Now that you have built it can you live with it?

[ndragun]

Mine is behaving reasonably well as a daily. Fixed idle with A/C off is quiet and smooth, feels generally like stock on the current tune below 4000rpm-ish (albeit rich all over the place except tiny throttle openings, where it runs lean). HLAs with these cams I think can get overwhelmed during valve opening, it can sound a bit clattery at certain load points. Solid lifters would have been better if I could be bothered at the time. I suspect the lifters won't last terribly long.

Since I've still not sorted the IAC issues, it takes a good few cranks to get started, and with A/C on it cycles between idling at 500-ish RPM and 9-1000 RPM if I don't compensate it with throttle. Because I moved one of the A/C relays that usually belongs under the bonnet when I did the rewiring, there is also a loud click each time the compressor cycles on and off.

The XIDAs are good and compliant but are set up at the moment to be a bit underdamped, so can very occasionally get a bit of a bounce going if you hit a series of bumps at near enough the right frequency.

I hate the catch can venting to atmosphere. The smell pretty much gets sucked straight into the cabin when sitting at lights or in traffic.

The transformation from white to black with a red stripe attracts too much attention, is awfully hot in the sun, and I look at all my mistakes where I can see bits of white, stretches in the vinyl or changes in the grain each and every time I get in the car
If I had the time and patience (which I currently don't), I would rip it all off and do it again.

[3gress]

Ndragun, what is that supermiata clutch/flywheel like to drive on the street? I'd imagine it is harsh on takeoff but does it clatter about or create too much noise?

[ndragun]

Ndragun, what is that supermiata clutch/flywheel like to drive on the street? I'd imagine it is harsh on takeoff but does it clatter about or create too much noise?

Good question - it is actually currently not in the car.
Early on while I was trying to tune tip-in, it was getting in the way. I was stalling left right and centre trying to iron everything out. So I went back to a cheapo, stock clutch and the original flywheel, mentality being that I wanted to tune driveability first, before re-introducing anything else that might negatively impact driveability and the cars ability to get away smoothly from a stop.
It is not so much the clutch itself that affected take-off, but the extremely light flywheel that makes precisely holding engine revs quite difficult when its hunting and misbehaving due to fueling issues... So I really wanted more flywheel weight to help me out.
At the time, I had an oil leak around the oil pump to sort out, so I pulled the engine - the cheap clutch was a "while I'm there, make life easier..." decision.

So that gives you an idea what its like basically!

Pedal weight is significantly heavy - it actually feels a bit unbalanced since the brake/throttle is so light.
I didn't find noise to be an issue, over the ITBs and the slightly increased diff whine (poly diff mounts). Maybe with a quieter car it might come in to play... I don't know.

It IS able to be slipped, but as you'd expect within only a very short pedal travel.

To be honest, in the past few weeks I've actually been thinking about dropping the gearbox to swap it back in, now that I've got driveability more sorted. So maybe in the next month or so I'll report again on my build thread.