First of all I would just like to thank Dan and Luke for the hard work, late nights, blood sweat and tears. The 340r is a bit different than any other Elise variant and this made the installation a bit different. One of the best things about dealing with Dan was his honesty and helpfulness.
Some of you will know that Dan fitted an engine that turned out to be fecked. You take these chances when buying an engine from a donor car that has been a right off and until you start it up you have no way of knowing that the engine had been starved with oil and was making a big knocking noise After countless hours fitting the engine it had to come out. Dan was first to call to say that we were not going to make the deadline, but he had sourced another and fingers crossed he should have it in a few days. The engine arrived and during fitting, Dan damaged a sensor and had to send the ECU back to get re-flashed. I am sure at this point most dealers would have just said there was another problem, but not Dan he put his hands up and said it was his fault. Respect.
This meant that I was not going to have the car in time for Teesside
( Dan made me an offer, refund me for the trackday or I could borrow his car. This is his own car not JPS’s. Did he know what he had just said? Well I had a great time at Teesside and driving his car gave me a taste of what the 340rR was going to be like. Well on Saturday I got the train down to Newcastle to pick up the car. Dan collected me from the station and on the way back to the garage he said he was still having a few problems. But as it works out just a few niggles. After a few hours tinkering with the car, we take it out for a test drive. Even on this short blast I could tell that the cars performance has been transformed. It feels a lot more then the 30 bhp, due to the 6 speed box, the extra torque and the way the i-vtec delivers the power.
Dan had the car out for a test drive on Friday night and got pulled by the cops for the rear reg plate (spacing is wrong K 3AOR)? £30 fine. Just as well they did not notice the tax had run out in February
)After handing over a big bag of cash I was no my way, time was a bit against me so I headed up the A1 to Morpeth then (A68?) via Coldstream over to Edinburgh to meet up with Andy G. Swapped his shed keys for the 340r and off he went. It was good to follow the 340r and hear the exhaust especially the pop and bang that it gives out. I think the grin on his face said it all
). ( hope he returns the favour when he gets the Atom ) ) . Back to the motorway via Stirling, Perth then up the A9 to Pitlochry. Fueled up the car with 95, me with red bull. I have driven the road from Pitlochry to ABZ 50 or so times. Little did I know that this was about to be a journey of a lifetime. It was 8pm getting chilly but not a cloud in the sky, I thought Dusk was falling but it would last the whole way back to ABZ. Headphone in Chemical Brothers on full blast. Off I head for Glenshee.I have not driven the car on the road since putting the Nitrons on and they were still set for the track and when I had the Geo done by Dan I stayed with the fairly aggressive setting I had done for Donny. This made the car very twitchy and with the extra vibrations from the very solid engine mounts, it felt like my fillings were going to fall out.
The one good thing about me running late was that the roads were going to be quiet. I think I only passed 4-5 cars from Pitlochry to Aboyne. I’m not going to go on and on about the performance of the car. I think the easiest way to explain it is it feels like the speedo has been changed from MPH to KPH. Especially when it gets up to and over 3 digits.
You can gauge how much pull the car has especially going up the south side of Glenshee the old K used to struggle, but the H pulled and pulled all the way and over 130. I really was in the zone and what a place to be. One of the best Saturday night’s out I have had in my life and it was still only 9.05 as I entered ABZ city limit.
Scotty
