Lily’s Blog 4: No strippers but plenty of flashing.

“Needs must when the Devil shits in your kettle”

Basically everyone heard about the crash at the Matsuri.  I have been totally blown away by the level of support, encouragement and offers of help I have had from everyone.  It has totally cemented the reasons why I absolutely love the drift community.  I mean even Matt Denham drove alongside us in the middle of a contraflow on the dual carriageway on the way home to ask if we were ok and to tell us he looks forward to seeing the car back out on track next year.

So probably better explain my evil plan now. Muhahaha!

I’m fully committing to latest vision I have for Lily.  I did have 2 other Lexus IS200’s and a wee Mazda MX5 I was building as a practise cars/ toys.  All of them have been sold to make space, time and money for Lily.

It’s a full strip down and rebuild. In a nutshell we are going full commitment. Tubing framing front and rear, Rear mounted Radiator, full BDC Spec roll cage, standalone ECU and budget allowing fuel cell and inline pumps.

We will be doing the majority of the work in house.  So this will be my first attempt at tubing framing, fabrication, plumbing, building, etc.  I will out sourcing for the Cage.  Alan from Millermods in Tillicoultry  (I’ll put the link below) has offered his expert skills to make lily something special and you can’t put a value on safety so thought it best to get a professional to do this part.

I started at the front of the car with some chassis reinforcement because the OEM A pillar braces were damaged. Low car big lock problems. I have always wanted to make a removable tube frame front end.  So having never made a tube frame for a car before, I bought a tube bender and went for it.

The tube I used is 22mm outside diameter with a 3mm wall thickness.  I picked this bar because Driftland SDC drift series spec won’t allow anything thicker than 25mm but they have now changed the rules so I could have used something thicker now but I have bought all the materials now so fuck it.

I haven’t finished the framework yet as I’m waiting on the body kit arriving so I can line up lights, bonnet, bumper, etc before finalising it.