Sunny Diary - Page 4
Electricals are nearly finished!(8/8/04)
Finally the end is in sight for the completion of the electrical system. After too long messing around with a dodgy 2nd hand harness, a brand new engine harness and chassis loom is nearing completion. At the current time, we hope to have the car back in the workshop by the first week of September. Once weget the car back thee are a number of things that need to be tackled as quickly as possible if we want to see the track this year! The list of things to do includes: Remove and rebuild engine, New bushes (trailing arms, rear shocks), sway bar, new Noltec strut tops, harness, fire extinguisher, tailshaft loop, baffle the diff, fit new tyres, new brake pads (front), fit remote bias adjuster, modify accelerator pedal to get closer to brake pedal, wheel alignment and dyno tune. Quite a list, but we will be going flat out between now and the end of the year to get it all done.
Here are some pics of the latest work being completed by Anton of Anton's Race Electrics. Anton has done a great job, and I highly recommend anyone in need of Auto electrical work to contact him on 0429 031 488.
The new main switch panel which sits next to the drivers seat houses all major switches (start, ignition, wipers, lights, indicators, fuel pumps etc). Also, Anton has used circuit breakers instead of fuses. This is in case something trips on track, I can reset it and continue. Each component of the re-wire has been designed to be easily removed.... notice the plugs at the end of the panel... this allows the whole panel to be removed easily if necassary.
Left: The dash has also been wired as a seperate component. By splitting the plug atthe back of the dash, the whole thing can be removed, with the exception of the mechanical gauges (oil pressure & Boost Pressure).
Right: Most of the relays and fuses are now located in the glovebox. A circuit breaker has been added for the thermo fan.
Left: Anton has used a Millspec plug at the firewall to facilitate easy engine removal. To remove the engine I now only have to remove the starter motor and disconnect the engine loom at the firewall. I am hoping may even be able to remove the engine as a complete unit - with manifolds and auxillaries attached.
Right: The front chassis loom is complete! The lights and other non-engine components are wired and ready for action.
The old loom that has caused me many headaches! First trying to figure out what was there, then fitting it to the car, then trying to figure out why it wouldn't start! Anyway.... it's out of the car now - FOR GOOD! The new harness and loom are almost complete. Never again will I use a second hand harness!
Could it be this weekend? (31/8/04)
After speaking to Anton last night, we are all hoping that the car will be finished, and ready for collection this weekend. If that is the case, there will be some late nights to come in the coming months to get the car finished and on the track for testing prior to the end of the year.
Watch this space for the latest information after the weekend.
The car is back!(23/9/04)
Firstly, I must thank Anton from Anton's race electrics for doing such a professional job on the wiring. It has far exceeded my expectations. If your in the Sydney area, give Anton a call....you wont be sorry!
Now that the car is back, I have set about pulling out the engine to rectify our compression problem. The engine has been removed and is now stripped down. The problem was as we expected, the rings have lost their tension and are stuck hard in against the pistons, therefore not pushing out against the cylinder walls and causing a lack of compression. I have spoken to Stewart Wilkins, who I will be visiting in the next week or so to get a new set of rings plus a few gaskets to rebuild the engine. Hopefully this will solve the problem!
Pulling the engine down has been a beneficial excercise. I now know exactly what we have, including the block being o-ringed, the forged pistons etc. I am looking forward to getting the car back together and running at last!
While we are doing the engine, I will also be concentrating on the following things :- Installing Window net, fire extinguisher, remote brake bias control, remote kill switch cable and the new Willans 6 point Harness. Also, the diff is coming out to be baffled while the car is in the air. While we still have a number of things to work on, the list of things to do is getting shorter every day..... hopefully we can do some testing prior to Christmas.
Some pics of the latest developments.
Left: Picture of the flywheel and clutch set-up. Flywheel is very light, and we use a Tilton twinplate clutch to get the power through the drivetrain.
Right: Picture of the head as it sits on the workbench at the moment. The camshafts have been removed, which now means I need to figure out how they go back on. The cam wheels are modified to allow for some timing to be dialled into them. I should have taken a photo of their position before disassembly, but that would have made the whole job way too easy!
Left: This picture shows the Forged Pistons that are used. They are Cosworth pistons, from Melbourne. Also in front of the pistons are the "O-rings" from the block - used to get a better seal between the block and the head at each cylinder.
Right: Picture of the camshafts, and the tray with all the incidental bits and pieces. All nuts etc where bagged and tagged
More Progress Made!(27/9/04)
We are making progress all the time. While I am waiting to get the parts I need prior to rebuilding the engine, I have noew removed the diff and taken it to the machinist for the baffles to be made and inserted. Also we are relocating the oil filler/level plug up about an inch. This will allow is to run slightly more oil in the diff, further preventing oil surge and destroying the rare LSD centres that we have.
As well as the Diff being baffled, I have taken the rear trailing arms and shocks to Noltec Suspension to have all new Poly Urethane bushes fitted. I hope to have the entire rear end of the car back together in the next two weeks.
This week I hope to have some time during the evenings to fit the Harness, and also the remote cable for the kill switch. After spending the weekend at Eastern Creek crewing for another competitor, the motivation is pretty high, and I can't wait to get it finished, Dyno'd and testing on the track!
Progress Report (30/9/04)
The Harness has now been fitted to the car. It is a 6 point Willans harness with 3" webbing on the shoulders and across the lap, with 2" webbing for the crotch strap. The harness is attached around the "Taxi Bar" behind the seat, anchored using the standard mounting points by the side of tyhe seat and using new mounting points under the seat for the crotch strap. It took nearly two hours in total to fit the harness and then to adjust it to my liking, but now it is in and I am very happy with it.
The only problem we have discovered, is that with the harness on tight, I can not reach the switch panel on the transmission tunnel very well. This is due to the side protection on the seat which traps my shoulders in tight. We will have to look at moving the switch panel forward as far as possible without hitting the gear stick. I can reach the main switches, but the wipers, indicators and lights are too close, and I have to reach across my body with my right hand to reach them....certainly not ideal.
The other thing is, that I can not reach the dash board either, so some careful though as to where I am going to mount the remote brake bias adjuster will be needed too!
With the engine stripped, I noticed something a little odd in the set-up of the headgasket. The head gasket in the car has no sealing rings for each cylinder. Instead, the engine builder has machined a recess in the top of each cylinder bore. A brass ring is then inserted in the recess,which sits 0.050" inch above the deck height of the block. The head gasket I pulled off the engine was also 0.050" of an inch in thickness.
The Picture on the left shows the block prior to fitting the brass sealing rings, the recessed sections are clearly visible at the top of the cylinder bores. The picture on the right shows the block with the brass rings installed.
This means the head actually seals diectly to the brass sealing rings, giving a better seal under higher boost. We are running 15psi (1 bar) of boost, with a static compression of 9.5:1, so the seals are under quite a load. The main problem this presents is obtaining a suitable head gasket. I am off to see Stewart Wilkins on Saturday morning to get some new rings for the pistons, hopefully while I am there, he will have a suitable head gasket also.....fingers crossed.
Nothing is ever easy! (14/10/04)
Due to a combination of my mistakes, other people holding things up and lack of time.....it becomes very frustrating when I can't get the car back to gether as quickly as I would like.
My first mistake was not reading my vernier calipers correctly, and buying the wrong size rings! I thought I was at 90mm (0.040" over) but I discovered when I went to gap the rings, that in fact I am only 0.020" over! So the bores are actually 89.5mm. Standard is 89mm. This stuff up on my part meant a delay of about 4 days, by the time I had returned the wrong rings and received the correct ones from a different supplier.
I then asked a mate to make for me a ring compressor. This is basically a piece of pipe, which gets narrower internally as you push the piston through. I thought it would be best to have it slightly narrower than the bore size, to help the rings slide into the bore more easily, so iasked for the Internal diameter to be 89.3mm. The thing I didn't condider was that the ring gap is soo small, that the rings would bind when going through the smaller opening....anyway, another couple of days later and I have now had the ring compressor machined out to match the size of the more, actually it's 0.05mm under the bore size, and works perfectly. I'll post some pics of this "special Tool" soon.
On top of this, the work required to baffle the diff is going to take longer than expected. Looks like it might be 3-4 weeks before I get it back!
On the up-side, Noltec have once again done a great job and have rebushed all my trailing arms and rear shocks. This was done in the space of three days...thanks guys...now I just need the diff back! (not from Noltec).
As we stand right now, I will be setting the ring gaps tonight and installing the rings on the pistons. With some luck, and if time permits, I may also get the bottom end of the engine back together. Hopefully we will have some action shots of the re-assembly to post up soon.
Some Progress at last (15/10/04)
As I had planned, i managed to get into the garage last night and made some good progress on the engine. All the rings were gapped then installed in the pistons. Using our new "special tool" (ring compressor) the pistons were then easily fitted to the crank. After the pistons were all fitted, and bearing caps torqued to the specified settings, the sump was re-fitted. The bottom end is officially back together and is rotating freely.
Hopefully this weekend we will have the time needed to re-fit the head. I will have a look at the camshaft timing also, check clearances. Once the head is back on, we will have a delay in proceedings until the diff is back. I have decided to take the engine to PKW Performance to get Pete to check, and adjust if neccasary, the cam timing. The only problem with this is getting the engine out of the garage with the car on stands - there's just no way past! The diff will back in a few weeks, so I will just have to be patient.
In the mean time, I plan to install the rear trailing arms and shocks back into the car, address a leak in one of the brake lines at the front of the car, install the window net, fire extinguisher and clamps to hold the oil lines.
I'll try to get some more pics posted soon.
More Progress - but no pics.(18/10/04)
The engine is all back together, and nearly ready to start. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics of the re-assembly....sorry about that, I was concentrating too hard on the rebuild I forgot to pick up the camera! We do have two small issues that I need to addres however, neither of them are a major drama....but they will take some time to rectify.
Problem #1 - When re-fitting the sump, one of the bolts either stripped or an existing helicoil broke... I'm not sure what happened yet, but I think it broke a helicoil as parts of it were stuck to the bolt when I pulled it out. Either way, I will be ordering a helicoil kit tomorrow to rectify the problem... hopefully the sump should be back in place by the end of the week. The annoying part about this was that I had the sump on, but dropped a part inside the timing case, which then fell through to the sump. Turning the engine upside down did not cause the part to fall back out, so removing the sump was the only option. Of course, the sump bolt problem only occurred after the part was removed, and I was refitting the sump for the second time!
Problem #2 - After the sump bolt problem, I thought maybe it was time to call it a night (10pm). Before I finished up, I thought it would be a good idea to temporarily fir the rocker, with just a few bolts to stop any dust/dirt getting into the head. While doing this, one of the washers I was using dropped into the spark plug well, and was precariously postioned (there was no spark plug installed yet!). I decided to turn the engine back over to allow the washer to fall back out of the spark plug.....this worked perfectly - only I didn't think it all the way through! As the engine turned over.....the rocker cover fell off - I hadn't had a chance to put any bolts on yet! When I picked up the rocker cover, I noticed the outlet for the breather hose had snapped right off! I could not believe my eyes! Luckily, we had the breather blocked off any way due to the dry sump system....but now we have to figure out a way to block the hole that is left in the rocker cover. We will most likely tap the hole (thankfully it's round!), and then use a plug/bolt of some description to seal it.
As I said, neither are major problems...however both will take some time to remedy. After that...I promptly packed up and went inside, before I broke anything else!
Progress in other areas - Plus pics.(24/10/04)
While I still have not gotten the helicoil kit or the rocker cover fixed, I have made a little progress in other areas - mainly the brakes.
I discovered last week that what I thought was simple way of splitting the brake lines to different parts of the car, was actually a proportioning valve. It was a standard part, and I did not realise it actually reduced pressure to the rear line. As a result, I have sourced an adaptor from motorsport connections for the rear line and a simple "T-Piece" for the front brake line. The T-piece in the front line was sourced at a wrecking yard for $10, and came from an early 80's model Toyota Corona. This was a good exercise, as the original proprtioning valve was substantially heavier than the two new parts.
In this pic you can see (from the left) The fuel pressure sender, Toyota T-piece in brake line, the brake light switch plumbed into the rear brake line, the fuel pressure regulator and the bigger braided line going down through the pic is the oil pressure gauge line.
Here are a couple of pics of the front brakes. Brakes are 280mm front rotor from a late model 300ZX, with 4 piston Mazda RX7 series 4 calipers. Brake pads....well I can't give away all the secrets now can I?
Springs, shocks and coil over hardware will be replaced in the near future, this set-up is the work of the previous owner. The new set-up will use Noltec coil over hardware (as per our previous Datsun 1600 race car), Eibach springs and we are still undecided on the shocks at this stage. We have three options at the moment - Koni, Bilstein and Noltec Grunt. All of which are available as custom made units, it's just a matter of which way we decide to go. First priority is to get the car on the track - then the development can begin.
While the engine is out, I thought I would take a quick shot of the engine mounts we are using. The engine and gearbox are solid mounted. There simply is not enough room for the engine to be twisting and moving around - we have only millimeters of clearance from the back of the head to the firewall, and between the turbo housing and the strut tower.
Sump bolt fixed.(28/10/04)
After getting the helicoil kit, everything seemed to be looking up. I fitted the heliocoil without problems, then just as I was tightening the bolt.....the head of the bolt snapped off! I am glad there were no women or children around! After a couple of days to think about how the hell I was going to get it out, I tackled the job last night. I drilled the bolt out as fas the helicoil insert, this made what was left of the bolt weak enough to break apart and remove. The helicoil was damaged in this process, so I removed it also. After re-tapping the hole, inserting a new helicoil and carefully inserting another bolt.....the sump is finally in place! Now I just need to either fix the rocker cover, or find another one.
Here is a pic of the car just prior to going off for the re-wire - starting to look like a race car now.
Wheels are ordered!(1/11/04)
We bit the bullet last week and ordered the new wheels for next year.We are going for 15x7 on the front and 15x8 for the rear. These will be shod with 205's and 225's respectively. The wheels we went for are the Panasport Ultra Light series. As Panasport agent's, it made sense to promote the product we sell.
For Pics and details on the Panasport range of wheels click Here
Progress Report (23/11/04)
Progress has been a little slow just lately. The diff still has not been finished, so I am collecting it tonight so that I can put it back in the car to move the car out of the garage. Once I get the car out of the garage I can then get the engine into the box trailer and take it down to PKW Performance for Peter to check the Cam timing. I'll be taking the engine down to them this Saturday, and collecting it the following week. Once I get the engine back, it will be simply a case of fitting the engine and ancillaries before hitting the start button.
On the Panasport front, I have the two front wheels (15x7) arriving next week...ahead of schedule! Once I get them, I will trial fit them on the rear also, and hopefully the offset will work out ok. The 15x8's I have ordered for the back are going to take some time, due to the fact that the factory can't justify the cost in just making two rims. I have asked them to leave them order, so hopefully when someone else orders some of the same wheels I will get them then. Until then I will run some 15x7's on the back also.
Although progress has been slow, I have managed to mount the fire extinguisher, fix a leak in the brake lines, modify the pedal box for clearance, install the remote brake bias adjuster and install the clamps for the oil lines in the cabin. Last night I started working on the mounting bracket for the gauge panel, and hope to have that completed later this week.
I am aiming for a test day at the end of January 2005 at Wakefield Park, and I will be doing everything I can to get the car on track by then.
Engine is back in the car (1/12/04)
Finally the engine is finished, cam timing is checked and I have started installing it back into the car. Good progress has been made, with much of the work already done. I should have it all connected up and ready to fire sometime this weekend.
Prior to bolting it all back together I took some photo's of some interesting bits.
Left: A good pic of the flywheel, which has been extensively lightened.
Right: A seperate pic of the Tilton twin plate clutch.
Here is a Pic also of the sump pan for the dry sump system. The scavange pick up points are on the side of the pan, one near the front and another towards the rear. You can also see the pressure (inlet) side of the oil system at very front of the sump. Basically, a section of the new sump pan has been fabricated to sit flush with where the original oil pick up sits. A fitting was then welded to the pan for the braided line to be attached. This allows the engine to use the standard oil pump for pressure whilst using a seperate scavange pump driven from the crankshaft for the scavange duties.
Panasports have arrived! (1/12/04)
Here a few pics of the new Panasport Ultra Lights (UL) that have just arrived for the car. Originally I was going to go for 15x7's on the front and 15x8's on the rear, but due to being forced to run a 60 series tyre in our rules, the 225/60 planned for the rear is simply too big in diameter. Therefore, I have cancelled the 8" rims, and will be ordering another pair of 7" rims for the rear.
Unfortunately, the offset of the rear needs to be different to that on the front, which is a bit of a pain. The Zero offset on the front works perferctly, but with the wider rear track (wider diff), the tyres stick out of the flares by just a few millimeters, which is a real pain. Also, due to the design of the rear flares, it is better to have the wheels slightly inside the flare, this will allow us the lower the rear ride height, as the flare comes over and down, so the tyre will be able to sit up iside the flare. I am still deciding on a suitable offset, and will wait to hear back from Panasport to see what offset's they currently have available "off the shelf" so as to speed up delivery time.
Aiming to Start in 2 days time! (3/12/04)
I spent a couple of hours last night getting everything back in to the engine bay and bolted up. Radiator, intercooler, oil cooler, oil lines, fuel lines, vacuum lines - everything is hooked up and ready for action. All I have left to do is to re-fit the exhaust system, bleed the brakes and clutch, add oil and water and press the start button. The goal is to have the car running this weekend....fingeres crossed!
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