Yoeddynzs 1965 Hillman imp - back to Datsun engine for now and its all legal beagle again...

[yoeddynz]

Well because I have a couple of updates worth of advance progress to use up before I have to actually start tinkering again here is another 'update'..

So I had sussed out my oil pump drive. Cool. Lets ignore the tensioners for now...mainly because I have not actually fitted the ones I have - this will be one of the next jobs once  Hannah and I finish the workshop mezzanine main structure mentioned in the last post.  I know they should work but I wanted to skip ahead to other more fun bits. Sort of like eating your meat before finishing the vege.

I needed to join these to assemblies together, neatly and most importantly - completely accurately.

I had completed some rather fine looking sketches in pencil of how I might fabricate something, along with measurements compiled by the time honoured tradition of starting at set datum points and then using a selection of various rulers, verniers, bits of string, bluetack, tape measures and a bit of eyeballing to suss out the positions of a new flywheel, seal housing, clutch height, starter pinion position at rest and at full extension. It was all going to be made up along the way but I still needed some datums to work to and from.

The main thing I knew the position of and that I could not change was the end of the crank and my added on adaptor with its seal landing. I also had a nice flat, square face on the back of the engine - the flange to which the old clutch and gear housing bolted to. I needed to start with that and work out towards the Subaru gearbox.

The Subaru gearbox does not really have a full length bellhousing as such. It normally bolts onto another section of housing that is bolted to the Subaru engine. This was fine because I was going to make my own housing extension that suits both the Honda engine flange and the Subaru box,  with a depth to suit a custom flywheel and the clutch.

But the flywheel offset was not a known thing yet because I had not yet secured a clutch to use. That's another story and I'll cover that with the flywheel. I'll mention now though that I almost made a complete balls up in clutch pressure plate selection. An easy mistake because its not normally something one would ever need to think about when looking at clutches. See if anyone can guess it? Go on - have a go.... 

Anyway- back to my flange plate assembly. So the most important thing to keep bang on is that the input shaft is concentric with the crankshaft and this is how I did it.

I started with a plate of 6mm thick aluminium, cut larger than the back of the engine and front of the box. I made a pretty damn big hole in it with a large holesaw. It had to be much bigger than the rear main seal I had bought to suit my crank adaptor...

Then I machined down a big lump of alloy bar to fit into the hole perfectly. I machined it with a large flange so it could be bolted to the plate. Pushed into the plate and then drilled the flange and tapped the holes. The flange was dot punched while on so its always bolted back up to the same holes after removal.

I fitted the flange back into the lathe,  drilled and bored it out to fit the gearbox input shaft snug...

Now I was able to slide the whole lot onto the box. Luckily these boxes have a decent bearing supporting the input shaft so there is no up and down movement (unlike the Imp box which has a two piece input shaft and wobbles all over the place)

I machined a couple of centre punches that tightly slid into the gearbox bellhousing bolt holes, enabling my to accurately mark the bolt holes onto the plate...

Now I had a plate that lined and bolted up perfectly concentric to the gearbox input shaft. Now to mark and drill another set of holes on the back of this plate to suit the engines flange. I removed the flange and bored it out to slide onto the crank adaptor seal land snugly. With the flange bolted back onto the plate I was able to slide the lot onto the engine, concentric, and repeat the marking process with yet another set of centre punches machined to suit. Then drill the holes to suit...

I did have to add a little extension to reach out to one pesky bolt hole that refused to stay within my square...

Now I had a plate that was bolted to the engine, bang on concentric, which had another set of holes to suit the bellhousing. I would connect the bellhousing to this plate with machined bars, of a depth that I was yet to finalise. I knew roughly what they would be,  around 40mm, but could not confirm this until I had made my flywheel and the clutch to suit it had arrived. That'll be in the next update.

In other news- I have been a little undecided about which ECU route to go down.  I was planning to build either a Speeduino or go with Megasquirt again.  I had started buying the bits for a Speeduino ages ago (I already had a board I had bought from @kws  and from aliexpress I bought the main arduino cpu the runs it, an ATmega 2560, plus scored some other bits from @NickJ) but I still wasn't convinced about Speeduino for this application, as tempting as the possible sub $200 price might be.  My Main reason against it was because I really would like to run this engine with full sequential injection.  However the Megasquirt that offered this on more than 4 cylinders, along with a couple of other non big brand name options were just too expensive for what I want to throw at the project.

But then last week I ended up buying a megasquirt 3 with an expansion card at a price I couldn't turn down.  I'm stoked about this because I know Megasquirt well and I like the support plus I like using Tunerstudio (which is also used for Speeduino but with a couple of features left out) .

I'll leave the Speeduino for something else in the future (the quad bike!  )

Oh and after having ordered these uprated valve stem seals from Norway of all places in July they finally arrived yesterday. 2 months! Ha.

My new headgaskets and cambelts have also arrived so I've pretty much got the bits I need to through it back together when the time comes.

 

[yoeddynz]

Ooooh its been over two months since I updated this thread. I have not touched this engine since stashing all the bits under the bench out of harms way, throwing a blanket over the main block on the bench and spending most of my time since then buying up many Micras, working on the housetruck and building the mezzanine floor in the shed. Oh and some of that paid work thing too because we do have a mortgage to pay.

However - I still have a little bit of progress up my sleeve to report before we get up to real time.  So I can do an update and hopefully soon I'll be back into working on the engine. I'm very much looking forward to moving in upstairs because I can whittle away on the project even easier. Well at least I think it'll work out like that? There's still a load of sawdust to create yet before we can move in though.

So where I left off last time was in making the start of the adaptor plate/engine side of the bellhousing. I needed a flywheel to work out its depth, due in part because I am intending on using a concentric slave cylinder, one that was left over from the Ford Mundano that we had robbed ages ago for its engine to fit into the Viva wagon.

I had a Subaru Leone 1800 ring gear to suit the gearbox. I needed a clutch setup to suit and started hunting a variety of places. I found a brand new subaru Leone clutch disc going cheap on trade me so I snapped that up pronto.  Now a suitable pressure plate. I was just going to buy a Subaru item but had realised that it wouldn't have worked - hence my question to you all in the last update - but no one on here came forward. Someone on retro rides forum won the prize though and guessed the issue.  Whilst out on a run, my head clear and thinking of things it suddenly dawned on me that the pressure plate tension straps would now be in compression due to the Hondas anti-clockwise rotation (or clockwise when looking at the pressure plate).
Luckily there's loads of clutch components available for early Hondas with their anti clockwise engines and I ended up sourcing a new pressure plate from a mid 80s Honda accord/prelude that would fit the bill and suited the new subaru leone clutch disc I'd already bought. The pressure plate was cheap from Rockauto - turning up only 5 days after ordering. They always amaze me!

Clutch sorted and sitting on the bench. I could now measure up and start on a flywheel. I had Dylan @ThePog draw up a cad file of what I wanted- the right diameter and pilot holes for the adaptor bolts. He suggested that I get them to leaser cut pilot holes for the pressure plate bolts while at it and this saved some time. Got my plate cut and picked it up from Dylan's - giving me another chance to marvel at his Dynafari.

I first set it up and bored it out a 1/4 way through to fit perfectly onto my flywheel hub I had previously made (this hub also has the surface that the rear main seal run against)...

I could then seat the flywheel onto the hub, clamp them down and drill right through into the hub. Drill out to tapping size, tap the hub holes,  clearance the flywheel holes and finally countersink and spot face the flywheel holes to suit some fancy bolts I bought - these need to sit near flush with the flywheel surface to clear the clutch disc damper springs.

Pics...

Flywheel now bolted to its hub I set it up in the lathe for machining...

Then gave it a skim. Checked it again, double checked it and then triple checked it.  All good. I then machined the required step onto the face to suit the factory specs for the clutch.

Next thing was to add the ring gear I add. Now this was a bit tricky because my lovely old Mitutoyo vernier calipers (one of the first tools I bought when starting my apprenticeship) were not big enough to measure that diameter. My old work place I did my time at had some lovely 600mm Mitutoyo calipers in a lovely wooden case. They were one of the treasured items of the tool room and I used to love using them.  I had priced up some 600mm items from a variety of other brands but wayyyyy too expensive for me. I'll still keep looking because they'd be handy for many jobs. Might find some second hand. But that didn't help me when I wanted to do this flywheel now

So I made an extension from some stainless I tigged together, replicating the end of my calipers. Taped in place securely and hey presto- I had a new updated tool.

Never perfect like the real thing so I had to really triple check my measurements but managed to turn the flywheel down to give me just the right amount of interference fit I wanted from a shrink fit. 

Into the bench top oven the ring gear went, heated up and it dropped on to my machined step nicely. Cooled down and its not going anywhere.

With that in place I rechecked it all and got the throw out on the flywheel down to about 3 or 4 thou. Super happy with that.  My clutch kit now bolted on in place and I have something I can set my bellhousing depth to suit...

I have added the required dowels and its all done. I'll get the flywheel, clutch and crank balanced together before assembly of the engine.

So that will be the next update I think. Machining the spacers that will become part of the engine side of the bellhousing adaptor.  Then I need to finish off making some chain tensioners to suit the oil pump drive chains.

However I still have plenty of other jobs to do on the housetruck and the mezzanine. Those are a priority whereas this is just a fun little project.

But I must mention that today whilst out on a bicycle ride we had about 50 various motorbikes pass us on part of a charity run.  I spotted a bright metallic blue Goldwing 1500 go past and as it accelerated up the hill we were on it had that distinctive flat six exhaust note and just sounded superb! It certainly got me tingling and all I thought of was that sound coming from my Imp A good incentive!

[yoeddynz]

Far out! November last year was the last time I had tinkered away on this project.  Time flies!!!

Well both Hannah and I have been pretty busy with various things like having to get the housetruck finished off and road legal for sale and with that gone we had to build a place to live. The mezzanine build took a fair whack of time. That's all pretty much done, well at least to a point that we can happily live up there. I started losing a feel for time over summer with all that going on.

Then a Micra/March turned up. A simple, cheap run about while the Imp is off the road eh.

Then another Micra...

and another. Oh - so  now these are projects are they?

FFS.

Oh hey...what's that? Is that a Bedford TK truck in the yard. But hang on.. you've already got 4 other vehicles to play with, not to mention the old 4wd Hiace van that's getting bit rusty around the edges.

Well screw all them. I just needed to get my 'flat six fix' so I dug out all the bits that had been hibernating under the bench and had some fun piecing them together in a sort of organised fashion on the table...

Now where does this bit go?....

After having some fun taking photos I stashed some of the parts like the heads, cam gear, pistons etc that I wont need for a while back under the bench until needed. I had to confront a mini stumbling block I had with the oil pump drive sprockets. There is one small sprocket that slides onto the hub of a larger one and needed to be fixed in place. My initial thoughts were to weld it but I was worried that it would warp and cup. I sized it up for possibly bolting it in place using small cap screws but there just wasn't enough room between the chain and the hub, even for small 4mm screws. Welding it was going to have to be. I would get some advice though beforehand.

But first I wanted to add a very slight taper to the teeth so there would be no sharp square edges that could potentially catch and rub against the inside of the chain plates. 3 of the sprockets were easy enough to pop in the lathe and give them a tickle with a flap disc. But the smallest I had to whip up a little hub to clamp it on...

Trying to take a photo with one hand while holding an angle grinder in the other...

Then sitting in front of the fire and cleaning off any sharp edges...

Now I had sprockets I was happy with I had to confront my welding issue. I popped over the hill and chatted to another engineer I know who has a lot more experience with welding of such things than me. He pretty much told me what I had already guessed and I decided to just go for it. But just to be sure I thought it prudent to machine up a fake sprocket and hub to see how they faired when welded. There was no cupping evident so I went ahead with the sprocket. First thing though was to heat both parts up gently. Not too hot. Just hot enough that I could touch them but not get burnt...

This way the welding could be quick and light without a mass of steel sucking the heat. But not so hot that shrinkage could be an issue either. I used the little tig welding table I had built ages ago for more comfort when doing such jobs...

I'm certainly not a super neat tig welder like some artists out there (and never will be with only having decent sight out of one eye so judging the distance can be an issue) so I was very happy with the result and super happy that nothing pulled..

With this part finished I could concentrate on the chain tensioner design. I had a few ideas and had amassed a few bits to tinker with....

Being that the chains are under constant load and only turning a pump the tensioners are really only needed to stop excessive slap. Nothing to do with timing changes like a cam chain.

I had two Datsun A12 tensioners to try out but no matter how I arranged them they conflicted with each other and there was no room for mounting bolts where I needed them..

So I tried out some Mazda/ford 2.0 duratec tensioners and they show great promise...

I will make mounting blocks to suit and knock this part of the build on the head! Then onto finishing the bellhousing

Hopefully some more updates soon although we have also started pulling one of the Micras down for the big swapsie game but that is mainly Hannah's project so I can keep working on this as I can.

 

 

[GregT]

Most Honda bike engines don't run a tensioner - or guides - on the oil pump chain drive. They run slack as....but don't seem to give problems.

Even when Suzuki copied Honda by lowering the oil pump and driving it by chain on the latest GSXR1000, they didn't put in guides or a tensioner.

 

Otherwise, amazing work.

[yoeddynz]

Phew- been busy. Lots done = update time. But to save my sanity I might do it in two lots.

So as per @GregT bit of information above I looked into motorbike oil pump chains and yeah- bugger all have tensioners and they actually run quite loose. I then decided to scrap the idea of spring loaded tensioners because even with the ones I had they were still a bit awkward to fit and didn't quite work in the angle I would have wanted.

So enter stage left my new adjustable tensioner device...

which fits like this...

The bolts that clamp it down are actually accessible from below with the sump plate removed so once the chains wear to a point that I'm not happy with I can tension them independently. The will be nyloc nuts replacing those normal nuts on the tensioner bolts when the final assembly takes place.

So with that finally finished I moved on down. The sump cover. It has to be fairly beefy because it could see some hits plus the engine will rest on it when on the bench. It has to be alloy so It can be used as a useful heat sink to pull heat from the oil. It has to look cool for when the Barries look under the car.  So some fins were in order.

I bought a big lump of alloy from Ulrich aluminium.

That hurt.

I put it through the old table saw and did some rough cuts just to save on time milling...

Into the mill and did milly things. It was going to take bloody ages thought so I made a new tool which I shall call the DDC.

'Dewalt drill control' ...

It could always be an MDC. Makita drill control.  My cunning design is adaptable.

In action...

Groovy man...

Then the sides taken down...

I stopped there. The bit that is left unslotted will be machined to suit a recessed sump plug. I wont do any more until I finish the front cover below the cambelts where I'll also be adding some engine mount points.

Next up was to finish the adaptor plate that connects the engine to the gearbox bellhousing.

I had machined a bunch of pedestals to an exact length I had worked out to suit the positioning of the spigot shaft on the end of the first motion shaft into the spigot bearing. These pedestals have been machined on the gearbox end to locate within the dowel like spot faced bolt holes on the bellhousing. This way there was no chance of any float in any direction - the box would always be perfectly concentric to the engines crank and the bolts are really just clamping it.

I bolted it all up together...

Then cut some strips of 4mm alloy plate and started bending them to suit. Connecting the pedestals...

Once I was happy with the fit up of those filler strips I ran a marker pen around them and took it all apart. Then cut the plate back to the lines in the bandsaw.

Well I did so for a while but due to several things including the bandsaw having a totally rooted bearing collapse in the saws gearbox so making blade run off the driving wheel. plus the only course pitch blade having some missing teeth I ended up using the jigsaw.

Anyway- got there in the end. Pieced it back together and it looked like this...

Now time to weld it all together. I knew this was going to be tricky because the whole lot is like one huge heatsink and our current power cable to the workshop and the subsequent circuit breakers I have installed as a safety net wont allow me to run the welder at enough amps for such a mass of alloy - sit on 150 amps for any longer then 20 secs and it would trip.  If I had a big enough oven I'd heat the whole lot up together nice and slowly. But I don't. So I just had to be strategic about it and work fast because once I stopped welding the heat soon dispersed. Luckily the welds just have to be strong and functional because it would all be smoothed down with a flap disc for a more factory casting look I wanted.

It turned out good and best of all it hadn't warped so the box still fitted correctly and neatly. I was happy with that and it was now time to move on to the next stage which was the starter motor fitment. That will be in the next exciting instalment

[yoeddynz]

Starter motor time. I had bought a Subaru leone 1.8 starter from the fella I'd got the gearboxes and 1.8 ring gear from. Made sense to use all the same bits. Only thing I'd have to do was move the mounting face for the starter forwards towards the engine to suit the new ring gear position on my home made flywheel...

Easy as I thought and I had it all planned out. I shall start at dawn!

However that's not what happened once I got a friendly query from a fella about the starter motor turning the engine the wrong way.

Oh yeah. Bugger. Of course it will do that. Yay.

So after a few ideas and suggestions from various folk I had a few options. My first option was to mount the Subaru starter on the front of the bellhousing adaptor, facing backwards. Essentially turn it 180 degrees and it would spin the Honda engine in the required anti-clockwise direction I needed. But would it fit?

Yes it does...

It wouldn't be too tricky to mount and on extension the pinion almost lined up perfectly with the ring gear. It sat down in place quite low too. So this solution was a strong contender. But it had a couple of weaknesses that meant it went to the back burner.

One: the ring gear would need turning around so the leads shaped into the teeth faced the pinion. Turning it round and having the pinion strike it from the opposite side then meant that the step I had machined into the flywheel would have been on the wrong side and the gear could potentially work off over time. I was reluctant about the idea I could add a few welds, as some folk will do, because it adds stress risers, could affect the balance. I really didn't want to muck about with the ring gear.

Two: having a fairly large ugly starter motor plonked right there on the top of the motor was something I never had in my minds pictures of how I wanted the engine bay to look. It would be right where I might want some linkages for the itbs, possibly a centrally mounted plenum between the itbs and there was also going to be some water pipes around that area too.

So back to the other options- the main one being to look for a suitable Honda starter that's mounted from the gearbox side or a starter from any standard clockwise rotating engine that mounts from the front. The pinion had to have the same pitch and ideally the same tooth count. I did some research and it seemed that all the Japanese cars of this era all shared the same pinion pitch and were all around the 9 or 10 teeth. This was handy indeed.

Off to the wreckers then...

I went through the various shelves of starters, starting with Honda and found a possible candidate within a couple of minutes. Feeling pretty satisfied with my find I still double checked the other shelves just in case there was something even better but eventually I was spotted skipping out of the door happy with my Honda Civic/accord starter.

Back home I looked at my booty. Subaru one is on the left...

They were so close but not close enough. The Honda item has a smaller diameter 'locating spigot' that centralises it in the hole on the mounting face of the bell housing.

This was a better turnout than it being bigger than the hole though! I would machine the hole in the plate to suit the new starter, which I was going to have to do for the original plan using the Subaru one anyway.

The holes for the starter mounting bolts, that go through the bell housing into the engine,  were 5mm closer at about 115mm and they were also offset to one side, not in line with the starters centreline.

This was handy though because I could then have separate bolts holding the bell housing and room to turn the Honda starter about its axis, having the solenoid positioned in the least obstructive way. A plan was forming in my head. I took some measurements, did some scribbles and it all looked like it should work ok...

I had already bought a hefty bit of 12mm plate for the Subaru starter repositioning and luckily it was still going to work with the new starter. I swapped the 4 jaw chuck onto the lathe and set it up. Drilled a big hole...

Bored the hole out to suit the Honda starter spigot...

Marked and drilled holes to suit...

Recessed and spot faced one of the holes for the bellhousing to the engine bolts that just happened to slightly clash with a bit of the starter casting.

So I now had a plate that the starter fitted neatly into, with not a hint of slop. The bolt holes lined up perfectly with the bellhousing bolt holes so lining the starter up the correct distance out from the ring gear. Now I need to move the face of this plate closer to the engine...

So I cut a big lump of alloy from the bellhousing with a grinder and a hacksaw...

This allowed me to move the plate closer and let the pinion fully engage with the ring gear...

I tested the fit of the starter...

The height was good but I wanted it to be perfectly parallel to the face of the flywheel so I really had to mill it. Luckily I was just able to squeeze the gearbox into a position on the mill that allowed me to face it perfectly...

I must have some pretty honed hacksaw skills because I only needed to skim off about .75mm to get it flat. Sweet.

Now I bolted the plate in place, then the starter and tested it...

Oh I forgot to mention that once I had decided I was going to use a starter mounted in the original position I popped a hole through the adaptor plate in line with the starter pinion. This was to allow me to check the pinion mesh...

I was super happy with the mesh so I marked the excess on the plate to be trimmed off and gave it a hair cut in the bandsaw...

I also milled out the back of the plate where it just clashed with the rivets and pressings on the outer edge clutch pressure plate.  Bolted it back in and welded it up, taking lots of care to avoid any chance of movement or warping. It went well..

Added some little filler plates to tie it in neatly and gave it a tickle with a flap disc...

Bolted the starter back in, stood back and admired it all, really happy that one of the trickier jobs had been completed and that the starter was sitting in there very neatly and tucked away nicely, no higher than the top of the bellhousing...

Next step was to make a cover for the 'front' of the engine, adding a connecting link between the oil filter outlet and the main oil way into the engine, a filling point for the sump, a dipstick and allocations for engine mounts to suit a cross member. 

Still lots of work to do but I'm getting closer...

[yoeddynz]

Back on the chain gang !

Yep. I'm back into this project. Its been a hectic busy last few months. Well for me, but others would probably laugh at my work levels. The last update was in September and both Hannah and I were pretty busy building a custom coffee cart for a customer. It was a fair old mission not helped by that pesky lockdown stalling a load of stuff ordered, including some double glazed window materials from Auckland. We put in some hard efforts to get the thing built and ready in time for the agreed date and managed it with a 2am finish on the last day before delivery.  I was well chuffed with the cart we built and the customer is soooo happy with her new cafe !  All fully insulated, huge windows that roll away into the walls, loads of stainless benching and a lovely outside wood framing we made using Eucalyptus timber then oiled.

Here's some pics of the build...

 

Phew. Check that one off the whiteboard of jobs. Loads more work to chip through and we are now onto the steel framework for a local ladies housetruck.  So I am going to do my best to just put down the tools, lock my bicycles away so I cant be tempted to just go riding and instead do more on this engine swap.

Most recent bits I have done are as follows.

I wanted to finish off the oil system. The internal stuff from the pick up to the pump and filter was sorted. Now I needed to get the oil from the filter to the engine. Luckily, well I kind of planned around it, there is a hole left where  gear  selector shaft went. This was ideal to pass a pipe back from the filter block outlet towards the front/belt end of the engine. But it needed to be bigger with some clearance. One big drill bit later...

next up was a plate to cover the front. What used to be here was a cast front cover, much deeper obviously because I have lopped off a huge chunk of engine casing. It housed the oil filter, now moved to the side.  Instead of that I now needed a flat plate of thick alloy that will serve several things. The engine mounts, most likely typical compression bobbins, will be mounted off it. There has to be a way to get the oil from the pipe coming from the filter block to head back into the main oil feed hole higher in the block. Finally I need somewhere to put oil into the engine and also to check the oil level.

I started with a plate of alloy I roughly cut to size. Drilled it to suit the holes in the block that the old front cover mounted to. I then drilled a hole in it to suit the oil feed pipe. This was a hole perfectly located to make sure the pipe would line up with the filter transfer block nice and square. Because I'm using the O rings that Honda used throughout the original system. There is a small tolerance for being out of square with these but I might as well get it as close as I can.

I then needed to make a bolt on block that would take the oil from this pipe end and direct it through another hole in the plate which locates right over another O ring sealed port into the engines main oil way, just as the original front cover did.

I started with some more chunks of alloy and made a thousands of teeny tiny chunks of alloy with the tablesaw...

One of the blocks was then milled out to suit the pipe outlet and oilway inlet sizes. I also used a tiny little slot drill to add a groove to help keep the sealant in place..

Flipped it over and took more material away. Added some cooling grooves. But really.. come on. They were more just so it looked a bit nicer than just being a lump of alloy. Why not..

Clamped it down onto the front plate and drilled mounting holes...

There's a nice amount of room to still use the original honda cooling hose if I want but I may well do something else when I get to that bit- depends on my cross member design and engine mounts etc..

Next up was how to get oil in place! I needed a filler point. The original filler and dipstick are in the wrong spot and kind of chopped out. I could have made a dipstick to suit the now chopped down dipstick housing but that's at the rear/flywheel end of the engine. With the engine turned round 180 degrees that puts it under the parcel shelf and would mean reaching over what ever induction setup I use (cough*ITBS*cough) so that's not cricket.

A filler tube, right at the front, but actually now the back, of the engine with a combined dipstick under the cap made more sense.

I rummaged through my collection of alloy..

Playtime in the lathe...

and out popped this...

..into which oil will pour as such....

Now I needed some more bits to hold it in the right place so I made these flanges to suit more pipe.

Once I know what I'm doing with the cooling pipes etc  I'll cut the pipe to suit and epoxy it into the flanges. I ideally need the main large flange to bolt over a hole below the oil level height -  which I have roughly worked out allowing for about 4.5 litres thereabouts.  This pipe and cap will be right there, on view, easy to get to at the engine bay opening. The two smaller flanges are so I can remove the upright pipe to allow for the cambelt covers to be removed, or so its not there liable for getting damaged when removing and moving the engine about.

I did think about being super silly and adding a sight glass to the pipe. Or use some thin glass or plastic tube. I then even thought about being really silly and adding an led light into the pipe to light up the oil.

But oil does not stay honey clean does it. So a neat little dipstick under the cap will do.

Lastly I needed to bolt the sump cover in place. I had to think carefully about bolt placement for sealing purposes and get the bolts square. This sump plate is going to have to be sealed well because there is no usual high sided sump like most cars. Hence I built it rigid to help against flex. Good quality sealant will be the order of the day*

To get the bolt holes square I had to do this...

Impy sat outside looking in at his new heart being crafted (said like some car obsessed bloke who anthropomorphises his cars)...

Well then. That's it. Crikey. Another wall of text. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings. I promise I'll put more effort into working on this (but it is summer after all..)

 

 

*It will leak. Its a British car. Its destined to leak.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[yoeddynz]

Next step in the puzzle was to sort out a clutch release system.  I had a couple of options that could work.  I could use the stock Subaru fork but it was not ideal for two reasons ;

1: It would need a the release bearing carrier adapting to take a larger diameter bearing that would suit the Honda pressure plate fingers.

2: Its pivot location, being a centre mounted fulcrum point, would require a slave cylinder that pushed it towards the front of the car. This is because originally the Leone the transmission came from uses a clutch cable. I'd being using a hydraulic slave and it would have to be mounted up high, over the engine. Probably clash with the underside of the parcel shelf and would definitely look ugly there.

Option two was to use the Ford Mundano concentric slave cylinder I have had stashed away for ages, acquired with the Duratec engine I was going to fit into the Viva wagon many moons ago.

This certainly seemed the most sensible option because it fitted into the location almost perfectly...

The pipes even pop out through the Subaru release fork hole like it was made for it...

But it was still going to require a little work. First off is that it has a flat bearing face, made to suit curved diaphragm spring ends. It was also too small in diameter to suit the fingers.

So a lump of steel was plucked from the store...

There was just enough room between the bearing face and the 'slidey hub' bit that the bearing hydraulics slide in and out on for me to machine a locating stub onto the bit of steel...

With that being a perfect fitting locating point the other side was machined with a radialised face to suit the flat fingers. The end result looks like this..

This will be stuck in place onto the release bearing face with something like loctite 601. It cant go anywhere anyway.

Next issue was fixing this whole unit in place and making sure its dead square to the input shaft centre line. Luckily the units bore was larger that the stub/shaft?*  that the Subaru release bearing carrier slides on by about 2mm. It also so happened that when pushed on as far as it would go it allowed for just the right amount of movement of the release bearing, plus a bit to spare.

So I machined a thin sleeve with a lip at one end to suit..

This I made a nice snug fit onto the stub/shaft thing and the Mundano assembly slides in place snug, thus making sure it all remains square.

I assembled the lot together and checked it all with the transmission bolted in place. Looks good..

The initial throw of the release bearing will be adjusted at the pedal, which will now require me to either use the Mundano master cylinder (plastic..yuck) or machine/ sleeve my Imp one (actually the same as a landrover/most trailer brakes out there..) to suit. I'll look at that when I get to it.

Next step is to bolt the assembly in place. The Leone box has splines cast in around the stub base...

..but luckily enough room between them to glue some blocks in place so I machined some alloy down to suit..

Because I knew the assembly was perfectly straight and in line I just needed to give enough clearance on the blocks to allow for some epoxy. I drilled and tapped the blocks to suit, mixed up some of my favourite JB weld and filled the chosen cavities then slide it back in place. Then let it set overnight..

The next day I tried the original Mundano rubber boot for the pipe exit. It almost fitted. I sliced 5mm out of its width and it was sorted. Not perfect looking but it works and cant be seen once the engine is in place anyway...

Phew. Done. At this point I really did have a feeling like I had made it past the trickiest bits of the engine work required. But for some possible baffles around the oil pump pick up and maybe an anti surge plate (not that the Goldwing engine has any as stock) I think all the required mods to the engine are done. I felt like having a cold beer.

So I did. Then pondered the next jobs to do.

Which was to look at where I would run my cooling pipes and finalise the position of the oil filler tube..

In order to properly work through some routing ideas I had to plonk the heads back on. With them in place I might as well have some fun, bolt the transmission on and stand back with my beer and gaze at it all.

I took some pics. I'm pretty bloody happy with it how it looks and I really did get a mojo boost looking at it sitting there as a complete unit waiting to go in...

Its so neat and compact for a flat six..

Man I'm looking forward to having this setup in the back of my Imp! What's nice to think about is that while there's still a big load of work to do these next jobs will be super fun. I'm especially looking forward to making the ITB arrangement to suit and doing my best to create a really clean looking engine bay.

[yoeddynz]

I've still been chipping away at this here and there in between buying K11s and doing work on the property. The first job on it since I last posted was to start sorting out what I was going to build some driveshafts from. I'd picked up two Subaru leone driveshafts from the same fella I'd bought the gearboxes and other bits from.

I also had a large pile of Imp driveshafts. My plan is to join them. Not sure exactly how yet but I'll worry about that later. For now I wanted to clean up and inspect what I have...

These are the bits I'll merge..

Another job done was something a long time waiting. The rear number plate. Its always annoyed me a bit with it positioning down low over the exhaust but that was because it annoyed me even more the way it would obscure the vents on the sports spec engine cover.

Here it is..

So finally I got around to sorting it out. I had @Archetype whip me up one of his wonderful plates but in a smaller size all round..

Nicely made!...

And fitted...

THAT IS WAY BETTER!!!

Next thing was to drag this little thing out of its resting spot near the cabin where its sat for many years now...

It was sitting right where we wanted to build an extension to this woodshed (woodshed two of four.. cant have too much wood..)

I threw some wheels on it,  K11 wheels as you do,  then towed it behind big red, our ever useful old Honda quad bike..

Down to the yard and straight into the shed where Impy 2 met Impy 1 again...

I gave Imp 2 a quick clean and removed more flakey rust etc. Quite handy having an old paint job where you can clean the the lichen off with a stainless brillo pad..

As rough as it looks its actually a solid car where it counts and could be rescued. But for now its going to be a jig.

I wanted to set and fix the ride height at where Imp 1 sits. I made some bars that bolted in place of the rear shocks (the fronts I had already done previous to moving it up to the cabin)

These fitted in place meant that the wheels/suspension would not drop when the car was hoisted in the air and so allow me to set now how the transmission outputs would line up with the axles at ride height.

With them sorted the car could go up in the air and I removed the rear arms and crossmember...

It looked horribly rusty and I pictured many hours of swearing at seized bolts...

But actually, possibly thanks to the British engineers designing in leaking seals, the bolts and cross member were covered in oil.

Or maybe a previous owner had done this on purpose. No matter - the bolts all came out really easily.

The cross member removed I discovered that some (Aussie import) Mason wasp had been using the area behind to stash loads of paralysed spiders in little mud crypts, laying an egg within each crypts and when the egg hatches the wasp grub would feast upon the spiders alive.

Nice.

\

That lot cleaned away. Yuck.  Gave the cross member and suspension arms a good wirebrushing and they came up good..

Also cleaned up under the car where I would be working...

I chopped off the end of the driveshafts. Not needed and in the way. i only need the shafts so I can line up the box.

Now it was time to cut out steel and keep cutting until the transmission sat where I had planned it to.  First off was to chop out the centre of the cross member. This bolts to a very solid part of the car with many bolts. Once I have finished positioning the engine and box, fabricated the required mounts I'll most likely weld back in a centre section to suit. I'll need to add back in some guide tubes for the handbrake cables etc.

I bolted the box onto the engine and slung it under the car. Lowered the car until it could go no further, marked things and cut steel out. Rinse and repeat until the box sat where it needed to..

Eventually I had the engine sitting pretty much where I wanted it to...

I love the way it sits in so far forwards..

Outputs line up well with the shafts...

Gearbox mounts almost line up. Should not be too hard to make something work within here. Plenty of room. I'll need to get a variety of mounts to try out for size...

Biggest loss in the removal of steel is that the middle of the rear seat base is going to need chopping. Possibly might get away with just removing the springs and what not under the middle but more likely I'll have to convert the base into two separate seats. I'll worry about that later.

Another issue I'll have to sort out is the gearshift. The Subaru box has its gear selector shaft sitting up higher and pointing ever so slightly uphill compared to the stock Imp box. So I'll need to add in a couple of universal joints to link the box to the gearstick. Not a biggy. The rear part of the tunnel will have to rise up from behind the handbrake towards the rear seat base to allow for this. Not like anyone will be sitting there anyway ..

You can sort of make out what I'm talking about here...

So that's where I'm up to as of tonight. I'll get some engine mounts etc and start mounting this lot in place. My plans from here on are to do as much as I can with the car as a jig. Even get the engine running in this car. That way I can keep Imp 1 on the road the whole time.

 

 

 

 

[yoeddynz]

Time to mount up.

First thing was to remove the air from the nearside chassis rail. It was a bit frilly right where I want to bolt a crossmember..

I bought some bobbin style rubber mounts, 60 in hardness, from the local engineering shop. They are British made mounts so somehow they will probably leak.

I cut some plates that then bolted to the stock Subaru gearbox mount points. Then shuffled the engine/box into the position I wanted it to sit. I had measured the level at which Imp one sat on the ground, finding that the bottom of the rear side windows were pretty much level. I set Imp two up on the hoist at the same level and made sure it was level across the car. Marked things, measured things, checked clearances. Once happy with all that I got some cardboard and started making little shapes with folds out of it. Added a bobbin and the other end went through the original Imp gearbox chassis mount, hole enlarged a mm to take a 10mm stud.

Kept trying them until things looked good and transferred the shape to steel. Bent the shape in the... bender.

Tacked in place..

Removed to be reinforced and fully welded..

Finished and fitted...

Now for the front of the engine.

Or is that the back of the engine?

The other end. I plonked a bit of steel in place.

I didn't want to go much lower than the sump. I went for some low profile bobbins that were ideal. Cut some more plate to suit and drilled, tapped, bolted them in place on the engine end plate. Played with more cardboard and then steel, folded and tacked till I had things that held bobbins.

welded them up..

Next job was to make a crossmember.

Now there was going to be lots of moving this engine/box in and out of position. Not just now while building the crossmember but in the future of the build as I do exhausts/piping/induction etc. The huge steel bench we have in the workshop that I had been moving the engine in and out on was just that - huge, heavy and often in the way.  Plus its set in height so when I wanted to move the engine position up and down it was via the car hoist which is not exactly finely controlled.

I needed a bespoke engine table that was easily height adjustable.

Enter stage left the 'Engine cart 2000'..

I whipped that lot above in one evening using an old height adjustable Bedford truck seat base, some spare steel offcuts from the steel rack and some budget castor wheels from Mitre 10. I added some plywood for the top and then I sat on it whilst twiddling the knob - which made things go up. 

And down.  It was designed to match up with the main workbench in height so I could slide the engine and box straight on. Engine and box are quite light as they are and I can shift them about easily but that wont last when the flywheel/clutch/pistons/heads/gearbox internals are all back in their rightful homes.

I painted it grey because I don't like blue steel and Mitre 10 had loads of plasticoat spray paint on clearance.

I couldn't help but mask the old sticker on the seat base..

Hannah varnished the plywood so it looked pretty. But then I realised that sliding the engine off and on was going to ruin the ply, nor was plywood a very slidey surface. So a bit of old stainless kitchen bench got cut up for the top layer.

Now in action..

Aint that just so cute.

Way easier to move the lot about the workshop and into position under the car- which now handily sits a bit higher in the air which was nice for the next stage.

Crossmember time.

I wanted this to be more organic/factory looking then the simple box section one holding the Datsun up. It had to be strong and allow plenty of space for exhaust pipes heading backwards to a silencer assembly that will be slung under the rear valence. It also had remove easily from the car, ideally still attached to the engine if need be.

I started by making some mount points that would bolt in and out easily onto the chassis rails. Captive nuts welded on some angle iron that sits on the inside of the rails. 4 bolts per side.  These bolted in place with 3mm alloy spacers on each side to allow for differences between this car and Imp one, which I know has rails a few mm closer.

Plasma cut a strip 50mm wide from 3mm mild steel plate. Welded some mounts on it to suit the bobbins hanging from the engine. Bent a curve in the plate till it sat where I wanted and had the shape I desired. Then started cutting cardboard again...

and transferring it to steel...

Tacked it altogether..

Added tubes to it for easy access to the engine mount nuts which made for a cleaner look. I could close off the angles on top and make it all pretty like.

I welded what I could on the inside of the crossmember. I really didn't want exposed welds on the outside or any lumps. Then welded the outside. I had to be strategic because even though it was all 3mm steel it would still move a heap as the welds cooled- shrink on the welded edge and shorten or lengthen the whole length either way. My final welds had to pull it back out in length as they cooled and shrunk so it matched the rails. To much relief I got it pretty much bang on and it all still lined up sweet.

The whole time I was building this bugger I was thinking 'ooh this is going to be hefty..' and stressing. Trying to find a happy medium between strength and weight but strength really was the most important thing. I didn't want my engine to fall on the road. As it was it turned out ok. Not a bad weight at all. I hung it on some scales..

Not bad at all. Just a smidge heavier than the alternator for example. Certainly brute enough. I was happy.

I bolted the whole lot in place, lowered the wheely cart 2000 out of the way and there it sat, engine and box finally suspended on their own mounts.

Beautiful I thought.

So beautiful that I had to take the car off the hoist and snap some pics...

Would ya look at that. Damn that looks cool. I was fucking stoked. This was a big occasion. I patted myself on the back and then took some more pics and measured some things..

Clearance under the car was great. The crossmember was only about 10mm lower than the exhaust on IMP one however this was also far further forward. It'll be gravy.

The room between the inlet faces on the heads and what would be the underside of the parcel shelf was almost bang on what I had very originally measure it to be when I first mocked the untouched engine up under Imp one. About 170mm..

Neat. I'd better start ordering some induction goodies eh.

So that's that. Engine is now a bolt in thing. When the time comes I'll be transferring this crossmember along with the suspension crossmember over to Impy one.  But I'm a long way from that point.

I put Imp two back on the hoist, gracefully rolled the engine cart 2000 back in place, 'UNBOLTED' the engine and box and rolled it away.  Engine was slid back onto the bench and I am now going to look at making a custom alternator drive pulley and mounting the alternator (probably the old prelude/civic item I scored from the wreckers)

I have also been looking into the exhaust. I'm doing some research and trying suss out what to do about headers. Either modifying what I have or making bespoke ones. But that's another story and will be my next instalment.

[yoeddynz]

Look at this lot I have to play with.

Here's a head. Lovely little things. Nicely made. Very clean and simple. Brilliant hemi design. Not sure on the valve angles but I could picture it flowing nicely (based on the knowledge of my mildly edumacated mind about such technical enginy things, stuff gained from reading old cars and car conversion books etc)

I measured the valves. The inlet is a fairly decent 33mm thereabouts.

Exhaust 28mm

Not bad. Not bad at all really. I dunno if they have anything mildly flash like a 3 angle seat. I suspect not. Goldwings are a pay grade above such frilvolous race engine nonsense.  But I think I do happen to have a valve grinding setup and some seat cutters amongst the engine reconditioning stuff I was given a year or so ago.

Anyway.. I won't get too excited because as far as maximum flow at stratospheric revs go it heads downhill from the valve sizes. Just look at the size of this inlet port...

25mm Extravagance ! Not really much room to open it out either, nor risk mucking about with the port innards. Too risky.

Now the other end of the equation.

Exhaust port is 28mm one way and 23 the other. I think its cast like that on purpose to aid the low engine speed air flow (these engines are all about torque... and I'll probably mention that several times as I go on, just as I take a sip of my finest scotch. Lets not mention those dirty words like bhp and redlines)

The exhaust headers are comical. But I shouldn't really laugh because I know full well that the technical boffins at Honda know a heck of a lot more than me about cylinder head flow and tuning engines to suit bikes that are made to cruise all day long for a lifespan in the vicinity of 1,000,000 miles.

But still. They are funny..

At first glance one might be fooled into thinking they are maybe 26- 28mm like the ports. But they step down to an internal diameter of 23mm. Outside measures ap at around 26mm.

The valkyrie items are not bigger from what I can gather. They just have a poncy bit of shiny chrome tube over them so they look bigger..and shiny.

So there we have it.

Plans thus far.

My intention is to start the induction side with some bmw k75 itbs, injectors mounted into custom flanges to suit. They are about 34mm thereabouts so hugely more than big enough. They are not perfect though and will involve a bit of tinkering because the K series of engines have port spacing at 75mm and the Goldwing ports are spaced at 90mm. But they are separate and things could be adapted I'm sure.

These ..

 I'm probably going down this route mainly for the induction sound, the response and the looks. Topped with K&N filters (breathing in that super hot engine bay air....) with machined alloy covers. Hmmmmmmmm yummy.

However if I don't do itbs for some reason then my next choice will be to fabricate some neat looking runners that are fed from a single centre mounted plenum, in a sort of slight race car like finish. A single throttle body and a nice machined top to the plenum chamber. This would be the easiest and quickest route, with the stock inlet runners lending themselves to being modified to suit.

ECU I already have  (Megasquirt 3 since you ask) can do fully sequential on six.  This will give me the ability to tune for a really sweet idle, better off the mark acceleration at low revs and hopefully better economy.

The exhaust. Here's a pic of the stock headers attached in place. They need a tiny bit of chopping and moving about to clear the back of the engine mount area, plus they sit too low, below the sump. 

I'm undecided about mucking about with the headers themselves for what would probably be small gains. I wouldn't want to go any larger than 28mm od on the tubes and from my googling so far it's not a common size for stainless or mildsteel bends. I would love to have a person who is super well qualified and really experienced (which is more important really) about such things as exhaust airspeed and the effects the primaries have. Someone who does this for a living.  But otherwise I'll keeping trawling through all the various opinions that google offers from men in pubs and their dogs, stack all the offers and snippets of info up an a big pile and select the mean average.

With a hint of gut instinct weighed heavily on by how much I can be arsed.

So far it seems that great exhaust sounds can and are to be had from these engines by mucking about with everything past the primaries. I suspect the gas leaves these little pipes with sod all resistance and Honda was happy with the airspeeds they got because if not it would have been very easy for them to have increased the size of them with no real other issues.

But they didn't. So I'm probably going to concentrate more on the length of them, keeping the pipes as equal as I can an look more deeply into what happens afterwards.

I'm super keen to hear lots of sage exhaust advice from other men in pubs though - if only to give more my mean average pile more height.

 

 

 

 

 

[yoeddynz]

So while I plan out what my induction and exhaust setup with consist of I thought it best to get the alternator sorted.

The goldwing engine originally had its alternator mounted off the back of the engine on a seperate casing now removed and driven via one of the many gears that resided within this casing between the engine and the clutch area.  That area is now taken up by the bellhousing I have built and the alternator has to go on the front of the engine (which now the back ? of the engine as it sits in the imp..) and be driven off a crankshaft pulley that does not exist.

This is what it looks like ..

That little round cover hides the main cambelt drive pulleys and has a belt guide plate marked with various timing marks for setting up the ignition..

Under that pressed steel disc resides the first of the pulleys.

Sandwiched between the pulleys is a 12 tooth trigger wheel - handy for my planned engine management on a six. I'll replace it with a 36-1 wheel though.

So I need to machine up a few bits to allow the crank to run a mini v belt pulley and drive the Honda alternator which I had picked up at the local wreckers will sit about here...

At another wreckers I found a pressed steel 5pk pulley from a power steering pump that was about the right diameter, had a flat mounting face and bolted in place with 4 little bolts. Ideal for my plan. I cut it down to suit a 3pk belt..

Then I popped a big lump of steel bar I luckily had left over from some other job into the lathe and machined up a hub with a locating extension on one side to match the inside of the cambelt pulley, of which which extends beyond the crankshaft nose by about 3mm. It drives , via a pin pushed into hub,  off the hole in the cambelt pulley, which is there to locate the original timing plate..

The other side of this hub I bored out as far as I could whilst still allowing enough meat to bolt the pulley on.

This hub then bolts onto the crankshaft, eccentrically located by the camshaft pulley and held fast by the crankbolt..

Then I machined an alloy 'plug' that fits snug into the bored out hub, machined on the end to centrally locate the steel pulley, rather then rely on the bolts..

And all lined up...

So now I have a front drive pulley. Yay.  Next up is making some sort of way to mount the alternator securely and not too ugly considering its going to be right there, centrally on view.

Starting the mount by making lots of little tiny bits of alloy to tread about the workshop with this tool...

I cut some strong alloy plate and mounted it to the top of the engine using several of the conveniently placed cast in mounting points scattered about the place on top of the engine. Thanks Honda

I had to add a support on the front, easily bolted to the cambelt housing. Now I had a place that the alternator brackets could be bolted to. I just made it up as I went along and machined bits and pieces until I had what I was looking for. I wanted it to look a mix of between sort of factory and sort of 'race car'.

I had lots of fun making more alloy swarf..

Of course I cut my plate too narrow...

Eventually I ended up with all these bits to piece together...

Together they made this..

But before I plonked the alternator in place I had to clean it. It looked horrid and had obviously resided in a Honda of some ilk with some serious oil leaks. It was also a bit corroded and things didn't want to pull apart too easily. I made a bespoke little bearing puller..

The filthy alloy castings came up nice with a petrol bath..

and even nicer with some wire brushing...

While it was apart I cleaned up the slip rings...

Painted the centre black. It will possibly be repainted in Imp blue at a later date, as a treat if the engine swap works out ok. Its just a look I quite like - call me 90s boy.

Bolted it all back together, complete with a new main bearing that I happened to have in stock (must be one of the most common bearings ever -35/15/10)

Then excitedly bolted it in place. My Honda goldwing now has a standard alternator mounted in a pretty normal fashion and it looks nice and neat...

With that sorted I can move onto making the cooling pipes and induction setup. I have still not fully made my mind up on what route I'll be taking here but I'll probably to bite the bullet and click buy now on a set of itbs so at least I have something to play with and go from there.

I need to find a set of suitable top feed injectors. Something around 200cc at a guess. The standard Honda goldwing 1800 items look like they'd be ok and pretty compact. I'll be making the mounting seats to suit, which I'll then weld in place on the stock intake runners. Fuel rail made to suit.

 

 

 

[yoeddynz]

Ooh its been a while. I have been tinkering away at this but other life things have popped up so this has not been high on my agenda. My dad, 89, went into hospital with pneumonia. Well he'll get looked after there.

Then he got covid in hospital. Bugger. Long story short he was on deaths door, pulled through with the aid of strong anti viral technology and great staff, slowly improved and is now in a home. His body is frail but his mind is strong. So I've been dealing with that.

Then Hannah and I got covid and it was not very fun. Being normally very fit out on the push bikes etc we have really noticed a huge loss in strength and lung efficiency. Getting better though.

So yeah.. this engine has been collecting dust. When I tested positive for covid I honestly thought I'd deal with it for a few days and then get heaps done on the engine while isolating. But my body had other ideas.

Anyway, I'm back onto it now. Quite a lot of photos to load up too.

Induction time. I have decided to make something from the existing inlet runners and use a central plenum chamber with a rear facing throttle body. Try to hide the TB and use a remote pod filter to draw in cool air from somewhere other than the top of the engine bay.  I have a some very funky ideas for my plenum design and have a particular look I'm chasing with the setup.  Looking forward to building that. But I need to sort out injection first.

Here are the stock runners, normally fed by two carbs that sit too high and would have fouled the rear parcel shelf...

Interestingly this engine has a neat feature in that the cylinder heads are identical as are the inlet runners. They could be swapped side to side. This was going to help with my modifications when setting up the mill etc.

in place..

Note the total lack of injector bosses..

First thing was to remove the (ugly) water jacket which was not going to be needed in my setup..

Much nicer looking and lighter too...

Lots of room for a suitable sized plenum..

Very nice smooth entries into the runners..

Now I needed to start looking at injector fitment. It has to be as neat and compact as possible. The spacing doesn't suit anything I could find so the rails will have to be custom. I decided against top feed injectors because they would be just too bulky. Side feed it was to be. I had a couple of ideas.

Bought another injector rail setup from a Nissan Micra K11 at the wreckers because the stock injectors have a very suitable rate (130cc) and are cheap and easy to get.

I also had a set of Mazda V6, as per fitted to my Viva, gifted to me by Steve @Transom

They were close and rather compact but it wasn't going to work without a lot of chopping and then the top caps with the wires set into the plastic would have been a pain to shorten and keep neat. Final nail for these was the injectors being just a bit high in flow rate (220cc) , running the risk of awkward tuning around idle on an engine with smaller fuel requirements.

K11 injectors it was. But the spacing is way off and they had ugly brackets all over them.

So I cut them up and ended up with just the injector housings and then played around with some 16mm tube and the mill. Bit of a test piece...

The fit was spot on..

Happy with that I welded two bits of tube onto a plate of steel and carefully milled the tubes, spaced to suit the inlet spacing...

a tidy up removing sharp edges with files and they came up neat..

I made a little jig to hold the injector housings onto the rail with the correct spacing so I could braze them in place..

Then out with the oxy acetylene and brazed them in place with silver solder. Note my sore nose where I had smacked it with a large branch when cleaning up a fallen tree. Hurty...

Now I have some side feed rails with the correct spacing

Next job was to create a place for them to fit. I needed to add some bosses to the inlet manifold and get the angle just right so the injectors would end up pointing as close to the back of the valve heads as possible. I cut up some chunks from a large bar of alloy. Then I milled them down to suit and tacked them in place...

Happy they were located correctly I fully welded them in place. The inlet casting was luckily of pretty decent quality and welded nice enough..

With them welded up and solid I could machine the bosses down in one hit, levelling them off at the correct angle and making sure the faces all lined up. I made a steel jig, set at the angle to suit (because my drill mill doesn't have an head adjustable for angle... oh how I'd love a larger knee mill)

Now I was able to carefully mark and drill out the injector holes, then spot face the O-ring seats..

In order to aid with with marking and checking them I machined up a little button that fitted perfectly into the injector holes...

Annoyingly (silly me) I marked to first hole off wrong by 1mm and by the time I was at the last boss on that side I had to add some weld to make sure there was enough meat to house the O-ring...

I learned something and didn't repeat the mistake on the other side

Now I had injector bosses and the holes were pointing in the right place..

I have to hold them down in place though. So I made up some little steel bolt bosses..

Brazed them in place..

Machined up some bits of alloy, tapped out to suit the bolts and some spacers for between. Made a little clamp thingee to hold the injector rails in place along with some alloy O-rings (because well.. the rubber ones would probably have melted when I was welding) 

Pics explain it fine..

Phew. That's that! Up to date now. Next thing is to design and build the plenum chamber. I'm going to have some fun with this bit. It's not going to be simple because I have a certain look I want along with a fun idea I have in mind.

 

 

 

 

 

[yoeddynz]

Ok so I'm going split this next update up into a couple of posts spread apart because there's just too much to put up.

First off - the project and general life stuff was sort of put on hold for a while because sadly my Dad died about 3 weeks ago. I've been a bit over the place dealing with stuff and family things. I have not said anything about it except to a few friends but I wanted to mention it here now, not because I'm looking for sympathy but just to say what a cool old fella Dad was and in his memory I could pop up a few things I have learned over time more recently about the engineering history that's in my blood. Some of it is pretty neat I reckon and I thought I'd pop it up here.

My great grandfather, Alex Davidson and my grandfather, James Davidson, both worked at Argyll works in Scotland. Dad had written a letter to the NZ vintage car magazine, Beaded wheels, a few years ago about this along with some letters from Alex about his time at Argyll. I won't post it all up but here's the letter from my dad.

My great uncle Alexander Davidson was also an apprentice at Argyll but left after qualifying in his trade to join the Royal airforce. He went on to become Air vice marshell, served in both wars and eventually became director general of organisation. This was a pretty cool thing to find out. I have done some digging and found out more about him here..

https://www.rafweb.org/Biographies/Davidson_AP.htm

So in the last 2 months, going back and forth to see dad, finding out a few more bits of info about his past and dealing with his eventual downturn in health I have to say that other things like work, social outings, this project etc have been last on my mind. But I'm back into it. I had always wished that Dad might have got to go for a drive in the imp with the flat six but that just wasn't to be. Such is life. But at least he knew I was doing the project and he had knew full well that one of his sons was following in the Davidson footsteps of being a total engineer/petrol head

Dad was a good dude. I miss him and its a case of the the often heard thing - I wish I had spent more time with him and gained more insight into his past.

He was also very athletic. Must be where I got it from..

Its also neat that I have fallen for a wee Scottish car after all those years (although Dads last cars, and those of his Brother Jim who was a motor engineer, have mainly been Datsuns - but hey, there's a connection there too)

Here's dad in the last imp outing he had..

Yeah. So that happened.  Back into it now, along with catching up on a huge list of (very patient) customers jobs.

Now where was I ?

Inlet stuff. I had some nice runners set up with some injectors. They looked like this when on the engine..

Now a while ago the very kind Chris @chris r sent me this package of delights. I'd only asked for an old Honda throttle body but look what I got...

Wow. The random framed cat picture was really the icing on the cake!  As for the super charger pulley, well I'm not sure what he might have been hinting at there. Anyway- now I had a 55mm throttle body that was just a bit more in butterfly surface area than the original twin honda items and was pretty compact. It would possibly sit about here, where I had roughly planned (because I was sort of making this up as I went along, with a few sketches that you might get to see later)...

inlet pointing this way? maybe? not sure...

Now I had to start building the inlet runners towards the centre and make some flanges to join to a plenum. I welded some bits of 3mm alloy plate cut roughly to size.

On the inside too. Awkward getting in there at the right angle. Guess where I touched the tungsten..

Now this plate was some random plate we got from a friend who imports all sorts of engineering stuff and timber, old caravan bases etc from Germany. Much of it comes from scrap a scrap metal dealer there because its amazing what they scrap there that is still of good value here. I have used some of it for a few jobs here and there but shouldn't really have used it on this because its a very very hard alloy and it cracks quite easily. I welded the bits in and even though I had pre-heated the inlets to reduce localised stress one of the weld zones still cracked. Suspect the wrong filler used too. Mostly I weld 5000 series and use appropriate rods but this is probably 7000. Silly me. You'll see that this created a bit of extra work later on for me.

Anyway- I sorted the crack out and continued on. Cut the bit down..

Milled it square in the jig I still had left set up on the mill so everything with the inlet runners/plenum build that has to be will be square and parallel..

then I cut some flanges out (6mm thick normal, not poncy, alloy)

Drilled them in pairs, spot facing and tapping bits as I went..

I'd bought a load of shiny stainless dome head socket screws and it was playtime assembling things at the bench..

Nice place to be for me at this time. Focus on something and enjoy the ambience. Fire going, music playing and many cups of coffee etc...

So now I had some flanges that matched I welded one half of each onto the runners...

Great!!! I'm getting somewhere. Bolted the runners up and had a look.

  Oh curse word!!!! What have I done here? Some things not right.  I'd gone and forgotten that the runners are offset to each other by about 15mm or thereabouts.  I could try and work around it when I make the plenum but it'll just get messy and not look right. So I had to cut some little bits of alloy up...

welded them in place..

...and accepted the fact that the bolts are not symmetrical at each end any more. But they are still pretty shiny s/s bolts so there.

Then I cut some alloy up in the table saw and milled them out like this...

The reason why will become known next time I post.

So that throttle body. Well it turns out that facing it sideways wasn't the neatest way I do it. I was going to have to use a very tight alloy bend to make it work and the TB would have sat at a really awkward angle in two planes.  Also, a big also... the engine would not have been symmetrical !

I sussed out a neater way to place it that will also allow for a nicer path of flexible pipe to feed it from the remote filter. Now I had a plan I could make more things. I cut a out a bit of that aforementioned 3mm plate and made a rectangular hole in it, a bit larger in surface area than the 55mm TB. I then cut some lobster sections from some 60mm tube and pieced together a transitional bit of tubework that would connect the round hole to the rectangle hole from underneath. This is to allow the runners to draw their required air from the centre, evenly like with no favouritism.

Well it works like this in my brain so I'm running with it.

I put the 4 jaw chuck onto the lathe and I threw a chunky bit of 8mm plate into it. Drilled a big hole and bored it out to suit the TB..

Drilled and tapped some holes and cut it closer to the shape of the TB flange. It will eventually be welded onto the pipe..

Then I had a sleepless night thinking about that 3mm plate. Will it crack down the line?.. as yet, until the engine is run up to temp over a few cycles I won't no how much it might expand and will there be enough heat soak and flexibility with what I am building to allow for expansion. Phew ! Yep - some thinking gets done about this as I try to sleep.

It played on my mind. So in order to sleep easier I bought some bog standard softer 3mm plate and this happened..

Cleaned up and re-welded onto the new bit of plate..

And that is about where I am up to with the inlet so far. I'm pretty happy with the progress given some mistakes etc.

In other Imp news.. I finally got my new screen in place! Its been 5 months since I last drove the car, which was when a stone had decided to leave someone's tyre and make a bid for my cars interior.  5 months is the longest I've not driven the car since getting it on the road. But hey, it was safely stashed away in a very dry garage over a wet winter and I've had plenty of other things to do.

Screen fitted , a quick test drive to the beach. Its so fun to drive. I'd forgotten how nice it was.

  Time for a warrant of fitness test. But I first had to sort out a number plate light. One that was hidden away and reliable. I made use of a couple of neat little sealed leds, 10mm in diameter, and placed them in some alloy. This was bolted to a stainless mount that I glued to the inside of the fibreglass engine cover. I ran the wires up the edge of the lid to hide them as best I could. Pics..

Finished the wiring yesterday morning in the comfort of the new garage. Very handy..

Took it for a wof and its now legal again

Hopefully back soon with more updates.

Alex

[yoeddynz]

I've finally finished the inlet plenum (although I want to add some paint/tidy some bits) and I'm pretty stoked with it.
The end result is a bit of fun. Just mucking about after I had some ideas pop into my head and wouldn't leave. I had to do it.

So where I left off last time I had made the base of the plenum which I continued on piecing together, changing some ideas and sussing out construction issues as I went along while keeping the design close to some original drawings that I'd done while visiting my parents.

Building the box...

made some stainless trims to smooth flow out of the rectangular hole feeding the plenum and also hide interior welds...

Tubey bit sticks up facing towards the front of the car...

Boxy bits getting tacked together. Welded on the inside too. Enough tacks and welds that it would hold fast and not 'pull' when the outside welds were added

Tacked together bits getting welded on the outside...

Stumpy elephant trunk... (it could be described worse)

Back to milling bits of alloy...

Making these bits..

Which were then very, very carefully bent to suit the curved lid of the plenum...

Drilled and tapped to suit the plenum body...

Lid fits nicely onto the body, sealed with high density foam and held in place with dome headed socket screws.

Then the throttle body flange needed welding on. I took my time so nothing warped but luckily it was pretty thick ally anyway. Tacks then welding. Added another layer so I could file it down flat and have a good sealing area. In pics..

Next thing to make was a little curved bit of alloy that would surround a bit of acrylic. I started with some small section alloy capping and milled it down..

It had to be bent in 2 planes. Out with the shrinker stretcher which luckily did almost all of what I needed, the rest being finished in a vice with hammers and pliers.

Turned out like this...

I got some 5mm acrylic and cut it to the right size. I made a form from two bits of alloy, shaped to the same curvature as the lid. Out with the heat gun...

Setting the forms and squeezing together...

Checking the curves formed are correct ..

Pretty good matches the alloy rim...

Drilled some holes in the alloy and through the acrylic (carefully.....! ) which as I predicted was tricky next to the edge and I ended up splitting a couple of the trial domes. So I made this little tool, using a bit of steel I machined to a point and one of the little wooden handles I had made ages ago for wood burners we make. Heated the point up with the oxyset and pushed it through smaller pilot holes drilled...

Around the same time as I was playing with bits of plastic some leds with a controller that I'd bought online turned up. I chopped them up and reconfigured bits to suit the underside of the lid. Tiny little solder pads on these.  I checked they worked...

A hole was cut in the plenum lid to suit the acrylic and alloy rim, which was then bolted in place with little socket head screws, again sealed with foam.

Neat.

Now I could look inside.

Then I stuck those led lights to the underside of the lid.

This was all needed because these little treats turned up a while back after I first had the ideas pop into my head. (thanks Ali express)...

Lego fun..

The detail...

I glued the Mandos so they'd never come apart.

They got screwed and glued onto a little section of alloy. I cut a section bit mirror to size and stuck it to the back wall.  Then the Mandos were bolted into their new forever spaceship home complete with some signage ...

Zooming out from the front of the spaceship/engine...

Plenum sits nice and low...

I did a little video for fun. I couldn't resist...

 

Fun is over. I now have to crack on with boring water pipes and exhaust manifold building (I must order some stainless bends!!!!)

But yeah- I'm pretty happy with what I have just made. A bit of silly fun I know but hey- I'm not a very serious person

I'll really enjoy seeing the response the 'Mandalorian spaceship' gets from the more serious type of enthusiasts at car shows in the future.  I hope it works out for me and this is a thing that happens.

[yoeddynz]

Inlet fun over and time to move on to some other jobs. First off was to start on the pipework for the cooling. Like I mentioned a while back the heads are symmetrical and each has a outlet for the hot coolant. So one ends up at the front and one at the back.

Here's the back one...

Both just visible in this shot...

On the bike these were plumbed so they joined up near the middle and went into a thermostat housing and from there to the radiator. But I will be running an electric pump behind the engine so that's where these outlets have to be plumbed towards. I started on the front outlet. I gathered together the bits of pipework from the bike setup..

I chopped them up and using bits and pieces I welded together a pipe for the front. They are very thin- about 1mm so it was a tricky one for my tig skills but I did ok. I'll probably paint them and that'll hide the lumps

Pipe went like this...

Holes = whoops..

Bracket..

And that was all I could do for now as I had used up what bits of the old bends I could. I have ordered some 22mm bends from Aliexpress and so I wait.

Better start sussing out the injection gubbins then. I went into the store room and dug out the box labelled 'electronics' and another full of various sensors I'd been collecting. Blew the dust off them and sort of like xmas day I carefully removed all the goodies within. Laid them out on the work table and this is what I had...

The brains of it all is a second hand Megasquirt 3 with the expansion board. Apart from the faster processor, SD card slot, loads more ins and outs, canbus etc etc it also allows for fully sequential injection. I'll need to change some of the jumper wiring because its setup for a stepper idle valve and a hall sensor on the crank but otherwise its all good.

I have a few VR and hall sensors to try out..

Temp sensors ...

First thing was to plug in my megastim and power it up then test the ecu out. Its all working fine. Its been ages since I have used tunerstudio. Not used it since I sold my Viva.

Now time to start on setting up sensors to suit. Starting with the crank sensor. The Goldwing came fitted with a 12-1 trigger wheel and two VR sensors (called pulse generators in bike world) to run the ignition module...

I could have just kept the trigger wheel as is but for better resolution on a full engine management setup it makes sense to go for at least a 36-1 trigger wheel. I knew there would be nothing available even close to fitting my needs so I made one in much the same way as I did for the Viva.

I cut out a disc with the plasma cutter..

Cleaned it up in the lathe and drilled/machined out the bore, ensuring it was perfectly concentric to the bore. The VR sensor needs to have no more than about .020" clearance.

Made a jig for the drill and using the original trigger wheel I was able to mark out the teeth.

I set the jig up with a locator bolt so I was able to turn the wheel one tooth at a time and drill it and then repeat...

Then I carefully cut out up to the holes, gave it a tickle with a file and I had my trigger wheel. I have yet to remove the 'missing tooth' or tig in a nib in the centre that keys to the crankshaft. I'll sort that later.

Now I had to sort out my second sensor wheel, for the cam or 'home' signal. This will be a single tooth or maybe a half moon. I'm not sure and have yet to work out what's best. The MS manual suggests a half moon type (like one long tooth). Other OEM setups just have a single small tooth. Either way I need a sensor to be mounted near one of the cam pulleys.

What seems to be recommended as the better option for the home signal is a hall sensor due to the fact that the camshaft spins at half the speed of the crank and when the engine is being turned over at startup it could potentially be quite a low speed. So low that a VR sensor might not be able to produce enough of a pulse for the ECU.

I had played around with a couple of VR sensors out of interest to see if they might fit in place but everything I had was too bulky or the wrong shape to fit under the cambelt cover...

Anyway- they were VR sensors and not what I wanted. I looked about on googleworld and found a couple of hall sensors that looked like they might work.

Another trip to my local wreckers was called for. I rummaged about in various engine bays and found what I was after in a 2003 Peugeot 307. It was ideal! I grabbed the plug with a length of wire attached. Once home I whipped up a bracket from some thick walled alloy angle, a hacksaw and file and had the sensor fitting where I wanted it.

Once I have decided what type of toothed wheel shape to make I'll be sorting that out.

After all this I stripped the whole engine down and removed the crank...

The next day Hannah and I took the imp for a hoon and visited the big smoke, Nelson city, to do some shopping. I'm now sussing out where to get my crankshaft balanced up - without a doubt this is one job that has to be done.

Imp looked great against the blue sky along the promenade in Nelson ...

 

 

[yoeddynz]

Slow progress is progress nonetheless. I have made the sensible decision not to stress out and try to get this engine swap in for oldschool nats. That was a big carrot to aim for but its not realistic now. There are far too many other jobs going on with our landscaping etc plus several family members are coming to stay over the next couple of months and we both want to enjoy some holiday time.

I think the main reason though is that I know how stressy its can be trying to rush a project and suddenly the fun has gone and corners start to get cut. If I take my time and work on it when I really want to then it'll be better for it.

All that aside- I have still been plugging away on it and today it rained all day so I had no excuse but to stay inside and finish off a long tedious, but satisfying, part of the conversion. The exhaust headers.

But before I delve into that part there's some other bits that have happened.

I blew the dust off my bank card and bought an spendy shiny part of the project.

Yay. I got it while they were still on sale and it can now sit in the store room to collect some dust.

Another thing that I had to spend some money on, as mentioned in the last update, was to get this lot balanced..

I made some inquiries about and found an outfit very well recommended by many down in Christchurch way - engine reconditioning services.  The owner Evan was very helpful and managed to fit the job in to suit my brothers trip south - saving plenty on postage!

I whipped up some sturdy wooden boxes to suit and away they went.

A couple of weeks later my brother returned them to me with a properly balanced assembly.

They'll stay stashed away safe until I can assemble the crankcase- which really is just waiting on me to give the pistons a clean and make some custom ring compressors similar to the honda items for assembly of the two halves. More on that later.

Back to that exhaust thing. I looked at various options for how to go about making some headers with compact enough bends to suit. Kept coming back to getting some bends and piecing them together bit by bit. I decided that with the tighter bends I knew I'd end up with that I would go up one size, 28mm,  on the header tube diameter to help keep the flow nice.

The maths works in my head so I'll go with it. Really all I need to do is get the hot stuff out of the heads and out the back.

Priced up various bends within all the NZ suppliers I could find. Horrendous prices. Did an order through Ali express for a load of stainless bends of which arrived 10 days later -  a nice surprise.

They'll do fine.

Plasma cut some flanges to suit a jig I was going to make - exactly like I did on my Viva V6.

Machined a little sleeve so my holesaw would take a tiny drill bit.

Then I made lots of holes.

The bits that the holes gave up (wooden marshmellows) were pushed onto equal lengths of tig rod which had been welded to the centre of each exhaust outlet area on the flanges. I was then able to bend them to suit and mock up my exhaust header runs. From what I have read it was not strictly needed to try and match the primary lengths on a flat six as there is nothing really to be gained. But it cant hurt to keep them matched so that's what I did.  I wanted them tucked up away with no chance they can get smacked on anything and made sure I could get to the oil filter easily.

Now I knew what I was going to build I had to copy them with this lot..

I cut the remaining stubs off the old header flanges and tacked in some short bits of stainless tube..

I started to tig them in but the steel on the flanges was really odd and did not tig weld at all nicely. The arc was all over the place. Maybe magnetic? What ever it was it had me stumped. I ended up mig welding them - heaps of weld which I then ground down with a flap disc.

Now onto building the runners up. This is the first time I have made any headers from stainless steel and I wasn't going to take any chances with oxygen affecting the back of the welds ('sugaring') so leading to potential weakness or cracking. So I would have to purge the inside of the tubes with argon. I didn't have a suitable purging setup and buying the bits was a bit too spendy for my liking. Instead I rummaged through my box of old brass fittings...

dug out an old argon regulator and removed one gauge. Bought some vinyl tube ($7 ...big spender) and cobbled together something..

I needed something to plug the tube ends quickly and easily. I'd seen many people using tinfoil but it looked awkward and leak prone. I made a mold using a bit of tube the next size up, a bit of wood, a bit of copper tube and some grease.

Filled it with budget bathroom silicone sealant. out popped some plugs which I shaped to a taper in the lathe with a flap disc. Hey presto- heat resistant tube plugs...

Tee'd a line off the main feed to the welder. It worked a treat. I'd set the main regulator on the bottle to flow a bit more and then set the extra reg to flow just enough. I would then set the actual flow rate through the tube using the little brass tap so I could just hear the gas flow through the tube..

I was very happy with the way the welds on the inside of the tubes stayed so smooth and clean. No yucky porous flaky crystalised welds.

But there was nothing I could do about the appearance of my welds on the outside. I really can't make any excuses - I'm just not not experienced enough at welding stainless tube. So my welds here I shall call functional. I'm not even going to bother trying to clean them up. All I wanted was decent penetration and strength.

My welding did improve over the duration of building these. There were glimmers of neatness...

I had to use a foot pedal again- something I had stopped using years ago because its a hassle when building awkward furniture, kitchen framework jobs etc - which is the most common thing I use the DC for.  I got used to the pedal again and started spotting where I was going wrong. Mainly my speed and feed technique required  was too slow-  (the tube I'd bought was 1.2mm - a bit thin perhaps but all I could find in this diameter). I bought a bigger shroud for my gas lens which helped too.

So yeah - I'm afraid there will be no welding porn with these headers. I will cunningly take my photos from a distance

I got tired early on of trying to hold bits of tube awkwardly in the vise to weld them so I built this little tool..

and bits of wood turned down to locate tubes to bends for mocking purposes..

plus a jig on each side to build towards and make sure the ends align with where I wanted them to head..

things took shape and I enjoyed the process...

Finally today I finished the last bits. I will now have to make up a couple of reducers/collectors to suit. They will feed into a V band flange, then a flexy joint on each side, then straight back to a large silencer assembly mounted across the back, pretty much like an early 911 has.

For now though I'm just very happy to have some headers built that from a metre away look quite fancy ...

They sit nicely on the engine. I'm not sure if I'll use any heat wrap as I have always done in the past - I'm a big fan of it (opens up a pub debate..)   I'll have to see how they go.

Next thing to look at is finishing the water pipes. I'd also bought some smaller stainless bends for that but now realise I'd not bought enough. Ho hum.

Maybe I'll find some under the xmas tree (red and white striped ones)

 

 

 

 

[yoeddynz]

Well there goes 5 months.

Ha.

I've been too busy doing the summer things, entertaining guests, lots of cycling, loads of swimming and some hiking.

But I have still been whittling away on this engine. I'd love to have done more but like I think I said in a previous post - I only really want to do it when I can properly relax and enjoy the process. Plus summer has continued on quite nicely here - it's really only just become late summer   However there has been a few chilly evenings and some decent rain had recently which makes for perfect tinkering time.

So where I left off was some water pipe work. I needed to build some pipes to get the cold water into the heads. The original goldwing water pump used to reside about the middle of the engine at the front (now the back..) and feed straight out into a rubber hose that split the flow equally up into the heads. But I'm now bringing the water from the front mounted radiator, via the electric pump, along the side of the engine and up into the heads. I'm going to use the original steel pipes that go into the heads.

I chopped the bends off the ends of the old hose, fitted them onto some stainless tube like this..

Now I needed to feed that pipe evenly. I cut a hole in it and squeezed the end of a stainless elbow to suit..

Mitred the end to suit..

Welded it in place..

Then continued the pipe work so it made its way around the block. I've kept it tucked away so its not out on view too much when looking into the engine bay- for a cleaner look. I'll continue the rest of the pipework later on and brace it off a mount further back. Possibly add a little heat shield where it runs close to the exhaust headers although I don't really think the water will absorb up much heat from them. But just in case..

While I was doing the summer things I had some bits turn up from China. Some nice connectors for the engine loom. My hope is to have a setup that really easily connects with just a couple of main plugs. Time will tell on that but these will certainly help.

Another parcel - more goodies..

Yay. I can continue on with the exhaust work. I need to form some 3 into 1 collectors to suit. But I need a press.

Then a customers job that was in also needed a press. A Hiace van in which I was rebuilding the front suspension and new bushes had to be pressed into place.  So I built a press. We had plenty of steel in the rack left over from customers jobs and an old 12 ton bottle jack so the only thing I had to buy was a pair of springs. I made the press nice and tall to suit my height and allow for long jobs in the future.

Press in action on hiace arms..

I painted it a nice grey.

I machined up a stub and a couple of different ends to suit. Over time I'll be sure to accumulate many different bits to use.

Now I've been using it I wish I'd built one ages ago!!!

So back to the exhaust. I made a form with some pipe offcuts. 3 into 1.

It worked but I just felt the angle was to sharp a transition.

Version two, on the right, next to version one...

Worked well but getting near the end of the forming it started to collapse...

This surprised me. I was expecting the stainless tube to split. The form deformed so much that I couldn't get the last bit of flare I needed.

Roll on version three...

This one I reinforced..

It worked a treat. Much better..

Back into the press and I applied some heat and hit it with a hammer...

Which created this...

Now to fuse these collectors onto the headers. I filled in the middle hole between the tubes with a teeny little triangle of stainless. Then with more little triangles I filled up the gaps where I couldnt get the collectors formed close enough.

That's where I'm at now. I added the filling triangles to both headers and will carefully flap disc them neatly so they match the collectors as well as I can so making for an easier time welding. I know the welding wont be flash.  Functional - not artisan.. but I'll just be happy to get to that point because its like a big part of the build to check off.

I promise I shall do my best to get more time in on this build from now on.

however -  I do have this shiny Scott CR1 road frame that I've just painted to build up and ride before winter turns up...

 

Alex

 

 

 

 

 

[yoeddynz]

Eh? Another update so soon?!

Yep. I thought I'd better add some general 'classic car actually getting used' photos because it does actually get hooned about quite a lot.

For example - I hooned all the way to the oldschool '23 Nats.  A huge distance for this little car @ around 5km this year   Quite handy having the Nats on our doorstep this year.  A great weekend of catching up with loads of good mates and checking out some cool cars/eating food/fine ales etc. I didn't actually take many pics of the event full stop let alone the Imp so here's a smattering..

A sports car and a Jag...

Had a good time racing over the Takaka hill on the way back from the Saturdays cruise to Golden bay with that Jag. I don't think the Jag Six was needing to put in as much effort as my little Datsun 1200 was up the hill Good solid fun trashing little engines.

Other O.S cars at the lunchtime stop in the bay...

On the way back, stopping for the most unlikely car to breakdown, a Corolla - did just that again...

 As well as going to Nats this summer has seen the Imp doing many trips to various beaches in our bay. It makes for a pretty fun  and cheap way to get around all the little roads here.

general lurking...

Spotted the Bedford CF I played a major part in building a few years ago - the van sits atop a full Falcon running gear and suspension. I never realised quite how similar the paint colour is to my Imp...

A big change this past year that's been just so good for the car is it having its own garage to reside in. Throughout the hottest days this summer its been out of the sun and kept clean - free of the usual pine pollen we get, then the dust from the yard. Its super dry in there and makes it more of an event to 'take the Imp'.

Plus it just looks so perfect in there ....

The bikes are safe and dry too. Wonderful not having all of that car, bikes and other stuff in the main engineering workshop!

Oh also this summer I spotted the perfect picnic set for the Imp (although possibly a tad too heavy/bulky..)

So yeah - the car has been used plenty over the summer even though I've not done so much on the flat six and I think this helps me keep enthused about the Imp in general. Its well worthy of a better heart.

So back to that heart. Continuing on from the last post I had the collectors in the shape I wanted and after a bit of careful trimming with the flapdisc I had them fitting close enough that I wasn't going to have to fill any large gaps with filler rod. I took my time welding them, trying to not blow through and they turned out fine...

With those in place I was able to weld the engine side of V clamps in place.  I bolted the engine cross member in place and double checked the clearances.  It was still lining up good so on with the weldiing.  Very carefully too, with lots of tacks first because I had read that V clamps can easily warp if the welding is too hot, slow, uneven etc. Luckily I must have been careful enough because they stayed flat and true

Next up is the oil filler placement. I really want to get this in the right spot, not just for the function but the looks. It'll be right there on display, doing its best to upset the symmetry of the horizontally opposed engine.   I decided I needed to get another idea of what's on display when the lower half of the engine is 'hidden' behind the rear valance. The top bit of this alloy box section is pretty much where the top of the valance will be (slam panel?)

The filler will have to come up to the left at a slight angle because there's no way its going to sit in front of the main pulley. I'm not yet set on the height of the filler cap but for now that can wait. There will be plenty of room in that area. I'm still going to use the extra pair of flanges I machined up when I made the filler plug. These will allow me to unbolt the vertical part of the filler tube so I can easily remove the cam belt cover. I also don't really want the tube poking up in the way, waiting to get knocked while I move the engine about the workshop or while fitting it etc

So yeah- I think I'll machine the front plate to suit the base flange, mount that, weld the lower bits of tube to suit and leave deciding the final height of the top half of the filler tube till later on when the engine is in place

[yoeddynz]

Since the last update there has been some progress.  Its good when I get stuck in on a particular part but often I end up doing a little bit here on one thing and then a bit on something else and find I often finish up without feeling like there's been any real progress.  But I think this is just the nature of this sort of build. The hardest parts are done and while I feel like I'm nearing the end of the 'project tunnel' there is still a load of small bits to do.

I think I'll do the white board thing. Write down all the jobs remaining and start sussing out a plan of attack.

Or put the kettle on and watch cat videos on instagram instead.

But hey- progress is progress no matter how small. Plus Hannah is going to leave me alone for 3 weeks while she takes off to the UK to see her family. So apart from having to feed our cat child I'll pretty much be a free man and can spend as much time as I want working on the engine.

Or watching more cat vids and riding my bikes.

Anyway.  Oil filler. I drilled holes, tapped holes and mounted the base part in place..

I cut a 45 degree angle on two bits of tube, welded them and created the horizontal part..

Then drilled and tapped the flanges for the upright. I have left the final height decision for now. It'll be better to decide on that when the engine is sitting in place. My gut feeling is that I'll have the cap set a lot lower because there's plenty of room to get a oil bottle/funnel in there for filling. I have marked a line on the upright so you can get an idea of where the oil height sits...

I have a couple of nifty/silly ideas for the filler tube upright and checking the oil level. I'll play around with those ideas later on when the engine is in place and I've completed more of the harder jobs - like driveshafts and gear shift rod etc.  It'll be a treat.

Next thing is to finish the top two water pipes that leave the heads. I had already made the front one some time ago and was about to start the rear one yesterday when I spotted an error I had made. The front pipe I had cobbled together and bolted in place..

Which pushes into the head as such...

But I discovered when I looked into the hole that the land within the bore only goes in 10mm before it opens right out. I thought it was a longer land and as it is now the position of my pipe sits when bolted in place has the O-ring sitting right on the very edge - not in the middle.  You can see where the factory pipes placed the O-ring in the middle with a visible mark evident here...

I could easily move the bracket or weld up and re-drill the hole. Its only out by 3mm. But I'm not very happy with the look of the pipe - which I had made up out of bits of the thin old steel pipes. It's quite visible right there on display on the top of the engine even when the inlet and alternator are plonked in place..

Potential corrosion points too. I was going to paint them black but I think I'll make new stainless ones - easy now I have some proper stainless bends.

Another thing I had done to the engine a while back was to cut a load of the castings down, including  removal of most the original engine mounts. It really cleaned the look of the engine up.  Last night I realised I could removed some more ugly. The little tube fittings left over from the exhaust air injection emissions system. You can see them here next to the inlet ports..

They pull out, sealed by o-rings.

The holes left go down through the end of the heads and feed into passage ways that feed into the exhaust ports. None of this system is needed and its just extra mess.

I have a couple of ideas on how I could seal up the holes neatly.  One idea involves tapping out the holes with a suitable tap and screwing in some bungs and this meant opening up the magical workshop portal...

into the world of stuff that I really don't like to have out cluttering up the workshop..

I have this old barry spec set of little drawers that my uncle gave me filled with all sorts of specialist taps...

This one, a BSB (British standard brass) looks ideal.

But before I start making more mess with taps and machining up plugs I have another idea that will probably turn out neater.

Speaking of trying to make things neater.  The original paint on the engine is pretty shot. I was thinking of getting it vapour blasted but I reckon the bare alloy finish left will just end up flashing off with corrosion in time - especially in the Imp where the low pressure zone tends to pull dust and moisture in over the rear mounted engine.

Plus I'm a bit wary about the idea of anyone going near the engine with blasting equipment, leaving sand everywhere.

  I think painting the block might be a better idea. A light grey similar to the original colour.

More to think about anyway.