The wiring looms were also to bite back later on. I had forgotten to mention to John that I was going to retain the Racelogic traction control system. This meant that instead of there being nice interceptor loops in the wiring loom for the injector signals that I could hook into the Racelogic system, I was faced with a really nice competition spec loom that I could not bring myself to cut or do anything to. It was and still is a work of art. Racelogic suggested that I build an interceptor loom that had a male and female injector connector so that I could intercept the signals at the injector. They used to do this but no longer offered such a loom but they could supply me with the parts. I should have been warned that this was politely saying ‚ "yes we have done them before but they are so time consuming that no one was prepared to pay the actual cost of making them!" Needless to say, I was to learn exactly how time consuming this would be very quickly. Racelogic supplied me with the parts and armed with metres of heat shrink tubing I started to make the loom. At this point, we had the engine running and so armed with an oscilloscope and a laptop or two, I went round confirming that each signal was the one I thought using an homemade interceptor, crimped the pins and repeated the tests. This process was lengthy but the end result was that the new loom worked first time. It did take some 6 hours to complete though. The only real mistake I made was not to use unscreened cable. A few weeks later I ended up having to take the loom apart, wrap aluminium foil round each cable pair and re wrap the loom again with self-amalgamating tape. An earth wire was attached to the foil to allow the foil screening to be earthed. Without the screening, the loom was very susceptible to picking up electrical noise from the ignition coils and other sources. The end result was an intermittent misfire that the screening cured.

The second problem was an inability to get above 2-3000 rpm. It was as if the rev limiter was coming in. What was really interesting was that turning the traction control off would stop the problem. As it was very late on a Friday, and I was due to test the car at Lydden on the Saturday and then sprint at North Weald on the Sunday, it was decided to disconnect the traction control loom and thus restore the engine to its standard system, and worry about it later. It did mean that I would need to be careful on how I drove the car and unleash its 360 odd horses. I was a little apprehensive but told myself that my Cerbera has that sort of power and I have no traction control. Yes but you don’t drive that competitively was the reply inside my head. As it happens the car was great and fun to drive. I took it gently and built up my confidence and soon it was foot to the floor down the straights.

During testing, it was possible to plug in the laptop and by using the diagnostics, discover that one of the wheel sensors failed to register. This was indicating that the rear right wheel was stationary and as a result, the traction control was cutting in as soon as the speed differential between the two rear wheels exceeded its limits. While the car was stopped, the engine would rev fine and with the system switched off or disconnected, there would be no problem. So after some more investigation, the sensor was replaced and the system worked fine.

So was it worth it? The answer has to be yes. It was a struggle and without Mark and Dave at Tower View's help and experience, it simply would not have happened. I have also to thank Sue at mission control for putting up with a tired grease monkey for so long. The car is real fun with 0-60 mph times of just over 4 seconds and 0-100 is under 9s. This is quick by anyone standards. To do these sort of times on cold road tyres with no tyre warming is frightening. This is only part of the story though as this power can be applied out of corners which means the car slingshots out. This increased performance has shown up deficiencies in the brakes and suspension and these are now being developed to take advantage of the power that the car has. In competition, it has been pretty successful but it is fair to say that I am still learning how to drive it. It arrives at braking points so much faster that this has caught me out. Despite this year being a development year, I am in contention of several championship awards which is really more than I expected. Can we go further? I think the answer is definitely yes. John Eales is muttering something about another upgrade to over 400 bhp. The trouble is I will need a second fuel pump, so whatever economy the car had will go completely out of the window! Tower View have built a special set of their GAZ shocks that allow me to go coil over and the even bigger big brake kit is ready to be fitted. The prototype rear anti-roll bar seems to be a big improvement as well. Various spectators have enjoyed the four foot flames from the back exhaust. The best way to summarise the whole project I'll leave to one of the passengers I took round Snetterton at the TVRCC track day this year. He said after we pulled into the paddock. This car is absolutely mental" Yep. And just you wait till next year!