Very upgraded LPG Scimitar MV6 build

[loz]

Hi folks, I've been a forum member for a long time but haven't frequented these parts for for over a couple of years.

Hello again

Thought I'd say hello and start posting threads about the progress made on my project.

Forgive the massive thread started, this is lifted from the scimitar forum and pistonheads where I've been reporting progres for a while.







The car has had so many development, all new bigger brakes stolen from various ford and rover parts, AVO adjustable suspension, the bumpers are homemade, I tried my hand at spraying (I couldn't make a career of it). And the latest projects have been to remake the front trunion joint into a ball joint from a mkiii supra (far far stronger). And of course change all the rusty bits in the chassis for stainless.

So here's the progess on the recent projects lifted straight from the RSSOC forum.




I had an idea, and it goes a bit like this.

Had some old Supra bits lying around, they're strong! supra weighs 1600kg


Choppy Choppy



I love messing around with the lathe


There's a step in the part to ensure the suspension can't collapse if the welds (yet to come) should fail




Turned a 10mm steel plate to suit the ball joint mount, these will be welded together



Cut the bottom off the upright, it took forever, they are VERY strong, no wonder they're so much to buy


Then went about making up the new caliper mounts that will drop lower than the last ones to meet the ball joint mount



More to come, I'm hoping to get it all welded up tomorrow. The lower wishbone and shock mount are next, but that might have to wait a bit.

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Got it finshed today, got all the holes drilled and upright bits cut to shape. I used a "drill doctor" drill bit sharpener and I cant sing its praises enough. I sharpened one 10mm bit and put a "split point" on the end face. It then drill 16 holes through 10mm plate without so much as a pilot hole and its still cutting fine.

Anyway here are some pics of the finished uprights.







It took a while to get the end of the caliper mount to the right angle for the correct king pin angle.





Took them to a friends house as he has a beast of a welder and got them all welded up added so webs. I was a bit worried the bits from the supra uprights might not have welded but it welded beautifully. As a test I welded something to the supra upright and beat the s*** out of it with a hammer, I welds just fine!





Can't wait to make the wishbone mounts next.

the brackets I had made a little while ago are up for grabs now. I'll do another post for them soon.


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The lower wishbones are getting there now, took me a while just looking at it Still got to weld on the shock mounts, steering stops and anti roll bar mounts. Hopefully tomorrow if I can get all my work finished first

Cut and drilled 4 of these plates, the whole time they were clamped togther with mull grips (spelling?)


After much thought I marked them up and cut them to slot through the ball joint mating face:




Then tacked and welded them up, as I said there's still much to do, its been a real weld-a-thon today and I've just about had enough for a while:





The poor car hasn't been this apart in my ownership.



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Made some more progress today, they're nearly done now, these represent so much of my time, its getting rediculus, and I haven't even started on the major chassis work yet........ but its so much fun!





And here are some recylced wishbone mounts for hte shocks to mount



And some anti-roll bar mounts





It was convinient that the anti roll bar tie links reversed so I could weld the brackets on more neatly than the original parts to save a tiny bit of weight on these already pretty heavy wishbones

More to come, maybe next weekend, I might get the front section of the chassis cleaned up and painted too.


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Another thing ongoing is getting the hubs redrilled for the Caterham wheels:


First thing was to get the hubs off, hmmm:


I added a bit more strength and eventually they came off:



Got the spacers and extended studs from Rally Designs:


Discs redrilled on a roatary table in a local machine shop:



And finally the hubs:



Had to turn off the old brake disc brackets in order to get the studs in:





Next the surface on the back side of the rear hubs needs flattening so that the studs can seat flat.

More to come


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A little update.

These wishbones are taking ages! but they're finally ready for some paint. All that suspension stuff just takes so long to clean up, I'm slowly getting though it, the wishbones are drying as I type:


I've taken the plunge and cut up my two best upright to make the new ones, this is next for paint:


The New lower bits now have have adjustable lock stops and I thought I've cut the first attempt at shock mounts off (as they were a bit thin in places) and make up some new ons out of thicker newer steel. They're still not hte 4mm of the originals but they're not nearly as tall so at 3.2 ish mm they should be fine.


Here's the 316 stainless thats just waiting to become a scimitar outrigger, the tube is to replace the part of the chassis that the axle mounts to, it too is stainless 304 this time:



Sticking with a theme, these are the stainless exhaust manifold plates that arrived recently, laser cut! can you guess the engine they're for?


And for the same engine (going into the Scim) the is a lightweight flywheel, that weights over 10kg !!!! less than the original, it was machined from a billet, its little engineering artwork:



More to come tonight maybe.

Please feel free to comment, I'm not sure how many are actually interested?!


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Another quick update,

All the front suspension bits are either painted or ready for paint (as I ran out).


The bits are up in the rafters I've made a token start on the chassis.


This tube is to replace the rusty one benieth it. Its slightly thicker walled and slightly less diameter. I'll cut the old rusty one off leaving a 10ish cm section where its welded to the chassis main rails, then turn down the new tube and slide it into what is left of the old then weld it all up. Here's the new stainless tube being turned down.



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Thanks Burtle you'll probably get lots of bugging questions when I finally get round to pulling the engine out.

Max, the Omega flywheel is indeed a dual mass beasty a right beasty and 15kg too. That sounds like an amazing project, I've often thought if I could have any job in the world, anything, it would be to set up a buisness turning the classic car of the customers choice in a hybrid machine, that would be just awesome. Anyway I degress, this flywheel is about 28cm across and about 6cm deap, but you could probably add another 6cm to that with the clutch mounted. if you're going to the trouble of putting a generator in there then you'd be best off ditching the gearbox anyway leaving lots of room. Generator and Motor would have losses, Gearboxes and axles also have losses, so best one or the other rather than using both, enless I've missunderstood what you're thinking of???

Thanks a lot for all your comments folks, keep them coming! any more thoughts on retrofitting those poly bushes??


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Had a couple of hours on the car this evening, hopefully, I'll get nearly a full day tomorrow. The chassis project has finally begun, this one's looking to a long haul!

Cut the old tube off:


And turned the stainless tube down so that it would slide it, this makes it about 2mm wall where its sliding into the chassis, and just over 4mm wall everywhere else.



It was a tight fit so had to hammered in:



Bird poo... sorry I mean, welded it in place with 304 welding wire:


After cutting the supporting U section off it became that the chassis had a hole , so that'll be tomorrows work, along with putting the new stainless support in.



More tomorrow!


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A mid afternoon update, The hole is patched and the box section support welded on (stainless 316 box )




And two of the four stainless brackets are nearly made up,




I'll make all 4 then clamp them together to make sure the holes are in indentical places. Then mount the axle with the original rustly bits on the right to properly locate the brackets on the left, then weld them up. Hopefully today


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I haven't got on very well today been so ill just moving around the garage slowly like a zombie. I'm out of grinding discs, blunted some drill bits and knackard the stepper drill bit, and the boring tool for the lathe

The brackets are nearly done but the holes need to be a bit bigger (hense the stepper drill bit broke)


Hope to get more done next weekend, hopefully I'll bring home less work from work if you know what I mean


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Some modest progress this weekend so far.

Got another step drill bit from the bay and after another session with very littl progress in the pistol drill, I mounted the drill bit in the chuck of the lathe and set the speed really low, and it tore through the stainless in seconds, so all the holes are done! Mounted the axle, so that the original rustly mounts on the left side hold the new ones in the right place on the right side and welded it all up. Now probs so far. I've set about doing the same thing on the right side of the car and got pretty far with it only to find that the tube hasn't aligned itself like the left side did and the tube is almost an inch further back at the end so I've got to cut it up again and weld it up in the right place I was so careful too

Oh well, I'll be well practiced for the next try. Here are a few more pics:






One more week of work left, then a solid 2 weeks off to get it all finished and back on its new wheels, watch this place.


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AND FINALLY TODAYS WORK



Right, I'm on holiday, and work comenced today, and will continue every day

Today, I put the mistake right and set about welding the brackets on and then ran out of Argon so I started on some of the suspesion bits.

Heres the chassis upsidedown amit welding:


Painting the front hubs


The front wishbones back from being galvanised


Then painted to match everything else, its a case of trying to make it look as inconspicuous as possible to avoid the SVA criteria with the MOT man (its very wishy washy)



I dont know if anyone else gets this, but when I've been working with the grinder and I blow my nose in the evening, its black and it kinda scares me. I've got a pretty good dust mask, but then the sparks can get under my goggles, and I've been to have a bit of metal cut out of my cornea before (I dont wish to repeat it). So to try to live a bit longer I bought this piece of overkill on the bay:


And finally this evening I've been cleaning the trailing arms ready for paint.


More to come.




Made some more progress today, although it seems a bit meager I feel like its moving well again. All the trailing arms are clean and ready for a coat of hammerite. The stainless tubes have been cut to length and the roll bar mounts made and welded up and I've started measuring and thinking about the front of the outriggers too. Oh and I've found another hole in the chassis, predictably where the brake fluid leaks down and strips the paint.

Some photos






You can see the 60x60mm stainless box above where it will be welded in


More to come





Although it doesn't look like it I think I made a good bit of progress today.

Started off welding in some captive nuts for the chassis bolts in the foot wells:




Patched up the chassis where it was rusted thin:





Got them all lined up and tacked on:





Then ran out of B****Y stainless welding wire. There is no 316 welding wire in herefordshire or worcestershire So I've ordered some in to be picked up tomorrow.

But on the up side the outriggers are ready to be welded on, and the front is getting on for ready for paint.




More to come.





Yeah! got loads done today, I went this morning to pick up the 316 stainless welding wire that I had run out of and got a third bottle of argon just in case. Then started the weldathon. I've got a massive headache now but the outriggers are done with the exception of the seat belot mounting point. I'm so chuffed the welder worked so well today, particularly with the SS to SS joints, its a dream, no cleaning to do, just clean buzzing and it seems to bridge gaps far more willingly than mild. I've really enjoyed it, besides the headache. Here are some photos of the upside down chassis as it is now.







Someone say "I" if anyone is reading this.




I'm glad someones following, I'll keep posting then

More progress


The seat belt mounting point is cut up ready and the hole drilled but I have no nuts (hehe) to weld to the underside yet so they'll have to wait for now.


I concentrated on the front of the chassis this evening. There is a real rust trap in the area where the front tray goes under the cross member, so I just cut it off, hammered it up towards the cross member and welded it there.






There is some rust inside the crossmember so to put an end to that I welded some plates on the end to seal it up.


There is a section just behind the steering rach mounting face that collects crap and is hard to clean so I sealed that up too, hopefully all this will make it a bit easier to paint.


And finally I cleaned up and rewelded the plate that deflects the air into the radiator, the radiator isn't a scimitar one hense the sockets welded to the chassis as mount points.



More to come, might start on the back end next.





Right, been away at the weekend, but made some progress today in the garage. I've welded on the nuts for the seatbelt mount.



And as you suggested Scimjim, the tray has now been cut out with the exception of the front section to direct air into the rad.




I got the rad down from the rafters in the garage to offer it up and make sure the sheet steel is in the right place.




I think I might mount the oil cooler as in the next photo, so I'll be undoing more work and cutting the sheet steel again to allow air to flow through.





An update then. The middle section is finished and ready for paint, the sponge strips are on their way and the front is coming on a treat with a spot of red oxide primer on it now:


I used my newly aquired little bench drill to drill:


To drill all the holes in the cross member that sits above the axle, there is an array of different nuts welded in for various reasons:





The holes outside of the chassis rails are M10 SS for the body to chassis bolts, the two just inside the chassis rails are M12 SS for the roll bar extensions (from the existing roll bar down), the little one is M8 SS is the earth for the battery in the back, and the three M10 SS nuts in the middle are for the LPG tank front mount (there are three to give me a bit of choice later).

Here's the LPG tank in the boot



More tomorrow




A little update, The LPG mounts are on the chassis now with captive nuts, there are a couple of SS earthing nuts welded onto the rear crossmember for earthing the lights, and the rear body mounts are nearly finshed and mounted and hopefully that'll be the last of the SS welding .




All thats left is weld in the last of the roll bar strengthening mounts (I'll do a diagram later) and the rear shock absorber mounts then cleaning for paint





YEAH the welding is all finished, the chassis is ready for cleaning and painting

Turns out the rear spring and shock mounts weren't too bad so I just welded a new top on them (above that is one of the LPG tank mounts):


Now there is a fair bit of grinding back to do as I was hurrying a little on these but you get the point:


They're really strong compared with the old ones:


All that was finished just as I was running out of SS welding wire (which cost a fortune )




Now to explain the odd additions to the chassis. I've always wanted a roll cage in the car, buts its a bit extreme as it will be used on the road a lot. I've heard that they can be worse in a crash if you're not wearing a helmet, but thats a debate for another day. So I've deceided to rienforce what is already there. I can think of two ways in which the current roll bar is weak. It could fold backwards as in my (very) basic diagram:


The second is rather more tailored to my own car, I repaired the lower section on the roll bar some time ago as it was completely rusted away, when it was welded back in, it was tricky welding at the back of the bar so I would think this is weaker. See where this is going?


If the car flipped and the roof took a lot of weight I think it could fail at the joint and bow out as below:


So the first addition to the roll bar should make it stronger in the first case. The welded in nuts will be the base for a pair of bars as in the following diagram:


And finally to stop the roll bar bowing out I'll add two more bars as in the following diagram:


So.... another set of captive nuts needed welding onto the chassis to receive the latter set of bars inside the car and that is what this next set of photos is about:







Tomorrow will hopefully see the messy welds ground back, the surface rust and old underseal removed and perhaps even some paint

More to come





Thanks for the info Roger, I think for now I'll keep it at a track day/everyday car. I'd never intended to race it, I think that takes a lot of committment.

Having thought about it I've honed my question: Does having an MSA (cold drawn seamless etc) roll bar mean it could be raced? or would that simply be a starting point, and a full cage would be needed?

I've been cleaning the chassis up today but have run out wire wheels for the grinder. I took a photo of some of materials I've got though on this project so far. No less that 17 cutting wheels, two grinding wheels, 4 rolls of SS welding wire, and 5 bottles of argon!


As I couldn't clean up the chassis any more I started on the rear drive flanges again. The back surface isn't flat so the ford type wheel studs wouldn'd press fluch against the surface, so I had to flatten them off with the lathe. I could have just put it in the three jaw chuck and flattened the whole back off. But to try and minimise the stress raising features I but it in offset in the 4 jaw chuck and did each hole individually (if you know what I mean, A picture speaks a thousand words).





More to come (if halfords is open tomorrow)





More progress today

Right from the start of this I've been aware that by introducing a different metal into the chassis there will be an element of bimetallic corrosion. The SS will slightly accelerate the corrosion of the mild of an electrolite (say salt water) is present with bare metal. A friend of mine who I lived with at uni (he did materials engineering) suggests that the best way to combat this is by putting araldite over the joins between SS and mild, this is what the company that he works for does, a specialist company in corrosion protection.

I kept calling him and asking what might be a cheap alternative, he had some suggestions. I eventually bit the bullet and bought a load of araldite sets.

I spent this morning covering the welds up:



I couldn't get the welder in here but the hopefully the araldite will mean its not a rust trap:





Thanks for your kind comments SilverPhantom, I do like the idea of doing stuff thats not been done before. I had seen those jag ball joints before I started my wishbones, but I was concerned that it changed the suspension geometry too much. On further thought I think the jag ball joint set up lends itself to lowering the car without upsetting the roll centres of the car.

An update then. Started painting the chassis in anger this morning, literally in anger. The b****y paint was rubbish, It wouldn't..... well paint. is kept going into streaks when the brush so much as looked at it.



This got me really annoyed so I got out the thinners, thinned it down a bit and sprayed it on, this worked much better, was much faster and meant it was much easier to get into all the hard to reach places, I reckoment this to anyone.


The chassis has now had 3 or 4 (lost count) coats of paint, quite thick with baking time in the sun between each coat.


Got the rear suspension bits (and my brothers capri struts) oxide primed up


And painted with the chassis' final coat.


Hopefully the top side of the chassis will get a couple of coats tomorrow.

I've been looking at the mount plates at the base of roll bar that were repared a couple of years back. It looks like I made them out of 2mm plate which seems a little (lot) on the thin side, more reason to change the whole thing out for a desent roll bar.

The chassis rebuild has gone well over what I planned to spend on it, but seems to be well on schedule for being finshed before the end of the easter hols. The down side is that there are a number of things that I need to get done before I can put it back under the body so I don't think it'll be back on its new wheels before I go back to work.

More to come.





I spent ages moping around the garage today working very slowly. I think this is because tomorrow is my last day off and it will mostly be spent preparing for work on tuesday. In a nut-shell my updates will be far less regular in coming weeks .

I got the trailing arms bolted up:


I worked on the power steering rack I aquired a few months back and although it arrived covered in oil, upon stripping it down it seems to be in great shape with no real trace of oil behind the gaiters. I converted this rack to be a non power assisted quick rack.

This meant partially filling the cylinders with grease and the valve body. Welding up the pipe fittings to seal the valve body and rerouting the pipes to simple pass air to each other when I turn the steering wheel.






I was sceptical as to whether this was a good idea but I'm really happy with it, the rack and pinion are more sustantial than the manual rack, I've no doubt it will be strong enough and it seams to move freely with no resistance from the internals.

Any recommendation as to where I could ge a good quality set of gaiters?

I'm ordering the Dinitrol Stone chip in a mo and really hoping it arrives before the royal wedding weekend, then I might just get the body on next weekend, maybe.

Might be a while before the next update





With all my work done for the four day weekend, I've got time to work on the car for anther 3 days .

For some reason I painted the thing before changing the front to suit the oil cooler, not sure how or why that happened, but its done now. Its placed below the radiator so the oil cooler won't see the benifit of the fan, but it will have increased air flow at speed and the radiator will be that bit more effective.






Got the chassis in and on stands, and started to fit the front suspension and rack.




I bought some top ball joints off the Bay that are the sealed type with no grease nipple (a far better design IMHO) but, and its a big but, they seem to have very little range of angular movement. The suspension is set up for the power steering rack so there is lots of caster, this really limits the up down movement of the suspension to a 3 ish inch range, something I'm not overly happy with. I'm thinking if the suspension is force right up by something, then the knuckle might be bent as the suspesion moves. I'm not all together happy with it, but I'm have a look where in its movement it is when the car is at a resonable height.

More to come





An update on todays activities.

I've found that the limited movement of the front suspesion is down to the Supra lower ball joints not the new uppers this means I've got to get hold of some Genuine Toyota ball joints to solve the issue as they have a lot more angular movement.

The top wishbones have been trimmed down so as not to catch the 7J wheels on full lock.


The front all reassembled, it'll be on my brothers 13" minilights for now as my HPC wheels have no tyres yet (£££). So the calipers aren't fitted (as they wont fit).



Back axle being put back on:






These next photo's might not show this to well, but I put the Dinitrol Stone chip on, and it seems awesome (as far as I can tell)





More to come





A little update

ITS ON

I did it with only the help of my dog (and he wasn't much help) so it was a bit of a struggle and involved some dodgy looking ways of proping the body up.


I'm pleased to report there aren't many issues regarding the fit between the body and chassis, considering How badly it could have gone wrong

The rear end does seem to have rissen a bit due to all the welding for the LPG tank mounts. As a result the body isn't touching the chassis where the rear seat back rests would have bolted in place. I'm hoping that as the bolts are all tightened between the body and chassis it'll force the back section down a bit, its only got to go about 15mm at the very rear, fingers crossed.

More to come

[loz]

There's not much to show for this afternoons efforts, maybe some bolts heads. The mount holes in the body all needed redrilling as they are in different places. It was time consuming finding these without making the holes too big. It seems the whole body is sitting 8mm further forward than it used to, I think this is due to the new trailing arm mounts on the chassis, everything else seems ok with the new location.

A few photos for the sake of it.




Maybe more to come this weekend, not sure!





Mini update (and I think the last one for a while)

Did some fibreglassing in the car today patching up some of the old mount holes and rear seat belt pick up points


And did a few modifications to the Van servo and master to get it to fit the Scimitar


I've been concentrating so much on getting the shell and chassis back together I've put no thought into where to go next. The more I try and find things to do, the more I find that I need to the engine out of the omega before progress can be made.

So I guess when I next have some time to work on it the Scimitar will be out and the omega will be comencing open engine surgery.

Thanks for following so far





Thanks folks, sorry its been a while, here's another update.

Been working on the back end of the car this weekend.

Its been a case of lots of work with little to show for it, like tidying up the inside bodywork with glass fibre and painting it again. I've finally got a pair of original toyota balljoints for the front to allow the suspension full movement, so that can be fully assembled now (well soon).

I went crazy on the rear loom, stripped it of all the rear wiper stuff and wired in some waterproof connectors, 5 pin for each of the light clusters, a 2 pin connector for the number plate lights, and a 3 pin (using the rear wiper wires) for the lpg connections. There will be no fog lights in the bumper to keep it looking simple, one of the reverse lights will have ared fog bulb in it.


Spent a while fitting the new lights (the ones that has been in slice recently). I'm really pleased with them (still in plastic at the mo)


And finally I spent a while fiddling around trying to arrange a hidden location for the LPG filler. I'm well chuffed with it. The rear left vent has been sealed up and the filler fitted in, so that no gas goes in the car when you remove the filler pipe. It fits neatly inside so the pipe to the tank goes immediatly into the rear light cluster area. and the cover plate has been slotted where the screw holes are, and two springs hold it in place (if you see what mean).





Might not be any more for a couple of weeks till the next holiday. Thanks for looking.





Had 10 mins tonight after preparing for work tomorrow, so put the front calipers on to see what they look like, I think I'm happy with the blue now

Can't wait to fit the toyo proxies in a couple of weeks









AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!

I'm so annoyed!

Wnet down to say hello to the car, span the wheel (the one in the photo) and it is not centred on the hub properly

The b***dy engineering company that redrilled the hubs seem to have done it with their eyes closed

Its challenging enough as it is, I don't need to be taking the hubs off again, especially as the fronts have news bearings and new grease and the rears are so dam hard to get off

there's noone here at the mo to listen to me rant so:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

rant over





Got a fews more days holiday to get some more done. I spent the day trying to take the engine out of the Omega, there is so much s**t in that car its unbelievable.

Here are a few piccies

LPG successfully removed and the engine can still run (so I know how to install it when its back on the Scimitar). Worried the vapouriser is a bit small for this installation?


And the engine:



More to come





A little update.

The clutch cylinder is 21.5mm diameter and the scimitar one that I have seems to be about 16 so using that is out of the question enless I want loads of pedal travel. It seems fitting the omega one will require some butchery; the rod will need extending, and a "thing" making to bolt the odd shaped omega master to the scimitar bulk head.


The scimitar always had lots of throttle travel and I wanted to address that, now if I use the scimitar one with the omega throttle body it'll get worse, so I'll graft the omega pedal onto the scimitar pedal box as it has a pivot much lower giving far less travel.


What on earth of these pipes then?? They go from each side of the engine in the exhaust manifolds and meet at the front in this odd pipe.



And some more of the engine just in case you haven't seen the x30xe enough yet.



More to come





The hubs are with a different engineering firm now hopefully they'll get the PCD right, I'm about to spent a frightening amount of a decent set of tires and the engine is looking much more like a V6 now with the ancilaries removed, the only one that'll be going back on is the alternator. I'm wondering if there is a lower amp on that might fit and more importantly might be smaller and lighter.

I couldn't help myself and had to try the manifolds on to see how it'll look






More to come





Besides the problem with money and not being able to get the car finished maybe even this year, its been a great day, I've not been this happy for ages, I love working on engines. I'm about the swap the sumps, I'll check a main bearing and big end, but looking through the inlets I can see the honing looks perfect, so it looks like I'll be leaving the bottom half alone.

The cam belt lookts pretty recent as you can still see the print on the outside of the belt and the tensioners look very new too. But as its this stripped I should probably change it all, not sure yet? heres a few piccies.

Its amazingly compact with all the ancillaries removed it really is small





More to come





Right then, an exciting update. Got the tires fitted, I've never spent so much on tires before, but I wanted to buy a serious road tire so got a set of Toyo Proxies T-1R's. I couldn't resist mocking it up to see how it would look (the hubs are still MIA). I could not be happier with how it looks, I love the Wheels, I love the tires, I love the aspect ratio

The gearing is spot on as far as I can see, I think its almost exactly the same as in the omega with this wheel and tire combination ("new gearing " is the new wheels):


And here is my gorgeous car






Checked a big end bearing and it looks like new, so I'm going ot leave the bottom end alone now, its all cleaned and seal with the vectra sump and pick up.


With the lightweight flywheel I got for the engine I was told by Courtney (Vauxhall performance company) that I would need to buy one of their uprated clutches as the lightwieght flywheel was for the FWD engines and wouldn't fit the omega clutch. And as such the clutch slave would be extending just a little further and it would be wise to get a new one of those too. But....

Upon inspection today it seems the flywheel is exactly the same dimension as the dual mass beasty, in all the important dimensions, I've checked and checked it really looks identical so as the clutch has loads of meat on it thats £300 saved.

In terms of whether the clutch can handle the extra power...

I called Canems (who I'll be buying a programable ECU from shortly) they were very helpful and think with the MAF sensor replaced with a MAP sensor and the tubular manifolds I should be seeing upwards of 240bhp. To back this up they did a carpi with the MAP sensor mod and a decent exhasut system (but not manifol) and saw 238bhp.

My thinking is the standard clutch should be fine with a 20% increase.

I should start work on the heads soon

More to come





Today I've spent far too much time looking at the car with its new wheels in place, I can't get enough, I know it won't be to everyones taste but its exactly what I've wanted for ages.

Anyway on with the important buisness of progress.

Between staring sessions I enlarged the throttle body a bit, not to the point of need bigger butterflies but there were some signifcant chunk of material that would hinder flow, I think its there to make small throttle openings more controllable, I think! In the photo, with the throttle held open, the one on the left is as vauxhall intended it and the right one is getting on for as I intend it to be on the bottom side was done at this point.


And I'm going to have a go at making a more compact version of the following, I quite fancy putting the engine back as far as Nath did but without changing the bulkhead. The coilpacks will also need relocating, it seems all the other stuff on the back of the engine is emissions stuff so can all be binned


More to come





Thanks Max, but in case you hadn't noticed, this is taking me ages and costing a fortune

You've got a point about the Clutch, but I think at worst it'll just give gearbox chatter and might be a little harsher on take off and gearchanges. I've no experiance of this before but you can buy paddle clutches with no springs like this:
http://www.burtonpower.com/parts-by-cat ... 96-16.html

After a slow day (fixing a friends mower in the morning ) I've had a productive evening.

I smashed the ali box thing up that bolts to the back of the block to get a better idea of what it was. Its just full of baffles and a non return valve thats so stiff it clearly wasn't doing anything so I've made a replacement part with a baffle in it and all the vacuum take offs to give the correct PCV or positive crankcase ventilation into the inlet manifold. The most important thing you'll notice is that its now much smaller and should give more room to get the engine up against the bulkhead.

There's a thin vacuum line to the downstream side of the throttles (i.e. inside the plenum) for PCV at idle and light load, then at full load when there's more blowby gas in the crank case there are two bigger pipes that take the gas to just upstream of the throttle. I've tried to keep this system as close as pos to how it's intended to be, and a partial vacuum in the crankcase is great for stopping oil leaks past the oil seals and reduces sludge biuld up.

Anyway pics tell a thousand words so I'll shut up



Looks like a little boat


All the welding warped the hell out of it so I span up the lathe and flattened it down again


This is where it'll live



You can see its much slimmer


I'm tryign to get my head round the cooling system, any ideas when the two little electric coolant pumps are used anyone, I want to bin them see.

More to come





After making that PCV thing smaller I had a look at the coolant hose that goes round the back of the block, thats a real pain that is

I've done my best to make it smaller but its still big enough not to warrent making the PCV thingy

Here's some piccies of the original and the new hose arrangement

As was



And the new one



Might start making the swirl pot now as the SS has arrived

More to come





Here's a couple of better photos of the new pipe outlet




This is will be mounted on the side of the swirl pot as a sight glass just to show everything is working fine (hopefully)
First I took a glass filter


Then gutted it


The trimmed down the float from the Omegas fuel tank to fit inside, this should hopefully spend its life at the top of the sight glass


Just researching what size the swirl pot should be

More to come





Thanks TeeinChina I would have to learn to weld properly before I could call myself anything

I got a couple of hours free again last night and managed to mess the tank up a bit, but overall progress has been made
The swirl pot is now a bit shinier but still covered in weld


Got some pumps to keep it full, got a second one as a) I've heard they're not the most reliable and b) the second one could be switched on when the tank is getting low.

I had thought about using another injecion pump as they're a lot more reliable, but I'm worried that the pressue in the swirl pot might just edge too high and start effecting the pressure at the fuel rail (downstream of the actual high pressure pump), so I'm sticking with these Facet jobs.

I know I'm going a bit OTT for the omega engine but I'm thinking of the future (LS1) so I welding up the tanks 8mm tails and welded in some 10mm ones instead. The return was easy but the feed obviously needs to be fairly near the bottom of the tank so I got it all right, then lowered the tank to the floor to weld it. Turns out the pipe must have been knocked and I ended up welding it up 2 inches from the bottom of the tank

So I cut it out and welded the patch on it that you see, then put another feed tail in the side as you can see int he photo.

I've cut the tank open as the baffle inside had come loose. Turns out its not stainless where the rest of the tank is so would have suffered with bimetalic corrosion when the ethanol content goes up as ethanol is an electrolite.

So that'll be replaced with a stainless baffle next time I'm down the garage and sealed up again. I did fancy reducing the size of the tank as its so big and will mainly be run on LPG, but sealing a tank with a MIG welder is a mightmare so I'm going to leave it as is I think, just means I'll not often get the pleasure of seeing the fuel guage on full.

Here's a photo of the abomination I did a couple of years back, viewed from below (its in the rafters). The idea was to put a sump on it to negate the need for a swirl pot. It took FOREVER to get it sealed up. And, as I used mild welding wire the problem of bimetalic corrosion would have still been there.


I'd love to own a business modernising classic cars, that would be ace (pipe dream)

More to come

[footnote]Edited by lozzzzzz on Tuesday 7th June 19:14[/footnote]







I love welding when it works but today was a s**t welding day for me,

Its pretty much sealed up now, but it just looks a mess


Inside the top


And the finished item, complete with bird poo welds


Maybe more to come but that might be it for a while





Tthe lpg tank will give about 350 miles mildly spirited driving, and the petrol tank might be more like 500 as it is. In the interest of never getting caught out miles from an LPG filling station I've decided to keep the full capacity of the petrol tank, so it might cost £150 to fill the car up completely but it should be easily capable of over 800 miles on it.

So some photos then,

Tank under the car


The sender super sealed with silicone over all the electrics to stop corrosion and bad connections developing


So today I had lots of time to get the LPG tank fitted in place and connected up. Started with making up the straps to hold in down, the omega only used three of the tank bolt locations, but I thought it would be best to use all five as its sat on the flat now, rather than in a well. I'm loz and I'm a SS addict, I can't seem to help myself any more, so the straps are predictably SS.





Filler connected up


And finally the vent hose is now connected to the new hole in the boot floor



and looking up at it


Started looking at the clutch pedal today, using Naths very helpful pics for info, it looks tight next to the servo!?!?

Can't wait to get going with the engine again.

More to come maybe tonight maybe next weekend.

[footnote]Edited by lozzzzzz on Sunday 12th June 20:15[/footnote]





Managed to do some more on the car today,
After a couple of hours very unsuccessful butchery of the omega clutch master, I finally got somewhere with it. The pedal now fits and lines up nicely with brake pedal. The pedals ends are all omega now to have a matching set. The accelerator has been replaced with the omega one aswell to make the movement a bit shorter, the Scimitar pedal had nearly 6 inches travel for full throttle.

Its very tight and only just fits, the original hole was too low



These picture represent such a massive amount of thought and work


I weakened the assist spring a bit as I'm not too keen on the modern car soft feel



The omega throttle pedal bracket was simple added too the brake pedal assembly and the actual pedal cut and welded a few times to put it in the right place


And a bit more support welded in


Here are the bits drying with a coat of black paint.


The first time I had the hubs drilled it cost £45, but these turned out to be completely wrong and wheel span eccentrically so I had them redone at a different place. They found that the hubs were a little out of true so straightened them up and redrilled (just enough material left) this time it cost £60.

So I put the first hub back on about an hour ago only to find the wheel is moving again, by about 1mm. This is getting to really p*** me off

AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH so now I either settle with 1mm or I have to redrill another set of hubs and waste a load of new grease AGAIN, and transfer the new wheel bearings. I JUST WANT FOUR HOLES DRILLED IN THE RIGHT PLACE





got to play with the car for the day. I've made very little progress but I'm really really tired!

The pedals were all ready to go in this morning



I drilled one of the master cylinder bolts out so I can put a bolt through into a welded nut, making mounting a bit easier


I had a shop around for prices for parts thinking that it might be wise to replace the master with a new one, then I heard the prices and changed my mind, so I gave it a thorough clean instead. In doing so I realised its got a fairly complex design inside and I got the bore wrong, its actually 19mm not 21, hope that doesn't screw thigs up for you Phil.

I filled the hole where the old master cylinder used to go


The for some reason the omega master didn't line up with the clutch pedal so out came the welder again, added some material and drilled a new hole


Now I have tree working pedals




I started mounting the numerous pumps and filters and the swirl pot. The fuel will come in from the hose in the centre of the photo, through the first filter, into one of the two facet pumps, I got two cos they're not the most reliable so they'll both be on switches and only one will be needed at any one time. From there the fuel will go into the swirl pot and return out of the top back to the tank through the top left hose in the photo. There is a take off at the bottom for the high pressure pump to the engine, which will be pre filtered and post filtered meaning that if any item fails it would damage anything else in the system. Its a bit OTT though, especially as the car will spend most of its time on LPG (not a pump in sight for that).


I've not had the patients to look at the hubs yet, I'm hoping they'll get better by themselves.

Thanks for looking.





Good luck with that work, have you got a section on PH where you post progress?



Got some more done today!

A few more bits have arrived making completing the swirl pot assembly and pumps possible. I also measured and fitted all of the hubs:
Front left is perfect,
Both rears are nearly spot on (enough to leave them and see how it drives
That just leaves the front right with is at least 1.5mm out and will need doing again.

I'm all out of space to drill more holes so I've dug out some old hubs and I'll get them done, hopefully for free.

Tidied up ready for stripping the engine, when I had a bright idea. The inlet manifold is in three parts, the plenum, the runners and the base to the runners (plastic). As the cams have spun when I took the belt off and all the valves are closed, I put rag in all the other holes in the engine and bolted the runner base to the heads, then I ported them and matched them to the heads ports. There was loads of material that could be removed, there was an odd shape that squeezes the air from the sides, so I took it all out, the rolling road with tell if I've meddled where I shouldn't have or if it helps. Anyway here are some pics

I've tried to show the marrow section here:


This might be easier to see as a comparison, before:


and After:


The inlet runner is the same shape as the "after" photo all the way down so I'm hoping that will help flow!



A spot of diner now, then its off with her heads


More to come





One down one to go


Lots of lovely honing, still intact all the way round


A nice simple combustion chamber shape, fairly clean valves


I can't wait to do more Engines are my favourite

Off to JapFest at Donnington tomorrow where my friend will be showing off his supra powered capri that recently gave him a massive surprise on a Dyno, he was expecting 260hp and got 394

More to come next weekend, or amybe tomorrow afternoon





I'm officially back in love with this project. The hubs being drilled wrong a second time resulted in slow work on the car but yesterday and today I've been working on the engine and there is nothing I love more about my hobby than working on engines

Got the other head off and cleaned the deck face a little, there's no corrosion anywhere on the face, and the waterways are stained rather than pitted There are no scrathes on any of the bores After a struggle I got both the oil cooler hoses out of the block ready to go to the air to oil cooler.


The new cooler is a LOT bigger than the old one, I realise that water has a much higher specific heat capacity than air but there is a huge amount more surface area on the mocal jobby and the air will be at a lot lower temperature than the coolant in the engine so this cooler will be seriously effective. I'm definately going to fit an oil thermostat so its not cooling cold oil. IMHO fitting an oil cooler with no stat is a really bad idea.


Got one valve out (I still need 24 bags with labels) and was really pleasently surprised with how little play there is side to side, the valve guides are in great shape In terms of porting, its pretty sweet, there is very little I can do as far as I can see, just smooth casting marks and open the port out a little furthest from the valve to go wtih the work thats been done on the inlet.


Japfest was smaller than I was expecting, but my friends car got so much attention he was loving it!

Annoyingly I'll not be able to do much more till next weekend so my new found enthusiasm will have to wait till then





Got all the valves out this evening in a couple of free hours I found myself with




Its hard to see in the photo but there's lots of exhaust port wall to be removed to match up with the manifold flange (even taking into account the thickness of the pipe being welded to the flange)


More to come at the weekend hopefully or even tomorrow night?





Made loads of prgress this evening but try as I might it just wouldn't photograph properly, the only decent photo is that of the exhasut ports before and after and even that doesn't really show how much they've been opened out.

Anyway, the inlets have been slightly enlarged and a just a bit of casting smothing done nearer the valve seats, its a compromise like every I guess, If I open the ports right out the max power (at high rpm obviously) will be great but with the reduced gas speed at lower rpm I'll loose midrange torque, thats my understanding anyway. So I've done a bit!

The exhausts are taking ages cos of the big stupid lump of air injection casting, but hopefully they whould make a real diffierence, they're considerably bigger than they were


I can't wait till this is on the rolling road being mapped

More to come at the weekend hopefully,





Had another good go at it this afternoon.

Using the bottom of a large lathe tool and sheets of 1500 grit wet and dry, the heads and deck surfaces were cleaned and checked for flatness. The deck is perfect, one head is perfect and one is getting near tollerance, but still ok (and the head gaskets were fine before stripping). I got through 4 litres of petrol in the parafin gun cleaning the heads and making sure the oil galleries are perfectly clean, I think I get a little carried away.


I'm so pleased with the finish


I couldn't help myself, I had to take the sump off again and make sure no dust had got in, I cleaned and blew through all the drain back channels, cleand the deck face and down all the water jackets with the blow gun, and did the grease around the bores trick to scoop out all the debris.


And finally got round to putting the valves back in, well 6 so far!


More to come





An update, then, summer holiday has started got ages now in which to make some serious progress.

Starting with the heads, they're back together now, valves ground, ports ported (it was all guess work so ime will tell how badly I've done that) and both surfaces flatted and prepared for reassembly.


Before any of that goes back together the problem aof what to do about the oil cooler needs solving. I'm fitting an air to air oil cooler and doing away with the water to oil one.

I saw three options, first just leave it in there with no oil in and use the cooler itself to block up the holes, thing is they're known to leak so I thought best not. Next option would be to use some big bolts and washers to block up the holes left where the oil cooler used to bolt through, but with lots of heading and cooling I was worried they might work lose and leak especially as they'd probably have a short grip length. So the most difficult and the one I've chosen is to make a blanking plate. I chose steel cos it will expand in much the same way as the block as apposed to ali which will expand a different amount being a very different metal. That and I had some steel lying around

Here it is nearly finished sat next to the original



The bottom wasn't flat so its on the lathe being skimmed


I'll ask at a local garage if they've got a vauxhall v6 timing tool, I think I'll be at that stage on monday (fingers crossed)

More to come





Got the cooler plate on and the heads on, but went to see an old friend to borrow the head bolt tool socket and got talking for ages, which was nice, then later top gear was on and couldn't be missed (another cracking episode).

So the bolts still haven't been torqued down yet.





I've got to wait intil I've got the new thermostat before I can put the timing cover and belt on, as its tucked away behind the timing belt covers

And I've got to get the boring oil burner ready for MOT this week

more to come





I managed to forget to work on my boring car today

Got atermostat for next to nothing today, so I was able to carry on some more







The latest hold up is the camshaft pulley bolts, apparently they need renewing, after a quick look they do appear to have a neck in them so I guess they're stretch bolts.

There is lettle avoiding it now, I must get on with the boring car tomorrow so...

More to come later in the week










And thats where I'm at today.

[Mr Bounce]

One word: EPIC!

[mitsuru]

I bow to the master

[owelly]

Yay, welcome back Loz!
Thanks for giving me a raging headache as I've read this thread on my phone.....
Project is looking good and its a shame the engineering companies let you down. Its fair game when you make a feck-up yourself but paying for a feck-up is a pita!
Not too convinced about the Araldite logic but if a grown up has okayed it, then goodo.

Keep the updates coming matey.

[tommi]

i reckon that needs 2 sets of triumph speed tripple bike carbs on there. standalone, would scream then

[loz]

Thanks for your kind comments folks

Sorry about hte headache owelly!

I've got another manifold to mess about with sometime down the line, I had bike bodies in mind.

I've changed the bushes on boring car today ready for the MOT, now its just a case of putting loads and loads of filler into the sills and hopefully get it MOT'd towards the end of the week, then the Scimitar updates can start again

[loz]

Got the dirty diesel done today, I hate HATE HATE doing bodywork on metal cars! the sill looks passable now though and the bushes are all good

I moped about for a couple of hours after that looking for bolts for the engine, eventually found them and put a few bits together on the back of the engine.

Made a little blanking plate for where the EGR would have gone into the inlet manifold



And put the engine breather and water crossover pipe thingy on


I did spend a lot of time with the wiring loom figuring out what goes where.
Hopefully I'll get the cam pulley (stretch) bolts tomorrow and start putting lots back together

Some advice please,
I've been looking into injector cleaning and it seems to be a good idea, especially if there is an inbalance, the engine will never make good power if one is injecting more that the others but.... £14 per injector OMG has anyone done this and found a difference?

More to come

[loz]

A little update,

someone on the Scimitar forum had the genius idea of asking a jewellers to put the injectors in their ultaasonic tank hopefully that would be a lot cheaper

After a massive amount of looking into the clutch options, I've found that (hopefully) the vectra B 2.2 petrol clutch will fit although its 228mm as apposed to 238 of the original. Found a used one for £20 on the bay so I'll put that in with the original slave cylinder as a tester. If its good I'll fit a new one when the money allows along with a new slave.

I've also found some spacers for the flywheel bolts as the dual mass jobby is so much thicker than the lightweight one so the bolts bottom out in the crank. The spacers should arrive next week, so I'll get on and fit the flywheel, clutch and gearbox next week.

For now I've been looking and how all the hoses and stuff with fit around the engine. Next I'll start making calls to canems (the ECU folk) and make up my new reduced engien loom and bulkhead multi socket from the old motronic ECU plug.

Sorry there's no photo's for the first time ever (it won't happen again )

More to come.

[dazzler]

EPIC thread... i miss messing around in the garage!

[Renrut]

Awesome thread!

And it has just massively reduced my fears about welding my fiat uprights for the Salami. Now I don't have anything like the worries I had about welding a bracket on to them.

[205 Turbo]

looking good matey

[loz]

Thanks folks

Well the boring car another year of MOT so I can hopefully ignore that now.

I had an amazing weekend, I went to see an old uni friend and we made a jet engine, it was awesome we got it running last night, it scared the s*** out of me I'll put a video link up when I have one.


The non AC belt arrived in the post and fits a treat


Having looked at a few videos of injector testing, I rigged up all the gear and tested mine, with some measuring cylinders borrowed from work





Initially I ot a 2.5% immballance, but then I noticed that one of he cylinders was bend, (I think it got too close a Bunsen burner). So I filled them ahlf way ish and ran the test a few times, it looks like there is a about a 1.2% imballance. From reading some forums, it seems when folks send them off for cleaning injectors are often 3-6% off and come back about 0.5 - 1% off, so I'm happy mine will be fine as they are.

I got loads of spares and extras off an omega 2.5 in a scrap yard this weekend and some other cars. Here are the new breather tubes to suit the little breather thingy I made at the back of the engine.



Got the Timing tools in the post taday so I'll got finish putting hte engine together now

More to come

[majic79]

Had the injectors cleaned in my polo - full service, clean, new seals, new pintle caps - £20 per injector (thank god I only have four of them) and tbh, I can't say I notice any realy difference - maybe the car makes an extra 1hp and pulls fractionally smoother than before, but that's probably more psycho-somatic than anything else (it could also be because I de-catted it at the same time!)

Watching before and after, it was probably worthwhile replacing the pintle caps, the injector spray was a bit globular to begin with, after the cleaning and service, the spray pattern was noticeably finer which should improve things

[loz]

Thanks Majic, I'm happy to leaave them as they are I think, I can't believe how much it costs to get them clean.

Update then

I spent forever getting the cam timing right this afternoon, then I went to a friends house and borrowed a better spanner and the job was done

Then I looked at fitting all the hoses and stuff on the back of the engine, its getting really close to going in now but I'm waiting on another bl***y hub before he car is mobile again to move under the hoist. I'm really pleased with how well it all hugs the back of the engine, I'm hoping with the differernt sump and the modifications at the back that the bulkhead won't need too much fettling, time will tell. A photo then.


The clutch arrived in the post today, so I'm hoping to have an engine and gearbox all ready to go in by the end of tomorrow (then wait weeks for the hub). Then I'll get bock onto the wiring, I've had a crazy plan with that, watch this space.

More to come