Esprit

Just alloy.... stock Rover part, can't imagine them using magnesium for a crappy budget Rover If I can't find anyone to do it in a hurry locally, I might bring it down for a visit

Well today I took my shiny new engine and stripped it (partially). I didn't get a chance to install the sump baffles during assembly as the engine was sitting on the bench, on the sump. So today I got the car up off its wheels on the axle stands and whipped off the exhaust manifold and got the sump off. I made sure it was scrupulously clean then went about test fitting the DVAPower sump baffles. Here you can see the sump as-is: And then the sump with the baffle plates fitted: My task for tomorrow will be to find someone who's expert in welding aluminium and get them to tack the plates in place. Once they're in, I'll be able to get the flanges cleaned up and the sump and manifold back on.

Well, tonight's escapades centred around fitting my new injectors. The stock Exige ones (Bosch 0 280 150 479) are rated to 243cc/min @ 3 bar and as such are a little borderline when it comes to 220+bhp. They would do, but would be nearing their limits. The new injectors were the Bosch "whites" (Bosch 0 280 155 811) and are rated to 373cc/min @ 3 bar and should provide a comfortable working overhead without being too large for light-load stuff. The old injectors are the EV1 body style with the new ones being the more modern EV6 style. You can see a comparison between them below (new top, old bottom): However, when I came to fit them, I found a small problem. While the injectors are the same size and are a direct swap, I uncovered an issue with the retainer clips that retain the injectors into the fuel rail. The photo below shows the original injector with one of these retainer clips: You'll see that on the cream-coloured end of the injector there are two slots. The retainer slides into the slot closest to the end and uses this to hold the injector back against the fuel rail. If you look back at the first image of the old injector versus the new, you'll notice that the new injector only has one slot, and is missing the one that this retainer slides into. This means that the retainer clip simply won't fit. I then spent a couple of hours with my good friend Google to try and see if there was any alternative clip designs available that spanned this wider gap and picked up on the second slot instead of the first.... I've not been able to find conclusive evidence yet to suggest that such a clip exists. Even so, looking at it, there's bugger all clearance between the injector plug and this slot, which means the clip would have to be a bit of a funky design to enable everything to fit together. This leaves me with two options: 1. I'll model up the existing clip in CAD and modify it so that it'll span the greater gap. I'll then send the design off to a springmaker and get the clips made up.... this won't be cheap. 2. Flag the clips altogether if they're not really necessary. I don't mind doing option 1 if I have to, although it'll be a tricky bit of design to get the clip to fit in there without fouling the connector plug. However, looking around at plenty of aftermarket fuel rails, I can see that plenty of them don't even use retainer clips at all. The injectors are pretty firmly sandwiched between the fuel rail and manifold and from a mechanical engineer's point of view, I can't really see what purpose the retainer clips are actually serving. The only uses I can see for them are: - The clips mean that when you pull the fuel rail off, the injectors all pull out of the manifold, remaining attached to the fuel rail. This is useless on the Exige since you can't withdraw the fuel rail as the throttle linkage gets in the way, you have to insert the injectors one by one by angling the fuel rail. You can only insert the clips once all four injectors are in and seated. - The clips would provide some extra resistance against the injectors spinning in their bores. Currently they're pretty snug when seated as the O-rings are compressed. I imagine this will stiffen even more under fuel pressure. Even still, the clips only provide a little extra resistance, they don't prevent this positively. So yeah, a little bit of a dilemma really. Do I go through the hassle and expense of designing up a new retainer clip or do I just leave them as they are? Informed answers on the back of a postcard please! In the meantime, here's a photo of the new injectors installed and ready to go:

It's back! Thanks once again to the wonderful Mr. Tim Blackwell-Chin and his race car trailer, this morning was spent getting the car back from KW Historics. The engine's all in now and this means that the real work must now begin. I've got a rough list of things to do and will populate this further in the coming weeks. Then it's just a matter of going through that and crossing things off as I hit them. I've still got tonnes to do and a bunch of things to pull off the engine to tidy up, so we've still a fair way to go. But at least now I can look at the car in the garage and feel satisfied that things are moving in the right direction! My baby's home!

Well I could have easily put it in by myself for sure, but it was mainly that Ken had taken the engine out in the first place (back when this project was going to be a lot less ambitious and we were only going to do a remove/inspect/reinstall and it was going to just be much less hassle for me since he took it to bits and so knew how everything went back. Also there's the matter of time.... stuff happens a lot quicker when I'm paying someone to do it

Mount is primarily to counter/damp up/down forces. It's a LOT stiffer in twist/shear than the OEM mount in this position. That mount is a design that they use in Steve Gugelimi's Elise race car (although in that application it's mounting to a Audi Turbo engine, not a Rover K)... seems to deal with the ~600bhp that car kicks out okay

Few words are needed for this update. A picture speaks a thousand words, so grab a cuppa and enjoy the following 6000

Just a mini-update, been out in the garage painting up a couple of small brackets to be dropped off over at KW tomorrow along with the fuel tank shear panel. I'm told that the engine is now bolted in and most of the coolant lines are connected up (will need to disconnect some of these to fit the g/b oil cooler and remote stat. The good news is that tomorrow I'll get to see my baby with her heart in place again.. it's been so very very long!

Well today I said goodbye to the chassis. After two years cluttering up my garage it's gone back into KW Historics to get the engine bolted back in. My sincere thanks go to my good friend Mr Tim Blackwell-Chin from Marvel Honda Racing for lending me his time, tow-vehicle and trailer this morning to get the chassis transported, would have been a lot harder without him! Hmm.... my garage is empty again: Because my car's been loaded on here!: And now resides here!: Got it into KW where I saw the engine and gearbox mounted together for the first time (thanks to Matt for the pics!): In a few days the engine will be bolted back in, peripherals like the clutch, handbrake etc will be connected up, as will the fuel and the engine loom. Then next weekend I'll probably pick the car up and bring it home again. Then the work begins on fitting heat shields, plumbing the car up (coolant + oil cooler etc), followed by locating sensors etc. and then finally wiring. We'll hopefully be looking good for turning it over for the first time in June. Rock on!

Tonight's progress involved heading back into the work after the gym to start making up the new exhaust manifold heatshield. An hour with the guillotine and the brake press and I had it roughed out pretty well. I've refrained from taking it any further as I'll do some test fitting with the engine in the car to make sure it fits well enough before riveting it together and drilling all the mounting holes. Here's a few shots comparing old and new: Also today my new engine mount arrived and is ready for the engine to go in.... another small step forward

Right, well given that I've had the word now that the engine's ready to go back in, my attention's turned to engine mounts. The lower Eliseparts adjustable mount I POR'd when it came off the car, probably about two years ago. I've a new main top mount arriving in a day or two (necessary to stiffen the engine up and stop the longer 6-speed box hitting the chassis under heavy cornering loads). The remaining mount, the gearbox mount was replated and re-powdercoated along with the rest of the powdercoaty bits a year or more ago. The rubber mount itself though I recently found in a box, rusting away. So tonight after work, a quick wire-brushing, a degrease and acid-etch followed by a quick POR15ing and it looks better than new: Will hopefully get the full mount reassembled tomorrow. Also need to book a trailer for sometime between late this week and early next to get the car across Auckland. If anyone local knows of someone who doesn't mind lending their trailer for cash, then let me know. I'd much rather give someone some cash than a hire firm where I'll need to race across town in quick fashion with a trailer that's probably pretty beaten up and only semi-functional.

Well today was just a gorgeous sunny Autumn Sunday. Low to mid twenties, crisp in the morning and evening and cool enough through the day that you can enjoy it without sweating or burning too much! This is just the sort of day that I'm going to wish I had more of in about 6 weeks time when winter starts elbowing its way in. So what did I do to take advantage of this beautiful gift from the weather gods?...... that's right, I sat in my bedroom the whole day studying technical documents on my new ECU and pondering exactly how to go about running everything. Was at it for pretty much 12 hours straight and now I think I've got it pretty much sussed out how everything's going to work. Because I don't like to do an update without photos to show progress, here's a screencap of the ECU connection schedule I've generated for the Link G4 Xtreme: I should be able to make this very tidy indeed in the car. As you'll have seen earlier in this thread I'm making up a loom adaptor so that I can plug in the new ECU without altering a single original wire on the car. The Link G4 Xtreme has two connectors on it, one for the "A" loom, and another for the "B" loom. This differs from the lower-spec "G4 Storm" ECU, which only has the "A". I've managed to map the entire existing loom onto the "A" connector and fill up a good deal of the pins on that. This then means that I've got pretty much the entire "B" loom/connector free for additional items. These will be additional sensors etc that I wire into the car, all easily removable should I ever decide to revert to 100% factory standard for any reason. This will also make it a lot easier to wire in additional items (sensors, switches etc) in the future. I'm including some initial extras in the installation (clutch switch for flatshift / launch, Wideband O2 control, knock-sensing, cooling fan status, cooling fan override etc.) but there will be plenty of extra channels in the ECU for extra expansion down the line if I find myself desiring further control. I also have the option to connect a displayLINK display to allow me to display certain parameters on the fly or even upgrade to a full smartdash if I decide to. These are both unlikely, but it's nice to know I've the option if I ever want to. In other news, I've heard tell that my engine and gearbox is now assembled and fully dressed. I expect now that it'll be only another week or so before I can finally reunite the chassis and drivetrain.... that's going to be one helluva sweet update I can tell you!

Well, been away visiting my heavily pregnant sister down in Morrinsville today so no material progress on the car sadly. However, I did swing by and see Wayne at Cartune in Hamilton while I was down there and picked up SEXIGE's new brain. Shiny new Link G4 Xtreme Thanks for the hookup dude! Had a good chat with Wayne about how best to go about managing things and he's given me a couple of ideas to chew over.... will get my own brain working on them in the very near future. When it came down to it, the Link can just do some very funky stuff and that won me over. I reckon we'll be able to get the old VHPD running pretty sweetly with the Link calling the shots

Well, I've spent more time working on the GTi6 than I'd have liked this weekend but still got a full day on the Lotus today. I started off by finally getting the refurbished fuel filler/vent system all refitted. This takes a little bit of jigging about to get it just right, but it's on now. Finally the fuel filler cap's not cluttering up my workbench.... I think it's been 2 years since it was last attached to anything... I've been paranoid about it falling on the ground and getting damaged as it's just the sort of idiotic thing I'd do. It's safe now though The next job I allocated myself was to get the NACA ducts pulled off the old engine bay undertray and attached to the new one. One of the two was to be replaced since it was beginning to break up due to the exhaust heat. It was probably serviceable and still intact on the underside, but it'd only have deteriorated further: I had a new NACA duct from EliseParts. When fitting this up, it was apparent that the new NACA duct wasn't an Elise/Exige specific part. I'm guessing it's a generic replacement part that's about the right size/shape to act as a suitable substitute on the Elise/Exige. From the top especially, they're quite a different shape. Now, were I replacing both of them, this'd not have been too much of a worry to me. However, given that I was reusing the good OEM one as well as using the EliseParts replacement, the OCD-feind in me decided this just wouldn't do. Out came the dremel and the hacksaw blade and I managed to get the EliseParts duct looking a reasonable facsimile of the OEM item. A close-up look will verify that it's different, but at first glance the imposter passes muster. Then, I had to simply mark out the holes on my new undertray, carefully drill them and rivet the ducts on. Here you can see them riveted in position on the new undertray from above and below. The OEM, reused one is shown on the right when viewed from above: The other job of the day was to go hunting about for material with which I can begin to make up my replacement manifold heat shield. I bought a unit of this material from Repco, made by ACL as I'd had it recommended to me by several people in the know. This is the approximate equivalent of Nimbus/Cirrus in the UK, being a thin outer skin of aluminised steel, sandwiching a ceramic thermal barrier. Here you can see it with my old, well-knackered (it really is falling to bits all of its own accord) manifold heat shield: Tonight, I'll be sitting in front of SolidWorks I think, modelling it up so I can generate a lay-flat pattern for the new shield. I'll then be able to profile-cut a pattern and I should be able to make some simple form tools to bend it up into a pretty close approximation of the OEM shield. With the ceramic-coated manifold and this heat shield in place, It should help to keep engine bay temps down a bit. Especially as I'll also be opening up the Fog/Reverse-light vents some more when the rear clam goes back on. I'll have enough material left to make some auxiliary heat shields as well for those little bits and pieces that could do with it once the engine's back in situ. Gearbox will go into KW tomorrow so that he can connect it up with the engine! Tally Ho!

Haha yeah, I cocked that test up good and proper As for the results, I don't have them listed, but here are the ones I remember off-hand: Concours Competition winner: Powder Blue '58 Studebaker Concours Runner Up: Red Packard Super 8 Gymkhana Winner: Two monkeys in an E-Type Overall Rally winner (combined points total from all the fun-events throughout the week): XJ6 Jaguar (forget the colour, but it was the only Jaguar, non-Daimler, XJ6 there I recall) Peoples' Choice winner: Dark Blue Alvis TA21

Well just a little side-update from me. No progress this last week because I've been on the NZ Classic Car rally. So I thought I'd just pop up a little taster of what went down. My father signed up for this about 6 months ago as it sounded like a good way to waste a week, and since we enjoy doing car stuff together, he invited me along for the ride. This rally was held up in Gisborne, on the East Coast, about 2-3 hours drive north of where my folks live. This was a non-competitive rally, just really a gathering together of classic car enthusiasts to enjoy driving and sharing classic car ownership together. We got up there on the Saturday and met up with the other 180 or so entrants. There were about 90 cars involved in all, most of which had two rally participants on board. The disappointing thing was that of the attendees, my father was definitely one of the younger ones... meaning that I was a good 20-30 years junior to most of the rally participants. Given that my father and I are generally about using our cars in the way they were intended, we feared we might have been fish out of water. We were, for the large part, right.... with much of the rally being a little more pedestrian than we'd have liked. We still we had plenty of fun tearing all around the Gisborne/East Cape region though. Thankfully most of the other participants didn't seem to mind the two tearaways in the British racing green E-Type tearing past them at a high rate of leptons while they were enjoying the roads at a far more leisurely pace. Much of the week was taken up with mapped runs around the local area. Most of these were 100-150km scenic runs. Wednesday however was a little more free, so dad and I decided to take the road from Gisborne to Opotiki and right up around the East Cape back to Gisborne... about 300 miles of promising looking tarmac..... WOW. The road to Opotiki cut through the most amazing gorge, managing to be both scenic and entertaining all at once. With very little traffic this road proved to be motoring nirvana for us. Hammering through there marginally above the legal limit, carrying some lovely neutral drifts from corner to corner, the cliffs reverberating an aural concoction of tyre-squeal and the snarl of a tuned XK engine stalking through the rev-range was just bliss. The roads around the cape were a little rougher, through some VERY remote countryside and jagged, unforgiving coastline. This was also a lot of fun, enjoying the remoteness at pace. Here's a couple of photos we snapped at our lunch stop in Te Araroa... my father enjoying a bag of crisps as the filthy Jag enjoyed a well-earned break from the spanking it had endured. The Friday held the rally Concours competition. There were about 20 or so entrants, and we put the E-Type in just to make up the numbers. We spent a good few hours washing the crud off her from the previous days' motoring and had her looking pretty swish. Of course we didn't stand a hope in hell of winning the concours... as lovely as the car is, it can't hold a candle to some of the cars it was up against... many of whom were purpose-built show-classics that spend more time on a trailer than turning wheels of their own. Here she is parked up next to the eventual silver medallist, a '38 Packard Super 8 (which in my opinion, should have won... this thing was un-naturally magnificent). The rally wound up on Saturday with a public display at the Gisborne showgrounds, which also included a gymkhana competition. Dad and I decided to enter the Jag in for a bit of fun. Many people were aghast to see a car as straight and gleaming as ours take to the grassed arena and I'm sure they expected to see it being driven in appropriately delicate fashion. Boy were they wrong! Dad and I had great fun tearing it up, throwing the old girl around sideways, kicking up great clouds of dust. For those who've never seen an E-Type Jag drifting, I'm pleased to present the following photo; yours truly at the wheel (credit to Shiloh for the pic!). The upshot of all this was that I managed to win the gymkhana competition outright... quite the achievement given that many of the competition were much more suited to the task (smaller, shorter, mid-engined or FWD). Of course this ruined all of the hours of cleaning and polishing we'd done on the previous days! So, after this we headed home, having spent a fantastic week of father/son time just enjoying the old girl and the scenery at our own pace. I've just got back to Auckland, the Quaife gearbox returning to Auckland with me, about to get a good clean up this Easter weekend prior to getting mated up to the engine. After a lovely break the show must go on!

You too man... and love that photo!

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with Q! That's right, I finally picked up my Quaife 6-speed box today and it's now sitting safely in my folks' garage. It'll return to Auckland with me next week after the NZ Classic Car rally and get cleaned up in prep for going on the car. This is a VERY big chunk of awesome right here. It's going to make a real difference to how quick the car is in the real world when done and despite the not insignificant expense, it's a move I'm glad I made. All the advantages of a roadable gearbox as well as the right ratios for serious trackwork. Quaife ATB LSD included for good measure too. The only penalty is about 2kg extra mass over the stock box... which is okay as I've already cut plenty of weight out elsewhere during this rebuild to make up the shortfall. Beholdeth! And one of my trusty steed for the next week lurking in the background! Also the associated oil pump and cooler gubbins for the box: We're rapidly closing now on the day where I can FINALLY reunite the engine with the car!

Right, well another weekend in the garage doing little bits and pieces. Progress consists of having got the fuel filter bracket all cleaned up and remounted, which took a bit of work to get perfect. New fuel filter is in and lines have been run back to the engine bay: The other job was to refit the fuel filler hoses. This was to be a simple task as I was to refit the filler simply as I removed it. However, I noticed upon inspection that the powdercoat on the filler neck had begun to suffer and there was a bit of rust underneath in places... nothing bad, but enough to be annoying to me! So, out came the wire brush and got it all scrubbed clean of old powdercoat and any rust: Couple of coats of the magical POR15 black and the job was a good'un!: I wasn't able to get the filler refitted as the POR15 hadn't cured enough. I'll get this refitted when I'm back from the classic rally... with my new gearbox coming home with me! Rock on!

More good news! The Quaife 6-speed box is now landed in New Zealand and in my friend's garage down in Napier. Must give my public thanks to Paul Aston for handling the freight for me since he's saved me a bob or two, and a lot of hassle. Cheers mate I'm away all next week for work and on holiday the week after that; I'm spending a week with my father participating in a week-long (non-competitive) classic car rally in his E-Type Jaguar on the sunny East Coast. After that I'll be bringing the new gearbox back to Auckland with me and we'll clean it up and get it ready to go onto the engine.... and then FINALLY I can make plans to get the engine hung back in the chassis. It came out in May 2008 and it'll be going back in in April 2010.... 23 months with no heart!

Anodising industries are very good in my experience. If the parts are new alloy then you don't need to do anything. If they're old bits, then just making sure it's clean and smooth is the best. A good scrub up with some fine scotch-brite is probably the best. Bear in mind anodising won't fill in like paint, so any pits or gouges in the metal will still be evident post anodising. Here's an example of something new I've had anodised: And something old: I've never had anything done by them in colours before, only natural anodising (like my undertrays), black anodising like these parts and hard-anodising (which is generally a mid-dark grey). They'll be able to tell you if they do colours etc though.

Those three pieces (note two of them are quite large) were $150. This was done at Alert Anodising in East Tamaki. Most of my anodising I get done at Anodising Industries in Onehunga as we do a lot of stuff through them at work, but they only do smaller component stuff and didn't have the capacity to do the large bits, hence my need to use Alert on this job. Alert were fairly pricey, but they've done an absolutely top-notch job that I can't fault, so I'm happy.

Well more bling to throw on the pile I mentioned a few posts back about remaking the old steel trumpet backplate on which the powdercoating was shot. I've made up a new one in the same thickness aluminium at half the weight and had it anodised blue (just to look similar to the OEM item) and here's the finished product: It should do the trick nicely I've also finally gotten around to getting the new undertrays I made up all anodised, so these now look pristine and ready to bolt onto the car when the time comes Still waiting on the gearbox, which shouldn't be far away now, can't wait!! It's like Christmas is coming!!

No loophole there as the car as it was type-approved doesn't meet emissions regs. The only way through it is to get an SIV exemption, which allows exemption on emissions and frontal impact regs. It's the same for every car, hence why you can bring in a 1989 R32 GTR as a classic, but need SIV exemption if you want to bring in a post '90 GTR.

Emissions exemption is pre-1990 and older though (non moving), not a rolling 20 years. That Elise on Trademe is a steal at 30k, especially for a 111S, but it'll go for more than that as I know several people genuinely interested. That's a 40k car probably so I'm guessing someone'll get a bargain at mid-thirties.