FRP Goes Racing

[RESTELL]

Hi All

Well i thought id share on here my latest project. Ive rescued a slightly tatty FRP from the scrap yard in the sky and over the past 6 months have been rebuilding it in preparation to take it out on track.

The car in question was FRP 70, wearing private plate P1 FRP. Its been about on the club scene occasionally and may be known to some of you. I brought it last summer from a guys who had reached the end of his tether after the cam belt snapped, and he was getting fobbed off by his garage. To be honest the car was a mess, it had been used as a daily and not really all that well cared for over the last few years of its life. I think i had once been a cherished car as it came with a ring binder full of receipts, had been resprayed a few years back by Pumabuild, and attended some shows etc, and has a lot of good points, but for the past few years it had not been all that loved, and lack of maintenance eventually killed it.

So, i got it for a good cheap price, and decided this one was the right car to convert to a track weapon. Mainly because its not a very good example, i don't feel guilty for 'messing' with the FRP formula. I know some of you will think I've made a mistake by doing this to an FRP, but truth be told, if i hand reduced it, it would very likely have been broken for parts and would equate to one more "dead" FRP. So I'm happy it will live on, and I'm sure it will be better then ever once I've finished.

Anyway, here are some pictures:

The day i collected it, as i found it, after it had sat in a back street garage for over 8 months:

So, once home, i drew up a plan of action, and listed the things i wanted the car to have. The things it needed/wanted were:

New engine! (current one has done 96k miles, and has a snapped cam belt = junk)
Full multipoint, weld in roll cage
All new suspension bushes (Powerflex)
Fully race prepared
Fully lightened
Refurbish everything
Go Racing!

First Job, engine. Its a new (to the car) unit that i brought from ebay which had a verified 42,000 miles on the clock and was absolutely mint when we stripped it back. We've done quite a lot to it:
• Full strip down, and a paraffin clean of EVERYTHING!
• Cylinder head has been ported, polished and flowed by a highly experienced guy at Lotus
• New cylinder head bolts
• New head gasket
• New cam belt
• New belt tensioner
• New thermostat
• New water pump
• New accessory belt, pulley and idler
• All new gaskets and hardware
• New oil filter
• Plus the cams have been timed up properly using a new FRP timing tool, and double checked with a DTI.
• A brand new Fiesta ST clutch (with brand new puma master cylinder)

Engine out

Stripped, cleaned, rebuilt

Plus i got a brand new FRP gearbox, with a brand new Quaife LSD

So, with the engine and gearbox sorted, the work on the roll cage began. I opted for a Custom Cages, fully MSA multipoint weld in cage and had a guy from work (an ex- Lotus F1 fabricator!) come over and weld it in over a weekend. Heres the cage going in:

I'm really pleased with it, its a great cage, and after sending a welding sample and some photos of the installation off to custom cages, it is now fully certified and MSA compliant!

This weekend i spend most of my time painting the interior, with a primer, a matte black cage and a metalic silver interior.
During the process

The finished article

Also I'm lucky enough to have come across some rather special seats from work, these are carbon fibre seats from a Lotus Evora GTE (the 444bhp £120k super car!) and I'm sure they will look amazing in an FRP, especially as they weigh 5kg each, and the FRP seats weigh 21kg each!

So, the interior is looking good. Next we turned our attention to the mechanics.

The engine is now in the car and is RUNNING it sounds sweeeeet, idles really well and is great.

We also got both driveshafts built up, both have brand new CV joints, and the right hand side blue shaft is also brand new.

Also, we fitted new wheel bearings in the front hubs, and fitted new powerflex bushes in the front LCAs

also, heres a pic of my shiny new gearbox (complete with new Quaife LSD) fitted to the engine, with a new 4 branch manifold

So all in all a pretty good weekends work, in summary since thursday night me and my dad have:

• painted the whole interior in primer
• painted the roll cage matte black
• painted the interior metallic silver
• wired/plumbed in the engine and got it running with no issues
• fitted new wheel bearings in front hubs
• changed CV joints in LHS drive shaft and build up a brand new RHS drive shaft complete with a new CV joint
• rebuilt the front end drive line
• measured up and installed the front drivers seat
• refitted the bonnet

I'm pretty pleased with that! still lots to do, and only one month today until the track day at snetterton, so its still a tight schedule but with progress like this I'm certain we can do it!

Our target is to take the car to a track day at Snetterton on May 9th, which will act as a shake down for the real test, which is a long weekend at the Nurburgring at the end of May! so not long to go.

I will be working on the car almost every weekend between now and then so will update this site to keep you informed.

I hope you all find this interesting, and don't hate me too much for playing with an FRP!

thanks for reading

Ross

 

[Neil]

Great work!

I remember FRP #070 being for sale at Pumabuild back in 2006. Glad to see it's got a new lease of life!

 

[spongebobash]

looking good glad u rescued it to many have gone wheels up its nice to see a frp actualy being used and not kept under lock and key 364 days a year, (no offence to those frp owners) love the seats

 

[wip3]

Those seats :shock: and the car is looking very good as well!

 

[Zara]

Awesome job Ross!!

look forward to hearing how she does on track !

 

[Sparx]

Looks like a fantastic project youve got yourself there!!

Well done for rescuing her that's what we like to hear k:

Keep us updated on your progress

 

[jacko]

nice!

 

[red]

loving it so far mate!

Can't imagine you'll get too many complaints about it!

 

[melinamotor]

I dont know what Im more jealous of Ross, the car or the workshop :grin: Excellent progress mate.

 

[RESTELL]

Thanks for all the comments guys, much appreciated.

Only another 3 or 4 weeks and it will be finished and out on track! i can not wait. Expect to see lots more photos in the coming weeks

 

[PumaNoob]

WOW! Those seats are CAR PORN!! I want them!!! Great job on the cage and inside spray job, looks clean. Will you be running standard FRP power or will you be tweaking the engine a little?

 

[ScubaSteve]

i spy with my little eye some nasty jubliee clips and even worse, A CABLE TIE, on the cv boots, get them changed asap to some proper clamp straps before you ruin cv joints

 

[paulob1]

it will be good to see how she perfroms...

 

[RESTELL]

UPDATE 15-04-12

Evening all.

Well yet another weekend in the workshop with my good old dad sees some more decent progress. Focus has been on the drivetrain and the seats. We've got the whole front end built up now and finished, and the driver seat in mounted (on custom built mounts) and the drivers harness is mounted in the car as well. so pretty good really.

On the front end, it was time to build up the brakes, so the callipers have been refurbished and cleaned and it was time to dig out some special parts id been saving. Time to get these out of the drawer!

and these

and get everything built up

Regarding the suspension, i was lucky enough to have 2 sets of FRP dampers. both had been used, with one set covering 70k miles, and the other 95k miles. So i needed to decide which set to install on the car. Now I'm lucky enough to have a job which involves suspension tuning, and have access to a machine which can rate dampers and show there performance. so i took my four front dampers to work (at Lotus) and rated them.

For those who are interested, this is the performance curve on a FRP front damper. (4 curves, one for each damper rated)

so, i chose damper number 1 and number 4 as they were the most closely matched. and these are now on the car.

Regarding the interior my dad designed and made some custom mounts for the seats, and these are now installed. The seat is very low in the car now, much lower than the standard seat. its practically bolted to the floor (though some 1 inch box section), so its a really awesome driving position. We are also in the process of lowering the steering column as well (bracket designed) and this will make it just perfect.

here are some pics of the seat, and the harness.

Also, i splashed my final budget on some sticky tyres. I decided to go for Yokohama Advan AD08 in the correct size. I'm sure they will be great, one things for sure they look awesome!

So thats about it for now.
Next weekend the other seat will go in, and the rear beam will be out back together (once the new wheel bearings are in the hubs)

Only 3 weeks until the MOT, and 4 weeks until the track day, so not long to go. I can not wait to drive this thing!

thanks for reading.

Ross

 

[RESTELL]

UPDATE 24-04-12

Hello All. Its been a couple of weeks since my last update so i thought id share my progress.

Quite a lot has been done since last time. Now all the rear end is built up and the car is back on its wheels. The rear beam has had Powerflex bushes fitted, new rear brake discs and pads fitted, new wheel bearings, and all rebuilt.

So the car was looking like this:

On the inside the passenger seat has now been properly fitted along with the other harness, and I've painted the door skins silver to match the rest of the interior, its looking sharp.

So it was finally time to give the old girl a wash. After being sat in pour workshop for 6 months, and in the workshop we brought it from for a further 10 months it was pretty dusty! To make matters worse it didn't look like its had been polished much in the past either so the paint was knackered.

It started off looking like this:

and after a lot of washing, polishing, clay-bar, machine polishing, and waxing, it now looks like this!

I'm really pleased with it, but to be honest it needs a lot more TLC before the paint is anywhere near perfect. I really need to repeat the whole process a couple more times as there are still lots of swirl marks and scratches that will eventually polish out, but for now its a start.

Big news is MOT DAY ON SATURDAY! Thats going to be nerve racking, not sure if it will pass yet or not, but still have a couple of weeks until the track day so thats cool.

I also got my insurance sorted out today. I went with Adrian Flux in the end, got a good deal (in my eyes). Declared the full list of mods (cage, harnesses, exhaust, seats, etc etc) They recognise it as a proper FRP, 3000 miles a year, full breakdown cover including recovery from anywhere in Europe, all in for £500. Not bad considering its a modified and rare car.

Anyway thats it for now, i'll post more when i have an MOT and the car is out in the real world! (Cant wait!)

cheers for reading.

Ross

 

[Flying Scotsman]

It looks fantastic all the effort you have put in... One of my favourite FRP's i've seen to date!!

 

[red]

good luck

 

[adampuma]

looks ace !

 

[JordyBoy]

Love the work you've done so far, really got me hooked this project has! Interested to see how the MoT goes, good luck

 

[slayllian]

Loving this car, those seats are so sexy!