Since the car was SVA'd last Friday not much has happened to it mainly as it is now finished, not including the never ending list if possible modifications. The main jobs I have to do now is get the car MoT'd and registered.

The MoT is this Thursday and should just be a formality and should get an MoT certificate. The registration however has been a total nightmare. I went down to the DVLA office in Edinburgh on Monday and got some forms as the queue was out of the door. I went back early on Tuesday morning armed with all the forms that I filled out and was only about fifth in the queue. I sat down at the window and handed over the forms that I filled out plus all of the receipts for the parts that I had bought when the build was carried out and then the woman behind the counter vanished into an office for about 10 minutes. When she came out she said that the VIN number that was supplied by Sylva wasn't unique enough and they would have to issue me with another, all 17 digits of it. Then she said that a Q number would have to be issued, which is fair enough as this is what I was expecting. Then she dropped the bombshell and said the car would have to be inspected, next Wednesday! The trouble is that I go back to work for 4 months the following day.

I handed over my £38 registration fee and my £99 for the road fund licence and was told an appointment will be made in Livingston for me to have the car inspected, the inspection will be to check the chassis number and the engine number which should take all of five minutes just to get the tax disc and a reg number. I then asked for my insurance certificate back and was asked why. "So I can drive the car", I replied. "You can't it's illegal, on two counts no tax and plates". For goodness sake I've checked this and it's not illegal as long as the car is being driven to a place of pre arranged work, surely they should know this. Then they admitted that they don't do many kit cars and this probably explains why the whole experience is a total pain, plus it's the easter weekend as well, whatever that has got to do with it.

Armed with a new chassis number which is too long to fit on a Sylva VIN plate so had to be stamped onto a strip off ally and stamped onto the chassis as well. I also had to inform my insurance company of the change in chassis number. So in total including the SVA, the trips to the garage, the MoT and the the inspection in Livingston I will have completed nearly 200 miles in the car all without plates and a tax disc!!

Took the car for its MoT yesterday and it has passed I have a nice green certificate in my hand. The tester did pick up on one thing though the rear wheels could be rocked slightly on the horizontal plane, but not enough to fail the car. I found out today that the lower bolts although tight weren't as tight as I wanted them. I think when Dastek set up the suspension they must have loosened them off to set the rear toe and although torqued back up I still managed to get half a turn on each I've now torqued them up to what is known as b'stard tight. Now the rear wheels no longer rock. I also went over all the other suspension and engine mount bolts to make sure that none have loosened off. All the bolts were as tight as when I set them before so I'm pretty confident that they will stay that way especially as this is the first time I had checked them in the 100miles that I have covered since the car was built.

Since Tuesday I had rung the DVLA office 4 time to get an answer about when the inspection was going to be. On the 4 times I had rung up each time I was promised to be called back and never was. So I went down to the DVLA office yesterday with the intention of staying until I got an answer about the inspection. Spoke to a nice lad who sorted the whole thing out in about 10 minutes and told me that the inspector would see me at 1100 on the 11 April at the Livingston VOSA station. He also apologised for nobody getting back to me, far easier to sort out than I thought, so after the inspection back to the DVLA office and I should get my tax disc and reg number.

I bought a tax disc holder from a motorcycle store for the car. It's is of the type that is bolted to a frame and the cover is secured by nyloc nuts and bolts. I tapped the holes to M5 and fitted some short M5 button cap screws. The whole assembly was bolted to one of the chassis rail on the N/S using a rivnut. A small piece of self adhesive rubber strip was stuck on the back to stop it vibrating and the fixing screw was loctited into place.

The rear number plate carrier was also an issue. A plastic plate bolted on would melt pretty soon as the carrier was directly next to the catalytic converter which gets mighty hot. I removed the whole carrier and using some 30mm wide flat strip made up a new carrier. This one will be bolted onto the lower wishbone bolts the same as the silencer mounting bolts. I welded on two small strips where the number plate will be bolted on and a second strip lap welded on which will support the number plate light. The number plate light will be held on with some 3mm aluminium cut to the exact width and profile to the light so it is just above the number plate and then the assembly will be riveted to the new carrier.

The welds on the front face of the carrier were ground down and then the whole assembly was given a couple of coats of hammerite and will be fitted tomorrow when the paint has dried. The new carrier sits at least 25mm away from the silencer can so should prevent any melting number plates. Until a number plate goes on I'll cut a number plate shape piece of Correx to stop anybody cutting themselves on the exposed metal parts of the carrier.

I also gave the rear calipers another coat of yellow paint. I wish I hadn't painted them in the first place as it looks awful but it looks worse with all the paint chipped off so another coat will make things look nice for now. Sometime in the near future the calipers will be taken off and stripped down and the casings will be sent off to be powder coated which will look a lot better than the scratchy coat of paint. Meanwhile the front calipers might be replaced with a pair of Wilwood calipers instead!

You may ask why this is not appearing in the post SVA mods page but I'm not actually using that page until the car is registered then in my mind it is officially finished.

The carrier that I had painted yesterday was fitted on the car, well almost I noticed that one of the exhaust rubbers mounting bolts fouled on the carrier so I had to file a notch in so it would clear. When I was happy I gave the carrier a quick coat of paint except the paint started to separate and look crappy so out came the nitromors and the whole lot was stripped off and repainted, fortunately the weather was really good today and the paint was dry within 2 hours. Talking of which this is the first day this year that I worked in the garage with just a T shirt on (and trousers as well) it's a shame I can't plan my leave better so I can work on the car in the good weather instead of freezing my bits off in the middle of winter.

The carrier was bolted to the car using the lower wishbone bolts, there was plenty of meat left on the threads enough to allow another item to be fitted and still leave at least 5 threads after the nut. With nuts done up b'stard tight and the nut covers refitted I made up the bracket for holding the light. With a number plate removed from my own car for sizing I made up a piece of 3mm aluminium sheet with the number plate light bolted on. The bracket was then pop riveted to the carrier. I had to extend the lighting cable and it was routed along the bracket to the tail pipe end, which is cooler when the engine is running and up the chassis rail to the connector. The wiring was held in place with tyraps and self adhesive bases. The new carrier will hold the number plate away from the silencer can which should prevent any melted number plates and would also make changing the can to a non cat type a lot easier, for track use only of course.

I also jacked up the front end and gave the front calipers another 2 coats of yellow paint to cover all the chips, it'll look okay until I can sort out something better. I also checked all the suspension bolts and all were still at their original torque, so I'm pretty happy that nothing has changed there either.

Not much else to do on it now until Wednesday for the inspection, which I'm still gripping over as it's a pain especially with the lovely weather this weekend and I can't take it out.

Drove over to Livingston this morning to get the car numbers inspected. After a 5 minute inspection of the chassis number and engine number I was presented with a certificate with my registration number on it. I've had some plates made up and although the rear plate looks good the front plate looks awful so at some point it may "fall off". I passed two more policemen going the other way one in a car and another on a motor bike. I was sure the bike was going to turn around and have a "word", but they drove on not seeming to care about the car with no number plates.

I'm getting pretty confident about driving the Riot no and feel more inclined to tickle the loud pedal a bit harder. The grin factor the Riot gives is something else the acceleration is just phenomenal and push it over 3000 rpm and it just pulls like a train. On the motorway fifth gear cruising about 60 pulling out without dropping a cog to pass a lorry and the car just pulls away getting to 75 in seconds. On the way back over the Forth Road Bridge had to stop at the toll booth to pay my pound and accelerated hard onto the bridge. My dad was a few cars behind and all he heard was a massive roar and for me the world just started going backwards. The grip level is just amazing but I don't know what the limit is so I'm going to try a track day with it at Knockhill in the Autumn which will give me and idea of how much grip there is in a controlled environment, but I'm guessing I've got no where near it yet.

About a mile from my house my dad noticed smoke billowing from the back of the car. When I got home I noticed that the plug that covers the hole in the block for inserting the timing pin had come out and oil had been peeing out. I didn't lose much maybe only 250mL, but if I hadn't of had somebody else behind me I might have lost all the oil or worse had a fire. I think the main problem is vibration as the engine is rigidly bolted in it vibrates a lot more than on a production car. I went to Ford to get a replacement plug, which they didn't have and one will be posted to me. I think the replacement plug will be Loctited in to prevent it working loose again. Also I will go over all of the engine fastenings and any loose ones will also be loctited in as well.

Unfortunately tomorrow I go back to work, on a 4 month deployment so I won't be back until mid August. The car is currently up on blocks with the wheels off the ground. The battery is on the optimate charger and the car is covered over. Still I got a 30 mile drive in today so I'm happy and I'll be looking forward to get a few weeks of warm weather left when I get home to have a bit of fun. Now in my book the car is finished. It was fun building it and I'm sure will be even more fun driving it.

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