For a few weeks now the car has been playing up a bit. First problem was starting where it was hit and miss whether or not it would get going. Are thoughts were it was the battery but a good charge before a drive would sort it out. A few weeks from the initial issue myself and Dad headed out for a quick drive. We made it upto the petrol station about a mile from home no problems but there was traffic and we put the fan on. With the tank now half full we went to start the car and there was almost nothing there and the car didnt start. 3 or 4 attempts more and we gave up, the battery had no juice left. We were a mile from home mainly a steep hill down but that was after a steep gradient up. With no phones or RAC cards we decided to push, it was slightly embarressing but what was even worse was the pushing - at just over 400kg and even with the two of us pushing it was a greater struggle than we initally though. Once we were at the top of the hill we jumped in and let the car roll home as the un servoed brakes and manual steering means everything operates perfectly even when the engines not running. With the battery blatently at fault Ross ordered us a new one in at the dirt cheap price of £23 inc VAT which made us wish we had done it sooner.
With the new battery in the car runs as good as it had done other than a lump spot at 5-10% throttle between 3-4,000 revs. Every gear was the same so I put this down to the mapping as although it had never been this bad before we had noticed some hesitance in this range. Whilst on a run out today to see some family members i mapped the car live to sort the running issue out. The issue was down to a massive positive fueling in this range when smoothed out the problem was gone. Its not a perfect map but it is getting better every time we adjust it but at the same time id still like a pro to setup the car to maximise performance.
Whilst fitting my Leon's new sport exhaust I somehow managed to drive into the kit car whilst navigating the car into a good position to jack it up. Stupid I know but it was only a tap. Only casualty was the number plate light which has a crack around the frame.
Once removed it was very easy to sort with some superglue held in place with some duct tape.
The other new problem I believe is clutch slip as when on a fast run with your foot down the revs rise as if the car is being revved at standstill so the clutch is not clamping with enough pressure to drive the propshaft - like the clutch has been disengaged. At the moment its not massively noticeable unless your giving it some but its something I hope we can address shortly with some uprated clutch springs.
Since new the refurbed 3.38 diff has had a very slight leak. It doesnt drip but we have noticed the back cover is oily at the bottom. After trying with a torx head socket to get the fill level bolt off i then realised it was actually a female hex bolt - DOH! Once this was off we began filling. We still had the bottle we initally filled it with when it took 850ml. Today it used the remaining 150ml before it was full. Were not sure whether or not to be worried by this but we did go round and tighten all the back cover bolts so we'll keep an eye on it over the coming months
Other than this the boot box saga continues where we are getting closer to a luggage compartment but as fibre glassing is a slow procedure especially having several parts we are only just at the stage to attach the top to the box section.
Only problem is we have to find a method to attach is as the nuts we use at the moment will no longer be expossed once the box is in and we will need to find a way to stop the two parts vibrating together and driving us mad
