New Engine In...

So I've had the car off the road for a month, why to change the engine.

I've gone for the same basic 2litre turbo engine, but its a later revision of the engine with various sensors changing mainly from a MAF sensor to MAP and some other bits, what this also means is it required a new ECU and a repinning of existing wiring. However the main reason for the engine swap was this was a forged engine, it was built for someone else and had covered a few thousand miles which i preferred as I have the worst luck with newly built engines. The engine should be good for 550bhp with the right turbo, fuelling etc...



First I removed the old engine (quite a few bits off the engine) no engine crane at this point so I jacked the chassis up and slide it under and out.

With the engine out, I used this time to really clean the rear chassis again and touch up the paint work on it as the 3 years / 5500miles of driving had left some grim.

Gave the driveshafts a quick sand and bit of paint as well just to tidy them up as well

So next was to start the work of putting the new engine in, I had already prepped the engine. If anyone else ever build ones of these, bring the engine end into the chassis from underneath if you can as going in from above was much harder, although that may be because I was doing it all by myself so struggled to move the engine about and lower it in.

I filled the engine with oil and gave it that all important first turn over and it came straight to life! Perfect. I'm now in the middle of refitting the driveshafts and tightening all the suspension before the first test drive.

Dashboard work...again

So the dashboard is coming on well. I'm very happy with the shape, it has a more natural feel to it.

I've sprayed parts black to help me find holes and high / low points. Below is how it currently looks

The next two bits to do are;

* Make a dial surround that also fits over the key hole.
* Fix new demist vents on top of dashboard.

I'm taking a new approach to the demister to lower the amount of piping. I will bond the below under the dashboard where the  the vent holes are.

I will then get both outlets to join under the dashboard and then go into this channel which will then feed out of two vents. The piece about is 660mm long so will fit fully across the dashboard.

After the above 2 pieces are done. I will look into starting the flocking.

Long Overdue update

So I haven't posted since the beginning of the summer when the car just went back on the road. I guess the reason for that is I've been using it!

I managed to cover just over 2000 miles this summer with only a couple of minor issues. The biggest being I snapped my throttle cable! Luckily two roads from home so I crawled back on idle in 1st, then 2nd. Replaced the cable and away we go, ill be keeping an eye on that!

The plans for the winter work are below:

* Dashboard design works - so refine, add vents and get the finish to the next level as well. Complete the dial surrounds.

* Tidy up new wiring added for the radio and other bits behind the dashboard

* Silicone fill bodywork to chassis gaps around the front of the cockpit / wheel arches. This will lower the noise a lot, its not super loud at the moment but it will lower it further.

* Tidy up the doors and door cards to match the finish of the rest of the interior

* Repair a bit of fibreglass shell and strengthen others, some weaknesses have shown from the use of the car

* Adjust handbrake so it has a stronger hold

* Try and remove all knocking noises - there arent alot, they are just annoying

* Work on the final set of rear lights and also decide on the rear wing

* Get the rear clam to fit better. this is by far the worse fitting panel, the doors fit pretty well

Its a fair amount to do, so I doubt all will get it all done in the time frame before its back on the road as a lot of this is what will become the final versions. Below are some images from this year;

work has started (interior)

So first of all I got one last local meet in before the end of September and the weather changed. the cool evening air gave a nice crispness and punch to the engine as well.

So within a few days I was on to the job at hand...the interior. I'm in no rush to do this and will do it right rather then fast. So previously I had ordered my new seats. The criteria was I wanted small ones in terms of height and width and also reclining. Reclining was simply because there was a small amount of space behind the seats but with a fixed seat you simply cant get in there. With a reclining a hand luggage suitcase would fit or other bags you may want to put in out the way.

Luckily these were also one of the cheapest seats as well, which is rare to happen. The comfort of them compared with my current ones is like night and day so I'm very happy. They raise the seating position a little but I can counteract this by removing the carpet and sound deadening from underneath the mounting points so there will be little difference but more comfort, the seats also feel like they hold well for their shape.

so I test fitted one of the chairs, you can see even though they are the smallest reclining seat I could find there is little difference in size but they are slightly smaller, in theory they will probably be easier to get into as well.

So on to the interior and it came out easily enough, as I took it all out the dust from the bodywork was everywhere so ive done a fair bit of cleaning already and then moved on to tidying the new wires I had added once on the road. (tv screen, electric door opening).

Since then I've been measuring areas of the interior to start designing the new centre console between the chairs.

Developments

For once the good news is...everything has been smooth. The cars been running fine which is good. I took it for a midweek run as well after the previous weekend and everything was fine.

Following that I fitted the exhaust tip I wanted to use going forward and think it looked much better than the previous one.

I then spent the Saturday getting the car really clean, wash, polish, wax... there goes 3 - 4hrs of my life!

Then last weekend was Wilton House Supercar show and it was parked in the car park. Its first public outing and still not finished, the feedback from people was good and they liked the car, almost all questions were what is it. The only issue I have come across is from people thinking its a poor replica of a Mclaren F1. Its not although inspired. However a lot felt it had a Zonda front to it but I want to stop that so I definitely need to get some badges made up to solve that! Also I didn't do up the new twin exhaust I got... so fell off on the Saturday and was run over DOH! So i've re-dordered it again to refit.

As for the cleaning....shouldn't have bothered the path was like a dust bowl, better than mud but the car ended up like this down the side of the car.

The car drove great on the day and in some good heat and stayed really nice and cool running about 185 - 190f when driving, so perfect.

So whats next, well im now going to work a little on other touches like sealing up all the little gaps between the cockpit and engine bay and also the front arches just to help keep out a bit more noise.

Only bad thing to come out of this was the BC racing coilovers have previously leaked and all the oil has gone or too much air, do not get bc racing coilovers they are rubbish, barely done any miles and just sat on the car for ages. Instead I will enjoy a couple weekend of hard metal on metal banging when its a big bump!

I've also been looking into the rear wing again, now ive chopped off the ends, so just getting an idea on what to do.

I guess it would be rude now not to look and getting that 100bhp back I've lost, so time to up the power this weekend I think.

Engine Work

Following the work taking place on the engine to strip the head, it was sent off to a specialist who pressure tested it and also refaced it. I ordered a new cometic headgasket and fitted the engine back together. I had problems fitting the tight belt but got there eventually.

Before filling it with coolant I decided to try and fire it up, if id done something wrong I didn't want to have to drain it again! It wouldn't fire...

A quick google and a check and I hadn't connected the connector that connects on to the dizzy cap. Connected that and it fired straight into life. As well as this I took the opportunity to repaint the rocker cover black and also the heat shield (although keeping underneath silver). This just tidied up the engine a bit more as the rocker cover had peeled a lot.

Next is to finish the fitting of the exhaust (1st back box) and jack the rear of the car up whilst filling with coolant. Ill then run it at the same time to remove air from the system.... Hopefully!

Following that, it will need an oil filter and oil change to clear the system of any contaminations from during the work.

I can then move on to the other jobs;

* Fit rear camber bolts
* Arrange Geo Setup
* Get Rear side windows fitted
* Fit door solenoids
* Wire up rear view camera
* Complete exhaust tip and surrounding mesh
* Mesh over brake reservoirs

Then hopefully the exterior will be close to completion.

Pick up...

Not got a lot of time so its a quick update with the pictures doing the talking.

Picked the car up but still need to fit a few bits to it (rear camera fitting, mirror, exhaust changing!)...but here's some pics...or a lot

Been a bit quiet....

Been a bit quiet on the update front....well I delivered the car to the bodyshop this morning. So I should have an update in a couple of weeks of the work going on there.

I've been doing a couple of things around the car and generally making sure its ok. I found a small puddle of coolant after a month or so of being sat round so something needs nipping up when I get it back.

I've been looking into water / meth solutions. Although cooling wont be a problem as such heat soak may be so rather then take any risks a water / meth injection solution for boost about 8psi will provide some good protection from detonation. Maybe a slight power increase but I'm still not always convinced by this. As the argument can go on, colder air is more dense but then the water takes up volume in the first place. the most important part though is it will protect the engine.

Door locks and walk around

So I'm now looking into what are little niggles of mine with the car. First was the locks the doors were quite tough to open with the door rubbers, not impossible just felt to hard compared to an OEM car. So I took the plunge and ordered some new locks from CBS online and they were much easier and very similar in fit and style as well so it worked out really well.

Below photo shows the difference the main difference is the spring size i.e resistance. the original has a bigger spring, now on a door that shuts a normal way I don't think it would be an issue but with the added angle I think its making it tougher. as well as this the new ones have a better grip on the striker with less chance of rattling around.

I have to make a small alteration to them and then that piece of work will be complete.

In the meantime I've done a walk around of the car talking about parts as some people wanted to know what was going on with the car and how it currently looked...roll on the bodyshop!

continued work...

With not as much work to be done at the moment the updates haven't been as often but first of all I finished the arches and then set on sorting out a big area of the car for me, the spoiler...

It was always an area I felt had to be right to break the big slab like area of the rear up and I had found it hard to get right, I didn't want a big Fast & Furious stuck on spoiler so did a lot of research and had to trust my measurements and judgement when ordering.

So I found a wing called the F1 wing for the corvette C6. The problem was it appeared they weren't made any more or stocked anywhere. so I googled and found one for sale from corvette forum in 2013...it appeared not very popular in america as  spoilers go and the guy hadn't sold it. so i messaged him...and again...and again....and after enough pestering we got chatting and a sale was done. I want to thank him a lot and show that you can trust a random stranger over the internet.

It arrived and I was unsure whether to chop the ends off or leave them (you'll see below. I've decided on leaving them and I think the finish will be really good. opinions welcome on it or ideas if you think it could be improved.

On to the bodyshop!!...

Took the car out for a shakedown

So at the weekend I took the car out for a shakedown! the first shakedown on the saturday had a lot of smoke billowing out off parts near the exhaust, I expected this to some degree from wd40 and oil burning off. However it took a long time! Mainly because when the oil filter came off, oil went everywhere...it was slightly embarrassing!

However on the Sunday it was all burnt off and the car was run normally with no major issues.

I have a small oil leak which looked to be from the headgasket...however after stripping the engine back a bit last night it was the camshaft seals which appear to be leaking. So ill be picking up some gaskets for that and refitting and doing the timing again. Should have the engine back together tonight and oil leak fixed.

the seal had seen better days! And teaches me a lesson...replace all seals!!!

Seeing as the geometry isn't set the car did well, grips well with the wide tyres and once moving the steering feels nice and solid and not too heavy. I will want to replace the springs for softer springs as the ride is a bit too harsh for UK roads in my view. I will also probably at some point in the future replace the rear coilovers for ones where the dampening is on the top as that's restricting my lowering height at the rear.

The car boosted to 7psi without any issues and now I know the oil leak isn't head gasket the 16psi shouldn't be a problem going forward. I'll complete the boost controller solenoid fitting after the bodywork is done and once I've run at 7psi for a little amount of time..

Next stage is to replace the mirrors, the may look small and good, but were useless! So I have found some ones which are bigger but don't look too bad.

As well as this I will create some arch liners to try and keep the mess off the rest of the car! I can only clean it so many times before I get bored. After these two pieces are done it will be time for the bodyshop.

steering wheel, screen, indicators & further prep

So im still waiting on the DVLA for the reg number. Over 3 weeks now, bit of a joke really!! For an organisation which looks after all UK vehicle matters id expect a better turn around.

So I fitted the new oil cooler, drained all the new oil :( and got it running and the car is running very smooth so that is some good news...although of course there has been no engine load on it yet.

So first of all  i ditched the Toyota wheel as its 380mm diameter which is just massive. Now as I have no power steering I don't want to do to small, so went down to just 350mm for now and its made a big difference when sat in front of it already, I may be able to go down to 320mm but definitely not 280mm unless I work on my arms at the gym all the time! as well as this I fitted the rear view camera and also the screen. All worked fine. Obviously at the moment the interior is just to be practical with ideas for later on and this has opened up my eyes to needing a larger and better screen when doing the interior.

and rear camera position....

Some will of spotted the boost controller, that has been wired in and plumbed in as well, although I haven't done the solenoid at this point as I just want to make sure the car is working as expected before trying to raise the performance.

Next was the indicators as i wanted to get rid of the bobbles on the front so I got some LED waterproof strip. (600 leds a reel) and cut them to about 10cm in length and fitted them to the headlight covers. Much nicer and cleaner and can be seen clearly. these are actually brighter and better then the first set I had on for IVA which I failed with.

Following this I lowered the front end of the car to roughly the ride height I wanted. It has a ground clearance of about 3 1/2 inches. I suspect this is too low so I may need to raise it half an inch or so but ill work that out.

I also fitted some much smaller and nicer wing mirrors, now these I believe are too small, but being from a motorbike which generally have a universal fitting (not all) means I can find some bigger ones that will suit.

Im still to decide on what wing for the rear, it needs a wing to break it up but I don't want OTT. Hopefully the reg number will come this week, as im running out of time for test drives with roads being half dry at least! Today would of been perfect....typical!

Turbo bracket, Rear view camera and broken Oil cooler

So I got the oil cooler off...well it had had destroyed itself! Luckily I found all the chunks of the metal and fitted them together so I know no large pices of metal are in the engine so thats good.

Either way I will still be changing out the brand new oil for some more brand new oil after its warmed a bit so i know it removes as much as possible.

Following this I modified the turbo stay for the CT20b from a Celica. this now has a slit to it rather than a hole so it can be mounted on properly with the support.

Next I tested the rear view camera on a spare battery I had. Its a wireless from front to rear so i dont need to run any cables down the car. I bought the parts seperately as I wasnt sure how well it would work etc... and the cost came out at less then £30. Now its not amazing but will definitly provide a big improvement on rear visibility. Going forward long term I will get a larger screen for when I do the interior properly as currently its a 4.3" and i think a 5" would be better.

the two shots below are a daytime colour, which is a bit washed out as its from in the garage and night vision one.

Now I just need to decide on where to mount it at the rear.

As well as this the boost controller I have, I will start plumbing in the pipework along the car, although not connecting it as I want to test run the car with the boost just off the actuator at first to make sure everything is ok. That will only give me about 0.5bar of boost I believe but thats fine for test runs to ensure everything is ok.

Correcting IVA fail points

The way the test works is they will just test the parts that have failed...or if can make a difference to other areas those as well.

For instance if you had a rear light fail and you moved its position they would check its still within the allowed area.

So how did the test go...well and I came away happy, the tester (Andy) was helpful and thorough, but I did not feel he was there to make me fail. He was there to make sure it was safe and met the requirements. If it didn't he told me what I could do to meet the requirements, or if I wanted to do it another way id ask was it ok. Cant ask for more really!

So on to the fail points, I'm going to list all of them and what I did;

Brake reservoirs lower then highest master cylinder height
So to solve this one was simple in terms of what had to be done, the master cylinders couldnt be moved down as the pedal assembly is welded in position and also the holes for master cylinders drilled. so the reservoirs had to go up. So bracket extensions were made and the reservoirs were raised. they now stick out the bonnet from where I had to cut it. I actually quite like it! Looks a little different and not too over the top! (bodyshop would mesh it properly etc...) Reason this was a failure was because the reservoirs aren't pressurised so really on gravity to feed them when there's a leak

The reservoirs were then meshed for the test as there would be a radius check performed as well.

Steering system has tight spot during lock to lock operaton

This problem needed investigation first and then a fix after. What had happened is one of the unions had too tight of an angle around the 41 -42 degree mark. This was my fault for doing it too tight. So I had to extend one column length and shorten the other to change the angle, the angle is now about 29-30 degrees which is within its operating angle and is smooth to turn.

Fuel pipes in engine bay and breather pipe to be secured, breather pipe also to be fuel grade pipe
I placed rubber round the fuel pipes and cable tied them together so they were secure (the rubber is to protect the pipe from chaffing) and replaced the breather pipe with fuel pipe (marked) and added an additional strap to secure it

Nearside mirror does not meet the field of view requirement
- Also radius incorrect
This was because id left the stalk legs too long so when you looked from the drivers seat you couldnt see the top of the mirror, I removed 50mm off the bottom of the leg and tested it by sitting in the car..hands on steering wheel and looking into the mirror, Also part of the mirror stalk didn't have a 2.5mm radius...a quick mill of it to that radius and that was fixed.

Radius failures on, lower tunnel trim, both door inside rear edges by glass & gear lever surround
Again this was easy to solve, rubber trim was put on to all 3 pieces that failed to give the required radius. the dash lower edge I reheated and turned upwards as well and also placed rubber over it and covered it again.Not pretty but should do the job.

Radius failure on the front bumper
Out came the sandpaper and was sanded to a raduis of 1.5mm. I'm sure ive done enough but if not can be sanded more on the day

Radius failure on top edge of the doors
Because the doors weren't flush with the glass, they needed to have a radius of 2.5mm...out with the sandpaper again.

Wire to prevent rear clam being tilted fully back
Part of the requirements is that when all doors, boots, tailgates etc... are open all lights and reflectors can be seen. It can just be reflectors if there is a warning. So I installed a wire stay to stop the rear clam shell being tilted to far back.

Front indicators not bright enough
Registration lamp not working properly

The front indicators were replace (will have to get some clear lenses I think for them!)

the registration plate lamp played up night before with 2 LED's failing!!! So its been replaced and a spare bought to take with me just in case

Horn symbol on steering wheel when pad does not operate horn

Sanded off and tape placed over it

Vehicle weight exceeded submitted weights

In the UK you submit design weights so they know the vehicle is safe and to work out required braking force, I went over the design weights by around 150kg, they add 75kg per person (so x2) and also includes full tank of fuel. I just need to get an email confirming the chassis / suspension will take this higher weight without any issues

Failed emissions

This was my biggest worry in the first place, first I checked the lamba sensor and couldn't really get it to feed back like required in the test (electronic test) so replaced it, re-performed test and it passed so the lamba may of been playing up.

The car had been idling at 1200rpm which was a bit high anyway.After much diagnosing I decided the ICV (idle Control Valve) was not doing anything at all....off with all the inlet again and testing it. it passed all tests and I could see it working. I then checking loom continuity so all was ok. so the ECU was not controlling it correctly. I decided this was a known issue on the car when I bought it. The give away was the idle screw was screwed in all the way, so I couldn't lower the rpm at idle any more.

To get around the above I set a 12v feed into the ICV and set the ground for it to be always closed, its there to help cold starts anyway (which I wont need), I now turned the idle screw out and got it to idle perfectly at 800RPM. Nice and steady! following this I set up the TPS (throttle position sensor) as it needs to be redone afterwards.

The most exciting bit of this is I have an emissions test on Saturday which I get to drive the car on the road for the first time as well.


That was all of the failures so not too bad really, I'm now waiting of the retest towards the end of the month, so there wont be an update next week and I'm now trying to work out what to do with my time!