The Kit Delivery to Shipping Company Warehouse - Info on arranging shipping

So the journey has started....

DDR will deliver the kit anywhere local if the shipping company you have used requires, shipping companies often have a loading warehouse. The companies I have used to date have been fairly priced but for someone like myself who has never imported on this scale (or really doesnt have a clue what they are doing still!), they have been excellant on Customer Service and keeping me updated and explaining stages. I really couldn't of asked for more so far and im sure it will continue.

I used;

Miami - to Port in UK; https://www.freight-calculator.com/

Uk Port - My Door; http://www.johngood.co.uk/


So DDR have now delivered to the warehouse, below are some photos that are on their facebook page as well. The journey at sea from Miami to the UK takes roughly about 20 days, plus customs time.

The UK agent's I used have a deferment fee (optional) which means they will pay the customs charges and fees etc... and I will pay this to the UK agent with a small fee for doing so. This can speed up UK customs clearence by 2 / 3 days sometimes as UK customs will wait till your money has cleared before releasing the container.

Im expecting delivery once shipped and clearing customs to be the last week in October, just in time to spend the winter in the garage, hopefully the snow wont come this year!

The windscreen below better make it across safely!! Theres enough warnings on there!



Updates and The Car Dolly

The last month has been busy at work which is fine by me as the car is not here yet. However the car dolly
has almost been completed now with just the braces to go.

In the pictures below it shows you the structure, the actual wheel legs as I will call them will be closer together more towards the centre of the dolly, they are only where they are for balancing purposes as I have not put the bracings on yet which are required.

As you can see this gives me a slightly higher Dolly then normal and will make it more comfortable for working on the chassis and underneath the chassis. Each dolly wheel can take up to 200kg of weight which is ample, when working underneath axle stands will be placed underneath  in positions around the car in case the worse was too happen.

In the below picture you'll see the cross members can be moved so its possible to change where the weight sits across the frame so as the weight increases at the back I am able to adjust it on the frame to keep it stable. In the end my Gf's dad came up with the idea of what are like cup holders welded on, so it means they can easily be slid and stay in position just by lifting up the frame once its on the dolly.

As well as this because of the build starting in winter now which was not planned, the garage needed some help to keep any heat in at all. Its an old garage from the 60's and so has a corrugated roof which sits on the top of concrete blocks with plenty of air holes between! So firstly I repaired the sealant between the roofing parts to make sure there were no leaks and I then filled in all the holes with expanding foam. On the scale of things, working through winter in minus C temperatures this will make little difference but it will make me feel better, every degree it can keep in will help!

I've also bought two powerful halogen lights to light up the garage better and will be buying a small fan heater as well, that with the floor being matt'd will make it as comfortable as its going to get!

I'll soon have more pictures but here's a teaser pic of the car being prep'd for delivery which should be soon and I can provide more pictures.

Whats been going on...

I've had a lot of messages, about whats going on,when will the build start and from UK based people can I come and see the kit as you're considering it for yourself.

Well since my visit not a lot, as the prep work is now complete as mentioned. So I've been thinking forward in terms of the tools and areas of design I want to work on.

First of all when am I getting the car, DDR say my car is now ready, so I have been arranging the shipping. I've never done it before and it has been a steep learning curve. Once completed I will post who I used as so far the communication has been excellent so have high hopes for a smooth transaction!

So the first issue I've had is actually unloading, the crates are big and then this will be inside a shipping container on the back of a lorry which is 4foot off the ground. So I need to be able to unload without a fork lift etc..., luckily once the boxes of bits are out, the weight should not be too bad for 4 or so grown men to drag out, but tilting the box 4ft to the ground will probably cause damage, so I am building a car dolly for two purposes. One for removal and two to allow me to work on the chassis easily.

Below is the design (apologises for the poor drawing and not to scale)

The top pieces will slide, allowing me to change the distribution of the weight as the car is built, keeping it stable as well as using the L brackets (in red) to keep the rail gap stable and even. It will be made of 30 x30 box steel. I have seen a similar design used before.

It will be on lockable casters for easy movement. The shell will sit roughly 2 foot off the ground. I will release a more detailed list of measurements and materials once built so people can make their own if required. It should meet my needs as required.

This will drop the delivery to a 2 foot drop which the crate will be able to be tilted to without causing damage. the height of 2foot will also allow me to work completely on the car on the stand if required with the shell on as the height of the garage is 195cm  so I should be able to slide the car dolly in and out with the full car on it.

My Visit to DDR Motosport

I've been over in the states for two weeks and said to Diego I'd pop down and see him. We were staying in Orlando so had worked out it was about a 4hr drive down to Miami

Well after really bad weather, 6 hrs later we arrived! It was a trip and a half with crashes lining the edge of the road and a couple of missed turns. None the less it was great to meet Diego and see what DDR do. Also it was good to get a look at the car in person, the angles, construction etc...

I could see and hear when talking with Diego the extra steps I'd need to do to meet little UK IVA test requirements but nothing that seemed particularly difficult, just more time consuming!

I took a look at the new green Demo Car (I'm the one peering in)

It was good to see around the set-up and with the new clam shell back, there is plenty of room to work in there.

Also got to see the car that first caught my eye about DDR in the first place. You can see the evolution even from this model when looking at tiny details.

And finally meeting Diego himself.

DDR were busy with a few cars in progress but mine should be completed very soon and I'm currently arranging the shipping details.


Finally some people had been mentioning about sharing this blog out more, Simply put I dont have the time :) So please use the below tinyurl for the blog if you'd like to share it

http://tinyurl.com/miamigt4

and if sharing on twitter hashtag #DDRBUILD

Engine Completed....

So I transferred the engine back to my home garage now that the majority of the work had been done but I still had a couple of jobs left to do.

First I replaced all the vacuum hoses with silicone ones I had bought, some were perishing already so needed replacing. At that point I noticed a lot of blocked off pipes on this engine, some to areas that I wouldn't expect to be blocked off, so ill be posting that on an MR2 forum.

2ndly I blocked off a couple at this moment in time before I decide what to do, the ones I blocked go off to what is known as the charcoal canister and this canisters function is basically to get emissions down, I had a supra before and did away with it on that as well.

Once I replaced the vacuum hoses I wanted to replace / cover the wiring loom's black conduct with red conduct, the only reason was so that when I'm working on it I can easily spot the wiring loom as the engine becomes a bit of a big mess!

After completing that the engine was complete, so i prep'd it for the next few months as it wont get started for least 3 - 6 months. So I took out the current spark plugs and dropped a tea spoon of oil into the cylinder. I then turned it over via the crank a couple of times to line the cylinder walls to stop corrosion.

Once that was done I gave it a quick tidy up and here's the finished product. I feel like the first big milestone has been hit!

Started with;

ended with;

Engine Almost Complete

So I've been plowing on this weekend with getting the engine back together. Firstly I'm reconnecting it back up using the old pipes before replacing them....why...

The memory of the rubber makes it very easy to work out what pipe goes where as they bend naturally to the position they were in before making the task much easier, ill then once complete replace each hose one at a time. How the engine currently looks;

I've also got the loom on there as well and everything just gets messy again on the other side but it will look tidy enough once done.

I should have the engine completed by Wednesday in preparation for my visit to DDR, the reason having everything ready is key to me is space this end when the kit arrives. Really looking forward to getting down there and saying Hi! Been talking for so long and I never actually thought I'd get to go there in person and meet the guys.

Engine work continues...

So After my fight with the catalytic convertor, I ended up drilling out the left over studs. I'll now use nuts and bolts when it comes to replacing them, mainly because its simplier and in the future if it becomes a problem I can but them off.

I noticed the gasket between the turbo and manifold had blown so that was replaced... the blow torch has been getting some good use recently to say the least!

Once that was completed the painted manifold was replaced and the turbo unit put back on lining up the oil feed / return pipe.

I chose not to paint the turbo, Ill be getting a turbo blanket to keep the heat in on the exhaust side, hotter air flows faster so it should leave through the exhaust quicker and help spool times, this will also stop heat soak into the engine bay and keep everything running a little cooler, not much but every bit helps!

As well as this the water housing was connected and its already beginning to look a mess again. I will be replacing most of the pipes with new, but ill replace the pipes one by one once its rebuilt and that should clean it up further and also at that point do away with pipes I dont need like the relevant vacuum ones.