1st kit car Fiorano

[Car photographer]

Originally Posted by Old Jock

I'm just jealous as mine is still in bits. My Mum took a turn for the worst so I'm currently caring for her. My motorbikes are all tickety-boo though as I keep them at my Mum's so any free time I get I pop out to the garage and do a bit of fettling on them.

Sorry to hear that - I hope things improve and you get more time to work on it soon

[Car photographer]

Couple of shots from Stoneleigh this year -
[IMG]1DSC_8921s by paul ward, on Flickr[/IMG]
1DSC_8920s by paul ward, on Flickr
1DSC_8919s by paul ward, on Flickr

[Car photographer]

Big thanks to the guys at the Italian replica club who let me on their site at the show

[Paul L]

Your 'classic' dark red, really stands out in the photos and especially when compared to the 'modern' reds either side of it.

I hope your car got a good reaction at the show.

Cheers, Paul.

[Car photographer]

Cheers Paul
A few people seemed to look around it but it wasn't parked where everyone was sitting and I felt weird sitting on my own behind the car so didn't really get to hear that many people's thoughts on it unfortunately- but I'm glad I managed to make it down there - glad I picked the Saturday to go too

[Car photographer]

A lot of people picked up on the negative camber on the rear wheels so I think sorting this out somehow is the next priority

[lancelot link]

The negative camber does distract from what , otherwise , is a very pretty little car ...

[molleur]

Well, it would make me CRAZY!

[Old Jock]

It looks like you have been doing a lot of T-Cutting Paul. The paint finish looks superb.

[Car photographer]

Originally Posted by Old Jock

It looks like you have been doing a lot of T-Cutting Paul. The paint finish looks superb.

LOL haven't done anything - in fact the paint is getting pretty shoddy looking where bits are catching on the arches etc - you probably can't see the imperfections on the pic

Cheers guys

I'm looking into getting a new spring made to correct the camber - who knows if it will sort it or not

[Old Jock]

Oh well, keep using the same camera then as the car does look good in the photos. Paul (A)

[Car photographer]

Ha yeah!

Any more progress on yours yet?

[Old Jock]

Hi Paul, No, my Mum's dementia is much worse now so I can't leave her on her own for any length of time. Luckily, I have been able to get her in to one of the local care homes from a Saturday morning until a Monday morning so I get a chance to recover as I get very little sleep when staying at my Mum's. Still, I get the odd opportunity for a sanity break during the week and just pop out to the shed and fiddle with one of my old motorbikes.

[Car photographer]

Oh dear - so sorry

[Car photographer]

Ok so latest updates .....

so I tried to have a new spring made specifically to the weight of the car to try and reduce the negative camber / increase the ride height and still retain the softness of ride.

found a company who said they would help me - except a few weeks down the line and several emails later they seemed to be backing away from the project as if they didn't want to do it.

so, I decided to go back to the company who extended my spring length to try and solve the camber before. I asked then to reprofile the spring so that it has more 'curve' to it. Then the hope was that this extra curve would translate into a higher ride height and so less negative camber. this cost me £60 - plus £40 for my mechanic to refit the spring etc. so £100 in total. Midland road springs were the company that re=profiled this.

so here's the new re-profiled spring (above the original leaves that were replaced with the extended ones - to show the curve difference between before and after)
[IMG]2spring by paul ward, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Car photographer]

although it didn't totally fix the issue - the ride height is now about 3cm higher than it was (which means the exhaust doesn't scrape the floor anymore)
and the negative camber is slightly reduced - which looks a bit better aesthetically.

so all in all - it's not ideal, but it was a cheaper option that has partly worked - and I can live with that at the moment.
2rear by paul ward, on Flickr

[Car photographer]

2-rear2 by paul ward, on Flickr

[Car photographer]

Definitely looks a bit better than the rear camber did before -
2-front by paul ward, on Flickr

[Car photographer]

However!!!

I'm still having issues with the wheelarches - I took the car to the Lichfield ' cars in the park' show last sunday - and it got alot of positive interest which was good.

what was bad was that I noticed another crack in a weld on the wheelarch support brackets .... I really hoped we had solved this issue, but, alas, no.

so next week I have the car booked into my mechanic friend again to try and maybe look at attaching the arches to the body / chassis - rather than to the wheels as they are now.

it's going to raise the arches higher and will look quite different, but I don't see any other way of getting around this issue.
I'm starting to wonder if any of the other Fiorano owners in the past had any of these issues - and if so, maybe that's why they are no longer Fiorano owners!!

I truly believe that this is a beautiful looking car - and peoples reactions at shows have confirmed that to me .... however I can imagine alot of people who built these in the past possibly having issues like this along the way and so deciding to take the easy option and sell up instead of resolving the issues.

... I wonder?

[Old Jock]

Hi Paul, Glad to see you are still working away on the Fiorano. It looks a lot better with the latest rear spring and if you look at a photo of the Ferrari T166 you'll see that it has quite a lot of clearance between tyre and arch. Keep up the good work.