Rocket 2 - ST170

[carlyd]

Hey guys, me again. A fews years ago (2013 - 2016) I built an original Mev Rocket with a Honda Accord Type R Engine (see my other build diary).
Well here I go again, this time a Rocket 2 which I just purchased from a guy in Norfolk.

I will document the stripdown and rebuild and as Rocket 2 is basically an original Rocket with a different bonnet I'm not expecting too many surprises. Famous last words 


The History of this car

This Rocket 2 was originally purchased by a guy in Scotland (anyone know who this is?) who got it to the rolling Chassis stage and then sold it on to the guy who I purchased it from. The chassis is approx 5 years old and is grey with Black GRP Bonnet and Cycle wings.

I bought it as a car with no engine and no IVA, however it previously had an ST170 engine and gearbox and had been sent to Exo / SVE for IVA prep and was all ready for IVA but apparently blew the engine before the test. The owner removed the engine and is trying to return it to the person he bougt it from.
The owner then advertised it on Ebay at a starting price of £7k and had no bids, so I made a low offer and bought it.



Current Condition

It's very obviously been sat outside for a period of time in the rain as suspension arms are very rusty, as are some bolts etc so it's rough.

I received lots of parts with the kit, exhaust, ford gearbox, seat belts etc so it's basically a full kit minus the engine.



My Plan

I was planning on building a buggy type car of my own design so bought a Honda Accord Type S a few years ago as a donor. This has the K24A2 engine and 6 speed gearbox and the car drove like new when I bought it. I stripped it and have already reconditioned the engine and parts ready for a new build. So now I have a Rocket 2 that is looking old and rusty and a virtually new engine, so.... I am going to implant the Honda K24 into the Rocket 2, and from my research it's not been done before in a Rocket 2. The K24 should be good for 190bhp as standard and it's the same engine you will find in the Ariel Atom and Nomad.



So my basic plan is to do a complete strip down, then rebuild with the Honda engine and gearbox, fit electrics, cooling and basically rebuild the car to a high standard. Then do another full strip down, new powder coat (not sure on colour yet) and then final reassemble.





Stage 1

Strip it back to a rolling chassis to give me good access to the engine bay so I can test fit the engine and gearbox. I will need to manufacture new engine and gearbox mounts. Once this stage is completed I will leave the engine in place so I can plan where to put ECU, route wiring and all engine ancillaries.



Stage 2

I hate P clips and bolt on brackets so I am going to weld tabs etc to the chassis so these are permenant fixtures, this will be done as I am rebuilding the car to a high standard, using new bolts and quality parts.



Stage 3

A full strip down to bare chassis. Unfortunately the floor was pop riveted on (my last build I used rivnuts for this exact reason). I will need to drill out approx 300 rivets to remove the floor which leaves me with the issue of 300 rivets floating around inside the chassis. I know I could use wax oil or something else to spray inside the chassis to stop the rattle but as this is going to be a high quality build my plan then is to cut off the circular blanking plate at the very front of each lower chassis member and simply tilt the chassis to empty the rivets out. I will then weld the plate back in. When I refit the floor (during reasemble) I will rivnut it back on.


Stage 4

Powder coat chassis, suspension arms & various parts



Stage 5

Reassemble.



Stage 6

IVA and Register



Stage 7

Track days, driving it like I stole it, which I did


I will add some photos now, and as I progress I'll add more.




Some ideas I am having
Fuel tank, I don't like this, I may manufacture a larger tank to run behind both seats (usnure just yet)
Roll cage ?
Second skin of the floor in front of driver and passenger seat (to sit on top of chassis) as I am always worried of pushing the floor off when standing on it. 
Having Battery in the front next to the radiator to help with weight distribution.
Hinging the bonnet (currently have to unbolt it).
LCD full colour Dash (any suggestions)
Wider seats as I can't get I I disagree in these. They also pinch my back as I have a wide back (apparently) so any suggestions on wider seats would be appreciated. These are 360mm at the ass, I need 400mm I'm guessing 




I have lot's of parts with this kit that I won't be using so this stuff is for sale if anyone is interested.



x2 GRP fireglass seats (too narrow for my fat ass)

x2 Blue TRS 4 point hardness new never fitted)

Koso Dash (RX2N)

Ford gearbox (not sure which model)
Ford Oil Catch can


Please message me if you are interested in any parts.

[carlyd]

[buildityourself]

If you are replacing the rivets with rivnuts the heads will come out these holes, avoiding cutting the chassis. Don't publically modify the chassis if you are IVAing ;-).

[phaeton]

Oct 30, 2023 20:36:56 GMT buildityourself said:

If you are replacing the rivets with rivnuts the heads will come out these holes, avoiding cutting the chassis. Don't publically modify the chassis if you are IVAing ;-).

Why it's not registered, that's the point of the IVA, preparing it for registering, your comments are only valid after IVA & Registering

[carlyd]

Oct 30, 2023 20:36:56 GMT buildityourself said:

If you are replacing the rivets with rivnuts the heads will come out these holes, avoiding cutting the chassis. Don't publically modify the chassis if you are IVAing ;-).

Thank you for your comments. Why would modifying the chassis be a problem before IVA ?. What if I add a rollcage or make any modifications?
It's no different from making a chassis myself from scratch is it?

[buildityourself]

Oct 30, 2023 21:29:42 GMT phaeton said:

Oct 30, 2023 20:36:56 GMT buildityourself said:

If you are replacing the rivets with rivnuts the heads will come out these holes, avoiding cutting the chassis. Don't publically modify the chassis if you are IVAing ;-).

Why it's not registered, that's the point of the IVA, preparing it for registering, your comments are only valid after IVA & Registering

Well having recently been through IVA and reading all the regulations, you can make it easy for yourself or difficult. The OP can freely do want he wants and is probably ok, but I was just trying highlight there could be consequences to consider. 

Chassis, monocoque bodyshell (body and chassis as one unit) or frame - original or new and unmodified (direct from manufacturer)

If you can't declare this, then you may not get so many points, so could be subject to a different level of inspection or classification. ie rather than a kit converted vehicle, it could become a radically altered vehicle depending on the inspector. 

I'm looking forward to following the progress as its dead on here...and not a good sign for the kit car industry.

[phaeton]

Oct 31, 2023 20:15:12 GMT buildityourself said:

If you can't declare this, then you may not get so many points, so could be subject to a different level of inspection or classification. ie rather than a kit converted vehicle, it could become a radically altered vehicle depending on the inspector. 

I'm looking forward to following the progress as its dead on here...and not a good sign for the kit car industry.

Having done 5 SVA's & 3 IVA's (in the last 3 years) you're reading too much into it.

[carlyd]

Had about 3 hours on the Rocket today. I'm also building and spraying new wardrobes and island etc for our bedroom as well as working full time so my time is deffinately limited just now.

Made some decent progress today.. going backwards so now fully stripped to rolling chassis.
The strip down did reveal a few things that made me glad I didn't drive it before stripping it. Let's just say it was not built to the quality that I would like and there was no way it would have passed IVA, even though it had supposedly gone to Exo for pre IVA checks.
Some things on this build amazed me, such as the seats, fuel tank and radiator had all been bolted in through the aluminium floor with a good 3 inch of the bolt sticking through the bottom of the floor. Imagine if you run over something in the road and those bolt catch on it, I dread to think. 
I also wonder how the IVA inspector would feel about testing a car that looks years old with rust etc as you would think a new build would look new.

I noticed in the wiring some components that I didn't recognise, can anyone suggest what they might be (see picture). It's the black rectangles that have cooling fins on them (I have highlighted them).



Anyway here are a couple of pics of the stripped car now. 
Next stage is to buy a welder and test fit the Honda K24 engine and gearbox so that I can weld new engine mounts.

[carlyd]

Oh I wonder if the black eletrical units are LED converters for LED lights? One for each light?

[carlyd]

Here are a few pics of the donor vehicle which is a Honda Accord Type S - 2003 with 144k miles. I paid £650 for it off ebay and when I purchased it I drove it back home which was about 60 miles and it drove perfectly, plenty of performance and the gearbox was supersmooth.

The engine as mentioned earlier is the Honda 2.4 litre K24A2 which produces 190BHP as standard with the LSD Honda 6 Speed Gearbox. 
This is basically the same engine as the Honda Civic Type R (EP3) but that is 2 litre (K20) wheres the K24 is a 2.4 litre.

I purchased the car a few years ago and stripped it, being very careful not to cut any wires and to label all wires and took lots of photos and videos so I can see where everything goes.












I have stripped the engine and rebuilt it. I've also given it a coat of paint, I have also painted the cam cover in black crinkle paint but don't have a photo just yet.





I have just ordered a TIG welder today, so will be able to get the engine mocked up and new engine mounts fabricated.

I am also looking for a new LCD Dash and like the look of this Koso dash.



Does anyone have any experience with this Dash or could recommend anything else?  I had the Race Technologies DASH2 in my other Rocket and much prefer a full colour LCD Dash. 

My daily driver is an Audi SQ7 and I love the dash in that so was hoping I could find someting similar, but no luck.

[carlyd]

I had an hour spare so decided to work out which engine mounts go where, so uncovered the engine which has been on an engine stand for the past 4 years. It did have the inlet manifold bolted on so I took that off and discovered this 



Clearly moisture has found it's way into the engine and the valves are now rusty, so I assume the bores will be the same.
I was going to rebuild the engine with new parts anyway, with new piston rings, crank shells, valve stem oil seals, head skim etc so this is not a problem. The only problem is I am struggling to get a full gasket / seal kit as Honda only sell individual gaskets and I need a full set so I will have to keep trying. There are sets on ebay but I want all OEM parts and not sure how legit they are.
I had painted the block and gearbox, but this is now peeling off the gearbox, so I will get the paint removed and have them blasted when they are stipped as they are both aluminium it corrodes and looks terrible so I will look into some kind of clear protection once they have been blasted. I am not stripping the gearbox as it was sillky smooth but will put a new clutch kit in while it's all apart. I will get the mounts mocked up first then remove and rebuild the engine while the chassis goes away for powder coating. 

[wishful4444]

Good day carlyd

144k miles is a goodly amount. Apart from checking for bore wear and ovality are you anticipating a need to deglaze the bores?

Is the rust on the valves surface only?

I wish you well with the project and will follow with interest.

[carlyd]

Nov 9, 2023 12:16:47 GMT wishful4444 said:

Good day carlyd

144k miles is a goodly amount. Apart from checking for bore wear and ovality are you anticipating a need to deglaze the bores?

Is the rust on the valves surface only?

I wish you well with the project and will follow with interest.

Hi, These engines are bulletproof and it looked very clean inside prior to the rust issue. However, I am going to do a full rebuild of the engine, rebore, new piston rings, crank grind, new bearings etc so it will be a new engine when I'm done. I looked into Honda crate motors, they are a lot more expensive than Ford at over £8k for the bare motor. If they were £2k I would just buy a new motor, but I am looking forward to stripping and completely rebuilding as I want to do every single job myself on this build.
The rust is surface only I am sure as they were fine when I last checked it a year or so ago.

My last Rocket build I had the Honda 2.2 VTEC egine professionally refurbished and rebuilt and had problems with it. It also cost £2k for the refurb, so I am hoping this will be a little cheaper, plus I know the workmanship is quality if I do it myself.

[carlyd]

Due to the above engine issues and with me stripping the engine I have been looking into performance gains while I am at it. I think a sinmple port and polish and an uprated fuel pump with a remap or maybe a custom ECU should give an easy 250 - 270bhp. I am also not running an A/C pump and power steering pump and I am going to fabricate a stainless exhaust so that will all help reach that 250 - 270bhp. That should do for now, however these engine are reliable upto 400bhp with standard internals so a supercharger may be in the future.

[wishful4444]

Thanks for the reply carlyd.

I have a Sonic with a Focus ST170 engine which gives less than 5 sec to 60mph. I can barely imagine what 250-270bhp will do, as for 400!!!!

I presume you will be fitting an uprated clutch.