Radically Altered Vehicle, later engine swap

You would need to give more detailed information - Because getting to 8 points without changing the shell/chassis is a task - are you really changing the other parts for radically different types?

As the process is a complete registration process the car will in effect be a new / different car to that on the original documents and will start with 14 points as it is now registered and recorded with those alterations - If you changed the engine to a different type you should by the regs register the car again!

If you take away 1 point then by the rules you have "Radically Altered" the vehicle.

Radically altered vehicles are vehicles that have been altered from their original specification, but are not kit conversions.

So 8 9 10 11 12 13 points is all the same process that allows you to keep the original registration mark providing no changes to the chassis. However once it's in that process it could be decided that it needs an inspection to check that it does not require an IVA.

And yes you could keep changing the car and going through the registration process - and as long as that chassis remains unmodified there may be no requirement for IVA. You can keep on changing within 8 points with no chassis mods every time and re-register the car - hopefully that it does not raise an alarm and trigger an inspection.

That's how I read and understand it but never having gone through that process how it actually works in practice may be different.

The original car has 14 points.

A body swap on a NON modified chassis would retain those points and would also retain original reg and original 14 points.

So, regardless of change in appearance , you can still whittle away at those 14 points.

However , regardless of how long vehicle have been used with mods it will never get 14 points unless it is BIVAd ( into a new car ).

Yep complete load of plums - Changed it too many times did not read it through and lost my way a bit with it as I got distracted with the "Radically Altered" process. You can make as many points changes as you like providing you don't go below a "fixed core" 8 points (5+3) - So the answer is if you had previosuly declared a radically altered registration at 5+2+1 then declaring that engine change should trigger a BIVA requirement.

However, I suspect that what the original Q should have been around is the "Kit converted" process whereby the actual make and model of the vehicle is changed. And we come back to the stage where hypothetical Q's are utterly pointless because without specifics you may be looking at completely the wrong process to begin with and it's probably not worth the build compromises that will be required to try and avoid the BIVA process.

As stated though it left me wondering - as it does now - just how many "Radically Altered" declarations get made for changes to "original" specifications - do 8 9 10 11 12 13 point "Radically Altered" modifications actually ever get declared.