Vtecmec's 4th Gen

[wurlycorner]

2 sexy motors

This build has been an epic journey, such great work.

[Brozilla]

Wow, in-dash LCD is impressive work. I thought my gauge setup was something, but this is on a whole another level.

[Vtecmec]

Right peeps, made some decent progress on this.

So, after quickly throwing the car together to get to a few shows at the end of the season, it is time to take a little more care and attention to matters.

The log manifold I had is not the best design, effectively cylinders 1 and 4 fire directly into each other, this not only will affect efficiency and power, but it also affected the smooth delivery on full throttle. Oh, and it looked jobby.

So I thought I'd have a bash at making my own, something that would help the gasses out of the engine better than the log, but also one that would allow me to reintroduce air con at a point.

So I went out and bought some schedule 10 304 stainless pipe bits, a stainless steel exhaust flange and the v-band that came with the turbo and set to it.

I played around with some positioning that would allow the alternator to return to its stock location, therefore allowing the air con compressor to be refitted.

Something like this:



Final position:



I took some mild steel bar and welded the flange to the v band ring in that position to leave a jig:



Just a jigsaw:



This was more work than I'd initially planned for:





Coming together:







There we are:



My welding improved significantly along the journey, if I ever do this again, it should look better:



I then gave it a good clean and spent half an hour with a bit of metal polish:





And on the car:





A bit of a colour change after running the car to temp to check all was well:





To try to prevent the manifold cracking, which happens due to the weight of the turbo hanging off it, I braced the turbo from underneath with a rose joint to take the weight but allow a little movement for heat expansion, hopefully that means less stress on the pipework:

[Dino]

Very nice work Paul..looks great

[RattyMcClelland]

Yep that looks like a "profeshunal with a semi" made, money paid product. well done.

[Drax]

outstanding work

[Vtecmec]

So I've been working on the car to get it ready for its winter hibernation, there are a few niggles with the car that I wanted to get resolved so when spring springs I can just get on with driving it.

Top of the list was the wheel alignment. Now on the day of the fire I had been to get this done relatively local to me, though this was the second time they'd had a go at it and it still was not right.

Looking at the hunter printout that was provided showed that whilst all the numbers were green and showing ok, the rear wheels were only just within spec and effectively set pretty much straight ahead, whereas really it needs about 2 degrees of toe in to keep the car stable. Also the car pulled to the left slightly and the steering wheel was not centered when driving. Just shows that even with the right tools, a lack of application can get things wrong.

As ever, I decided that this was now best done by myself. So I went out and bought a laser alignment system and set to it. I also bought a camber alignment kit to get that right too.

The front camber was off on the n/s by about a degree from the o/s, probably a by product of lowering the car, I've checked everything and nothing is bent.

So I slotted the upper wishbone a little to bring the camber into where the o/s sits.



Measuring camber:



That sorted that but adjusting that moved the toe of that side out slightly.



A few spins of a spanner later and we were back in business at the front.



So on to the rear.



The gauge shows a shade of toe, and as the car was pulling to the left slightly, to correct this I tweaked the rear right in slightly (the rear wheels steer the car), bringing the car back to zero and hopefully correcting the steering. To confirm this I used the camber kit and a laser pointer to check the rear thrust relative to the front.



Spot on. Car drives perfectly straight.

Now it was just a matter of adjusting each side at the rear by 1 degree, which with these gauges was easy peasy.

A test drive confirmed the car travelling in a straight line still and now feeling much better on the road.

I made a little surround for the EDFC control unit, so it sits quite nicely in the old ashtray slot. I also tweaked the colour to better match the OEM dash.



The interior colours seem pretty well coordinated now:



Keeping things in the interior, the handbrake button has looked tatty since I've owned the car, with the chrome peeking off, so I bought a brand new OEM one and fitted it. Old and new:



Sweet.

Let's not stop there, the fuel pressure regulator was showing odd pressures sometimes, I'd saved it from the fire but I don't think it came out 100%, so I fitted a new one of a slightly different design and took the opportunity to tidy the pipework up a little, the FPR is now mounted to the chassis rather than the intake, which I think will do it well in the long run:



Speaking of the fire, as exciting as driving at 60 mph with flames spitting out of the bonnet was, I'm really wanting to avoid a repeat performance.

As the fire seemed to have been caused by the flexible oil feed pipe melting due to getting too hot as it was in the turbo's 'area of influence', I decided to fit a hard line for the closest parts. This is a test and we'll see how it goes, but I much prefer this to flexible lines wrapped in blankets.



Also, because I have no life really, I decided I did not like the rocker cover and went and painted it red and finished it with a matt lacquer:



Next job on the list is to make some robust heatshields for the alternator, aircon and power steering (similar to the OEM but larger) so I can lose the blanket solution I have in place currently.

[RattyMcClelland]

Fully approve of the Matt red rocker cover, my style, OEM plus.
And that EDFC just sits perfectly in that ash tray slot.

[Vtecmec]

Right then, I've done a bit....

So, not liking the textile based heat wrap/blankets under the bonnet, I set out to make something a little more robust. First was to fab something to go between the turbo area and alternator/steering pump.

I make this as a first draft:





I then made something a bit OEMish to sit above the manifold and to the side of it.



I'm happy with the top one as a first and final product but ended up remaking the one on the left hand side.

Wanting to get the air filter in an easy to maintain locatrion as well as avoiding some heatsoak, I went about making a bit of an enclosure for it.








It turned out pretty well in the end:



Bought a new cover for the washer bottle to replace the slightly melted one....



After that I decided I needed to fix the same issue with the brake master cylinder, the plastics were well grotty so I thought it best to whip the whole thing off and give it a recon.

Of course a can of worms were opened, this is how it looked once prised off the brake booster:









Can't have that really.

So I stripped the cylinder down, cleaned it all up and replaced the innards:



I did the same with the brake booster too:



Rust removed:



Primed:



Painted:



And a new bottle on the cylinder:



Some more heat shield to go around the turbo:



The down pipe previously employed vband clamps to join to the exhaust, which always seemed to leak slightly, so I set about making something a bit more reliable. I also wanted to get a small flex section in there, to allow the turbo manifold a bit of room to expand without putting stress on the exhaust section:

Test fitting:



Tacked together:



Nestled in place with a full compliment of heat shields:



I also redid the oil feed to the turbo again, its now about as far from a heat source as possible and it has its own little shield just for a belt and braces approach.

The power steering pump got a lick of paint at some point too, an aftermarket battery tie down added and freshly made earth straps:







I also spotted the clutch slave cylinder weeping a little fluid, so I swapped that out and the master too along with an uprated braided line (no pics).

I also picked up this cool sales brochure from Japan:



Which gave me some inspiration:

[toadster]

Lo
Great work
Looks superb
Cheers
Toadster