MODS.

The primary mod to any new Kutuka chariot is the seam welding. You can't believe how much time this takes. It's every single last seam, anywhere two sheets of metal meet get an inch of weld, then an inch gap, and repeat, over and over and over. Why bother? Jack one of our cars up and you'll understand.

The boot floor was removed some time ago, and now gets put back in. We’re using steel again, which might sound daft, but the changes to the boot are not for weight related purposes, it’s for a different reason altogether. Yes, we could use ally, but it’s not a practical solution, we want to hang things off this, and we have memories of having to strap a plank of wood in the back of one ally-booted V12 at Cadwell in 2007. The new floor is therefore steel, but higher.

It’s quite complex, because we box in some of the structure at the rear, rear impact strength demands some repair of Jaguar’s original concept. Box section appears too, a curious double A frame deal that allows us to both hang off the rear silencers, and to tow the car up into the truck. Different to original it may be, lighter too, but stronger than a Jaguar towbar. Once again, road car vs race, it’s just different genetics.

Bear takes this one a step further too, incorporating the rear “defense” bars first fitted to Helen to guard against rear attacks. A frame running inside the rear of the back wing deflects minor impacts out and away from the wheelarch, to prevent an enthusiastic tap in the rear quarter from crushing the bodywork onto the tyre to put you out of the race.

It is  not an offensive weapon, it’s a piece designed to save the car from more major damage in the event that someone makes a mistake and taps you. You might spin, but you’ll still be mobile. Again, we’re not encouraging this behaviour, but people make mistakes, minor contact in the midfield pack does happen, and even the smallest nudge under braking can lead to hours rebuilding that rear quarter of the car.

The floor is still not exactly a simple shape, because nothing is straight even now, the rails curve, the levels change, and the new skin refuses to stay flat. Bending sheet steel though two dimensions does tend to leave one with unexpected slices at the phalangeal joints, no matter what gloves you wear.

We are changing the way the front subframe is mounted. The rear on a class E can be solid mounted, not metalastic, and that means we can change it completely. We like the X300/MGB method, bolt the thing straight through the chassis. So we modify the chassis to allow us to do so, marking the hole using an abused metalastic mount, drilling a hole, and welding in thick walled CDS tube inside the chassis leg. It is in the exact same place as before, and at the same height, it’s just a different way of doing it.

Radiator crossmember is braced with a big V of box section up to the old front bumper mounts, turning it into a jacking point. Much easier to get to this with a bodykit on than it is to get to the front crossmember. It’s all about ease of use on race day, you plan for it now, not when you get there.

A bracket is welded here too, to take the front tow strap. A curved arrangement of bars appears here too. It looks a bit stock car, but the purpose is a bit more subtle than they look because this is very lightwieght material. The bends are the same contour as the bodykit, which is to be screwed to it. The idea is that in the event of a crunch they catch the bodykit too, they hold it on the car even after every single last fixing has been torn off.

They only do the corners, they aren’t a full bumper, in a head-on impact they won’t help you. What they do is, in the event that you get another Cadwell 2009 startline move, to prevent your rival tearing off your bodykit and putting it through your radiator, they simply don’t allow it to come off, which is a useful defensive tool.

The steel tube for these was kindly donated by the neighbour’s children, who like to throw things over the wall at the garage. Usually it is coke cans, apples etc, but  they did one fine day dismantle their own trampoline catch netting supports to throw. On the basis that they couldn’t ask for it back without notifying their parents that they had been throwing steel tube at the neighbours, we salvaged these as a useful source of raw material and they are now in the front of our Jaguar. The trampoline, incidentally, is now out of use because the catch netting is no longer up, and no-one seems able to explain to mummy and daddy where it went.

The rear tow strap is anchored to the boot floor frame, hence the old Channel 4 logo built into the rear. This also forms the shackle point for the truck’s winch, and allows it to be loaded into the top deck.

Seatbelts are anchored via the usual thick FIA-approved mounting plates under the floor. These are measured from our other cars, and welded in. The floor crossmembers that add such strength to the repaired floor are likewise inserted at this stage.

We are relocating the expansion tank. To do this, the bracket that fits it to the inner wing is removed, cut, and then part replaced back where it came from, the other part welded into the new location on the firewall.

The radiator will be alloy, and it mounts a little differently in that the bottom feet are a little bit closer inboard, so the crossmember gains new tabs to mount it to.

Holes in the backlight pods and the dummy air vent ¾ panels appear too, pure weight saving.

Holes for the pull cables are drilled, and the underside to this same panel deleted for ease of access.

Regulations allow the inner wings to be holed for ducting. We cut holes for ducting. The inner headlight pod skin gains holes too, one for air intake, the other smaller to cool the coil. Yes, really. We are that sad.

The front panel has already been modified, there is little remaining. Serious front end weight loss by way of removal of bumper brackets, headlight pods, steelwork etc, adds a lot of lightness.

The greatest change inside the cockpit is to extend the gearlever hole. It makes a gearbox swap much easier. Other than that and the crossmembers, it is the seam welding in here that is the biggest alteration

After about two and a half weeks of solid days, patching, welding, grinding and generally abusing metal, the shell is a repaired, race modified shell. It gets primer thrown at it now, because it’s had a lot of heat throughout the shell, both the welding and the Bear’s acetylene onslaught burning off seam sealant, and that sweats moisture out of the metal, so even though it’s been kept dry, the shell will start to gain a bloom of surface rust if we leave it any longer.