lad
Junior
Posts: 79
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Post by lad on Sept 9, 2011 20:32:13 GMT
hello boys and girls. We've just placed our Exocet deposit today so I thought we'd introduce ourselves and kick off our build log. We're Chris and Mark and we're building our car primarily for track, sprints and hill-climbs hence - The Weight-watchers. (can't make it all one word as there's a rude word in there!) We're both engineers and we met when working for Lucas (remember them!?). I work for Jaguar Land Rover and Mark for Panasonic now. We've had our MX5 a couple of weeks and have spent a day or so taking bits off. It's a W-reg 1.8 Mk2 that was a Cat C with body damage, repaired badly in 2008. We just bought it for 700 quid because the lacquer was peeling. 97k miles and sweet as a nut. Here it is as we drove it in the garage:  Here's the result of the first day's work:   And here's Mark with the sun in his eyes :-)  We'll be taking the body off in a couple of weeks when we're both in the country and probably asking loads of questions in the meantime. Looking forward to it! |
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lad
Junior
Posts: 79
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Post by lad on Oct 1, 2011 19:40:02 GMT
A bit more progress on our build this week (we aren't in a hurry!). We got the body off Wednesday evening - as you can see by the photo it was getting late by the time we got round to it:  It came off first time though - we rolled it on its side and did the tank then left it perched on its side until Saturday morning. If I had to do it again I'd say - don't put it on its side, it was quite and operation tipping it back so we could put it on the trailer:  And took it to the boys at the scrap yard (love this one):  I hope the girl we bought it from doesn't see that one! So that leaves us some running gear:  ...which generally looks clean enough if you can see past a bit of surface rust. Deconstruction scheduled for a couple of weeks time. Kit collection mid November. Lad |
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lad
Junior
Posts: 79
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Post by lad on Oct 1, 2011 19:43:50 GMT
..........and we've broken into profit on selling the bits. We should end up about 100 quid to the good having paid 700 for the car.
We got 48 quid scrap value for the body by the way.
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awol
Newbie
Posts: 6
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Post by awol on Oct 2, 2011 15:47:37 GMT
Good to hear! I really want to build one of these, I think if I could buy, strip, and get into profit it would convince the misses it is feasible!
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lad
Junior
Posts: 79
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Post by lad on Nov 22, 2011 16:53:27 GMT
A bit of a break in comms from us because we've been dealing with the heavy rusty bits. Unfortunately there's a big gap in our pictures because of my iphone having to be restored. We've got our mechanicals down to component parts and various bits are off to the powder coaters next week. We've thrown away our subframes - hurrah! As..... WE'RE THE FIRST LIGHTWEIGHT CUSTOMER CAR We won't be the fastest build but watch this space for lightweight updates. We collected our kit from Stuart and had a good old nose around at MEV on Saturday. Took it all home and tucked it up in my Carcoon as you can see in the pics below:   If you've not got the garage space or don't want to tie it up all the time I'd recommend a Carcoon. I've had mine about 7 years and its still going strong. We'll be doing the floor in a couple of weeks. We plan to cover the top side with carbon effect vinyl first to give it a scratch proof cover that looks good. Meanwhile I'm gunking the mechanicals and waiting for the powder coated bits to arrive so we can build them on. More soon...... Lad |
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Post by samuelt on Nov 22, 2011 17:57:25 GMT
Hi lad, i also picked up my kit on saturday (afternoon) but it did not get home till sunday due to a night out in nottingham with my mates ;-) I went for the standard kit as my car will mainly be for road use. Have you stood loking at the frame yet and hoped you have named all your bolts/cables correctly yet? i have!! Good luck with your build.
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Post by red5 on Nov 22, 2011 19:46:41 GMT
Good luck fellas
Is the roll bar the race spec one , and is that why its separate? - or is that the lightweight costruction.
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lad
Junior
Posts: 79
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Post by lad on Nov 22, 2011 19:56:47 GMT
Thanks guys.
Samuelt - we left about 12:30 and Stuart was there tidying up while he waited for you. Nottingham's a top night out. Did you go to the pub that used to be church? Excellent!
red5 - we've gone for the standard M shaped rollbar because we thought it was part of the Exocet's character but yes it's bolt in so we can swap it if we get serious. Does the standard car have the rollbar built in? The tubing on the lightweight is truly lightweight - you can wave the rollbar around with one hand and the whole chassis was an easy lift into the van for the two of us.
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Post by samuelt on Nov 22, 2011 20:37:34 GMT
Lad, we went to a brewery/pub, the old Angel, and Rock City. excellent night out! May need to nip down with my mates again to pick up my dash cover ;-)
The standard frame has the roll bar welded into place, not sure of the weight difference but again it only takes 2 to easily lift it.
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Post by red5 on Nov 22, 2011 20:44:11 GMT
Nice one
The standard roll bar is integral .. unless you specify something more substantial i.e MSA spec i think.
Thats a fair differance in weight - although inclusion of the integral roll bar might be the reason - but it wasnt an 'easy ' 2 man lift for me and the old man , we both bear a resemblance to Mr muscle BTW.
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Post by rharris19 on Nov 22, 2011 21:22:15 GMT
Looks like you are on a good start. Do you guys have a target weight? How extreme will you be going with the weight loss? Aluminum seats, gutted wire harness, light weight wheels, etc. I wish you luck and I hope the build goes well.
I should be starting on my turbo lightweight in february based on current delivery schedule, so it will be good to follow your progress until then.
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Post by smokemare on Nov 23, 2011 9:20:29 GMT
Hi lad, i also picked up my kit on saturday (afternoon) but it did not get home till sunday due to a night out in nottingham with my mates ;-) I went for the standard kit as my car will mainly be for road use. Have you stood loking at the frame yet and hoped you have named all your bolts/cables correctly yet? i have!! Good luck with your build. Is there a particular disadvantage to the lightweight kit if it's for mainly road? Or are we talking about the general issues of driving very light cars on roads? I had a mate who had an Elise Mk1 - he said that was awful in the wet as it was constantly aquaplaning and sliding out of shape due to the light weight. |
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Post by adam1001 on Nov 23, 2011 19:39:17 GMT
Only the price really! I've gone for the standard Exocet as I couldn't justify the extra cost for a road car.
Incidentally with the roll hoops, the standard Exocet can now be ordered with a detachable hoop which both allows you to fit an MSA spec one later if you wish, and also makes the build easier when it's upside down. This is the one I've gone for.
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lad
Junior
Posts: 79
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Post by lad on Nov 23, 2011 22:06:54 GMT
We're trying to balance the weight with the cash really. Ali seats and wired harnesses are further down the list but certainly lightweight wheels are a must for us.
There seems to be some debate about the final weights of peoples cars here so I'm not sure about figures. Also, like everyone else here our priority is to first pass SVA so we may fit some standard stuff for that then replace as we go along afterwards.
Our decision on the Lightweight chassis was that that's one thing we can't replace afterwards!
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h9
Junior
Purchased my Kit in 2011 and only just getting to start the build now in May 2015
Posts: 23
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Post by h9 on Nov 23, 2011 22:24:01 GMT
Hi Guys, good luck with the build, I met you on Saturday when I was collecting my standard Exo kit with my Son Phil, We were surprised as to how light the standard chassis is. I weighed it on our pallet scales when I got back to the unit and it came in at exactly 70kgs. that was just the tubular frame without the roll bar fitted! Looking forward to starting our build soon.
Tony
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