I don’t usually post on cars that aren’t ours, or in our workshop but this one I couldn’t resist. Spotted is Tasmania while on xmas break.
SLR5000, Original?? Who knows, or cares, its a stunner.
So here is a bit of a follow on from my last Exocet blog ‘Exocet’
Graeme has made the decision to give his project a little hurry along and has dropped it into us today, our first day back for 2016. Plenty here to do, kicking off with getting a clutch pedal and hydraulics organised.
All the plumbing still to do, brake lines, clutch line, fuel lines etc. Also wiring and a lot of fabrications, brackets etc. Great project to be involved with…
Great to see it in the shop and on a hoist..
Clutch pedal box mounted and plumbed. Large amount of factory pipe work made redundant/, new custom flexi made to measure, looking good… Not a 5 minute job, lots of fettling required to make things fit, all pedal heights different/ more work here required. However, we have a sealed system and functioning clutch hydraulics….
No donor car here so everything has something missing, lock nuts for tie rods, brake pads and hoses etc. Everything in this corner we have gone right through, tightened, locked up, split pins where they should be. New pads, hoses and rack boots… All that’s needed here is to mount the brake hose and its onto the next corner..
Right hand side now all secure, brakes plumbed up. Found a couple of fittings for the rear brakes. Just one line now to manufacture and we can get some fluid it and get a brake pedal….
Check out the slow-mo video we took grinding some redundant mounts off the back.. pretty cool
Progress made 21/1/16
All the brakes are plumbed up, bled an working, Clutch also. All corners have been apart, checked and back together and commissioned as safe, split pins and lock nuts added where they need to be. Some rivnuts added and items secured. Wiring loom is laid out and partially connected up. We took a ride today out to see Daryls green machine just to get a feel for some of the routing, and fitment of final items. Was worth the trip..
Welded on uprated rear lower subframe mounts…
To do, Tank and fuel lines, Radiator mounts and hoses etc, Loom… then things will be close..
Mounts going in to support the radiator, trying to still utilise the original MX5 Radiator support brackets, possibly a slimmed down cooling fan to make it all work. Nick oblivious to the camera!! Snapped!!
Wiring loom, its spaghetti junction, pulled from a car with very few labels. Thankfully most of it is self explanatory. Have stripped a lot back and pulled the bulk head wiring looms through the main bulk head loom grommets to position main fuse and relay boxes etc in the cabin rather than the engine bay. Still a lot of work to do here, unknown how much of it will be redundant until its all laid in and plugged in…
Radiator mock fit, managing to keep the factory mazda supports, now to get a fan to fit…
Looks about right!!!
Light on, slightly different from what comes in the kit, and secured very discretely compared to what we’ve seen..
23/11/16 So its been a while since we have updated the progress on the exocet. The workshops been extremely busy so its been in the corner for a while. We’ve been working our way through the wiring and had a bit of an issue with no spark. It took some research with the help of our electrician to confirm a vital piece was missing which we had suspected. (NZ new MX5’s had added security)
This required locating the part which is coded to the ECU supplied which was proving to be impossible. Second option was a replacement ECU to plug in (From a Japanese import MX5). Once we plugged in we had spark and the engine would now run with some engine start. So today we completed the wiring to the fuel pump and now have a turn key start.
img_9859-mov-exocet (Engine running video, first start with fuel pump running).
Some cute exhaust work, will be nice to have it connected to the engine.
Still some wiring to tidy up here but mostly its all in place, Radiator mounted, intake completed, fans connected.
Something pretty special in today, I’m told a very rare car in NZ, Type R Honda Civic, from my short drive up the street after the service I think this would be a huge amount of fun!!
2011 Peugeot RCZ
Not too many of these on the streets of Wellington, Awesome looking car, Peugeot did well!!
Exocet Kit Car
Awesome little kit set car, space frame dropped onto MX5 running gear. Great little power to weight package, great track day, Sunday fun day car. I think we need to build one of these for you!!!!!
15/11/15
So I took the time today to go for a Sunday drive and check out the 3 Exocet’s that are currently under construction in Wellington, all of which are at various stages of production.. Huge thank you to Graeme, Ben and Daryl for taking the time to meet with me and for answering all the questions I’m sure they’ve been asked 100 times before. And Thank you to Tom from Exocet NZ for putting me in contact…
I’ve been following the progress of these kits now for a couple of years after seeing one of these cars pop up on my facebook feed, prompting me to search the web and research how it came about, from what I can see they are being produced in England (the origin), the US, Australia and NZ..
First impressions after seeing the cars for the first time in the flesh was ‘What a great kit!’. Its hard to get a feel for the size of it having seen many pictures online, I was surprised how big it was at first, clearly it has to match the footprint of the MX5 donor car but somehow I had scaled it down.. the main arched pipework giving the chassis a likeness to the aerial atom was much bigger than expected, but somewhat comforting that there was some substance to it.
Talking to the guys about there experience and decisions around their builds it was clear that they were all emotionally invested in this kit and had only good things to say about the kit, the requirements and the technical information available, whether that be the forums or Tom at Exocet NZ. It seems the only downside was finding the time to dedicate to the build, which is documented to take anything from 100-200 hours. Getting three different perspectives was interesting, all the kits were almost identical with a couple of minor changes from frame to frame, however I think when its all said and done these cars will be very different, with each owner giving their Exocet their own signatures.
Looking forward to seeing more of these cars, potentially having one of them come to the workshop for some finishing work…..
A Donor car has come up for auction, see the last picture!!!!
Imagine some MPower, or turbo, extreme exocet!!
Kit + Donor +Assembly = fun times
The Yellow one is Exocet NZ’s demonstrator car….
Samples of the space frame that drops onto the MX5 sub-frames and back bone
Much Bigger wheels and tyres fitted to this car, This is frame number 1 for NZ, has had a couple of owners now and is now having a makeover..
Silver Frame + Black panels, would look great with a Toy Shop Wellington Logo down the side!!!
This ones heading up country soon for some fiddly jobs to be knocked off the list!!
Just what’s needed, cheap and cheerful donor car, NB 1800 5Speed Manual, 1998 up for Auction, who knows I might put in a bid!!!
Very nice in black, rare model, 4.2L Supercharged
Enjoying looking after this car!! Just in for the annual WOF today and some high spec LiquiMoly brake fluid went in!!
Lotus Elise having a bit of a birthday with the cooling system..
General service
Radiator and heater core replacement.
Remote thermostat and external oil cooler fitment.
Exhaust wrap
Some fun jobs for a fun car!!!!
Fitting an external oil cooler has meant removing the extractor heat shield so we’ve done a heat wrap to keep the engine bay temperatures down…
Some Christmas wrapping happening early
Front off for better access to heater matrix and the radiator, surprisingly easy to remove…
Heat exchanger oil cooler fitment squeezed up between the engine and the cockpit, FYI heat wrap requirement for exhaust..
Sandwich adaptor to run additional oil cooler pipes….
Nearly there, engine run and leak checked. just the pipe work to secure,,,
A view from up top, looking good…
2010 Lotus Evora
Surprise visit from this customer today for an impromptu service, couldn’t say no., Little Lotus Elise parked two hoists down. Shame we couldn’t get a nice shot of them together but this was a flying visit..
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