It runs!  First attempt and she fired right up!

Jo took a video – just need to work out how to post it here…

Now I just need to do another months worth of work to make it driveable 🙂

Just had no time to come in here and do an update…..

Another fast update…

Oil Breather tank mounted

Ends of the intercooler cut off.

Throttle body fitted.

After one night, I’m still on schedule! Yeah!

First item to attack was to finish off the last bits of the cooling system.

I modified the header tank to also incorporate the overflow tank, painted it and fitted it.

Another view:

The top part of this tank will collect all of the air bubble that are produced in the coolant.  Hopefully these will be drastically reduced with the electric water pump – the normal mechanical pumps can cause cavitation the pump at high RPM, putting air bubbles into the system (bad for cooling) and also robbing horsepower.

The system catches small amounts of flow from all of the highest points in the water system and directs them towards the header tank.  At the bottom of the header tank, a pipe at the very bottom of the header tank connects to the inlet of the water pump, causing a continual flow from from these high points into the header tank.  This will drag the bubbles into the header tank, where they will stay.

These air bubbles will stay at the top of the header tank, where they will be forced down into the lower catch tank as the water expands when it heats up (there is a hose connecting these two tanks together).  As the motor cools down again, the water shrinks again and only water will be sucked back in – the hose connects to the lower catch tank at the very bottom.

I then got onto doing the fan.  I got a 16″ fan from SuperCheap during their 20% off everything sale – hopefully it’s capable of doing the job.  I welded spuds into the radiator to mount the fan.  I am not a fan of mounting them straight to the radiator fins as some people do (See what I did there….).

If this was my road car I would have made up a fan shroud for it, as it increases their efficiency when you are stationary.  When you are going at speed, the fan is not actually needed, so I want to keep the airflow at speed as good as I can make it, and hopefully just have it be enough to keep the car cool enough while stationary.

I then routed all of the coolant pipes and tied them up nicely, same with the vacuum hoses under the throttle body.  Added the MAP sensor and the boost controller, ready for the wiring tasks in a few days time.

I filled large portion of the system will coolant, then hooked up a battery to the water pump and turned it on.  It was very pleasing to see all of the flows, complete with stacks of bubbles/air, going into the header tank as the system was bleeding itself.  I kept topping up the header tank until the system was full, and the water pump was running silently.  Very pleased with how it works!

I have a wedding to go to today (Sat), so no progress will be made – see you Sunday.

There is something like 56 days left until the first event at Collie. Considering the work left to do, that’s not very long at all (especially cause it need to be finished at least week before that date to get tuned, wheel aligned and scrutineer’d!).

So in order to stop myself from slacking off, and to get me motivated (there is no motivation like the last minute after all), I put together a schedule of everything that I had to do to get it finished enough to race it. After printing out a calendar of every day between now and then, and putting jobs in for every single night after work, every weekend, every public holiday and any other days off that I have. Sadly, all the boxes are full….. Its going to be tight!

Let the fun begin!

Being sick for the last week has really hurt my progress, but was finally well enough to do a couple of hours last night.

The water systems in the car are now about 95% done.  I just have one mount to make and  a couple of tidy up bits to do.

The swirl pot is now all mounted and plumbed into the radiator.

In order to get a water hose that fitted right, I had to machine up an alloy adapter so that I could join two of the rubber hoses together.

The vent lines in the top of the pic above also need to be tied together nicely where they run across the front of the motor.

I’ve filled up the system with water, and tested the electric water out to make sure that was all working.  It really pumps a large volume of water around the motor!

I’ve also trial fitted the electric radiator fan, to see how that’s all going to work.  More on that soon.  Hopefully I can finish the water system off tonight, so that I can start on the intake piping on Friday night.  After that, I need to do the engine computer and fuel lines, then I can try and start it!

Last night I spent a lot of time making parts, but didn’t really make a lot of visible progress.  In the same time that I took to bolt in the engine, gearbox suspension and steering, I made a couple of parts…

Firstly, I made a new inlet pipe for the coolant to go into the motor.  The last one that I had made was coming out on a much larger angle, where as this one is much straighter, enabling me to move the water pump into a location where there is less stuff getting in the way.

(Its the black bit in the center of the pic with the hose connected to it)

I was then ready to fit the water pump, hopefully for the final time.  First I had to flush out the radiator with water, to make sure that is was clean of any metal shavings after I had cut it open and re-welded the outlets.

Then it was time to fit it all in.

I then made the outlet for the coolant, which is on the opposite side of the motor (the one above was the water in, this next one is the water out)

This weird looking thing is a combination of an S15 water outlet and an S13 water outlet that have been cut up and grafted back together in a completely different shape.  The paint it still wet in this photo, hence the shine, but you get the idea of what a strange shape it had to be.

Next on the list it to graft this old S13 water inlet, to become part of the coolant swirl tank. I can then make the mount for this tank and get the coolant system finished!

JC came around to give me hand on the car.  Together we got a stack done! (of talking that is :))

The engine and gearbox are now back in the car, hopefully they wont have to be removed again.  We’ve already learnt so much from this that will be better on the next car!

We also sorted out where all of the water pipes, water pump, air intake, intercooling piping etc will run. Next job for me is to start making them.

Then we got all of the steering rack etc in and bolted up, then got the steering wheel etc all mounted as well.

I then did the final cuts on the strut top mounts, so that was out of the way and I could then mount the suspension.

Finally starting to resemble a car again.

I’ve got the new brake calipers mocked up in position, one of the next jobs is to create the new ‘dog bones’ to hold these on.  Might start to tackle that one tonight, along with finishing mounting the water pump, now that I have bought another piece of radiator hose today that should be the right angled bend to make it all fit – I’ve changed my mind on the original mounting spot, and will now modify a couple of bits to move where its located as its going to make the whole setup much nicer.

Got a new book for X-mas, of the small amount that I have read so far I like this book a lot!

This book is all about driving technique, but also goes into how to read things like the tyre surface to work out what car adjustments you need to make to go faster.  In fact, the whole book is about going faster 🙂

Last night I got some painting of the transmission tunnel done, and got some of the firewall insulation completed.

The drivers footwell area is mostly complete, there is just one small section that needs to be welded, so that’s been left…

The trans tunnel bar work is also now painted, ready for the gearbox to go back in tonight.

There are a couple of bits of the floor to complete still, but i had run out of paint….

I’ve got the cooler and radiator back in now, ready to work on the piping to connect them up as soon as the motor goes back in (tonight hopefully).

I hopefully have all the pieces that I need for the intercooler piping, after yesterdays trip to the shops.

The first job completed in the last few days was to cut up the radiator.  So the original top mounting tabs were cut off, as was the radiator cap mounting.  The radiator cap is going to be in another section of the system, as the radiator is now laying down, so the cap location is no longer the highest point in the system (which is where you need it to be for it to all work properly).

On the lathe I machine some threaded spuds to weld onto the top the radiator, to allow it to receive a bolt.  This makes the installation of the radiator much easier in its new location.  I then cut a circular piece of flat plate, to weld over the hole where the radiator cap was removed.  Then it was time to make a new, larger water outlet at the bottom of the radiator.  This larger outlet is to match up with the larger inlet of the electric water pump, making the plumbing of this much easier as everything is now one size for that section of piping.  I used some alloy pipe, that I welded a ring around the end, then machined this on the lathe to create the retaining lip on the end, that holds the hose on.

This was then re-painted in black wrinkle paint like the rest of the radiator is.

Attention was then turned to modify the intercooler.  Don’t you just love buying nice, new, expensive parts, then taking an Angle Grinder and cutting the ends off it :).  I’ve made up the new curved outlets, and these have been welded together.  The more alloy that I weld, the better I’m getting – along with the help from the new amperage adjustment that is now on the hand piece on the TIG.  They are still not perfect welds, but I was really proud of how these welds turned out (it looks worse in this picture than it does in life).

I still need to weld these onto the intercooler, but this needs to wait until the engine goes back in, so that I can align these outlets in the correct direction to point them to the turbo and the inlet of the engine to make the pipe lengths as short as possible.

Then I cut up the coolant swirl pot that I made about a year ago during the “motor swap” that I was doing, that has now seen a full new chassis being built :/.  Anyway, this now meant that to make the chassis the best it could be, a tube needs to pass through the center of this tank.  So, back then I took the decision to modify the tank and make the chassis in the ideal way.  Now it was time to pay for that decision…. The grinder came out again and the mounting and the water inlet pipe were cut off and ground all smooth.  This is as far as I can go for now, it needs to wait until the motor goes back in so that I can orientate the new inlet to the tank correctly, and make the new mounting bracket for it.

After a 39.9 degree day today, predictably no progress was made… Tomorrow is going to be the same weather wise, but I’m hoping to get out there tomorrow night to finish the painting of the chassis center section, so that the motor and gearbox can go back in, allowing all of the other items above to be finished.

After 3 hrs on the grinder, all of the tubing and the remaining body shell parts have been ground off and smoothed out.

Then spent a bunch of time putting sealant in all of the sections where the firewall meets the chassis tubing, then it was onto painting.

So then the painting began!  Even though I’m probably a week early on the paint, for me its a good moral boost as its a step where the car is actually going back together.

I’ve got some more sanding to do (and pictures to take :)) on the frame in the center section of the car, then that can be painted too.  As soon as that is done the gearbox and motor can go back in so that I can start working on the intercooler and coolant piping.

All of the chassis is now finished, I think….  Or at least it is complete for now.

All of the supports to hold up the bumpers, bonnet and 1/4 panels are all finished and welded up!

In the last post I talked about some of the little bits that I made, so here they are completed and ready to weld onto the car.

So here you can see how the bolts will attached from the bottom.  This bolt will go though the bumper and screw into this little spud.  This is then attached to one of the tubes that make up the car.

Photos of them on the car and finished:

In the first pic, the spud is the bit at the top, fairly easy to see.  These ones will hold the corner of the front 1/4 panel.

In the second pic, its at the bottom of the bars that are heading down and to the front of the car.  These ones will hold the bottom of the bumper and the floor.

I needed to machine up a couple of little threaded pieces to mount the bumper etc.  This involves the lathe, so first item was fixing the piping that runs the coolant.  The existing pipe has spent a little too long in the sun and is no longer very happy, liking to split in various places while nobody is in the shed.  So, first job was to redo that.

I also had to resharpen some of the cutting bits.  So around 40mins of setup, to machine 4 little things that took about 10 minutes.  Nice progress so far….  

Then I needed to weld these little pieces into some tubing with the TIG – Which also needed to be fixed…  So I changed the plug on the front, made up a new cable for it, replaced the switch in the handpeice, modified it to fit the new adjuster knob and then taped it back together like all good shed engineers do.

The hand piece now has the start/stop button on it, and it now also has a knob that I can use to adjust the current that the welder is putting out, right from the hand piece, while I’m still welding!  So what you say, well when doing alloy, or even small steel parts like I was about to do, build up heat as you go.  So when you first start welding, you  need  a higher current, then as the heat builds up in the piece that you are welding you need to turn the current down, else it applies too much heat and you melt a hole in it.  I used to have to stop, put the helmet up, go over to the machine, change it, then start welding again.  Now I can do it from the hand piece – without stopping the weld 🙂

So, after all of that, totaling around 3hrs of work, I now had 4 little pieces of metal…

Very impressive for 3hrs work hey!  

I’ll show what these things become in a future post.

Fitted the panels back on to make sure everything was correctly aligned before I started welding everything up.

It all fits well, which is a nice start 🙂

I then progressed to working out exactly where the exits in the bonnet were going to be placed.  The masking tape rectangles show where the cutouts will be.

And then the night was over…

JC and Terry came around late in the arvo and gave me a hand for the rest of day, and into the night.  Thanks boys!

We got a bunch more of the front framework completed, got the radiator and intercooler mounts all built, made new plates to hold the bonnet and front fenders on.

Then JC found the angle grinder (I had cunningly hidden it under the welder)  and proceeded to perform some important weight reduction – removing all of the remaining standard front end.

Some detail of where the old car stops, and the new begins.

I’ve just got a couple of little braces left to do, and a touch more grinding to clean a few areas up, then the frame painting can start!

Thanks again to the boys for their help, it was a fun night and get a lot done too.

Been a little slack in updating recently…

So, the other weekend I started construction on the last parts of the chassis – the very front end. I lot of the time was taken mocking up the possible locations for the radiator and the intercooler.

In the picture above, the center section of the radiator support panel has been removed, and replace by a lightweight bar.  As I continue to work on the front end, I will slowly remove all of the original front end metalwork, just leaving the lights, bumper and front fenders hanging from the new frame.

Another view…

Mocking up of the radiator and intercooler positions (and yes, I have a wooden strut brace and a cardboard intercooler.  These will be fine unless it rains :))

The I had a couple of other things to clean up.  The second hand dump pipe that I got for the S15 had a small crack in it, so I welded that back up.  Just need to wait until I get the car passed over the pits for the manual gearbox conversion, then this will be fitted up.

This update starts with reflections.

Strange reflections that is…

Jo is hogging the garage with two of her cars, so my girls are sleeping together in the shed.

How cozy.

Onto the real progress.  Most of the time was spent doing interior panel work.

This one is in the rear of the car (just behind where the front seats would be.

Did more panel work on the dash…

I have also made the removable alloy panels for the top of the dash and the passenger foot-well area.

The alloy panel for the top of the transmission tunnel is also done, and I have completed the templates for the sides of the tunnel – I’ll get those cut out as soon as I can scab some more alloy sheet.

These will then need to be welded together.

I mocked up the dash pad, to make sure its all going to fit back as planned.  All is well 🙂

Now that all the interior panel stuff around the has been done, it was time to remove the motor so that I could get inside and finish welding up the tube work and panels.  And after 2hrs of welding non-stop, its almost done.  A few bits need to be ground down – but I’ll leave that for a time when its not so late at night.

These last pictures, while they are good progress, they are almost depressing – I’m almost back where I was a few months ago now the engine is out again….

At least from here, its a bit of grinding, a little more welding, then I could actually start preparing and painting the frame and panels.

I think first though I need to complete the very front end tubing (around the headlights and front bumper).  I was going to leave this part till later, but I really should do it now (Do it right the first time!).  I’ll then need to work out the radiator and inter-cooler mounts, then I can start painting!

Until next time…