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Post by buildityourself on Oct 11, 2019 20:10:15 GMT
ECU mountingAfter laying out the Focus loom with most parts in the right location for the engine, the ecu plug was located around the engine bulkhead behind the drivers seat. Initial thoughts were to just locate on the bulkhead, but after consideration that the ecu was mounted inside the Focus, we were not sure how sealed/protected it was from heat etc. Twisting the connector round neatly allows the ECU to be tucked away on the chassis outriggers. The Focus ECU has a plastic cage, so it seems like a good idea to reuse this as it holds it sturdy. The cage was cut down with a hacksaw to remove the extra protrusions that held the GEM unit in the Focus. The first idea was to mount the cage onto a plate as is like this. However when checking against the body panel we realised that due to the tapper of the body there would not be enough height clearance for it to fit here due to the mounting posts. The posts were cut off the bottom of the cage and a collection of spacer/mounting plates cut out to aid mounting. Some countersunk rivets used to mount the cage to a plate with spacers to allow the lock clips to function. Using the holes left by the posts then bolts were used to mount this to the plate on the chassis. The standard large arc cut out in the base will mean that the ECU can be removed from the cage and pivoted past the body out through the engine bay should it need to be (hopefully!) The finished result should hopefully keep away from heat and keep the engine bay clutter free.
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Post by daydreamer on Oct 13, 2019 17:09:55 GMT
Maybe think about post build access. mount it on the underside and access will be possible by removing the internal cabin panel. This is where I have mine.
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Post by buildityourself on Oct 14, 2019 19:21:38 GMT
Maybe think about post build access. mount it on the underside and access will be possible by removing the internal cabin panel. This is where I have mine. Thanks, hoping we have thought about post build access as it should be able to be removed still. We will check once the side pod is fitted and am prepared to be proved wrong. Previously considered mounting underneath, but how do you remove the inner panel when its sandwiched between the chassis and body?
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Post by daydreamer on Oct 14, 2019 20:12:03 GMT
My internal panel is not full length, I cut it in two parts. I used m4 rivnuts and stainless m4 dome head bolts to fix the panel. To remove the panel needs the seat to be removed and then the panel can be unbolted and pulled out and down. Not had to do that yet. having to remove the seat is not ideal but a lot less hassle than removing the side pod.
In mine I have the ECU mounted vertical and lengthways in a bracket just behind the panel, I see that your the ECU is horizontal and lengthways.
My loom , from the ECU , runs backward to the engine and forwards to the instrument binnacle, steering column key transponder and to the fuel tank. This means in my setup I cannot pull the ECU and loom rear wards and then remove the ECU, I must first remove the ECU without pulling the loom more than about 10cm. Your loom extensions may be more accommodating.
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Post by buildityourself on Nov 8, 2019 20:39:00 GMT
Loom Extension 1As the engine has been moved from the front of the Focus to the rear of the Sonic7 the loom needs extending in 2 places. This is the first extension on the drivers side at the engine loom to body loom connection. To tackle this we obtained the same connector blocks (on the bench) with as much wire as could be obtained from another Focus at a scrap yard without dismantling the whole interior. The male and female connectors were soldered and heatshrunk together to make a simple plug and play extension. This would mean that should there be any later loom issues the relevant part of the focus loom could be replaced in the future. The main connector block was mounted to the chassis outrigger for the front connection and connected up to both the front and rear looms. I then realised that the other end of the extension would be about a 1/4 of the way up the side pod from the rear, making any future connection issues difficult to access. To avoid this we cut off the connectors from the rear loom and the extension and soldered the extension directly to the rear loom. This was a lot of extra jointing work, but will be more reliable in the long run. Extension in place ready for later wrapping and securing
Also moved the fuel pump cut out switch and wires from the rear loom to the front extension to break the direct link from the rear loom to another section of loom to the fuel tank. This was possible using spare pins in the connection blocks. Loom Extension 2The same initial approach for the second extension for the passenger side was taken, but as the rear loom connection is in the engine bay access will not be an issue so this one can be a true plug and play extension. The side effect was that this needed to be approx 2.5 meter extension. This meant that extra wires were needed as we could not get enough from the extra focus wiring. CBS sell most options for colour coded wire which was used to keep the wires matching as much as possible. The finished extension ready for testing and wrapping.
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Post by buildityourself on Dec 29, 2019 18:33:05 GMT
Steering bearing support panel mk2After removing the temporarily fitted master cylinders, I decided that I was not happy with the clearance between the steering column and the brake pedal at full travel. The previous position was a compromise between clearance of the column and pedal vs clearance of the column and the chassis support bar. Whilst this is unlikely an issue when the brakes are working correctly it seemed far more sensible to stop and redo this now rather than encounter a possible issue at IVA time. I had now also realised that extra clearance on the chassis bar was possible by dropping the column. Due to certain size 12 feat I had been trying to keep the column as high as possible, but there was actually no issue here. The other reason to remove the panel was that a later post from kiwicanfly was the first time I knew that the bulkhead bearing clamps are supposed to be fitted on the same side of the bulkhead. We had fitted one side on each sandwiching the bulkhead. This meant that when tightened the bearing was not fully clamped so would rattle slightly. The bearing support panel was previously riveted to the chassis, this time we used rivnuts as if it ever (I hope not) had to be removed in the future drilling out the rivets with everything else fitted would be a nightmare. Alloy panel marked out The bulkhead hole had to be be enlarged to allow for the change in column position. This was slightly annoying as the vinyl wrap covering the opening was lost in the process but was sorted with some black paint. The bearing support panel covers this hole so the larger hole will not cause an issue. It does mean that the bearing could be removed in the future though so a bonus here. The finished replacement panel. Rivnut on the return lip for the brake pipe t piece mounting. Changed the fold design of the new panel to allow it to be bigger to drop the bearing down but still use the same drilled holes in the main bulkhead. New bulkhead fitted Clearance better now as the column is almost half way between the brake and accelerator pedels although not a good angle to see.
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Post by buildityourself on Dec 31, 2019 21:40:53 GMT
Clutch and brake pipesNot quite sure why we hadn't done these earlier, but time now to do some more brake and clutch pipe making. The clutch pipe was made first, and this is mounted under the chassis rail to keep most of it out of the direct airflow from the radiator. I remembered why we hadn't done the brake pipes earlier, as without the body it was hard to know where to finish them. Checking on finished cars helped here. The nearside front brake pipe in progress. We had to redo this piece a couple of times as the flares using the old tool were not being consistent. A modern high quality tool was borrowed to produce much better flares. There is a lot of confusing info on brake flares out there, so will try to create separate post about these. This would be secured with the same rivets as the clutch pipe. The nearside front pipe joins via a t-piece mounted to the steering column bulkhead. The feeds from the master cylinder were then formed to connect to the front and rear brake pipes. Another random bit of progress was to source pipe lagging (35mm) and cut this down to 32mm and secure to the coolant pipes. The theory here is to stop heat being released inside the side pods as these feed into the engine bay.
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Post by buildityourself on Jan 1, 2020 19:58:03 GMT
Charcoal Canister. Most built kits ditch the charcoal canister and just vent the tank to atmosphere, but as the tank is in the front the last thing I want is to be breathing in fuel vapours when driving along so wanted to keep the standard sealed setup. This will no doubt also earn bonus points from Greta & friends proving kit car green credentials. "Part of the car's emissions controls, this charcoal-filled canister's job is to absorb fuel vapor that would otherwise vent out to the atmosphere, causing pollution. Vapors trapped by the charcoal are released back into the engine through the purge valve and then burned."The first problem is where to mount this. Ideally this would be between the tank and engine, as its extra weight this would be best in the front limiting options. A decision was made to mount this to the left of the tank so a bracket was needed as to get it fitting the original bracket could not be used. I found the Focus radio brackets were perfect as a strong starting point for this and they were cut down to remove the sharp corners and provide clearance for the mounting bolts. A kit of supporting parts were cut out from composite panel. And assembled together with rivets. The canister was test fitted and was a nice snug fit. The bracket was secured to a base plate which was secured to the chassis using the tank mounting bolts and brake pipe clamp bolt.
Canister fitted and secured. The vent pipes and fuel hoses were connected up to the hard line pipes in the bulkhead. The original fuel filter bracket was cleaned up and powder coated along with a new l bracket, but I forgot to take a picture, so here is the original version. This was mounted to the bulkhead and connected. All hoses connected ready for tank final fitting.
The canister and tank all fitted which was nice to see a whole section of the build come together.
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Post by buildityourself on Feb 22, 2020 17:50:22 GMT
Battery CablesTo help with the balance of the car, I wanted to locate the battery in the front. Due to the space constraints the only real place for this is in the passenger footwell. As this would be much further away from the engine, extension of the battery leads would be required. This is not as straight forward as it seems as due to the high current needed to start the engine the size of the cable needs to be considered based on its length. Also the material of the cable needs to be considered. This is something that can be overlooked so hopefully the info here helps someone. This website provides a lot of useful background info and a calculator to check correct cable size. Cable size selectorThe standard Focus red starter cable is 1m in length and 16mm 2. The starter motor is rated at 160amps. If you plug this info into the calculator this gives a voltage drop of 0.34v (2.83% of the 12v). The recommended maximum voltage drop is 3-4% so you can see that Ford chose a suitable cable size :-). If you only change the length to 2.5m which is the shortest route for how far the battery will be in the footwell this gives a drop of 0.86V (7.17% of the 12v). Simply using longer cable of the same diameter would not be sufficient and would result in a slow starter cranking/poor starting. Increasing the cable size reduces the drop, and using 35mm 2 cable gives a drop of 0.39v (3.25% of the 12v). This is below the maximum recommended drop over the cable length. You could go larger for better results but the cable weight/cost and flexibility will all suffer so this seems to be a good compromise. I know others have used 25mm 2 cable successfully but I'm not sure of routing lengths used. For our application using 25mm 2 would have given a drop of 0.55v (4.58% of the 12v) which would have been slightly above the maximum drop so not suitable. Suitable cable was purchased from this ebay seller, who make the cables up to your specification and use full copper cables to BS6231 (not cheaper copper clad aluminium cable, as found in cheap jump leads) BrocottsThe first task was to drill extra holes in the engine/cockpit bulk head. The cable will run through the center tunnel. The cable was mounted to a piece of angle aluminium using cable tie clamps riveted to the panel. The cables use tapered grommets to protect them from chafing through the metal bulkhead. This allows the end fittings to fit through and the angle of the cable some flexibility. Currently choosing a battery, but don't want to buy this yet as its likely to be sat there doing nothing for months. Current favourite is an Odessey Extreme 25 racing battery as these are lighter and can be mounted on their side so will fit under an alloy foot rest easily. At some point we will connect up to a battery and turn the engine to check all is working as expected.
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Post by kiwicanfly on Feb 22, 2020 19:00:23 GMT
I delved into the voltage drop calculations and one point to note is that you have to consider the total distance the current has to flow, ie from the battery to the load and back to the battery. The distance used is the calculation is thus twice the physical distance from the battery to the load.
However if you are using a chassis return this does not apply as the chassis offers negligible current drop and you can often get away with smaller cables than the calculators suggest, you need to check how the calculator is set up.
Not really suitable to do this for starter cables but certainly useful to know for other wire selection.
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Post by buildityourself on Feb 22, 2020 19:42:12 GMT
I delved into the voltage drop calculations and one point to note is that you have to consider the total distance the current has to flow, ie from the battery to the load and back to the battery. The distance used is the calculation is thus twice the physical distance from the battery to the load. However if you are using a chassis return this does not apply as the chassis offers negligible current drop and you can often get away with smaller cables than the calculators suggest, you need to check how the calculator is set up. Not really suitable to do this for starter cables but certainly useful to know for other wire selection. Yes this calculator takes into account the return path, but you only have to enter a single length. I did consider using the chassis as the return path. Steel isn't a good a conductor as copper though. However I'm using the chassis as earth for the other electrics, much like the Focus donor.
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Post by buildityourself on Apr 2, 2020 21:13:02 GMT
This is probably going to be a 2 stage update due to the steps involved. Upper front bulkheadFor our build I wanted to try something i've not seen on any other Sonic7. In addition to the front bulkhead I wanted to fit an upper bulk head. This was justified for various reasons. - Stop hot air from the radiator from entering the cockpit in the summer (I can't see us using it much in the winter!)
- Provide extra mounting places for other components
- Give a bit more protection from a fuel leak incase we crash it!
- Add some extra weight to the build (justified as improving the front/rear weight distribution ;-) )
- Spend some more money on the build!
First step was to get a piece of aluminium folded to the correct shape. Got this supplied like this.
This was cut into 2 to provide the necessary parts for both sides around the steering and pedal brackets. Sides trimmed off to fit the chassis bars. I cut out a hole to allow the chassis number to be visible on the drivers side. Next cut out a plate to box in around the front of the pedal box, sandwiched between the master cylinders and box. Then using CAD made a template for the top of the pedal box section. Traced, cut and folded in alloy adding cut outs for the throttle pedal, as the height was kept low to avoid interfering with the bonnet. One of the items to fit to the bulk head was the Focus internal fuse box, taking inspiration from daydreamer Sonic7 that I have seen at Stoneleigh I decided to mount this inside the cockpit. We could not fit to the side panel due to our mounting of the water pipes so the only viable location without extending more loom was on the bulkhead above the passenger foot well. To ensure that the relays/fuses were sunken from the bottom of the panel a stand off bracket was required. This is where the fabrication got more challenging. The measurements of the fuse box were marked out on a piece of alloy sheet and the folding began. The basic shape now formed holes drilled to mark out the corners of the shape that would be cut out from the middle. Cut out and ready to test. To access the fuses/relays via the footwell the bulkhead needed a cutout. The return flanges hold and support the stand off too. The view from inside with the fuse box fitted. Pretty satisified with the result so far, I think when a fuse blows I may regret actually mounting upside down in the foot well but there wasn't a viable option under the bonnet to access from this side and the overall packaging is neat. I'll take this point to cover that the fuses/relays that remain are all that are needed for the Sonic in this fuse box, and even when in the Focus there were still empty slots. I did consider combining the internal fuse box with the engine bay fuse box, however there isn't enough slots for all the fuses, and the rewiring to do this would have been a nightmare. I will follow up with the second concluding part tomorrow!
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Post by buildityourself on Apr 3, 2020 19:35:51 GMT
Upper Front bulkhead Part 2For the engine fuse box I made a couple of brackets to support. I actually later remade the left one to have the fold returns on the side rather than the top of bracket as it moved too much in the slot. All the brackets were powder coated. The one with the large round hole is an original Focus clutch hose bracket which will be reused for the same purpose. Also powder coated the fuse box stand off. The final parts for this project assembled together prior to the next step and final fitting. We then wrapped the panels in carbon effect wrap. Three of the made brackets were riveted to the drivers side panel. These are to secure the GEM (General Electronic Module) that is basically only doing the hazard lights and the battery saver relay in the sonic. The stand off was riveted to the passenger panel. All fitted including the master cylinders, hopefully for the last time as they have been on and off several times! This side shows the engine fuse box mounting. The next task is to make another bracket to secure the grey loom connector roughly in the location in the picture. I really hope the angle of the fuse box won't hit the bonnet.
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Post by buildityourself on Apr 16, 2020 21:07:18 GMT
Easter lockdown progress was mostly spent emptying/sorting/tidying the garage, as over the last few months its become very messy and cluttered working around everything, a few minor jobs also completed. Much more spacious now and better for working. Fuse box and connectorCut the bottom of the fuse box cover to suit the new location. Then went to fit and found that the middle joining clips are slightly in different positions to only allow it to fit one way round! Doh, had to cut these off to suit. Next a custom bracket was made to hold the large loom connector on the bulkhead. Tricky shape to cut out. All fitted and Focus conduit added back onto the loom. Brake & Clutch SwitchRoughly set the brake/clutch pedals (untested for full travel etc so may have to revisit in the future) and then made a bracket using angle aluminium to hold the brake and clutch electrical switches, which actually turned out to be quite simple. Fitted to the spare holes in the pedalbox bracket, using a nut as as a spacer so the rod push on the flat part of the pedals.
Rest of the time has been minor loom alterations. There was no time slacking/making engine noises at all ;-)
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Post by buildityourself on May 3, 2020 19:34:52 GMT
Engine coolant hoses
To fit the silicon hoses from the water pipes to the engine required intermediate pipe to join the bends together. We had some pipe already and with the current Covid19 situation getting beads put on the ends wouldn't be easy. Also considered just buying pipes but also having issues getting parts delivered by the next week end at the moment. Therefore decided to have a go ourselves. I made a bead forming tool out of 2 house door handle bars and used this in the vice to shape the end of the pipe multiple times working round the pipe at each end. The end result while a bit crude does the job and meant it could be completed the same day.
The hose fitted on the drivers side. For the hose fitted to the passenger side. I'd intended to use 2 bends on each side but this one would just not line up well enough without being close to the chassis bar. we ended up using 3 45 degree bends, meaning I am now one short for the front :-(. These pipes are not cheap either! The end result is worth it though. (blue heater bypass hose is blue as black was out of stock). Also fitted the OBD2 socket in the standard "below the steering column" location to help out any mechanics that might encounter the car in its lifetime. (actually without doors, I'm not sure it will unless they are gymnasts)
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