# It Drives, Stops, Steers And Goes!!!!



## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

Well it's finally finished (more or less). Both me & my friend Jon have been out driving it today - we've yet to get the car set up properly so it's not running particularly well (with lots of rough running & back firing - it's running too rich & really needs to be tuned on a rolling road. It's faster than it was (as it should be seeing as we've fitted a new engine in it) & handles well, there's very little weight over the front end so the steering is very light & direct. The front end get's pretty light at speed, having a full tank of fuel improves things no end. It's actually fairly civilised now due to the new motorbike silencer we've fitted - previously the car was frighteningly loud but now it's got quite a nice throaty burble. The brakes take a bit of getting used to - they're drums all round & strong enough to lock the wheels up (due to the lack of weight probably). It's never going to comfortable but it's a absolute hoot to drive and people seem to enjoy seeing it - lots of double takes and children shouting & pointing (we even got a smile & wave from a bobby on the beat).

Here are links to the original posts I made about the car:

http://www.rltwatches.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=8900

& here:

http://www.rltwatches.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=9006

Not sure what the next step is - we've got to get it running better than it presently is and the rear lights have now mysteriously packed up (probably dodgy contacts or a duff earth) so they need sorting out asap. The nearest decent rolling road is about 50 miles away near Malton so getting the car there should be fun - errrrr not!!







What we may do is get the car crypton tuned so that it runs well enough to get us to the rolling road and then leave the final setting up for the actual rolling road session itself. There is a rolling road in Leeds but it doesn't come highly recommended (unfortunately).

Anyway enjoy the pictures - no doubt we'll be out in it next weekend


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

Another


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

And another - that's Jon checking the rear tyre pressure (I don't know the other bloke but he was interested in the car)


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

And finally a pert rear end (nothing like Kylies!!







)


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## johnbaz (Jan 30, 2005)

talk about 'thehouse that jack built'

this must be 'the car that paul built', sorry that should read paul & jon









i hope that 'other bloke' doesn't come by your place tonight and nick it









john









forgot to say,it looks brill


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## scottishcammy (Jul 11, 2003)

Hey, that road tax is in the wrong place, that's an offence







!!!!

Looks great mate, and I'm sure you'll have lots of fun it it, well done!


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## MIKE (Feb 23, 2003)

Well done Paul and Jon









It's certainly different and you are not liable to meet another coming the other way









What happens when you both want it on the same day but not to go to, the same place









Many happy miles of motoring in it









MIKE


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## Bill Thornton (Nov 17, 2005)

MIKE said:


> Well done Paul and Jon
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well done Paul ,only someone whos built one can really appreciate the effort that goes

in . I spent a whole winter in a woolly suit till midnight most nights ,frozen to the marrow but where the heart is the body follows so to speak :-

Nice one.

P.s. if you ever get down to Pembs on a jolly ,come and show me it.

Bill T.


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## r1ch (Feb 2, 2004)

Hey Paulus.. how the chuff do you steer it?







.. There looks to be a vital bit of kit missing in the first pic!.. You use mole grips right?..


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

> Hey Paulus.. how the chuff do you steer it?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep you're right Rich - I use mole grips as they add a bit more adrenaline to the whole driving experience
















Actually the only the only graceful







way of exiting the car is with the steering wheel removed - fortunately the steering wheel is removeable







. It also helps to deter would be thieves, it's not much use nicking a car if you can't steer it - though you'd have to be blind or stupid (or both) to want to steal this one. You do get some strange looks walking into a pub with a steering wheel though - as Jon & I discovered yesterday (I'm sure we'll get used to this though)


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## MarkF (Jul 5, 2003)

pauluspaolo said:


> You do get some strange looks walking into a pub with a steering wheel though - as Jon & I discovered yesterday (I'm sure we'll get used to this though)
> 
> 
> 
> ...










Looks great Paul, you should get Â£Â£Â£Â£'s worth of fun next sunmmer.


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## bry1975 (Feb 6, 2004)

Paul









Have you heard from the BIG MAN at Chipping Norton







J Clarkson or one of his Chums









Perhaps THE Stig might test drive the beast for you.

The car looks very impressive, perhaps you might beable to set up a custom car business







a nice earner, i'm sure the RICH would buy em for their kids, Â£7.5k a time.

Bry



MarkF said:


> pauluspaolo said:
> 
> 
> > You do get some strange looks walking into a pub with a steering wheel though - as Jon & I discovered yesterday (I'm sure we'll get used to this though)
> ...


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

It'd be fun watching the Stig take it round a circuit - I'm pretty sure he'd kill the car though as I doubt it'd stand up to the abuse!!

It might give Jeremy Clarkson a laugh but I don't think he'd p*ss on it if it was on fire let alone drive the thing. I get the impression that they don't like kit cars on Top Gear - roll on saturday I want to drive it some more


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## bry1975 (Feb 6, 2004)

rrrrrrr But







they could have the three off 'em on the usual test/race against each other, Clarkson would have to give the car to Hammond, Mr White teeth







as his 9







foot frame wouldn't fit, wth or without the steering wheel. Hill climbing, it would fly up a 1 in 3 a treat











pauluspaolo said:


> It'd be fun watching the Stig take it round a circuit - I'm pretty sure he'd kill the car though as I doubt it'd stand up to the abuse!!
> 
> It might give Jeremy Clarkson a laugh but I don't think he'd p*ss on it if it was on fire let alone drive the thing. I get the impression that they don't like kit cars on Top Gear - roll on saturday I want to drive it some more
> 
> ...


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## Mothman (Oct 11, 2005)

Well done Paul you have my admiration. I tried building a kit car a few years back but never finished it (like so many). It was a 'Locust' (not to be confused with 'Locost') Lotus 7 clone which had a ladder frame chasis with plywood body tub covered in metal sheet, Ford crossflow engine & Cotina\Escort running gear. Unfortunately there was far to much re-engineering of components required and the lack of access to any specialist engineering equipment mean't I never got it finished. The build manual was also worse than useless and went along the lines of 'Take a donor car and adapt parts to built Kit car'. Also their was the daunting prospect that if I had finished the car then I would still have to get it through the dreaded SVA test, much better to do what you have done and buy an already registered car that just needs some work.

Your car looks great, hope you enjoy it

Richard


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## Mrcrowley (Apr 23, 2003)

Very good Mr. M, well done.

So the enthusiasm has returned then - and I don't mean yours.

BTW Where's the rolling road in Leeds?


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

Thanks for the invite Bill - I should have asked before but do you have any photos of the car you built?

It really has seemed like a labour of love at times - our entusiasm for the project has certainly taken a battering from all the cold late nights and the, seemingly, never ending expense. However it's great to be actually able to drive the car again, there's a big sense of achievement when you zoom round a corner in something that was in bits a month earlier. There's still loads of work to do but the light at the end of the tunnel is a lot bigger and a lot brighter.

Richard - that must have been a nightmare! Kit cars have come an awful long way since those days, not all of them are successful but most seem to be better built & designed than they used to be. This is probably due to the introduction of the SVA test. I see loads of abandoned projects/part built kit cars on Ebay. If they've previously been on the road & registered, with the V5 present (like ours) then it might be a viable proposition to restore/finish/get them going again. However if they are an old kit that's either unstarted or part built, unregistered (no V5 documents) and designed before the SVA was introduced, then forget it - you may be able to finish building the car but getting it registered will mean putting the car through the SVA test which it won't have been designed to pass - unlike modern kit cars. Passing the SVA could mean anything from welding decent seat belt mounting points onto the chassis (probably a fairly simple & cheap thing to do) or spending 1000's of pounds redesigning a flawed suspension set up - it just depends on the car you're trying to get registered! More details on the test can be found here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_...hcst?n=6662&l=3

I've heard that someone's bought the rights to produce our car again (which is actually called a Chris Hollier Mosquito) & is looking at what's required to get it through the SVA test - good luck to him!! I suppose this rebuild has been comparatively simple with no huge insurmountable problems - we may meet those when the MOT runs out next year!! After we've got it running reasonably well the next thing to do will be to have the car pre-mot'd (basically it's put through the MOT test to see what it fails on) - I'm not looking forward to this really as I'm sure there'll be all sorts of problems with the car. One of the reasons we decided to go for this car was that it came with 11 months MOT (God knows how it passed the test!) - our idea was to restore it over a few months and then run it until the MOT expired. Hopefully being able to run the car for a few months before the MOT runs out will bring any problems to light i.e. dodgy brakes, wonky steering etc.

Many thanks for all your positive comments - they're much appreciated.


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## Bill Thornton (Nov 17, 2005)

Hi Paulus theres a small piccy of my Tarragon on my intro page but I dont have web

space so I cant post pictures on this forum, if you want I can email the larger JPG

to you direct Like SI did with Stan For the LP12D.


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## pauluspaolo (Feb 24, 2003)

Hi Bill - if you post the picture to me at [email protected] Bill, I'll post it for you (I'll have to resize it to 60kb though)


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