Blower alignment

I have decided that I would love to get this car done and at mini united in the South of France this year so will have to get my finger out and really push this.
I spent a day at mini mats stripping a mini for the wiring loom as mine was damaged however I know I will need to revisit the loom to add the extra features I want. I had to remove so many items but I really want to thank Mat for his help as this build would be very difficult without him and sourcing parts would have been costly if all brought new ~ thank you Mat, I appreciate your help.

Again in the theme of making my life difficult I managed to get hold of a cooper water pump, which fitted where the alternator used to be, sadly this meant finding a new home for the alternator. The alternator had 15mm removed from the lug to drop the height so it does not stick out so much. I still need to make a lower support for the unit but I am not to worried as it will be easy to make.
I decided to bring the blower further out from the block as early supercharger conversions I have done, I put the blower too close to the block which caused a few issues. This position does fowl on the radiator but I consider that a minor issue which will be easy to fix. I have left more than enough room around the sensors and water pipes.
I will need to revisit the water pump as the current belt wrap would meant the back non grooved side would be driving the belt.

I sat around with my TIG welder and started to make up some simple brackets to start mocking out how the blower will be held, the blower will be held at the nose, rear and also the outlet flange so there will be 4 fixing points.

All the aux devices fitted

 Flange bracket which would be welded onto the outlet plate of the blower

 Modified alternator brought in closer to the sump, the bottom side will need a bracket making. The sheet of metal represents the level of the sump and is showing that there will be lots of clearance so the car can be slammed.

While thinking about the engine and the fixings I have been adding resin to the carbon parts I am currently making. Decided I hate carbon skinning but the results make it worth it.

Carbon skinning

With the car at the body shop I decided to get on with some carbon skinning, this is not something I have much experience with but I have played with it in the past. As I am having a carbon roof skin made there are several non structural items I want to match to the roof.

The basics of skinning is to lay resin, let it tack and then lay the carbon. With the carbon laid the resin is then applied layer by layer, once built up the clear resin is then wet sanded and polished to give a deep gloss shine.

This is the start of two of the items started;

More roof and some progress

The roof being the area to have required the most amount of work it is finally at the stage where the mould can be taken, it has taken many hours of sanding and filling to get to this level though I am very happy to be here now.

With the roof in primer, wax and release fluid has been applied, this will allow the mould to be removed when it is dry.
With the wax on the roof, the gel coat was then applied.

The gel coat is white which you can just make out on the roof. Once the gel coat had gone tacky we then started to apply glass chop strand mat and adding resin with 1% catalyst ratio resin. This gives a nice slow mix and we hope will not change or sag the roof.

Once this is dry and the extra supported have been added we will then start making the carbon replacement roof. Already quite excited.

I hope to add another post soon

Back from the powder coaters

Recently the car has been at the body shop and the guys there have been busy getting on with what I want while I have been busy with other stuff. I have been feeling a little bit down about the project probably down to the money pit it is becoming and also the time it is taking... Any how I got a call from city powder coaters in Birmingham saying that the fist batch of parts are now ready to collect, I though this would be something to really pick me up again and it may just have done that. The finish of the parts is really good and very well done.

I hope you enjoy the photos. I may start to assemble the sub frames soon. I do think I have some parts I do not need and some are not there so I may still have them in my storage or they are part of the second batch. I will be wax oiling the inside of all the frames to ensure they don't rot away as I plan to keep the car.

from here they are to be stored for a while and I will also be placing in my bushes where needed. I am very pleased that they powder coaters took their time and produced a stunning finish.

The wheels are RS Drift and came in red when I got them so I shipped them off to be gun metal grey which I really like them in.