David Irvine

Rear wheel bearings

2010-09-03T10:03:00.004+02:00

I decided to replace the rear wheel bearings on the seven as they were making a bit of noise. To make life easier i knocked up a stand for the rear of the car which means I can stick it on the stand rather than using floor standing axle stands or a trolley jack to support the car. This proved very useful.

The theory is you remove the hub, and undo the bolts that hold the bearing in place, and use a slide hammer to yank out the half shaft. Not having a slide hammer compounded this, but the first one came out with a few stern blows with two hammers on a back to front hub (providing me with something substantial to hit.)

The other took many hours of smacking with hammers, chisels, heat and general swearing before it gave up. I cut a groove into the bearing itself, and then used a cold chisel to break it off, this worked pretty well. The new bearings are now ready to fit, and will get pressed into place by my local garage.

Seven Trip to spain

2010-09-03T09:50:00.010+02:00

Not much driving weather this year, however I did manage to get a trip to spain with some friends, they were flying from all over the place, so I drove down through france on my own. The weather was forecast to be wet (Imagine my surprise) so I decided to take it easy over a few days as it can be pretty miserable driving when the water is coming in through the drain holes.

The first day was mainly getting through the Netherlands and Belgium, which is miserable at best, but the rain was just damp rather than biblical, so quite good fun. Northern france got a bit wetter, but started to dry up by the time I got to Dijon. I had a bit of a moment when there was a horrible metalic noise, I thought at first the alternator had come off again, which was surprising as its threadlocked, and lockwired, but alas it was only the number plate which had come off at one side. I just undid it and threw it in the boot where it will stay for the time being.

I went through about half a litre of oil on the way to dijon, so apparently I still have a major oil leak out the sump. Grumble.

The next day was towards the Tarn, the morning was very wet, and very slow, but the roads were nice, and fairly quiet, in the afternoon it turned to random showers, and the scenery changed into some nice twisty mountain roads, i went over numerous cols, and found I far prefer the Yokohama A048 tyres over the Toyos, it just feels more planted.

The sun came out just in time for Mende, so I spent a few hours going up and down Cols and mountain roads, the car is really on form, traffic is minimal and i'm enjoying every second. I stop for some groceries, and go out for another our or so before stopping for the night in a camping.

The next day I followed to Tarn gorge, before heading up the side, and over the Millau bridge. At this point I noticed that the alternator output was lower than it should, and the ignition light was flickering. Having had an alternator fail a year ago I know all about the tell tales signs, but the ammeter was flickering all over the place. I also know that David ashurst has been plagued with ignition light flickering recently and that its caused by an electrical connection in the lucas plug. I pulled over and cleaned it up, and squashed the connector a little to provide a better connection, and the problem was solved.

Traffic was obnoxiously bad so I just followed the coast down to spain and then cutting off a pininsula and coming over an amazing bit of road into calonge.

The week was spent driving shorted distances over some great stretches of road in the costas, with a different passenger for every trip. The car was in great form for the most part, with a crack in one of the vaccum connectors forming and causing an air leak which was a bit of a pain for the rest of the day until I got back home and resolved it.

The way back I went pretty much dead straight home, doing around 130kph most of the way up the peage, everything was fine till belgium when I noticed a small water leak when refuelling, there was a pinhole in one of the hoses, so I just cut it off and shuffled it up a little which got me home. I also noticed the fuel consumption was up for the last tank, which turns out was a fuel leak in the tank (again) so I'll add that to the list of jobs to do which is currently:

* Adjust the position of the gear box so it doesn't vibrate against the crossmember on hard left turns.
* Fix the fuel leaks from the tank
* Replace the rear wheel bearings which are getting a little noisy
* Make the speedo work again.

Fuel tank and wheel bearings

2010-09-03T09:50:00.006+02:00

I've had nothing but bother with the fuel tank since I had it made to my design by a company in the UK. First they forgot the order, then when it finally arrived it leaked fuel all over the place, and to top it all they over charged my credit card by 100 pounds. I still haven't had a refund for the difference let alone the leak stopped. This all came to a head last week when I went out for a quick drive and could smell petrol. I turned around and went home, when I arrived I could see a steady stream of fuel dripping out the rear of the car, the weld had failed in the swirl pot.

I decided it was time to get the fuel tank out and fix it properly, before doing so I drained the tank and filled it with water, I could see it driping out of a seam at quite a rate. I took the tank out at this point (which requires dismantling most of the rear of the car.) and decided to pressurize the tank a little so i could find all the other little leaks too. At 5psi the tank burst along the top seam. The welds are terrible, and not very deep, which left a 9" gash along the top.

I didn't want to waste any more summer driving time, so I decided to fix it myself. I borrowed hans' TIG welder and set about learning to weld with it, its not easy, and for some reason I seemed to get electric shocks off the welder very regularly, but I did manage to get to the point where I could run a consistently deep, if not very tidy weld, so moved onto the tank. I welded in a bit of right angled aluminum along the top as the gap was too big for me to weld up again, and welded up the seam at the bottom of the tank all the way along. It stopped leaking streams but it still leaked a drop here and there at 10psi.

I've now sealed the tank with some Tapox tank sealer, so hopefully this should do the trick, over the winter I'll probably get a new one made up as I don't trust this tank any more.

Interior Finished

2010-09-03T09:49:00.002+02:00

I finished the interior of the car this weekend. I was being held up mainly as I had to wait on some parts. I had to fit the on/on/on switch for the wipers, however in some fit of mouser madness I misread the part number and whilst it is an on-on-on switch, its actually not any use on its own, as its positions are Z+X X+A A+B which means I still need to use a relay. So I just broke, and wired up a relay that breaks the park circuit when the wipers are on. They wipe, and seem to do so pretty quickly.

I fitted the replacement flasher, which flashes, and checked all the switches function as they should. They did, so I bolted in the dash, its pretty solid, and fits just the way it should. I think it looks really good, and am very pleased with the end result. It was definitely worth all the mess. I cleaned the interior with an air gun, hoover, and fabric cleaner, and routed the internal wiring, and stuck down the side carpets. The immobilizer stopped working because the sensor was too far away from the fob, so i need to move it somewhere else, but I'm not sure where yet.

I then trimmed down the seat belt tails to a more sensible size, i went for six inches past the buckle. Next up was to trim around the windscreen. My plan here is to use alcantara, with one edge tucked under the windscreen ever so slightly (should be fine since its bonded in place with copious amounts of PU) and the other is held down with some U trim which also puts the required radious on the edge of the windscreen surround. I then used contact adhesive in the bits in the middle, so hopefully it will all stay up there. It was fiddly and took forever, but looks pretty good now.

I bolted up the hideous sierra steering wheel, and checked everything worked, it did so had a celebratory drive around the car park, gear change is crappy since there is no tactile feedback from the lever, but this will be easily remedied post IVA. The car is pretty quick, first gear is pretty tall though, i'm hoping the 3.21 diff was the right choice afterall. The interior is now finished, I'll need to start covering it when i'm doing messy jobs to try and keep it nice and clean.

Floor Finished

2010-08-27T00:00:00.006+02:00

I fitted the rear diffuser today, it runs the full width of the car, and starts at the rear bulkhead running flush with the rear of the bodywork. Its bolted on with M5 rivet nuts, however as it should be an aerodynamic aid providing some downforce, i wanted to make sure it didnt flex. I've added three tubes bolted in place at the rear to pull down on the bodywork. The look is growing on me, at first it looked a little bit to MaxPower, but its wearing off. As it will count as above the floor line, it needs to have a radiused edge, so i've added some U trim to protect mr IVA man and his delicate little fingers.

At the front I fitted a bit of right angle aluminum to eliminate the gap between the bodywork and the floor, you don't notice it, but I want to force air in the front of the car through the nose, not through the floor where possible. I added some U trim around the aluminum floor to protect me and my delicate little fingers.

I removed the sidepods and cleaned up all the dust in them, and bolted down the bonnet clips. It took ages to get a good shut line again after I put them on, so I hope I don't need to do this too often. The floor is now complete, and I think it looks pretty good.

Inside I fitted the heater hose, I then decided there wasnt enough air coming out the vents so added another hose at the other end which required some cutting and shutting of the fixtures and fittings, but now provides a bit of a blast when the fan is on.

I added a T-Pull handle for the fire extinghuisher, its within arms reach under the center console, but well out of the way in case it gets pulled accidentally.

Wipers and Intercom

2010-08-20T14:47:00.006+02:00

Fitted the windscreen wipers, these have a 95 degree sweep, so I've mounted the offside one just to the right of the steering wheel center, and the other about 5" to the left of where the tip of the blade finishes. Finding the position was easier than I expected, using a protractor and the arms and some tape I put them in various positions and checked that the were not missing anything in my field of vision.

Fitting the wheel boxes to the motor on the other hand was endless frustration. The theory is simple enough, there is a corrugated flexible bit of wire that runs through some copper tube from the motor to the wheel boxes, the wheel in the wheel boxes is turned by the teeth on the wire, the wire is pushed and pulled by a crank on the end of the spindle.

I measured and cut the tube, and used a mandrel to bend it into the right shape, offered it up to the wire, and of course, it didn't go in. The wire is about 8mm, as is the ID of the copper tube. I de-burred the edge, and tried again and it got as far as the first bend, where of course it was too narrow to go any further. I spent a good few hours trying smaller radius bends, before finding another roll of ever so slightly larger tube that allowed at least some movement.

I then flared the end, before noticing that i hadn't put the nut on yet, after remedying that I offered up the rather inflexible assembly to the wheel box. This is located under the windscreen, above the electrical tray. It fits in there with a bit of bending, but removing the nuts on the end require the patience of job. These nuts are used to clamp the copper pipe in place, the wire then goes through the wheel box, and into another section of copper tube. I spent a good hour wiggling, and eventually managed to get the wire to pass over the lip on the clamp, another eternity tightening it up, before i (thankfully) had the good wisdom to test it worked, because as soon as i pressed the button the fuse popped. Tried again with a slightly larger fuse, and it pushed the flare out the motor end, i yanked on the wire and it was locked solid.

I assumed this was down to the cable being crushed, but after removing it, it was obvious that you have to thread the wire through the wheel box, as there is not enough of a gap for it to sit home if you don't, so basically when i tightened up the clamp i was just locking the wire in place.

I decided at this point, that things were getting too complicated, so i decided to use 10mm ally tube, and move the motor inside the car to eliminate the need for tight bends in the tube, this should allow the mechanism to run smoothly as well as making it easier to fit.

I drilled out the brass nut on the motor to 10mm, and put a flare on the tube, put the nut in a vice and screwed in an alloy boss which sits in the motor housing and is clamped in place by the cover of the motor. Of course i over tightened it and it sheered away in my hand. This was turning into a bit of a bodge, so after a bite to eat, i decided the best option was to make a new boss. (its simply a T shaped bit of metal with a hole in it) I did this by taking some alloy bar, turning it down so it had a lip on it. I then brazed the alloy tube to it using durafix, and some air of professionalism started to return to the finished result.

With it all bolt in place, the mechanism moves very smoothly, and is rock solid, which was pretty much what I wanted. I can now keep myself awake when i sit in the car by being slapped in the face by the wiper arm until I get round to sorting out a windscreen.

Next job was to fit the intercom. I've mounted it on the sidepod to my right, just at the end of my arms reach under the dash, to make the wiring tidier, i drilled a series of holes in the back of the casing and routed the power, and comms wires out there, leaving just the inputs for the music/gps etc at the front. The wires for the headsets will run along the outside of the sidepod to their rubber mounts.

The side repeaters are also fitted and wired up, along with an indicator switch and working hazard switch (Using a conventional way of doing things.) which will do until SVA, although for some reason my flasher wont flash, i tried a different flasher, and it flashes, but at the wrong rate due the LED lights, so i've ordered a replacement LED flasher unit.

I made a very crude, and tbh not very good shift lever by extending a momentary on toggle switch with some alloy tube, this will do until I get rid of the ginormous sierra steering wheel (Post IVA) and can fit a proper flappy panel wotsit behind the smaller momo one.

Fury Todo List

2010-08-20T14:03:00.009+02:00

Its mainly little jobs now, in no particular order these are:

~~Interior~~

~~Fit the dashhboard~~

~~Mount the dash~~
~~Mount the T-Pull handle for the fire extinguisher~~
~~buy and fit a working flasher relay~~
~~Fit (Temporary) buttons for dip/mains and horn~~
~~Make and fit temporary shift lever~~
~~Fit the heater hose from the dash to the heater~~
~~Fit the heater hose from the heater to the driver footwell (Exhaust should keep the passenger warm.)~~
~~Fit a working switch for the heater fan~~
~~Fit the intercom~~
~~Order and fit switch for wipers~~

~~Stick down carpeting~~
~~Carpet around the windscreen aperture~~

Engine:

Make an airbox to get through SVA
Adapt existing air filter to sit 180 degrees from its current location and make hole in bonnet
Remove AIS system and turn it into a breather system
~~Order~~ and fit a catch tank
Change the O-Ring on the sump for a yamaha part
Order and fit alloy tubes as current ones seem to be porous

Bodywork:

~~Glue rear lights in place~~
Use some PU to fill any gaps
~~Fit front air dam~~
Buy and fit some mirrors
Wash clean and polish
~~Buy and fit rear diffuser~~
~~Fit side repeaters~~

Windscreen:

Buy and fit windscreen
~~Fit windscreen wipers~~
Fit washer nozzle

Brakes:

Set the brake bias
weld up the bias bar for IVA
Remove the bias bar adapter

Wheels

Balance the wheels as a couple of the sticky weights came off
Fit all the wheel nuts, and cut down the front studs if required

Suspension

~~Book and appointment to get suspension set up and corner weighted~~

Bonnet pins and rollbar

2010-08-20T13:58:00.003+02:00

Bonded in the bonnet pin mounts to the side pods, but i think it will need to be bolted, i'll bolt them in at a later stage when i have a good reason to faff with the side pods.

Put a final coat of black on the roll bar, and bolted it in only to find out i'd ran out of m10 nylocs, managed to find one, which is enough to hold it in place, with the other bolts just screwed into nothing. Will pick some up on Monday and finish the job.

This didn't stop me from adjusting the harnesses and fitting them, with the adjusters in the right place they are a lot more comfortable and of coarse, a better fit, whilst very comfortable the seats are tight to the bone, to the point i can actually feel the seatbelt through my jeans. Must lay off the pies.

I spent the rest of the evening tidying up the garage as i hadn't really put anything away since before I left for spain. The seven needs some post-trip-love, or at least a wash, so i might try to get started with that tomorrow. Its dripping oil on the floor so i'll put of washing the floor (which is now a little slippy) for a bit longer, or until i slip and crack my head properly.

Next up in the fury is to finish of the electrical parts. Until I can get a circuit board manufactured for an affordable price, i'll use a normal toggle switch for the indicators. The hazards need to work with the ignition off, which presents a problem, with the ignition off, and key removed, i can turn on the hazards, this is run from a permanent live feed. However, the indicators, work from the ignition feed. If i have the hazards on, and turn on the indicators then the ignition circuit is live too as power can flow back up the feed from the ignition circuit. I'll put a nc relay in there to cut the power for now. I also need to find myself an on-on-on dual throw toggle switch for the wipers, for now i'll just leave the wires ready to attach.

If all goes well with the wiring i'll have a go at fitting the wipers.

10% of the progress, 90% of the time

2010-08-20T13:50:00.005+02:00

I'm down to the predominantly little jobs. I picked up the shifter arm when I was last in the UK, so I fitted that to the flat-shifter solenoid,

I need to finish the wiring, and there is now nothing in the way of this, so i've been out with my soldering iron, loom tape, and zip ties. The engine bay is now complete, with the flat-shifter-max wired in, and connectors ready for the rest of the flat-shifter post IVA.

All the engine loom is tidied away nicely, however I think i will need to make a support for the bike loom as its a little too short to sit on the bulkhead nicely.

Next up was the bonnet catches, these are aluminum cases with locking pins, these look pretty nice, and are strong enough, however the bonnet has a pretty poor fit around the side-pods, as the pins are not locked, I think they may end up coming loose due to the side pressure.

To stop this happening, i've bonded and riveted in some plates to the bonnet, the plates have a pin in them which goes vertically through the side pod, this keeps the bonnet in place horizontally, whilst the locks keep it in place vertically.

Next job is to fabricate the mounts on the sidepod that secure the bonnet to the car.

Trip to Zeeland

2010-08-01T13:18:00.008+02:00

It was sunny so I went for a drive in the seven with tunerstudio running to see if I could improve things, I couldn't but the drive was lovely.

Basically, there is not enough variation in MAP pressure, and the rate of change is very steep off idle with no change at higher rpm. This means that the VE table is pretty flat.

Subsequently, I changed over to TPS based fueling, the result is a much more responsive drive, throttle response is like lightning in comparison, and it feels and sounds like its set up properly. The AFR is much closer to the AFR target. I've only ran autotune for about an hour or so on what was a relatively quiet drive, so the edges are not tuned yet, but for the most part its pretty close. Its certainly very drivable

Whilst I was trying to get Alpha-N working I hit a few idiosyncrasies in the tuning software. There are three fueling options for megasquirt: Speed Density; (MAP Based) Pure Alpha-N; (TPS Based) and Blended.

For now I'm using Pure Alpha-N, however when I set the fueling algorithm to Alpha-N in either tuner studio, or megatune it was still using MAP for fueling. For whatever reason it was using the blended algorithm. This seems to be not a bug, but slightly misleading name, Pure Alpha-N is essentially blended, but starting with Alpha-N rather than MAP. Therefore I set the Threshold to 9k in the Alpha-N blending dialog.

In addition, I had ego correction active at idle, this results in an idle which falls and rises all the time, setting EGO correction to be active above 1200 worked a treat.

Seven engine rebuild (again)

2010-08-01T12:46:00.004+02:00

Well after a disasterous start to the year, it was time for a new engine. The root cause of the failure was the lubrication system possibly caused by a blocked oil cooler.

I got a short block from Jem Engines, its a 711 crossflow bored out to 1700cc, with fully balanced internals. The engine is fitted with ARP con rod and fly wheel bolts. I reused the Kent 244 cam, and burton stage 3 head.

The first thing to do before building anything was to thoroughly clean the head, as the bearing failure had likely resulted in a lot of crud going around the engine, I stripped it completely and used pipe cleaners to go through each oil passage, and cleaned it with gunk degreaser and compressed air.

Afterwards I painted it black (it was blue) to match the block. I used hammerite and so far it seems to be doing the trick.

Next was time to do the ARP bolts, Eric gave me some ARP Lube, so I torqued them up to 40 ft lbs.

I can build a crossflow in a couple of hours from memory alone now, I could even remember the number of degrees to set the cam to, although this didn't stop me from making a hash of it the first time and having to re-time the engine after everything was built up.

I used a competition gasket set from Burton, Eric recons the best way to get a dry seal on the sump is to evo-stick the gasket to the block, then use a little blob of silicon around the rubber seals on the end, and tighten it up gently.

I tried this, the result was an enormous oil slick on the garage floor after the first drive so I'm back to experimenting with silicon... The engine was back in the car in less than 4 hours, ready to start, or so I thought.

It fired up first time, but made a noise that left me clutching my wallet.

It turned out that the oil pipe was ever so slightly grazing the con rod bolt, this thankfully was easily fixed with a gentle tap from the hammer and it finally ran smoothly. Getting the sump off in-car is a real pain, however if I loosen off the engine mounts and replace the gearbox->engine bolts with longer ones, I can use a crow bar to seperate the engine from the box about an inch which is enough to get to the rearmost sump bolts.

The fury lives

2010-08-01T12:30:00.003+02:00

After two destroyed wiring looms I finally got the engine wired up properly in the fury. The trick is to completely ignore the wiring diagram in the owners manual.

The first time, I wired it up based on the colours and connections indiciated in the manual by shortening the loom, and things were very confused. After an enormous amount of faffing i got the ECU to intermittantly function.

The second time I got exactly the same results but with no functionality by wiring it directly from the wiring diagram. The reality is that there are quite a few additional connections, earths, shared VRef feeds etc, that are not indicated on the diagram, as well as a few circuits for the ECU that are simply missing, immobilizer for example.

What I did in the end was wire up ll the sensors, get the ecu to report fault codes, and work as expected, then on at a time removed things that were not connected up to anything. This left me with a minimal loom, including relays, fuses etc. I then followed each wire to the fuse box, and cut it at the fuse box end. The cut wire was then re-routed, and extended/shortened as required to the engine feed wires.

Each time I did this, I turned everything on and made sure that things were still functioning, this made it easy to find any problems if I introduced any.

The result is that I now have a handful of wires coming out of the bulkhead to power and control the engine, these are tidily spliced into the engine loom which also goes through the bulkhead to the ECU.

The end result was that I could start the car, it fired up first time, with no fiddling which was just what I'd hoped for. I let it tick over for a while checking for bad sounds, leaks and any problems.

Things got pretty smokey as the heat wrap burned off all its chemicals, but settled down nicely, the side pod gets pretty hot, above the manifold where there is no heat shielding, but stays pretty cool everywhere else which I hope will be fine. I think I will make another hole in the rear of the pod to let the air out when driving though.

Hans came over so we fired it up again and had some fun with the loud pedal.

Since then I've taken it for a quick spin around the garage car park, this is going to be great when its on the road.

Fury Progress

2010-06-06T14:18:00.004+02:00

Has been slow, lots of things getting in the way of moving forward, engine wiring has stalled, i can't seem to find a fault, and am wondering if its the ECU. I also have an oil leak (Joy) from the o ring in the sump, so that needs to come off and be fixed.

I've been trying to get little jobs done, but have been plagued by broken parts, wrong sizes, shorts, the seven has current priority, but am aiming to get going again in a month or so. I am making progress with the dashboard though.

Mallory Six Hour

2010-06-06T13:52:00.006+02:00

Despite the seven going belly up en-route, we entered the Mazda, it was pretty good fun, we were doing 1:9s-1:11s with Edwinas, and my lap times were consistent throughout. Paul had a small off, failing to turn left into the Edwina chicane but didn't clout anything which is the main thing.

The car held up ok, however post Cam belt change the (new) fan belt gave up after 2 hours and we had to repair that, and a split hose which cost us about an hour. In the afternoon the rear tyres were off, so we rotated the inside and outside rears which made the car much more drivable.

People were very friendly and we got a lot of encouragement throughout the day. We were pretty fast through Gerard's, but just didn't have the power to get the speed up the hill towards the hairpin, so we did find ourselves out-braking people into the hair pin, being overtaken down the hill, then overtaking them again round Gerard's which made things pretty interesting.

Lotus had a clear win, with some good driving and team management. We were the only mx5 to finish (out of 3 starters) and came mid way up the finishers which was good enough for us. In all honesty i was just glad we didn't bend it, or worse, vomit in our helmets like some copilots.

Houston, we have a problem (Twice.)

2010-06-06T13:30:00.004+02:00

Despite being thrashed incessantly for 4 weeks through morocco resulting in only self inflicted trauma, the seven has now left me stranded by the side of the road twice in 3 weeks. The first through a head-gasket problem, the second due to something big going bang.

The end result is that the block, crank, rods and head are back at Jem Engines, where they will be cleaned, bored/ground/skimmed and balanced, before being sent back for the final build. In preparation for the six hour at mallory I thought I should try to put as many miles on it as possible, sadly following the two dry days in March, there hasn't been much dry weather in Holland since which meant getting out in the car has been difficult at best and not possible the rest of the time.

The weather in Western Germany, and Luxembourg was due to be not-wet, so off I set, laptop running auto-tune in the passenger seat, following the Waal/Rhine over the border, then heading cross country towards Trier, the TomTom provides a lovely route, (Set max speed to 40kph) about 4 hours into the drive, somewhere near Aachen, I came into a small town and as I slowed down into traffic, and up to a red light, i noticed the engine was stumbling a little, queue comedy smoke screen as the revs fell to idle and i had to nurse it to keep it from cutting out.

I could feel my hand rushing towards my wallet as I thought of all the possibilities, but when i realized it was just a head-gasket, my next thought was to get it to Holland so I could be recovered directly home. I was about 60km from the dutch border, so I hopped on the Autobahn direction Maastricht and hoped for the best, about 5km later the temperature shot up, so i pulled off, cooled down and poured in 3 liters of water, queue more comedy smoke at idle, but was fine for another 38km where i had to do the same again (Thankfully, i was feeling thirsty earlier.) I made it about 10km over the border before it was out of water again, and managed to pull into a service area to call the ANWB.

I then spent 4 hours waiting on the ANWB, who got lost, then sent a guy that couldn't tow it, who got his mate with a beaver tail that didn't fit the car..... In the end it made it on a flat bed, after my ordeal by the side of the road, I was only just able to cope with 3 hours of dutch country music in the truck home.

The gasket had failed, and was repaired the next day. The following week I was due to take it to the UK and park it up at Paul's house in preparation for Mallory meaning i could fly in in Thursday night, get in the car friday, and all would be fine. I set off, everything was going well, then on the M2 I noticed oil pressure was a little lower than normal, I assumed it was just the thinner oil i'd used post-head gasket, but pulled over to check there was still some in it, there was, so off I set again. I got to my favorite spot on the M25 when there was a funny noise, the engine changed pitch, and overheated whilst i did a 4 lane dash, at this point i noticed i barely had any oil pressure and had that sinking feeling.

I ditched the car, and spent a long time on the phone to the ANWB to try to get recovered, in the mean time i noticed that i was getting enormous blow back out the crank case breather, this was going to be expensive.

The car was then recovered and despite every mechanic trying to tell me it was the fuel pump, or a wiring fault, despite me explaining that this thing called an immobilizer was cutting the connection because they hadnt wiggled the fob.... Its back in holland now, there is a lot of metal floating in the sump, so it looks like a bearing had failed either as a result of low oil pressure, or possibly the root cause. I'll continue stripping it down and hopefully figure it all out soon.

APK and Gaskets

2010-04-23T10:11:00.003+02:00

The seven sailed through the APK, more or less at TheFritz.nl. The CO output at fast idle was a little over, so i adjusted the load bin down in the megasquirt. He asked if the noise at the rear was the wheel bearing, but its just the noise the diff makes and he was happy with that. I demonstrated that there was really no play in the wheel, and that it turned freely.

He pointed out that copious oil was dripping out the car, whilst this isn't an APK failure, its bad for the environment and can get me fined. I obviously don't want an oil leak at all, for a whole host of reasons. I explained it was from the rocker cover and i was having lots of problems with it. A few minutes later he emerged behind the counter with a carpet tile and said this will work.

I cut it to shape, and sure enough, it seems to do the trick. I noticed a few spots on the floor still, so i think i still have a leak somewhere, but its nowhere near as bad as it was, and it certainly isn't from the rocker cover or the breather pipe now.

Crossflow Rocker Gaskets

2010-04-05T14:08:00.002+02:00

I think I finally found the cause of all the oil leaking everywhere. It seems that its pouring out of the rocker cover flange. I have an alloy one, and its always somewhat awkward to fit it. There is a cork gasket which invariably isnt quite the right shape, when its tightened up, it has a habit of being squeezed out.

To make it easier to fit, I usually use copious amounts of loctite gasket sealer which bonds the cork gasket to the rocker cover, making it easier to assemble. It seems that this is still not good enough, I've always been aware of a small amount of oil on top of the inlet manifold, which I assumed was mainly runoff from when I'd filled it, however on closer inspection there is actually quite a lot of oil running out and down the block.

I've since dispense with the cork gasket all together, and cleaned the alloy back to bare metal. I've applied a fair bit of loctite 5922 flange sealer, hopefully this will be the end of the leakage. On a better note, this seems to be the only leak that I actually have, although its hard to say as it gets everywhere.

Engine

2010-04-03T23:18:00.003+02:00

I thought I was all set to start the engine in the Fury, the last time I did anything with the engine, i was unable to get the expected output on the original bike clocks. I put it to the side as actually starting the engine was a long way off.

Since then I've plumbed the engine, and lengthened/shortened the loom to fit the car installation, the prop shafts are connected, the wheels are on, and the controls are connected up. It was time to have a go starting it.

I put the engine fuses in, filled the engine with 3.8l (Total oil capacity according to the service manual) and wired the bike clocks up permanently, it took a while to work out which wire did what for power and earth. It immediately registered a few error codes, i reduced this down to one for the EXUP motor, which i am not using.

I turned the engine over, and the digi dash registered a tach signal, and the injectors were firing, and the fuel pump was running when turning over. The engine had oil pressure, it was time to start the car.

I pushed it outside, filled it with fuel, and went to start it up, for some reason the bike dash was no longer displaying any error codes, and i had no sparks, no fuel pump and no injector firing. I spent the rest of the day trying to find the problem, it seems to be related to the wiring, and the relay box. I think the fault is somewhere between the ECU and the Relay box, related to either the immobilizer, or the relay box itself. I think the ECU is not receiving any indication that it should run.

I also found a minor wiring problem, in that i'd wired up the connection between the ECU and the #1 injector to the ignition live. They both use the same color wire. It does make me worry what other mistakes i've made though. I also noticed that I could hear a relay clicking when i leant on the wiring loom. I expect that this is probably the root cause, and is either a break int he wire, or an intermittent short somewhere.

Little Jobs

2010-04-03T22:29:00.005+02:00

Its been a whilst since I posted, lots of non-car related things going have kept me from posting progress. The car is nearing completion now, my current todo list is:

Seven:

~~Paint metalwork at front of car~~
Fix the oil leaks
Fit the additional return spring on the throttle
Check the exhaust fittings for leaks
Check the state of the exhaust wadding
Make a new boot
~~Make a floor for the boot of the car~~
Check if the fuel tank is actually leaking or if its just overspill from where i was careless.
~~Set the Timing~~
~~Adjust the tappets~~
~~Remove the foam from the underneath of the bonnet~~
~~Remove the old fuel filler, fill the hole and paint it~~
~~Rewire the tachometer to work with megasquirt~~
~~Paint the aerocatches black~~

Fury:

Fit the trim to the windscreen
Fit the flat shifter kit
Fit the battery holder
Make a bracket and fit the speed sensor
Fit the indicator side repeaters
Fit and wire in the IR beacon for the data-logger
~~Fit the warning LED for the immobilizer~~
~~Sort out the heater ducting~~
~~Adjust the headlamps and fit the cowling~~
~~Connect up the earth for headlamps~~

MX5:

Change the oil
Change the cambelt
Flush the cooling system

Wiring

2010-01-23T16:47:00.003+01:00

So, to finish the car, I 'just' have to:Fit the windscreen wipers, and windscreen

Fit the gauges, switches, vents and dashboard (all part of the same job.)

Fit the rear lights

Make an under tray and flat floor.

Powder coat the rollover bar (Painting this has been a series of disasters.)

Wire the whole thingFill with oil and waterStart. Drive. Smile.

The windscreen and wipers will be the last thing I do, as it will restrict access to everything else once it is in there. Rear lights are on order, and im still deciding over the gauges and layout of the dash, so the logical thing to do now is the wiring. I'm going to make my own loom, although there are a few off-the-shelf options that are very appealing. Premier Wiring make a great Lucas based loom, Alan the chap who runs Premier Wiring will do more or less any length/combination of clips etc, but there are a few fundamental things that are suboptimal about the loom. Mainly the proportions aren't quite right for such a small. I always find i'm

cutting out things and faffing around to make it tidy. For the money though, the quality is outstanding and its very well made.

Stafford Vehicle Components also do a 'Rapidfit' Loom and some others, these are more expensive versions of the Premier wiring loom, and whilst these look well made, ultimately are not going to be quite what I want, especially as I'm aiming to save weight, and have some specific requirements for lighting and accessories such as camera/intercom etc which all must be powered and require non-12v feeds.

The front of the loom will be supported by a tray underneath the dashboard, this will keep everything tidy. Instead of fuses I will be using circuit breakers, I hate fuses, they have a really annoying habit of blowing when i've run out, and I find them generally fiddly. Circuit breakers work pretty much instantly, which is also a good thing, but can also be reset easily and give a clear indication that they have tripped which makes fault finding simpler. Where possible I shall use Lucas color codes.

The main power control is via an FIA master switch close to the battery, this feeds the ignition key which is the main on/off switch for the car. I will fit this after IVA.

The IVA requires that the side (Parking) lights can be on with the ignition off. In order to remove any ambiguity over what qualifies for the Ignition, I shall remove the FIA master switch for IVA. Some cars disable the headlights when the ignition is off leaving just the sidelights on even if the dipped headlights are still switched on. This is handy as it means you are less likely to run the battery flat if you leave your lights on, but the simplest way is simply to wire all lights via permenant live.

I am using toggle switches for primary light control, these are rated to at last 24 Amps at 12V, this means I can power the lights directly from the switch. However I'm using a momentary on push button and a bistable latching relay to control dip/main beams. This enables me to have a button on or near the steering wheel so that I can dip the lights quickly when driving at pace without moving my hands from the steering wheel.

The push button will also flash the main beams if the lights are not switched on. There is no requirement in the IVA for this, however it is my personal preference.

I'm doubtful if the generator on the bike engine will be able to cope with driving lamps, however I will wire these in regardless. (I want to avoid splicing circuits at a later stage.) This will be done through an off/on/on toggle switch. When set to off, the driving lights will remain off regardless. When set to position 1, the lights will illuminate with main beams. When set to position 2, the lights will light when the dipped and main beams are on. The load from these lights in combination with the headlights may be too much for a toggle switch, so I shall wire these through a separate r

elay.

The IVA states that the fog light must come on when selected and when the dipped or main beams are on, it is wired through the main lighting circuit, there is no need for a relay for this.

Brake and reverse lights are wired via the ignition switch.

I'm using a lower power, constant rate flasher unit, this has a feed from the permanent live, and goes to the indicator control box, which i've designed to use single push buttons on the wheel. the control box also controls the hazard waring lamps, which must work with the ignition off.

There are separate circuits for comms/cameras, auxiliary devices (both perm and ign live) dashboard electronics including heater/fan, windscreen wipers, and the engine.

The engine loom is completely seperate with 7 wires going back to the main loom for fuel pump (switched live.) fan, (Switched earth), Permanent Live, Ignition Live, Run, and Start (Switched Earth)

MX5 hits 200,000km

2010-01-22T16:31:00.003+01:00

The MX5 rolled over 200,000km this week. I've done over 110,000KM since i bought the car, and looking back its done pretty well.

I bought the car with a missing big-end bearing, so replaced the engine at 90,000km. I replaced the engine, and had a couple of issues shortly afterwards with the water pump leaking which would have been easily replaced had it not failed at the side of the M1, Mike helped me out and a new cam belt, tensioner and pump where fitted in a couple of hours.

In 2007 Jerome managed to press hard enough on the passenger footwell that the footrest nipped the permanent live to the alarm causing a short and some smoke. In 2008 at 160,000 the differential pinion gear broke a tooth. Presumably due to the fitment of an aftermarket torsen LSD. In 2009 I had a moment after having found the OEM cigar lighter when cleaning the car out, I'd refitted it and a few days later whilst waiting on the boat at Dover the inside was filled with smoke as I must have knocked it on, and of course it didnt turn itself off again. In 2010, at 199,460km, the fan belt snapped on the way back from Germany, of course I had a spare sitting in the garage in preparation for the next major service. Other than that I've had no other issues with the car which I think is pretty good considering it is 18 years old. It starts first time, every time.

There are a few minor annoyances with the car, the bushes are getting a bit soft, and the original bilstein front shocks are showing signs of wear. The clutch release bearing is also a bit noisy and will be replaced soon along with the clutch and spigot bearing. The car eats about 1liter of oil every 3000km. The drivers seat is also a bit worn out now too, but generally despite damage caused by me being careless and the odd hummer reversing into it, its still in pretty good condition.

Over the last year I've covered 30,731KM, averaging 9.24L/100km with low 8s in the summer and low 9s in the winter time due to the aerodynamic drag of the lights I presume. The highest L/100km was 19L/100 recorded at the Nurburgring in April. I travel an average of 84km/day. The cost per KM works out at 0.13Euro including service and tax, not including insurance. (As this is on another policy for all my cars.)

The car is serviced every 10,000KM with new oil, filters, and plugs using good quality semi synthetic oil. Tires last about 20000km on the rear, and about 12-15000km on the front due to both excessive camber and the number of track days.

Little Jobs

2010-01-18T22:55:00.003+01:00

Refitted the steering column, this was quite fiddly as it needed to be adjusted so that I can get in and out, as well as enabling me to get the dashboard on and off. If I ever take it off again I'll make up a set of shims rather than using about 20 washers to give the right spacing.

The dashboard was drilled to accept the rod for the gear change, and a final coat of glass matt on the underside where the brackets are. The brackets bolt to the bulkhead to give strength to the top, the front will bolt to the metal bar. I added some filler to some of the areas with imperfections. It is now ready for final fitment. I can't do that until the wiring is done and ideally not until after all the buttons/gauges/dials are fitted.

I noticed that there are a couple of drips from the coolant pipes so i may have to get some proper joiners made up.

I cleaned up the engine bay with the air line and blew out all the dust and fiberglass remains that had found there way in everywhere. I think the wiring will be the next major job to do will be the wiring as this is going to be the bottleneck for a few other jobs.

I started with some ideas for the rear lights, more to come on that another day.

Dashboard

2010-01-01T17:58:00.002+01:00

I started on the dashboard, I tried a few options in aluminium and wood, but it really needs to be curved. In the end I decided I'd just have to fabricate something in GRP. I want a dashboard that fits the curves of the car, does not get in the way, but is also easy to reach, has sufficient space for vents and instruments, and looks like it was designed rather than just made to fit.

I first lined the area with bin bags as I was expecting to use a bit of expanding foam to fill in the gaps, I taped this all up to form a mostly water tight working area.

I used sheets of polystyrene insulating material to form the buck, these were glued together to make a block, and material was removed to form the shape.

The first idea was to have a dashboard that was more or less symetrical, with the center protruding forward. I visioned having a row of buttons on the the central part, the vents underneath. Completely flat with carbon fibre inserts, however the shape just doesnt fit the car, in order to get a large flat surface it has to protrude to far forward.

I tried a few attempts at this shape using a flat part in the middle, but it just doesnt look right.

Once I had a buck that fitted the car well, rather than re-fabricate it each time I needed to add material or made a mistake, i used two part expanding foam. This stuff is pretty messy but very convenient.

Using some tape and gravity you get a reasonable amount of control over the shape that the foam will form.

The end result was that the center part needed to be in line with the rest of the dashboard, so i tried a few options using simple curves.

I found that I like the rearward face of the dash to be close to vertical, or even slightly tapered upwards, with the two curves meeting in line with the edge of the transmission tunnel.

The top is a smooth radius between the front bulkhead and the edge of the dashboard. This gives plenty of clearance for the gear shifter, my hands around the steering wheel, and my legs without being too far away to reach.

Once the buck was the right shape I covered it in duct tape and release agent in order to make the dash itself. I was getting to the point where it was becoming impossible to sand the buck due to the changes in surface materials and their differing hardness. I decided the best option is to just make the dashboard, and use some filler to get a smooth surface, its very close already so shouldnt require much effort.

Once made, I did a quick trial fit and trimmed it where required.

I've now sanded it down and added filler to a few places. Once I get the dials and buttons I'll fit them, and then cover the dashboard in Alcantara before final fitment.

Interior Trim

2009-12-30T22:23:00.003+01:00

I started with the interior trim in the Fury, anything that I'm likely to come into contact with, which is basically the horizontal panels on the inside are lined with foam sheet, and then covered with Alcantara. The other visible panels will be covered in Alcantara.

Progress is quite quick on this, but I've run out of glue so no more progress until after new year.

First I cut the foam to size, then covered the foam in Alcantara. For removable panels the aluminum was bonded to the foam, however where the foam fits up to the GRP I will use velcro or trim fasteners to hold it in place.

Once the foam was cut to size the alcantara was then attached to the foam using contact adhesive.

The Alcantara has a very nice feel and I think it is a good contrast against the orange tubing.

Engine Rebuild

2009-12-30T22:17:00.003+01:00

I stripped the crossflow into component form, leaving the pistons and crank shaft well alone though. The bores are showing no signs of wear, but there was rather a lot of carbon deposits. I de-coked the engine as best I could and cleaned it thoroughly including the oil channels and water galleries. The kent 244 cam was installed and timed, using a timing disk.

I'm starting to see mild valve seat recession which is alarming, so I expect that by this time next year I will need to have new seats fitted, at the same time I will fit hardened seats which mean I can run pure unleaded. I may use this as a chance to rebuild one of the spare blocks and heads to give me a running spare.

I fitted new valve springs and fitted stem seals, the originals do not fit as they foul the internal spring, ones from an MG metro do fit however so these were installed. I fitted a new rear oil seal and gaskets and should hopefully now have a leak free engine.

All bolts where assembled with threadlock. I also fitted a T-piece in the top cooling hose to insert the Coolant temperature sensor for the microsquirt box.

I must now weld up the sump, or find a new one before putting it back in the car. Once in the car i'll need to run it at 2500rpm for about 20 minutes to run in the new cam, and at the same torque down the head again.

Lockwiring

2009-12-30T22:03:00.003+01:00

I'm pretty sure I don't need to take the prop shafts out now, so today I fitted the bolts for a final time. This is something you want to get right, as the prop shafts turn at very high rpm. If they come off, the end that comes off will flay around. This is a bad thing. Sometimes its just a case of new panels, other times it can sever the fuel lines causing the car to catch fire or if it breaches the floor, the car could be jacked up, causing it to rollover, or if it breaches the panelling into the cockpit it can cause injury to me or a passenger.

Bike engines produce a lot of vibrations and this has a habit of causing things to loosen off. In addition, there are two prop shafts, and a sprocket adapter which is three times as many things to fall off as on the seven.

My plan therefore is to use three things to stop the bolts coming off:

Tighten the bolts RFT.

Use threadlock on all bolts

Use lockwire or a locking tab on all bolts.

The sprocket adapter bolt is a tricky one, as it is enclosed by the prop and the adapter, this is tightened to 86nm, with locktite, and it has a locking tab which i've hammered down. The problem is however, that I cannot see this bolt visually to check periodically. What I will do initially is retighten it after 100 miles, if it is loose then it will just have to be done regularly or i'll drill a hole in the adapter and lockwire it. To give me an indication of any movement, I've put a line of paint at the joint, if the bolt is coming loose there will be a gap (however small) betwen the line of paint and the adapter which should give an early indication. The bolts are M8 cap head grade 12, and are tightened as tight as I can get them, threadlocked, lockwired, and marked.

The reversing box uses M8 bolts, these are grade 12, and tightened as tight as I can get them with the spanner, again threadlocked. These are lockwired in pairs and marked with paint.

The rear flange uses nuts and bolts, again grade 12 bolts, with nylocs and threadlock. I've lockwired the bolts and used a locking tab on the rear which is bent over the nuts to stop them turning. Again they are tightened as tight as I can, and marked for security.

LC-1 Permenant Installation

2009-12-28T15:31:00.003+01:00

As part of the upgrade to fuel injection, I am installing the LC-1 permemantly. Right now I have installed it in a plastic box with the guage and a 12v lead so i can plug it into the auxiliary power feed when I need to monitor Air/Fuel ratio. This has worked well as there is nothing you can do to the carbs when you are driving other than observe the readings in order to make changes later.

Megasquirt however, is capable of real time mixture adjustment using the EGO code and a wide band O2 sensor. This combination allows megasquirt to adjust the AFR (Within preset limits) towards a lambda target. I want to make full use of this as it should make tuning easier as well as providing better running.

The first part is to install the LC-1 Permenantly, to do this I need to mount the unit itself behind the scuttle. I've made a bracket form a bend strip of aluminium which is screwed onto the bulkhead. The tails for the communications bus are cable tied out of the way, and the main lead is fed towrds where the megasquirt unit shall go.

In order to link the LC-1 and the wideband o2 sensor. I've made a hole about 3cm in diameter through the side panel just underneath and slightly in front of the bottom of the dashboard. This allows the 22mm diameter nut, and the body of the sensor to pass through (These are smaller than the connector at the other end.) In order to seal it all up I've used a large grommit, the whole of which was too big for the cable, so I used some corrugated cable wrap to finish it off. The cable is then cable tied in place up to the LC-1 so that it should not get snagged.

I have left the guage in the box with the power supply. This will enable me to get a visual indication of AFR when driving as needed as well as the option to recalibrate the sensor if I need to without a laptop. For everything else the 2.5mm jack is easily accessible with the dash on to connect up to the laptop.

Radiator Mounts and Ducting

2009-12-10T22:19:00.003+01:00

The radiator mounts were too flimsy, this caused them to fracture. The old ones where riveted in place and made out of 2mm steel with no bracing. I removed the ones which were still in tact, and made some new ones out of 6mm steel strip, welded in place. They form one complete mount per side rather than four individual ones and are a good bit stronger than before.

The car was getting very hot in the desert at speed, so I replaced it with a new one on the assumption that the damage done by the fan bending the fins was restricting the air flow, time will tell if this really was the problem or not. At the same time I moved the fan behind the radiator, using the solid mounts rather than mounting through the radiator, this means the fan is very close to the radiator which should aid cooling when stationary, and it also overlaps the oil cooler slightly which should have an additional benefit.

To further aid the airflow, I added some ducting around the radiator to force the air through it rather than around it. I'm doing additional work to the bonnet and when i finish that i'll smooth it and paint it.

Exhaust Wrapping

2009-12-10T22:09:00.002+01:00

The exhaust wrapping has been coming off slowly over the last year or so, so i replaced it with new stuff.

Hans suggested that soaking the wrap in water before wrapping would make life easier, and it certainly does. It becomes a lot more pliable when wet, and it stretches, then as it dries it contracts leaving a very tightly wrapped result.

Floor Painted

2009-12-10T21:34:00.002+01:00

After Morocco, the car is in need of some love. Half the Sahara seems to be inside of the car, so as the weather is cold and wet, I've started with a proper clean.

I removed the seat belts and anything else in the way, got out the wire brush and grinder and cleaned up all the floor back to painted metal, and in some places back to the metal itself. Two coats of hammerite later its looking pretty good.

The seats were maukit, so I cleaned them up with detergent, and some vinyl polish, they came up pretty well.

I Also painted the roll bar, and a few other bits of the chassis which were exposed to daylight and have faded a little.

Todo

2009-12-06T21:31:00.003+01:00

Seven

Engine

Fit and reinforce engine mounts to ensure they wont fail in the same way again.
Fix or replace sump, either shorten the existing one or just stick a non-battered one on, whichever is easiest. Potentially make a sump guard.
Change crank shaft end seal for one that doesn't let oil pour out - some people find a bit of oil acceptable but I find it embarrassing so it needs to be sorted out.
Since the engine will be out I want to change the cam, I'm relatively happy with the piper 285 cam, it has lots of torque from low RPM, and reasonable high end power so changing it is a bit of a gamble. I've decided on the kent 244 cam, its a high lift cam, and should give improved top end power, with a loss of low end torque. To compensate I'm going to be running fuel injection, which should enable better fueling at low RPM and pull the torque up a little.
Remove cylinder head, de-coke, and examine engine for wear- I'm interested to see the state of the valve seats after 7000 miles using additive, its also a good time to change the head gasket, its got pretty hot a couple of times, and I'd like to ensure there are no failures in the gasket.

Fueling

Fit the Mega squirt (Microsquirt) for full fuel injection.
Buy and Fit a larger fuel tank - 20 liters just isn't going to cut it, I feel I'm constantly refueling.
Fit larger fuel lines with a return to the tank, for fuel injection I will need a fuel return, standard sizes seem to be based around 10mm for fuel feed, rather than 8.
Fit the in line fuel filter and buy and fit injection pump
Fit the throttle bodies from the GSXR 750
Permanently install the wide-band LC-1

Bodywork

Remove the scratches from the bonnet, remove the nuts and bond it into one single piece rather than the Sort out the bodywork, fill up the hole where the aerocatch doesn't fit due to the intake system and make it orange again.
Make a new boot box, i'll need this because the fuel tank will be a different shape, and wont fit within the current one, it is also starting to rot a little and needs to be made out of something non-wooden.
Fit a new drivers side mirror as the current one is beyond service.
Paint the interior where the paint has worn and touch up the rest of the car as appropriate.
Make and fit ally floor covers

Electrical

Accessory wiring needs to be rewired, with heavier wire, and a smaller, dedicated fuse.
Decide on a data logging solution that is compatible with the mega squirt

Other

APK is due in December.

Fury

Fit alcantara cloth I got for the interior
Finish dashboard buck and make dash
Wire engine completely
Fit passenger seat and seat belt
Paint and refit roll over bar
Make car bottom from ali and fit
Fit the prop shafts with grade 12 bolts
Fit steering wheel and boss
Figure out the dash layout, and the logic design for the indicators on the steering wheel.
Figure out the appropriate adaptors needed for the oil pressure/temp senders
Decide on the dat logger I want to use
Get the rear lights and wire the rest of the car

Garage

Fit car ramp, wire in new motor or inverter as required
Enlarge mezzanine as appropriate.
Do a full clear out post-sanding.

Video of various bits of the Atlas

2009-10-30T09:39:00.001+01:00

Night Drive to Seville

2009-10-14T15:47:00.001+02:00

Me and Zurial AKA The Moose took the long way round from Lisbon to Seville

From Goodwood to the Sahara

2009-10-14T13:03:00.003+02:00

From Goodwood to the Sahara

I managed to blag a few weeks off work, and I've been desperate to spend some quality time in the car, sure we took it to Le Mans this year, and regular long day trips and the odd weekend away, but what I really craved was a driving holiday.
Combine that with a certain urge to visit Morocco and climb Jebel Toubkhal and you have all the makings of an adventure.

The start of the trip coincided with the Goodwood revival, Ivonne and a group of ferrari owners were heading over together and I was invited to join them for the weekend, so I really was leaving in style. I was a little nervous about this, I had images of owners of pristinely polished and meticulously serviced Ferraris staring frustratedly at me whilst I tried to make my car start by the side of a particularly wet motor way, but actually it couldn't have been further from the reality.

I didn't get off to a very good start however, I managed to sleep in, promptly drove like a maniac towards belgium to catch up with the group, then ran out of fuel about 1km from the petrol station to discover that in my haste to get underway i'd put the empty jerry can in the back, and not the one with some spare fuel in. No major delay, just embarrassing.

We stopped off in Brugge for a spot of breakfast, despite the belgians doing their best to keep us out by raising all the bridges for no apparent reason. Breakfasted we set off for the Eurostar and then on to our hotel in Canterbury. The next few days were spent at Goodwood enjoying the racing, people and the Champagne which seemed to be flowing rather well. The highlights for me were the 1960's GT and LMP cars racing, these cars are just beautiful, not just the shape, but the sound as they drive passed. Other highlights included the Avro Vulcan Bomber, it really is an amazing piece of engineering, the noise it makes is something to behold, but for such a big aircraft it seems to be incredibly agile.

Goodwood is incredibly well done, with full access to the paddock most of the weekend, the air displays, racing and everybody in period theme, the racing almost becomes just a backdrop. At the end we tried our luck for a few pictures of the cars outside Goodwood house, we had hoped to be a bit closer, but Jeeves was keeping a rather watchful eye over the driveway near the house, and I suspect the odd shotgun within reach to keep the peasants at bay so we found a nice stretch of lawn just out of range.

The car was behaving more or less acceptably, but I noticed it was getting a bit hot on the sunday for no good reason, I topped up the oil and water to no avail, then the next day it was fine again, so put it down to the warm weather. I sailed from Portsmouth to La Havre, and from there the real holiday begins.

From La Havre, I set the TomTom to limited speed of 40km/h and the destination Le Mans, the weather was overcast but dry, the roads pretty quiet, and the countryside beautiful, i pretty much didnt see a big road or town until just out side le mans where I started to recognise things, so took a detour around the public part of the le mans track, you can drive down the mulsanne straight, and the arnage bends, I thought it would be rude to pass up an oppertunity not to.

From there I dialled in Orleans, then Pau, I camped the night in the Gascogne national park, I stopped for fuel and I noticed whilst queueing up that the temperature was getting a bit high and there was a bit of a rattle form the front of the car, this was not good, so I did some investigating at the camp site.

There were two rattles, the first was the bolt that holts the tensioner for the alternator had come loose, it then vibrates out and hits the water pump pulley, where it rattles and bounces around. I tried to tighten it up, but to no avail, so I took the pulley off to discover the bolt had snapped, my heart sank a little at this point as the bolt is UNC (Almost impossible to find easily in continental europe.) and of course the remainder would require me to remove the waterpump, and possibly drill out the remaining bits.

I know from experience that the waterpump can be somewhat leaky when a bolt is so much as wiggled, let alone removed, however the only symptom so far was that the water is being pushed out into the expansion tank, and air being sucked back in from somewhere else. I decided to leave it until it properly failed and then fix it. I had brought with me a full gasket set, but obviously would rather avoid messing around with the pump.

I then tightened up the alternator pivot bolts as tight as I could, and removed the tensioner bracket, I also know from experience that this will work for a finite period of time before the bolts start to loosen a little and you get a squeal from the belt.

The next problem was the fan, the fan blade assembly is held onto the motor by a bolt, and a square drive gear, I'm not sure which failed first, but the drive gear had shredded the hole in the fan blade assembly and rounded all the threads off the bolt, the nut was nowhere to be seen.

I had horrible visions of melting down on my way to Santiago de compostella, but figured thats what ANWB coverage is for. This was not the place to be looking for spares, so I decided to carry on the next day as planned, avoid cities (Already the plan.) drive in later at night and park up somewhere I could fit a replacement.

The next days drive was over the col from Saint Etienne de Baigorry in France to Erratzu in Spain, its a wonderful drive, tight twisty bends, great sweeping vistas, reasonable road surface, the odd man and his donkey, and not much else for many many mountain miles. The drive was blissful, the temparature stayed under control despite spending a good 20 minutes or so above 5000rpm, 2nd gear, 3rd gear, brake brake brake, 2nd gear, turn, and repeat.

The rest of the day was a bit of a slog into Santiago, I arrived around 9pm, and parked up at the first parking garage within walking distance of the hotel, and went out for dinner. The next day I phoned rally design who were sadly about as much use as a chocolate kettle. That is twice in a row i've had bad service from them despite spending many thousands of pounds with them over the last year. Instead Burton power came through and sent me out a kenlowe fan next day guaranteed delivery which turned up the next afternoon complete with fitting kits and quick fitting kits. Its a bit bigger than the pacet one so i had to bodge it a bit, but it was mounted, wired in, and worked a treat.

From Santiago it was off to Lisbon for what was supposed to be just 2 days as I'd spent a bit longer in Santiago, but I spent at least 3 days there having a great time. I went out to Estoril, and watched some motorbike racing, before heading off to Seville for a couple of days.

En route to Seville the additional weight of the fan caused a stress fracture in the radiator mount so I had to stop to rethink that, and patch it up. The road was pretty nice, a little congested to begin with then some nice twisty sections in the dark before arriving into the traffic nightmare that is downtown seville.

From seville it was the boat from Algeceres into Ceuta, and from there into Morocco. The spanish side is as you would expect, I got singled out by a rather nice border guard who wanted to check it really was my car, they checked the VIN number and all the documents including APK and Greencard. Paperwork at the Moroccan border was minimal, and the touts not too annoying, you simply drive up to the window, get your passport stamped - you need your entry card filled in before this point, as a foreigner you don't have a C.I.D. number but you must fill in everything else or at least attempt to, else the guy will get a bit stroppy.

After your immigrated, its time for your car, you will get a form from the window you fill in the info from your passport, registration document, and stamp from moroccan immigration, they stamp all three copies and give it back to you, from there you hand the top copy to the Duane 10 meters later and drive out, keep it all handy as you have to wave it at the policeman at the end of the border area about 50 meters later.

I was now in Morocco, somewhat nervous but very very happy. That was 3500km and I was still in one piece. More importantly so was the car. The mediteranian coast of morocco is pretty much like europe, and I started my drive south towards Fes, road signs are minimal but there arent many roads so its pretty easy to navigate.

Once it got properly dark and the roads became a little less of a pedestrian zone I picked up the pace, enjoying the bends, working the car a little harder, overtaking when I could, then all of a sudden I saw a white wandy thing waving in the middle of the road, it took me a long time to realize it was a police checkpoint and throw on the brakes.

The poor chap standing in the middle of the road with no reflective bits, dressed in black with just a little wand to wave must have needed a new pair of underpants. Needless to say he wasn't best pleased, he told me to move to the right, get out the car and give him my papers, experience told me this was going to be a) long b) expensive, or c) all of the above. Actually once we'd both recovered form the surprise he was pretty friendly asking about the car, where I came from, did I like Morocco, etc etc, and this was pretty much the standard conversation from then on with any of the authorities. That night I camped by the side of a country road over night and got up at sunrise the next day.

From Ifrane I headed east over the midi-atlas, south a bit, then up what was supposed to be a metalled road towards tamagourt and then khenifra, but it got pretty knarly, recent rain had left the infrastructure pretty much destroyed. I went through water crossings that had water coming in the drain holes, mud that was up to the floor, and at one point had to clear the road of a rock slide to continue. It was great fun, but slow progress.

In the end I had to stop for some fuel, so asked about the roads, the best road apparently was down towards the gorges, this was great, as I had actually wanted to do this but as it was piste I had avoided it. The views were amazing, and it was deserted, the road was being constructed most of the way so it was packed gravel wit the odd bit of new road covering. I Stayed the night in the Todra gorge and the next day headed towards Zagora taking the shortcut recommended by the hotel.

This is where disaster struck, I noticed the temperature rising, and a strange smell of fuel, bearing in mind its the desert, and obviously rather hot i slowed down to a bit, and still the temperature started to climb, not much just not the standard 82C that I normally see, I decided it was time to pull over and investigate. When I got out it was obvious what the problem was, there was oil everywhere.

The engine mount had failed, causing the engine to drop down at an angle, crushing the oil filter in the process and putting a crack in the sump. An hour or so went by as I rationed my water and tried to find shade in the midday sun. I thought I was going mad as a bloke on a bike cycled passed. Ca Va? he said, i explained in my best berber arabic that my automatic camel was broken and needed some assistance. Desole, came the response. He was prepared to take my cash and cycle into a city and come back with a rope and a tractor, but I turned him down, he was heading the wrong way, and I knew there was a town about 15km away so figured a bus or truck must go passed fairly soon.

Not long later a van came passed and we agreed a price to tow me to a mechanic, he went and got a rope and his friend and I talked and gestured about my trip and my dilema. An hour later I was at a place somebody described as a mechanics workshop, the only tool I saw as an improvised hammer, and as somebody once told me, when your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.

They got a new filter, and procedeed to weld my engine mount (The rubber had failed) back together, of course they didnt bother checking alignment or even if it was on the right way, afterall, thats what hammers are for. They didnt want to weld the sump as it was too thin, their solution was more oil, but in the end I managed to screw a self tapping screw with a big washer and lots of glue into the what turned out to be tiny crack in the sump, and I was on my way.

Considering it cost less than twenty euros it was a bit of a bargain, even if the two half-tacks on the engine mount only lasted a few hundred kilometers, i was just happy to be on the road again and away from mallet wielding car butchers.

I arrived in Zagora quite late and the first person who approached me was a mechanic on a motorbike which was great, as I was in need of some serious spanner love. Zagora is sandbasher heaven, and this garage had real tools, mechanics that knew how to use them, and some charm.

My cycle wing mount had failed just as I came into the city, so we removed both sides welded them both up with a bit of reinforcement for good measure, then welded up the radiator mount, it will fail again, but it will certainly get me home.

They then washed and cleaned the car whilst I went off riding camels and hiking in the desert, and two days later my car was almost as good as new. From Zagora it was north towards Imlil, it wasnt a long drive or so I thought, however on arriving in Oarzazate, the engine mount failed again, so this time I drove right into the blacksmiths shop, pulled the engine back up to its right height, and got a proper repair done, this time the guy welded all 4 sides of the mount solid and reinforced it with some bracing, this WILL get me home. In fact I'll be lucky if I can get it out again.

Almost everywhere I went in Morocco the people were amazingly friendly, everybody loved the car, everybody waves, and you wave back, in the country, thats just the way it goes, you slow down for a passing car, you wave, say hello, sometimes have a chat, and drive off again. Most police checkpoints I got pulled in, not out of rudeness as you might expect but out of curiosity, sometimes to justify the interruption they would ask for a token bit of paperwork like a passport or drivers license, but it was clear they just wanted to know about the car, how fast is it? How much did it cost? What model is it? What type of engine? I was always getting help on directions even if I didn't need it, it was almost the polar opposite of what I had expected here for some reason.

Twenty minutes down the road there was puff of smoke out of the dashboard, before I even knew what was happening I had the isolator key removed in one hand and the fire extinguisher armed in the other, steering with my knee i pulled over and threw out the anchor to discover that the mike for the camera had melted then shorted out due to the heat, and that the fuse had shorted so there was no major issue anyway.

I also discovered that my phone had melted in the heat, you just don't realise how hot it gets when your driving as the cool (42C) breeze stops you from saturating yourself in sweat, its only when you get back in the car and touch something metalic you realise just how much heat is soaked up.

On the map Imlil was about 8km south of Jebel Toubkhal, 30km form the main road along a piste, Geert-Jan has been here and assured me that its along a metalled road so I just assumed the map was out of date and off I went. I kept going until the road petered out and the atlas started to look pretty tame. "Imlil?" I asked the locals who gave me a blank stare, evidently this was not where i needed to be. I drove back to the main road, (It was a nice drive.) refuelled, and looked at the map again. Imagine my surprise to find two imlils, the other the real Imlil is about 20km as the crow flies from the fake Imlil, however its the other side of the Atlas and about 250km drive away.

I set off, blasted through the Tizi'n'Tichka which is an amazing bit of road, its just switchback after switchback after switchback the whole way, reasonable road surface and a great oppertunity to test the brakes. I thrashed the car all the way up and down and loved every second of it. From there its just a long slog back to Marakkesh as I managed to miss the turning, and decided it would be easier to pick it up from Marakesh rather than hunt around for the correct village here.

I got into marakesh traffic and turned the fan on, a few minutes later the temperature was at 105C, things where not looking good, i figured the pump had failed and looked for somewhere deserted to pull into, took the bonnet off and realised i couldnt hear the fan spinning, fortunatly it the cable had snapped at the earth point , this was a simple crimp job and i was on my away again.

I started winding my way back up the atlas, it was dark but the roads were great, and suddenly I reached the end of the road, a ski resort in the high atlas, the map indicated a 10km drive over to Imlil, the guy who lived there indicated a 25km return trip, a left, a right another left just as you arrive in marakesh and off you go again. My heart sank, i was tired, i had a throat and ear infection, it was late and I wanted to be in bed, but if I wanted to climb up the mountain in this trip I had to be in Imlil and start the hike the next day so off I went. I saw a sign for Asni and took that, and ended up in a maze of gravelly backroads for what seemed like eternity, in the moonlight i could see road, no barrier and a steep drop.

After driving for another 90 minutes, i arrived in Asni, and then the trip up to Imlil was relatively easy. By 2AM I was all packed for the next day, a quick vomiting session, shower, then bed and at 7am I started the climb. I felt terrible to the point of passing out so decided to try for the summit in one day since I expected to be pretty much bed ridden the following day, so at 4.30pm I was sitting on the top, not a soul in sight taking in the view, it was wonderful. By 6pm I was back in the refuge trying to keep down some warm soup before passing out in bed. It was worth every frozen footstep to the top.

From Imlil the next day I took the fast route north, I had hoped that I could get to Ceuta and possibly even into mainland spain that day, but I got lost and ended up in Tanger and the border crossing back into spain took an eternity. You drive up, and if you have the right car, you just drive through, if your not from Ceuta, you have to do the paperwork in advance, this involves standing at window 4, which has nobody there, you then go to another window and get yelled at for 20 minutes or so until you explain that you are at window four but nobody else is. Then Mr Jobsworth arrives and tells you to fill in a form, your pen doesnt work because its melted obviously, and he wont lend you one of the 50 or so littered around his desk.

You have a chat with another friendly guard who gives you a pen, fill it in, and get yelled at for not understanding arabic. Passport stamped you walk through the border, and its back to normal. The guards are interested in your car for the right reasons and i spent about 20 minutes talking about the car how i built it, how fast it goes, where iv'e been, did i like marocco and suddenly you forget about the numpty who wont share his pens.

On returning to spain I decided to lord it up for a night so stayed in a posh hotel on Plaza de Africa, the bar was open so I gulped down a few beers and all the nibbles they had, chips, jamon, olives, and some other meaty things and headed out for a walk, my legs were feeling in good shape, and I felt a lot more human than the day before, so i celebrated by eating the greasiest, nastiest, spiciest hamburger I could find. It was also the only hamburger I could find, and it tasted amazing. I then washed it down with some more cold beers and went for the longest hottest shower of my life only to discover i wasnt as tanned as I thought i was.

I had another walk around in the morning before getting the boat back to mainland spain, from there it really was just a case of getting home, i drove up the spanish coast staying in Malaga, then Sitges before crossing into france breaking down on the only bit of peage i'd driven. It was pouring down, so i decided the best route forward was going to be the fastest smoothest one which would hopefully allow me to overtake the weather. It was dark and suddenly the engine cut out completely, not in the kind of way that suggests its going to be fixable, just completely dead.

With plenty of fuel, and no spark, I spent about 30 minute at the side of the road checking the obvious, has the coil pack got power? Fuse blown? Wire lose? Nothing, i removed the megajolt to see if the EDIS unit would fire and got nothing. The taco didnt move indicating it was something ECU related rather than coil related so i decided to call it a day, my phone was dead so i walked off to the booth and called out the recovery truck.

I figured i had nothing to loose by keep looking for the fault and about 30 minutes later I found the culprit, the wire to the VR sensor on the trigger wheel had broken at the soldered joint. I figured I was still doomed as there is no way I was going to be able to fix it as I couldnt get the pin out to crimp it back together, and even if I could it was way bigger than hte bit of wire and wouldnt fit in the crimps I had.

Never say never, I cut the connector to bits exposing the pin, fitted the largest crimp I had over it, and crimped it tightly, then fited a medium size crimp inside that oen, and a smaller one inside the medium one. I then pushed the wire inside the little crimp, crimped it all as tight as I could, cable tied it to stop it vibrating and it started first time. Just in time for the recovery truck to arrive and charge me for a call out. Oh well.

From then on it was plain sailing, damp, but not to wet I arrived back in Utrecht via Eperney to stock up on some champagne, with a list of repairs and improvements and a huge grin on my face.

some progress

2009-09-26T21:40:00.006+02:00

Not an enormous amount of progress due to preparing the seven for the trip, but I did get some more simple items installed. It is installed as per MSA regulations with two larger nozzles in the engine bay, and two in the cockpit.

The fire extinguisher is mounted behind the front wheel on the sidepod. I have installed a nozzle pointing at the fuel system, it sprays in 4 directions, and should give good coverage of the injectors, fuel lines, and air box.

The other engine bay nozzle is pointing down the exhaust, it should spray the headers as well as down into the side pod. These are two places I think are most likely for a fire to break out.

The interior nozzles are bi-directional and are mounted underneath the line of the dashboard, one pointing towards the driver/passenger ish, the other pointing straight across the car to spray the electrical system.

Seven Preperation

2009-09-26T21:40:00.004+02:00

Basically its damage limitation, I need to try to check there is nothing ready to fail, and decide what spares to carry. Its going to be very hot, with lots of poor quality roads and brisk driving. This is going to place additional strain on the cooling system, and suspension.

First I dropped the suspension and looked for cracks, bends, or anything that was likely to fail en-route. I've had suspension units snap on this car, so I took all shocks off, cleaned them up and looked for cracks, thankfully I didnt find any.

The cooling system was flushed and refilled with water and water wetter. I then went around the car, tightening up anything, and using threadlock on anything that I felt was likely to come off. The exhaust was loose, it was twisting and slowly moving backwards, it needed to be tightened up, so i removed the ring that holds it together, threadlocked it, marked it and reassembled so I can see if it is moving again.

I have limited space for spares, therefore it makes sense to take things that I can fix myself, and that I can't get readily on the move. I took a full gasket kit, as a head gasket failure is a likely possibility, various sealants and instant gaskets, thread lock, a selection of bolts, hose clips, hoses in the two sizes I use on the car, zip ties and velcro hoop and loop, spare fuses, heat shrink, wire, cable joiners and spade connectors, both male and female.

I packed them into zip lock bags and put them in the car. I'm taking one spare jerry can, which at 20 litres, doubles my range. For tools I have one spanner of every size used on the car, an additional 13, and 10mm spanner as these are the most common size used and often require two spanners, where this is the case for other sizes I will use the gripping pliers I have. I have two flat and two phillips screwdrivers (big and little.) a small hammer, pliers, wire strippers, circuit tester, lighter and a pen.

Other Bits

2009-08-30T00:11:00.003+02:00

My parents kindly got me a fuel filler for my birthday, so I ordered up the windscreen wiper assembly, windscreen washer, headlights, and front indicators. I'm still undecided about how I want the rear to look like so I'm avoiding ordering anything for the rear just now.

An IVA requirement is that the fuel cap must either lock in such a way that it is not possible to remove the key with the cap off the vehicle, or be physically tethered to the car. My cap locks but you can remove the key when it is unlocked, so I have secured mine using a small chain designed for holding a plug to a sink.

Bling Interior

2009-08-30T00:06:00.003+02:00

I had a chat with MSAR safety about seats and other safety bits. I ordered two Tillet B4 seats in carbon fiber, a gas based fire extinguisher, a steering wheel, and Scroth Profi 6-II 6 point seat belts.

I chose the latter because its tried and tested in the fury, and it has adjusters which can be tightened by pulling towards or away from the body. In the seven the lap belts are very awkward to tighten because you have to pull down into the seat, whereas it would be much easier to pull upwards.

I went for the gas extinguisher because it was light, and does not leave any residue or mess to clean up should I have to pull the cord.

Prop Shafts

2009-08-30T00:04:00.004+02:00

Should arrive early next week, Dunning and Fairbank shipped on friday, these were a few weeks late, it is holiday season, and they did say when I put the order through that it might take up to two weeks. Something that does bug me though is that I always feel like I'm the one that has to do all the chasing. If they had just phoned me up after a week or 10 days and said it was going to be another 2 weeks I'd have been absolutely fine with it. Instead I had to phone up every few days asking if it was done, and then another few times to confirm it was ready for shipping.

To be fair, Michael always answered the phone and was very polite and helpful, and did seem to pick up the pace a bit once it was ready, but it would have been nice to have a phone call to say it was going to be longer earlier rather than once it was overdue.

They eventually arrived and are just the right size, and look well made.

Electrical Wiring

2009-08-29T23:35:00.003+02:00

I fitted the ECU, i opted to put it behind the scuttle as this is just the right distance to allow me to leave the shielded cables untouched as they are just the right length. I've trimmed the remaining wires down to size. I connected up the battery to it temporarily, the engine spins over but I get no fault code on the display, so I think i've really broken the wiring. At best it might be i've missed a wire to the ECU that the display needs, but knowing my luck, its more likely to be something more complex.

On further investigation there is now power to the power commander so I suspect I've made a dogs breakfast out of the various live circuits somewhere.

Oiling

2009-08-29T23:34:00.004+02:00

Got the new gaskets installed and the sump torqued up, my oil sender take off arrived but it doesnt fit as its too wide and fouls the pipes on the engine, instead I'll use the oil pressure test hole at the end of the block, but i need to work out the thread and get an adaptor made up.

I've put off filling it with oil for now in case I need to drain it to fit the adaptor, but will probably cave in the end when I get the wiring sorted out.

Cooling System

2009-08-29T23:25:00.003+02:00

Finished off the cooling system, managed to find the bleed T eventually, and filled with cooling fluid. About bottle in I started to get wet feet, literally. I then remembered that there was an air bleed pipe coming off the block near the sprocket. Its a pain in the ass to get to which is why I hadn't put a pipe on it earlier. I mopped up and put the pipe on - Its blocked off on my installation as there is a more convenient place to fit the air bleed.

The next day i noticed some water on the floor, but i couldn't find where it came from, i topped it up and pressurized the system with an air line. I found the leak was coming from the solenoid on the heater valve. Its a brand new part apparently, oh well. The pipes are *tight* because they are 13mm so I took out the solenoid and had a look, it has an O-ring and this is no doubt not sealing properly. I decided that the only likely cure would be over liberal use of silicon sealant so got completely covered in goo. Sadly it made no difference so it could be a crack, or not enough goo. I gave up and ordered another one.

The reason I'm using this heater valve is that it is electric and doesn't disturb the flow when its switched off, this is ideal as any valve type controls are going to look out of place in the car. I will have a switch to turn on the hot air, in the seven I'm either roasting because its hot outside and the engine is acting as a giant space heater by heating up all the metal around me. Alternatively its a nice day but freezing cold in which case a heater would be nice, I suspect the fury will be the same therefore I'm not too worried about climate control I expect when i want to use the heater, I'll want all the hot air I can get.

Fuel Injection

2009-08-20T18:51:00.003+02:00

I've never been completely happy with the Weber setup I have, its been very hard to get it properly tuned here in the Netherlands, there are not a lot of rolling roads available, and prices are expensive, also each change requires new jets, and associated fittings, the cost of this adds up very quickly.

When I first fitted the carbs, I let Speed On fit the jets and adjust the pressure, this resulted in an idle of 2000rpm, air leaks, and fuel pouring out of the rubbers. I then fixed the mess and fitted smaller idle jets which made it more drivable. From there I went to Hot Rod who spent a few hours balancing the carbs and adjusting the jets, however its still not quite on.

1) At idle, the fueling is very rich, this results not only in a bad smell
2) At sustained high RPM (IE Vmax) I get fuel starvation at around 200kph, this is very inconvenient, although more related to the fueling setup than the carbs.
3) There are a few flat spots and it does bog down quite a bit accelerating from low RPMs at medium to high engine loads.
4) Fuel economy, now whilst I didn't buy a car like this for its fuel economy, I'm getting somewhere between 11l/100km cruising to 17l/100km at higher speeds (above 110kmh) and when driving briskly. What I'm really expecting, is somewhere in the region of 8-10l/100 when cruising and 10-13l/100km when driving briskly. Its a light car, albeit not a very aerodynamic one, but should be capable of good fuel economy. This is also represented in the performance. David Ashurst is getting 150bhp at the wheels from his cross flow, he has a much more larey camshaft, but similar sized cylinder head. My setup should be capable of around 130hp with proper fueling, so I'd like to get this sorted out.

Subsequently it is time to go fuel injection, whilst in theory there should be no difference between carbs and fuel injection as far as peak power is concerned. FI has significant advantages over traditional carburation.

1) Air/Fuel ratio can be altered electronically, this makes tuning much simpler, rather than have to order jets, fit them, test them, and order more new jets, I can simply adjust a setting in software.
2) There are a plethora of settings on a DCOE all slightly related to each other, and all with a profound effect on fueling and performance, however ultimately a carb is a huge compromise. There are three main ranges of adjustment, Idle, Progression, and WOT, at the ends of each phase AFR tends to be far from perfect. FI will provide much more fine tuning.
3) Fuel economy can be improved in a few ways with fuel injection, for example by cutting the fuel on over run.

There are a couple of logical routes to fuel injection. The two logical ones being expensive and easy, or cheap and complicated. I've veered somewhat towards the expensive and easy option.

Looking at a thread on the megasquirt forums, http://www.msefi.com/viewtopic.php?t=6627 detailing the various sizes of motorcycle throttle bodies, I proceeded to order a set of GSXR 600 throttle bodies, these seem to be fairly well matched, with a 45mm internal ID. I also ordered a set of mounting rubbers, these have a rubber clamp on one side and a mounting flange on the other. I'm hoping that I can mount the flanges directly to the existing manifold, in doing so I can then respace the throttle bodies out to suit.

The fuel rail is cast aluminum, so I shall cut it where required, enlarge the hole in the casting to accept a pipe, and use duraweld aluminum brazing rods to seal it up.

I will install a swirl pot on the engine bay in place of the current fuel pressure regulator, the output from which shall go to a high pressure pump, and then to the fuel rail. The return from the pressure regulator will go to the swirl pot.

I'm most likely going to use megasquirt to control the fuel system, using the existing EDIS installation that has proven to work well for ignition. The functionality provided by the megajolt will be provided instead by the megasquirt unit. I will use a throttle position sensor (TPS) rather than the Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) sensor I currently use.

I will also permanently fit the LC-1. I had originally planned to keep this as a hand held device, but this is needed with the mega squirt both for initial tuning, and for ongoing adjustment of the Air/Fuel Ration (AFR) as I drive.

In order to make the installation nicer, I shall cut down the wiring for the LC1 so that it is a more manageable length, however I shall leave a longish tail for the gauge so that I may connect it up to provide a visual indication of AFR as required.

Prop Shafts

2009-08-06T10:44:00.003+02:00

Phoned Dunning and Fairbank about the prop shafts, latest estimate is early next week. This reminded me I need to order some high grade bolts to install them with, so will put an order in at Namrick later.

Fuel Injection

2009-08-06T00:15:00.004+02:00

Decided to go for Megasquirt and bike throttle bodies on the seven. Whilst fitting this I will solve the oil leak. This is a nice project, and saves faffing around with new engines. Should increase fuel economy.

I've had some issues with the seven over the last few hundred miles, they are:

Grinding noise I can't place that I'm sure never used to happen, possibly from rear wheel, bearing perhaps.
Starter motor failing - it grinds now as well as jams, so need a replacement or recondition this one.
Oil leaking out of oil pump - seems to have a crack somewhere, very annoying as its new.
Oil leaking out of sump - noticed some spots on the ground before i'd actually started the engine so can only assume its leaking out the sump somewhere.
Oil possibly leaking out of main seal - need to confirm this.

I want to get the car ship shape for a road trip this year, planning on using bike throttle bodies and megasquirt. For the conversion I will need:

Fuel Pump - generic injection pump, 8mm push on tails if possible.
Pre-pump filter - sytec generic one
Swirl Pot - low pressure feed in, no return (will get one blanked off in case it causes problems.) return from regulator, feed to high pressure pump.
Throttle bodies - not sure which ones yet, preferably individual units with 38mm bore and largish injectors, single butterflies and a sensible looking airbox.
Manifold - I will hopefully use my existing one if I can.

The existing DCOE manifold will be cut down, I will then make the ends match the diameter of the hose required to connect the two, if needed I will make some ali inserts that are completely round if I can't get a seal. I will use alutight or other ali weld to seal the joint.

I want to use a throttle body with built in regulator, vacuum take off, and TPS.

Needs to be done in the next 6 weeks or so.

Body arrived

2009-08-06T00:05:00.002+02:00

Collected the bodywork, tank, driveshafts and the orders I put in at Demon-Tweeks and Rally Design, the immobilizer from Ebay arrived too, however the elbows from SFS Performance are another story, I phoned on Thursday and they had been shipped, however what they didnt tell me at the time is that they shipped to the invoice address which is in Scotland. Oh well, Dad is going to send them out to me.

In the mean time I've got the tank in, but I can't find the manual for the fuel sender which gets shortened and adjusted, but I can't remember which way around it needs to be assembled.

Driveshafts are in, but I didnt have a suitably large socket, so I've ordered a 40mm one from ebay which should fit the nuts. These need to be tightened to 220Nm or in other words Really Really F. Tight. (RFT.)

I put in the tubing for the electrical cables, i ran a spur to each side which meets in the gap in front of the tank. I then bonded in the boot floor.

Plumbing for the fuel lines is completed at the rear, the tank has a breather and return at the top, the breather goes up a little to the one way valve, and then down again, exiting at floor level - I will install a grommit or something in the floor for this when I panel it.

The return goes up from the copper pipe and straight in. The feed goes along under the diff and round 180 degrees into the filter which is mounted in the diff housing where I can get it out the side. It then goes under the tank and into the fuel pump, and out the pump up and into the copper pipe to the front.

Things to do right now are:

Torque up the rear hub nuts
Get the rear tub on properly, it needs trimming and fitting.
Remove the exhaust and fit the side-pods
Check and adjust the engine position as required.
Refit the exhaust, check that its not fouling anything, fit the bracket properly.
Cover the exhaust and side-pod with heat insulation stuff
Phone Dunning and Fairbanks and find out what has happened to my prop shafts, fit them.
Fit the heater matrix
Plumb the cooling system with the elbows,
Sort out the clutch now I have the bolt
Fit the replacement oil pipe
Connect up the wiring, add a little fuel and see if I can start the beast, and have the first drive out the garage.

That should keep me going for a while

More Ordering

2009-07-24T11:16:00.002+02:00

The bodywork has been taking its time, actually, that's not quite correct, the body work was ready about 3 weeks after I ordered it, however as a prerequisite for fitting the bodywork, i need to fit both the fuel tank, and the drive shafts.

The drive shafts are needed so that the wheels will stay attached to the hubs, which I feel is important so that I can sit the car on the ground at the correct ride height and make sure everything lines up as I want it.

The fuel tank needs to go on before the bodywork, as its a complete pig to get in and out with the body work on.

Chris got started on the fuel tank this week, and the drive shafts have been cut and shut, but not welded yet, so it looks like its going to be mid next week before they arrive. The result is that I've not had much to do on the car for a while other than little jobs. As it looks like its almost ready now, I've ordered some more bits that I'll need.

I ordered the prop shafts, I had a chat with Dunning and Fairbank, they were very helpful and returned my call very quickly which made me feel loved. I put an order in for two shafts, the front one between the Sprocket Adaptor and the Quaife Reversing box is 383mm. The one between the Quaife Reversing box and the Freelander Diff is 755mm long. The Quaife box and the Sprocket Adaptor use the Ford "English" diff flange dimensions, the freelander is a different but well used size and the flanges are available off the shelf. The rear prop shaft has a TRT Tube in it which absorbes some of the spikes in torque when changing gear and results in less wear when changing gear.

Both props have about 51mm of movement, so if I decided I need to lower or move the engine for the bodywork it will still fit.

I also ordered the bends from the cooling system from SFS Performance, their prices are reasonable and do all their manufacturing on site. Their turnaround time for Orange hoses is around a week.

I needed an additional T piece to plumb in the input for the oil cooler, some hose, adaptors, and a fuel pressure regulator, so I ordered them from Demon Tweeks.

Reverse Box

2009-07-10T11:47:00.006+02:00

Not much progress on the Fury due to both the weather keeping me out in the Seven, and the lack of drive shafts which I want before I put the body work on so I can avoid damaging the orange bodywork removing suspension components. I'm assured, any day now.

In the mean time I made a lever for the reverse box, its in a nice position, not in the way of the handbrake and as far forward as possible. I've been learning solid works so I designed a handle which I will make up on a lathe if I can get one. I also designed a handbrake lever cover which will also be made in the lathe.

In order to fit the clutch cable I need some sort of spacer to go in between the hole in the bulkhead, the pedal and the cable sleeve, so I designed this, its long so it can be easily shimmed to the right length to provide adjustment if required, it has radiuses on all edges to avoid damaging the cable, and a slot to allow the cable to be fitted with a knuckle on the end if required.

I installed the transmission tunnel panel work, using m5 rivnuts, i'll cover this in material and use dome headed nuts on the final assembly.

I've now started on the wiring, i want to use as little of the R1 loom as possible, I removed the lighting and instrumentation, but left the connector for the gauges so that I can see any error codes.

I will then shorten and extend the R1 loom as required, so that it is one small unit with one spur going to the engine and one spur coming to the main fusebox/ignition switch.

I will keep the ignition key, mounted somewhere in the cockpit, as this has the immobilizer transponder in it, but will switch the main power (which in turn switches the ECU on.) not just the bike looms power. I'm slightly nevous about all this as its a big bit of spagetti to begin with, i just hope when i've tidied it all up, it still works.

Design Flaw

2009-07-10T11:47:00.005+02:00

I had moment in the seven today, driving home from work in the dark, I failed to see (nor expect) an unmarked speed-bump in the middle of the country on a two way highway outside of a village. The result was me being launched into the air at 80, a hard landing, and a very wobbly seven, the result was a snapped shock absorber, it had sheered at the knuckle.

On closer examination i think i may have introduced a design flaw by purchasing rose jointed shock absorbers, in order to shim the mountings so that the shocks sit right, I used big washers, these in turn restrict the movement of the knuckle, in full droop or squat at both sides this isn't an issue, as the shock is vertical, however in roll, i think i may have introduced a twisting force into the knuckle causing it to fracture. As a result i remade the shims to be smaller so that they do not foul the casing. I welded the the knuckle back on, if it fails again I shall replace the whole unit.

When i put it all back together something still wasn't right, it took me quite some time to realize that spring mount had come off one of the front shocks, thankfully it had dropped into the undertray. To stop this ever happening again, either due to me getting too much 'air' or some other failure, i drilled a small hole in them, and cable tied the spring to it. Once adjusted, everything was back to nor

Nice Weather, Nice Driving

2009-07-10T11:46:00.005+02:00

The weather has been fantastic recently and with the contract issues i've had stopping me from going to the office (What a shame..) i've been out and about. I took a trip down the canal then the Waal to Nijmegen, then worked my way down the german border then up to Trier, then along the moselle to Cochem, then Adenau (sadly the ring was closed.) and that's when it all got a bit silly.

Now bear in mind the seven has a 21 liter tank capacity, my warning is when the needle o the gauge stops flapping around, that means there is not enough fuel in the tank to raise the arm on the sender significantly, or roughly about 3 liters left. I was running low on petrol, so i had a peep on the GPS for the nearest petrol station, the gauge was still wobbling at this point, so not really worried, off I go... I got there and it was closed, now the eiffel region is very pretty, but its not that densely populated, and the nearest big town is Koblenz, about 45km away. I had a look on the GPS for the next nearest one, still heading towards the autobahn to head north a bit before cutting west cross country. I got to that one, and it was closed too, never mind I thought, (needle not moving now.) i'll just add the reserve tank i cleverly keep in the back for such occasions.

What I didn't know until that point, was that when I cleared out he boot after le mans, I'd left the spare petrol tank sitting in the garage next to the other fuel tanks and explosive things out of the way, and forgot to put it back in. Oh dear (Or words to that extend.) I thought, and looked at the options for petrol stations, Mayen was the nearest town that I could remember seeing on a real map, but it was quite some way away, so i found one en-route that might do. It of course was closed, and on the hill into the next town, I started to get fuel starvation, it was all over just in time for me to get to the top of the hill and roll down into the village and pull up somewhere a bit better lit and off the main road.

It took quite some explaining to the ANWB control, as they had no idea what type of car I was driving, nor where I was, despite giving them the coordinates, town name, rough location, they just couldn't find it on their map, eventually with some googling, gesturing and bad spelling we found it, and an hour later the ADAC turned up with a spare can. I talked broken dutch, even more broken german, and nervous english, explaining that you have no fuel is quite simple, the procedure for getting new fuel seems harder, first you have to understand you need to pay for it, it will be eight euros, you must pay now. Then there is the paperwork, correcting spellings, and more signatures than a boy-band autograph session.

The guy was really friendly though, and he understood mostly what I was saying in dutch, not so much in english and he drove with me to the nearest petrol station as we determined it was actually about 25km away and that's pushing 5 liters of fuel allowing for getting lost and the hills etc. In the end it didn't seem that far and by 11 I was ready to set off.

I decided just to take the fast route home via Koln and Duisburg along the autobahn, rather than going cross country, it was a nice opportunity to test the top speed out. Acceleration is quite impressive until about 175kmh at which point its a second or so before each increment. Top speed is still undetermined, at around 197kmh i hit fuel starvation, i had this issue before and had to turn up the pressure in the regulator, but I expect its still a weak spot. That is still pretty fast though but the car is remarkably stable at this speed, i expected it to be a bit twitchy, but despite the air force hitting my head it was quite pleasant.

I got back to utrecht by 3am, but couldn't get into the garage due to a power failure and the emergency unlock thing not unlocking properly so the car stayed outside my house which wasn't ideal, the rain stayed off though thankfully.

Le Mans Trip

2009-07-10T11:46:00.004+02:00

In preparation for the le mans trip, I ordered a couple of intercom parts, most importantly the new headsets, i was convinced it was a fault with the one I had, so I ordered a new in-helmet set, and two 'training' headsets which are basically a set of ear defenders with a microphone and speaker attached.

The star com is a great intercom capable of two way driver/passenger communication, combined with car to car radio communication, hookup for an audio device (in my case an ipod) and a phone kit (amongst a bunch of other features.)

Based on the background noise, the star com will increase or reduce the volume of the comms system to compensate, then when one person speaks it will mute the radio. There is an additional Push-To-Talk switch mounted on the gearstick to activate the radio.

The problem is, whilst VOX works fine for the passenger, they talk music cuts out, it doesn't work for the driver, it seems that either the mic setting on the passenger side is too high, or the driver too low, the result is that VOX goes a bit crazy. On the trip this wasn't a problem, we simply talked over the music when required, but its a little frustrating at times.

The sound quality however is fantastic, driving with no windscreen, and just the open headsets at 85mph was crystal clear, we could talk normally with each other, although as you can't hear yourself the result was we were needlessly raising our voices.

I'll have a chat with star-com about the problem with VOX as I expect to use the same system in the fury.

I had a cracking few days driving as part of the trip to Le Mans, I left the thursday morning in very wet weather, scared the life out myself when I aquaplaned whilst overtaking a truck on the motor-way, and had a very very slow, and very very miserable trip down to Bauvais, fortunately it really brightened up, and the rest of the drive down was great fun. Paul did try to kill us by pulling out in front of a truck when we did our first driver change, but other than that things went pretty well.

The starter motor stuck at a petrol station en-route, it has done it once more since then in Germany, and it seems to be only when the engine is hot, and has been stood for a few minutes. The only other issue was the front left hub nut coming a little loose this was evident when braking as after a tight right bend, the brake pedal would have a bit more travel, this was easily nipped up with some added thread-lock for good measure.

The car was driving remarkably well, and most of the teething trouble seems to be gone now, I'm a lot more confident in the car. On the way back we stopped off in a very wet Versailles, there were roadworks and I wasn't quite sure were to go, and essentially drove up the main driveway, realizing my mistake (after pausing for a quick photo opportunity) i squeezed through a gap in the pavement into the real car park. It wasnt until we were done when we noticed that we had ended up in a car park you can only exit if you have a ticket, so we sneaked out the way we came in and despite a few confused workmen, nobody seemed to notice.

I left Paul with Kyle and Charlotte and hot footed it home, thankfully it brightened up in belgium and I was able to make some progress, it had been painfully slow moving on the way so far.

The car got a lot of attention both on the route, and at le mans itself, sometimes it can be a little overwhelming but for the most part its great fun and very good natured. I think we will make the return trip next year, or perhaps to the classic event instead.

Minor Repairs and Upgrades

2009-05-26T03:46:00.002+02:00

There are a number of minor issues I've been wanting to address for a while, since the last rolling road session where the coolant pipe split, I've been running with a far from optimal cooling pipe as its above the filler and needs a 90 Degree bend in it. I purchased a 90 degree hose connector, (its plastic but I've used these previously without any issues so here's hoping.) and plumbed it in again with the bleed tee just above the manifold. I was having issues with pushing out the fluid into the expansion tank and not sucking it back in, so i bought a new filler cap (Didnt solve the issue.) and I noticed that the fan wasn't working because the wire had broken at the earth point, so I replaced that too. I shall also upgrade to a profan just to be on the safe side, it keeps cool enough but i expect in really hot weather its going to struggle, especially in heavy stop start traffic.

Temporary hose...

Final replacement, could benefit from a new outlet as the current outlet on the manifold is at 45Degrees where 90 would be better.

I bought a cheapo fuel filter to use as a plenum for the megajolt and installed that in preference to the walbro filter that I shall now use in the fury as originally intended.

It didn't make sense to use this filter as a plenum as it was an order of magnitude more expensive than this one:

The spring had come off the throttle assembly, I expect I put it on wrong last time round and have refitted it, this time also with a cable tie so that it can't move around.

En-Route to stoneleigh I found out that the alternator was totally borked, no major casualties except an embarrassing stall on the M25 which led to some stress as it wouldn't start again, and of course a flat battery at stoneleigh. Mike sorted me out with a new one and its working perfectly.

There are a few minor things I want to resolve:

* Intercom, when driving you cant really talk with the passenger, and I'd like to be able to talk to Paul on the way to lemans. I have a starcom advance but the headsets are wonky so I'll get an aviation style one as well as an in helmet one, I'd like to use the ones from Peltor, but will need to either make an adaptor or just use the starcom ones.
* I broke an aerocatch (What is it with bonnets and alternators at stoneleigh?) and will need to replace it. I'd also like to put one in the top of the bonnet as it moves around a lot.
* I need to set up the brake balance better - its too far forward now.
* I also want to paint the inside floor, but now it looks like a farmers field.
* There is an oil leak either (hopefully) from the seal on the gearbox, or worse from a seal on the engine which I'd like to replace.
* On the more long term wishlist i'd like to shorten the steering rack to reduce bump steer, and put a quick rack in.

Despite quite a few rather annoying problems at stoneleigh, the car is running great. Paul and I covered some serious distance, in poor weather, on poorer roads (Single track country lanes.) without batting an eyelid, starting first time, every time. We both had smiles on our faces the whole time, and its surprisingly comfortable. We both gave it a pretty hard thrashing, On the way back paul asked what the red light on the dashboard was that kept flashing - I explained it was the shift light, but that didnt stop it staying on for extended periods of time. I turned off the A14 a good hour before Harwich and went cross country. You have to be seriously careful when driving hard as its a fine line between powering out of a corner, and powering into a ditch. The rear end kicked out a few times although very progressively, but I get the impression if you aren't paying attention it will really bite.

Paul and I were really giving it some through the country lanes, the good news about slick derbyshire countryside is you rarely get the chance to go fast enough to get a speeding ticket, and despite the odd tractor and local, they are usually pretty quiet which makes for fun driving.

They are rather muddy though, and the car was completely caked, not to mention the occupants.

Post Stoneleigh Repairs - Cycle Wings

2009-05-26T03:39:00.003+02:00

The wings on a seven are a constant headache, there are two common failure points, the first is the metal bracket which runs from the upright and holts the cycle wings in place. Due to bumps in the road, wind and air turbulence, stones and other objects being thrown up from the tires, rain and other debris vibrating the wing, the wing-stay is prone to metal fatigue. The common failure point is at the base where it joins the upright, and at the bend at the top.

The second failure point is is the joint between the wing which is fiberglass, and the stay which is metal. I opted to glue my wings to the wing stay, in doing so I drilled holes in the wing stay to provide space for the glue (PU Adhesive) to key to, I also made the fiberglass as rough as possible, however this started to fail.

Both sides have failed in the same way, the rear most glue has separated from the outside working inwards, the drivers side failed first. I noticed it as it was bouncing around on the way back to cambridge, I did my best to reduce the movement using some cable ties, and inspected the passenger side to notice it was also coming off although not quite separated.

The simplest option would have been to apply more glue, but obviously over time this shall just fail again. I could drill it, however that has its own issues, you create a stress raiser that over time shall crack and fail. Instead I decided to reinforce the joint. I cut and drilled some plates from aluminum that match the profile of the inside of the wing, I then mounted these with PU over the metal wing-stay, subsequently there is a much larger surface area for the glue to adhere to. Should this fail in the future, it will be relatively easy for me to bolt the wing to the wing stay through the aluminum. I'm hoping the copious amounts of glue will also dampen some of the vibration (Much like a metalastic bush) and increase the lifetime of the rest of the wing stay. The issue is of course that repairing it now that there is no feasible way of separating the two parts is going to be very difficult.

I removed the black plastic U-trim, i originally liked it, as it gave a nice line to the edge of the car, but its started to fade a little so I'll run without for now.

Finished by covering in adhesive and clamping in place until it set.

After a quick polish to remove my muddy finger prints, its looking pretty good.

Post Stoneleigh Repairs - Exhaust

2009-05-26T03:21:00.004+02:00

I've been wanting to do something about the somewhat antisocial amounts of noise coming out the exhaust for a while. I actually really like the sound, its brutal, at tick-over it sounds just slightly angry, but when you hit the throttle its like you've opened pandoras box. There are a number of downsides to this however:

You can't hear yourself think when idle, let alone when moving.
Nor can you hear your passenger
People who can't tell the difference assume your a chav.
I Can't go anywhere near a racetrack

Something had to be done. I bought the original silencer from a chap off LocostBuilders who was (And still is) making them in his spare time. Its about the size I want and the quality is outstanding. Titanium baffle plate, and stainless steel other bits, I wanted to avoid changing it if possible, so decided to repack it.

I wasn't sure if it originally had any wadding, but it did appear to be getting louder so assumed

that it did at some point. There are also rivets at one end, so thats a good indication. Doing some research, there are basically three possible things you can use to pack the interior of the can. The first is wire wool, being metal it has a fairly good lifespan, its fairly loosly packed, so should perform fairly well, but as a result provides the least sound deadening. The second option is much the same, only using a ceramic wool, this can be packed tighter and has better sound deadening, it also burns out quicker. There is also a matt which is wrapped around, this has better deadening but as its woven rather than loosely packed, has poorer flow.

I opted for a highbred form CBS, its basically a sausage shaped assembly, wrapped around a cardboard tube, the theory being you replace the cardboard tube with your baffle plate, and its easy to apply. It is made up of a layer of wire wool, and matting on the outside. It cost about twenty pounds and was money well spent. It didn't slide on how I expected, but it was trivial to assemble. First removing the canister from the car, I started by drilling the rivets and removing the baffle plate and tailpipe assembly from the canister itself. I took the opportunity to clean the carbon deposits from anything i could reach with an air gun, this was actually a bit stupid because it meant my whole garage was now covered in carbon dust and I couldn't find the dust masks so had to stop for a day until it cleared.

I then unwound the wrapping and wool from the cardboard and wrapped it around the baffle before re-assemby using 3.2mm rivets.

Whilst the canister was off the car, I also fabricated a stronger bracket for the canister itself. Currently it is mounted using a stainless steel clamp bolted to a rubber bobbin which itself is bolted to the car in shear. These are notoriously weak, and this is asking for trouble. The bobbin was in reasonable shape, with some cracking but it was pretty strong. I used a pair of mole grips to get it off as it was pretty tight, so I figured that makes it strong enough to reuse.

I cut some 4-mm aluminum angle bar down to 4-cm, and drilled, countersunk, and de-burred two holes to provide a solid mounting, and another on the other side to mount the bobbin two. I then drilled an additional hole in the chassis and inserted an M6 steel rivet-nut with some PU adhesive to try to seal it a best as possible. I drilled out the holes in the mounting to 7-mm, as my tolerances were not accurate enough to use 6-mm holes sadly, I mounted the bracket slightly lower then the lower chassis rail to keep the canister in pretty much the same location as it was and adjusted the position of the clamp to match the new mount.

The car is much quieter now, I can clearly hear the induction noise which sounds rather nice. The down side is I can also hear the other mechanical noises and now think the car is about to break every time I turn, brake, steer, hit a bump, rev the engine, engage the clutch, or anything that causes any minor mechanical noise. I'll need to desensitize to it again.

The fueling is now of course in need of some adjustment, so I'll book the session with Fred and see how things go. Before I do that I want to replace the bearing in the carb as its causing some free play in the spindle which manifests as an imbalance on minor throttle openings.

R1 Spares

2009-04-25T11:35:00.002+02:00

I needed some spare parts for the engine I bought:

Oil sump gasket
Clutch cover gasket
Exhaust Manifold gasket - There are four olives in total
Oil loop pipe, looking at the front of the engine, from right to left, there is the oil filter, oil cooler, and a 4" long pipe that exits the block moves up for a couple of inches, and then enters the engine again, this was bent so I needed a new one.

I tried Roadrunner Motoren in Arnhem, but annoyingly they wanted to know the license number of the bike so they could look it up in their system, but obviously its not in a bike, let alone a dutch registered one so that wasn't going to happen. I tried with the engine number but my experience with calling [help]desks told me that it was time to cut my losses.

I'm going to Stoneleigh next weekend so I have The Bike Shop in Faversham a call since i'll be passing by at some point, they had the clutch gasket in stock, but will need to order the pipe so I'll pick them up on the way to Stoneleigh next weekend and post the part numbers once I know what they are.

Rolling Road

2009-04-23T17:20:00.004+02:00

Took the car to hotrod to get it on the rollers, worked out quite an expensive afternoon but was well worth it, the emulsion jets, main jets, idle jets, and pump jets were all changed, power was up from 114hp to 122hp (And climbing) at 6000rpm which was nice. The midrange has been transformed though, much more torque, and gentle throttle openings are much more responsive now. One carb could do with an overhaul and a new bearing as its sticking, so I'll take that off and replace the bearings soon.

It was over fuelling around 3500rpm causing a big power dip. New emulsion tubes and main jets made a big difference:

Never without a drama, i turned around from the car to go and do something else and was immediately covered in hot coolant, the pipe split between the thermostat housing and the manifold, I guess because its now at a slight angle since i've put the new manifold on, managed not to soak the dyno or computer thankfully. I replaced it with some thicker straight hose and an elbow which Fred had spare. I wonder if that was were my coolant was going.

I've been driving the fury daily this week as the weather has been outstanding, and its doing well, the alternator appears not to be charging properly at the moment although its still starting etc, possibly a loose wire, broken ammeter, or broken alternator so will have a look. The gearbox is also moving on its rear mount so I need to brace it somehow.

It wont fit

2009-04-23T17:14:00.004+02:00

Trying to get the engine to fit, but its not happening for some reason. The manifold hits the top rail on the N/S, if i move it further to the O/S then it hits the top rail for the pedal box, if I move it forward, there's no plate to bolt the mounts onto. Much confusion.

I've cut down the mounts where I can to give me more room and once I have the right holes made, I'll weld the right brackets back on, but its turning into a palava now as I want it low, as far back as possible, level, and exactly in line with the reverse box which is now fitted, I'd like to make up some spacers for the reverse box so that it doesn't use shims to get the height. I've decided to put the reverse box in such a position so that the angle between the horizontal and vertical of both prop shafts is the same to reduce the amount of angular displacement, and subsequently the vibration as each prop shaft turns. The alternative is to have the smaller one do most of the vibrating as its smaller and lighter this may be better.

Both props are adjustable length, and I can change the shims in the reverse box, so I can change my mind on this relatively easily.

Engine Fi

2009-04-23T17:14:00.001+02:00

Bleeding Brakes

2009-04-23T16:56:00.002+02:00

Now I have all the suspension bits, I decided to bleed the brakes, didn't make a very good job of it for three reasons, the first was that the bleed screws didn't appear to let fluid out of the hole at the top where the hose goes onto, but rather around the threads which makes a total mess. It turns out I was doing it wrong and I was unscrewing not the bleed screw, but the thing the bleed screw screws into, so I will try again and do it properly.

Secondly, I use an eezibleed because I'm impatient and I don't like messing around with people pumping pedals and chanting traditional chants whilst facing east. However, the kit doesn't have a fitting for the girling reservoirs i have, so i took a spare lid, cut a hole in it, and fitted it with the adaptor, i tested the pressure with the airline and it all looked good, screwed it in and connected it to the air line (Still at 15psi.) shortly afterwards, I was drenched by a torrent of dot 4 fluid as I'd forgot to put the rubber seal back in the lid before I screwed it on.

Lastly after much faffing around, I couldn't get the air out, and so started cleaning up fluid, it made a right mess, but the reality was it was probably less than half a pint of fluid. Just as I finished tidying up I realized that the calipers had two bleed nipples per side (4 in total) I'd left the wheels on, and forgot there are inner and outer nipples at both top and bottom. What a plonker I felt.

Brake Bias Adjuster

2009-03-19T22:31:00.002+01:00

Fitted this to the bias bar, I'm not sure where I'll mount the knob yet, and perhaps I'll leave it tucked away until after IVA, although if possible I'd prefer to 'lock' the adjuster knob, rather than drill through the bias bar itself.

I need a grommet to go between the panel and the cable, I don't have any that size so will do this at a later date.

Panelling

2009-03-19T22:09:00.002+01:00

Started on the panelling, got the floor in, and started on the other ones, panel work is my least favorite car related activity.

Video Improvements

2009-03-19T22:01:00.004+01:00

The wiring for the in car video was becoming a pain in the ass, so I tidied it up. The biggest issue was that the switching box, that enables me to switch cameras front/rear has 2 cables going in the back, and a big cable coming out the side, it has 2 channels that I don't use and was generally just the wrong shape/size for the job.

I opened it up, as its basically just a switch inside, and removed the output wire, and then resoldered the connectors on the rear so that they are switched, and used one of the spare inputs as a new output.

This worked great, except the switch melted when I soldered it. I didn't notice this of course until it was back together again, so I had to open it up again and replace it with a toggle switch. It now works perfectly.

I then mounted this back within easy reach, just forward of the handbrake, under the gearstick, I can now flick it pretty easily without moving my hand far from the wheel.

The next thing to sort out was the power wiring, I have the cigar lighter, intercom, and cameras powered from the same feed, and it was getting a bit untidy, so i cut it out, made a new mini-loom, and refitted it. Whilst I was at it, I routed the power cables through the transmission tunnel which in turn made it even tidier.

This left me with a tidier installation for the permanent cables, but the DVR goes in and out, and currently gets thrown in the foot well or the passengers lap, this wasn't so practical so I made a holder which I mounted below leg level in the passenger foot well.

I made this by first making a template based on the DVR, the DVR has cables coming out of one corner, in different directions, so i let this protrude from the top, the rest is covered up.

I then cut the template out of aluminium using snips and bent it into a box shape using the vice and various hammers.

Drilled it.

Covered it in some carbon fibre vinyl sticky stuff for added bling, and mounted it.

The wiring still needs tidied up, but this can be done with some cable ties, the only loose cables now, are ones which are removable.

Drive to work

2009-03-19T21:57:00.002+01:00

Drove to work in the Seven today, driving pretty well, although do have to be careful when coming on the power as the back end slid out quite a bit on the way home. Its so fast off the line you can really be up to some decent speeds before you realize it. Have been experimenting with the new video setup, hopefully will get some usable videos this time. I noticed (too late) that the DVR doesnt save its settings, so it used ASF again, which of course isn't ideal on a MAC.

Heater

2009-03-19T21:49:00.005+01:00

Heater arrived for the Fury, its a very small and pretty light heater unit. I got it from GT40 Parts on ebay, it weighs 1.2kg, and I'll probably be able to get that down further using some aluminium plate.

Its pretty powerful, the only hard part is going to be positioning it so that it isn't the lowest point in the system.

Exilim Video

2009-03-07T17:32:00.003+01:00

Clip coming back from Laag Vuursche with Paul a few weeks ago. Camera is a casio exlim and a suction mount on the scuttle. For what it is, its not bad.

4kam DVR

2009-03-07T16:52:00.003+01:00

It was a nice morning today so I went to the garage and got the seven out. I decided to find a way of powering up the 4kam DVR as the uk charger wasn't working even with my array of adaptors. I butchered the end off a spare TomTom car charger, which also outputs 5v, and cut the end off the original charger, and soldered them together. Not surprisingly it worked straight off, so I went out for a drive. Saskia came along too which was nice, we went to Laag Vuursche, had a coffee and the rain looked like it was going to spoil the day, the temperature had also dropped so back we went.

There is an annoying reverberation, which I suspect is the carb hitting the bonnet, so i might have to go back to the original engine mounting after all.

The cameras didnt want to record in colour either, not sure what's going on there, going to have start fault finding I think.

Current Status

2009-03-07T03:27:00.004+01:00

Engine

I'm waiting on the engine mounts from Chris, once those are ready I can fit the engine.
Wiring will need to wait, until then it should start using the loom.
Exhaust, cat, manifold and tail pipe are on order.

Driveline

I need lock nuts and washers for the front hubs, then I can get the front end on the ground.
On the rear, I need to get the driveshafts as they hold the wheels on, chris should have these ready by the 4th april.
I can then bolt up the hub carriers properly.
I need to get a reversing box.
Once i get the engine, I can measure the size i need for the prop shafts and get them ordered. Then the car will drive.

Suspension

Everything is all fitted, but...
I need lock nuts for the camber adjuster.
I also need lock nuts for the rear camber adjuster.
Once the alignment is done, I'll thread lock and mark the bolts.

Steering

The track rod ends don't fit, despite having rs2000 hubs, the steering arms aren't the rs2000 size, (or the track rod ends aren't rs2000 sized) so I need to find the right ones, with lock nuts.
Once I get the car on wheels and a seat in, I can mount the steering wheel in the right place, until then I can't fit the support.

Cooling System

I'm waiting on the engine before I can proceed, until I know where the appropriate hoses are, I can't order the hoses. I also need the heater matrix so I can make sure the header tank is the highest point.
I can fit the radiator though.

Braking

Fit the lock nuts to the pushrods and fit the bias bar.
Fit the copper brake lines
Fit the bias adjuster
Find a solution for the flexible hoses, they are M10 Male, and I have M10 Male nipples, or 1/8NPTF holes.
Threadlock everything up, bleed the system and good to go.

More bits arrived

2009-03-07T03:24:00.003+01:00

Sadly, not the bits i'm waiting on.

The header tank.

Prop Adaptor.

Transit heater switch.

Bleed Tee

More Progress

2009-03-07T03:07:00.003+01:00

I managed to find a 1/2" drill, and bored out the spacers for the shocks, they now fit perfectly. I mounted the shocks, but the rear shocks fouled the suspension bracket, so I had to grind the brackets down a bit using the die grinder.

Once ground down, they fit perfectly, and look rather good.

I then started on the braking system, I fitted the master cylinders, and tried to work out the reservoirs. I had two large reservoirs, and a mounting bracket I was hoping to use these, but they are too tall, and will foul the steering. I will order shorter ones from rally design the next time I put an order through.

I want to avoid using rubber hose where possible, so I'm using braided flexible hose for the low pressure line between the reservoir and the M/C. I got these from rally design, they are way too long though, so I cut them down to size.

The first step is to cut the pipe the right length, a smooth cut is required, and it must be straight else the olive wont fit. Goodrich/earls/etc fittings are all re-usable, I always replace the olive, as its basically the thing that is holding it all together, but in theory you can reuse those too. I find using some tape around the cutting face stops the braiding from fraying.

Once you have a straight edge, slip over the locking nut, its easier to do this before you take the tape off, then push on the olive, its a tight fit, so you need to push quite hard, but not too hard you damage the lining, or the olive.

Then the main connector slides into the tube until it meets the olive, then the nut is tightened up tight.

The finished lines fully fitted look rather good. The reservoirs are designed to go into a concave fitting, and seal through the fitting rather than the thread. This causes a problem when mounting the reservoirs, as they do not have sufficient thread to put a lock nut on. With the fitting secured, there is about 1mm of free shaft. In order to secure it, i used a plastic washer which is compressed down to the right size as the nut is tightened up and it seems to be doing a good job.

I then fitted the pedals, I can't fit the bias bar, because i need some lock nuts for the master cylinder pushrods, of course, these are UNC thread, and here in continental europe, they are about as easy to find as rocking horse poo.

2007 R1 Service Manual

2009-03-05T18:04:00.002+01:00

2007 Service Manual (US)

Older manuals

From Mediafire

Collecting the Fury

2009-03-05T16:26:00.005+01:00

The chassis came back from powder coating on Tuesday, so I booked a van and went to collect the chassis on the Saturday. I drove down via dunkirk and dover over night, managed to miss my boat due to the van being too high, by the time I'd paid the surcharge the ship had sailed.

FYI, Norfolkline don't really discriminate between cars and vans as long as its for non-commercial use, when you book online via an agent, you get a billion options for length and height etc, basically, the trigger is 2.4 Meters high, if its over this, your van doesn't fit in the upper (car) decks, and you must go in the main truck decks, for this there is a surcharge. The maximum length would appear to be 6 Meters, but it is the height that is the one to watch.

From Utrecht, it is quicker and cheaper to drive down via the channel, than take the crossings from Rotterdam/Hoek Van Holland, although there is a lot of convenience from the overnight crossing if your in the east/north.

Unlike my previous trips through Dover, I didn't have any issues with customs and intimidation, and was out of the port by 9.15, I'd expected it to take up to 45 minutes. A quick stop at Ashford to visit the bank and I arrived at BGH Geartech. Chris went through the bits and bobs, and we discussed the build, he explained how the chassis bolted together, and of course I promptly forgot it all, but I'm sure it will all come back to me at the appropriate time.

I had a good nosey around the shop, and at the parts. Chris hadn't got the engine mounts made up yet, so they kept the engine as this is the first one they have with the 2006+ engine design. This is a bit of a setback, because, whilst I had known that the drive-shafts wouldn't be ready, I had instead decided to concentrate on getting the engine plumbed in. Instead I will have to do a lot of things piecemeal.

Chris also got some RS 2000 uprights, I wasn't sure if these were the right ones for the hubs as rally design sales guy had said that the alloy hubs used standard bearings. In the end, they were group four hubs, not standard alloy ones like the raceleda set.

Chris was kind enough to let me have a bunch of other bits delivered to their workshop which saved me a few quid on postage. I found an R1 package on ebay and made a very low offer, assuming it all works, then I've got a bargain. From the picture the bike had front-ended something, and whilst there is no damage to the engine on the sides (Typical where the bike has slide along the road.) annoyingly one of the oil pipes has been bent, so I will need to order a new one from Yamaha. I will also need a new sump gasket and I might as well get some oil too.

The kit has pretty much everything needed to get the engine to run, it has the filler cap, full wiring loom, switches, clock, engine/gearbox bolts and a bunch of other bits and pieces. I wont be using the clocks as my primary gauges, but I will leave the connector so that I can connect them up for fault diagnoses etc.

I also ordered another set of driveshaft seals for the freelander diff. I got these from Qualitypart on ebay.

The sump baffle, also from Ebay. Its CNC machined from 2mm aluminum and looks fairly solid.

Barnett gold springs, and uprated friction plates. Also from ebay.

Power Commander, from ebay.

The nitron shocks are a work of art. These are Nitron NTRs with 180 and 130lb springs.

The chassis, powder coated orange, (RAL 2007) the pedal box is raised to give me more space for my big feet. The pedals are also raised so that they will touch the balls of my feet.

The drivers seat has been lowered an inch to give me some more head room, and make me fit better in the car.

I also collected the Roll-over bar, this has been extended by 40mm as I was too tall for the standard one, this should also stop the supports form digging into my sides as they are moved a little too.

The panel-work is pre-cut, and in theory doesn't require any trimming if you have a standard fury. In my case I will need to cut them where the lowered floor is, and where the side impact protection/crutch straps interfere with the shape of the chassis.

The bonnet hinge has been plated, but I think I will paint this orange.

The brake line kit, this comes complete with flexible hoses, but they wont fit into my wilwood calipers so I need either new hoses, or an 1/8th NPTF->M10 Female adaptor.

The lower rear wishbones, camber adjuster, uprights, and hub spacers.

Lower front wishbones (top) and upper rear wishbones.

Pedals, pedal box, and steering components

Modified hand-brake, steering shaft extension, accelerator pedal, and bias adjuster.

Nut and bolt pack.

Amongst other things, Chris also recommended Gerald Dale Motor-Sport to get my DCOE's setup on the seven, so I'll book a session soon I think.

Rear Differential

2009-03-03T20:34:00.002+01:00

Fitted the differential, it was quite easy to get it into position, and the brackets lined up fairly well. The nut and bolt pack only had bolts for the sierra diff, fortunately I had some 25MM M10 bolts. The bolts don't have any lock nuts, so I've thread-locked them and marked them. I've seen on Tim's blog that his came loose before, so I've also marked them visually so that it should be obvious if they are working loose.

Panelling the floor

2009-03-03T20:30:00.004+01:00

Dry fitted all the aluminum panels. The floor will have rivets every 4" along, and the other panels are riveted with 3.2mm rivets. The manual suggests that the panels should be installed first, however I agree with Tim that these will only get in the way. I have drilled, countersunk, and de-burred all the holes, test fitted the panels, and now put them safely out of the way. I will refit the floor as its going to be hard to do this with the car the right way up. The others can be fitted later.

4kam installation

2009-03-03T20:17:00.003+01:00

I got myself a 4kam bullet camera to record better video in the car. I installed one camera in the very front of the car pointing through the grill. I tapped out the bracket in the polo radiator to m6, and mounted the camera through that. It sits back a little from the grill and gives a good view of the road in front.

The second camera is mounted in the rollover bar, and can pivot to face front or rearwards. Cables go through the transmission tunnel to provide power and connectivity. I use a solid state recorder to capture the video at 520 lines. The recorder can only take a single feed, so I have a switch mounted on the tunnel to switch inputs. There is a microphone under the dashboard capturing sound, and ultimately I will plug it into the intercom.

Garage Preparation

2009-02-09T14:11:00.001+01:00

I painted the rest of the floor with the epoxy paint, in the process i moved the workbenches out of the rear corner, and am considering leaving them more in the middle as this might give me better workspace where i need it. It also means i don't need to walk passed the fury every time i need a spanner for the seven.

Chassis ready

2009-02-06T14:53:00.001+01:00

The chassis is now ready for collection from the builder, BGH will collect it once the weather improves, extend the pedal box, and get it powder coated. Hopefully ready in a week or two.

Nitrons

2009-02-05T10:16:00.000+01:00

Look like they will be ready the end of next week, fingers crossed.

Sort of progress

2009-02-04T19:02:00.002+01:00

The engine has arrived a BGH in one piece, which is good to know. The chassis hasn't though which is a pain, I guess the snow isn't helping things. The baffle plate has also arrived, and I've just given Nitron Shocks a prod and hopefully they will be ready for when I'm over in the UK to collect the car. Which would be nice.

Something about the Sierra column is confusing me, I can't see anyway to keep pressure on the spring at the bottom of the column except by tightening up the steering wheel which a) seems dodgy and incorrect, and b) would require a steering wheel that screws down, as opposed to a weld-on boss. I need to have a look at a properly assembled one.

Wing Mirror

2009-02-01T10:48:00.002+01:00

Last year, before I'd fitted the aerocatches, the 'SVA Compliant' rubber clips that held the bonnet on let go at about 70 miles an hour. This resulted in the bonnet flying up, clipping the rear view mirror, catching on the off-side mirror, then twatting me in the head before landing on the verge.

As a result of that I also decided a one piece bonnet was a better idea and bonded it to the nose cone, and secured it with aerocatches, so even if they fail, it wont fly off, just wobble around a lot. The center mirror is just a bit scratched, which with some back to black was sorted out, however the side mirror broke the adjustment balljoint such as it would no longer remain in one place. I added copious amounts of epoxy glue, and set it in the position I needed it in with some tape. Yesterday it stayed exactly where it should, so hopefully I wont need to get a replacement from racetech.

Feckery Washers

2009-02-01T01:28:00.004+01:00

Took Paul out for a drive in the car today for pancakes nearby, had a nice drive out there, flat spot i'm sure was getting worse, but could have been my paranoia, had a nice walk and a snack before heading home, got abotu 10KM from Utrecht when funny noises and a lack of power started to become apparent. The noise sounded like something rubbing on a cambelt, as the XFlow doesn't have a cambelt it was slightly worrying.

A bit further out and I joked that it felt like it was running on two cylinders, when it got to about 6000rpm i got all 4, but things were definitly going badly wrong. Limped back to the garage in one piece, and imagine my surprise when I took the bonnet off to find that the front fecking carb had fallen off. So much for thackery washers absorbing the vibrations. How I laughed that I was glad to have the redundancy of

twin Webber's, I guess that explains why the idle kept going funky.

I'll reassemble them this time a bit tighter and with a few gallons of thread-lock. At least I don't need to worry about bore-wash this time.

On a happier note, the oil cooler is making a big difference to how quickly things cool down, the temperature rises to 100, the fan kicks in and brings it right down to 90 before clicking off, when moving its stays bang on 80C, and if I turn the fan on manually, it keeps it at 80.

Took some videos with the garage-cam, hopefully they will turn out ok.

Colortune

2009-02-01T01:26:00.002+01:00

Tried using the colourtune to tune individual idle mixtures, waste of time, couldn't see any difference between no flame (Idle fully closed) and about ten turns out, so decided best to reset to 2.5 turns out and aim for highest RPM, balanced carbs again and messed with Idle, still couldn't get it how I want it, carburation is a black art.

Drive

2009-02-01T01:20:00.003+01:00

Got a nice drive in the seven, three things are apparent - quite a lot of bump steer on really bumpy roads, its fine most of the time, but when there's tree roots protruding from the tarmac, and potholes I had to keep the speed down a bit just-in-case; a flat sport around 2500RPM - annoyingly around cruising speed on dual carriage-ways; and a lot of popping on the overrun.

Went to Laag Vuurche which is pretty nearby, drove around in the country for a while before stopping for some refreshments and heading home, got followed by some dude in a VW corrodo with a noisy turbo, as a matter of principle I (relatively) quietly left him standing at a set of lights after he was revving the nuts off his dump valve, but he kept following me around, so i drove like a granny aimlessly for 15 minutes until he got bored and went off to look for some citroen saxo's to abuse. I can't be arsed racing.

Made it back to the garage and adjusted the idle as it was way too high. Met Wim, a retired dentist who has a Rosso with a honda VTEC Type R shoehorned into the back, and a VTEC powered mini, and a very very nice workshop.

He is currently undergoing airlock hell bleeding the brakes in the GTM, so I lent him my eezibleed which I swear by as I apparently don't have the ineptitude nor patience for the pump-and-hope bleeding method.

Mezzanine

2009-02-01T01:11:00.003+01:00

I built a mezzanine today, i'd toyed around with a few designs, the one that seemed the most foolproof and fairly cost effective was to use rivet nuts to fasten a block of wood to each side of the garage, then joists going across the workspace at 2.20M high. This meant that the minimum height underneath was quite high, above head height by quite some way, and that maximum width was still obtained.

At first I was quite worried about the strength of the steel sheet on the side, but it was quite solid (1.6MM on the outside walls, and 1MM on the inside) I used 44*69MM wood although on hindsight, the width was perfect, but I think 90-100mm would have been better for the depth. On top was 18MM board with tongue and groove edges. With me standing on it in the middle it sags just under an inch which is acceptable although not ideal, thicker lintels would have eliminated this.

This provides a great storage area, and now has everything I rarely need from old toolboxes to trolleys stacked on it, as well as some of the larger parts of the fury build - wheels etc. It was a bit of an effort getting things up there, but its made a lot more space. I'll also put the compressors and possibly the engine crane if I can lift the bits up there too.

The only issue was that it made the work area dark so 2 18W strip lamps were installed underneath, and these light up the area pretty well, in addition is the infrared heater, and a conventional fan+hot bars heater which is primarily there to heat the floor when I get around to painting it.

New Engine

2009-01-22T21:32:00.003+01:00

Checked with a few people, 2007 engine should be the same dimensions ie mountings/exhaust as 2004 onwards. This means if I can fit the sliding trumpets under the bonnet somehow, I'll get a whopping 10bhp over the 04-06 model, increased torque at lower RPM, and a weight saving. I'm a happy bunny.

I made an offer on a 2007 engine kit which was accepted, and will get that delivered to chris at BGH and he can check that it all fits properly. I will also order a baffle plate so I can get the engine in the car. Tempted to order a Samco hose kit but I think that may be excessive.

Ordered the NTR Road shocks, after some debate, I decided as a road car, I probably wouldn't notice any benefit from the track version.

Checked with Chris about the reverse box and they will make up the appropriate bracket as required. Hopefully car will be shipped to them tomorrow ready for work next week. No progress on the petrol tank though.

Bid on a ramp on Ebay, found a ranger model with the baseless design which means no bolting down, bidding peanuts so probably wont get it.

Fury Bits

2009-01-20T19:15:00.002+01:00

Aiming to collect the chassis first week of Feb. Phoned Nitron to get a price, 995+vat seems reasonable enough, still thinking about getting the track shocks rather than road ones, but its quite a bit more.

Also need to decided and preferably order an engine, its either going to be a 2006 R1, or the newer but more fiddly 2007 R1. Probably the latter if BGH sell an exhaust and engine mounting that will work with it. Else I'll hold out for an '06 model. Hopefully the weather will improve so some more bikers fall off and I can pick up a bargain.

Need to check with Chris that:

Fuel tank will be ready for collection too

Cost for powder coating and the tank

Engine options

The mounting for the reverse box will be ready

Will try to order the shocks and engine this week.

Garage Painting

2009-01-20T19:13:00.002+01:00

Took advantage of the comparably warm weather to paint the floor of the garage, wasn't impressed with the so-called tough epoxy paint that was in fact water based. Also of course tonight its now going to be frosty, so fingers crossed that it will actually set. Checked it again this evening to find the bits near the heater were pretty much dry, but the bits far away from it were still wet, moved the heater and added another 500W lamp to see if that will warm it up a bit.

O-Rings and balancing

2009-01-19T22:17:00.002+01:00

O-Rings arrived, fitted them and things are a good bit better, still couldn't get the idle below 1500rpm, turned out there was fuel pouring out into the bores on one carb, adjusted the float and that helped, it idles quite erratically though, possibly still needs some love.

Washed the floor in preparation for painting, didn't look much cleaner, hopefully it will be dry soon and I'll get the paint down on it.

Chris phone, car should be ready in a couple of weeks.

Rear Hubs

2009-01-07T19:17:00.003+01:00

Got my rear hubs back from Frans who got his friend to turn them down to the right size, I got them turned down to 134MM in diameter to fit in the rear brake disks which come as part of the Wilwood conversion.

I then pressed in the bearings into the rear hub carriers, and after some serious abuse with the die grinder I got the rest of the bearings pressed into the front hubs. They looks a bit abused now so I will paint them to hide some of the scratches.

I also fitted a new vice, and will hopefully take the old one back to MachineMart along with my new compressor which seems to have packed up already. I had been using two together linked between the tanks, i found this quite effective if a little noisy, so perhaps will upgrade it to a bigger unit whilst I'm at it.

Crossflow Fettling

2009-01-06T21:41:00.005+01:00

The other day I noticed a bit of oil spray around the engine block on the offside at the bottom where the breather was breathing, and around the bottom of the dipstick tube. I originally had the breather going into a catch tank, but it was fiddly and I found that there was too much oil churning around and it was a bit of a pain so had left it off.

I decided that wasn't working either, so tapped the rocker cover with a 1/2" barb, and ran a hose from there to the breather, so the bottom breather vents into the rocker cover, the rocker cover then vents into the atmosphere via a small filter. I also secured the bottom of the dipstick tube with a hose clamp, and again at the top to stop any leaks or the dipstick vibrating loose or being pushed out by the pressure.

On closer inspection today it looks like the bodge I made for the fuel pump blanking plate when burton sent me two breathers instead of one of each is leaking so I'll go and dig out a blanking plate properly this time.

When I got home, the parcel had arrived from weber bits, and even better they were the right ones, so I'll get these fitted and see if that cures the leak.

Master of Disaster

2009-01-06T14:46:00.004+01:00

Spent an hour in the garage, the aim was to tidy up, and press in the bearings into the rear hubs which are now painted and ready. One of those days where I should have stayed in bed. (The whole day incidentally.) I opened the wrong box of bearings, and decided that now it was open, I should fit it since otherwise it would simply get lost in the abyss. The bearings were for the front hubs, which are aluminum. These have proved to be a bit of a disaster from the word go, first off, getting the studs in was a nightmare and I ended up marking the hubs quite a bit. Getting the bearings in was a complete bar steward.

The larger one went in relatively easy by using a bolt and a couple of sockets on either end, the smaller one wouldn't center and was evidently just a smidge too large to get over the lip, I tried filing that down a little, and it looked like it was going to go, the socket was too big to fit, and the bolt was too small to hold it still, so I used the vice, it was all going well until i head a *CRACK* at first I thought it was just the bearing finally sliding in, but no, apparently I managed to break the vice. Yes not the carrier, or the bearing, the vice. I gave up at this point as I'd destroyed the vice, was covered in metal splinters from the socket which I tried to pick up after using it as a drift, and it was cold. Bah.

Carb fiddling

2008-12-28T11:49:00.002+01:00

Got the seven back and it was leaking fuel out the manifold. Combined with the surging at idle, I'd expect the likely cause to be failed O-rings, so I ordered a set from http://www.fastroadcars.co.uk/ as well as some thackarey washers. As I will need to remove the carb I ended up buying a carb synchrometer too. My hope is that speed-on got the idle jets close enough that sorting out any air leaks wont cause it to run badly now.

I did go for a quick blat though, and found the car to run pretty much spot on, the progression is pretty nice, occasionally a little hesitant but I think that will be cured once the air leak is sealed. I was spinning the wheels in first second and third when it came on cam, so had to take it very very easy. The fan and oil cooler seem to be working great as its now sitting exactly on 80C when on the move rising to about 90'ish before the fan kicks in and brings it down.

Contemplating going to work and back in it tomorrow.

'Ring Trip

2008-12-28T11:16:00.004+01:00

Went to the Nurburgring yesterday, got up at 8 am, jumped into the car got about 1/2 a mile and realized the engine was up to temperature already, this is surprising because it was -5 outside and it normally takes quite a long time. Delighted at the prospect of getting some warm air into the cabin, I turned on the heater and was belted with ice cold air. Something strange was going on, at first I foolishly thought it was the heater that had a problem. When the steam started escaping I quickly realized the problem. Apparently my antifreeze had frozen, and the system was blocked, watching the temperature gauge go from normal to really really hot to almost freezing again confirmed my suspicion.

Ten minutes by the side of the A12 and everything looked under control, and I topped up the fluid and went on my way, eye glued to the water temperature for the rest of the journey. I arrived at the entrance to the nordschleife around 11 bought some tickets, and had a pee before setting off.

The track was cold, and there was frost in quite a few places outside the racing line. The good news though was that the track was almost empty meaning I had

it pretty much to myself. This gave me time to work more on my line and concentrate on getting the gear changes correct, lining up for the bend and turning in at the right point.

The first few laps I was predominantly in 3rd gear dropping to second up the hill after the Breidscheid entrance, then as I got a little better and a little more confident predominantly 4th dropping into 3rd for the uphill, and towards the end I was hitting 5th and the speed restricter in the faster sections.

I found myself turning in way too early for adenauer forst, and nearly failed to turn left a couple of times, I still don't really know the track at all in relative terms. I also struggled a bit with the right hander somewhere else, I've no idea what the bend name is.

I was amazed how much of my undercarriage

the karussell removed from my car, there was an obscene amount of scraping and grinding before being spat out at the end, but one of my favorite bends of the circuit, I was entering round about 45, and exiting around 50, I got th

e impression the car could go a bit faster if I kept the speed up on entry. The MX5 doesn't have the power to really increase speed that quickly.

Overall a great trip, the ice was a bit sketchy, but worth it to have the track to myself. The EBC greenstuff pads seem to do a pretty good job, but there is less feedback from the pedal than I would like, and not a lot of bite, so perhaps its time to change them.

Fury Prep Work

2008-12-25T18:01:00.002+01:00

Pressed the studs into the alloy front hubs, stripped out the bearings and studs from the rear assemblies, and started to clean them up. I'll need to get the rear hubs turned down to fit into the disks, which fit over the top.

Now the garage is taking shape I'll start to get the rest of the donor parts stripped and repaired. I decided on this build to completely refurb everything. Collapsing bearings and worn seals have been the bane of my life since getting the seven on the road.

Once the rear hubs are turned down, I'll paint them, press in the studs and new bearings, then assemble the calipers ready to mount.

The next thing to do is the diff, I have new seals and bearings to fit, but im not sure if i will paint it or not.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

2008-12-25T16:56:00.003+01:00

Got the seven back yesterday, Mischa looked a bit surprised when I said it was going in the back of the van, but my patented trick worked. Spent some time today in the garage, first job was to fix some minor things I wasn't happy with. The clutch pedal was sticking way too far backwards meaning it felt too far forward and had way too much movement, so i adjusted the lash so that it sits in line with the break pedal.

I'm not sure what Tim did with the throttle, but it was way too stiff, so i moved the adjuster to increase the leverage, and removed one of the springs.

The alternator wasn't working any more for some reason, i think when I cleaned and painted it I disturbed something, so i took it out, cleaned all the contacts, and wiggled everything and now its fine.

I let the car warm up for a while to check that it wasn't going to overheat, the fan kicked in, cooled it down and worked well, partly i expect down to the low temperature. There was a lot of popping and spitbacks, the manifold was leaking a little on the exhaust, so I tightened up the bolts and it made a bit of a difference, then I noticed that some fuel was dripping down from the O-rings between manifold and carbs, tightened them up and it made a bit of a difference, but not much. I also noticed that the air filters were quite soaking in fuel, not a good sign.

Went out for a quick drive, I'd forgotten just how addictive the car is, the rebuilt engine is a *lot* better, much more responsive. The idle is surging a little and needs some love, but its pretty sorted for the most part. I'll need to adjust the bias on the brakes again with the new calipers its way too much to the front.

Brought the car back and noticed some oil dripping, it looks like there is stuff coming out of the breather and dipstick so i've tightened up the connections and we'll see what happens.

Bits and Bobs

2008-12-02T17:24:00.003+01:00

Neither car ready yet, fury is at least progressing, seven still not imported which is a bit pants. Ordered wheels from George Polley Motorsport, went for 6x13 CXR's in black on the front, and 7x13 on the rear.

I decided on keeping et18 offset on the front, and based on the notes from Rob Collingridge, did my best to get the right offset on the rear. Rob used 13x6's on the rear, but had to use a 10mm spacer, by my working, that would be et8. Now, if I use 7" wide wheels, to keep the same inner clearance, I need to increase the amount the wheel sticks out by half an inch (12mm) so that would be an offset of ET-4. ET0 therefore seems like the sensible option.

I went for Yokohama A048R tyres all round with 185x60 on the front, and 205x60 on the rear.

I also ordered a large selection of nuts and bolts from namrick. I will also try to get a price for the nitrons today too.

Todo

2008-11-07T14:33:00.003+01:00

In a weeks time I'm off to the US and Mexico for three weeks, before I go I want to make sure that a few things are sorted out.

The garage is ready for me to move into, I need to sort out the paperwork with the agent, and then pay the owner the rent. This should be fairly straight forward, but my overly-realistic self thinks it will be a ballache. I also want to see if I can get the floor painted before I go to the US, that will give me plenty of drying time.

It would be good to get the shelves in, but thats not goign to happen, and the bench I will bring from the UK as I should have space in the van this time around.

I will try to get lights mounted somewhere though, as at the moment there are not enough, and it will be harder with the car in the way. I may also move in the toolboxes and compressor, but I'm in two minds if i should just fork out for a larger capacity compressor or not.

I will leave the car lift until the new year, as although its nice, its not going to be required until its nearer a rolling chassis.

I need to confirm with Chris at BGH the order state, fuel tank, and check nothing is missing from the order. I also need to confirm the price for the fuel tank and powder coating.

I may order some wheels and or Nitrons and get that over with too. It looks like most of the parts have turned up in the UK though which is good so I'm more or less good to go now. I need to order some sundries from Screwfix, mainly gloves, drills, rivets and some hand cleaner.

Apart from that I think I'm all set for a rolling chassis. Next main big components to get will be:

Shocks
Wheels
Reverse Box
Engine
Prop shafts
Cooling system
Exhaust

I can possibly start doing some things in the interior like the seats and seat belts, but think its better to wait until the body work has arrived before I do too much in the car.

Mega Order

2008-10-23T12:35:00.000+02:00

Phoned rally design, they don't stock the raceleda hubs any more, but do still stock their own group 4 ones which fit a standard stub with standard bearings. I decided to go for these, they are cheaper than the raceleda ones, but noticably heavier looking.

Speed-on stock an M10-1/8NPTF adaptor for a few euros so I'll give that a try assuming I can actually buy one from them, if not I'll lop the end off and fit one to the hose at a later date.

I ordered the rest of the braking system

Escort RS Donor - Powerlite - 265mm Solid Kit (BK1R) Style of disc Grooved
Sierra (Drum) Powerlite HB Caliper - 240mm Solid Kit (BK65)
Powerlite Handbrake Caliper - CABLE (RD6902)
Powerlite 4-Pot Fast Road Ceramic (Poly-Q) (15Q-8812K)

Some bits I need for the steering

Escort MK2 2.9 Ratio Steering Rack RHD (RD870)
ALLOY RACK CLAMPS Escort MK1 & MK2 (RD848)
2 WHEEL BEARING KITs, PER HUB (RD744)
2 Group 4 Ally Hub - STD/STD (RD199)
2 STANDARD GREASE CAPS - ALLOY - ESCORT (RD757escort)
16 Standard plus 25mm 63mm long 12mm 1.5 Ford (SS37)
16 Wheels Nuts - 12mm 1.5 19mm (3/4") HEX 60º (SN41)

And the rest of the fuel system

8mm - 5/16 ID HOSE (LMA367)
Copper Nickel Brake Pipe 1/4 - 25 Foot Coil (CNF014)

After getting expensive quotes from breakeryard.com I relented and bought a diff from ebay. I also need to get some track rod ends, probably from ebay too.

Just waiting on Chris confirming the costs for the Tank, Powdercoating and uprights, and of course a delivery date.

The next logical thing to get will be the Shock absorbers, Nitrons are going to be expensive though sadly, I will then find myself some build wheels and I'll have a car that can roll, stop, turn and spray fuel into the engine bay.

After that its the reverse box and drivetrain.

Order Progress

2008-10-22T17:24:00.001+02:00

Spoke to Chris today, Arranged for everything including the floor to be powdercoated tangerine. Discussed a number of points of confusion for me, the brake flexible hoses will be m10x1 male on the end, so I need to convert them to 1/8th ntpf somehow. I might just whip the ends off and stick an NTPF fittings, or at least M10 Female. Ordered a 6Gallon tank, a bit small perhaps, but will do nicely for now, complete with baffles, a sump, and return pipe. We're still not sure on the uprights, in theory standard Escort ones should be fine, but I was planning on putting Alloy hubs on, so I need to check that they fit the smaller stubs. I shall place an order at raldes sometime later today.

On the list of things to do is:

Check the price for the fuel tank
Confirm the colour code that the whole kit and kaboodle will be powder coated
Check with Rally Design that the hubs will fit

Chris recons the order will be ready mid to late November, which is more or less Ideal as I'll be back from Supercomputing and the US no later than the 8th of December.

The Speed-On Minute

2008-10-21T15:15:00.000+02:00

The seven has been at Speed-on now since the 26th of August, thats quite a long time, in fact thats almost two months. You would think that in that time i'd be having a new build, but no, here is the list of things to do:

Weld on a nut to the manifold so that I can plug in the LC1
Align the wheels
Balance and tune the webers
Import into the netherlands.

The wheel alignment has been done, but still waiting on everything else. Not amused. Thankfully the weather is so pants I can't drive it anyway.

Yet More Ordering

2008-10-21T14:56:00.000+02:00

Bought a bunch of stuff for the build:

Sytec Universal Fuel Filter and Bracket 9.99 ebay
2 Freelander diff/driveshaft oil seals 10.58 Ebay
Walbro Injection Pump 50.00 Ebay
Oil Drain pan to replace the one i dropped the car on 13.99 Ebay
2 Sierra Wheel bearings 19.98 Ebay
Steering Column Bush 2.95 Ebay
Sierra Driveshafts, Hub Assemblies, Handbrake, Column and Link, spare column 219.95 - Ebay

Didnt manage to lay my hands on a diff, standard ones keep going for silly money, nor did i get a reverse box which was a shame too.