So its a little over a year ago that we rolled the XF out of the garage all painted and stickered up ready for Motor Ex, over the next 12+ months I'll admit I really haven't made the progress on finishing the XF as I would liked to have, surely though there must be a reason why?.
Well this is it, at the beginning of last year my cousin Beau (LLR Co-founder) and I purchased land together and then towards the end of the year we signed contracts for the house we wanted to build on that land, so the short story is all our savings went towards deposits and etc, and all other extra money we where making over the last 8 months we have saved for once the house is finished towards the end of this year.
Now in the coming months our home loan will be signed off on and our land will be settled ready for us to start building, so what does this mean for the XF, well hopefully it means that I will be able to start making progress on finishing the car.
So with the house stuff looking under control it was time to get the XF in the shed and pull it apart again!
To many people the car looked relatively done but for anyone that was following along with this blog series they'd know it was truly only done to a point to get it to some car shows, stuff like brakes, body loom and etc still needed finishing and that's exactly what I have been doing as of late.
Now i'm going to start by saying apart from putting a sub woofer in my VT Commodore when I was 18 I have never ever wired a car before, I had help just wiring it enough to the point that the car would start and run but that was it nothing else worked and I had completely stripped the wiring loom out of the XF when I was 18 so my first wiring experience was an entire body loom all by myself...
In hindsight I would highly suggest to spend a little more money and use a good well known universal wiring harness, Unfortunately I didn't do that and that started me off on the back foot, I spent hours over complicating the job in my head before I finally decided to just jump in and give it a shot, once you learn the basics of how a relay works it truly is kind of easy, now when I say its easy I don't mean all of it, I spent so much time just making sure everything works I didn't plan out how to do it neatly and ill admit there are spots I plan on tidying up when I get time.
For now though I'm kinda happy with how its come out while there are still a few little things I have to finish off with the wiring loom its relatively done, as I said before start with a good universal loom and you'll truly thank yourself later oh and don't cheap out on connectors the difference they make is massive I will for sure be changing a few of mine!
Next on my to do list was to replace my front shock and spring setup as I just wasn't happy with it, my choice of replacement was XYZ's XF Front Coil over setup, from a first glance I was stoked with the quality.
I was even more impressed once I compared the weight of them on the scales to my old setup, we saved close to 5 kg's per corner, now I know to most that's not much but for a race car any unnecessary weight you can shave the better, they bolted in pretty simple without and modifications, I cant wait to get out on track and feel these bad boys out.
Next up I ditched the factory Girlock XF brake calipers and decided to invent my own little brake package.
We took the front knuckles and diff down to the boys at Bog Stock Conversions for them to make up brackets for my R33 calipers, many of my mates run this setup on there cars and are quite happy with how they perform so I thought lets give them a go on the XF, Alot of people wonder why I didn't go something bigger but you have to remember with the NASCAR rims i'm pretty restricted for size so for now these should do the job.
I was stoked with the work the boys have done and cant wait to get the diff back once they've finished with a few other bits and pieces, the cars been on jack stands for quite some time now and I cant wait to see it sitting on the ground once again.
To say i'm getting a little over excited to drive is an understatement thinking about this car literally consumes my thoughts on a daily basis and I cant wait to share with you all the experience of driving it for the first time.
While my NASCAR wheels were sitting doing nothing I decided to chuck them on my little brothers drift car and I actually think they look really good on it.
But back to the XF the diff is nearly done and ready to go back in, the wiring is pretty much done, I need to finish off mounting the seat and harness and a few other bits and pieces so stay tuned as the next blog the car should be back together and then time to get ready for the dyno.