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have to have a look at the driver front brakes, it looks as though I've put a shoe in back to front and promptly fixed the error
The car is back under the house to then remove the role cage and fully weld it up, then drill all the mounting bolts and bolt it back for its final fitting. Once the roll cage was welded it was back in the car for fitting. 24 holes through 6mm SS put my drill sharpening skills to the test and it took two day to do the job but in the end am very very happy with the result. After all this my engineer tells me that fitting a roll cage is optional but since I have it in I may as well use it to secure the seat belts.....so I did. Never the less, optional or not it looks great.....and that, as much as anything else, is what the car is about.
I finished off the wiring loom and traced and labeled all the wires I need for the lights, washers, wipers etc. The next is to get the motor running properly and this is a real problem because I haven't yet received my service manual. It's a complicated little beast and I am having trouble with vacuum lines and the effect they have on tuning. I struggled on for a couple of days using others to help along the way. I then went and called in marine engineer mate who studied the plumbing for a while made one suggestion that requires me to drill, tap and fit a 1/2 BSP hose fitting in the new Turbo discharge piping to change a pipe connection and the motor burst in to song......The only muffler was the Cat converter and the whistling should of the turbo was music to my ears. With that out of the way I did a final check on all electrical connections, securing and mounting bolts, brake lines, fuel lines then fitted the second seat.
This brings to close all the major mechanical and electrical problems and to the point I have dreamt about for the last 6 months...My first drive and the time to put the front end to some emergency type testing. I first ran back and forth on the patio checking clutch action, brake boost pressure and power steering feel.....checked out ok. The next was to put the brakes under a bit of pressure to observe the effect on wish bone twist so smokes up the back wheels on my mates patio then emergency locked up the wheels to a sliding stop. Perfect. I packed up for the night.
The nest morning I took it out into the court for a more difficult test and a short drive. The feel of the car is much better than I had ever hoped for. The handing was extremely well balanced and the little turbo 1800 has the most exciting kick at about 3000 rpm. To further test the wishbone stiffness I them jumped on the brakes at a brisk 65kmh to lock up all wheels and slide to a stop leaving 4 big black marks behind and the experience of feeling a very stiff, well behaved motor car. I was a very happy person as I drive it back into the workshop to clean up and start work on the panels. You really have to experience the moment to fully understand it. The car has finally come to life and has a personality.
Started to work on the body panels and did a bit of planning as to the order they need to be fitted. I will have to alter all the panels in some way or another and I'm still puzzled how that came about. The first panel is the rear quarter so that I can set the length and position of the side panel. Next will be the Scuttle, which will need widening and altered for side angle alignment. The next will be the nose cone which I have to alter for width and side angle alignment and last of the major bits will be the bonnet which also needs to be widened and altered for side alignment. I am also calculating the front spring rate and am having a bit of trouble with it. Here are my dimensions
Front end:
Lower wishbone to wheel center length: 455mm
Coil over wishbone attachment point: 270mm
Coil over angle to the horizontal plane: 55 deg
Weights:
Unstrung weight front: 70kg total. (35kg per wheel).
Sprung weight front: 227kg
Car sub total: 297 kg
24% of two occupants: 43.6 kg
Total weight at front: 342.6 kg (46.1%)
Car weight rear: 245 kg
60 ltrs fuel: 60 kg
Car sub total: 305 kg
76% of two occupants 96.4 kg.
Total weight at rear: 401.4 kg (53.9%)
Car wet Kerb weight: 602kg (This is less that half the weight of the original Sylvia)
Total with passengers 744kg.
For the rest of the afternoon I fitted a cooling fan to the Intercooler and a deflector panel so that it doesn't draw hot air from the radiator.
February 2000
I had another look at the intercooler fan setup and have come to the conclusion that the setup is inadequate. The airflow is insufficient and the air that it draws in to the fans is the exit air from behind the radiator. I feel this is too high and have decided to design a small air scoop underneath the nose cone and duct it up to the intercooler. I will have to leave this until I complete the nose cone mod's and fix it in place so that the scoop has something firm to attach to.
The panel work has become very slow and tedious and I must admit I am not a lover of fiberglass chemicals. Never the less I have decided to mix this work with other stuff I enjoy and hopefully it will pass a bit more enjoyably. The first panel I fastened in place was the sides and found they were they were 10mm high on the sides, I'll have to make a small pressed aluminum packer the (Continued on page 15)
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