Traction control progress

Some progress here: three out of four sensors are mounted in the uprights, and appear to be giving sensible readings, though I won't really know for sure until I've calibrated the system properly. At any rate, when I turn the wheel, the current output by the sensor varies, and is detected by the traction control box, so I'll assume that's working for now.

Traction control switch mounted.

The control unit is now mounted. Not totally sure if this is secure enough from thieves (it's currently stuck on to a bracket with velcro); I might have to fix it a bit more permanently. It looks good though, and some fiddling reveals that the previous owner bought all the upgrades, so I can do full-throttle shifting once I get a clutch switch installed. This should be easy, it's just a hydraulic switch on a T-piece mounted on the clutch hose.

Also: I asked Racelogic about the upgrade screen issue - they got back to me with a solution within hours on a Sunday. Can't complain about that.

Budget: blown

The original intention was to fit traction control, but as the car progressed and my bank account got smaller, I had decided to shelve this for a future project. However, I was unable to resist a (relatively) cheap Ebay auction, so I spent today fitting the Racelogic traction control system and trying hard not to think about my overdraft.

Despite some worrying communications from the Ebay seller (paraphrasing, me: "does it come with all connectors, wires etc"; him: "what are wires?"), it turned up with all the connectors and many metres of wires. As the only space on my bulkhead was right under the dash, all of the wires needed to be trimmed down substantially, so most of the day was spent soldering.

A few niggles arose: the "you are about to reverse park in a hedge" light is switched earth, as opposed to the dashboard lights, which are switched live, so driving the ABS light in the instrument cluster from the traction control will require me sorting out some sort of relay. Also, there seems to be a software issue with the unit itself - when turned on, instead of going into the normal mode, it goes into firmware-flash mode and prints "Waiting for Upgrader" until I twiddle the controls a bit. Probably need to contact Racelogic and find out what's going on here.

Lots of wiring remains to be done; there is the small matter of hooking into the fuel injectors and fitting sensors at each wheel, but the important part is to get the under-dash stuff done so I can bolt the scuttle in.

Exhaust progress (part 2)

Lots of exhaust progress today. I started out by replacing the Elise exhaust mounting bushes, which had worn through and were letting the exhaust rattle around. Much fiddling later, I then started work on the seven.

I'd been putting off cutting out the hole for the exhaust for a while, mainly because it offered lots of potential for awful mistakes. I started by making a template which would fit around the exhaust primaries:

Exhaust template.

In the process of doing this, I noticed that one of the primaries was actually touching the chassis. It looks like this will have to go back to the exhaust people for adjustment, which is a pain as it will probably delay completing the car. Hitting it with a hammer would probably work but would look pretty shoddy, and it would be a shame to make a mess of the shiny exhaust.

Exhaust primary touching chassis (nearest tube touches the diagonal rail)

Leaving that for now, I got on with nibbling out a hole in the panel:

Starting to make an exhaust shaped hole.

As expected, the panel wasn't as bendy as the template, so considerable enlargement was required before it would fit:

Embiggened hole.

Finally, it fit. The final result is pretty good, though the spacing around the edge is rather variable. This was inevitable really, as the panel needs to slide over the primaries into place. There's more space than I would like on the right, and a few places (top middle, left edge) which probably need filing back 5mm or so.