I have recently finished the head gasket and a few other things on the car, the head gasket went ok and enabled me to clean down the engine, paint things, degrease and replace belts gaskets and hose clips. I carried out the ram air filter conversion as seen on LEW and by using a k&n filter find the noise fantastic. In fact I dont really need to listen to the stereo anymore.

I have changed the back end of the car colour again and I'm going to stick with this colour now. I have also fitted a new waist band trim all round the car and its looks a lot better than before. Wheel bearing on the way and the final bit of body work left to do is the metalic roof capping that has corroded away. Should be doing that soon time permitting

Update: May 2005
The car has not been used over winter and now having a garage to keep her in i have been able to try and get some things done on her, two things i most wanted to change on the car firstly the wheels and secondly the rear window and tailgate.

I removed the rear window and started to construct a panel similar to the stevens esprit but as most things in life this did not go to plan and i was not happy with the way it looked, so i looked at fitting a turbo tailgate and found that they are as rare as rocking horse poop! or to expensive and i could not justify spending the money.So i left it for a while and pondered the thought of making my own turbo style tailgate, nobody could see my vision so i thought what the hell and stared looked for some material.

  

I stumbled oneday on a chap named peter in his workplace and they had some amazing things that where been moulded and cut up, things like the old 70 and early 80s syle front racing car cockpit screens and lots of wonderfull things we got chatting i got him some measurements and he supplied me some acrylic sheet 5mm thick in light smoked effect and even cut the edges in and heat folded the lip, this chap also used to build some stuff for lotus and still deals with tvr i think, nice chap!

then i needed to make slats in the tailgate with the use of an angle grinder and lots and lots of dust i cut the slats bonded them in on by one and fitted clear round upright supports and clear bonding compound, i have still got a bit more support work to do at the bottom, its not everybodys cup of tea but its different and does not look to bad i think. The downside is you need to do a lot of work to make it original again.

  

The wheels where of a bmw Z3 M COUPE ROADSTER and are 7.5" x 17" front with 225 45 17 and the rears are 9" x 17" with 245 45 17 the rears are et8 and hence need spacers of 20mm and the front 10mm i am currently been guided by andy hills who is helping sort out out the spacers as he has fitted aftermarket wheels to his red s3 esprit along with many other complicated modifactions, he's a top man and knows his stuff, many thanks! i will update again soon when everything complete and has been tested.

Update October 2005

The wheel specs have changed and i have now spaced the front end of the car out 15mm,the spacers have been fitted and the front end looks fine,the rear end has know been spaced out 40mm taking advice from andy hills and looks a lot better than the flared arches that used to be there with the old car,the rears are tempory spacers as the engineered ones will be here in a couple of days,may i say at this stage thankyou to Andy Hills for the technical drawing he sent me for the spacers he has been fantastic. the wheels still needed centre caps and i did like the old esprit centre caps so i cut the back of them and bonded it to the bmw centre cap the look very origanal now and suit the car.

I have know finished the rear hatch by bonding in a final finishing strip round the outer edges and also placing a support beam on the lower deck to add some strength to the bottom louvre that was taking all the weight. High level brake light was needed to complete the look so i bought one from a local motor shop £14.50 for an l.e.d one and fitted it on the inside of the hatch see pictures. Electric arial was damaged so i decided to remove it rather than replace it,and placed a rubber grommet in its empty hole,a little bit more weight reduction.

Carried out the braided clutch hose modifaction that was bought from sj sportscars and now feel a lot more happy knowing it wont burst! Also carried out the gear linkage modifaction from sj sportscars this is probably on of the best mods you can do,fantastic difference after a few little ajustments and it looks a lot more tidy than the old one aswell.basically the kit gives you a new gearlinkage rod that goes on after the cable to the end bracket on the gearbox,the old on was flat and held in by a split pin the new one is a swivell joint and is held in place by a bolt,you need to drill the bolt hole out a little bit to get the bolt in, also in the kit is a new sleeve for the actual arm movement its the bracket with the 17mm nut and 19mm bolt on as outlined in red in the picture,just undo the 17mm nut pull out the 19mm bolt from underneath and mind not to loose the two washers the clean everthing tap out the old sleeve from the bracket and tap the new one in,i used copperslip on everthing and when put back on it had smooth movement,nice modifaction better gearchange and minimum hassle.

Painted front brake callipers yellow,fitted esprit design badges of stevens esprit (green and gold) Also fitted engine breather valve,finishes engine of nicely!

danieldobe07@aol.com