Hi all
What experiences have builders of scratch built cars (as opposed to kit built) had with sva inspections.
Has anyone used the Carlisle centre.
cheers
keith

[Edited on 10/5/07 by gy351100]

Mine was scratch built - had no problems with the SVA. You get exactly the same treatment when it comes to the inspection.

HTH,
David

No problems at all.

The test was the easy part compared with 2 nights working on the car through the night before the test!

..well, tests...


At the end of the day, if the car is well presented and looks like you've taken care throughout the build, the inspector will see this and it'll be reflected in your pass!

HTH,
James

1st time pass at Nottingham.

Presentation and first inpressions go a long way at the test centre.

We've had at least four scratch built 1st time passes within the Northants Group.

David

The only time it's going to be a problem is if:
you've left out crossbracing from the standard design
built something completely different (midi/trike) which doesn't look strong
or your welding looks like chicken droppings catapulted onto the steel tubes.

all the above apply to manufacturer chassis as well, but doesn't happen very often since the SVA was introduced.

mine was scratch built chassis but not by me.

the inspector's do take a look at the welds and kinda know from expericence if it is string enough not to fall apart.

do you have to get a scratch built chassis inspected prior to SVA? I'm thinking that some parts of the chassis may not be visible once the car is complete.

What about material specification for the Chassis? Do you have to have the certs etc for the box section and tube?

When I recently had my car's SVA test at Nottingham the tester Martin did mention that he is always a little concerned if he knows it's a scratch built car. He reckoned that he could tell on a lot of cars where the builder started welding as the welding got better as he moved along the chassis, but I think that was said tongue in cheek.

Geoff

If I'd acrried on with my chassis, you could have definitely told where I started! But I would also have probably scraped that one and re-done it all. If nothing else, by the time you get to the end of the chassis you've had a good few hours more (recent) welding eperience than you had before, so you're bound to be a bit better.