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If you have been to my website you will know the background, but here's a quick summary...
I bought the 'green' car from Chris Greville-Smith (GTR designer) after it had been stolen and crashed. It has a few developments on it and I plan to enhance it further.
Plan is to have it in a BMW silver with black leather interior, fit a decent sound system in it (Ed's influence!), electric power steering and a new centre console.
A few pics so far:
As it arrived
Broken suspension parts will be remade
Electric assisted steering column with Rover switchgear fitted
Cosworth radiator in case of future engine upgrades
New engine, been sitting around a test rig for years, never been in a car!
Beginning of the sound system, it will all be hidden
Honda S2000 leather seats fit perfectly!
My website will be kept fully up to date wiht more pics, but I thought a quick summary might be handy..
Starting to fine tune the position of the corsa electric assisted steering column, the mounting points are a fair bit further back than the Rover column ones
Dash moulding will need tweaking to fit more neatly with the corsa shroud
Ed is leading me down a pricey path for the stereo! Should be a nice quality system when it's all done tho'. The mids will get custom sculpted centre sections in the doors, tweeters in the A pillars and a sub in the back, not sure whether to make it removable or not yet. I'm also going to have to hide 2 amps, crossover and the DAB tuner box somewhere!
I know which silver, but don't know the name. I'll have to get over to a BMW dealership and ask them.
I'm getting a new front section of the body, bonnet and front luggage tray. I want to guarantee no crazing in the future so am being careful about where I make the cuts. Chris has lent me the wishbone jigs for this car so they will be easy to reproduce, I will use the later style bushings which are slightly narrower to give me some caster adjustment in the top wishbones in case I need more self centring with the power steering.
I've finally sold my GTM Libra which was going to help fund the GTR's completion. Hopefully I'l get a bit of a bump in the enthusiasm stakes and get some more work done now!
You are really making headway. I like the mating jig you laid up. That will probably save you hours of shaping on the seam.
I noticed the moulding around the door glass looks as if it is actually part of the body. In other pictures I assumed it was chrome or black moulding. Is it actually just a contour line that is painted?
When you finish the body reconstruction will you remove the body and refinish the chassis or are you leaving it as is?
You're right, the side window moulding is actually part of the body. Most people paint it a contrasting colour and I think it really sets off the car.
The plan is to get the body all sorted, then lift it off and fully strip/rebuild the chassis. I'm still contemplating the options of LPG and air con to make it more usable for everyday.
progressing along nicely now, lots of fine tuning was needed to guarantee the front end ended up in the right place.. lots of upside down fibreglassing!
Bi-xenon projector headlights from a BMW M3 will fit into custom mouldings.
If you have been to my website you will know the background, but here's a quick summary...
Honda S2000 leather seats fit perfectly!
Seats look nice! How accessible are the adjustments on the Honda seats? I've got some aftermarket electric Recaro's but am not totally convinced I'll go with them! How about the reclines - wheels or levers on the Honda seats?
Another options I'm looking at are Impreza - my other half had a "classic" WRX (before the current bug-eye one) and the seats in it were very nice! The bug eye has inferior ones.
Hi Greg,
They are quite easy to access, there is a lever at the side of the squab which you lift, this releases the seat forwards but is also used to set the recline position, slide adjustment is by usual lever at front.
One thing I have noticed recently is that the rails have two different brackets at the back, which effectively changed the length between holes, I'll just cut off the longer one and make a duplicate short one..
Hope that helps,
Rich
Greg, reacros are ok, ive got sportline ones in mine, and you can just get to the adjusters etc.. the only really tricky one to get to is the lumbar pump on the side.
Be weary of the WRX seats, most of them dont tilt forward, IMO you really do need them to if you wish to use the area behind the seats. Its a real pain if they dont tilt.
Finally made up some mouldings for the headlights and started modifying them for the bi-xenon projectors from a 2002-2004 BMW M3 plus angel eye sidelight
One with the BMW shroud:
I plan to make up some custom shrouds to accomodate the angel eyes, possibly in carbon fibre...
Tweaked version of phantom's centre console with recessed switch section, I think I will still make some modifications to the rear section instead of just putting a padded top on it:
Light isn't finished, but quick mock-up gives a pretty good idea of the final result: