Bit of spitty work

Spent the evening adjusting this horrible manifold I got on ebay. Its nicely made, just badly finished and the holes were too small/off centre...

I will need to port the other end too the holes are not round, a little small, not too bad, just there is a some material to remove they need opening out behind the gasket face slightly on the lower portion...Quick job, alloy is horrid to work with, bits foul up constantly.

Here are the carbs, bit pissed off actually. Cause the guy robbed some parts from them, levers, fuel unions, I brought them from an image and they arrive missing some pieces shown in images, so I am awaiting his reply and how he intends to resolve it.

If he fails me I will claim by money back from paypal/credit card and repay him the amount minus the cost of the missing parts. Also they are not a truely matched set, they are perfectly matched in respect of progression hole location and production and anything important, but one has powerjets and one doesn't. No biggy wasn't expecting powerjets anyway? You simply fit blanking screws in the powerjet model remove the meter tubes and run them as normal carb...I see no reason they won't work perfectly well together having measured them up.

No bother to me anyway if there is any issue with low end running I'll flog them as singles for Turbo Mini's etc etc.

I will use alloy Lotus Spec Anti Reversion mount plates with individual rubber o-rings, this enabled me to port the mount plates and manifold rather than messing the manifold alone. Also I seem to have about 50 O-rings for these so why not.
The Lotus plates have a funny lip on the back that runs inside the opening on the manifold to stop stand off and reverse pulses, not interested in that function so I ground them flat, the reversion bit didn't fit in this manifold anyway. Now the carbs, plates and manifold blend perfectly into eachother. Shame I didn't take a pic before I did it, horrible!

Of course, each plate is now numbered with a centrepunch and marks made on the manifold too :) As each plate is related only to the bore is was cut for.Above is a classic misab plate which is a 45mm version, fit is horrible huh? The rubber ring I/D is all over the place. This shows why I used the lotus plates and they taper into the manifold port opening so I could leave the taper in some areas and remove it in others to a decent circle and get the I/D of the Lotus plates and carb and manifold to match, taper into eachother.
Job done. Once I quickly fettle the other end I can bolt it all together and stick the induction system to one side, nice to detail things properly first, as you're always inclined to throw it all together when in a rush at a later stage!

Bits and bobs.

Found some spangly new DHLA45M's for my K-Series...Ultimate carbs, Turbo spec too, not that I intend to Turbo the car.

Finished off Andy's carbs, bench calibrated and ready for hand delivery tomorrow on my way to pickup some other stuff.

Interestingly I bench tested the old ones. As such I am confident once we have a quick tinker and find the right jetting (should be within 5points anyway) he will be ALOT faster this year! Oh boy were the old ones out of wack!

Actually looking forward to Mallory as I sure he's in for a bit of suprise, thats all I am gonna say!

Throw yourself into the road scrubber.

Well still nowt done on the Spit.

Spent today scrubbing up a new set of carbs for Andy Vowell.

His old set below was ok bar the venturi's were all loose and had munched the vents and cases. Uneconomical repair, so wrote them off. They were pretty foul, not Vowell anyway, pump rod was busted and bodged, few worn parts, gritty bearings, etc.

Being as he said the car bogged on full throttle, the jetting was really bizarre (maybe due to the leaking and loose vents) and the pump system was non function, the needle valves were shot I hope he goes atleast 2seconds per lap now :) I will probably go Mallory and have poke with his car, as he was so kind to save me from a bum day at Combe its the least I can do.

Old ones above thats after a degrease and inspection!
Lucky I have about 25sets of ones the same. So he gets some pearly body ones in replacement. Here they are awaiting some OE Dellorto rebuild kits and viton valves. This after they had been degreased, sonic washed, oven dried, WD40'ed and there isn't piece of dirt left anywhere. Only muppets bead blast, acid dip or abuse carbs. I used my tried and tested chemical wash technique on each part. 1 process for alloy, 1 process for brass, 1 process for steel with CAD plating. Using only mild chemicals there is ZERO erosion of the parts, damage etc. Its the only way to sort carbs...Bead blasting, acid dipping is plain lame and lazy and bums all carbs.

I got both my Micron pipes but sadly one is stainless and seamed and one is alloy tube, so I will hunt for another case in stainless to suit the complete silencer, nowt stopping my using the complete stainless one...

Few interesting K parts on ebay, which I need, hopefully I can grab those and save a packet.

Time Consumption!

Gonna be a few late nights soon.

Need to get the black thing away in the next 6-8weeks really?! I guess 300 and a bit hours left in it plus any revisions, its had 48hrs in the last 5days.. Should be a 24/7 push to the end.

Its spring, time to head into overdrive and place foot firmly on the floor. I need to hit the turbo soon and get do both Jag and Spit at once. Another year of half missed summer spitty fun?!

Interior is trimmed in grey leather and will be fitted last after its all working, headlining also leather.

Coming together been giving the wiring a good work over last two days and fitting the bulkhead gear. Car was good mechanically but it was a USA car, then RHD when it came back to UK with its owner, now its going back to LHD and down to Italy.

So you can imagine during the previous 50years its recieved it fair share of odd mods, bodges, dodges and most stuff was pretty crap and looked a mess so I am starting from stratch and undoing years of abuse!

Its a long job rerouting everything, plumbing, piping, sorting out LHD drive parts, wiring is interesting not bad enough to reloom but needs work.

Shiney!
Most parts in place, need to rig up a pukka throttle linkage as it looks like the parts are lost, or some off. Its alot nicer to build than take apart.
Shiney!
The red wire is a nasty extension lark, this all has to come out and plenty of soldering and shink wrapping to do on the other side...Yes the prat snipped the wires about 3inches behind the clocks added extensions between pieces of the old loom rather than just extending the cables across by simply adding spade connectors than slide into the spades already there...So it'll take me a while. If he just fed the wires 1 by one with extensions without cutting the ends off it would be easily converted back?

Just a few pics below of how nasty is was! Yuck! I must have swept up a big liner full of dust rusty cack taking it apart.

Be nice to do a Triumph soon :) davidpowell@clara.co.uk For someone who appreciates top class work!

This and that.

Made another bit of bulkhead, it'll all be continously welded and then I'll bead the inside with adheseal. The steering column clamp needs a small additional panel. Pain having to make it all twice, alloy then steel, but its easier to make accurate bends and forms in 3D panels with good template materual, which is hard in steel!

Just enough room for a seal on the column. The flat face below that aims at the gearbox will be the same on the other side and top, onto this will be bonded a square of alloy with a D cutout over the gearbox..The rest is will be alloy too. Might give the inside a coat of paint at the same time as bulkhead.
Black Jag.

A picture I found on internet.

Think I have may have come to a better solution to my triggering of the Megajolt. I will whip the flywheel off, in the image you can see it uses 36-4 system. I will try and make 8 small "things" from some similar material to the flywheel, I can add to them to replace the teeth that have been machined out. I can then remove two teeth at 90deg to the sensor. The sensor in the K is a VRS like the Ford just the end is different and not enclosed in plastic, its equally magnetic etc so should work ok? It works Dunnel, Alpha, Emerald which all work with the Ford sensor. Hope it works. Not quite sure of how to attach the addition pieces...Could just drill some holes cut threads and screw/bond in add some steel stakes then lathe the gap out to match the rest? Or drill some holes make some slightly larger pins and press them in....Quite alot of work but it'll be superneat using the stock sensor and mount, just a hole in the block.

Can't really weld cast iron? It'll go superhard?...Could get a company like technilok to fill the 4 holes with new cast iron then mill it out again, balance...could test the sensor with the MJL as is to see it atleast sees it? put the flywheel in a lathe and putting the pickup on the tool platform :) + laptop?

I can pickup and fit a 1400 flywheel. I think mine is a 1600. 1600/1800 use a 36-4 and 1400 uses a 36-2. So its less hassle that way, think clutch is same drillings. You can only use a 1400 or 1600 fly in K-'s in RWD form. 1800 is bigger.

Small jobs.

Just been getting as much welding odd and sods ready, should have someone who can weld nicely popping round next week.

Made final adjustments and cleaned up the front mounts, box sections ready for welding.

It'll be on the other side but you get the idea, twice the length though. Losses about 3/4" ground clearance so should be ok, provided its butted right up to the door. Mounting will be interesting but no bother I guess. The engine mounts are very stiff, much stiffer than triumph ones, I cannot see the engine rocking much, so should be able to butt it right up to the sill.

Nice door gaps for a plastic pig :)

Started knocking up some templates for the bulkhead. Alloy at this stage then I will flatten the alloy and transfer the shape to steel, much easier to get a perfect panel. I have a box of alloy templates from all manner of stuff!

The master cylinder bracket will bolt to this new section at 3 points where the clamp is. The pedal box will also bolt to it lower down. Need to make some other panels to finish off this side and work out how the fixed part of the tunnel will go inside the cockpit...

The frontal (9inches deep) and rear section of gearbox tunnel will be fixed to the chassis and some angle section running between them fixed to the body...so enabling a single sheet of alloy to be bent and screwed into place to make an inspection hatch. I cannot see myself pulling the box out from inside so its not to heavily factored into my thinking, its just as easy to pull the motor and box cause I build everything so simple :) There's next to nothing to disconnect.

Fitted the SPA tacho and speedo. Added some wiring protection to neaten it up.
I need another temp gauge as it lost pressure, was 55 years old.
Did a bit of wiring and tidied up the dash area a bit. Its functional thats all!

Exhausted Exhaust

Made a few inroads.

Picked up a new micron can which was a 6th of its retail price!


It has a 2.5inch inlet its only 4.5inches in diameter, so a little less than I could use (5"), as pondered in last post.

Also found a spare cannister tube of the same size on ebay! Great when it works out eh?! I assume they are the same size, being as most round Microns are 4 or 4.5inch diameter...Having asked the sellers both measurements within 1mm so looks good.

Should be able to strip the new one into parts. Get the two main cannister tubes (outer bodies) welded into 1 item...which will be about 850mm long.

http://www.milneroffroad.com/PIPE.HTM these folks sell 2.5" perforated baffle pipe. I can remove the baffle pipe in the new silencer, replace with a length twice as long. I can basically make a silencer twice as long that retains the standard repacking and assembly system.

The new Micron cans dont use annoying pop rivets to secure the end plates to the cannister tube, but have nice seals and a 4 bolt system, which means you don't have to destroy the can trying to repack it after a few years!

Should work, how noisey don't know! 304 stainless throughout.

If that works out I just need two bends and a straight bit.

Exhausting

Won my manifold.

Gonna be fun fitting this silencer down the side!

I think ideally a 125mm diameter silencer will be the maximum ...this is quite compact and the silencer will not protrude excessively below the bottom seam and be anywhere near danger from tarmac exposure while still missing the door opening. Damn passengers! :) Could always raise the silencer on my planned mount system.

Body roll accounts for a bit of loss. So at the worst case the silencer will skim 2inches above the tarmac with my megalow suspension, while bumped down in a corner, usually it'll have about 4inches driving along.

The old silencer was 2" bore 100mm x 125mm oval and 410mm long with unknown amount of baffling left gave 104db on the 1300. This gave 101db with an extra 17cm of unknown silencer added on, then a few inches of packed and perforated end pipe gave 100db.

I was kind of hoping a 2.5" bore silencer of 125mm diameter and 90cm long would do the trick for trackdays...Allowing for it being newly filled with baffling, repackable and twice the length of the old one... It'll be a close call I think.

Who knows.

Either way its gonna be hard, I can't run any thing that big on the back of the car cause even with the 100mm deep silencer I had before it almost worn a hole through it at the Ring from grounding out. There were dents where it has been pushed into the bootfloor! thats with only a 100mm depth!

To get a 125mm silencer on the back of the car and the same size as I can use on the sill it would have to protude out the back around 70cm :) Can't use mid silencers without raising the ride height, I wanted to lower the front! I didn't want a main pipe dragging on the floor under the gearbox aswell or by the diff...

Either way a tasteful 100db exhaust system was gonna be a pain the arse.

The ticket for Westfields etc appears to be a 2.5" bore of 6inch diameter and 620mm long, can't do 6inch diameter. So I hope with a 5" diameter and 90cm long it should be ok. Anyone?!

I cannot believe I have to spend ages messing and thinking about how to surpress noise on a race track, its bizarre!

Exhaust pleasure?!

Well my main pain was going to be getting a bespoke exhaust made. Possibly £800 of pain.

Luckily I noticed a Caterham manifold for sale. The fat redline is the bulkhead, it will fit!

With this I can then buy some prebent sections of 2.25" tube and make my own side exit exhaust.

I can pickup two bike silencers and butt them end to end and make them one running along the sill.

This manifold is hardly a performance item the primaries are well short and its 4-1! However the caterhams work ok with it, it works as well as the stock K manifold.

The custom made system would give 10HP and 25lbs of torque increase low down compared to the stock MGF/VVC/Elise manifold and this caterham one. However the saving in hassle having to trailor the car somewhere, pick it up, pay a fortune is more appealing at the moment, also its a days work say to get a system on it now. Saving time.

Hopefully with this manifold I can make an entire system for £150 and retain the standard torque levels and obviously make more power with cams and induction. These caterham manifolds can make 185-190HP before becoming too restrictive, you just won't get the torque a nice made 4-2-1 gives.

It'll come together fast soon!

I am also a bidder on a stock 1.8K head with QED cams 425M some bloke has been relisting with a lower and lower startprice its now a steal.

This cam spec and head will give near on 165HP. Saves me quite a lot cash on sorting the VVC one with new cams etc.

The car is gonna be using the normal rear suspension for a while so it'll probably help it last :)

I can keep the VVC head and port it and do something with it in the future...If I went to 285cams ported it and converted it to mechanical followers it would be good for 185hp, which is the limit of the stock pistons.

I want to get the thing rolling again asap. Best leave something to fiddle with later!

Hopefully should have ALL the ingredients soon.

Warm Isn't It

So warm I happily stayed in the garage till 2am.

Put in a 7hr wiring marathon.

Didn't really achieve anything bar neatness! Just fitted the new Tacho/Speedo, got funky with some convoluted split tubing in the cockpit area, will now be on all the wiring, on the entire car. Looks million times neater, also you can easily just slip extra or new wires into it...