Iain's 20XE Trackday Nova

[Benn]

That looks fantastic, bloody nice work. Really good job, that will be so much better.

[Adam]

Awesome stuff Iain.

Your fab/weld skills now make me dislike you

[totalnova]

Really good work mate, if a jobs worth doing its worth doing properly and all that.

[Balley]

Really nice work, well done mate.

[zeifer33]

I see the work done by Iain and I think if it would be possible to made a detachable front panel. someone seen one before ??

[scott.parker]

That's spot on mate, loads better than I imagined it was going to be, should be able to take anything you can throw at it now!..

[Iain]

Cheers guys, the box and tube was a bit of a weird combo Scott but I think it looks pretty good now.

Finished it off over the last few days, so it's ready for it's refreshed engine and some more abuse.

Etch primer followed by regular primer:



Hard-wearing paint on the bottom of the crossmember as it'll be jacked up regularly here:



Had an aerosol colour matched to the original paint, they've done a top job it's a great match:





Then on with some 3M stonechip:





The ends were then painted up in 2 pack Glacier White, the same colour as they were painted 3 years ago but you'd never know



Done:





And while paint was drying, I've remade a plate I made up years ago....



In lovely carbon fibre, should save a gram maybe

[Benn]

Love the cross member, looks good in black.

Loving the CF plate too.

[Nick J]

Lovely tidy crossmember work their Iain... Just because the cars primary function is track doesn't mean work can be half heartily carried out! Thumbs up!

Ps... Did you still need a shaft or is the one I have no good for you?

Nick.

[Iain]

Well I've not updated this for a while, managed to get time to tinker with the Nova but not really update this.

Deadline for car up and running well is 20th April when I'm at Donington

Some time in January I attempted to set up my cam timing as per the Total Vauxhall guide. Tell me if I've got anything wrong, it's my first attemt and I found the dial gauge too fiddly after a while.

First off, a magnetic base to connect the dial gauge:



Then find TDC:



Timing wheel then attached to bottom pulley, marked up as TDC:



My Kent AST1612 cams need to be timed to 110 degrees, so crank was set at that:



Then rocked the camshaft with the verniers loose to find the max opening point of the lifter:





And this is what I ended up with on the cams. Anyone else done the same with Kent AST1612s? Can they confirm it looks vaguely right?