To avoid the need to run high-pressure fuel lines through the cockpit of the car, the swirl pot, filter, high-pressure pump and fuel pressure regulator are mounted in the engine bay above the steering rack cross-member. I've also fitted the fuel pipe connectors in the front bulkhead and the rear (formally boot) floor. The low-pressure return hose also features a sample point where scrutineers can take a fuel sample directly from the low-pressure side of the system with the minimum fuss. Currently this is only a capped tee-piece but in the future I will be adding a capped valve and making up a mating delivery pipe to minimise the risk of any significant fuel spillage.

The low pressure fuel pump is now located under the rear floor, housed in an aluminium bracket along with it's filter. The whole assembly is mounted near the rear sub-frame, which affords it significant protection from possible damage in the event of a bumpy excursion over grass or gravel.

We have now received the fuel tank and a lot of nice fuel and brake parts and fittings. To enable fuel return from our swirl pot, the manufacturer, ATL, modified the fuel tank top plate. As an FIA approved tank it includes a rollover spill prevention valve at the filler neck base and a rollover valve in the breather port. No sooner had I fitted the top plate it was sitting in its enclosure being photographed - perhaps a little sad but I am trying to document the whole build!

Once a weekend came along I set about fitting some of the brake and clutch system to the bodyshell. All pipes that go through the bodywork use the correct through bulkhead connectors, which, if done correctly, can make maintenance and repair a lot easier. The front brake and clutch pipes from the foot well to the bulkhead are quite short, entering the engine bay just above and to the offside of the gearbox. From there the clutch pipe will have to be routed above the gearbox and in front of the bell housing, over the engine and into the clutch slave cylinder. The brake pipe will drop down to the sub-frame where it will mate with a tee-piece and then outboard to each wheel. I'm trying to keep the number of connections to a bare minimum to reduce the time lost if we ever have to drop the front sub-frame off the car for maintenance or repair. The same is true of the rear, where the tee-piece being mounted on the sub frame itself, meaning we will only have to disconnect one brake pipe and four bolts to remove the whole rear suspension sub frame assembly.

Our biggest headache is still the front brakes. We had originally thought we could fit Alfa GTV or Fiat Coupe Turbo callipers, nice 4-pot units by Brembo, only to find that the mounting lugs on the upright are a different spacing to those on the callipers. Also the standard fit wheel on the Coupe is a 16-inch rim as opposed to the 15-inch rims we plan to use. We then learned that the Lancia Delta Integrale Evo used Brembo 4-pots with bolts on the right spacing, and 15-inch rims… but the offsets are wrong. The bolt holes are the wrong size and there is no thread in the calliper lugs or the upright lugs, so we can’t sensibly use them. It's not impossible for us to modify the parts but that would make replacement difficult, so we went back to the drawing board. We are now planning to use Wilwood 4-pot callipers and cross-drilled Fiat Coupe Turbo discs. We could use bells and rotors but the economics of using an up-rated version of a road car part makes more sense on our budget, unless we have more offset problems with that idea. Another possible alternative could be to use a kit developed, at least in part, by a certain Alfa tuning company in Daventry. We will be visiting them during February so watch this space for more news on that.

Next on my high priority list is to fabricate the steering column and the gearshift-mounting turret, which will also double as an electrical switch box, housing all the switches, circuit breakers and relays. We are getting some longer gearshift cables made to suit our application where the lever will be shortened to reduce throw, moved rearwards to bring it within reach in the new seating position and moved upwards to reduce lost motion between the steering wheel and gear lever. Both of these jobs can be completed with modest investment. The next big bill will be the suspension which we intend to get from Leda provided they can give us the features we want. More about that next time perhaps.

Our engine build was supposed to be under way but seems to have been sidelined by other activities in the same workshop. It's of little consequence right now because money is tight and there are plenty of other jobs to complete! I've now managed to shuffle everything around in the garage and driveway so the right cars are in the right places, and the second space in the garage is occupied by a car that can be moved under it's own power, so work on the Alfa should be a little easier from now on.