I’ve made great progress today.
First up was the lefthand, side pod duct. this was still only roughly trimmed to remove the rough edges from the moulding process, so it needed trimming to fit around the radiators at the back, and the suspension mounts at the front. this takes ages to do, as you want to get it right without massive gaps. So measure twice, cut once, fit up, re-mark, remove from car, re-trim, measure and fit up again, until happy. Repeat for two – three hours <yawn> but we got there in then end. The moulding is now ready for bonding in place to the floor, but lack of suitable adhesive meant that this had too wait.
With that done, I’ve got 99% of all the work done that she needs to be on axle stands for, so I decided to put the wheels on, drop her off the stands, and roll her outside. Not least because I wanted to start her up. my enthusiasm is in needs of a boost and hearing her run again would be just what the doctor ordered. The Dr in question being Bob Mortimer a mate and fellow RGB racer who’s been poking me gently on Facebook to get the thing finished 
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So I dropped her off the stands and rolled her outside so I didn’t fill the house with fumes via the garage. Here you can see the mostly complete right hand side, with the new ducting in place, the blue gelcoat of the duct doesn’t fight too much with the body paint, which is a good job as I doubt she’ll get painted before her first outing.
New fuel, prime the pumps and first push of the button she fired. Brmmmmm Niiiice
Oil pressure is good, and both the cooling and oil circuits are leak free. The ECU kept the idle high until water temp got above 55 degrees, then she settled to a nice even idle. The temperature then climbed really, really slowly to about 80 degrees, even me holding her at 3000 rpm once the oil had warmed up a bit only provoked it to climb slightly more quickly. Ok its a breezy day, the covers were off and the thermostat bypass is disconnected, and the fans weren’t running, so a slow temperature climb is to be expected.
It also indicates tht the swirl pot is self bleeding the system just like Darcy said it would, last year I used to have to jack the car up, raise the coolant tank and play all sorts of games to bleed the system, and even then the temperature would spike very quickly as the airpockets in the head boiled and the then it would suddenly boiled over. It could take up to 3 cycles of that before she settled down. Not this time! All that happened was that the level in the tank dropped by about an inch. So I topped it up… simples!
I turned on the fans and she dropped 3 degrees a minute back to 75. At this stage I now wanted to pressure test the system, so I turned the fans off again and let her creep up again to 101. All fine, fans on and then back to 75. So that is hopefully that .
Well not quite she still needs some water wetter, and I think I’ll refit the thermostat and bypass hose, along with a thermostatic fan switch. If I can keep the coolant locked in the range 80-85 degrees then that is reputed to be worth a few horsepower, plus its one less thing to think about.
With that I cracked on with another important job, fitting the cat that is rather stupidly mandated by the MSA (Even after two years of proving they fail the MSA wont even answer our concerns) but we have to comply. RGB experience is that the cats die quick and dirty if placed before the silencer, so now we all put a slice of them at the tail pipe exit. It does no good at all, but meets the regs. What this is doing health wise to us drivers and the marshalls I don’t like to think. but it seems the only way to make the things stay together. So mine is fitted to the tail pipe.
After that I gave her and the garage a quick tidy and made a long list of stuff that still needs doing before the next outing at Brands in June.
All in all a good day, Oh, I forgot to say, you know the diamond panels in the side, which will hopefully act as air scoops (you can see them in the first pic above), well these need an aerodynamic leading edge if they are to work most efficiently. so this is currently being built up with some coloured filler, ready for shaping.