Final shot before windscreen goes on tomorrow and should start looking more like a car. I have removed the wheel rimbands but will probably still have a pinstripe on the wheels. Once the screens on ill put the car on the lift and fit the exhaust and fuel tank. Still waiting for my gauges ordered back in November so beware they are on a long lead time! Once I have the gauges and senders I’m about ready to fire up the engine…..
This was not nearly as easy as I was expecting, I found it extremely challenging to get the alignment perfect – I used a combination of plumb bobs and laser lines – got there in the end, although it did take me quite some time! One slightly useful thing I found was when using the plumb bob technique to plumb up from the chassis points, it is not easy to be extremely accurate at the first attempt so just get as near as you can to plumb then drill a very small hole – from there I used a split pin to hold the plumb bob string into this hole and then made small adjustments until I was sure the small hole was directly above the chassis fixing point.
I was already running out of fuses and want to fit heated seats etc so extra fuses will come in handy
Finalised power steering The picture above left shows the ecu for steering. this comes bolted to the column but has to be removed and fitted elsewhere. I have tucked it up above the pedal box on the outer footwell panel but this meant that the short loom back to the column torque sensor had to be extended. The picture on the right shows the speed control unit – this little box is connected to an independent speed sensor located at the diff UJ and effectively controls the maps for speed sensitive power steering assistance variation I will be able to fine tune this once the car is moving. As a side note I am also working with Dave at Canems to hopefully make this box redundant since a modification to the canems ecu allowing it to collect speed input data is eventually going to enable direct control of the power steering maps and the tremec reverse lock out solenoid.
I have bolted the power steering column end to the body with a simple u clamp type arrangement this has a fairly substantial backing plate on the underside. The blue tape is the position for my bonnet lock down keep brackets.
Finally fitted the ujs and shafts down to the steering rack and was able to power up the unit – very pleased the steering feels excellent very smooth and silent whilst in powered mode!
Marks Cobra Build 