April 22th 2012 - Day 63 - The light at the end of the tunnel

I keep meaning put more into this Blog, but I just never find the time.  It's been 3 months since the last update and yes a lot has been done to the car.  Most of the work has been centred on the inside of the car.  Most of the electrical work has been done, with only a few items left to wire in, including the DCCD controller, Nav Light and the Nav switch well that's all I can think of right now.
The dash mods got a working over as did the wiring diagram, basically I rewired the dash and replaced the switches I started with, with a set of 6 switches I purchased from a boating supplier, this both looks neater and works better.  I'm finding out that the third time I do things it's the right way.  I've also run the battery power leads, these are made up of welding earth cables with large terminals, purchased from a welding supplier.

Updated Wiring diagram




After a few tests with the multimeter I turned on the new switches and tested everything, and so far everything worked, rally computer sprung to life, gauges, new window heaters, Stilo headsets, and all of the normal car electrics.  When I say everything worked, the horn didn't, well not at first, it took me about 3hrs to finally work out that I had forgotten to plug a connector together under the dash.  Anyone doing one of these cars in the future, the wiring diagram is wrong, the horn signal is part of the cruise control plug that comes from the instruments.

One of the items on the to do list was the Aero Catches or bonnet latches, it's something you need on the car, but you need to cut into your bonnet and there is no going back once you start.  So last weekend I took to the car with a die grinder and drill, in the end the results were good, no mistakes and the job looks clean.  I also wrote a quick how to for anyone looking at doing the same thing, you can find it here, Aero Catches Install




Next item was to install the bigger brakes, these are from the 2003 STi and just clear the 15in rims I have, nice and shiny.



Today I had a bit of time and so started installing some roll cage padding, installed and high density padding around the head area, and the cheaper padding around the legs.  I'm not to happy with the cheaper padding as it's so thick, so I'm thinking of going the high density padding here as well.




So what's next for the car?  Well I need to get the gearbox in and the car started, also have the hydraulic handbrake mounted next to the gear stick and then I can run the brake and fuel lines in the car.  Once that is done I'm on the home straight, that will only leave a few smaller items and the new shocks left to do.