Endurance Challenge! - We’ve been given a fantastic opportunity by Lotus On Track to prepare and run their Lotus Elise S1 at the amazing 24 Hours of Dubai Race in the United Arab Emirates. Needless to say we are overjoyed by this and work has immediately started on the car to prepare it for the arduous task of 24 hours flat out running.

Links:

24 Hours of Dubai - Official Site

Lotus On Track - 24HR Dubai

Lotus Owners Club

Scroll down for latest updates in Wayne’s “Build-Blog”.

Update: 23/11/2010 - Lighting, Wiring and Securing!

Progressing well with the build now, the alloy tub has been fully scrubbed down and had various additional accessories removed that had been added over the years. The front deck indicator area has been modified to accept HID lamps to improve night vision, they are to be flush-bonded in and then blended with the body. Messy, but essential!

A number of improvements have been carried out on the exhaust box hangers to keep everything secure with the immense heat and vibration of racing for 24 hours, this should also keep things in place in the event of any little “bumps”.

Full Nimbus heat shielding has been fitted into the engine compartment, and rear sub-frame area to keep the heat soak under control, this will also help to maintain a more stable cockpit temperature for the drivers - who will be under immense pressure during their driving stints.

Finally, major repairs to the engine control wiring and vehicle harness insulation are under way, this car has had an extensive racing career and age has hardened up most of the insulation - this is all being replaced.

Update: 24/11/2010 - Engine in, Brakes on!

Now the car is starting to make better progress! Essential suspension bushes arrived allowing all of the suspension arms to be refitted, followed by the brake calipers, new braided brake lines, and of course fresh brake pads.

With technicians working on the corners, the remaining workshop staff assembled the engine and gearbox and installed them back into the chassis. The complete engine loom was replaced at this time (quicker than the insulation repairs previously planned) along with all ignition system components, engine sensors, distributor and a new clutch assembly.

Our FIA approved racing seat arrived, but some complications surrounding its fitment still need to be resolved, they are presently being worked on. Finally all new Oil Cooler lines have been run to the front of the car, and the new oil cooler has been securely mounted in the nose.

Our thanks to all of the staff involved who worked late to get the engine running, and put the car back on four wheels today!

Update: 25/11/2010 - Body Re-assembly & Engine running!

Finally our new rear toe link kits have arrived and we can finish the rear suspension fitting! We've still lots of work to do, so today we finished a number of other things from our list to ease the continuing burden. A new windscreen has been fitted which will allow us to refit the front clam assembly. Front paintwork touch-in has started, along with a new front splitter to replace the cracked one - its seen a lot of action!

The doors have been refitted, and the car is now being cleared of stickers... However, lots of paint is coming off with the stickers from the sills so now we have to factor in another days work to refinish the sills in an already packed schedule! On more positive vibes however, we’ve bled out the brakes and clutch with new Castrol SRF fluid. Issues surrounding the race seat have now been resolved and final fitting has taken place along with fitment of a water bottle to the floor of the passenger area - this is for the drivers to take on fluids during the race.

With the front clam now in place we can check clearances on a number of areas in the front end, namely the HID light alignment, radiator hose clearances and wiring security. Finally during the late afternoon the car was loaded onto our Dynapack for engine running in. The engine sounds fantastic, with none of the K-series clicks from the hydraulic tappets - its all going well!

Update: 26/11/2010 - Slicks & Geometry.

The last parts are now filtering in to us, today the Steering Rack and Dunlop Slick tyres arrived, so immediately the old Advan A048's were removed and the wheels scrubbed down, repainted and prepared for the Slicks. Rather than a standard balancer, we're fortunate enough to have a full harmonic tyre balancing machine, which enables us to check the balance between tyre and wheel independently. The machine then directs the fitter to rotate the tyre on the rim so as to minimise the balance weights required. A pressure roller is then applied to the tyre surface to replicate the vehicle load and the wheel assembly is spun while the monitoring screen shows the results, and allows fine tuning if necessary.

The rear clam assembly has now been fully re-fitted,  allowing a lot of auxiliary parts to be installed and finalised, including the induction ducting, rear plastic screen and wheel arch liners and a final reconnection of the tail light loom.

Thanks also to the steering rack’s arrival and hasty fitting, the car was available in the afternoon for corner weighting and geometry - being as the car has had so many changes, the geometry is more time consuming than a road car, so we are expecting this to run into Saturday morning to complete. Once this is complete we hope to deal with the final sill paint work, this should see the car closing in on completion. Thanks once again to our staff, many of whom are working into their weekends to see this job progress quickly.

Update: 27/11/2010 - Geometry finalised - hit the paint shop.

From an early start on Saturday morning the suspension geometry was finalised, and the car was then herded straight over to the paint shop. Technicians immediately set the car up on axle stands and removed the wheels so the body shop guys working over the weekend can concentrate solely on their part of the operation.

Saturday progress finished with the sills repaired and primed ready for the top coat - this will be painted by Kevin our painter, who has offered to come in on Sunday and repaint the sill panels, Thank you!

Update: 29/11/2010 - Paint done - now the details.

Paint work finished - that was another job not scheduled on the list originally, that forced itself upon us! The paint shop guys had removed the car from the axle stands during Sunday and so as soon as we arrived on Monday the car was ready to proceed immediately, that was appreciated.

With the car moved back to the mechanical workshop, the task list for the day looked like it would be just video camera installation, pit-to-car radio installation and engine mapping...

It wasn’t long before Steve Docherty from Track-Club, and David Skegg's from Lotus-on-Track arrived with the radio and video equipment, top marks to Track club for the supply of these expensive bits of kit, thanks! The power supply cables were soon run, control units bolted down, and the camera's mounted, leaving only the minor issues of the GPS Antenna and Radio Aerials to mount, to round out a productive morning.

With the morning gone so well, the weather soon kicked us were it hurts! One member of the team called in, to let us know that: "I’m stuck in the snow, vehicles are being left on the road side!". This was a major blow as the car HAS to be mapped. Quickly forming a Plan-B, a swift call to David Walker at Emerald and we were offered mapping time for the Tuesday morning, and the use of the brand-new Emerald K6 ECU, thank you Emerald!

Staff made a list of final items to finish while the car was loaded for the journey to Emerald, and before long we were on our way to Norfolk, where the snow was promised to be “Not too bad!”. Arriving at about 7pm, the car and trailer were put in the workshop ready for the dyno in the morning...

Update: 30/11/2010 - Mapping @ Emerald & More Problems...

Early start on Tuesday morning! David at Emerald went through the car's mapping thoroughly and made compensations for the ambient temperatures we'll see over in Dubai. Checking things over and re-mapping took us until about 14:30 and looking at the clouds forming it was definitely time to make a move back to Essex. Fortunately the car was soon off of the dyno and loaded onto the trailer for the drive back.

I arrived back at the workshops at approximately 5pm, despite the heavy snow build up on the trailer causing some issues driving back - No fun!

Immediately the car was unloaded and put onto the workshop ramp ready for an oil change, and major clean - the drive back had covered the fresh paint with salt and snow from the roads!

By this time the snow was falling very heavy in Essex, and it was starting to look a little questionable for Paul’s target pick up of the car - somehow I knew what was going to happen ... I waited for the inevitable call :)

20:00 - Sure enough, the call comes in, its Paul. “I've got a problem getting to you tomorrow!, the roads in Kent are bad, and getting worse!”. For the second time in 48 hours, its was time for a Plan-B! ... The car needs to be at Harwich International Port to take the ferry over night to arrive at the Hook of Holland for early Thursday morning! This, is the essence of Plan-B.

Hastily, Paul rearranges the Ferry crossing and confirms the bookings, while I try to  take stock of logistics at the Essex end. Simple things like my passport, which is at home, on the other side of the now very snowy Essex. The big question ... In all of this weather, can I get home? And If I do, can I get back tomorrow, in time?

Leaving immediately it was clear that the main roads were not too bad, the latter parts of the journey eased massively by being able to follow a snow-plough! I got home, and sorted out the essentials, ready for the inevitable challenges of Wednesday - I wonder what it will bring?

Update: 1/12/2010 - The final push!

A whole new kind of early start for the day, 5am and back at work, I figured it would be best to leave very early just in case the journey was a nightmare, but thankfully once again the main roads weren’t too bad. Being in that early allowed the “Final, Final List” to be made, though it keeps growing as time moves on.

Thankfully, staff started to arrive by about 7:30 and the last of the jobs began very quickly indeed. These last jobs being, a total drain of the fuel tank, and then a very scientific stuff-the-car-with-tools-and-parts kind of movement.

There was certainly no shortage of items to be shipped out with the car - Alloy Jack, Axle Stands, Drive-shafts, Hoses, Wiring, Connectors, Second set of Nitron dampers, Brake Calipers, Engine oil, Gearbox oil, Pitbox (tools for the pit-wall), Steering rack, Fire Extinguisher back-up, in all honesty it's surprising what you can get in an Elise :) Pallets are also being shipped out to Dubai, but sadly they were shipped to Rotterdam a week before we’d secured supply of most of the items we needed. With the car fully loaded it must weigh a good 1200Kg!

Everything was going well, except of course, the weather. Its very bad in Essex and Kent, and the Dartford crossing is closed. Thankfully our route to Harwich was looking good, so long as the A12 holds up to the snow-onslaught! The Car was loaded onto the trailer for the final time after lunch, and arrangements were made to pick up my wife Gill, on my way up the A12 at around 6pm. The ferry crossing isn’t until 23:30. Plenty of time... Isn’t it?

Mid-afternoon and the clouds looked very heavy - the temperature was also dropping rapidly - I decided to leave at about 16:30, which should give me plenty of time, even if there are issues with the roads. Setting off, the roads didn’t initially seem too bad, but it wasn’t long down the A12 before things started to look a little more serious. Around Chelmsford and Colchester the snow was a good foot or more deep, with most side roads inaccessible. This meant my journey home was impossible. Gill was unable to get out to the A12 to meet me also, so I quickly called a friend and asked him to pick her up in his 4x4 (Thanks Steve).

We arranged to meet at a service station on the A12, as I had to keep on the main roads with the van and trailer, the van has been through much in its life, but trying to tow in the snow with a front-wheel-drive van isn’t easy - main roads were all we could do! We met up without any further issues and Gill and I started to make our way towards Harwich, feeling more like we were in the Arctic Circle!

We arrived at the port in surprisingly good time, and actually had some dinner before boarding. But, no sooner had we started to line up for the ferry - the

snow started coming down again, big snow this time. Eventually (despite a few supplies short-falls I remembered, which will be taken care of in Holland) we boarded the ferry and got to our very comfy cabin. With the pressure of the past two weeks easing off, I slept like a log and didn't even stay awake for the ship leaving port! We’re on our way, despite the weather!

Update: 2/12/2010 - We did it! 2 Week car build complete - for now...

Following a great night sleep on the Ferry (for me at least), we arrived at the docks in Holland at 7:45 - greeted by more snow, I think it followed the boat! We departed quickly and made our way out of the Ferry terminal, bound for the Rotterdam shipping depot, some 18 miles away. The roads were icy and had a good snow covering.

Even though it was only an 18 mile journey it seemed to take forever, even taking us over a main river in Rotterdam - much staring at the Sat-Nav during this time assured us that we were going in the right direction. During this leg of the trip we’d kept in touch with Paul, who’d been at the shipping depot since before 8am. We eventually arrived at about 10am.

We got into the unloading area and met up with the team from Stratton Motor Company with whom we are to share the container, and with some english speaking company we got our cars and equipment unloaded and into the warehouse. Expecting some mild increase in warmth we were annoyed to find that the temperature in the warehouse was the same as outside, so the snow on the cars didn’t melt, however Gill got the job of cleaning down the car (Thanks!). With everything positioned in the warehouse ready to go, it was then a long wait for our loading slot, which should in theory have been 11:00am... By 14:00 our container was just arriving, even the lorries in the depot were struggling to move around, slithering sideways as they delivered our container up to the loading area.

With our pallets loaded in minutes, the first car to load into the container was the Aston of Stratton Motor Company, followed by our Elise. Had we known that more space was available in the container we’d likely have packed a lot more - its all been a learning exercise though.

So that was it - car loaded - the two weeks of hard work from my team, the frantic calls and running around, parts donations from many generous companies, it all lead to this moment at the freezing loading bay in Rotterdam. My thanks to everybody that has given their best in such a short space of time to build a 24-hour car in two weeks! I hope the Drivers and Crew enjoy every minute of the race - Good Luck guys! The blog will continue when the crew leave the UK for the Racing - follow our progress!

I hope you found my blog interesting, go easy - It is my first, and its been a busy few weeks!! :)