Well today was the time to say if I had a working car or not. After the last race of last year the race car has been parked up, and not moved, the battery removed and put on a slow charge to keep it alive. Today was the day that the battery got reunited with the car and I tried to start the car, first mistake was I forgot there was still the immobiliser on the car, so had to turn that off, then on the first try the car turned over (I had removed the connector to the coil pack to ensure it turned over before I attempted to start the engine) Once the car had been turned over and no issues were seen, I connected up the coil pack lead, and the car started on the first go. It actually started a lot easier than when we were at Thruxton, I guess this is to do with me taping up the two large holes in the inlet tube. I have located one of the samco hoses on ebay that was too good to miss to replace this pipe, and as they have a lifetime guarantee then in the long run it should be cheaper than just getting a replacement BMW part.
Also whilst it was not raining (at present it does seem to be raining a lot) I took the opportunity to change out the water pump, thermostat, change the oil, and fit a new ancillary belt. Another change I thought I would do is replace the engine mounts, the ones that are in there are 2 years old, and have been subject to a lot of abuse with the old engine spouting oil from an unknown location, and then during a race, they do get a little more harshly treated than if they were on a standard road car, and for the piece of mind, and the price of the new mounts it was a no brainer.
The next item is the tidying up of the wiring (again, it feels like this is never ending) I want to replace a couple of original BMW connectors with some aftermarket ones, this will allow me to shorten the cable length at the same time, but this will have to wait till we have some dryer weather.