after finishing time attack at Snetterton, where it finished 2nd with Andy driving and a fubarred head gasket!
http://www.timeattack.co.uk/wp-conte...images/121.jpg

Along came late March this year and I was speaking with Mark at Lateral, when he asked me if I wanted the car back at mine to do so work on it, as he knew I wasn’t doing anything with my own car this year. When I asked what his thoughts for the car were, I was quite surprised.

The conversation kind of went like this:
Mark: Well, I guess the car has done enough as it currently stands, pretty much running full weight, so I regard the shell as a scrapper, do what you want to it
Steven: What I want?
M: Yeah, whatever you want?
S: Hang on, do you mean, ANYTHING?
[long pause]
M:………Yes, anything!
M: may regret saying that though!
S: nice one, angle grinder to the rescue!

The car had been corner weighted just before Snetterton at 1280kg without a driver.

The car arrived at mine in early April, but I didn’t really start doing anything on it until the back end of April where I started by removing the dash.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9b5.jpg

This enable me to start picking out the wiring loom, to ditch unwanted wires. However, after spending what felt like an eternity with an hour here, and hour there, I quickly rang David Wallis and asked how long it would take to make a fresh loom, and what it would cost us in parts. 5 minutes later, the car looked like this. Apologies for pics, done with my blackberry camera thing, when I could remember.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bs.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9b7.jpg

You will not that I have started to remove the sound deadening. The main focus was remove as much weight as possible, although I ended up missing several things in the end.

Diff cradle was removed to make it easier to remove the fuel tank.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9ba.jpg

Oem fuel tank removed, not required anymore. Quite light actually.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9b8.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bc.jpg

Next up was the removal of the boot floor, which would also come in hand as a bin for all the sound deadening. By the time this was removed, and full of sound deadening, it was quite awkward to move about.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bb.jpg

Now to the other end of the car. Everything removed from the engine bay, so I have a clean drawing board so to speak. Chop out the slam panel, and the lower cross member as they will be in the way.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9b9.jpg

Front wings at this point had been removed early to aid removal of the loom. Just sat a bumper in place for some mad reason, and got the welding stuff out, as an Omp bolt in cage was going to be installed due to the doors changing over to fibreglass ones with poly carb windows.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bd.jpg

Cage going in
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9be.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9b4.jpg

At this point my shed looked like total devastation, I hate working in a mess, but sometimes it cant be helped.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bg.jpg

By now it was mid may, and at this point I broke off working on the car so as to strip down my old engine, which I had promised John Stevenson loan of, if anything went wrong during his Time Attack campaign. After stripping the engine down, John didn’t need it. Whilst my back was turned stripping the engine, Mark picked up the angle grinder and started attacking the rear arch to gain clearance. 30 minutes later this was what I saw!
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bh.jpg

We will be needing a body kit then to hide that mess :D

I then had a weekend away at the end of May supporting John Stevenson in his Time Attack campaign, where sadly he had another head gasket failure. At this point John asked me if my offer was still there, which it was, so the following weekend I built up my engine, whilst Mark and David Wallis set about installing the body kit which had arrived.

David cutting the rear quarter out, carefully around the RCMS drag wheel I borrowed.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bi.jpg

Mark removing unnecessary panel from the fibreglass door supplied by John Stevenson.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bx.jpg

Rear quarter bonded on, and rear door ready for panel.
[img] http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bj.jpg[/img]

Front wing, rear door, and rear quarter all bonded on, now the other side. By this time it was 9pm Sunday 14th June. Six weeks and TOTB is over!
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bk.jpg

more to come....

Nice write up Steven and please keep us updated on the engine.

Nice one Steven, I am thinking it doesnt look like that anymore :thumb:

Steven, just a small tip. When you fit the handbrake don't put it too close to the gearstick ;)

this is going to be a cracking thread...you just need a camera tha's comparable to the cars spec ;)

awersome. i love this car so will be reading this till the end,

:thumb:

LOL at the wisecracks :D

trails, i have two decent cameras, trouble is the kids always use them and waste the batteries, plus i always forget to have it nearby when i start working on the car.

more to come...

Harsh Clive Harsh!!

but funny and fair lol

good build saw the car in time attack, take it this is why it was'nt competing in 09 then. you gonna give time attack 2010 a go??:thumb: ill be running next year so i hope to catch you there:)

During the next week, when I had a moment or two after work, I threw in the dummy engine (my broken Ej22block), david wallis’s emty gearbox, so that I could start and work around clearances for the turbo, radiator and intercooler.

As time was running out, I borrowed Davids front mount twin scroll manifold together with GT4094, both of which were destined for his own car.

Its going to be tight for clearances with that lot in there!
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bl.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bm.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bn.jpg

Before I knew it, the next weekend was upon us, so Saturday morning of the 20th June I started doing more an more to the car. David came across to help Mark with the rest of the body work. In the mean time, Mark add commissioned Andy of immortal performance to make some fibreglass bonnets and boots, one of each will be destined for the car.

Whilst David and Mark were busy with the nearside panels, I tackled the fabrication of the front end to hold the intercooler and radiator. The intercooler is a core from a Hybrid setup, the rad at this point is unknown, but will be custom made.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bp.jpg

At this point I had found a suitable dummy radiator, that happened to be 40mm thick and could be cut to shape easily. A kitchen worktop that was lying around in the shed. So, intercooler support made, bumper initially cut, and sat in situe. The way this has been done, means that the intercooler and rad can come off as one, still attached to the mounting bracket.

http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bo.jpg

Doors on, getting there! A mini skip was filled with the crap that came out of the car!
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bq.jpg

Almost ready for paint, NOT! Sunday 9pm 21st June 2009
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9br.jpg

At this point I must apologise, as time seemed to disappear and I forgot to have pictures.

The following weekend was a miss from me, as I was down at Brands Hatch with John Stevenson in Time Attack, however, David Wallis, Andy and Andy came over both days to sort the body work out, ie filling, sanding, filling, sanding, filling, sanding etc etc

I must point out though, that although not a lot appeared to be happening to the car during the week, there was a hell of a lot of work going on in the background, ordering parts, ensure Mark was up to speed, and making sure he was keeping up to his end of the bargain. All this takes a serious amount of time and thought.

I basically operated with a policy of, if I thought about it, it got written down. Very useful walking around with a car build pad! If you don’t do that, you WILL forget something, and it will be something crucial to the progress of the car.

Upon returning from Brands Hatch, I found that the trio of nutters (aka Exceptionally good friends) had done a superb job smoothing off the lines of the car, although they themselves weren’t happy, I was.

The following weekend, 4th July came round very quickly. Yet again, I would be hampered by other arrangements, namely Emma’s grans 85th birthday BBQ. Not a problem though as on the morning of the 5th I dropped the car off at Immortal Performance for Andy and David Wallis to do their thing.

They started on the car Sunday night, and by Monday at 6pm it looked like this
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9b6.jpg

David and Andy worked from 6pm to 2/3am most nights as they have day jobs ;) to get the car to this stage by Wednesday 6pm.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bu.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bv.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bw.jpg

I picked the car up from them on the evening of the 9th July, and judging by the looks the car got when it was on the trailer, I knew it was a marmite thing, but one thing was evident, it got looks.

http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9b0.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm9bz.jpg

The hours spent deliberating over what colour to paint the car were worth it, especially as my two boys had stayed up to see what the car looked like, and they were over the moon.

The story of Super Bannana continues…..

Who knows re Time Attack, it hasnt been built with that in mind, but it may see an outing at some point :D

Fabulous, you have way too much fun....

Almost worth a web-cam to watch progress.

Next episode please.

dunx

Steven
hey, what does it weigh now mate;)

Cracking idea Bannana cam,
Great thread :thumb:

I was laughing when I called at Steven's about 6 weeks ago and he said they had a lot to do! The car was not even a shell as there was that much cut away. The transformation the car has made in those few weeks is amazing. I wouldn't even like to guess the amount of very late nights Steven has worked on this car and still keeping up a full time demanding job! I was more gutted for the problems the car encountered purely because I know how much heart Steven has put into this car. Oh and pmsfl at the picture of Mark looking like he is working :D

Mr North, dont know yet, may see if can borrow some corner weights or wack it on the trailer and nip down to my mates weighbridge and see what it weighs.

More coming soon, i keep missing bits though :D

fair play, what is it going to be used for now then, the strip i imagine, looks light:thumb: colour is pretty crazy too

Who knows, it would need a different fuel tank for TA, as it was running out of fuel every two pulls on the dyno at full power :D

If i can just step back a week, and behind the scene of working the car, i had mapped out in my head, and on paper how i wanted the fuel system to look, and how i wanted the brake lines to run through the car, in particular passing through brake bias valve and the hydraulic handbrake.

I ordered, or told Mark to get, a K sport hydraulic handbrake, as this as a latch mechanism so you can lock the rear wheels without constantly holding the lever.

Having selected everything i wanted to order for the brakes and fuel system, i happened to be on the phone to Paul Blamire at Zen Performance and just mulling over my plans, when Paul said he had most of the stuff on the shelf, and wanted it out of stock, but more significantly suggested he would come up to mine for a bit of fun and play with someone elses car for once. Bonus!

So the scene was set, Paul would come up to mine on the 10th July late in the evening with a view to having a blitzing session on the car. Paul arrived late evening, with Liz and his two kids, before we knew it, it was way past midnight and we were reasonably drunk!

I woke up at 6 am, and by 6:15 Paul was also in the shed and we had started on the car. Mark joined us around 9:30, and it was the first time he had seen the car in its new livery! David Wallis and Andy joined us mid morning, with Pat Herborn joining us around lunchtime.

So, its chaos. Paul is doing the fuel lines, i am doing the brake lines, David is doing the wiring for lights, ie car loom, Pat is starting on the ecu to engine loom, together with all the other sensors the Solaris S8 can take, and Andy is fettling bodywork, transferring door locks etc, and getting door gaps as good as possible.

I had also hooked up with Gary Plant, aka Gazzasti, to help out with all the exhaust work. Gaz came up on Sunday, and worked his stuff!

The pictures from here to Sunday evening are a bit of a blur, partially due to alcohol drunk, and the speed at which things were done.

Final mock up starts, as i don’t have an engine at this point.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm99y.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm991.jpg
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm992.jpg

Drivers seat in, steering wheel in, THE handbrake in, pedals in
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm993.jpg

1500hp Fuel lab fuel pump, filter in, and fuel tank (courtesy of John Stevenson) sat roughly where it will end up ;)
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm99f.jpg

View from rear window. Electric control panel, made from a carbon fibre sheet i had hanging around. This was Davids domain, and its so neatly done, really chuffed how he did it. Super lightweight fuel lines on left hand side.
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm995.jpg

Rear door trims on and handles, brakes swapped to type r 2 pots on rear and oem 4 pots on front, more pictures on them later ;)
http://images.fotopic.net/yzm99s.jpg

Whilst all the above was going on, Jim Litten was very kindly running in a very expensive OS Giken triple plate clutch, so it was bedded in before it had the crap beaten out of it :D

Looking good ;)

sweet as f

Steven - Did you find the Cosworth manifold makes a lot of difference and would you have got away with the std one? I recall you saying in another post it was a very tight fit and perhaps not worth doing is power is 600 or below??

amazing. its like watching p0rn!