Polycarbonate Engine Hatch

Over the past 4 months or so I have had a bit of a side project on the car. This has involved working with a acrylics company in order to tool up an affordable, lightweight clear polycarbonate engine hatch option for the S1 Exige.

Finally after much development I have the first part on my car. Weighing in at about 5.5kg, it's a good 3-4kg lighter than the OEM part!

I am able to offer these in a rough-trimmed state for the user to trim and fit themselves as of now. Contact me on here or SELOC for details. In the future I hope to offer a fitting solution that looks totally "Factory Fit".

Still waiting for some catches to arrive before I can finalise the fitting of it, but it's pretty close now I have finished trimming it:

prior to trimming with about 15-20mm stock on all around

screen demist

As I removed the heater matrix and fan in the interest of  weight saving I was left with no method of screen demist.

One option would be the heated screens that are available, however they are expensive to replace following stonechip damage and also they have quite a high current draw, not good when you only have a tiny alternator!

So the solution I have come up with is to run 4 small fans in the vents in the dashboard, on a manual switch so I can blow some air over the screen on demand. Total current draw = 0.6Amps

As always, pictures explain better than I can:

mocking up diffuser

Playing around with the standard S1 diffuser. Still quite a lot to do on this as I need to extend it quite a bit to make it in keeping with the rest of the bodywork. 

Looking good potential though :) 

(got the decent camera out for change rather than being lazy and using my phone)

misc. updates

Once again I've been a bit slack at keeping the blog upto date. Progress has been good though, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Splitter removed for paint.

Battery tray.

Inserts (to prevent fasteners pulling though/wearing out)

Splitter back on the car.

Battery pack mounted to splitter for best weight distribution.

Front wheels roughly mocked up (I still don't have the front uprights)

 Radiator exit ducting.

Trying to ensure no air can bypass the rad at all. Working in 0.5mm aluminium so it is nice and conformable.

NTR shocks are now cleaned up and fitted to the car :-)

more soon!