Century Motorsport Ginetta G55 GT4 Build

During the Christmas holidays from University me and three other students accompanied by one member of staff went to Century Motorsport to help build a Ginetta G55 GT4.

Day 1

On arrival the car was a bare chassis with only three of the air jacks attached. The first job for us was heat proofing some of the body parts like the transmission tunnel and the rear bulkhead using aluminium foil tape. This is an important part of building a reliable track car, if this wasn’t done and the body panels were just put on as bare fiberglass there is a very high chance of fire. It is important to keep the tape from being creased as this not only looks scruffy but it will not function properly as it is designed to be a smooth reflective surface to reflect heat rather than the fiberglass absorbing it, if the tape is massively creased then it will not reflect heat as effectively.

The second job for me was to run the brake lines and the air lines for the air jacks through the chassis whilst the rear bulkhead and the other air jack was being fitted. For me it was easy to keep the lines tidy as they were all going to similar places in the car. I fastened the rear T piece for the brakes with a bolt through the chassis on the right hand side of the transmission tunnel and ran the hose along the bottom of the top right supporting bar for the transmission tunnel to the front of the car using zip-ties to fasten both lines neatly just to the front bulkhead. From here there was another T piece for the splitting of the front brakes and the air hoses ran alongside the brake hose all the way through here to its own T piece that split the lines for the front of the car, this is as far as the lines could be plumbed in for now.

The next job of the day was to fit the carbon fibre panels for the side of the car (just under the doors) these required riveting and gluing to the chassis, to rivet the panels in place first I applied the adhesive to the inside of the panel and put it into place on the chassis. With someone holding the panel holes could now be drilled through the panel and the chassis for someone else to rivet the panel to the chassis, this was then repeated for the other side and was left for the glue to set. The dash was also bolted into place and left for the next day.

Day 2

The second day started by installing the steering rack, this was simple as it just bolted straight on to the front of the chassis, we then all helped to put the rear body shell on. The rear of the body was made up of two struts that cover either side of the door pillars, the roof, the rear window cut out and the rear bumper this was quite a challenge to get on and it required some bending and pulling but it eventually slipped on to the chassis and was fastened in, the dash had to be removed whilst this was put on but once on it was put back. I then started on fuel filling cap and neck, this was bolted to the body shell we had just put on and it required drilling out the holes already in the body to the correct size and then lining the back up with the front and bolting them together, I did one side whilst another student was doing the other, the other side to mine was actually broken and one of the tapped holes for the bolts to screw into was just spinning and this had to be repaired and was then re-attached.

I then lightly sanded and painted the four front wishbones and while they were drying I went to cut some bolts to fit them because we didn’t have the correct ones, whilst doing this I burned my hoodie, this is an example of bad workshop practices as it also burned my hand when putting myself out, this was my own mistake and is a reminder to always wear correct PPE. Once the hoodie incident was over and the wishbones were dry I went to fit them but I soon realised that the wrong suspension brackets were welded to the chassis, this was a problem that only Ginetta could fix as they needed to grind off the wrong bracket and weld the new correct one back on, this was thought about and discussed and it was decided to carry on with the car and do everything we could and just leave the suspension.

The next thing I did was to secure the fuses and relays inside the car now that the dash was back in, I bolted them to the side of the foot well on the left hand side of the car once this was done I started with the extinguisher cable. The old extinguisher cable needed to be removed and a new one put in, this was a simple job and just consisted of undoing the nut holding the old one in place and pulling the cable through, then threading the new cable and fastening the nut back up for the new one.I then started making a plate that was going to be riveted to the front bulkhead, this job took me to the end of the day and would be continued in day three.

Day 3

I started where I left off mounting the carbon fibre cover on the bulkhead and when I had marked the holes and drilled them they were close to the edge of the plate but by being careful and not rushing it the plate didn’t split and is now held securely in place.

I then started with the reservoirs for the brakes and clutch, they were mounted on the driver’s side of the car under the bonnet on a plate that was bolted to the chassis, it was important to keep the reservoirs level when mounting them so the fluid will be level when they are full. The hoses from them also had to be run down the front of the bonnet, this meant keeping them neat and making sure that they were away from anything that could get hot when the car is running. I also tightened up the master cylinders, there are three, one for the clutch and two for the brakes that are split between front and rear unlike most road cars that are usually split diagonally. When tightening the master cylinders I realised that one of the bolts were too long so I had to cut this down and then reattached it and then set about organising the hoses and making sure that they were all easy to get to but still neat and out of the way, whilst doing this job my assistance was needed and someone else wo worked at century completed the job of tidying the hoses out of the way.

I then installed the windscreen wiper motor, this was simple enough in theory, just putting two bolts in two holes and tightening them but this proved to be one of the trickiest jobs yet as it was very inaccessible and required one person to hold the motor in place whilst the other got the bolts into position.

I then heat proofed the front of the front bulkhead right in front of where the engine is going to be fitted and then helped install the extinguishers whilst I was in that position for the bulkhead. Once this was done I then had to heatproof the sills with the same aluminium foil tape where the exhaust was going to run and then the final job was to use the airline to blow all of the dust and debris off the body and inside the car, this was as far as we were going with the car as most of the parts were in Dubai for spares for another one of the Century Motorsport Ginetta G55’s that were racing in the Dubai 24hr and out three days were at an end.

I would like to thank Century Motorsport for the experience and their hospitality.

I would also like to thanks the people from the University of Bolton who accompanied me over these three days making it a fun learning experience.

The Century Motorsport Ginetta G55 car number 229, finished the Dubai 24 hour race 1st in class.