Christine has two main upgrades for 2010, and neither of them are hers.

 

She is, after all, the test hack, so if Project X is going to run new parts, this is where they get tested.

 

The Bear has been quietly spannering away to rebuild a bottom end. We say quietly, but there was a lot of swearing.

 

The head belongs to X, it cost a lot and it's far too shiny to be real, we're not used to that sort of thing at all. We pawed at it for some time before fitting.

 

The eXperimental inlet is also trial fitted. You won't find pictures of it here. Because it's not for this car.

 

The bottom end is also not for X, so really all we're testing is the head. I know, who rebuilds a whole engine just to check a head? We do.

 

The engine transplant is achieved in a day, at a very relaxed pace. Probably too relaxed, we often find that the slower you go the more you miss.

 

Modification number 2 is the project X rear subframe, or at least large parts of it.

 

This subframe is strengthened a little more elegantly than Helen's. In place of inch box we added a swaged second skin. We got tbe idea from Broadspeed, but it looks rather sweet.

 

Hopefully it will prevent the diagonals breaking, with them breaking on both blue and red cars this season we know there's a weakness in there.

 

The top plate that the diff bolts through is also strengthened, but the real additional beef comes from the 8mm bottom plate that the Bear has his daddy cut for him.

 

The black and silver colour scheme is a little poncy for a subframe, but we're trying to raise the bar a little for our standards of car preparation.

 

The Bear also adds a further hoop to tie the diff to the plate.

 

The diff is also changed for a X:X.XX ratio from the X:X.XX we were running before. Oh no, did we just accidentally not tell you something there? Awww.

 

Go on, admit it, that picture on the right, it almost looks like we know what we're doing.

 

Most of the parts come from an XJ8 subframe we purchased. With the local scrapyard wanting £200 just for hubs, driveshafts and brakes, a complete subframe makes far more sense.

 

The brakes are finally upgraded to X300 from XJ40. We desperately needed to add more rear braking effort.

 

New gauges for oil and water. New, because it had none at all before.

 

It is odd, really, that a car which was undamaged after the close of season and theoretically just in need of a spanner check should come into the garage and be gutted from radiator to exhaust.

 

But it's the only way to make it go faster. The car is well set up for cornering, we know it was nothing like the power of the Merrets and Palmers of this world, yet at Snetterton - knowing he had a completely shot bottom arm that gave him varying camber - that car held them to the last lap when he ran out of brake pads.

 

If we want to make the Bear's life easier, it's time he got the upgrades to change the car from a half-assed class E into the real deal.

 

The outgoing engine is bolted straight into the cradle and stuck under the truck as a spare. Well, we know it works...

 

The removed subframe is kept intact, it belongs Christine. It's only the Bear that's testing it, if the car is getting hired to someone else it will have to have its original bits back, project X is not getting loaned out.

 

Our engine transplant skills have clearly come on, the reinstallation is done on the same day as the rear subframe, and even at a relaxed pace it's all done in plenty of time.

 

 There are echoes of the initial build here, Chief Engineer is heading north unaware of just how unready the car is, but by the time he gets here it's taken a huge leap forward.

 

It is all very much an interim setup, the shell and chassis are nothing like what we have in mind long-term.

 

With 2 days to go til Cadwell the engine's in and ready to fire, the car's on the deck and we're almost ready. Too easy, something must be wrong.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just look at the size of that hole. How big the car has to be just to fit a V12. You'd not get away with it these days. Sadly.