To correct my omission regarding the nose cone...

I am planning a fairly aggressive front wing for hill climb use to make sure I can ensure I have good turn in. I also wanted to have the nose cone hinge so that I can have access for service and repairs. I bought again from B&Q some heavy duty stainless door hinges which could be disassembled and the parts arranged to suit my needs. They were £20 but they work a dream. As my proposed front wing will be fitted to these mountings I used M8 bolts to make sure all the downforce would go through to the chassis without being lost in any flexing.

Next step is to bond the alloy strip with resin and matting to spread the load and stop the nose cone cracking where it is mounted.

I decided to leave the last jobs on the loom to focus on the cooling system and fitting the radiator. 
My solution is an Escort (OHV) radiator (back to my roots). Mine came from Dave Simms Automotive. They were helpful with accurate measurements and a reasonable price.

To mount the radiator I used some fine B&Q stair nosings alloy angle. This gave me a good start to develop the mounting.

This was as far as I wanted to go ahead of fitting the air cleaner and cooling fan. Having proved my concept I moved onto... The nose cone fitting. Clearly I had done this already but not put it in my blog!

With the fuel tank all fitted and both pumps working there was nothing left to do but add some fuel and give it a go. A quick look round and on with the ignition and crank and... it started! I was shocked. The engine quickly settled into a decent idle so I had a quick look round to make sure the ignition light went out and the rev counter worked and everything did! With no radiator and the exhaust blowing badly as it was held on by very few nuts and no gaskets I switched it off. I have to say I felt exceptionally happy after all the hours that have gone into the car it now sounds like a real one. After all the excitement it was back to the list of jobs?

As my car has the full cage fitting the throttle pedal and cable was more complicated by the large bracket which locates the cage at the base of the "A" pillar. To get clearance of the master cylinder reservoir and steering column I needed to move the top bracket on the pedal towards the middle of the car.

With this done I could drill the scuttle to fit the cable. I didn't want to cut or modify the standard throttle cable so that replacements would be easy and the reliability better. I developed from some alloy tube and alloy angle this solution.

Fitted it looks like this:

The pedal feel is good although I may end out with a small spring on the pedal to help with the return of the pedal. We will see.

With this job out of the way its more wiring to tidy up the loom to finish the job once and for all (Probably not).

With my ambition to get the engine running I had to turn my attention back to the fuel tank.  This has bugged me for weeks as to what I should do to try and prevent any fuel surge. However, whilst the car was away I fitted a central foam baffle and two pumps. With the car back on its stands I made up two spring steel tank supporting straps and fitted the tank. I am very pleased it all fitted as planned. With the previously made fuel filter mount it looks like this:

I made up two long bolts for the rear strap mounts so that I didn't have to fiddle trying to get the bolts in and out when removing the tank. These are simply some M6 studding and nuts with a dab of weld to retain them.

One way or another it will be a while before I know if it works. However, the engine start can't be fr away now!

The cars trip to Tube Engineering has been a great success. They have done a great job making up the manifold and silencer. With this job complete I feel I can push on with the build.  I don't know why but there seems to have been some hesitation on my part completing so many part done tasks. Anyway, this is what we have back:

I am impressed with the quality of the welding and finish. I am less impressed with my decision to have the oxygen sensors on the top. However, we are where we are. Correctly wired and fitted they will look better....I hope.

Since the car has been back the real push has been to get the electrical work as complete as possible. My desire is to have no excess wiring and all circuits not required removed. This has resulted in many hours in a freezing garage cutting, splicing and then soldering and heat shrinking hundreds of joints. You can get the idea from the picture below:

I am happy with the completed job. The pile of discarded wire is amazing. So, with all that work done it starts to look like this! In my head I am happy enough but its going to take a major push to get it complete to my satisfaction and I think I have blown something in the instrument cluster as a few warning lights now do not work! However, the engine does crank! This has cheered me up. It makes proper car noises......

With the engine able to crank and all the DME and EWS wiring complete and tested you can guess what I am thinking! 

The car has been away to Tube Engineering to have the exhaust system made up. So apart from tidying up the garage and throwing away a major pile of unwanted parts from the donor car progress has been slow. 
I did finally decide on my approach to any fuel surge. My proposed solution is to do as others have done. Time will tell if it works. I am fitting two pumps. I have also fitted a central foam baffle. Once the car is back I will fit out the tank and get it installed. I have modified the wiring loom to incorporate the additional electrical supply. The pump will be switched so that its not running all the time.

Just before the car went away I did continue to modify the wiring loom to meet my requirements and fit all the additional wiring. I have struggled with the instructions from Peter. There are a number of errors with the documents and a fair number of my wires are different colours to those mentioned. I downloaded a copy of Bentleys workshop manual to get the schematics and combined, I think I have it all back under control. Again, time will tell!

Lets see what comes back from Tube Engineering, everybody so far has rated them highly so I am quite excited to see how it looks!

With the engine loom in place I wanted get the tops worked out for the transmission tunnel so that I could make up the centre console for the fire extinguisher release, master cut out switch and other additional switches I was going to need. In the end I went for:

I got the extruded alloy from The Complete Automobilist in North Walsham in Norfolk. It is a perfect shape to hopefully keep the IVA examiner happy and provide a strong fixing for both parts of the tunnel cover. At this point I am not sure how the gear lever gaiter is going to stay in place but I will work that out later!.

With my Rivnut tool working over time and a box of M5 cap head screws we start to look like this:

With this all out of the way I moved onto the centre console. In my head I wanted a large area to be able to mount the cut off switch. This was going need some thought as there would be some very robust wire involved and routing would be critical. So, armed with a Cornflake box......

I am really pleased with the outcome. The observant will see that I have laid the GKD wiring harness in place to continue the development of the overall wiring fit out. However this will have to wait whilst I fit the rear alloy panel and the car goes of to Tube Engineering for the exhaust build.