Post Registration 5

Its been a while now since the last post.

The car has been running well and have managed to get quite a few evening drives, there are some lovely roads around which when you time it right are great drives, when you get it wrong they can be very frustrating though stuck behind a slow moving car with miles of double white lines.

Running in is a bit frustrating, keeping it to 4000 revs is not easy and makes overtaking a little more difficult that it could be, not that its ever going to be easy. Sitting low and in the centre of the car makes seeing past cars more difficult so spotting the overtaking gap is more of a challenge.

It's had its first official engagement, acting as a wedding car to transport the Groom to church for a member of the extended family. The day started a little dull but I managed to go for a nice long drive before coming home to give it a wash and brush up.

It was quite entertaining to see my wife trying to get all glammed up for the wedding so I could drop her off at her sisters on the way to pick up the Groom. Its amazing the reaction the car gets in general but with the white ribbons on I even had a bus stop at a mini island to wave me on.






Apart from running in I have still managed to fiddle with the car and have a list of tasks to undertake. So far I have had another go at re-aligning the dipstick, it was far to difficult to get in and out so I have managed to reduce some of the angles and now it can be removed and inserted without too much difficulty.

The carbon wrap on the wing mirrors started to peal away almost immediately so I have got some proper 3M stuff plus managed to find a bonding agent to apply before and have re-done the drivers side mirror. Before I do the passengers I will give it some time to see it stays OK, but so far it looks much much better.

It's difficult to know where to store stuff in the car so I have fitted a map pocket in the passenger footwell. I have one for the drivers side but will see how the passenger one works for a while before fitting.

I have been doing some experiments to see what the actual tank capacity is, when the gauge reeds empty I've filled up a couple of times and each time get about 16 litres in. When I checked again with the factory they said the tank is 28 litres so I decided to check. I put 5 litres in a can in the boot and drove the car until I got symptoms of fuel starvation, I then put the 5 litres in a filled up as soon as possible afterwards, within 2 to 3 miles, I got just over 17 litres in meaning a total tank size of 22 litres, less than the 28 litres I was told.

It's now reached 500 miles so has had its first oil change, I ran the front wheels on to a couple of small ramps to give me some clearance under the sump and then jacked the rear up to make it level. I then checked the level on the dip stick and opened up the sump plug and let it drain while I had lunch.

Before putting oil back in (some inexpensive 10w40 semi synthetic)  I emptied the drained oil into some 2 litre pop bottles to get an idea on volume, I was told the capacity was 4.5 litres, but from what I put into the bottles it was closer to 3.5 litres, I expect the difference could be that I did not change the oil filter and that may not have drained fully. I'll do that at 1000 miles with its next oil change.

Only 1500 miles to go before its run in.