Rear Lights

We bought these lights from the Caterham shop as we felt they are closest to the look we are after. It's easy to make the rear of these cars look like a trailer (and I'm not totally convinced we haven't achieved that!) but whilst the round single units look more traditional they can also start to look a bit cluttered. You pay your money and take your choice.
That being said, because we're having the spare wheel on board, the requirement for two reversing lights to keep visibillity up to happy engineer levels will look a bit overdone anyway. Ho hum, you can't have everything.

The process of fitting requires some masking tape, a spirit level and repeated check measurements from reference points. It's one of those tricky jobs and the complex curve of the rear guards means that when you finally tighten the retaining bolts, the rubber mounts of the lights can distort and change what you thought was a perfect level to ever-so-slightly off. So we will leave them to settle and adjust them gradually over time. It's exactly like trying to hang a picture on a wall thats not quite square....you're never totally satisfied!

Centre Console

We put this one off for a while as the molding didn't really sit squarely on the transmission tunnel leaving a few gaps. After a little shaping around the edges with a trusty file we got it to sit flush and central , so then we addressed the problem of mounting it. The manual (and I can hear other Birkin owners laughing at the mention of this word!) suggests riveting it in, but this means it is a harder job to dismount if you need access to heater controls etc so we looked at other options.
Our solution was to position it and then place two strips of tape on its side, overlapping the edge with the transmission tunnel. We then cut the tape, removed the console and riveted two angles of aluminium sheet to the struts in the tunnel adjacent to the tape left behind. Next we drilled a hole through the tape marked console and offered it back up to the transmission tunnel. This allowed us to mark the bracket for a corresponding hole to be drilled. Finally, we used a speed nut slipped over the brackets to provide a threaded surface and voila - a removable centre console with the added side support of brackets.
It took less time to do than to describe, but we are insanely proud!!
The panel has controls for the heater, washer wiper, a 12volt power supply (in case we ever break down and mobiles are flat) and the LED for the immobiliser. It looks very smart and we are experiencing the sin of pride once more.

New Loom

As a result of our decision to run with throttle bodies midway through the build, we have removed the original loom and had a new custom loom created. This sounds mad, but we would have had to modify so much of the engine loom that it would be virtually new anyway. Fortuntely we were able to sell on the loom via the grapevine to another Birkin builder so we haven't lost out too badly.

Our new loom was designed, made up and fitted by G.R. Motorsport Electronics and should, quite frankly, be in an art gallery. Like all genuine motorsport devotees, the chaps there really know their stuff, and were incredibly good to us throughout the whole process. Despite the fact that we must be pretty small fish to them they made us feel like we were developing a Le Mans special! We went with a Motec M400 on the recommendation of our tuner (more anon) as it had the power and flexibility to give us the best chance of pasing emissions testing requirements. He is also an expert with the software, which helps!