After the welding was carried out at the start of the year, the car went into dry storage. With it booked in for mapping with Leighton in June, the plan was to get it out in May and start carrying out the a engine work - the 2.4 head
This ported and polished 2.4 head was sold without exhaust and inlet valves and so as we're building a turbo car, we went for Nimonic exhaust valves and they took an age to arrive. As Joe couldn't kick the head rebuild off until these were in hand, this delay pushed us right up against the mapping date. I had bought the head itself off Leighton for a steal last year and when it arrived, Joe found he had to scavenge a few missing parts together from his own parts division to complete it. With everything ready, it was all sent off to a local workshop to rebuild the head.
Going back to the previous issues with the car when mapping was carried out previously, Leighton believed it was caused by a high compression, the old head having been skimmed too many times. For this reason, I asked Joe to test it himself before and after the rebuild. Compression came in at 150psi across all 5 cylinders and, althout this is perfectly acceptable for a good engine, it was just too high when pushing the boost up. Having fitted the new 2.4 head, compression came in at 135-140psi allowing us a lot mnore headroom with boost. Relief!
While the head was off, Joe also ported and matched the exhaust manifold and carried out a bit off future proofing for me - although the car was having a dual port aquamist system fitted for now, I have plans for a direct port system and so Joe drilled the fittings and blanked therm all off. This will save me time having it all pulled apart again when I inevitably opt for a bigger turbo at some later date and start pushing the envelope even further.
Additional work carried out during this phase also included tidying up where the welder had left off (undersealing the welded areas, fitting a new wheel arch that the welder had carved up and replacing the exhaust tunnelling plate to fix my leaning handbrake).
Oh, and Snoopy needed a new MOT, which Joe was able to arrange
With a holiday in Somerset booked that just happened to coincide with the week the car needed to go in for mapping , everything was all set to finally get this engine singing
Leighton had a few issues mapping the car which meant it wasn’t finished on the Friday and ready for collection on Saturday as planned. This meant I had to kill some time in the area on the day. However, when the issues had been resolved, he said it was responding much more readily to tuning at last. With the compression now reduced by the new head, the new head itself allowing the engine to breathe a little more freely and, of course, the Aquamist keeping the temps a lot lower, it eventually made 448bhp and 370lbs/ft, up from 416bhp and 328lb/ft from the previous map.
The final upgrades to complete the engine rebuild and tune then: • Aquamist HFS3-v3.1 system with a dual port install • 10L Aquamist water/meth tank (internally baffled/drilled), with bracket. The tank and Aquamist pump are mounted in the boot to help spread weight to the rear of the car
I then drove it to Must Weld Motorsport who would be fitting the cage and left the car before heading home. At this point I discovered a few issues with the car that would need rectifying. First, the steering wheel was off centre and, worryingly, it seemed to shift even more when maneuvering at full lock. When driving straight, although the wheel was 'off' it wouldn't move anymore. At this point though, the knackered Vibra Technics gearbox mount made itself known as the driveshaft started knocking. It'll all be alright in the end!
I took a trip over to Must Weld Motorsport on Monday 4th July to carry out a few minor jobs on the Coupé to allow the cage builder access, to discuss the required spec in person and to get measure dup for seat fitting. Jamie likes to build the cage around the seat / driver to ensure everything works together. Although a ‘belt and braces’ approach to building a roll cage would be the best way to maximise torsional rigidity, it would also make the car heavy. As I wanted to strike an efficient balance between rigidity and weight, before getting into diminishing returns, we had a lengthy discussion on what was and wasn’t required. After discussing just about every brace I’d seen online and what it was for, we went full circle and eventually settled for a fairly straightforward 6-point cage.
The spec then: • It’s a custom-made, weld-in cage in CDS with 2.5mm wall bars • The main hoop and harness bar is in 45mm, while all other bars are in 38mm • The rear struts are mounted to the boot floor above the subframe is mounted. As Jamie points out, there seems to be no sense in mounting it to a wheel tub if suspension isn’t mounted to it. Best to put it where the load will be to make the cage take the weight and not the chassis. • It has an ‘X’ in the rear stays to prevent lateral movement in the main hoop, but won’t have gussets. • It features double door bars in Jamie’s ‘easy access’ style – I asked him if he could line these up with the slashes on the door. When I asked for this, he gave me exactly the look you would imagine he would… but did it anyway – I think it really sets it off! Two bars are used to maximise side impact protection but there is no X that can result in a bar pointing into the cabin if notched against the first diagonal. You can bend two bars to make an ‘X’ but then access is restricted. • A harness bar is installed on the main hoop (as opposed to between the rear stays) to keep the harnesses as short as possible, and they line up exactly half way up the harness holes in the seats to ensure they hold the driver in place and put no pressure on the seats in the event of an accident. • The cage is super tight to the shell and welded to it wherever possible. This ensures that it functions with the chassis (rather than moving about within it!) and also keeps it as far aware from the occupants as possible. • FIA spec seat mounts have also been fitted. This means the original seat mounts and box section are no longer required – they’ve been cut down for now but I’ll have to drill the spot welds to clean it all up. Jamie measured me up for fitting for the best placement of these but I will have a degree of adjustment using the Sparco FIA Steel Side Mount Brackets. Annoyingly, there is little to no adjustment in height with these brackets in combination with my seat, so I may have to look elsewhere if this is an issue.
Catching a 6am train from Colchester, I was able to get a lift from Joe at the other end and got to his unit at 10am before hopping in the Coupé for a trip over to Hereford to pick up a set of arch liners and water meth tank that had been left at the roll cage fitter unit some months before. After heading back to Joe’s we set about refitting the Aquamist tank and making the car fit for the long drive home. I’d also arranged to collect a few items from Joe’s parts department, highlights including a complete dash an undertray and a cup holder, as well as boxes of all the old parts that had been removed during recent works. After a couple of near starts and a false start, I was able to get underway and spent the next 4 hours in a mixture of stop start traffic or motorway speed driving, neither of which was much fun in a car full of loose rattling parts and no sound deadening. The final list of work carried out at this latest major milestone then:
Fix vibrating EGT probe port 20v Turbo late model front water rail coolant T piece FCSS custom 63mm stainless turbo to intercooler pipe FCSS custom 75mm stainless charge pipe NGK plugs (8s) Nylon gear selector base and 2x roller bearings Battery in the boot mod 2nd hand steering rack Power steering fluid Eye bolt mounts (for harness lap belts) welded to centre tunnel Protection applied underneath seat mounts and eye bolt mounts Replacement rear arch liners Replace failed Vibra Technics rear gearbox mount with ‘competition’ version Fit new 20vTurbo Facet thermostat (to address water temp gauge issue) New wishbones and drop links Supply new wishbone pinch bolts and ARB Nyloc nuts FCSS tank straps Re-wire dash lights Aquamist system refitted
Parts / consumables collected for later: Tin of Zinc spray (for roll cage welds) Undertray (and spares to reinforce after cutting it to fit) Rear brake bias spring New dash Millers CFS 10w60 oil 3D Printed cup holder New centre console (I have plans to modify two of these in order to move the head unit position. More to come later)
I can confirm that initial impressions of the steering feel and handling post roll cage are that incredible gains have been made. However, due to inclement weather conditions becoming the norm rather than the exception now, I have taken the car off the road already and started work on the interior in earnest. There's also the small matter of it sounding like a WW2 battle tank with no interior or sound deadening to speak of. The interior rennovation work has now started and will be complete well in time for the spring when it will be released back into the wild. More on the progress of this to follow...
The next job was to start removing the spot welds that used to hold the original seat mounts to the floor. When the roll cage guy removed these, we agreed he could just cut them off with a grinder to save time (my money) cutting the spot welds out properly. What a horrible job that is! I’ve now got a few holes to tidy up where I went straight through as well us some chewed up floor pan sections where the location of the spot welds was impossible to tell and, while practicing some pretty serious sorcery, I accidentally summoned a rage monster that ‘prised’ them off none too gently (I was actually going for a curse on all descendants of the spot welder that put them in the car - I'm still learning!).
Having signed up to a monthly prescription of brave pills, I started pulling the car apart. Turns out I was pretty good at this. Not so good at labelling the bits I'd removed though... More on that later.
Here are my notes from the time... Removed the wiring loom from the boot and then cockpit. It was a right old bunch of snakes in the boot what with the fuel pump wiring mod, battery in the boot mod, and now the Aquamist. I even found an old tracker on top the nearside rear wheel arch which was still wired in. More dead weight I could remove.
All of the nasty old black electrical tape was removed from the harness so I can re-route as required before applying proper Tesa tape and some attractive looking sleeving (if I can find some). Oh, the rear bumper had to come off to get access to the rear number plate light fittings too. Only one was plugged in? That can’t have worked very well…
The wiring loom was then passed through the door windows and out onto the roof out of the way so I could get on with sanding the roll cage. Having sat for a few months since fitting, it had accumulated a few spots of rust that needed removing. I had intended to get the dash bar out prior to the next stage, but said roll cage now stops the dash bar coming out… I was adamant I wanted ALL original sound deadening out so I could replace it with more effective, modern materials (that don’t smell like old car), but was ready to give up with the stuff mounted against the firewall at this point. Until I realised the dash bar will fit out of the windscreen opening... I’m now hatching a plan to have all glass to be removed when the car is resprayed to allow removal of this old sound deadening.
Next, I used my newly purchased grinder to attack the weld spatter dotted around the cage mounting points. I’d never used a grinder before - what a tool! Along with a beaten-up old chisel and the spot weld prising tool, I was able to clean these up nicely and use the wire brushes to soften what was left.
Project progress was fairly quiet at the start to the year having had my work contract cut short and finding myself without a job heading into Christmas and the New Year… Focus therefore moved to things that take time rather than money. In other words - scratching at old bits of rusty metal and zapping it with electrolysis!
Cleaned up metal components using electrolysis tank • Rear bumper locating bars (given a coat of galvanising spray) • Engine mount bracket (given a coat of Rustoleum Hammered Black) • Bonnet latch (given a coat of galvanising spray)
The 'engine mount to chassis bracket thing' also got zapped! I can't find any photos of this having now been painted so I'll put some up later. This was my first go using Rustoleum Hammered in a tin (so brush on) and it came out amazing. More on that later.
June 2023 Another quiet month. I did happen across some Auto DS vented wings at a fair discount that were painted in Sprint Blue on one of the FB groups, so I snapped them up!
Back on it! - Roll cage painted This was sanded down to remove any remaining weld spatter, scrubbed with scotchbrites and then cleaned with methylated spirit (a lucky bottle left over from cleaning the centre console back in the mid noughties! 😊). The Rustoleum Hammered finish in black was an absolute joy to use painting on with a brush. Two coats in two days and it was done. I was over the moon with the results!
My old Sparco strut brace was looking a bit sorry for itself having been perched across the strut mounts for around 18 years (I still remember the first drive after fitting it) so that was next for a refurb, and I had just the paint for the job!
After testing a small area to make sure it didn’t react badly, I then liberally coated the whole thing with paint stripper and left for about 15 minutes whereupon it turned orange in colour. I can see that exact colour as I type this (quite literally!) as the damn nitrile glove split while I was working on it… Two days later and my finger is only just starting to return to its normal colour…
It made a fair old mess as the paint was incredibly thick but scrubbed up quite well eventually and looked amazing when complete.
Note: I took quite a few photos of this process so I'll put them on up now.
By now, I was absolutely sick to death of grinding out spot welds, and this last month involved tackling all of the really awkward to get to remainder, as well as a copy that I'd just put off as they weren't 'in the way' previously. These included:
Final metal tabs under rear seats removed with grinder Rear seat belt mounting plates drilled out (right old mess!) Last piece of front seat box section removed (photo attached)
Following discussion with a couple of paint shops regarding my proposal to rattle can the interior, I was convinced that it was a daft notion. After the success I’d had with the Rustoleum Hammered in the past, I decided to use this and brush it on myself. Reviews suggested that Hammerite Hammered is exactly the same stuff and it’s a lot cheaper to buy in bulk than the Rustoleum, so I went ordered 5 litres. Turns out it’s nowhere near as good. The finish is less ‘hammered’ and it doesn’t go on as well, but it still looks OK.
Note: I have no idea why it's rotating these photos and I don't know how to correct it. I'll leave it to the reader to rotate...
, everything was all set to finally get this engine singing 