Into the frantic stages now, Dyno is booked for Mon 6th to get my old Exige map tweaked in for the subtle differences I’ve made on the 2-Eleven.
Cage came out of storage and went back on.
To conclude the chargecooler install I needed a new bracket to support the rear of the CC core. As a reminder, the Pro Alloy dev car for the 2-Eleven kit was a later car which came with a different heatshield arrangement that could be used to mount the core. The first 50 cars had the same heatshield as me, and I’m #50…
I feel like I need to apologise for this, as somebody with a bit of engineering ability would have been able to come up with something so much better, but all I wanted to focus on was getting the dimensions right, and getting something stiff enough to provide the support. I’m certain that a much lighter and more elegant solution can be found, which is something I’ll sort out later when time pressure is off a bit.
My goal was to fill the gap between the subframe legs, so did some measuring up and cardboard mocking and came up with this.
I left it to Pro Alloy to decide materials, and add any folds needed for strength. This is what they (very quickly) turned around for me.
Luckily, it turns out I can use a ruler… and it fit.
It bolts in using some existing threaded holes in the subframe, and is more than stiff enough. I think a short term solution for making it look just a little bit “thought out” would be some punched holes and dimple die bending to make it look a bit more race car. Really though I think the best fix would have been to chop a massive section out of the trailing end, leaving 30mm or so at the sides and front, then rewelding on a ‘fold’ to put some strength back in it. Maybe a project for another day.
All that was left was to pop some bobbins in and we had a mounted chargecooler. Excellent.
Plumbing was next, I had all the old hoses from the Exige but they just weren’t going to work as the pipe run was a bit different and the lengths just weren’t right. Also, the supplied hose with the CC kit is very stiff and heavy, this helps for blindly jabbing the pipes through the sill but it adds up to a lot of weight.
This little bundle is a fair bit lighter per metre, more flexible but probably a little weaker on the abrasion resistance. I can live with that.
Bought 2x 90 degrees elbows to do the initial run from the pre-rad, then mocked up my routing:
For pump mounting, there were two M6 holes already in the chassis that I had been eyeing up. They were very conveniently positioned for a couple of M6 isolation bobbins I just happened to have lying around
They would let me do something like this…
Pump would be hidden from the wheel well by a piece of thin aluminium that’s bonded into the side panel, but just about accessible for service/replacement by some blind fondling either from below or above… not that it’s particularly hard to remove a side panel if needed.
After a few tweaks, rerouting to allow me to use existing fixtures for P-Clips I was ready for coolant. Filling this was significantly easier than on the Exige, because the header tank is a clear high point on this system. For the Exige, you can’t really get it any higher than the CC core so it makes airlocks and ‘burping’ quite tedious. Quick test of the pump, all good - and very quiet too. Isolation bobbins ftw.
Speaking of coolant, I’m out of sequence now - but I also had a few jobs to do before getting the car fired up on the new(old) ECU and idling nicely.
Engine was dry of coolant since having the radiator shroud removed, so took the opportunity to refit yet another Exige refugee (and add yet more weight, woo!) in the guise of my gearbox cooler setup. Pics from the original Exige install:
Worlds cutest laminova with a small fluid pump, and some home made AN hosing. Would fit to the gearbox drain plug and fill plug via a couple of these:
…and would trigger via some logic on my dashboard which acts like a thermostat to fire the relay when the box temp is hot enough.
Pump sits on the chassis crossmember between engine mount and wishbone mount:
Cooler sits just above the crossmember and is covered in coolant splatters from the chargecooler refill.
Suppose I should ‘service’ it too.
(had a peak inside gearbox after oil drained, defo has an open differential in there)
What berk put this on?!
I did, never ever struggled to undo one before so not sure what happened here.
I was getting ready for first fire time. Nothing really scary, engine has only been opened up for a quick peak inside the cam cover and I had a map on the ECU which ran fine on the Exige… so as expected it fired up on the button. Fuelling needed a bit of a tweak, as I’m no longer factoring in fuel pressure to my fuelling model as I did on the Exige but within about 30 seconds it was idling smoothly, returning to idle after a little throttle blip and fuelling bang on target.
Brought car up to temp, burped coolant, discovered fans were wired in wrong so had to reverse the polarity of those but other than that - all good, no leaks, no funny noises or smells. Excellent.
