Body/chassis height on Spyder chassis

[ttaunton]

In the Spyder instructions that come with their chassis, they mention locating the body on the chassis without drilling any holes etc, and then checking the clearance between the Webers and the underside of the bonnet, then packing between the chassis and the body (presumably the mounting pads just behind the dash) before drilling and tapping the front towers. Presumably the chassis flanges either side of the centre section will need packing as well. (I would leave the rear bolted down as reference.) This of course means re-fitting the engine and carbs which is a pain, just so you can check the carb/bonnet clearance.
Has anyone done this? Was the clearance OK on a Spyder chassis if the chassis sat down without packing? If not how much packing was required? Can't I just do it by measuring between engine mounting and bonnet underside? The last chassis I fitted (Lotus not Spyder) was allowed to sit right down before drilling and tapping the pads, no spacers, and the carbs never touched the underside of the bonnet at all. Presumably as the engine mounts sag, things can only get better! Putting spacers in sounds a real pain and will put the body under strain as far as I can see, because it will never be pulled down evenly.

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

When I fitted the body of my Elan onto a new Spyder chassis I had already fitted the engine & g/box (much easier than trying to fit after in my oppinion). The body went on, centered itself & found where it wanted to sit on its own. There were no clearance problems for the Zetec engine & 45 DCOE's, this information is of course not much use to you. Packing between the chassis flanges along the centre section were however necessary. I measured the gaps between the body & flange to find the reqired thickness of the spacers, which I turned out of Aluminium.
Any help?
Cheers
John

[riverkeeper]

When I fitted my bodyshell onto a spyder chassis it wasn't what you would call a direct fit ! It's more to do with the fact that the bodyshells are 'a little all over the place' etc. I firstly needed to move my bodyshell laterally a small amount to get an even tyre to wheel arch gap on both sides. From memory I needed to add packing pieces to the mounting plate at the rear of the transmission tunnel as the bobbins did not naturally sit here. Bonnet clearance wasn't an issue and this was with a tall block conversion. I did need to remove/ modify some glass work in the engine bay and additionally around the fore area of the floorpan in the boot to get clearance/ good fitment here. Once I was happy with the placement I then set about drilling the holes. two of us spent a couple of days doing all this and left the engine fitted during all this.