Build 1. IVA Trim and Prep

The very first job was to put IVA trim around the openings where the front suspension comes out of the chassis, and to also protect the chassis to stop anything happening to it further down the line.

The actual IVA requirement is to simply trim the top two holes where the upper wishbone will go, and you only need to do the top half of these holes. However my car is based on a red, black and white scheme and I actually think the trim fits in well so I'm going to trim the lot. Also the edges without trim don't look so neat or finished in my opinion.

whilst this is a relatively simple task, it is fiddly and time consuming, you also need to glue it in place, which is easy with a few dabs of glue every couple of cm on the back of the trim on the inside of the chassis. N.B. I haven't glued the steering rack hole as I have heard that it can actual fail if the steering rack catches on the trim here, so I'd rather leave it unglued and go from there.

I also covered the internal chassis bars with some normal garden hose pipe (this is to allow maximum space when fitting the engine), and the rest of the edges with 15mm pipe insulation.

Summary

• The smaller upper wishbone front bolt is a tight fit, and will potentially require you to push the aluminium panel in when fitting it, I've had to remove the trim from this part so the nut will fit when attaching it. (it mentions this in the 2015 build manual)
• Test bolts before gluing trim
• The trim is sided, the long side is the bit for the inside of the chassis
• I used some tweezers to pull back the rubber and drop a dab of glue, this will stop you getting glue everywhere!
• Protect the chassis with what ever you have, it is as fragile as a Coke can!