DE Track build update.

Its been a while since the DE received some publicity.

Its had a rough ride recently as I've gone from loving it, to loving it but having to sell it, to deciding I'm keeping it and going full race car build. At the moment I would say my relationship with this car has passed the honeymoon period and is very much love hate. Love driving the car but its wants to fight against every track mod i'm working on.

An example of its unwillingness to cooperate, would be stripping the interior out to make space for the roll cage. No matter how gentle or what tool i use the interior trim was not coming out without snapping almost every last one of the original clips that have been keeping the car together since it left the factory over a decade ago.

Some readers may think whats the problem with snapping the trim off as its going to be a race car? Its just not in me to brutalise a car in that way.

I'm currently in the process of relocating the battery to inside the cabin for a better weight distribution. Fixing it to the floor behind the passenger seat. The new wires have been measured out and are ready to be fitted, if I can find a good location to drill the access hole for the wires to the engine bay. The bulkhead is crammed with pipes and mounts for other elements of the engine.

We have a new seat and base combination coming. should be arriving tomorrow which will give me something fun to fit to the car on my birthday while the rest of the family are working. Seat and frames should weigh in at 10.5kg which is a significant weight saving over teh factory fit options and the Honda EP3 seats I was using.

Once the seat and cage are in the car the last job before we can go racing is plumbing in a fire suppressant system which will require yet more holes being drilled into the bulk head of the engine bay.

I have also secured a personal sponsorship deal to AVON tyres who will be supplying my competition tyres for the next season. A big thank you to Avon for their support. Should you require new tyres the Avon Zv7 (all sizes available) is a terrific high performance tyre and the brand new Mazda dedicated Zv7R (195 50 15) track tyre they have developed promises to be sublime.

I'll do my best to post content of a more regular basis as I progress through the build.

All the best

Neal