Final items and Ready for IVA

Its been such a mad rush to get the car ready for the summer that I haven't had a chance to post until now; and that's only because shes now ready for the dreaded IVA test.

Booked for March 22nd, 8am at Norwich.....wish me luck.

So what's been happening I hear you ask (or that could just be the voices in my head)....

When the car came back from having the interior fitted I needed to reconnect the dash. This was a nightmare job as there are so many wires from the first time I did this. The wash wiper wouldn't work which turned out to be the BMW connector pins had come loose. The brake light wouldn't work (because this is switched earth not positive), The horn didn't work (also turned out to be switched earth not positive) and I had to make wiring for the aux power and wire in the immobiliser. Obviously I'm not going to provide too much detail regarding location of the immobiliser but although it takes time to fit, its fairly straight forward and like any immobiliser it breaks certain circuits unless you put the fob near the receiver.

After mentioning it to Jon at AK he said he usually wires up the dash after the dash is covered in leather as it only needs to be done once then - a good tip for next time...

Now onto the final prep of the car. I cannot recommend doing this more as I found a number of items that would have been a definite fail and now I am much more confident.

So onto the local MOT station to have the car setup. They:

1. Aligned the front headlights
2. Tested the emissions, which he said were perfect.
3. Tested the brakes and the handbrake.
4. Gave the car a good visual once over checking for leaks etc
5. Aligned the front wheels

This turned out a few issues which had to be resolved. One point for anyone who is questioning the Hollins electronic handbrake conversion. Here's a picture of the car sat on a tilt and slide transporter going for its interior. Held just on the handbrake on a reasonable angle.

1. The front drivers wheel was catching on the bottom corner of the inner stainless steel wheel arch. It only needed a piece taking out about 3 inches long by 1 inch wide but it did mean adjusting the position of the clutch line.
2. The drivers side headlight only just managed to get to the legal limit probably due to the shape of the body.
3. I had forgotten to put spring washers on my front calipers and seat belt brackets so the seats had to come back out (which also showed interior seating had forgot to put them on the seats too). Easily resolved.
4. A small leak was found on the water coolant hose.

It was this last issue that turned out to be a major issue to resolve. After tightening all the hoses and running the car up to temp a couple of times I realised the issue was not the hoses at all but the stainless header tank that I had paid, as you do for any part on these cars, an extortionate amount for. Basically it had crap welding around the 90 degree joint so I needed to find a welder at midday on a Saturday to re-weld the joint. Luckily Si Smith (another Cobra owner) came to the rescue as he knew someone. A few hours later and a newly welded bottle was re-fitted and all was dry again.

Whilst re-fitting this I also gave the car a full once over, zip ties were added to any loose wires which may have been suspect, bolts that were possibly too long trimmed down and any possible sharp edges removed. This all takes a lot of time to do (2 whole days), checking and double checking lights and fitting any modifications required such as AK's IVA compatible parts which helped fix a couple of last minute non-conformities.

The last task was to calibrate the speedometer. I found the best way to do this was to use the "Drive To Set" feature of the Smiths Flight gauges. Simply start the car with the trip button pressed in for 3 seconds and wait. "DTS" will appear and then press and hold again for a couple of seconds and the display will show "*00000". Then drive the car exactly one mile (on private land of course as you are not legal for the public highway). Simply put the car at the start point and put a marker (I used the tow car) exactly one mile away. You can simply drive around a large work car park to do this, it does not need to be a straight line but it must be a mile. Park up at your marker (or behind the tow car) and then press the button again and it will display "DONE". Switch the ignition off and on again and all should work. According to my GPS Speedometer app on the mobile, my true speed is 28mph when the gauge is showing 30mph so I am well within tolerances (well see on the day I suppose).

One piece of information that I had to figure out was the Tremec T56 Magnum electronic VSS wiring. It has two white wires on the sensor but no instructions. It turns out that the you need to use the red/blue wire from the speedo into one of the connections and the other should go to an earth. I hope this information helps someone avoid the 2 hours of trial and error I had. Once sorted the Accutech reverse lockout sensor worked a treat too. Below 5mph it allows you to easily select reverse but above it starts the solenoid making it difficult to select it.

So now she's as ready as she is going to be. Regardless of what happens on Wednesday I want to thank the following people who have made a real impact during my build.

• My future wife Katie, for accepting this obsession of mine, despite the frustrations and cost of the build
• My Dad who has been there whenever I needed an extra pair of hands
• Simon, who has always offered advise and loaned parts from his car when I needed to check things or parts hadn't arrived in time for things like the car going for its exhaust
• Alan, for being a sounding board throughout the process (and loaning parts)
• Jon and Wendi at AK for putting up with my many questions and clarifications
• The guys on the Cobraclub forum for advice (the good, the bad and the down right insane opinions)

Wish me luck everyone.