Street Legal

Hi there, just a quick update to cover what's happened during 2019. Summer wasn't quite as good as last year and for some reason there didn't seem to be so much time for long trips. I still managed to get out occassionally though. The feeling of driving along country lanes with the top down and the wind in ones hair can never be beaten. Well, maybe a jog along spanish beech with the coast stretching into the distance, the waves rolling in and the  sun shining down is also a bit of a hit too.

Anyway, the summer went well, until! The MOT (besiktning) was due in December but for some reason in September the sun was shining and so I thought "hey why not get it done and out of the way today?" So I did, but the two guys checking the car "noticed" the Super Charger (Kompressor) that had been there a while and hadn't been noticed before. 

Failed!

Any modifications to a vehicle must be approved and go through a thorough approval process. I was given two choices:

• Take the compressor away and put back everything to it's orginal state.
• Get the car re-registered with the compressor

Either way I would have to fix it within one month otherwise the the car would be given a körförbud (driving ban). Well, I was pretty upset and wished I had taken it somewhere else or at least waited another month or so. Problem was I knew there were restrictions to how much power to weight ration one could have. Officially it's 15kW (20HP) per 100kG. But then, after a chance meeting at one of the Scania Roadtrips with Stefan who had squeezed a Honda engine into a Fiat X 1/9 (https://photos.app.goo.gl/NfNJKwZiKjDExWdC8). He mentioned one could apply for an increase to the standard, I would no longer need to worry every year whether my compressor would be found or not! 

The rules looked like this: (815kG/100) * 15 =  122.25 kW (166,5 HP)

Which was fine before as the standard BMW 318is engine is 140HP. Adding the SuperCharger increased the HP to 220HP which meant:

220HP (163kW) / (815kG/100) =  20kW per 100kG.

Long story I had to start by contacting Gustaf at SFRO. He said I would need a dyno test result showing the new HP and the car would have to go through another sound test (bulletest) again which was a pass at 81dB. He also had to test the brake stopping effect in meters/sec2 which was also a pass at 0.9G 8.8m/sec2. He also wrote a recommendation that the car was okay to be approved with the higher HP.

Gustaf doing the sound test

I then put the car through a new registration MOT expecting everything to be sorted out but it failed. I had misuderstood and thought there was a new category for sportscars that allowed 20kW but 15kW was still the highest! So I had to write a request for dispence to the transport authorities, asking them to allow the higher kW. I was told it could take between 3 and 5 weeks to get an answer so it was going to be a nail biting time, would it be a no or a yes?

Within just 3 days I received a letter saying YES they agreed. Thanks a lot Björn!

So the car is now legally SuperCharged woohoo!