|
Post by kiwicanfly on Aug 8, 2017 9:23:28 GMT
Another little job I did during renovations was too reinforce one of my chassis engine mounts, I am not sure how it came about but I noticed it was deformed. So I made an aluminium top and bottom plate which I sandwiched the mount between and then also a plate of the same material to fit on the engine in order to maintain the engine at the same level. (no pics).
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Aug 8, 2017 9:26:58 GMT
Fitted a new engine oil filter and a sandwigh plate with oil temperature and pressure guages on it.
|
|
|
Post by jake on Aug 8, 2017 13:09:55 GMT
Decided to increase the width of wings as they had to be lifted too high to prevent rubbing when I use the 205 tyres and actually look pretty naff like that. That's interesting I was planning on putting some 215 tyres on the rear. I have the same cycle wings. I had done the measurements and was thinking they'd just fit under. I guess not then.
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Aug 8, 2017 19:33:55 GMT
I definately got rubbing issues with 205 so I cant see 215 fitting. Very disconcerting to see smoke coming from the top of your tyres on hard cornering I know that some modified the wings by reducing the lip depth in order to use wider tyres. I saw a while ago that Stiggy had released some wider wings, that would be the easiest route from the UK.
|
|
|
Post by Stiggy on Aug 8, 2017 19:53:01 GMT
we do have wings for tyres up to 235 now. 8 in stock, all black. £59 each
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Oct 24, 2017 7:31:52 GMT
Been doing a couple of odd jobs that I have not documented yet so here's a little update. When I changed my wheels to 15" I found that the handbrake arms rubbed very badly on the inside of the wheel, I ground and reshaped the tops of the arms but they were always marginal so decided to shorten them to completely solve the problem. They are Hi-Spec units. I took 5mm of the bottom of each of the arms, first I re-drilled the pin holes and then removed the excess material below them, this shows the new holes prior to metal removal. Then I made a new top arm with the gap between the two closest holes increased by 2mm and the overall length increased by 5mm, original is the lower one in this picture.
After reassembly I got the clearance I wanted and increased the effective force on the pads for an equivalent amount of handbrake lever movement, this was an attempt to improve the performance of the units.
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Oct 24, 2017 7:51:11 GMT
As I have fully commited to the Hadron gear change system I decided to remove the last remaining evidence of the manual gearstick which also enabled a couple of other changes to be made. First I moved the handbrake lever forwards, I have been finding that my elbow was hitting the COR in the original position and I had difficulty using it comfortably. The new position makes it loads easier to hold for hill starts. In re-positioning I also had to increase the length of the cable running through the lever to the swivel clevis, in checking this out I found one of my cables to the caliper was very stiff, bordering on ceased so I bought two new Teflon lined cables to run to the calipers, the improvement is amazing. I was also able to reduce the overall height of the centre tunnel due to the gearstick removal, I took three inches off the height which, in addition to looking a lot neater also meant that the seats were no longer pressing against the tunnel and also allowed me to fit remove the seats without having to take the runners out from underneath. It does however mean I have to source a new handbrake boot as the current one no longer reaches the tunnel (and cover up the hole in the tunnel where the gear lever was). Luckily the tunnel still passes under the COR at the back but I have to make a new plate to hide the gap between the lowered tunnel and the COR.
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Oct 30, 2017 7:52:08 GMT
Participated in a club "Driver Training Day" on Saturday. It seemd simple enough on paper, a series of cones were to be laid out and we had to traverse them without hitting any, no time limit. Turned out that the cones were on opposite sides of the road and the only way to traverse them was at high speed sliding the back end round....... well that seemed be the only way the "blokes" could do it. My wife did as on paper at slow speed and hit none. Does that say anything about the different approaches to driving between the sexes? Anyhow at one point there was a horrible mechanical crunching noise which then went away just as suddenly as it appeared so "nothing to worry about" until I noticed the alternator warning light was on and discovered that the noise had come from the belt tension pulley spitting out the balls and its outer race somewhere on the course It had been a bit noisy for a while and I had decided to see if I could remove it completely. As I am now using an electric water pump I had been thinking of using a belt running between the crank pulley and alternator with nothing else in the loop thus removing all parasitic drag. Managed to do it tonight, it was a tad tricky setting the tension with no tension pulley but it's in and working nicely. Will have to see if the belt stretches over time but I am quite pleased with the result.
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Nov 4, 2017 8:39:15 GMT
Had been having a few starting problems since I put in the electric water pump. One of the modifications I made was to remove the Omex supplied CTS, because it was prone to leaks and was sealed with bog, and use the screw in Bosch CTS that I had for temperature display on the Dash2. Basically the engine would cough and splutter but eventually run fine and then no trouble with restarts during the day. After connecting to the Omex software I discovered why, the ECU though the engine was at 89 degrees before starting so effectively did not need any cold start trimming Read about measuring and calibrating the sensor which, whilst not too onerous, looked a tedious job. Advised Omex what the new sensor was and they sent a Calibration "Aspect". Loaded it up and immediately the temperature was reading 17 degrees before starting. Ran it and it tracked slightly out compared to the water pump reading but by about 80 degrees they were perfectly aligned. Best bit though the engine fired up immediately and ran smoothly from cold.
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Feb 21, 2018 8:42:29 GMT
Blimey, its been a long time since i updated this thread. Since the "incident" on the Mataro Road Hillclimb mevowners.proboards.com/post/101384/thread I had to rebuild and beef up the whole front suspension due to the damage. The main work got done just before Christmas (straightened and reinforced the mounts), this involved stripping everything off bar the engine, or so it seemed. Put back together in January and back on the road at the beginning of this month. Had the wheel alignment redone last week as driving was very twitchy, quite unnerving to be honest. When I went in and he did the initial measurements he said "I bet its twitchy with settings like that" much better now. Another change I have made is to install a six point harness. The original Sabelt four point worried me somewhat as no matter how I adjusted it it would ride up to sit across my stomach which is really not a good thing to have. I was concerned that if I managed to hit something hard it could lead to submarining. This involved changing the mounts on my roll cage from plain bolt holes to threaded bushes for eyes. I also moved the position of them as they weren't really well lined up with the seat. With the top mounts changed and and using the original lap belt mounts the only problem was the crotch belts. Ideally putting bushes into the front seat rail would have been the first choice but I was not in the mood for any more welding. Then I remembered the plate that RTR had fitted across the front of the rear seat rail due to my comments about the poor design of the original inner seat belt mount and the fact it was not triangulated. That thought lead to this. The belts then pass under the front seat rail and up through the hole in the seat. As my floor is held on with M4 screws into rivnuts I was able to pop a couple of washers between the floor and the rail thus preventing the belts being trapped. Seat back in position and belt fully installed. Took it out for a first drive tonight and it feels real good. As the lap belts are pull up adjustment instead of pull down I was able to get them nice and tight and I felt a long more secure in the seat so well happy. Just got to repaint the rollbar where the work was done and ready for an event the first weekend in March.
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Dec 30, 2018 8:48:31 GMT
Been spending a great deal of time and energy looking at ways of getting a bit more power into the old girl, it basically came down to two options - New engine Upgrade of the Zetec. If I were building from scratch I probably would have gone down the different engine route, highly likely to pick a Honda K20a JDM I looked long and hard about changing to this anyway and it was looking highly likely but for good or bad I decided not to go through with it. Also looked at some weird options including shoehorning a 3.0 litre in and, at the other extreme, installing a rotary. I decided in the end to upgrade the Zetec, didn't want to move to forced induction though as that would move me from my current class into the over 3 litre class (FI = engine capacity x 1.7) and effectively into an unlimited class. Also, weirdly, the challenge of what I can do with the Zetec is quite an enticing challenge along with the responsiveness of staying NA. First step would usually be to fit throttle bodies however before that I removed the parasitic drag from the water pump and ancillary pulleys by installing an electric water pump and having no idler pulley between the crank and alternator. OK the water pump was to stop overheating and one of the idler pulleys literally fell apart on me but hey every bit helps. Then came the throttle bodies, I did dabble with the ST170 dual runner intake for a while but that got shelved and I decided to go for ITBs. So the choices here were the usual Omex or Jenvey in the big names or DanST which seems to find favour for cost effectiveness and build quality from those that have used them. I even looked at making my own! We used to make them at work for V8s and they were beautiful, now no longer made but I riffled though the parts box and found a few butterfly units which I considered mounting on a 3D printed manifold. However they were really much too big at 54mm and the cost was going to be almost the same as a bought set so I canned that plan. My final choice landed today - 45mm ATPower Direct To Head Shaftless in the longest length with tapered trumpets I am still trying to fathom out how they get the butterfly in there! Which are oval not round so closer to the original port shape. With being mounted direct to the 'head' fuel is injected at the same place as with the original manifold. Here they are mounted for a trial, got to get a new pressure regulator and a new throttle cable as mine is just that bit too short. Did I need to go that far? Will the removal of the restriction caused by the shaft make a measurable difference to performance? Of course not on both counts! So why bother? I cant answer that except to say I got a little excited when I opened the box and sometimes that's all you need And to answer the final question which I sure you are dying to ask - Why did I buy them black rather than in red and shiny? Come on that was another UKP90 do you think I'm made of money Next step is head work but that will be in the winter.
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Jan 28, 2019 8:04:46 GMT
Finished fitting the ITB's, after fixing in place I marked out and cut the filter back plate. Drilled a hole for the ATS and fitted a rubber grommet so when fitted it would be thermally isolated from the aluminium. Plate mounted
Filter mounted, shame it has to be there but.... Since found out it needs oiling, bit miffed it was not confirmed in the instructions though. Had to buy a new throttle cable as my Venhill was about 150mm too short Originally I had placed a small tube over the bare cable between the pedal and pedal mount in order to put the pedal at the right angle. Then I realised that the screw adjuster was doing nothing in the way of adjusting, it was simply moving the inner and outer back and forth together. So used this piece of angle from the scrap box, worked a treat, note the important hole in the middle for err lightness Plumbed in the fuel lines with fancy fittings and braided lines rather than push on hose and jubilee clips, also had to fit a pressure regulator. Finally cut a hole in the engine cover to allow the filter to fit but have decided it is crap so whilst I think of a neat solution I am running without a cover. Will be a pain though when it rains so I am debating the solution to that - no "leaving it the garage" is not an option as two out of our last three club races have been in the wet and they were great fun.
|
|
|
Post by kiwicanfly on Jan 28, 2019 8:22:38 GMT
So after completion of the ITBs install I went off for a tuning session. When first put on a dyno a couple of years ago I had 90kW. Since then I replaced the mechanical water pump with electric and also all the redundant pulleys, the alternator is driven directly from the crank so parasitic drag is minimal. The alternator belt is still able to be tensioned in the normal way. For the tune I choose to base it on 98 octance (BP with no ethanol) This was my result and I am well happy. Basically I now have as much power at the wheels as I previously had at the crank. Based on 20% drive train losses I have 190bhp Although based on 35% losses I actually have 230bhp However whatever you read into the results, whatever actual drive train losses are, whether the dyno was "generous" or not the key thing, to me, is that the power does not drop off at higher revs, it just keeps pulling all the way to 7000rpm. Does this mean that when I jumped in the car I was blown away by the sudden surge in power? Well actually no it is in fact very well behaved and smooth with the whole rpm range usable. At the lower revs there is minimal power gain but in all honesty fitting ITBs and running around town at 2k is pointless anyway. So ignoring day to day driving (no one drives up their high street at 6500rpm) where am I going to use the extra power band? Well our last street sprint I was able to take it all the way to the red, changing gear just before the rev limiter kicked in and repeating that through each gear. Was it worth the extra cost over a more cost effective install such as DanSt? It was to me I am well happy and that's what counts
|
|
|
Post by casesensitive on Mar 7, 2019 10:32:09 GMT
All corners nicely radiused to an exact size - the OD of a handy washer which I traced around, amazing how they make them exactly the same size as the radius I wanted. How'd you cut this so neatly? The washer trick is all very well for drawing the lines, but cutting them is usually a different proposition.
|
|
|
Post by carlyd on Mar 7, 2019 15:46:29 GMT
Done with a hand file I would guess. That's how I finished all my cuts.
|
|