So you plan on driving to the test centre? I didn't think you could? Can you explain?

you can drive to iva centre. the car is insured on the vin number

David

Yes, I'm that stupid!

You're allowed to drive to and from the test centre as long as you're insured.

Also if you fail the test you can drive to and from a pre-booked appointment at a garage to fix any of the items that have failed.

It's covered under the Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994, Chapter 22, Schedule 2 (Exempt Vehicles), Section 22 (Vehicle testing etc).

You can have a read here if you're really bored:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/22/schedule/2

Wow! Better take a print out of that for when your average copper stops you for not having a number plate or tax. I'll take a read of that link, one day. Great price on the insurance though. Why so low though? Your car will do 0-60 in under 6 seconds for sure. I'm not complaining just shocked. I thought an insurance company would get their fantasy calculator out for sure!:)

I was pleasantly surprised, but having looked on the locost forum £150 to £200 seems fairly average for a kit car.
I guess it must be because kit cars tend to spend 350 days a year tucked away in a garage and only come out during the half a dozen days of sunshine we get each summer!
And after investing several years of blood, sweat, tears, and vast amounts of cash building it you're probably going to try your best not to crash it!

More likely that you won't want to crash it because you'll end up maimed or dead!!! Lol What is the euroencap rating for these cars again?

I belive that would be zero stars Chris!
Frontal impact might not be too bad with that nice long engine bay to take the brunt of it.
I dread to think what would happen in a side impact though :eek:

Changing the subject I think I'm almost ready for IVA now. Just been printing out directions for the test centre and wishing I'd had the foresight to fit a fag lighter socket and somewhere to mount my gps :rolleyes:

Excited for you! :D Duck tape!

I don't think IVA man will be impressed if I turn up with things strapped to my car with duck tape :D

Just checked the forecast for test day, looking good :cool:

Zip ties then!

What time is your test?:)

8.00am :eek:

You must be done by now!:)

Must be taking the long route home from the test station :cool:

Only because I got lost :D

Luckly I made it to the test centre in one piece, and with plenty of time to spare (I had my doubts!).



Sadly a first time pass wasn't to be though :(

The car was tested by the main tester (Doug), his trainee, and a sort of supervisor that goes from centre to centre checking tests are done to the same standard. So it got quite a thorough looking over!

They are all good blokes, very friendly, and generally very positive about the car. The supervisor was a bit of an MX5 enthusiast so we had a good old natter on all things MX5.

First test was emissions, which passed without trouble (they were quite happy with the letter from Mazda for proof of angine age).

Next was interior/exterior projections, and a good look around the car.
They liked the fact I'd stuck lots of bits of rubber on there and couldn't find any nasty edges (unusual for Leighton Buzzard apparently!).

Next they stuck it on the ramps to check underneath. This is where it started going wrong...
They spotted one of the rear brake lines and both handbrake cables were rubbing on the chassis. They weren't last time I checked, so they must have settled/bedded-in during the drive there.
They also spotted there was a bit of play between the UJ and steering rack which they didn't like. I tried tightening it up, but there's still too much play.

The ramps came down and they checked all the lights. Head light aim was way off (and still is), but everything else was fine.
Interestingly they didn't seem to measure any heights or distances of the lights.

After that they weighed it then did the brake and speedo test.
The speedo over-read by quite a bit, but was still within IVA spec.
I'll come on to the brakes later...

Next test was exhaust noise, passed with a comfortable 95dB, followed by rear vision, which passed easily.
They liked my Furore e-marked IVA wing mirrors and the position of them saying a lot of people fail by putting them too low and getting too much rear wing in the way.

Next the trainee tester had a blat round the car park to do some more brake testing and to check self centering. Both were fine.

Finally they took a few measurements with a tape measure before dissapering into the office to enter all the figures into their spreadsheet.

Sometime later they emerged with my fail sheet...
This had the fails I knew about above, along with a fail for brake efficiency, and a fail for a big mismatch between each side on the handbrake.





Not too bad a fail really.
Not quite sure what to do about the brakes yet, but the rest should be easy enough to fix.

thats not too bad John. I am now worrying about my handbrake cables!! The handrake balance can be adjusted easily with a allen key so that shouldn't be a problem.

Let me know if you think of a way to make the cable not hit the back of the car!!

How much does the universal joint wobble by? Is it from Rally design?

Was the balance between the from and rear braking well within limits as I haven't installed the reducer valve yet.
Was it a fun drive there and back?

David

Al relatively easy to sort out John, so yes it is a "good" fail:( ...were you able to chase up a retest from them there and then?

I'll let you know what I do David; I'm currently thinking I might attack the cables supports at the caliper end with an angle grinder and re-weld them at a slightly different angle. I tried bending them at the test centre, but they're pretty tough and wouldn't budge!

The drive there was terrifying. I pootled along at 40mph with lorries overtaking me scared it was going to fall apart or blow up :eek:

I was rather more confident on the way home though, and took a slightly more scenic route. Still terrifying, but in a good way!
It feels a bit dull and flat below 4000 rpm, but I found if I kept the revs above that I couldn't stop grinning! Flooring it in second then third had me squealing like a girl :D
The most striking thing is the way it corners though, the steering's nice and direct, and the lack of body roll feels awsome. It's almost like driving a go kart :D

The only things really I want to change at the moment are the accelerator pedal which has far too much travel, and the clutch pedal which doesn't have nearly enough.

No, I didn't bother sorting it out there and then, I'll give them a ring once I've sorted out my plan of action. They recon they should be able to fit me in withing a week or so of calling up with it being a fairly quick re-test.

I was always worried about the brakes as it's one of the few things I couldn't check myself.
At least I'm allowed to drive it to a garage for remedial work now, so I might book it in at the place accross the road from work so they can test it once I've had a fiddle with them.

A shame it was a fail but sounds like you had a good day out! Did it fail on front to rear balance? Or left to right rear balance? Did you get much bump steer? Regarding being scared driving it. I always say to people when they ask why about my build, " I want a car that will scares me! " looks like I'm going to get my wish!:D

It's certainly scary enough for me in my old age!
I'm sure it won't take long to get used to it, but there's always the option of fitting a turbo if I really want to poop my pants :D

On the handbrake it failed on the difference between left and right sides.

On the brake pedal it didn't exactly fail on front to rear bias.
Mine are heavily based to the front, but what it failed on was combined efficiency. It needs to be 60% (whatever that means:confused: ) and I got 57%.
He said the rears looked particularly poor (they currently give about half the braking force of the fronts). I suspect I would have passed if I didn't have quite so much bias.
I'm currently hoping just bleeding the brakes again and bedding the new discs/pads in will get me that extra 3%.

I'm a bit reluctant to take the bias valve out in case it ends up going too far the other way.

Are you using the mx5 brake bias valve? Did you get much bump steer? How much is the retest! Dont remove the bias valve to much rear will have the back locking up and overtaking you if ever needed to actually stop! Not much fun doing 360s under braking!

No, I junked the MX5 one as I was too lazy to figure out how/where to mount it and connect up all the different pipes on it :rolleyes:
I stuck a Mondeo bias valve inline with the rear brake line instead:

Well I don't know much about brake lines and master cylinders but when I read that, I had the mx5 master cylinder in front of me off my build and it has a weird setup where one line comes out the bottom and goes to the front right I think. Then two pipes exit the side, one near the rear and one near the front both going to the bias valve. Front one goes off to the front left and the rear one goes off to the back to the right rear brake line and then off to the left rear. I don't understand why it's like that or how you have done yours but I hope something in the above helps you find a solution.

This any use to you?

http://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/stock_bpv.php

I'm going to fit one of these to my rear line, pretty good price.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/330946373690

Cheers
Stot

Adjustable bias valves aren't allowed under IVA regs as far as I'm aware.

This is a good point. :rolleyes: RTFM. :D

Cheers
Stot

I really don't want to be changing the bias valve at this point if I can help it.

I was so close to passing overall efficiency (3% below the limit), that I'm sure just giving the brakes a damn good thrashing and getting them bedded in properly will be enough to get through the test.

Just spoke to my friendly garage across the road from work and he said he'll check it on his MOT rollers for my free of charge :D
So a drive to work next week with plenty of left foot braking might be in order!

Forgot to mention in my write up yesterday. You NEED a bike helmet with these cars. I set off with just sunglasses on, but had to stop and switch to my helmet a few miles in because I was struggling to breath above 45mph :eek:

I did a bit more research and if you do find you need a new valve a Fiat Uno valve seems to be a good choice and used on quite a few builds. It can be modified to be adjustible after IVA too just by changing the way you mount it.

Cheers
Stot

Hi John,
Sorry about the fail....:(
Well I guess you can now concentrate your efforts on the things it failed on and should be an easy fix.
So come on what's it like to drive one on the road for real...:D
To be honest I don't think I would have the b**ls to drive it to the test.

It wasn't balls, it was because I too cheap to hire a trailer :rolleyes:
I was terrified I wasn't going to make it there!

Fcuck it, I've took my Mondeo bias valve out and replaced it with a bit of plain pipe.
Got it booked into a garage next week to check it's not biassed too far the other way now...

Decided to do some work on the clutch as it was rediculously heavy and hard to control.
Changed the master cylinder from 0.7" bore to 0.625" and cut and shut the pedal to add an inch or so to it. Feels nice and light now!

New steering UJ turned up today, hopefully get that fitted tomorrow.

Sorted out my handbrake cable interference issue by cutting and rewelding the brackets that hold the cable ends on the caliper. Should bring the cables away from the chassis by about 1/2 and inch.
Only tacked together in the photos, but you get the idea:





Tried to book my re-test earlier, but no one was answering the phones at Leighton Buzzard :rolleyes:

Which universal joint are you / were you using. I have checked mine (from rally designs) and there is quite a bit of movement.

David

I have the RD forged one too and I don't think much of it. One end of mine has the slit machined on the wrong side, the thru-holes for the pinch bolts were no where near where they needed to be to locate in the spline recess and yes its sloppy even when fully tightened.

Think I would plump for a pressed steel one if I cant do something with this one.

Cheers
Stot

Hi Skov,

Looking at that I cant help but think it would be a safer option to shorten it this way. It looks like it would still line up ok.



Cheers
Stot

Hi John,
So was the hand brake cable touching the chassis seat rail all the time or just when the shock was loaded?

I had a similar problem with mine when I fitted the cable. I ended up fitting a angle bkt to pull the cable away from the chassis seat rail.









The cable cleared just:eek: when I removed the shock spring and moved the damper through it's full range.
I know it looks close to the drive shaft and suspension arm but it clears these as well.

I was using forged Rally Design one and it's sh!t. Sounds like like yours is even worse!
The problem I was having is that it wouldn't clamp tigh enough on the steering rack spline. Not happy considering they charge around £20 for it :mad:

I swapped it for a pressed steel one off ebay last night and it's nice and tight with no play now.

lol, don't know why I didn't think of that!


It wasn't touching at all when I checked (but was damn close!), by the time I got to IVA they were hard up against the seat backs all the time.
I had the cables pulled away similar to you, but they still managed to move and settle upagainst the chassis.

Seems to be sorted with the shorted brackets anyway.