[James3990]

Small update,

I’m still slowly getting back into the car and working away at the list of jobs to finish along with organising the garage layout.

Something that’s been annoying me for a while now is the GRP bootlid and its alignment, so I’ve spent a few hours going through various changes to see were my problem is and it turned out to be a multitude of things.

First of all, I changed the bootlid back to the OEM panel:



Turned out both hinges were bent, thankfully Coupe_Rich came to the help and look at the difference,



Fitted the blue hinges and I could get the alignment much better!



I did try the GRP panel again with the new hinges but these GRP bootlids need a lot more fettling than I’m prepared to do, so looks like I’m keeping the extra 5-6KG in the boot.







Next job was a trip down to see a fellow coupe owner Ian Mann who very kindly gave me a few missing dashboard pieces to make it look more complete (glovebox, fuse cover etc):




Next job was to properly secure the lower grill onto the bumper like a race car!! A few rusty clips supported with cable ties!



From this angle, you can really see the purpose of the Dunlop plinth on the front bumper, allows airflow straight onto the intercooler.




And then finally, a job I needed to finish off from a few months back when I fitted the bucket seat, fit some anchor points to the floor allowing the mounting of the 6-point harness.

This involved drilling holes into the floor pan unfortunately because I don’t have a fabricated seat frame.

Plates are FIA approved, so decided to do both drivers and passenger side.









And there’s one of my future drivers testing out the new setup



Thanks for looking
James

[GTiJohn]

Looking great

[James3990]

Update:

I've been doing lots of small (boring) jobs on the car over the last few weeks, so I've held off from posting until now as more 'interesting' jobs have been completed! First off, remember the old fan harness wiring on this car?




I've made the harness much more presentable and reliable by soldiering the joins together rather than electrical connectors. Both fans are wired in series to the ECU and working perfectly off the CTS sensor like a normal road car.







Although not pictured, I fitted new conduit tubing round the wiring and wrapped it all up with insulation tape for that OEM finish and best possible protection. Here's a couple of videos of the car running with the fans.

Video 1 - https://youtu.be/k0TprrKYUN4
Video 2 - https://youtu.be/zdjqelWQZOs

It operates really well and the amount of air that's drawn through the front bumper is quite impressive. Hopefully I have no overheating issues in the future!


Next job was to sort out the centre console and make it more presentable. The isolation switch needed replacing, an 11watt resistor wired in as per FIA safety rules (to protect the car from alternator surge) and replace the self-taping screws holding the fire extinguisher controls in place with nuts and bolts.











Next job was to install some aftermarket senders so that I can see how the engine is working on some individual gauges that I will fit inside the car. First off was an oil pressure sender fitted to the oil pump.

Here is the OEM switch



You can buy an adaptor which allows you to run both as pictured below.



Upon refitting, I noticed the plug for the oil pressure switch was literally on its last few copper strands before breaking due to age, so I ordered a new plug kit and got this repaired to avoid any future problems.








I've also fitted an oil temp sensor in the original place of the drain plug. I know the sump isn't the best location to fit a temp sensor (coolest part of the oil system), but this should still give me a very basic understanding of the operating temperatures of the engine.



I've not brought any gauges so they are not wired in yet. I'm not entirely sure what style of gauge to go with yet or even where I'm going to mount them side the car so this will be a conversation for another time.


And finally, I needed to get the heat shield modified to allow the car to run a larger air filter and also somewhere to mount the manual boost controller.



Thanks to Andy Cowan at Pipeworx Custom for doing this for me:



New K&N filter


And everything fitted into place:


Thanks for looking.

[GTiJohn]

Fascinating story and great craftsmanship

[James3990]

Small update:

Decided to do a compression test on the engine just to get an idea of its health. The cylinder head was rebuilt a number of years ago and its had very little use since so I was happy with the results.

Cyl 1 = 170PSI
Cyl 2 = 160PSI
Cyl 3 = 160PSI
Cyl 4 = 170PSI

The car does run very rich, even when the engine is up to temperature so I decided to plug in my PSCAN scanner to see what I could find.




Turned out my lambda sensor was completely dead, so for peace of mind, I decided to replace both the oxygen sensor & CTS sensor with genuine OEM parts.






I've drove the car a number of times now and it seems to be running better, however one problem that stands out when both driving the car or just simply idling the engine in the garage is the noise coming from the gearbox. It seems like the input shaft bearing is grinding itself to destruction so the next job will be to remove the gearbox for an inspection and rebuild.

There is signs of the gearbox being opened up before so it will be interesting to see what components are inside. It’s got a K7 sticker on the box and is fitted with a Torsen Type A LSD, so I’m assuming it’s just a standard coupe turbo gearbox.

I might make a few changes once it’s been inspected, such as a shorter 5th gear or even a different final drive.

Im not sure yet what to do with the gearbox, but one modification I'll definitely be doing is fitting this TTV lightweight billet flywheel 8)




Thanks for looking.

[Plodder]

Update:



Next job was to install some aftermarket senders so that I can see how the engine is working on some individual gauges that I will fit inside the car. First off was an oil pressure sender fitted to the oil pump.

Here is the OEM switch



You can buy an adaptor which allows you to run both as pictured below.



Upon refitting, I noticed the plug for the oil pressure switch was literally on its last few copper strands before breaking due to age, so I ordered a new plug kit and got this repaired to avoid any future problems.








I've also fitted an oil temp sensor in the original place of the drain plug. I know the sump isn't the best location to fit a temp sensor (coolest part of the oil system), but this should still give me a very basic understanding of the operating temperatures of the engine.

Just wondering where and how you tapped into the power for your sensors?
I'm thinking of fitting a dual oil temperature gauge using 2 temperature sensors in the inlet and outlet oil pipes from the automatic transmission, This is so I can see the effectiveness of the integral oil cooler built into the radiator.
I can then monitor how good any alternative solutions I fit to cool the automatic transmission oil , once I change the radiator to a standard manual gearbox radiator without the integral oil cooler radiator .
I've seen the kit I need but haven't yet worked out the best place to tap into for the power for the gauges/sensors

[James3990]

Hey plodder,

I’ve not yet purchased any gauges, I’ve just fitted the sender units for now. I’ll be looking for some period looking anolog units.

Small update,

I was planning on tackling the gearbox next but Christmas brought me my first ever impact gun, so I wanted to put it to the test!



I reversed the car into the garage so that I could make a start….



And in no time at all, I had all this removed 8)





Since I’ve owned this car, I’ve not messed with the rear end setup so wasn’t sure about what’s fitted and also the condition of parts. I’ve always said to myself that absolutely everything needs to be inspected & repaired (where necessary) before I put my trust in this car out on track.

Condition and details of the fuel tank was a concern, but as you will see below, it’s a 220 tank and in fantastic condition. I’m guessing it’s the original race car tank given the lack of surface rust on it(?).







I still need to check what fuel pump is fitted, if it’s OEM, is it worth me fitting an uprated Walbro unit??

Roversport upper & lower control arms. The condition of the rose joints are questionable… I might need to speak with the boys at Pipeworx Custom for a refurbished set..





And then the trailing arms are a mix & match pair. The O/S is an original Roversport arm featuring all the strengthening plates, stitch welding and wired brake carrier bolts.





However the N/S isnt an original Roversport arm as you can see, someone has half attempted to replicate it by fitting some extra thick strengthening plates. :facepalm: This arm will need sorting out before it’s refitted.





And finally a picture of the underbody at the rear. Don’t forget this car was originally a normal road shell and was never prep’d to Roversport specification. So I’ll be grinding off all the underseal and seam sealant in the various areas and will get it stitch welded before painting.



All of this underseal will need to be grinded back to metal, so that I can get the rest of the chassis stitch welded and then painted.

Thanks for looking.

[James3990]

Small Update

So another reason for removing all these components was to get to the chassis.

I would say 70% of the car has already been stitch welded thanks to Jody's help, but I'd like the complete shell to be race prep'd so this is my opportunity.

Like I said in the last update, the rear end on this car hasn't been touched since its previous life as a VVC road car, so it currently looks like a normal road car back here.

(Pictures were taken prior to the strip down)







The rust you can see is from the welding that was carried out inside the car around 18 months ago. All of this along with the underseal and seam sealant needs to be grinded back to metal so that the welding can be done, and then finished off with some paint.

Let the fun begin, hot underseal flicking off everywhere !








After 2 hours, my longest serving tool broke on me, I've had this angle grinder for 14 years so a replacement was needed. Its not as powerful, but still does the job fine.

















That's around 10 hours of work so far and it's still not finished as you might see, I've probably got another hour or two worth of grinding left to be done.

Its looking pretty scary in the pictures and given the fact we are in mid winter at the moment, exposing bare metal to the air is attracting some very light surface rust as you can see.

Thankfully I've found no hidden surprises on the chassis, no cracks or rust holes so the car thankfully doesn't need any additional fabrication work later this month

Once the welding is done, I can then start applying some paint like I've done before.

Thanks for looking.

[GTiJohn]

Good to find it's all solid back there

[redandwhitE]

As always, for us emptyheads its an impressive read. Keep the updates coming