Apologies for no updates.
I must admit I've been finding it very hard to get motivated about the car, everything I touch at the moment seems to be going wrong. At the beginning of the month the tub was on, front and rear suspension was built up, fuel tank was in and I was ready to fit the bodywork.

At the moment the fuel tank is on the floor, main tub is half off, rear suspension is in bits, diff is on the floor and the front suspension is half off too. It seems that every step forward I take I'm jumping back 5 or 6. I can really understand why some people just don't finish as it can get really soul destroying when it's going wrong.

On the upside, with the tub half off I've removed the AIS setup, which was very straightforward, I just need to get hold of a decent M8 tap so that I can screw some bolts into the holes I have left behind. I've finished the design of my cooling system thanks to the help of the guys on locostbuilders and the yahoo bec list and here's what it looks like.

July 14th

Cooling system

The thermostat on the 2002-2003 R1 is mounted differently, it uses solid pipes to connect the stat to the head at the front, this means that the stat protrudes from the engine bay. To relocate it I've cut the hard pipe in half and used the 19mm Samco superflex to join the two halves together, this has allowed me to relocate the stat to just by the front passenger side engine mount.
I ordered my header tank from a very helpful guy on ebay, seller ID is cater7man. He also made me up a reducing t-piece for the top hose that allows me to connect the larger rad pipe to the stat and t off to the oil cooler.

The bottom hose is pretty straightforward, a straight reducer from 25-32 sits on the water pump outlet, this joins into some 32mm aerial support tube from B&Q (£6.49 for 6ft!) and then from there I've turned the corner with some of the 32mm superflex which connects to more aerial tube and back up to the radiator.

The reason I used the superflex is the engine bay is quite tight so being able to bend around bits easily is quite handy, the only downside is the lack of the samco logo :(

With the side panel hanging off at the moment I've made up the template for my exhaust cut out.
Now that I've managed to psyche myself up to doing some work I'll be taking some pictures of where I'm up to!