Back from the UK

(Although the post is dated Nov 2015, it was written in May 2016. I thought long if I should or not post about the car until it is road legal in Portugal. I've given up waiting... It should make no difference anyway)

The car arrived today from the UK! Late August it got finally registered. With vacations in the middle it ended up taking longer than we anticipated.

I started looking for insurance to bring the car back. Turns out that I was not able to get any, at least looking on the net and with the few phone calls I made. They would either not cover me for not being UK resident, not cover me because the car was a kitcar, not cover me because I wanted to do a trip to the Continent... I believe there would have been a chance but I would have to pay a non-refundable yearly premium and I said "don't bother to quote" after the guy commented "but it will not be cheap".

So, I had to look for a transport back. Who took it to the UK was not available to bring it back and I had already spoke with a colleague at work whose brother lives in the UK and transports cars around (and also moves crates). While I was waiting for that contact to answer I looked online for others and found a guy, also portuguese and also living in the UK. He was coming to Portugal with a car the following week, he could put mine on the trailer and bring it along, price was good... But (stupid me!!!) I said no, too much of a rush. And thought better I should wait for my colleague's brother because she said his prices were killer, and it was someone I could trust more.
Turns out her brother made me waste a month. There was even a scheduled pickup date that he unscheduled last minute! Then price went up ("it's the refugees' crisis blocking the ferry in Calais and all others went up in price", he said) and it was expensive and almost sounding like a favour.
Went back to the guy I found online. He could bring it straight away and would cost just a bit over what the "brother" asked because he would have nothing planed for the trip back. If I could wait about a month and a half, he could make almost the same price promised in August (well below "brother"'s offer) because he would have time to get something for the return. Only reason the price would not be exactly the one told before was the ferries.

And so, Steve was really nice to keep the car stored until late October. By then, Virgil from Transport Virgil showed up at Steve's place, picked up the car and stored it away for a few days. In between he took the car, at my request, to a test station to get a CO2 measure. I was told that could help with the import process. Turned out I forgot to warn him he had to turn on the fan on the car (it is not automatic) and so the car started to overheat and he turned it off. Since this was a Saturday morning, time was up and no reading.

Virgil was actually a great bloke. We kept in touch by Whatsapp and during his trip from the UK to Lisbon he sent a few photos of the car!

Arriving in Portugal he gave me the chance to show up at my doorstep around midnight or just in the next morning. I wanted the car as soon as possible so he came and by 1 a.m. the car was on my garage! I drove it from the street where he unloaded it until the parking space, dried the interior from the rain and left it there.

More to come soon with what was changed while he was away, the import hurdles, etc.

IVA passed!

After all the work performed by Steve from Aries to make the car bullet-proof, it went to the test. IVA passed first time! The picture shows Mr VOSA Engineer displaying the IVA pass certificate next to the car.

Next step is to register to get the plates. It's basically bureaucracy that takes its time... I hope not too much!

Very big, huge, enormous thank you to Steve from Aries for getting the car up to the task and taking care of everything for me!

Car On The Road To The UK

After having the car with me for almost 5 years (although most of the time in pieces), it went away. After lunch it was tucked inside the van that will take it to the UK for the test. The car will arrive there on Sunday.

Steve from Aries will be going over the car to make sure my build has the security quality to pass the exam, fixing whatever he believes is not up to pair.

The IVA test is scheduled for the 29th June but there is a possibility of it happening earlier.

Legalisation Under Way

Small note to say that the first step to do the car's legalisation is now under way. I've submitted the paperwork to VOSA (in the UK) to get the car tested late May. Steve, from Aries, will be representing me and handling the bureaucracy.

The car is going to the UK early May and I hope to fetch it early June. I've already defined the trip back, doing 300Km in the UK, sleeping in Portsmouth, taking the ferry to Santander (26h on a boat) and then driving another 830Km to Lisbon. Let's see if I don't chicken out of this adventure all alone.

EDIT: I was a bit lazy when I wrote the post above and I think it would be good to add some additional information.

The IVA process is very well organised and easy to perform even from abroad. It can all be done through the web with just an additional phone call.

To apply, one needs to fill in two forms, IVA-1C and IVA-4. The forms are available online at the following addresses:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/iva-application-form-for-passenger-cars-iva-1c
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/amateur-built-vehicles-declaration-iva-4
The first requires Adobe PDF Reader to see and fill in. It has to be a recent version due to it using the Adobe Forms functionality. The second form requires Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.

I found the instructions on this forum thread helpful to fill in the form:
http://www.haynes.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=13491

Then, I selected a few photos from the kit arrival and the build and scanned the detailed invoice for the kit. On the IVA-4 document I also mentioned this blog as a proof of an amateur build.

Then, through the address below, all documents were submitted (after I asked Steve from Aries to review them):
https://www.gov.uk/apply-vehicle-approval

Since I'm not in the UK, Steve will be my representative taking the car to the exam. From the moment I submitted the application the system started sending him emails. One of them was regarding the payment.

The IVA can be paid in several ways. For me, being abroad, the easiest is by VISA card. That required me to phone VOSA with an Application Reference and give my VISA details to a person there. After 5 minutes on the phone, the payment went on the card and all proceeded naturally.

Estoril Experience Day - The 2nd Track Day

As the first one, on the 7th February, this post will be split into the 4 legs. This time I found less pictures of the car online but I have on-board video. Car went to the track again on top of a recovery vehicle. All happened as last time. Took with me the jerrycan and the bag of tools. Left the jerrycan hidden away on the track parking lot and was going to take the bag on the passenger seat but a very nice person offered to keep it for me every time I headed to the track.

1st Leg

I was anxious to go so I was the third on the row to enter. Which is not very smart since I usually let everyone that comes pass by so that I have clean rear mirrors.

When on the track, all was going OK. Except for the fact that my fidling with the Digidash did not fix the RPM showing wrong numbers that are too high. And now, instead of erratic gears, it always displays 1st, neutral or clutch...

The wheel alignment and putting my head down made doing speed on the straight a lot easier. Still felt odd trying to shift into 6th on the straight. After a couple of laps, and after sliding a bit exiting a bend and having my first "brown trousers" moment of the day, I lost gears. Meaning, I could not shift down and had trouble shifting up. Went to the pit stop. Then was able to shift again, went back on track just to limp back to the pits. Gave up and went to the parking lot.

I had to fix the issue or would lose the whole day. First hunch was something with the gear linkage. But all seemed tight. Then looked into the clutch cable. It was coming loose... Tightened the bolts that held it in place on the engine block. Tested on the parking lot going up to 3rd and back to 1st and it was great. Decided to tighten a bit more, tested, it was slipping and failing. Undid some again, 3rd test and all is good again. I was ready for the 2nd leg!

2nd Leg

Went on track happy and all went perfectly. Fixing the clutch cable also fixed my issues getting 6th gear. The car was wonderful! I was trying to push for a new best lap but on the other hand I'm always afraid of going to fast on bends (has to do with my only crash while driving on the road) and I'm still building up confidence on the car. Spun going into the chicane once but didn't get trapped on the sand trap, so not much time lost.

3rd Leg

Third leg went great too. Made my best lap as the first full one. I think I could have done a lot better if I was not so worried about being in the way of faster cars and afraid of going around bends. I still have to get my head around how much better this car is cornering than anything else I have driven so far.

Session was red-flagged and we all went to the pits while the stewards removed 3 cars from sand traps. We were then allowed to go back on the track for a couple more laps.

It was a bit crowded by then, providing this nice photo

I cut the leg's video to have one of just the fastest lap, in all it's (lack of) glory

4th Leg

The last leg was not as fun as the previous ones. After a lap my engine would sometimes stop (noticeable by a shudder and lots of blinking on the Digidash while it rebooted) followed by a loud bang on the exhaust. I stopped on the pit lane to see if there was any visibly loose cable. There was none. But the battery is held in place by an aluminium bracer I made and the nut that held it down was missing. Probably the battery was moving and one of the leads was either touching the aluminium or the engine block. Either way, that shorted the circuit and caused the shut-down. I had no nuts with me so I headed back on the track to get the best out of the remaining time. This I could only fix at home.

Conclusion And Next Steps

The wheel alignment and putting less pressure on the tires gave me a better handling. Properly tightening the clutch cable gave me flawless gear changes. The car is going great and I'm holding it back. The cutting issue may make me look into different ways to keep the battery in place while keeping it easy to remove.

The Digidash display of RPM and current gear is still not working and it seems worse than before I fiddled with it. Since I had no idea on RPM, I did the track day gearing up when I felt the engine cutting, far from optimal.

The software I use on my mobile, RaceChrono Pro, tells me that, although my best lap was 2m52s, my optimal lap, meaning, the sum of the best time in each sector, would be 2m42s. I'm pretty sure I could do even less than that. I'll work towards it. Just a couple of nice words towards RaceChrono Pro for Android and my SJCAM SJ4000 that was used to do the filming.

I'm now going to work towards getting the car road legal, so this blog will be slow (although not completely halted) for a couple of months.

Configure Digidash and More

Objective:

Started by connecting the wife's laptop to the Digidash and see what was there and if I could change anything to make the gears and RPM look more sensible (the speedo was great, so nothing to change there).

On the "Gears" tab, changed the primary ratio from 1,521 to 1,000. I don't know why I had that value as the primary, but since I have the engine connected to the diff with a propshaft, I don't think it makes sense for this to be other than 1,0. It makes sense to be more with a sprocket on a chain-driven transmission, which is not the case. Let's hope and see... Pictures of before and after. Gears are from the Haynes manual.

On the "Calibrate" tab just changed the "Gear Cal Factor" to also 1,000 from prior 1,500. The reasoning is the same as above. Pictures for before and after. The "Speedo Cal Factor" was calculated with the DigiDash tools and should be correct because the car's speedo agrees with the phone's GPS in what regards to speed (as observed on track).

Also changed the display of the 1st screen to have, besides oil pressure, temperature and water temp to also show speed and gear. This can thus become my sole screen for track. Upped a bit the brightness of the gear-changing leds.

After this, went for other small things. Wired and placed some isolation tape on the lighter I bought so that I can connect it to the battery and use the tyre pump. Then tested it, the tire pump and the tyre pressure gauge to see how my tires were and prepare them for track. Have now all tires around 1,4BAR (20,3PSI). This should make the car bump a bit less on the track than the previous 1,7BAR I had. My friend (on track tires) recommended 1,3BAR but I have road tires so...

I then tried to see if the right stop was not working because of the plug I crimped. Pulled the plug out and connected the wire directly to the wire that comes from the pod and nothing. But connecting another (live) wire turns the light on, so... It must be something somewhere else. I'll have to ask Steve at Aries, because looking at the wire diagram it makes no sense to me that the left stop works and the right one doesn't. It should be a fail for both. As a last resort, I may consider pulling a wire from the working stop to the other one, although I don't like that (just because it is a workaround and not a solution).

Finally, I started the engine just because, watched it idle a bit, tested all nuts on the wheels and then closed shop.

During this week I'll pull the battery out to charge it. Next Saturday I'll be going on the track day again and I hope I'll have videos etc.

Open Hood Vents and Checks

Objective:

Today I spent most of my car time opening the vents on the hood. They look awesome open and it should help move hot air out of the engine bay. Lots of work but not much to tell.

After that, went around the car checking levels of coolant, oil and brake oil. All was good and ready for the next track day.

Spent the evening preparing a laptop to configure the Digidash (may try it one of these nights before the next weekend). Yesterday also got me a tire pressure checker and a lighter body. The lighter may end up installed behind the dash to charge mobile phones. But initially it will be used connected directly to the battery to feed the tire-filler pump.

On a side note, the Race Chrono Pro app I have on the Android phone had a new version. This one allows layering more than one gauge over the video (that can be recorded using an external cam and mixed directly on the phone). So, if all goes well, on the next track day I can have footage with the track and my position, speed and G forces and times all on screen. Makes me a bit sad the engine is not ODB2 compliant and, as such, I can't get RPM and gear on the screen too.