Woodys TVR Chimaera

It's been a while since the last update, so what's happened...well not a lot really, over the summer I fitted a set of Gaz Gold shock absorbers purchased from Absolutely Shocks . Fitting was really quite easy, well it was after I found some initial settings on Pistonheads.com. These initial settings refer to the number of clicks towards plus from full minus setting and the distance the spring retaining collar is screwed onto the barrel of the shock, measured from the bottom of the thread. These settings are not to be taken as the correct ones for all cars and preferences but they are a good starting point, at least they will get you to your favourite dealership or indie garage for a proper set up. So the settings I used are; Rear: 18 clicks, 35mm. Front: 12 clicks, 25mm. I also bought a new set of bolts from Steve Heath Engineering Ltd , which saved me having to clean up the old ones, and just generally for peace of mind. As mentioned before the job was quite straightforward, j...

Just got the Chimaera back from a 6000 mile service at Automedon over in Blackpool. Went and picked it up on Saturday, made a day of it, had a little run down to Southport before heading back to Leeds. The car never missed a beat, ran like a dream. I treated the beast to some new wipers on it's return home, so back to eBay and bought some Trico Innovision wiper blades, they're the ones that hug the screen like the ones on all new VAG cars. So we shall wait and see what they are like, I didn't throw the original ones away...just in case. Did a bit more fettling too, after the recent torrential rain the mats on the drivers side were soaking so time to try and find the point of water ingress. The obvious culprit was the cover to the brake cylinder on the wing under the bonnet. So it was time to remove the cover and get rid of the 10 years of silicon that had been put on by every mechanic that filled/checked the brake fluid level. After cleaning off all the old sealant it was ...

I've seen a few posts on Pistonheads.com asking about how people have fitted their component speakers, so I thought I'd show how I did mine! I fitted a set of 5.25" Focal V Slims to the front, the main units fit perfectly in the standard holes, I did have to drill new holes for the screws but apart from that straight forward. The crossover got secured to the inside of the door panel. The 1" tweeters were fitted to the top of the door card facing the front seats. The rear speakers used to be a set of JBL 6 x 9" units when I bought it, these were fitted to a piece of MDF covered in the same carpet as the interia. Given that it used to take up all the room behind seats I decided to get rid of it. A couple of screws later and it was out. In there place I got a couple of Infinity 5001i units, these are fitted in the air vents on the rear bulkhead, I used a couple of 1" square blocks of wood on each speakers as spacers, so that the vents still did there job and th...

Feeling a bit flush I went and bought a Leven Technology alloy gear lever surround, some people think they look a bit 'Max Power' but I'm very happy with the results, as with other Leven goodies, I think it makes the interior look a little tidier. So now for the fitting, ok it's pretty straight forward but a bit fiddly... First pull the gear lever gaiter out from between the transmission tunnel and console, and put the top alloy surround over and on the gaiter. Holding the surround down in place I selected each gear in turn making sure there was enough fabric spare to allow movement, when I was happy that I could still hit all the gears I took a bradawl and made the seven holes required, take time over this step as my fabric was quite stiff so it was quite difficult to trap under the surround when test changing the gears: Next was to test fit the surround by putting the bottom plate underneath the gaiter fabric and loosely fixing the top surround on with the bolts, I ag...

Seen as I had a few hours spare I thought I'd give the motor a bit of a cleaning. Very pleased with the results as you can see from the picture below: This was achieved with a whole load of Meguiars kit. The steps I followed are: Washed with " Gold Class Car Wash Shampoo and Conditioner" Clay the car with " Quik Clay Detailing System" Clean the paintwork with " Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner" Polished with " Deep Crystal Polish" Finally waxed with " Deep Crystal Carnauba Wax" In total it took me 3 hours and a lot of elbow grease, definitely thinking about investing in good polishing machine. But I've got a good shine on the paintwork and a lot of small scuffs and light scratches have gone, which is good.

Well, it finally gave up the ghost, since I've had the Chimaera the alarm has been more and more hit and miss whether it would unlock the car or not, until it just got unusable and therefore so was the car. So I gave Carl Baker a call at Car & Bike Installations Ltd . We came to the decision that the best way to solve the problem was to send the alarm unit down to Carl and for him to code two new fobs to it, seen as the alarm couldn't be put in to "program a new fob" mode with the dodgy fob I had. First I needed to remove the alarm unit, this involved lifting the dash on the left hand side, so I removed the two screws that hold the "glove compartment" under the dash and removing the two nuts and washers that hold that side of the dash on. Now to remove the unit; I propped up the dash with a spanner so I get to the alarm unit, easily identified by the red M99T sticker on it, just a matter of carefully removing the connections from the back: the two white ...

...well nearly. Just fitted the new exhaust heat shield from Steve Heath Engineering Ltd. So simple to do, just needed two open ended spanners, 10mm and 13mm. Loosened 2 of the bolts that hold on the PAS pump, slide on the shield, tighten them up. Job done. Here's the result: This now protects the swirl pot, serp belt and otter switch from the heat of the exhausts :)

Well the winter months are here so it's time to put the TVR to bed for a while, on with it's hat and attach the accumate battery conditioner. I regularly start it up and move it around just to make sure things are still working... ...also there's a new "everyday" car on the scene! Gone is the SEAT Leon and I'm back is an Audi A3! (Had a S3 before the Leon) I went for the snappily named A3 2.0T FSI S Line DSG, which means it has the flappy paddle gearbox. So far so good.

Right time to have a look at the induction side of things, cooling the air getting into the engine, with a plenum isolator plate and heat reflective sleeving for the induction pipe, and helping it get air into the engine with new carbon fibre trumpets. Heat reflective sleeving: Easy enough to fit; Undo the clips around the AFM and plenum Unplug and remove the AFM (you don't have to do this but it makes life a lot easier) Now you can slip the sleeve all the way down the long induction pipe until you hit the front bulkhead I also covered the 90 degree bend in a couple of pieces of the heat sleeve, just to make sure Trumpets and Isolator Plate: This is a bit more involved, instructions to remove the plenum and trumpet base can be found here A few pictures of the various stages; You can see the various pipes and throttle pot removed from the plenum: With the plenum removed; don't forget to remove the vacuum pipe to the FPR, it's at the back of the plenum: Disconnect the vacuum ...

Well popped down to MPH06 last Sunday to see Clarkson and his gang do the usual tricks, very good way of spending a day! Especially when they had models like this in the halls... CG-Lock also had a stand there and I'd been looking at these for a while, after just missing out on the group buy on Pistonheads. I now have a shiny new CG-Lock in my possession! Fitting: In the dim and distant past I remembered that you need to alter the way that you fit them to a Chimaera, as it has a multi-pass tongue on the seat belt. A little digging and emailing and TVRBob had the answer and a full pdf document on how to fit it! Right now for a test drive...

Well I took the plunge, based on the fact that it's a long way from Yorkshire to go to get Mark Adams to custom map an ECU chip I bought one from his shop on eBay instead! Fitting was quite simple, if not a bit nerve racking (must not get static on the chip! must not get static on the chip!) and the instructions included with the chip are very informative and straight forward, luckily I had an ECU that the chip and decoder board slotted straight into with no messing. It was all a matter of whipping out the ECU from the passenger footwell, undoing the torx bolts holding on the cover, carefully removing the standard chip, replace with the decoder board, add the tornado chip and refit!! :) So now for a test firing, ignition...the fuel pump whirrs away, which is a good sign...engage the starter motor...the engine does a few revolutions (to build up oil pressure) and then sparks into life, GET IN! Right time to take it for a spin; first impressions are good, the engine behaves well at l...

Had a couple of new front tyres fitted, Toyo Proxes T1-R's, the Bridgestones were looking a bit too warn, pretty much between 1.5 and 2.5mm left. It looks like they don't make the T1-S's anymore or at least blackcircles.com can't get a hold of any :/ All I need to do now is put them through a few heat cycles and about 500 miles to get rid of the mould slip and they should start to stick to the road like very sticky things! I had also noticed that the rear end was clunking a bit when going into bends, and when the car was in for it's MOT the mechanic pointed out that the rose joint on the near-side anti-roll bar was a bit loose/warn. So it was time to raise the back end and take a look, sure enough the rose joint was a tad loose. I do have to hold my hand up and take the blame on that one, got distracted when fitting them :/ Now all the nuts are tight it's a lot quieter, there's a joke in their somewhere...

Well another day and another Mod-Wise kit to fit, after this I should have the ability to open the boot from the outside, without having to put the keys in the ignition and press the button under the dashboard, and I should be able to see in the boot at night!! Here's how I went about it: Fitting the relay to the boot actuator. This was a matter of pulling up the carpet in the boot to the right hand side of the boot catch (as you look at the car from the rear) and finding the wires that feed the boot latch actuator, here are mine (picture taken from inside the boot looking backwards, the light pod is the off-side rear): Now attach the wires with the supplied clips, and I've also taped the relays in place with good old duck tape! Now it's a matter of feeding the door micro-switch and it's wire around the boot, again I used little strips of duck tape to keep it in place, and fed the switch over the near side wheel arch and through to the passenger door lock actuator. This...

I noticed during this weeks MOT that the left hand fan wasn't working, I did wonder why the temp was creeping up in stationary traffic, when it hadn't done so before. So it was time to get dirty and sort out the electrics and to fit the Mod-Wise two stage cooling kit I'd ordered even before noticing the stationary fan! First get the fan moving again, simple answer, dirty connections. The plugs that sit straight behind the fans were the culprits, the first ones you come across if you follow the wires from the fan itself. So it was a matter of a quick poke and scrape around with a suitable screw driver and some wet 'n dry, short out the connectors to the otter switch with a paper clip and hey presto, spinning fans! Now for the kit, generally following the instructions given in the kit by Mod-Wise and the additional instructions on The Chimaera Pages, these gave me enough information to fit the full kit. I will be attaching the additional power supply this weekend, this al...

During this summer the veneer on the dashboard started to crack a bit more, so I decided to replace it with a Leven alloy item. After reading up on www.chimaerapages.com and using Steve Heaths bible I set off removing the old dash and putting the new shiny one in...Here's a bolt by bolt guide on how I completed it- Dash top removal: Unscrew the passenger "glove box" under the dash Find and remove the three elusive bolts that hold the dash top on Now try and move the dash top into a position where you can get the right hand side bolt to come free, this was completed with a lot of swearing and sweating Dashboard removal: Work your way along the dials and switches removing them from the old dash one-by-one and reconnecting them separated from the dash Unscrew the screws that hold the heater controls to the dash bottom, keep hold of the bolts that are used as spacers between the controls and the dash bottom Now you should be able to lift the old dashboard from the dash bottom...

Organised via the Pistonheads web site and VUE cinemas there was a meet and film night on the 28th July. Here's my pics...

Right to bring it up to date here are the mods/work I've completed so far... Outside: Clear indicators, front and side Replaced rear screen Fitted wire mesh to bonnet holes/louvres Leven petrol cap Inside: Leven stalks Leven pedals (inc. new accel. linkage) Leven air vent covers (top and front) Leven handbrake lever Leven steering wheel screws Leven alloy dashboard Leven ashtrays Leven gear lever surround Pioneer DEH-P5600MP CD/MP3 headunit Focal V Slim 5.25" & 1" component speakers in front Inifinity 5001i 5.25" speakers in rear Alpine SWD-1600 subwoofer Chrome cigar lighter Alloy tax disc holder Mod-Wise boot opening and LED light kit Seat Belt CG-Lock 4 point harness Tuscan seats Headlight reflector Roll Bar Greasy Bits: Mod-Wise hot start kit Mod-Wise 2 stage cooling kit SH drop links front and rear Magnacore 8.5mm HT leads Bosch Coil Braided brake pipes Braided PAS pipes Leven oil filler cap SH swirl tank plug ACT induction kit, fully covered in heat reflect...

Welcome to my new blog! I've owned a 1997 TVR Chimaera 450 since June 2004 so I thought it was about time to make notes on some alterations I've made to it, so I can hopefully maybe help other people. Here are some pics from just after I bought the car: