Set off from home at 5.45. Tried to be quiet but pretty much failed immediately. Never mind the noise the engine makes but I accidentally caught the horn when reversing off the drive. Oh well. Drove up and down a quiet road down the back of our house that goes to an industrial estate a few times and did some hard braking from 30,40,50,60 to a stop to make sure it pulls up good and in a straight line. No bother there, the brakes had our collar bones almost snapping against the harnesses. Even though they're not bedded in the brakes are very good. Rattled through a few potholes to make sure nothing fell off, I was disappointed by how much bump steer there was but I can play with the height of the rack so I've probably just not set that correctly.
We then set off on the road proper, it was a bit chilly at 6am and I was extremely nervous so did some bad gear changes, especially downshifting it was jerking around a bit as I wasn't bringing the revs up enough to match. Fortunately the car sounds amazing so you just get your ears blasted with overrun popping and other fun noises so it didn't really matter that I was useless. My hand kept sticking to the metal gear knob and all the dials were virtually unreadable due to misting up. After 15 mins though everything was fine, apart from the speedo which remained misted up for another half an hour or so. More on that later.
The car drove well, even with the mixture not set very well, the timing retarded and using running-in oil. We got all the way to the petrol station round the corner from the test centre (Leighton Buzzard) with no drama. There was about half a tank in when we left and we had used most of that (25 litres or so) for 50 miles, so thats less than 10mpg. This would suggest its running a bit rich (again, more on that later!). It should get 15-18 on a steady run according to others with similar engines.
We got to the test station and went through the test process. The chap was very good, very knowledgeable and fair with his explanations of the few items we failed on.
The main two items that we failed on were the speedo not working, it thought that zero was actually 50mph. It was working most of the way there but when the car got on the rollers it started playing up. Later diagnosis is that the seal is bad and its got moisture in which has somehow knackered up the needle. I noticed later that there are several bits of fluff floating around behind the glass face so its probably full of crap from being unused in the garage for 2 years whilst building the rest of the car.
The other main thing was the emissions. The passenger side bank was fine and was getting below 4% on the 4.5% limit. HC limit was 1200 and we were allowed to do this at 2000rpm and got below 1000 so that was ok. The drivers side wasn't so good. The best continuous reading over 5 seconds was 5.0%. The tester let us fiddle for a bit but we couldn't get it down. I leaned it off on the idle mixture screws but didn't re-adjust the idle speed screw to match so it kept trying to stall and generally ran very rough. I had so many other worries and thoughts going round my head that it just didn't occur to me to tweak the idle speed, which would have probably sorted it. The HC's were ok but the CO was waving around between 5 and 7% and we couldn't get a stable reading. It would pass with the air filter removed but when it was put back on again it kept dying so after half an hour or so the tester said we would have to call it a day.
I have since taken the car to a garage where some old boys who know what a carb is had a tinker and it all (fingers crossed) seems good now.
Noise test was good, 98dB drivers side, 97dB passenger side.
Other minor fail points:
VIN plate wrong format. Our chassis is 3 years old and the VIN format changed 2 years ago. New plate ordered from Dax.
Edge of bonnet locks too sharp. Dax failed to supply the IVA inserts for the key slots.
Lower edge of dash radius too small. Needs to be 19mm, ours was just slightly less. Re-cover with more vinyl.
Contactable edge on doors radius too sharp. Was surprised by this one but the tester was absolutely correct. The underside of the top edge of the door was a bit sharp. Bit of dremel action will have that sorted no probs.
The tester said other than those minor points (and the speedo/emissions) it looked a well-built car and we should be proud of our effort. The handbrake passed easily, I didn't see the value in % but he said jag based cobra kits often failed on the handbrake but ours was good. Top tip from the forum - drive a couple of miles with the handbrake on before the test to bed the shoes in :)
Back to the garage to rectify and retest ASAP!
Great going, just down to a few niggles and its all done and dusted, I cringe even thinking about the IVA :)
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