mikuni

restore to factory default settings/firmware upgrade/turn off at the wall and count to ten? the fact that it worked fine for 6 Months is promising of finding a solution to the problem

Hah they do look hilariously awesome. Kind of make it look like the white parts are intentional though maybe just paint the light covers white and run with it

So keen for lease racing. If enough people were keen would you guys consider taking the cars to a trackday or similar event for practice prior to the main event? Seems a bit daunting a prospect turning up to your first race event, stepping into a car you've never driven before and going out on the track with other people in a competitive event.

Have it on a tensioner and call it CVT

Hell yeah. Being another ex-UK Lotus I'd be terrified about taking anything off for fear of what it might look like underneath. I imagine George would have cast an eye over it ensuring it all appeared to be in good order pre-purchase? This answers a couple of questions too, I saw an update on facebook with a tagged image and thought the name sounded like yours. Nice purchase, I've always had a real soft spot for the Elise, ever since I saw the kerb weight figure.

How do i set dimensions so if i want a 10mm diameter circle i can type in 5 to the set radius bit and not get a massive huge circle. Didnt really get through much CAD stz at tech. Night class maybe? haha would like to be able to just draw up my own shit now i have downloaded this program. Format > Unit system It should be set to mm as default, so if it is just zoom out if the circle is too huge when entering it as "5mm rad" I've done a night class but wouldn't really recommend it. Probably spending an hour or two with someone who really knows what they are doing would probably be better in the long run. Best thing about courses is learning all the short cuts. I've managed to forget them all already, but even just hitting enter to return to the previous tool you used makes things so much quicker. "Ctrl x" to "delete" things, etc etc. as I say, someone who knows there stuff will run you through the key stuff quick as. I just want to see an example of what a fabricator would expect to see, particularly so they can jam it straight into a CNC.

You're the man ten 5. A write up or just host an example of a good file. I asked for that ages ago and everyone gave me shit haha.

Yes! How many times have people asked for bloody 20v flanges! I'm keen for some but lazy and need blacktop

Front. I'll still have one in the rear, it's a torsion beam so hard not to.Ok it won't do nothing but it will achieve very little. When you look at the degree of twist you need to put on a standard skinny sway bar to achieve any resistance, I can't see it assisting very much until there is a big differential between left and right suspension travel. The other side of this is that when it does finally do something not only is it trying to push down on the loaded wheel (good), it is also trying to lift the unloaded wheel (bad). And it is particularly bad when that unloaded wheel that's lifting is also getting half of the drive going to it.

Would be awesome, maybe one day. I'm not even going to run a sway bar to begin with. The factory one will do nothing with such hard suspension, so until I can get a beefy or adjustable one in there, there's no point running it. I also want to use the space for the custom control arms.

Actually check out this link, http://www.touringcarspares.com/Used_Pa ... _nuts_etc/ I think it shows the billet block that holds the spherical bearing for the uprights. Lots of nice parts!

Link to carbon/lead splitter - It's a contradiction just putting those two words in the same sentence. I can't find any better pics of where the lower control arm mounts to the uprights, but those early ones just appear to have used a pillow block setup. Do you have any pics of the later model lower arms spence? It's awesome seeing the changes over each year. Heres a link to a build thread on a Cavalier built in 1991 - the guy says it's chassis number 16 but that doesn't really make sense if No. 10 was built in 1993? http://www.migweb.co.uk/forums/projects ... -16-a.html Obviously being rebuilt to a lower standard, I just like it because it gives good detail of the cage etc You can see the subframe changes between the image Cam posted above and the earlier design. In the road going GSi Cavaliers the fuel tank is in the rear, under the tyre well. The first BTCC cars continued with this layout, but they appeared to bring it forward under the rear seats in 1992 or 1993. My Vectra isn't a GSi, so doesn't have the independent suspension/subframe and as such, can have the fuel tank under the rear seats like the later cars for better weight distribution. The exhausts on them are awesome. I have the specs that they were built to, it does go down to a small collection of 2.5 or 2.75 before growing back to 3". I don't really know why, probably just to get a higher velocity at the collector and then less restriction after the cat. Heaps of people run these spec exhausts on XE's, even when the engine is near stock. You can never have too much free flow, but the massive primaries must lose a bit of power on the 200bhp engines. I pretty much have nothing to add. Had all these ideas but then went looking for pictures and ended up in a youtube loop watching early 90's BTCC vids and couldn't be bothered anymore In a project update, I think I might just smash the original engine and gearbox in to get me going, after the cage is welded in, then spend some time working on the XE - Honda gearbox debacle while I break axles with the original setup. Yeah/nah? At least then I'd have some chance of getting it going within the next year. Still haven't heard from cage dude and the cash is burning a hole in my wallet.

Awesome questions. I can answer most but busy doing work right now (just checking os while eating lunch) so will answer what I can tonight. I have another build thread link that answers a lot of the questions you ask. The lower arm is a bit crazy though aye, I'll have to have another look at that because in most cases it is a strange connection. I think that part was universal or at least similar between a lot of the cars, like the axles and gearboxes in later years. Early engine was only flipped for flow/packaging, it wasn't until the Volvo came in and the started pushing the engine back further in the huge engine bay that the other teams started doing it, as far as I have read. Around 1995. edit: in fact, moving the engine so far back may have caused some issues with no weight over the front wheels, because Ford used to run around 30kg worth of lead in the front splitter/bumper to try and get weight forward and lower down? Will post a link later. Also I have some pics of an Australian Supertouring Vectra from around 1997 where they stepped it up quite a bit. Will re-post those tonight too, if I get a chance.

if that is the case then I must be doing a good job of making it appear that way on the internet, because it certainly doesn't look that way in the steel.

Haha yeah, I'm pretty sure I remember Markku commenting on that pic when I've posted it on here before - something along the lines of "RWD setup on a FWD" It's awesome, but would be an absolute prick to pull off with a conventional gearbox, with the shifter and everything. I'll be burning linkages/cables most likely, even with a heat shield. I'll also be lifting the engine, rather than lowering it, so as Spence says I should have plenty of room under the engine for the exhaust. I am thinking about doing a similar style intake and maybe taking air from the heater intake, which is meant to be a high pressure zone. I wonder if this would work. It would mean I'd be getting cool air without it passing through the engine bay/heaps of pipe work.

This.Well done for keeping your spirits up man.

Saw first pic, parts car. Saw second pic. OH MY GOD THATS PROFESSIONAL ZACS SAPPORO AND IT'S LOOKING LIKE SHIT!! But then the more I read, the happier I got. Good work, progress is awesome and looks like you're working to a high standard. I look forward to seeing more!

Exactly Markku, the alignment of the box was my biggest concern too. The guy I mentioned earlier who adapted a box onto another engine used a dummy housing with a layshaft going through into the crank spigot. I was planning to do similar but just by chance the input shaft seems to fit perfectly inside the crank spigot, similar to a RWD setup. I'll check this with vernier calipers to be sure, but if this is the case it makes things heaps easier. Basically I just lifted the gearbox up, slotted it onto the crank and then rotated it with the help of a jack until things looked about how I think they should. I've even managed to slot a bolt in and using Spencers suggestion above, I think I could use 2 adaptor plates to get another 4 in there, which should be sufficient. Starter, flywheel and Honda clutch all look to fit also. This is the quite extreme angle that the gearbox will sit on. As I said earlier, engine will lean 7° forward, the gearbox leans backwards but at quite an angle. It seems to work best as pictured, which is probably closer to 45° than the 30° I thought I might be able to get away with. Feedback? I could probably lean the engine forward a little more, perhaps 10° to get the gearbox slightly closer to its original angle. Driveshaft output is stupidly awesome. Not only do they now sit at the front of the block, they also sit about half way up. Even the intermediate shaft hanger should be relatively easy to adapt to the block as the old engine mount fixings are right there. The old driveshafts were basically at the bottom of the block, resulting in an extreme angle when the car is lowered. Have also been working away on the inner guards. Its good stuff to learn on, but there are some tricky angles in there, so perhaps not quite as straight forward as I first thought. And visited pick a part to get a number of items, none of which I walked away with. Instead I paid a stupidly exorbitant sum of money for some Toyota rear brakes that fit surprisingly well. The bolt spacing lines up with the rear beam on 2 bolts. I'm going to make up a spacer/adaptor plate to mount the rear hubs similar in an offset fashion. The 18" wheels allow me to get away with this offset and it is an easy way to get heaps of low but still retain some geometry in the beam (it cambers/casters too much with excess low).

haha, pretty much both your suggestions are exactly what I'm doing. Particularly the second one, though I am slightly concerned about tilting the gearbox too much.The Honda bellhousing is really tall, the top bolt holes line up quite far up the block, much higher than where it could bolt. But if I run the gearbox tilted backwards on the engine by about 30° it finds a fair bit of meat on the Opel block that I could drill out to put bolts in. The engine itself tilts forward by 7° which I want to retain, so the gearbox will end up tilting backwards by around 23°, which probably isn't too bad. It all lines up pretty awesomely and the diff output/axles run along about half way up the front of the block, which is perfect if I can make it work. Like I say though, still a few issues to work through! And yeah Chris, the bellhousing includes the diff and isn't removable from the gearbox as simply as some RWD bells are. I've still considered trying to cut it away and adapt a RWD bellhousing on (which you can get for both motors) but this just isn't possible due to the diff. I've also been talking to a guy who adapted a K series Toyota 5 speed onto a worked Vauxhall 1256 just by adding parts to the bellhousing and drilling it to suit. It worked well and looked really tidy, but even a worked 1256 is not going to stress alloy as much as a decent 2 litre will, so theres a chance this method could be a little weak.

Fair enough man, these "other project" threads are hard to follow with scattered updates and useful information over so many pages. Richy dropped the box off last night and I dummied it up tonight. It looks vaguely do-able but there are a few issues. I'm getting a dummy block in the next few weeks (for free), so will drill some holes in that block to see if I can mate the box up to it. I can't afford the luxury of an adaptor plate due to space constraints, so have to modify either the block or the box to get them to fit. The Honda box looks a bit bigger also, so that could be a deal breaker. And I also need to figure out the best way to run hybrid axles between the Honda box and the Opel hubs. Oh and the MRS idea doesn't really work, as they are the same setup as in a Corolla/Celica, just mid engine.

Good suggestion. I have stumbled across people doing this while I've been researching and it can work. People do it sometimes with Audi boxes to reverse them to use in rear engine applications like Porches and aircooled VW's. I think with a transverse gearbox is may not work as well. It would probably be more difficult to flip the gearbox upside down and bolt it to the engine, then you have to muck around with things like the selector and the breather/drain/oil level, and will still have issues with splash oiling or having to pump oil through it somehow. All in all, I think mating the Honda box up to it is probably easier and gives a few big advantages (cable shift, stroner LSD diff), while still theoretically being able to work, if perhaps a little weaker. It's definitely not worth the effort. I'll probably end up just retaining the original engine configuration in the end, as it's just getting harder and harder. The main advantage of doing this now and the only reason I'm sticking with it is to get the engine up a bit higher and get the driveshafts at a decent angle so I can run the car super slammed. If I don't do this I'll still be able to slam the living shit out of it, but axles will be a consumable item, it they last at all.

Click unsubcribe topic up the top left on the page.

Going off topic but who cares, love this shit. F20C is 87 x 84 so shorter stroke, meaning piston speed at 9krpm is about the same as 86 x 86 at 8800rpm. Granted not a huge difference, but all counts I guess.As spence mentions, F20C has the highest piston speed of any production engine. Honda B16B (1600cc) from a type r civic uses a block from the B18C (1800cc) but the original crank to run longer rods, helping the rod stroke ratio. Am looking into this atm to see if it would help in building a high reving 2 litre Opel motor using the 2.2 block and rods (in 20 years time). Maybe even an 1800cc crank to reduce stroke and then open the block up to 88mm bore to get capacity back. It's all a head fuck

..is just a guideline, the tyre manufacturer wheel fitment over rules the guide, so just go by the specs given by the tyre manufacturer and produce evidence on certification