[Spenny_b]

Part 5 – Car Collection & Thoughts So Far….

While still at the dyno on that evening of fine tuning, a hastily phonecall to good old Dad, seeing if he could quickly drive me back up to Northampton the following day. Thankfully he was available and willingly said yes. Good old Dad! It would’ve been possible to use the train to get up there, but I really wanted to spend the day with Dad, having a good old natter on the drive up there (about 3.5hrs on a flying run through), and after many years of keeping him abreast of how the project is going (and dealing with my frustration venting along the way), he’d never actually seen where all this was being done.

An hour or so spent getting the rear bumper back on and it was time to test drive it around the local, busy roads. This was purely slow speed testing, making sure (for example) it didn't stall when pulling up to junctions or making sudden rapid stops. After quite a bit of fine tuning to things like the idle map engagement, it’s all good to go. The trick they put in place to deal with heavy voltage loading has worked a treat, it works like, er, a normal car.

And….Oh. My. God. What a difference. That new pedal is just magic. No longer do I have to deftly dance the pedals like Walter Rohl to pull away from a standstill and not embarrass myself with either stalling or making a racket. It drives….normally. Pulling away is smooth, it doesn’t try and stall, it doesn’t get all lairy…it just “does”. In fact, at the moment, every drive I do I marvel at it. The simple things, eh?

The drive home, with Dad tailing me, was just horrid. 4 hours of solid traffic. Dad really doesn’t like driving at night these days (the UK seems to have a policy of reducing light pollution and switching off many street lamps, leaving the only lighting that of oncoming traffic with modern ultra bright LED’s / Xenons). We had hoped to heading back home early afternoon before we lost the light. Nope. Didn’t happen. We had about 30mins of driving before sunset, the roads wet and filthy. In turn, I wanted to make sure Dad was in my rear view mirror, so for once I was the one being overtaken not the other way around.

What all that meant, was that I spent a lot of time in that strange rev-range described previously….brushing the throttle to maintain the 50-60mph speeds we were limited to in the traffic (and point-to-point speed camera zones), and therefore transitioning right through 1800-2200 revs frequently. So, after arriving home, I did have to remind myself that this really isn’t the sort of driving the car will be used for; it was literally the polar opposite. Was that subtle stuttering noticeable? Every so slightly, yes, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. But it was a hell of a lot better than previously. Way different.

Troy had previously said that he wondered whether this was due to intake tract wall-wetting, with the usual wide-angled spray patterns that suit modern multi-valve engines not being focussed enough for single valve heads. I guess the only way we’ll find out is to experiment at some time in the future, if/when we have genuine need to go back on the dyno.

What does the increased power actually feel like? Terrifying! On that dry-road drive I confess to bottling it a couple of times once max boost was made. It was genuinely shocking, complete sensory overload, just like all hell had been let loose. A mate of mine had spun his BMW M2 the week before on those same roads (and smashed it up)….I didn’t want to be a second victim in as many weeks! The torque delivery is so strong and linear, it’s relentless. Sure, there are higher horsepowered projects out there but I really do think the balance of torque to power is spot-on and on these roads in good old Blighty, it feels sodding quick. Lucy was in the seat the other day when I went WOT….she’s grown up experiencing fast stuff with me, but even she gave an involuntary “Good God!” after being thrown into the back of the seat.

The other Saturday we went on an afternoon drive out. My first time to really think about the suspension setup and how it felt. I can’t wait until the warmer weather. I stand by my initial thoughts from back in June; perfectly civilised when not pressing on, but when you are able to make progress, it just feels sublime.

There’s a list of finishing jobs to be done now that I have it back; a few interior jobs, the transmission undertray was refitted the other day, the horn has stopped working for some reason (should be an easy one, prob just a loose connection after removing the steering wheel to extract the rev counter).