Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 In the spirit of Mojo building, (and hoping it might prod some of those with "proper" build threads back to life ), I thought I'd post up my feeble attempts at improving the car over the last half of 2011. (Obviously, I have prepared the concrete bunker so I can run and hide, as I suspect the biggest change probably goes completely against the conventional wisdom around here. ) First off, a picy of the car before near the start! Built around 2004/5 aeroscreened from the get go with a few upgrades over the years to engine and dash (Thanks to Mickmade and Race Technology) The standard Westfield/VDO dash was replaced with this, three or four years ago. Runs to hide in bunker... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 The snack food stand is now open... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterg Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Hmm, just needs a full cage, half doors and some decent seats and it'd look just about perfect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . oh apart from that dashboard of course Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 I built the car originally as more of a basic, though not completely stripped out, track/road car. And aside from a brief break when I couldn't use it for a year or so, it racked up many enjoyable miles locally and on a few Speed Series events. (Which saw a whole raft of engine mods and a Quaife Pro 'box go in). This last year though, I started to get itchy feet for something a little different, (it'd always been at the back of my mind), but a trip to Stoneleigh - in the car, in the Manchester Convoy really made me think. Followed not long later by a weekend trip with a bunch of other Westies and an, ahem Elise into the wilds of Wales visiting Portmerion and the Evo Triangle over a couple of days convinced me. Heresy I know, but I was just tired of the Aeroscreen and the whole rigmarole that went with it on the public road. Especially when traveling in a group of other cars. I know it's not exactly a fast get-away at the best of times, but the extra fitting of ear plugs, glasses off, helmet on try to get glasses back on again, while everyones waiting, plus the "barrier" of being lidded up while being in the group... ...it's no good, I needed a windscreen So while keeping an eye out for a secondhand screen/wipers etc. I decided to make a start on the other mods to turn the car into a slightly more user friendly "medium core" tourer First off was to sort out a couple of (very) intermittent cooling issues. The engine is a reasonably high spec C20XE, (though stops short of full race spec) and I've noticed a few times that once it had been used hard for a reasonably long period of time and the whole engine was thoroughly heat soaked, it started to struggle to keep the temperature down. Secondly, once it was above a certain speed, say 65 mph the cooling system would become significantly more inefficient. Testing showed a large part of this seemed to be the air in front of the rad itself partially, almost stalling; with most of the airflow disappearing around the sides of the rad in the gap between the nose cone. This happened a couple of times over the years, but was obvious on the Stoneleigh run, which was just long enough on the Motorway to see the temps start to slowly inch up, but not long enough to see them get to a serious level. A few have simply blocked the gap, but having seen how the factory does it on the Aerorace cars, I decided to get a set of their ducting. This is a simple aluminum affair that bolts to the front of the Polo rad. (Sorry, no photos of it fitted to the original Polo rad ) This alone was really effective. At motorway speeds it not only got rid of the upwards temperature creep, it actually pulled the temperatures down by an average of about 4° I still had the nagging thought at the back of my mind though about that sort of long term hot running issue - the trackday sort of thing. So, as I'd been doing a lot of junk clearing via ebay, I decided to turn some of it, as if by magic into a shiny new Radtec Polo rad. (OK, I'll admit it, it was also so shinyyyyy :cool: ) You can see the Radtec in place above. There's another thread on the go at the moment about mounting these things; now I know plenty of people have hard mounted them with no issues. But, especially over on the darkside, where they seem to be a very common upgrade, (though it's not the Polo version), there have been quite a lot of issues with the welded aluminium type rads weeping at the welds after a while when rigidly bolted in. So as the whole point was to make a more reliable car happy to blat into deepest Wales or furthest Scotland, without worrying so much about poor roads etc. I decided to rubber mount it. A hunt through the RS catalogue produced some handy little rubber bobbins, that were highly rated in shear. (Important, as the rad would "hang" off them, and a lot of these bobbins are rated in compression with the load "sat" on them.) As you can see, this moved the ducting a little bit further out into the nose, (the Radtec was slightly deeper that the Polo original) so it was out with the masking tape and shears as I trimmed the ducting down to fit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Are they the new spec automatic cornering headlights? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterg Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Are they the new spec automatic cornering headlights? :laugh: :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Next up was the suspension I always intended to fit ARBs, in fact when I bought the dampers and springs from Andy at Cat Motorsport, the ratings were all chosen to match ARBs. For one reason or another, I just had never got round to it. The car is deliberately sprung slightly softer than an all out track car to give good traction and to cope with "ordinary" roads. Unfortunately, being able to "get my knee down" like a biker was starting to annoy I was lucky to drop on a set of factory ARBs that needed a bit of work for a keen price. Now I know that they don't advise them with thee factory widetrack, but hey, with a bit of work, I'm sure they'll fit.. So, a complete new set of rosejoints were ordered from McGill Motorsport, the rather rough aluminium clevises and mounting-blocks were all cleaned up with a satinising mop, the rather scratched and pitted powdercoat on the bars was sanded smooth and repainted in satin Hamerite and I bought a set of rear clevises (the bit that clamps to the rear wishbone) along with fresh UNF bolts and Nylocks from Westfield. Wahoo, the front ARB did fit with the factory widetrack! Though it couldn't be set to full soft as the drop links hit the springs... ...in fact, the more I looked at it the more it looked like the droplinks were having to move through too much of an angle. So I took the springs off and used a jack to move the wheels through their full travel. b*******. :bangshead: :bangshead: OK, the factory was right, the droplinks only properly cleared the spring/damper when set to a ridiculously stiff setting, no good So, as i don't like the inboard ARB and won't have it on the car, I didn't want to mix different makes of bar front and rear I sold the WF bars on here and ordered a set of the excellent Playskool bars - in widetrack front version Off came the front of the car, once more, and the freshly satinised aluminium mounting blocks were test fitted. Followed by the bar itself. Instantly, the extra width in the bar showed I'd get much more satisfactory angles for the droplinks. Phew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Are they the new spec automatic cornering headlights? :laugh: I think the captain might have the Copyright on that one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 :laugh: I think the captain might have the Copyright on that one No, but I do have the copyright on "How To Re-Upholster Your Dash Three Times In Twelve Months"... Keep it up mate, can't wait to see how it ends and find out whodunit... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 No, but I do have the copyright on "How To Re-Upholster Your Dash Three Times In Twelve Months"... Do you? Can you tell me how to do it? I have a nice dash down to bare aluminium that needs foam and vinyl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Unfortunately, the Playskool ARB, though thinner than the factory item, does sit a little further off the front wishbone brackets; normally not a problem, but a few years ago, I'd found the original standard 10(?)" fan wasn't man enough and fitted a heavy duty Pacet Pro fan in the largest size that would go in. This now fouled the ARB, so I turned up a set of four aluminium spacers, these are tapped through, so screw on to the captive bolt on the rubber AV mount at one end, and are then bolted to the chassis with an Allen bot at the other. Now the ARB fit behind the cooling pack! Of course, moving it forward so much now meant the ducting wouldn't fit in the nose anymore, so once again, it was out with the masking tape (the blue stuff in the pic) and the shears. A quick trim and it all fits together. At the same time, I Dremmeled out a couple of slots in the nose cone for the ARB to fit through. (Hence the yellow dust you can see in the pic). Next up, the rear ARB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 At the time of buying, the Playskool kit came with weld in plates for the rear wishbones, no pics of that job I'm afraid. Unlike the factory bars, it also comes with a different mounting arrangement for the aluminium blocks. Unfortunately, the way they bolted together meant that the bolt head would be dangerously close to the tank on my car... (Obviously, this is just down to clearances on my tank, etc etc. ) So, I welded in the bolt to the plate nearest the tank, before grinding most of the head back flush to give myself some clearance. This was followed with a clean up and a few coats of the satin Hammerite, (quite a good match for the factory powdercoat finish). All refitted and jobs a good un, plenty of clearance to the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 Do you? Can you tell me how to do it? I have a nice dash down to bare aluminium that needs foam and vinyl PM sent to avoid threadjack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Fortunately, by this time I'd managed to pick up a full screen, mirror, wiper motor and sidescreens package up off the Boardroom. I knew the screen part of it needed a little work, though as often with ads, perhaps a certain amount was glossed over Still a good deal though all things considered. The uprights were (as described) in need of some TLC with some badly chipped powdercoat, and some areas missing where oxidisation had got underneath. I didn't mess around with these, other than to strip them down and get them re-powdercoated. While stripping them, I found the mirrors were in a bit of a sorry state. One had the plastic bosses trimmed to short, and had been bodged in place with a random collection of extra course self tappers. As this would show once finished and didn't feel particularly secure; I decided rather than trying to find ever longer self tappers, I'd tidy up what remained of the bosses and tap them out, a couple of short lengths of M5 stud were then threadlocked and screwed in. At least now, it just bolts into the screen upright with a couple of small Nylocks. At the same time, I made the (unexpected) discovery that the screen looked like it had been grit blasted on at least two Paris Dakar rallies The frame had a bit of messy touching up along the cockpit side lower edge too, so the decision was made to strip it, repaint and replace the glass. Laminated glass from the local Glass suppliers turned out to be dead easy, as was the dozen or so coats of satin black paint on the frame. Refitting the two together still gives me shudders I just couldn't get any of the double-sided foam strip I'd bought to work, so in the end used some Sikaflex windscreen adhesive. This is quite possibly the messiest thing I've ever done, so no photographs, my hands were far to covered in the gloop to pick a camera up That Sikaflex is the only thing I've come across to give POR15 a run for it's money, I reckon it took a good two or three weeks to wear off my fingers Though, weirdly it was dead easy to clean off the glass! £75 to reglaze from the factory now feels like a bargain! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 My dash, no sniggers, doesn't use the original rocker switches, I've replaced all those with weather booted toggles. (No sneezing involved in their positions either ) So I needed to do the same for the windscreen washer and wiper switches I now needed, (as well as rearrange the dash so that they didn't look line an afterthought ). The washer is easy - just a standard switch, the wipers proved a little trickier as the toggle isn't just position 2, position 1 and off, it's 2, 1 and park(so that the wipers don't just stop mid screen when you turn them off). This proved much harder to source, but fortunately Polevolt came to the rescue, with a toggle that was both the right size and that would take the rubber weatherproofing cap. Test wiring was a little tricky as to get the speeds and park to be in the right sequence on the switch it's wired up in a non-standard way. Fortunately, Polevolt came to the rescue once again, and saved me the job of sitting there with a multimeter and working it out.If anybody needs a copy of the wiring diagram, just drop me a PM, without Neil's permission though, I'd rather not just post it online. By this time, I had gathered all the bits together to finally fit the windscreen! So, car stripping time. Off came the old scuttle complete with aeroscreen and mirrors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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