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One and two for the Austrian Grand Prix. So pleased for them

Hey chaps! - thanks - good to be back and see familiar faces :-) She is totally different. Just been out for a long country land blast. So amazing. You have to be very respectful of the power. And what a sound! Like piloting a spitfire at tickover ;---) The nice long diff means you can really use 1st and second well, and 3rd, and fourth and.... What power. Real shove. I'll upload the dyno graph and a few photos in another section when I get time. Off in hols tomorrow morning. Oh, and I'm going to be getting to know every petrol station in the area! :-)

Protecting people's rear ends has become a profession and the real safety issues are often ignored

Ford, those tyres might look good but at 10 years old the rubber will be hard and they won't be performing anywhere near to the levels you hope and really need replacing. If you can, get yourself a set of semi-slicks, Toyo R888's, Yoko A048r etc, in medium compound, which are both an excellent dry weather track tyre. (888's not too bad in damp conditions either) I'm sure the car will feel planted by comparison, especially once you've got some heat in to them and they are sticky. That alone will give you a lot of confidence when braking and pushing on and help you explore the limits and your lap times will tumble. On top of this and if not already done, get a geo done by the professionals, (suspension alignment, camber and ride height adjustment etc), which is probably the best and most important mod you can have done. Have fun, take it easy, get plenty of tuition and you'll see and feel the improvements being made....it's addictive stuff. Steve

The tyres need binning!

Would certainly tend to agree with you Rev. There are some intangibles, such as the distance between the lamp posts, tension between the lamp posts of the rope holding the knitwear in question, and historic wind speeds in that region which would create force on the items in both a wet and a dry state. But of course, it's all nonsense - if it's enough to bring down a lamp post, then they were under specified to start with. It's all about allowing precedents to be set if they didn't do something. About 15 years ago, I was doing some temping after being made redundant, and got posted to a company designing and installing mobile phone masts. "Do you have any experience using CAD?", they asked. "Yes", I lied profusely to keep a roof over my head. For the next six months, I modelled and designed mobile phone masts, including the positions of the aerials, the bearings in degrees, and put them through computer simulations with the highest ice and wind loadings ever recorded in the areas where they were being installed, all without the slightest bit of training. I only left when they were so impressed with my "work" that they offered me a full-time position, because I knew they'd figure out I was useless. But there's probably about 500 mobile phone masts out there that will either stand forever or are doomed when the next ice storm occurs.

My son was keen for me to get trackday insurance. I didn't. Why he asked, To help you drive my Westy more carefully I replied.

So, I've not had a great deal of time to work on the car, but some stuff has happened. I finally found an exhaust manifold that will do what I want. It's a universal type thing but it's pretty much designed for a Duratec, once I have my flange for it I'll get it modified to fit. For anyone that might be thinking of doing this type of conversion it's this one: http://www.kitspares.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&path=43_24&product_id=736&car=43 Engine mounts are also nearly done, the driver side mount is fitted and passenger side one just needs a plate welding on to the frame: Next up is the fuel system. I was going to just run an external pump to keep things simple, but when I came to fit it and measure up a swirl pot I realised there was no space for it all. I was going to put it behind the diff, but the pipes would encroach into the suspension area. So I've decided to run an in-tank pump, so I started modifying the tank for one: I'll be running a Walbro 255, which is total overkill, but, I have one lying around so why not. I'll need to sort fuel pressure once it's setup but it will future proof things. The last notable thing is I decided to spruce up the dash, so I ditched the stock one for this: It's from Aerodynamix and looks awesome! It needs final trimming and holes cutting for dials. I still need to deiced what I'm doing with dials though... I'm still hoping to have it done this year, but work is sapping a lot of my time just now so we'll see.

Make a table.