6th March 2004
I'm a bit stumped on progress with the oil system until I can get a hold of the JIC connectors for the sump from Dan. Once I've got these I can decide whether I'm going ahead with this plan in full, then I can finalise an order for Think Automotive bits.
Until then I decide to distract myself by having a look at the pulse air valve replacement covers I fitted about a year ago. These are made of a carbon fibre and aluminium laminate, and have progressively delaminated over time, probably due to the heat.
I had been sent a while ago some offcuts of aircraft grade 5mm aluminium, so am going to try making some new covers from this - should be up to job hopefully!
First job is to remove the existing covers. They are siliconed on to seal and held on with bolts. They are quickly prised off, but there is quite some time needed to clean up the silicone left behind (so that the new ones can be re- sealed). Removing the covers reveals that the inside of these ports is rather coked up, but I assume this is fairly normal as they are directly connected to the exhaust ports in the head.
Next I start work on cutting the new covers. The aluminium I am using is aircraft grade, so it's pretty tough, and it takes a while to cut with a hacksaw. After some time I have got two pieces, one of which has been trimmed to the approximate shape ready for filing to finish. Time out.

9th March 2004
Finished off cutting and filing the new pair valve covers. Looks positive so far, and a new hacksaw blade helped speed the process up a bit!

12th March 2004
After reading the build diary, Ed pointed out to me that my additional washers on the clutch springs wasn't actually making any difference, since they just clamp up against the cover plate. So I threw caution to the wind, and splashed out the £15, and ordered some uprated springs.
I also went over to the local Honda dealer to collect the clutch cover gasket which I reserved earlier in the week - not cheap for a piece of paper, but probably worth it.
So after a short while I have removed the old springs and fitted the new uprated Barnett ones. This takes a bit, due to the laborious nature of undoing and redoing the springs.
When I try the pedal it feels a bit odd - although I am doing it from not sitting in the car - it feels as if it's not really doing much for the top half of the pedal movement, I don't remember it being like this before.
It doesn't look like there is alot more spring to compress... so for now I resist fitting the outer cover properly in case I need to get it all apart again... hmmmm :-/
Next job I decide is to finish off the pair valve covers I have been making. So I carefully measure and drill the holes for where they bolt on - this is quite tough stuff to drill, not like normal aluminium that's for sure. Soon enough they are done and cleaned up, and looking quite good. However I decide that I will give them a couple of coats of black engine lacquer so that they blend in and look a bit neater.
It's quite cold out here today, so a final random job was to have a look at the injection sub-loom. This is for no particular good reason other than it looks far too thick for the amount of wires which should be in there, so I want to open it up to make sure it is sensible.
So I take it inside, and I find a few excess bits of wire in there which I strip out and optimise before re-wrapping the loom - looks neater and now I know it's all good.

13th March 2004
(Un)Fortunately I was rudely awoken by the postman this morning. The upside of this was that he was delivering the JIC connectors for the sump from Dan. So that sets the first job to do today - remove all the existing sump connectors, try these ones for size, and therefore determine what hoses I will need to get made up for them.
I do the easiest one to get at first, the one on the side of the sump. It is held on by one small cap head screw, and one small nut onto a captive thread in the sump where bend of the connector pipe means a bolt cannot be used. This all comes off much easier than expected, revealing a heat melted rubber O-ring is all that makes the seal.
Dry fitting the new connector gives a pleasing result.
The other two sump connectors, on the front, are equally easy to get swapped for the new ones, however I realise that there is a slight technical hitch! Since the connectors end up being a bit longer with the JIC threaded union on them, the connector for the oil feed to the engine is totally obstructed by the other scavenge one - this is clear from the pictures. So I guess either I'm missing something obvious, or one of them is wrong angle, the oil feed one needs to be 45 degrees rather than 90.
I've also removed the connectors from the scavenge pump, both top and bottom, though the top predominantly so I could inspect it as this is what I think I need to also fit to the bottom two.
So I'm a bit stumped on that one, and decide to distract myself by getting the old dead engine out of the corner and have a go at finishing taking it to bits. This job has been sitting there for far too long, and if I don't get it done I'll end up with a gearbox and clutch which have rusted away!
I get the clutch plates out of it quick enough, and then spend some time battling with trying to get the clutch nut undone. Doing this will enable me to remove the remaining gearset and the oil pump. However I have to give up as I can't shift the thing. So to buy me some time, I pop the other half of the gearset loosely into place, and wind it all by hand giving it a soaking in some of the oil which came out of my engine.
I leave it to drain off while I work out how to lock the clutch so I can get the nut undone, then I can pack it all up properly (oil soaked).

14th March 2004
Not much playtime today really (read, lazy day!). Only real job to do is to finish off and fit the pulse air valve covers I've been making. The paint has gone off enough now to allow them to be fitted, not sure how well it will stick as they obviously get quite hot, but we'll see.
So I have a final clean up of the area, and apply a bead of silicone round each of the valve tops. The cover is then gently pressed into place and the bolts just pinched up. Once the silicone has gone off, the bolts can be final tightened. Clean up the excess and is hopefully good, I won't know if they've sealed until I get to a point where I can start the engine again though.
The only other thing I do is have a fiddle around with the new sump connectors - to make sure I'm really not missing something, the two right-handed ones are pretty similar length and angle. Also I make some rough measurements and guesstimates to try to decide what sort of connectors I need on the scavenge and the pipework to connect it all up. The scavenge pipes are quite short, so I'll have to get this quite accurate as there won't be much flexibility in the pipes themselves.

20th March 2004
Am a bit stuck for things to do until my credit card can handle the parts for the oil system, but I thought I'd have a mimble around in the garage for a while anyway. But it's VERY windy today, and when I opened the kitchen door I was greeting with the sight of my garage door swinging in the wind... the wrong way! It had come out of it's tracks and was now going up-and-over with the bottom of the door going into the garage and whacking into the car!
So I had to spend some time securing the doors instead. I managed to get it back into the tracks, and improved the securing of the tracks to the frame with some penny washers. Also badgered the tracks with my hammer so they were a bit straighter. The door was still wibbling about quite alot so I put spring clamps on the top, and spare wheels/tyres against the bottom to hold them shut.
When the weather is a bit better I'll have to remove the tracks and straighten them a bit more. I think I'll also drill them so I can bolt the doors shut in the event of this happening again. Although some decent doors would be a better solution... I guess it was fortunate the nosecone was off the car otherwise that would have been damaged for sure.

28th March 2004
Again, there's not much been going on with the car until my finances allow me to sort out buying the bits needed for the oil system upgrades. However, I took the opportunity to put the nosecone back on, drop the car to the floor, and push it out onto the drive for a clean. It was a bit grimy/salty from its last use before I took it apart, so this was a worthy thing to do really.
Also gave the rear suspension area a good blast with the hose and a first pass of a wipe off. It's real grimy back here, but soon starts to look a bit better. Some of the powder coating is showing signs of attack from the conditions though :-(
Once all the cleaning was done I had time for a little potter around with some other small jobs which need sorting on the car. First up was the remove all the tape which I put around the scuttle way back before Ireland last May. This did a good job of sealing the water out, which was much appreciated in Ireland!
Doing this gave me access to the pedal cover panel which I removed so that I can take the brake and clutch pedals out. The reason for doing this is as I am going to extend the pedal pads like I did with the throttle pedal, with the aim of making it a bit easier to heel and toe by getting the brake pedal nearer the throttle.
The other little job which has been needing sorting out for a while is the harness slots in the seats. On the drivers seat at least, these have been coming undone. It looks like they originally were "glued" together with some sort of silicone, but clearly not very well as they soon came undone. I had a go at re-fixing them before using silicone adhesive, but this too didn't last, so I ended up just taping them in a temporary fashion.
So I remove them all and clean them up and the areas they fit on the seat. The problem I had before was not having any clamps which would allow me to leave them to set whilst the two parts were pressed together. Then I had a brainwave, and found some large M10 washers which were big enough to hold the two parts together with a small bolt through. So I'll try some araldite to glue them, and leave the first one to set.

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