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.