Track Preperation Part 1

General Meets + Track Day Reports
101

echo comments made by everyone else - this is a fantastic thread.

the new bulkhead seems to have given you alot more room behind the engine.

If there will be a voting for best thread of the year… This is a sure winner…

102

If only I had a bigger garage!!!

I live in a city centre town house with the smallest garage in the world, so much so Ive had to rent my next door neighbours garage to keep all of my bits…but the’yre both bloody freezing!

Just wish I had the time, space and warmth to do what you lads are doing…good luck, you have my admiration!

103

Cheers Guys, I really do appreciate all of the comments!!!

George, I have a very friendly MOT man. I know that doesn’t help me if i get pulled over, but I guess life is to short to worry about stuff like that lol.

Sean…

104

Yeah there is loads of room now, its amazing!!

Now you’ve got the room, do the rules allow you to move the enigine towards the centre to improve the balance?! That’ll get you thinking!

This thread is great Sean! (Although I’m starting to worry about extra weight from head swell )

Ian

105

Cheers Ian!!

LOL about my head swelling. We’ll see if the bloody thing starts and drives when I have finally got it all back together.

On the engine position, I did think long and hard actually, however, what the pics don’t show is how close the front of the gearbox is to the front lower wishbone mount, so there isn’t much to be had. Plus once I have my exhaust manifold on, I reckon most of that space will be filled.

I even thought about rocking it forwards, but any movement at all, alters the drive shaft angles and the last thing I want is to stress out the drive shaft CV’s.

So in short, no, the engine is staying put. LOL.

Sean…

106

The wiring loom is finally finished. I have stripped out everything that I don�t need.

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

Once I have trial fitted it into the car and incorporated all of the gauge and new dash wiring and anything extra that pops up, I will remove it again and wrap it with loom tape.

The pic below is a good indication of how much wire has come out. Basically the only fuses that are still in use are the ones still in the fuse box.

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

I have left short wire tails on the fuse box and the relay boxes on all the bits I have cut out so that I can incorporate any new circuits into the original fuse box and relay box. So when finally all fitted everything will be incorporated into the one loom.

Another thing I have tried to do is incorporate ALL of the engine wiring into the big multi plug that passes through the bulkhead. By all I mean even the SPA gauge sensors, my gearbox control wires etc etc.

I have done this so that having the engine out and in will be super simple as far as wiring goes, with simply one multi plug to disconnect.

So as can be seen below, there are free wires on either side of the multi plug that will be used for the gauges and gearbox etc.

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

So once all of the extras have been incorporated, all of the rest will be clipped off and insulated and then the whole loom taped up.

I just hope everything bloody works!!! Lol.

107

i love what u r doing!!!

108

Sean

Wiring loom is amazing… what weight difference ? can’t believe you are only left with 9 fuses … I agree with Nicholas, and love what you are doing.

109

Cheers Guys!!

Well what I cut out pretty much filled a bin bag. I don’t have any scales at home, so I haven’t weighed it. I kept a lot of the longer lengths of wire, as they always come in for stuff and its nice to have a good selection of colours.

The main reason for chopping the loom is simplicity. In my experiance cars that get modded and added to always suffer with there wiring. Plus troubleshooting them becomes a nightmare. Hopefully with less wires, there is less to go wrong.

Just hope what is left does what it is supposed to do!!!

Sean…

110

Hi Sean,

Just read the thread for the first time all in one go.

It makes fantastic reading. I wish I had found it earlier.

In the far East at the moment with slow connection so can’t get your pics.

Will check them out when I return to blighty.

Keep the good work up as we are all rooting for you !

Great job mate.

Exige77

111

I wonder if Hethel are watching…

112

I wonder if Hethel are watching…

I bloody hope not!!!

LOL

113

Monday was a good day actually. I got a couple of potential tricky bits sorted.

Firstly I needed to make a water pipe to go from the drivers side sill along behind the exhaust to the gearbox side, so the original rubber pipe could fit on. The original ally pipe doesn�t go all the way to the drivers side sill and didn�t run as low down the bulkhead as I wanted.

So it was out with the hack saw and I cut up the original pipe and the section of ally pipe that carries the heater water from the passenger side of the car up to the head area. I then marked it all up and cut and shaped and filed and stuff until I ended up with the four bits below

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

I then moved round to the horrible black pipe that comes from the block and runs under the inlet and over the gearbox.

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

By the time I had cut away what I wanted I had this much left!!!

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

Then it was off to my welding guy for him to TIG it all together.

Luckily he did it there and then, but my camera battery ran out so unfortunately I don�t have any more pics of the days work. I will post some on Thursday.

On the way back from the welders, I called in and picked up a few aeroquip fittings for the fuel system and some silicon hose to pipe up the rest of the water system.

As mentioned the water pipes on the exhaust side of the engines are taken care of with my new full length ally pipe.

On the other side the electric water pump goes straight into the pipe that comes out of the chassis on the passenger side. I then go up and through 90 degrees into the gearbox cooler laminova. Its then silicon hose as it passes through the gearbox mount and onto the engine oil cooler laminova. It then does a 90 degree turn out of the laminova and joins onto my new greatly reduced black pipe at the block and bobs your uncle, my new, super efficient, super simple, super bling and cool (fingers crossed) water system. LOL. I am not running any thermostat anywhere in the system, as the electric water pump turns itself on and off as needed, based on a controller that monitors the water temp.

I then piped up the fuel system, but that is probably best described in pictures as is the water system I have described above.

The only piping and mounting now left to do are the engine oil cooler and the gearbox cooler. Then its back to installing the loom and wiring in all of the new stuff!!!

I had to work today (Tuesday) and I have to work tomorrow, so no more work will happen on the car until Thursday unfortunately.

I have to say though; I think I am starting to see a tincy wincy bit of light at the end of the tunnel!!

114

I have to say though; I think I am starting to see a tincy wincy bit of light at the end of the tunnel!!

You’d better get the gaffa tape out then, think you’ve got a hole somewhere

Top job with cutting all those bit out of the car. You should have been asked to work on the Lotus track car. Would have had it as light as a feather in no time.

115

excellent… … again

don’t quite understand what you’ve done with the gearbox laminova… but that’s really because i’m lazy and my brain hurts thinking about it hopefully we can see some pics of it when you get back to it

116

Am I the only one who is waiting forward for Sean�s next post?

117

Am I the only one who is waiting forward for Sean�s next post?

Can you imagine … Track Preperation … Part 2

118

Am I the only one who is waiting forward for Sean�s next post?

Can you imagine … Track Preperation … Part 2

LOL.

Cheers for the comments guys.

Unfortunatly no further work has happened. I was over in Peterbourgh on Tuesday and Wednesday dyno-ing a big power Cosworth YB motor. How does 734BHP and 600lbft of torque sound!!!

And I have had to work yesterday and this morning.

I am taking my kids away this afternoon until Sunday night, so the next update should be on Monday evening.

I have had a few more ideas though over the last few days, so those will be incorporated as well!!!

Sean…

119

Just caught up again with all of this. I know exactly what you mean from my own experience about how difficult it can be to fault find a hybrid loom. Ideally I’d like to do the same with mine.

Sterling job so far I love reading about this kind of thing!

120

Cheers Ian!!

OK after only one days work on the car last week, I am kind of chomping at the bit to get started again tomorrow.

Bought a few things that arrived last week.

Below is the electric pump for my gearbox cooler. It is really really compact, only measuring about 8cm or so. The brass temp sensor is going to turn the pump on and off. It basically gives an earth at 80 degrees, so through a relay this will switch the cooler pump on and off.

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

The next picture is my battery cut off switch. I haven’t gone for the conventional big red key type. The main reason for this is the sighting of the external cable pull on a conventional switch. It would have to go in the rear clam. This is going to make removing the rear clam more difficult and in a mad rush type situation I can see it getting yanked and something breaking. The cut off switch I have gone for uses electrical cut off switches both inside and outside, so the external switch (like the fire extinguisher switch) will have a little plug on the wires to make them quick and easy to disconnect.

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

The last pic is of my new dashboard lights. I am going to ditch the original dash and kind of make my own. These lights will be for the indicators and battery and stuff like that.

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

Tomorrow should see some progress. Fingers crossed!!!