Thursday 13 September 2012

Tank Straps

Couple of strips of steel, splash of paint, and some edge trim.  Job done!



Sunday 2 September 2012

First Drive! (sort of)

Last weekend I managed to get the roadster moving under her own steam!
I went all the way down the drive, then all the way back again :)
Didn't dare going futher than that as my brakes don't work yet!


Here's some pics of her blinking in the day light:






Propshaft

Propshaft was shortened by Bailey Morris down the road in St Neots.
Did a great job, and even painted it, which I hadn't expected!



Exhaust System

End can was hand made by Simmi Performance, and a damn fine job they did of it too!
Exhaust tube was a couple of 90 degree bends from the bins at work.
Welded one to the MX5 down pipe flange, and the other to that.
The can just slips over and clamps on.
The can came with a hanger strap, which I've mounted to a length of 3mm steel using a pair of 'half-moon' exhaust rubbers.  The steel just bolts to the floor of the chassis.






Intake System

Couldn't easily get the massive plastic intake piping and airbox off the MX5 to fit, so I junked it all!
The airbox is a second hand carbon dynamics one supplied by my good friend Pete at work.

The tubing is all ASH silicon hose.

Still need to add a cold air feed into the airbox at some point.



Cooling System

Header tank is off an Polo.
Hoses are mostly ASH silicone one.  32mm for the big ones and 15mm for the heater ones.
I suspect I would have been better off using 30mm, as I've been having a nightmare getting the 32mm hoses to seal on the engine and radiator...





I've changed it around a little since these pics were taken, but this is more or less how I've routed it all.

EDIT:
I originally planned to block off the small outlet on the top of the polo radiator.
I also assumed the small outlet on the top of the expansion bottle was an over-pressure overflow.
It turns out it's not, so I decided to connect small outlet on the top of the radiator to it (which I think is how it's done in the Polo).
I used some left over copper pipe and hose from my fuel set-up and routed it down the left hand side of the engine bay:











Throttle Cable

The original MX5 throttle cable was a bit too short really, so I replaced it with a Sytec Universal one.

To prevent it clashing with the bonnet, I moved the bracket futher down the manifold by drilling/tapping a new hole.

To link it to the pedal I used a 'classis' trials bike brake clevis (sold on ebay for use on BSA/Norton/Triumph/etc.)





Fuel Pump and Filters


Here's some pics of how I've mounted my fuel pump and filters.
The pump is a cheapo ebay one.
The pre-filter is a mesh type to catch any swarf from my tank, and the main filter is a TKF516 (used on loads of cars from a 0.9l Cinquecento to a 4.2l A6).