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My own car began life as a KVA kit but
now, very little of the
original remains. When first built, it had problems with broken spokes, poor cooling
when stationary, heavy steering and limited fuel capacity. Similarly, the brakes
that I had used weren't really up to the job so I decided to rectify these
problems and proceeded to rebuild the car from the ground up.
The car
now has GT40 uprights and suspension
which eradicates the heavy steering and allows for the use of much
bigger brake discs and calipers. In this case, I have fitted 12" discs
and Girling 16/4 and 18/4 calipers as fitted to the Gulf cars. I have
fitted
bigger fuel tanks although the fuel capacity isn't what I would consider to be
ideal. New, larger diameter water pipes coupled to a larger and more
efficient radiator should sort out the cooling problems.
The car is powered by a solid-lifter Ford 302 which was
originally fitted with a Holley 715 cfm carburettor as fitted to some of the
GT40 road |
cars.
This has since been replaced by four Weber 48 IDA carburettors on
a genuine GT40 race manifold. The
GT40 manifold is different to the usual Cobra one in that the four carbs all face in the same direction as opposed to two pairs
facing each other. The transaxle is from a Porsche 911 as I could
never find a ZF gearbox at a reasonable price. The Porsche transaxle is a very
good unit but designing a good shift linkage is an absolute pain. If
anybody has devised a good linkage, I would be interested in seeing
it. I wanted to
go for the look of a Mk I road car as the car was always intended
for road use so, to this end, I had to completely redo the rear
bodywork, grafting in sections from original Mk III mouldings.
Recently,I have had an original GT40 tail section, acquired for a
friend. It was only when comparing this with the tail section of
my own car that I realised how different the kit car bodywork is
from the original, despite the number of GT40 kit manufacturers
that state |
that their bodywork is from original moulds - what a load
of crap! Most kit car bodywork, not including the ERA, appears to be
derived from Ken Attwell's (KVA) originals. I also intend to alter the
front bodywork and the doors, both of which are very different from
the originals.
To keep
that road car look, I used some custom-built wire wheels but have had quite a bit of trouble with them,
mainly broken spokes. At last, I have now acquired a set of GT40 Borrani
wire wheels which should be much stronger than the ones that I am
using at the moment and are a helluva sight better looking.
There's
still quite a lot left to do. Apart from the bodywork which I have
already mentioned, I need to fabricate a decent gear linkage, some new
water pipes and also a front anti-roll bar. I have acquired a pair of
GT40 rocker covers so I can do away with the Cobra ones which,
although they looked nice, never looked the part!
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