Project Snoopy - Trappy's 20v Turbo

In the October of 2019, I started making plans to get my Coupe back on the road. I hadn’t driven it since February 2018 when it was declared SORN and aside from the occasional start up and shift around, it had just sat outside accumulating grime.

After this little ‘trial separation’, we decided to give it another go

I suppose a bit of an outline of the plan would make the below make a bit more sense so I would like to outline what I’m doing and how / why I came to these decisions. Some of this has moved on since but this is where I was back then

Also, a bit of background might be in order. I tried a brand-new car by leasing a Golf R 7.5 Estate, wondering if the ‘all the car you’ll ever need - for sensible money’ really exists. For me at least, it doesn’t. Not enough drama when you’re on it, too thirsty when you’re not and it could be a smoother ride when you really want a chilled drive. I decided that, as I was going to keep the Coupé, I might as well make a project of it and emphasize all the qualities of the Fiat Coupé (for me at least).

Here goes:

I want to modify the car to make it handle as well as a Fiat Coupé can without creating a stripped-out track weapon that loses all reasonable usability on the road. Searching for inspiration, I read everything I could on track days special versions of normal road cars. (GT3s, Megane R26R, 695 Biposto, 360 Challenge Stradale etc.) If the Coop will be a second car, I am going to make sure I’m getting the most out of it.

This was the basic plan when I started and it's largely the same now...
• Full rollcage, two buckets seats
• Stripped of any unnecessary (according to me) weight
• The rear of the car will be carpeted to maintain a ‘factory feel’
• Full suspension overhaul and refresh
• Corner weighted
• ALL niggling issues will be sorted
• ALL rust will be treated
• New bodykit and full respray
• New soundproofing added to improve perception of quality
• Fully forged with bigger power will be the last step

As I started back in October, the first few instalments will be catching up, so here goes a month by month breakdown. I took random photos along the way, and made a few notes as I went to remind myself, so I’ll chuck them in as I go

October 2019

Back in October I was presented with the opportunity to have all my interior panels resprayed in gloss black. Since having the centre console and handbrake console done in a metallic black some years ago, I always wanted to change it to a proper gloss black (as it always looked ‘dusty’) and do the rest of the panels while I was at it. So, the following panels were removed and pulled apart (where required) and handed to the paint shop.

04/10/2019
The following interior came out and went to the paint shop:
Centre console
Handbrake console
Heater vents
Steering wheel cowl
Interior door handle surrounds
Ashtray
Ashtray surround

26/10/2019
This was the first day devoted to stripping the interior and I made good progress. The following was taken out of the car:
Remove rear seats
Remove passenger seat
Remove spare wheel
Remove toolkit
Remove jack
Remove boot base
Remove boot liner
Remove boot latch cover
Remove front door cards and speakers
Remove ski hatch surround
Measure headroom 3"
Remove gear gaitor

Notes
• Broken glass was everywhere. I had a rear window blow out a few years back and it seems a lot of that had found its way around under the rear seats and throughout the boot.
• The foam backing on parcel shelf had turned into what I can only describe as… mud. Very odd
• A fair-sized puddle was found in nearside haunch – tool kit was rusted
• Damp in both rear sides
• Flakes of rust in both sides rattling around
• Sound deadening cracked and flaking off
• Boot base and carpet against interior bulkhead soaked in oil / brake fluid / some other equally nasty substance that must have leaked out at some point
• I got rained off on this day
• Rear wiper delete plug shot out when I closed the door – that needed fixing properly with some sealant!

November 2019

02/11/2019
More interior removed:
Removed lower console
Removed footrest
Removed driver’s seat
Removed box under driver’s seat
Removed plug under throttle pedal
Removed screw behind bonnet release
Removed ECU bracket
Removed carpet mini piece
Removed carpet
Removed sound deadening – Across front – damp on driver’s side, came out in chucks
Removed sound deadening – Across middle – dry but old and tired
Vacuumed interior – broken glass everywhere, blue plastic pipe things too?
All removed panels were thoroughly cleaned
Clean boot scrubbed clean– all-purpose cleaner, wipes, microfibre pad
ADD PHOTOS

Notes
• ‘Mud’ and grime both sides in the boot, especially passenger side.
• Black foam back sheet behind pedals also damp
• Lots of small rusted patches found
• Weird letter box bottom right of the inside of the boot
• Bits in the vacuum need to be taken out – clips and fitting went in by accident

09/11/2019
Removed CD changer lead
Removed door cards
Removed rear seat belts
Re-build heater vents (after having been painted)
Identified all sound deadening in boot for later removal

16/11/2019
Removed under bonnet sound proofing
Removed boot lid sound proofing

23/11/2019
All carpets and cloth interior panels washed, cleaned and vacuumed

After seeing a number of 'plastic welding' tutorials on YouTube, I bought myself a soldering iron and had a go at fixing the broken screw holes on the back of my centre console and also to fix the tabs of the heater dial surround. Very pleased with the results.

November 2019 continued...

Here are some more photos I took when removing the carpet. The large fabric sound deadening was in a truly awful state...

November 2019 continued....

A few photos of the carpet when it came out.

November 2019 continued...

Afrer a quick vacuum you can see just how filthy it is...

November 2019 continued...

Carpet came up well after being held up against a wall and thorough cleaned with a Karcher and a few cleaning products. My pal's car port even had some perfectly placed hooks to hang it from! All of the interior fabrics were cleaned in this manner. The bonnet foam pads also got the same treatment as they were green...

November 2019 continued...|

I took a few photos of the sound deadening in the boot that captures some of the grime and rust patches.

December 2019

It was over the Christmas period that the condensation and general damp issues really started to become a problem. It was often dripping wet when I went out there and no amount of drying the puddles kept it at bay. I had tried running the car up to temperature and leaving the heating on a few times but it wasn’t really touching it. Suspecting the water was getting in through the many holes left from removing seats, I went round and re-fitted any bolts that had left a hole to outside upon removal and finally fixed the rear wiper delete plug with sealant.

My headlights were then sent to Marius Petrescu for a refurb. I’d seen his work on the various Facebook groups so figured it would be worth a shot.

Here are a few photos showing the 'damp'

January 2020

MOT Prep

Up until now (as you will have seen) my project consisted of taking things apart and (hopefully) not losing the fittings... I figured it was time to get it back on the road so at least it could be driven around to have further work carried out.

Having received the headlights back from Marius, I was keen to get them fitted.

Here are some photos of fully refurbished headlights with gloss black inserts. Having fitted them, I quickly realised they weren't working properly. It was eventually diagnosed as faulty wiring on one side and a knackered HID on the other side. Knowing the car would fail on this, I took it over for it's MOT anyway...

January 2020 continued...

MOT Failed spectacularly

Do not drive until repaired (dangerous defects):

Offside Front Macpherson strut attachment bracket/mounting insecure and impairing directional stability (5.3.3 (a) (ii))

Repair immediately (major defects):

Supplementary restraint system warning lamp indicates a fault (7.1.6 (a))
Horn not working (7.7 (a) (ii))
Nearside Front Headlamp not working on dipped beam (4.1.1 (a) (ii))
Offside Front Headlamp not working on dipped beam (4.1.1 (a) (ii))
Nearside Rear Position lamp not working (4.2.1 (a) (ii))
Offside Front Integral body structure corroded to the extent that the rigidity of the assembly is significantly reduced inner wing (6.1.1 (c) (i))
Nearside Front Coil spring fractured or broken (5.3.1 (b) (i))
Nearside Rear Suspension arm pin or bush excessively worn (5.3.4 (a) (i))

Monitor and repair if necessary (advisories):

Passenger seat(s) missing at time of test ()
Nearside Front Integral body structure is corroded but structural rigidity is not significantly reduced inner wing (6.1.1 (c) (i))
Offside Rear Suspension arm pin or bush worn but not resulting in excessive movement (5.3.4 (a) (i))

Next step then was to get it booked in to have these issues addressed. Before then, I ordered four new LED lights from Classic Car LEDs and fitted those. No sense in mucking around with old eBay HIDs anymore.

After having the Welding carried out at the MOT station and a new BC spring fitted by Roger, Snoopy sailed through her MOT on the 28th January 2020 was going to be an epic year!

Work carried out at PowerItalia:
New spark plugs
Reset airbag light
Headlight nut thread (this had previously snapped when I removed the headlights...)
Fix power supply to nearside headlight
New BC coilover front springs
New front springs fitted
Rear trailing arm bushes

April 2020

March was a quiet month for the project. I spent most of the time soaking up puddles of water that were still forming on the floor of the car. Having already removed just about all of the fabrics from car car, it was time to address the last panel - the headliner.

The head liner was in a right old state. I removed the A and B pillar covers as well sun visors and front widow trim. I then broke the corner off the interior light panel removing it…

Warning, the following photos are grim

April 2020 continued...

What I found above the headliner might go some way to explain my damp issues...

As I ran my hand across it, it pretty much rained

April 2020 continued...

With the headliner off, I pulled the cover off and, after seeing if there was any way it could be salvaged, binned it. Next task with the clean off the headliner board.

This stuff came off without too much fuss using a stiff bristled tyre brush. Quite happy with the results. I have a plan with what to cover it with but that will come much later in the project.

Somehow, I managed to miss February
February 2020

Snoopy went in to Roger at PowerItalia for the next phase of 'maintenace' work
New door check strap
Bonnet release cable fixed
Full service minus spark plugs
Replace brake fluid (Motul RBF 660) and fix twisted flexi brake line
New Mobil 1 10W60
Replace power steering belt
Fit clutch cylinder mounting bracket
Nearside wishbone / hub, new bolt

May 2020

By now Snoopy had only covered a few dozen miles, mostly being driving to and from various garages for work to take place. At the start of May though, she was starting to smoke. I was convinced it was turbo seals (smoke after idling for a minute or two) but after a few trips to Roger's he wasn't convinced. Eventually, she started to run rougher and rougher and so she was booked in for a proper inspection.

Before then though, I'd ordered a box of dry ice to remove the sound deadening. So with some new oven gloves (I figured insulation works both ways) I set to work

May 2020 continued...

Some of the areas were a little more difficult to access, so I used one of those 'garment protection' nets for the washing machine. Filling it with dry ice meant I could hang it. Worked very well

May 2020 continued...

Here are a few shots of the left over residue after having knocked all of the dry ice off

May 2020 continued...

Having received advice from Jon from Foresnsic Detailing (awesome channel BTW - check it out) to invest in a bottle of Tardis to tackle large areas of tar, I then set to work spraying this all over the affected areas. It made short work of the remaining mess leaving a nice finish that was then cleaned up using Bilt Hamber Surfex.

May - July 2020 continued...

While the Coupé was at Roger's having the intermittant smoking issue investigated, some more work was carried out.

I discovered that the front BC Coilovers damper setting was to full 'hard'. I had reduced this to full soft but asked Roger adjust the rear. I have no idea when this ws adjusted or by whom but it's a world apart back on full soft. Until the car is properly corner-weighted, I'll leave it here for a dregee of comfort. In theory, the ride will soften up when the cage is installed and the torsional rigidity is increased.

Front inner CV boot on both nearside and offside replaced.

The engine was then pulled apart revealing the extent of the damage. In a nutshell, it had melted piston number 5 and there was scoring on both cyclinders 5 and 1. Roger didn't have the workshop space to keep my coop while the block was being rebored and so we looked at other options.

We ended up calling some bloke called Joe who runs a business called F.C.S.S.? Apparently he has done some work on a few coupes before... Anyway, he kindly arranged for the car to be picked up and carted off out West where it would have a fully forged rebuild this time. Back in the late noughties, after it melted a piston, I replaced them all with Wossners. At the time, I had a little less budget and so it was all done as cheaply as possible. This meant standard rods and was a regret of mine pretty much ever since. This time, it would be done properly.

As noted at the start of this project thread, more power / engine mods was firmly placed at the bottom of my list of things to do. At the 416bhp mark, the power was clearly far too much for the chassis. I had intended to sort the restoration side before attending to chassis, suspension and brakes but my hand was forced. Joe is now completing a full front-end resoration and engine rebuild (and answering lists of questions I throw at him on Mondays ). There are a few more 'while you're at it' goodies going on but I believe Joe is going to put together a post of his Facebook page at some point so I'll refer to that here when the time comes.

I expect the next update will come towards the end of August when the car is rebuilt and run-in ready for remapping

April 2021
It’s home!
After the car was taken to FCSS last summer, I finally drove it home on March 31st.

Here’s a summarised run down of the work that has been carried out, ordered into categories.

Engine re-build
Block bored to 0.050
Wossner 82.5mm pistons
Maxspeeding rods
ARP 2000 bolts
Crankshaft lapped
Balancer bar removed
Standard mains, big end and thrust race
Head repaired, machining valves and seats, surfacing and grinding in and assembling valves
OE/Dayco cam belt including new aux belts, pulleys and tensioners
Brass water pump, cam and crank phase sensors
Payne rocker cover gasket
New flywheel mains seal, oil pump and head gasket, head bolts

Restoration and protection
Quite a bit of welding:
Inner arch welding (finishing ‘engine side’ welding that was carried out last MOT)
New front Eiffel towers fitted
Nearside - Front quarter of outer sill, centre section, rear quarter (Pinin badge area), Rear arch
Offside - sill and rear arch repair
Welding on N/S and O/S floor pans
Panels sprayed with a rattle can to keep the cost down for now but protection for the primer
Engine bay prepped and painted
New radiator support bar
Powder coated engine bay parts

Odd and ‘while you’re at it’ jobs
Five EGT probes (stainless steel 1/8 thermocouple probe socket) – EGT monitoring planned
Wideband sensor fitting welded in
Direnzo alloy Radiator fitted
Quaife ATB differential fitted
New Brembo solid brake pipes (copper nickel)
New oil remote O'ring and dip stick tube seal
Pinch bolts and nyloc nuts for wishbone ball joint / hub
Mileage corrected - 52,346 miles added (previously replaced clocks were incorrect)

Further purchases for later fitting…
Momo steering wheel - Leather Mod. 07
Momo steering wheel boss
Saikou Michi dual catch can
3m ASH 19mm stainless steel braided oil hose
Gear knob - We Are Likewise (Daytona Pro)
Gear knob European adapter (10mm)

The current plan
I drove it home to start the running in process (Millers 10/60 running in oil) and will return it to Joe before driving it to Flea for mapping on Wednesday April 21st.

I had the alignment corrected this morning at Tyre Tyre-Smart in Witham. The guy in the shop said the alignment on the rear was 'mustard' and that of the 3 or 4 of these (Coupés) he'd sewen in recent years, it was by far the best Only the Toe was out so that was cheaper than expected. Nice to have a straight steering wheel for a change!

I've also sorted the windows not closing properly. Both channels either side of the glass needed cleaning and lubing and the bottom seal also need soem attention on the driver's side. I can't remember the last time the windows opened fully with one press...

Next stage?
8-point roll cage
FIA spec lowered seat mounts
Bucket seats
Harnesses
Momo steering wheel fitted

End April 2021

As per this post, mapping didn't exactly go to plan. Speaking to Joe and Roger, the pair agreed that it was worth doing some checks on the engine to see if it was tight and to get a second figure on the compression ratio. As the starter motor had died, a new one was fitted and the engine tested. It turned out that the engine was not tight and a compression check came back at around the 150psi mark.

Speaking to Leighton after this, he informed me that Coupés do not like to be tuned with high compression and mine has always been a bit difficult when it comes to advancing the timing. We've since agreed that a fresh 2.4 head is the way and discussed options around a water meth system. A way forward was agreed and I'll cover this in more detail when that time comes.

May 2021

As the fitment of the roll cage had already been pencilled in when the engine issues appeared, I decided to go on with this and return to the engine at a later date. The car was usable and so the rest of the project could continue. Fixed back seats were ordered from GSM along with harnesses and all the associated fittings.

July 2021

The car went in to Power Italia to have NGK8s fitted (another possible contributing factor with the engine issues) and dampers adjusted to 14 front, 11 rear. It felt a lot more planted after this set up so I'm going to leave it here for now.

With the cage booked in for end of July, I was understandably relieved when the Sabelt Titan XLs arrived at my house only a week before! Of course, I immediately sat one down on top of the old seat on the garage floor to test it out and found it to be just as good as I had hoped after having tested them many months before. Very happy With a boot full of shiny bits, I headed off to Joe’s to get some help removing the dash…

The dash proved to be even more stubborn than I had feared, but thankfully Joe was able to draw on near limitless levels of sorcery and it finally came off. Back into the car, I headed on to the roll cage guy.

Upon arrival at the roll cage fitter, it transpired that he’d forgotten I was en route so the whole day of rushing around in blistering heat was for nought. Which was nice.

July 2021 - December 2021

As soon as the roll cage guy started prepping the car for the cage, he found a problem. The inner sills had rotted away to nothing, precisely where the cage was to be mounted... They looked fine from inside the car but when he cleared away the seam sealant, it quickly became apparent that they were nothing but seam sealant. He wasn't willing to do the welding himself (he'd done his share over the years apparently, and wants to stick to the actual cage work). I asked him for a recomendation for someone who would do the job to a good standard. He gave me a number of a chap based down in Radstock, Somerset.

Unfortunately, this chap was booked out and so it was several MONTHS later before I could finally have the car taken to him, the idea being that he would make a start between existing jobs. As it turned out, this meant the car was sat for yet another two months... He finally made a start just before Christmas.

Here are some photos from before, during and after the repair of just the nearside sill. He's going to be doing the offside too, as well as some work on the boot floor for the roll cage rear stays.

December 2021

Project Binky stuff!

December 2021

Finishing it off

January 2022

The boot floor and wheel tubs were the last sections that required attention and they have now been finished.

Nearside, inside photos

... January 2022

Nearside, outside

... January 2022

Offside, inside

... January 2022

More offside, inside photos...

... January 2022

Offside, outside photos.

May 2022

After the welding was carried out at the start of the year, the car went into dry storage. With it booked in for mapping with Leighton in June, the plan was to get it out in May and start carrying out the a engine work - the 2.4 head

This ported and polished 2.4 head was sold without exhaust and inlet valves and so as we're building a turbo car, we went for Nimonic exhaust valves and they took an age to arrive. As Joe couldn't kick the head rebuild off until these were in hand, this delay pushed us right up against the mapping date. I had bought the head itself off Leighton for a steal last year and when it arrived, Joe found he had to scavenge a few missing parts together from his own parts division to complete it. With everything ready, it was all sent off to a local workshop to rebuild the head.

Going back to the previous issues with the car when mapping was carried out previously, Leighton believed it was caused by a high compression, the old head having been skimmed too many times. For this reason, I asked Joe to test it himself before and after the rebuild. Compression came in at 150psi across all 5 cylinders and, althout this is perfectly acceptable for a good engine, it was just too high when pushing the boost up. Having fitted the new 2.4 head, compression came in at 135-140psi allowing us a lot mnore headroom with boost. Relief!

While the head was off, Joe also ported and matched the exhaust manifold and carried out a bit off future proofing for me - although the car was having a dual port aquamist system fitted for now, I have plans for a direct port system and so Joe drilled the fittings and blanked therm all off. This will save me time having it all pulled apart again when I inevitably opt for a bigger turbo at some later date and start pushing the envelope even further.

Additional work carried out during this phase also included tidying up where the welder had left off (undersealing the welded areas, fitting a new wheel arch that the welder had carved up and replacing the exhaust tunnelling plate to fix my leaning handbrake).

Oh, and Snoopy needed a new MOT, which Joe was able to arrange

With a holiday in Somerset booked that just happened to coincide with the week the car needed to go in for mapping , everything was all set to finally get this engine singing

June 2022

The engine is mapped

Leighton had a few issues mapping the car which meant it wasn’t finished on the Friday and ready for collection on Saturday as planned. This meant I had to kill some time in the area on the day. However, when the issues had been resolved, he said it was responding much more readily to tuning at last. With the compression now reduced by the new head, the new head itself allowing the engine to breathe a little more freely and, of course, the Aquamist keeping the temps a lot lower, it eventually made 448bhp and 370lbs/ft, up from 416bhp and 328lb/ft from the previous map.

The final upgrades to complete the engine rebuild and tune then:
• Aquamist HFS3-v3.1 system with a dual port install
• 10L Aquamist water/meth tank (internally baffled/drilled), with bracket. The tank and Aquamist pump are mounted in the boot to help spread weight to the rear of the car

I then drove it to Must Weld Motorsport who would be fitting the cage and left the car before heading home. At this point I discovered a few issues with the car that would need rectifying. First, the steering wheel was off centre and, worryingly, it seemed to shift even more when maneuvering at full lock. When driving straight, although the wheel was 'off' it wouldn't move anymore. At this point though, the knackered Vibra Technics gearbox mount made itself known as the driveshaft started knocking. It'll all be alright in the end!

July 2022

The roll cage

I took a trip over to Must Weld Motorsport on Monday 4th July to carry out a few minor jobs on the Coupé to allow the cage builder access, to discuss the required spec in person and to get measure dup for seat fitting. Jamie likes to build the cage around the seat / driver to ensure everything works together.
Although a ‘belt and braces’ approach to building a roll cage would be the best way to maximise torsional rigidity, it would also make the car heavy. As I wanted to strike an efficient balance between rigidity and weight, before getting into diminishing returns, we had a lengthy discussion on what was and wasn’t required. After discussing just about every brace I’d seen online and what it was for, we went full circle and eventually settled for a fairly straightforward 6-point cage.

The spec then:
• It’s a custom-made, weld-in cage in CDS with 2.5mm wall bars
• The main hoop and harness bar is in 45mm, while all other bars are in 38mm
• The rear struts are mounted to the boot floor above the subframe is mounted. As Jamie points out, there seems to be no sense in mounting it to a wheel tub if suspension isn’t mounted to it. Best to put it where the load will be to make the cage take the weight and not the chassis.
• It has an ‘X’ in the rear stays to prevent lateral movement in the main hoop, but won’t have gussets.
• It features double door bars in Jamie’s ‘easy access’ style – I asked him if he could line these up with the slashes on the door. When I asked for this, he gave me exactly the look you would imagine he would… but did it anyway – I think it really sets it off! Two bars are used to maximise side impact protection but there is no X that can result in a bar pointing into the cabin if notched against the first diagonal. You can bend two bars to make an ‘X’ but then access is restricted.
• A harness bar is installed on the main hoop (as opposed to between the rear stays) to keep the harnesses as short as possible, and they line up exactly half way up the harness holes in the seats to ensure they hold the driver in place and put no pressure on the seats in the event of an accident.
• The cage is super tight to the shell and welded to it wherever possible. This ensures that it functions with the chassis (rather than moving about within it!) and also keeps it as far aware from the occupants as possible.
• FIA spec seat mounts have also been fitted. This means the original seat mounts and box section are no longer required – they’ve been cut down for now but I’ll have to drill the spot welds to clean it all up. Jamie measured me up for fitting for the best placement of these but I will have a degree of adjustment using the Sparco FIA Steel Side Mount Brackets. Annoyingly, there is little to no adjustment in height with these brackets in combination with my seat, so I may have to look elsewhere if this is an issue.

November 2022

Catching a 6am train from Colchester, I was able to get a lift from Joe at the other end and got to his unit at 10am before hopping in the Coupé for a trip over to Hereford to pick up a set of arch liners and water meth tank that had been left at the roll cage fitter unit some months before. After heading back to Joe’s we set about refitting the Aquamist tank and making the car fit for the long drive home. I’d also arranged to collect a few items from Joe’s parts department, highlights including a complete dash an undertray and a cup holder, as well as boxes of all the old parts that had been removed during recent works. After a couple of near starts and a false start, I was able to get underway and spent the next 4 hours in a mixture of stop start traffic or motorway speed driving, neither of which was much fun in a car full of loose rattling parts and no sound deadening. The final list of work carried out at this latest major milestone then:

Fix vibrating EGT probe port
20v Turbo late model front water rail coolant T piece
FCSS custom 63mm stainless turbo to intercooler pipe
FCSS custom 75mm stainless charge pipe
NGK plugs (8s)
Nylon gear selector base and 2x roller bearings
Battery in the boot mod
2nd hand steering rack
Power steering fluid
Eye bolt mounts (for harness lap belts) welded to centre tunnel
Protection applied underneath seat mounts and eye bolt mounts
Replacement rear arch liners
Replace failed Vibra Technics rear gearbox mount with ‘competition’ version
Fit new 20vTurbo Facet thermostat (to address water temp gauge issue)
New wishbones and drop links
Supply new wishbone pinch bolts and ARB Nyloc nuts
FCSS tank straps
Re-wire dash lights
Aquamist system refitted

Parts / consumables collected for later:
Tin of Zinc spray (for roll cage welds)
Undertray (and spares to reinforce after cutting it to fit)
Rear brake bias spring
New dash
Millers CFS 10w60 oil
3D Printed cup holder
New centre console (I have plans to modify two of these in order to move the head unit position. More to come later)

I can confirm that initial impressions of the steering feel and handling post roll cage are that incredible gains have been made. However, due to inclement weather conditions becoming the norm rather than the exception now, I have taken the car off the road already and started work on the interior in earnest. There's also the small matter of it sounding like a WW2 battle tank with no interior or sound deadening to speak of. The interior rennovation work has now started and will be complete well in time for the spring when it will be released back into the wild. More on the progress of this to follow...