Or

S.C.R.A.P as it's become affectionately known


I apologise in advance for this being a long post
I guess I just wanted to document the progress of the Project from the beginning and get bang up to date all in this first post. Trust me... progress won't look anywhere near as fast from here on in

Once upon a time the car was well known as BRB (Big Red Bus) but unfortunately as with all Milano red Ludes...it started going quite heavily into the way of the Pink.
Something needed to be done and so it begins......

Firstly - if you haven't seen it already here is the background story and previous spec of the car

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Don't really know where to start with this but I suppose to cut a longish story short - plans to develop the track lude into a race car for the Nippon Challenge took a few turns for the worse and what with trying to run the business and put customer cars first nothing was really getting done.
Neglect and a lack of enthusiasm had set in




So after a couple of slightly boozy sessions and some "encouragement" I decided enough was enough. If this car was going to go racing it needed to be torn apart and started again from scratch, built with lots of fresh ideas and fresh motivation.

14th Jan 2009 - evening
So here starts the story of the build - or rather strip and build

First things first - Engine and 'box out


Once that was out of the way I tossed a coin to decide which end of the car I was going to start at. It was tails so logically I started at the back


Bumper, spoiler, lights etc removed


Now I don't know if you guys have felt the actual weight (rather than the spring assisted weight) of a Prelude bootlid? Lets just say with the multi skins and lock gubbins it's not light !!
You can still see the old support structure for the big wing in this pic


Behind the No.Plate surround





With some quality time spent with my trusty disc cutter and power file I ended up with something substantially lighter and quite flexible


With the skeleton structure gone and also the heavy hinge assemblies from inside the car the bootlid will now be secured via pins at the front and springs at the back.


Job done.... now onto the bumper
The mounting bracket has been removed and will be replaced with a much lighter system later on but in the meantime the trusty disc cutter came out again to remove the excess overlap that hides behind the Euro lip. The same thing was also done to the front bumper but I forgot to take any pics of that



Next up ... strip the interior (what's left of it anyway)

Seats - although the seats are very lightweight Sparco Evos there is still a fair bit of weight to them thanks to the fully adjustable factory/side mount hybrids I made. The original fitting of the seats was done this way to allow cruising and track driving positions plus allow other users to have a drive. It also allowed for easier access into the back when I needed to.
These mounts will be up for sale and replaced with very low fixed system during the build.


Roll cage removed next.
I built the cage from scratch in 2005 as nobody had an off the shelf Prelude cage available. I felt due to the amount of trackdays the car was doing that it should have a cage installed and although reasonably heavy (around 35kg) the extra rigidity it gave compensated for that. As a bonus it also allowed me to use full slicks on track rather than semi-slicks (most TDO's have this rule in place)
This complete bolt in cage will be up for sale as an all new lighter weight weld in FIA approved cage which hooks up to front and rear turrets will be installed.


The cage mounts will also need to be removed which will be a bit of a task



Next on the agenda was the doors
First all the rubbers, glass, central locking, window regulators, window chanels, wiring and mirrors were removed




We'll come back to the doors in a while


Next up was removal of the complete dashboard, heater blower motor, A/C evaporator housing and climate control/heater matrix housings. Some of the wiring was junked during this process. The whole heater assembly (3 parts) weighs in at an astonishing 18kg ...the wheely bin took the brunt of the weight ok though


Complete interior wiring loom - which has already in the past received some fairly major reduction - was next to be removed. The whole car loom will be stripped of all wiring that isn't 100% necessary, this from previous experience can shed a whole heap of weight...anywhere between 15 to 25 kilos depending on remaining systems.



Ok then...back to the doors
They're heavy right? Damn right they are but most of that weight is used for support of things that I won't be needing. There is also a dirty great big side impact bar sat inside the doors, that's great for a road car but as this will have door bars as part of the cage structure there's really no need to double up on this protection.
Out comes the trusty disc cutter and power file again



The door openings will be covered in again with carbon sheet like I had there previously. This needs to be done or run and edge protection strip all the way around to comply with MSA/FIA regulations.


Engine bay / front panel next.
Basically all the unnecessary brackets/fittings removed from the engine bay and front panel, wiring removed, brake servo and lines, clutch cylinders etc etc etc. I think the only things left in were steering column coupling and the fuel feed and return lines. All brake lines will be re-done and routed through the car via a bias controller. Engine and front end wiring looms will be stripped of anything unnecessary.
Before


Didn't get a dedicated "after" shot but you'll be able to see in a later unrelated picture.


Bonnet next.
Hang on....it's a carbon bonnet, surely it's light enough already?
Errrrrrr nope
Most carbon bonnets are actually mostly fiberglass with a carbon fibre top layer or two. This is fine as it keeps costs down but in some areas (namely the very front latch section) the composite is very thick and heavy to be sure that the bonnet won't simply rip open off the standard catch. Also you'll usually find the same kind of skeleton as the OE steel bonnet in an effort to keep the composite bonnet rigid. This all adds weight so....you guessed it...disc cutter time.



Unfortunately I didn't get a shot of the very thick "latch" section that I removed after that picture was taken but it was approx 10mm thick !!

Bit more flexible now - you can also see the emptied engine bay.


The last thing to happen before the rolling shell left me was to remove the remaining glass. All glass except windscreen will be replaced with polycarbonate during the build.



That was the pic I took of the car and indeed the last time I saw the car in the flesh until today.
The Lude was shipped off to sunny Chepstow where Kris would take on the bodywork prep ready for Mark to carry out the re-spray.
I'd love to say I've done everything on the car but bodywork just does my head head. I've got very little patience for all that rubbing down, filling and flatting malarky...so I left that for those that have.

The following pics are courtesy of Kris who I can't thank enough for taking it on at a time when both he and Mark could probably have done without it. To be fair though...it's partly his fault because he's the one that fuelled the fire to get on with it by getting me drunk

Although fading badly the paintwork in general was not too shabby considering the Ludes age. For the most part it just needed flatting back for a good key for the new paint although some minor dents also needed some filling





You can see from this pic that the bonnet has also been heavily flatted back. This is because it was suffering (like so many other carbon bonnets) from the dreaded milky laquer. It was hoped that a heavy flat back and a re-laquer would sort it out .... if it didn't work it was just going to be painted black anyway.


Wings removed to gain access to the door shuts and a-pillars.


There are of course the usual areas that needed attention......such as the arches
They weren't the worst I'd seen by a long way but the last year or two of neglect had taken it's toll and the dreaded rust had started creaping.





Engine bay de-greased, flatted and masked


As you can see, the bumpers and Euro lip kit required quite a bit of work due to the sheer amount of abuse that the poor things have suffered over the years on track. TBH I'm actually amazed that they've survived this long


Ready for painting





So.......... bid a fond goodbye to Milano Red and welcome in the new dawn with......





Performance Autoworks Orange







Should sit very nicely on the grid next season along with Kris' Civic



Oh and what became of the faded and milky carbon bonnet??
Judge for yourselves





Not had chance to get any pics of the Lude since I got it back earlier today but I have to say I'm more than happy with it. I know Kris has been worried and wasn't particularly happy about some bit's of dirt in the paint and a couple of areas that didn't turn out 100% but in fairness I never wanted (or expected) a concourse show car finish. This is a race car build....can't afford to be too precious about it

Sorry once again for the long post.... we're up to date now so any further posts should be...sorry....WILL be considerably shorter.

Thanks for looking

Hot stuff dude! gonna be a hell of a car!

Damn man, that takes puts a helluva lot of shame to my "lightweight" lude!!!


But don't leave that car near me in that colour or I will attack it with "01"s on the doors, Confederate flag on the roof and a certain melodic horn


Looks sweet as nut though man, loving it!!

Wow! I am loving this thread!

Nice one! Good work, well done both

Im gona look forward to reading from this thread.. I'm not that technically minded but i love looking at all the pics
Keep it up..

nice thread, also good to know you can flat back and relaquer carbon bonnets.

Thats sweet..yet again. How much weight overall do you think you have saved then? Surly must be close to 1060kg. Thats mighty impressive though even taking it as far as choping unecessary metal.

think i'l be keeping an eye on this, looks like its guna be a beast . keep up the good work dude

Fantastic mate, simply fantastic. A perfect example of a 'proper' weight saving exercise, and grounds-up build . The respray in orange looks awesome, and I can't wait to see both you & Kris performing in the Nippon series, it will be good to see a Prelude finally getting some of the limelight Have you had the Lude weighed yet since the weight saving? Would be real interesting to hear what you managed to get it down too.

Just a couple of questions:

1. Did you ever consider a C/F boot, or does the weight saving you've done on the OEM one get it into the same kind of weight range?

2. So is the end finish on the C/F bonnet just a result of flatting it back, and getting it re-laquered? My C/F sunroof has a few milky spots on it, so will be looking at getting something similar done.


I can't wait until you get to the engine spec for this beast

going to be keeping a close eye on this thread, this is simply awesome

hey richie ill have come see you soon mate.. when i get some money ...
i got my self a AEM stand alone ecu... off a nice guy off here.. u still thinking on doing mappin... think dino said something about it..
i hope to be buying some cams soon.. need ur advice on what cams and cams stuff i need. speak soon mate


btw mate the car looks awesome... i love it.... i mean I LOVE IT!!


matt

That's awesome work Buzz, i love threads like this, plenty of pics and plenty of info showing the different stages

Why were the front wings removed?
At least everything happened a lot quicker than it did in my project Though i had a lot less time and knowledge i guess

As Taffy said, that's some extreme weight saving and well worth it for the track, you got balls for some of the things you cut out of that poor car

Great post, I'll definately be watching this thread! Looking forward to the engine specs

this is great buzz its gonna be really special and well worth it cant wait for the next installment