What's Better Than A Shiny Thing?

.... Why a shiny thing I've made myself of course. Yes the airbox is almost complete. Over the Christmas break I found that the airbox itself was too close to the underside of the bonnet, so had to cut 3/4in off of it, then I made a lid by bending a pice of aluminium sheet over a pipe, bent up the edges, fitted anchor nuts, & polished it a little, then cut down the new trumpets to fit & fitted them. To say I'm pleased with the end result would be a masterstroke in understatment. It's not perfect, there are a few small dents from th manufacturing, but they just serve to make it look more workshop-made. But enough of my boasting, see what you think ........

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like - An Induction System

A little more airboxing, this is not a more sporty version of air guitar playing, it's the construction of an airbox.

The mounting plate now fits nicely over the Throttle Body stubs (it's a firm push fit on all four) & I’ve made up a couple of brackets to hold it in place. I've fitted some aircraft anchor nuts to the plate to hold the airbox to it & in a couple of positions the anchor nut rivets pass through the mounting brackets to hold it all together, they'll have an additional countersunk pop rivet added when I buy some.

The next job is to cut the air-holes in the box itself & fit the air temperature sensor for the ECU, then the box  can be properly mounted - & I'll see if there's room for it all under the bonnet. What will I do if there's not? Well when I stop throwing things - which may be a week or two - I'll have to come up with another plan.

How techie does that look??

Airbox of Delights

With my wife & daughters off to the Horse of The Year show or somesuch, I made a start on fabricating the airbox.

The sheet metal arrived last week & I’d bought a loft drawing home, so no more excuses, crack on!

Cutting out the main body of the box was easy enough, it’s mostly straight lines so score deeply with a Stanley knife & bend until it breaks. Folding it was surprisingly easy too hoiking the workmate out of the garage, pausing only to knock off a football-sized wasp’s nest I erected the frame & folded the sheet to the right angles (mostly right-angles). Here you can see the folded sheet, with the drawing in the background.

The ends were more fiddly, but the larger end went surprisingly well too & is drilled & pinned ready for riveting, the smaller end needs a little tweaking & the drill has run out of battery (again). The next job is to rivet the whole assembly together, then cut the holes in the rear face for the mounting bolts & the air inlet & in the larger end for the pipe flange, lastly make up the "lid" which will bolt to the six tabs along the upper & lower edges.

Pants On Fire

OK I lied.
The exhaust wasn't finished ...... (Clarksonesque pause) ........ but it is now. I popped out to the garage & it just looked too far back, on top of which when it gets hot it moves back another 1/4", so it WOULD've tap tap taped on the pod in a most irritating way.

So I took off the pod (again) took off the tail pipe (again) & sawed off the welded sleeve, then took another inch off the pipe & welded it back together. The end result is now pleaseing to the eye as you can see. I'll need a heat shield / trim to hide the fluffy edges, but that shouldn't be much of a job. Shouldn't be, but so far I've been agonising over the design for a week!

Completely Exhausted

Yea verily the exhaust be compleat. A fulsome girth of steely pipes march down twixt chassis & the yellowness of the pod, are mustered together as one afore entering – nae plunging into ……. the box of silence. Thereafter it worms this way & that, before thrusting into the light through a stone gargoyle shield against heat.

And I saw that this was good.

I’m pleased with it, the route is smoother than it was before, & it’s lighter as the pipes after the silencer are welded rather than being clamped. The tail pipe itself has a small rubber mount to stop it migrating & touching the body, & there’s a heat shield for the outside of the pod – more for the look of the thing than to provide any real protection.

The next thing to get my attention will be either the air box or the fuel piping. I can’t get on with the airbox until a back plate I’ve drawn up & had laser-cut arrives, this will fit over the mouths of the throttle bodies & give me something to bolt the airbox to (bolts will be wirelocked Mr E). The aluminium sheet for the airbox should be on it’s way so with a little luck I’ll get that done over the Christmas break.

More Exhausting

Another couple of productive hours in the garage.
The problem was that because the new header is much bigger than the old one, the exhaust system as a whole was now much much too long. When I set it up for the X-flow, it was as shourt as I could make it, so I thought I had a big problem - but NOW I can weld! (ish).

But I’ll sort out the side pod before final welding & cutting. Speaking of which, I took the small heat shield / trim off the upper face of the pod & opened the hole up to suit the new header. The new hole is MUCH bigger as it now goes round four pipes instead of one, as the adjacent photo of the old trim next to the new hole shows. But it looks as if it'll go back together OK, which is just as well as my wife want's the pods out of the conservatory.

Selfish I call it.


I cut down the outlet at the back of the silencer, then progressively cut down the two 30 deg bends, until they fitted nicely round the side impact protection, with the Zetec they pass on the outside, whereas with the X-flow, they passed through the frame. Cutting them so short means the swaged area where one tube fits into the next has been removed, so I’ve cut one of the swages into rings & will weld the pipe sections together instead of clamping them. It’s a lot lighter that way, as there's a lot less overlapping pipe & no clamps.Another by-product of routeing the exhaust this way is that the exhaust tip is now so far from the side of the car that I could take out whole bus queues with it, so I’ll have to cut it down to a more suitable size.

Exhausting

A little progress has been made. I've filled the cooling system - no leaks. Hurrah.

I've also been messing with the exhaust, welding the stepped adaptor on to the sawn off stub of the collector & fitting the silencer onto that. This initially gave me a small problemette in that the silencer was now too far aft & fouled the side impact protection frame.

To move it forward a bit I cut down the input tube which means there isn't enough to use as a clamp, so using my newly honed welding skills (ahem) I welded on a couple of small tabs & these now hold the silencer to the header. Holding up the back of the silencer was just a case of making up a stainless strip to bolt to the existing twisted wire mounting. So I now need to make the tail pipe meet the hole in the side pod, & fit out the fuel system & it's all done bar the electrics.

In other progress I've finalised the airbox design, & will be getting a Co. in Redruth to water-jet cut it out before starting on the main body in the garage. Quite exciting! OK, it's quite exciting if you're me, which plainly you arn't.