Track Preperation Part 1

General Meets + Track Day Reports
201

Well after six weeks away from the car I finally started on it again yesterday.

I have missed working on it, but have had a bit too much on my plate of late. Basically 2006 has not been good to the people around me. As I mentioned one of my very close friends nearly died in January after suffering several strokes. Well the day after he came out of hospital in the middle of February, my Nan was diagnosed with Cancer. She has to have radio therapy every day during the week, so I have been moving work stuff around so that I can take her as often as possible. She is 79 and very scared, my grandfather died about 6 years ago and she is all on her own. It�s really sad to see her not her usual happy self. Illness sucks man, I tell ya what we all take our health for granted, till it goes �Pete Tong�. I tell ya, my views on life have changed over the last few months!!!

Anyway back to the car.

The last time I worked on it I changed the fuel system a little bit. To be honest I had never been overly happy about the FSE fuel pressure regulator that Dave Walker fitted when the Jenveys went on. It just looks like a cheap and nasty bit of kit, plus it only has push fittings. The standard Jenvey fuel rail also only has push fittings and call me old fashioned but I�m not happy with dodgy push fit stuff when it comes to fuel and the chance of burning to death if something pops off!!

So I replaced the regulator for a pukka billet ally Aeromotive adjustable jobbie. These come with proper aeroquip screw fixings. I also called Jenvey and got them to send me a new one piece fuel rail, again with -6 screw fittings on each end.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/newfuelreg.jpg[/image]

When I was in Japan I saw a couple of cars that had blanked off one end of the fuel rail, making it look like there is no return. I think it looked really cool, plus it saves on about a four foot piece of -6 aeroquip pipe, so I went for that setup on my car. A prize to the first person that figures out how it all works. Lol.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/Newfuelrail.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/fuelregshowingtpiece.jpg[/image]


So that brings us up to yesterday.

After I modified the loom at home I connected it all up as I wanted to basically see if the car started, as I had kind of guessed a few things. Lol. So yesterday�s task was to start from the back and work forward making all of the wiring fit.

I mounted the ECU for the paddle shift for the gearbox on the rear bulk head as there are several adjustment knobs on it, so I wanted it in a pretty accessible place. Next I decided I wanted the engine ECU to mount on the floor just in front of the passenger seat. As it normally mounts on the bulkhead, none of the wires were long enough, so that entailed me cutting and extending every single ECU wire.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/Interiorwiringrear.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/RelocatedECU.jpg[/image]

I then made up all of the permanent wires for the fuel pumps, all of the gauges, the gearbox cooler pump etc. So they now all run nicely up the centre of the car and up behind the dash. I soldered all of the wires, but I ran out of the small size heat shrink, so the coiled up ones in the corner are waiting for some more to arrive tomorrow.

I am basically relocating all of the relays and the fusebox to the dash board, so that changing anything is quick and easy, however the hole on the rear underside of the dash wasn�t big enough for the fusebox to pass through, so out came the die grinder and the hole was made bigger. This ended up being a real mission as you are working in a very tight place.

Next up was refitting the dash board pieces, this was a real krypton factor job as it had been quite a few months since it had come out. It all came together though in the end and all of the wiring that is going to sit behind the dash is now all routed the correct way and is sitting on top of the dash.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/Dashbackin.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/dashwiring.jpg[/image]

A you can see from the picture above all of the wires that will sit behind the dash are a mile to long, so I reckon there is at least another day in shortening them all and getting everything to sit in the right place.

The other major spec change has been the electric water pump for the engine. Basically Simon (Erland) has recently rebuilt an engine that had done a season or so with an electric pump. He had the head tested for hardness and basically he reckoned it was scrap as it had gone really soft. So after a bit of a chat we have decided to revert back to a conventional water pump. I love trying new and different things, but I guess I don�t want to risk my engine and I especially don�t want to risk my new engine!!

So it was out with the electric water pump and in with a silicon 90 degree hose to replace it

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/Nomoreelectricpump.jpg[/image]

I obviously now had to also include a thermostat and put in some pipework to allow the water to still circulate when the thermostat was closed (basically taking the rad out of the picture.

So basically what I have done is put the remote stat back where it came from on the inside of the drivers side chassis leg where the water pipe passes through it.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/remotestat.jpg[/image]

I have then routed the circulation pipe round under the bottom pulley, basically following the routing of the oil cooler pipes and then bought it up and connected it to the old heater bypass return, that I had previously blanked off when the electric pump was fitted.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/stattowaterpumphose.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/returntothermostathousing.jpg[/image]

The extra bits of hose have been put there to stop any rubbing when the engine moves about.

Today I haven�t touched the car as I have been preparing for a meeting I have tomorrow, well a meeting I did have until it was cancelled this afternoon. Mind you I finally got round to ordering the competition license starter pack from the MSA, I also joined the AMOC and I have filled in all of the registration forms for the MES series. The couple of girls I spoke to at AMOC were very helpful, which was nice. I also ordered my timing beacon from MTS, I didn�t realise they are configured to order which can take anything from a week to 28 days!!! The place is local to me so I went and hand delivered my order form in a hope of schmoozing a shorter delivery time.

Also ordered more heat shrink and a few other electrical bits and bobs. I ordered some carbon sheet to make my dash front panel out of and some heavy duty plasticy rubber stuff, to protect the bulkhead behind the front wheels as no one seems to run wheel arch liners in there race cars.

Tomorrow, now that I have a free day, will hopefully see some of the dash wiring shortened and looking a bit more like it should actually be there.


Sean…

202

Oh also ordered a 75 degree thermostat to go into the remote stat housing.

Sean…

203

The things you do for an easy life

204

about time you got back to giving us some interesting posts

Does this mean you are going back to a standard mechanical water pump (suppose you’ll need a new one after cutting the blades off it ) and does it also mean all the trimming and modding of the steel pipework needs anythng restored ??

sorry to hear about your Nan

all the best

205

Yeah new mechanical water pump has been ordered and will go on in the next few days.

The hacksaw was taken to my bodged together ally pipe. It all looks OK though. If it all works, then I am going to have some new silicone pipes made that will all fit exactly.

206

The hacksaw was taken to my bodged together ally pipe.

Booger… thought that looked like an excellent mod as well

207

The hacksaw was taken to my bodged together ally pipe.

Booger… thought that looked like an excellent mod as well

Rox I think I have misunderstood you. Do you mean the metal pipework that runs from the original thermostat housing on the exige.

This:

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/origblackwaterpipe.jpg[/image]

If so, then no, even though I have gone back to the mechanical pump, I have retained my modded pipe as below:

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/blackwaterpipebeforewelding.jpg[/image]

Obvioulsy the 90 degree section is all welded up, that is tha only picture I have of it off the car.

Here it is in place:

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/waterpipeenteringblock.jpg[/image]

The end with no pipe on, that was blanked off in electric water pump mode, now takes the return from the remote thermostat housing.

Sean…

208

good Man… that’s the fella…

I wasn’t sure how the return path worked from thermostat but hadn’t realised that it worked the other way round… i.e. to use the electric pump you blanked the return so now all you do it open it up agin and run silicon onto it

209

Fuel system looks great. I wanted to do the same routing you have taken with the water system in December and basically I decided that the wishbone could pinch the pipe, unlikely with stiff suspension but still not what I wanted, so I went over the chassis rail to be safe, basically just turned the thermostat 180 degrees from where you have it at the moment. sure you have checked for clearance but just thought I would mention it.

210

Nice to have the picture blog back.

Chin up Sean!

Ian

211

Hi Jason, could you clarify your post please.

All of the water pipes are inside the engine bay, none are anywhere near the wish bones. I guess I am misunderstanding you. I am keen to not screw anything up, so if you could clarify what you mean I can check.

Thanks,

Sean…

212

No new pictures today I’m afraid. I have literally just got in after spending the last 12 hours soldering. Basically all of the wires that were sitting on top of the dash yesterday evening.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/dashwiring.jpg[/image]

Now sit nicely inside the dash on the passanger side. Basically every wire there has been shortened about three feet. The fuseboard will basically sit infront of the passanger, so it will be nice and easy to change any of them if something blows. All of my SPA gauges and the fuel level gauge will sit to the right of the fuse box over by the driver. The controls for the Stack rev counter will sit on the right hand side of the steering wheel, over by the light switches. The original heater panel will now house the hazards and fog light switchs along with new switches for fuel pumps, Starter button and stuff like that.

I think I have decided to mount the relays out of sight under the dash. I felt they looked a bit unsightly in the dash, but under the dash will still make them easyish to change.

Gauges are all wired.
Fuel gauge is wired
Starter button is wired
Fuel pumps including seperate switch are wired
Gear selection gauge is wired
Paddle shift is wired
Stack rev counter is wired.

Tomorrow will see all of the wiring finished (fingers and toes crossed!!). If it all works I will be bloody amazed!!!

Got my medical for my ARDS test tomorrow aswell and fingers crossed I will be doing the test next Thursday, just waiting to hear back from Anglesea who have fitted me in specially on my own. HUGE Thanks to Pesky, for helping me sort that out!!!

Sean…

213

Got my medical for my ARDS test tomorrow aswell and fingers crossed I will be doing the test next Thursday, just waiting to hear back from Anglesea who have fitted me in specially on my own. HUGE Thanks to Pesky, for helping me sort that out!!!

Don’t mention it, mate - I’m sure you’ll have an enjoyable time with Richard. Will you be using the circuit’s Mondeo or the Ginetta? Either way, you’ll probably get a good number of laps in, under Richard’s expert tuition, once he’s “ARDs Test passed you”. He is quite a fan of Exiges/Elises. He drove mine a few years back, & at the time didn’t realise they revved considerably higher than Elises, so was short shifting. However, he knows the track like the back of his hand, & it was a pleasure to learn from the master!

214

IT LIVES AGAIN!!!

The car is running, all of the wiring works. Well I say all, the indicators don’t work and the paddle shift doesn’t work, but apart from that everything else works as it should. To be honest I was a bit shocked. There are literally hundreds of wires and I have lengthened or shortened every single one of them.

I think the indicators is something to do with the stalk, I will investigate further tomorrow. The paddle shift is more of a mystery. It is a sealed system that you simply give a live and an earth to. I have done that and it doesn’t work, so I will be calling them in the morning.

It wasn’t all plane sailing though today. When we first connected the battery up, I pressed the master arming switch and nothing happened. We double checked aeverything and in the end the master cut off swith itself was faulty. Once that was out of the loop everything fired up.

We taped up all of the engine bay loom, so that looks pretty neat now.

For the in car stuff, I think I am going to take it out and loom it all up on the floor, as its all a bit tight in the dash.

Plus I passed my medical!!!

I do have some pics, but I aint got time to post them as some bird is coming round to rub my back!!!

215

hi sean, sorry to har about ya nan, hope she gets better soon

as for the car, awesome news on getting it started, you put so much time and effot into it

bet you cant wait to get it all running again, and surely cant be long before the new engine is fitted and you got a permenant smile going…lol

nice one

spiky

p.s. does ya lady friend wanna travel to wales to give me a back rub?

216

Well things have been chugging along nicely over the last week or so. I left last time with the dash wiring done, but the dash not made, so basically the dash wiring looked like this:

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/dashwiring-gettingthere.jpg[/image]

These are the gauges that are going to be in my dash binnacle

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/dashbinacleinstruments.jpg[/image]

Well my good friend Whippy (He�s an Ice Cream man!!) got to work on a piece of carbon and the dash now looks like this:

Passenger Side

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/dash2.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/dash1.jpg[/image]

Drivers side

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/dashdriversside.jpg[/image]

And a bit of an overall shot

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/dashoverall.jpg[/image]

As you can see I didn�t mount the fusebox and relays in the dash as basically I thought it looked a bit naff. I have made the dash quick release instead (one screw) and the relays and fuses are mounted behind the dash out of the way.

He is finishing up the centre binnacle as this has proved really difficult to get everything mounted and the binacle secured and for me to be able to read everything through the steering wheel.

So other things that have been going on include fitting of the seat.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/seatfitted.jpg[/image]

This was a complete bastard and I think I will be changing to one similar to Russ�s in the near future.

The new water pump is now fitted, but I have been having a rethink of the water routings, especially after I went to Plans to have the screen fitted, John pointed out how the routing could be improved. Plus I have changed my remote thermostat to a QED one

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/newthermostat.jpg[/image]

The QED one is the purple one. Basically I have gone for this as they do a 75 degree thermostat. I did order just the thermostat hoping it would fit in the elise parts thermostat body, but hey ho, it didn�t so I had to order the QED stat body. It�s a pukka bit of kit IMO.

I will post more pics of the water system on Friday as I have a new header tank being made, so hopefully I will be able to show the final completed water piping then.

I am running a bleed pipe from the radiator back to the header tank, this will mean the system is constantly bleeding itself, so should get rid of any air pockets. For this I am having a fitting welded onto the radiator tomorrow

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/RadFitting.jpg[/image]

I have run a thin pipe down the passenger side sill back to the header tank. But as I say more about the water system later in the week.

Fitted an S1 non air con elise bit of ventilation ducting / housing, as the pipe I had there originally fouled on the wiper motor when it was on.

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/ventilationducting.jpg[/image]

The brown ducting fits neatly onto the outlet and everything looks like it grew there

Next I mounted my external kill switches to the rear clam. I bought two of the alloy bezels from Lotus Motorsport that are on the S2 240 cup cars, as I thought they looked BLING!!! I then cut some carbon to fit on the inside and mount the switch to, then bolted it all through the bezal and the clam. I think they look cool!! I have a blue switch for the electrical cut off coming in the post, to try and differentiate the two a bit better, obviously the appropriate stickers will be by the buttons

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/killswitches.jpg[/image]

Then out came the angle grinder to the rear clam and I chopped out all of the bits that I didn�t want. As you can see I went pretty mad!!

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/clamcutouts.jpg[/image]

I also modified the inner alloy supports to make them a bit lighter

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/rearclamstays.jpg[/image]

My transponder thingy also came, so that was fitted to the front of the car and the wiring ran inside and wired up.

Then I tried the rear bodywork for size. Note the new SUPER COOL roof!! Cheers Maddog!!!

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/rearbodyworkon.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/Rear3qtrwithbodywork.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/driverssidebodyworkon.jpg[/image]

[image]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0903/SeanBicknell/passsidebodyworkon.jpg[/image]

A hundred odd other little jobs have happened that I can�t remember as well. Lol. Oh the indicators work now, basically I had got the switch fronts on the wrong switches and the hazard switch was one of them, so once I sorted that all was well. The only electrical thing that doesn�t work now is the paddle shift. I am off there on Monday for them to have a look.

The list of jobs still to do now fits on one piece of A4, but it is these little things that all seem to take ages, but fingers crossed by the end of the weekend we will be getting there!!!

217

Looks Great Sean!

I think you did go a bit mad on your rear clam

218

wow its really starting to look like a car now!!!
cant wait to see the end product

219

I think you’re going to need a co-pilot for that dash!

220

I think you’re going to need a co-pilot for that dash!

i voulunteer myself for that role!