(That’s not our engine, BTW…)

The nervousness probably began when I decided to figure out the pins for the starter motor. So I put it on my desk in my study, connected up what looked right, and tapped it to the battery. Click. The solenoid when on and off, but no spinning. This was by design, I wanted to make sure I got that part right before committing to the big cable. So next it was to wire up that big copper lug. Ready, steady, go – flip sakes, that thing is a beast. It jumped about 10cm into the air, and came crashing back down onto my desk. If your finger was in the wrong place it would be chewed to bits. And that’s JUST THE STARTER MOTOR!

So the previous post stuff all happened, bringing us to Tuesday night. Engine start night. There are so many hose clamps that I was pretty sure we’d forget to tighten one of them.  Start attempt #1:

What happened? The engine is all set to go, the necessary switches are flipped and I’m about to hit the start button, when I decide to glance at the fuel tank area. The spreading pool of flammable fluid is evidence that the predicted loose hose-clamp is on a fuel line. Sucky.

So a 10 minute stoppage is called, while the fuel is mopped up and the air is cleared. Then it’s back to setting the switches and pushing “start”. Or rather, the tiny red push-button switch.

There were definite signs of life, the branch was getting warm and you could smell half-burnt fuel. But no success. The coil connectors seemed loose, so they were re-attached and a third attempt made.

SUCCESS! What an awesome feeling, and what a cool sound. This is going to be a fun car to drive. Of course, we’re still a little way from there yet, but a big step closer.

We were worried that the engine did not idle – it’s computer controlled, so it really should. Then we realised that it seemed to be getting no air through the throttle, because it was completely (as in almost sealed) shut. A quick call to the guru (Andre) confirmed this, and he recommended taking off the vacuum hose from the air manifold to the cam cover. You can see this in the next video – it just lets through enough air for the ECU to do its job. With this done, the car started like a dream, and idled perfectly.

The next day I decided to get a video of the idle, as well as record the sound using a proper microphone (rather than the silly little thing in the camera). I managed to then overlay the new soundtrack on the video, to bring you what she really sounds like:

You will need a set of decent speakers for this, since most of the sound is really in the bass range.

A huge thank you to Andre, who has been a massive help the whole time. I’m pretty sure his regular assistance and guidance played a major role in our Rocam not ending up like the engine in the first video.

Thanks for watching.

B

So we’re about to start the engine, tonight. Which is a rather hectic jump from plugging up the hole in the fuel tank and putting on the windscreen. In fact, that catchup has become so big that I’ve been unable to write anything on the blog because there’s just too much to write. It’s also rather boring, albeit hopefully useful. So instead I’ll try to put up pages of the useful stuff when I get a chance, and rather just start blogging again from where I am now.

Deon, hero that he is, has mounted the water pump pulley on the alternator. Details here.

We had a button clutch made. This thing is awesome, and it turns out there’s more to clutches than you might think.

Also mounted the hydraulic slave cylinder for the clutch release. I really hope I did my maths right, but it seems to be ok.

The roll cage and the exhaust were manufactured. This is a mission because we don’t have a trailer, or a car powerful enough to pull it. A plan was made.

The electrics have been done. This is not a small job, it is in fact quite a big job. I’ll try to write up as much of my experience as possible; hopefully it will provide a starting point for your own system. You are building your own car, right?

The seats are in – the driver’s seat slides, but the passenger seat is fixed. It’s quite a brainteaser getting these things in, since the seat covers the area where you need to drill the hole. I’ll put in a page showing how I did it, in case it’s useful.

On to the engine starting. It’s very exciting, but it’s also quite a mission. First up there’s the ECU. Wiring it up is covered under the electrics page (or will be). The ECU itself also needs to be calibrated and a suitable map put into it. Andre supplied me with a startup mapping file, but it turns out that it’s from V2 of the XMS4A-2A. Mine (same model) is V1. The software for my model is a tiny bit different to his. My software can’t read his file, and his software can’t talk to my unit (it’s quite rude about it actually). It gets even stupider than that, but you get the picture. Eventually I managed to get screenshots of his mapping file, which I then MANUALLY typed into my mapping file. Number-by-number (no copy-paste, and only idiotic block setting). There are two main tables, 384 numbers in each.The software is crap in a very special way. Fun.

At least the hardware seems solid, and perhaps the V2 of the software is an improvement – it would have to physically poke me in the eye to be worse.

Calibration is not too hard once you get the hang of it. Engine temp is a bit of a mission, I ended up using good old “y=mx+c”

But before you can think about starting the engine, you need to think about cooling. This means not only the pipes to the radiator, but also plugging all the spare holes meant for creature comforts.

Johan did us the massive favour of machining some awesome aluminium stoppers for the heater hose holes.

They fitted very snugly, but then were also held in place with rubber hose and clamps. One of the stoppers was designed to fit a standard temperature sensor. This will serve as a backup sensor, part of the instrument panel.

Next on the to-do list is to make sure you’ve got oil pressure. This means putting oil into the engine (if you took yours out) and then turning the engine over using the starter motor until you get pressure.

Best idea is to remove the sparkplugs so that there’s no compression. This is less effort for the starter motor, and not too draining on the battery (don’t use your racing battery). Also, you might want to take special care that you’ve got the hoses on the right way round. There is a non-return valve in the filter, and you will get zero flow the other way round (and you might damage your pump). Don’t ask how I know all these details.

After this we checked that there was fuel flowing. We simply linked the feed and return lines, and put cheap filters at both ends to catch any dirt from inside the fuel lines. Have a few fire extinguishers handy until you’re sure everything works ok.

The fuel needs to be ignited, so that means checking for spark. Now you really get to see if the ECU is working. Sparkplugs, shorted against the engine (make sure there’s no loose fuel lying around) should show off pretty sparks.

To make it easy to turn things on and off, a simple dash was made. I also got to use a missile switch cover. That’s a real milestone in anyone’s life.

So, did we get the engine started…? Tell you soon

-B

I feel a bit like someone being mentored after rehab. Every day or two I get an email from Andre, along the lines of “you haven’t touched a drop, have you?“. Although instead they are more like “how’s the build progress“. And I must confess, I do find myself running out and doing something on the car, just to report back with some progress. Unfortunately progress on the car has resulted in neglect on the blog, so this may be a long one. I recommend just looking at the pictures.

The fuel tank has a very nice hole in it, to fit a fuel gauge. However, our’s is going to make use of the more technological “dowel dip stick” method, which doesn’t need that hole. So the hole was covered. Note the engraved “1” to help future lining up (because it wasn’t really machined to micron specifications). It will be sealed using some sort of petrol-proof sealing ring/paste.

I started feeling bad about the way the scuttle had been mounted. So I welded up the old bottom holes, and fitted riv-nuts to the top holes. So the scuttle is now mounted using riv-nuts. I think it’s a better solution, although sub-optimal to damage the chassis powder coating.

Then we took another shortcut, buying the windscreen from Wiekus. It’s beautifully done, far better than we could. Part of the package is the rubber seal along the bottom, which ensures a very neat fit with the scuttle. It is his own custom design, specifically with an angled groove for the base of the windscreen.

He also supplies a printed cutout sheet for the support arms, which I glued to a piece of 1.6mm alu to make temporary brackets to mount the windscreen.

Fitting the windscreen to the scuttle is fairly straightforward. First I wanted a straight line on the scuttle, so I clamped two pieces of wood to the chassis, rested the ruler on them, and drew a line on the masking-tape-coated scuttle. This was a useful reference to ensure the mounts were properly horizontal.

Then attach the rubber to the base of the windscreen and shift the whole thing around on the scuttle until there seems a reasonable fit and roughly even spacing on both sides.

Then comes the scary part – cutting the rubber. I tried a couple of knives; it needs to be sharp and have a thin, flat blade. The best ended up being a super-sharp serated Victorinox kitchen knife (don’t tell the missus).

I put a thin layer of oil on the blade, which prevented it from sticking. Because you want a nice smooth edge running down between the bracket and the scuttle, fading to nothing, you must extend the rubber a bit past the end of the windscreen. Simply cut in a straight line down. It might take a couple of practice goes to get it right, but Wiekus gives you a bit of extra length to make some mistakes first. Once you’re satisfied with your abilities you can cut the other end (no going back after that). I purposefully cut it slightly too long, to fill the gap with the bracket.

Although the fit is slightly imperfect, it should come right once the rubber is stuck down on the chassis.

The windscreen was on the critical path, because it needs to be in place to fabricate the roll cage, which is done at the same time as the exhaust, which is done before the wiring and the cooling brackets. Now the car can go in for its exhaust.

The final fuel lines have been put in, although the last couple of holes must still be drilled for the p-clips. This includes replacing one of the original lines, which clashed with the gearbox. The gearbox won. It always wins.

I put my new MIG welder to use, welding the engine mounts to the chassis plates. Fixing the engine position means you can move forward in several other areas.

Once the engine position is finalised, the prop shaft can be manufactured. Ours was done by SAJCO in Strijdom Park. Frankly, they were amazing. The only specification they needed was the length from the gearbox oil seal to the diff input flange. I took them our yoke, which they didn’t fit but was useful for spline sizing.  There are at least two input shaft sizes in the wild for the Ford Type 9/Type E box, so you need to get this right.

I also gave them an old Sierra prop shaft, which they took some parts from including the flange to connect to the diff, and some of the tubing.

The amazing part? I dropped the bits off at roughly 12h30. At 15h30 they phoned me to tell me it was ready. Very impressive.

Using a suggestion from Deon I made an adjustable alternator bracket.

Start with some accurate small pilot holes. In this case I wanted an 8mm groove, so the pilot holes were drilled 7mm apart:

Then drill a set of bigger holes – 7mm now:

As you can see, the holes start to run into each other:

After this, drill with the 8mm drill bit. Then file the points down to make a flat groove (it’s quite easy at this point):

Who needs a milling machine anyway.

It’s some progress – haven’t touched a drop (of not working on the car).

B

As previously shown, we have used the existing brackets on the Locost chassis to mount the radiator. However, the folded ends on these are not at the same angle as the radiator. It’s probably not such a big deal, but I found these rather pleasing rubber mounts from RS electronics (part number 237-1720). They’re not the cheapest, but they fit the bill rather well. Well, not really. New mount plates needed to be made, but that wasn’t hard using the old ones as templates. So the lower mounts of the radiator are now rather snazzy.

We’ve made the upper mounts out of thin steel bar. We’ll be welding these on sometime soon.

Because we had a reasonable idea of the radiator, we started looking into the radiator hoses. Some time ago D got us some 32 mm aluminium tubing. We chose this thickness because it’s the same as the radiator outlets. The Rocam water inlet and outlets are 27 mm, so reducers will be needed. Our plan is to use the aluminium tubing to cover the long distances, and then a collection of radiator bends will be used to fit it all together. It pays to shop around when it comes to hoses – the first autozone we went to wanted 3x as much a Midas round the corner. And Autozone is normally cheaper. We found two useful parts, one with roughly a 90 degree bend (RH7172), and the other with slightly wider (around 100 degrees, RS7307). We’re still looking for the 32-27 mm reducers, although there are several radiator hoses that will cut the mustard. Basically just go spend half an hour at the counter at Midas, looking through their radiator hose catalogue (it’s got a lot of useful detail, but the pictures can be misleading).

Andre posted the somewhat intimidating suggestion to remove the idler solenoid. His reasoning is solid though – you can save weight, and make your life easier should you have to remove the intake manifold. The deal is this: the Rocam plastic intake manifold has 5 bolts at the top, and 2 (Torx head) at the bottom. Once the engine is in place, you cannot reach those lower bolts. So best to remove them beforehand. However, this means the manifold has less support – so you need to make it lighter. The two easy things to remove are the idler solenoid and the AMP sensor.

Both will leave holes behind that need closing. I decided that the AMP sensor weighed very little, and did a pretty good job of sealing it’s own hole, so I left it in. I made an aluminium plate to cover the idler hole, as shown in the pictures below.

You can also remove the steel inserts in the lower bolt holes, which saves some more weight. You can also cut the lower mount points off (no going back after that though).

Before you can take the air manifold off, you have the get pretty committed regarding the wiring. Ford has done an excellent job of hiding the purpose of each of the wires – all the coloured wires join to a common point, with a black wire exiting. This leaves you with a mass of black wires. The only way to figure out what’s what is to open it up and trace them through. You’ll need to do this anyway if you want to remove the idler solenoid. And you’ll have much neater wiring if you shift it all around so that it terminates at the back of the engine.

It’s not hard, start by cutting off the retaining cable ties (if you do this intelligently you can probably just put another cable tie through the old hole later). You will also need to remove the big 16-way Rocam plug – you really won’t be needing all those connections. I cut and re-soldered the common point of the injectors, so that the wire pointed in the right direction – optional methinks.

The sensor on the top of the engine is the TDC sensor. Apparently this is not needed. The sensor that IS needed is the crank position sensor, which points at the flywheel. Rather useful is that the plug from the TDC sensor fits the crank position sensor, finally some Karma. Best of luck if you want to use both though.

It’s possible to put the wiring back together quite neatly, terminating in the right place. The plan is to use wire crimp connectors for the new plug.

We’ve lined the gearbox up with the diff, using the highly technical “two magnets and a piece of string method”. It’s too hard to explain here, but there are several books available and a few (expensive) training courses. Probably worth it though.

Once aligned we were able to measure the spacers needed for the gearbox. These, along with a piece of steel for the engine mounts, were kindly machined for us by Johan. The truth is that you really do need some fancy machines to build a Locost, but also that there are some really awesome people out there that are willing to help out. If you’re stuck in Siberia, but with a great desire to build a racing car, you’ll be needing a lathe.

We were also able to swap our “too small” prop-shaft yoke with Johan’s “too big” yoke. This was sent through the rust removal electrolysis method, and now it’s all shiny:

Onto further bodywork changes – we’ve fitted the scuttle. We’ve gone with four 6mm bolts, all the way through the chassis top bar. Basically we fitted the nosecone first, then put the bonnet in place, and finally squeezed the scuttle in the right spot. Then it’s the usual process of mark, measure, reattach, mark some more, drill one hole, reattach, mark some more, drill some more, take it off, drill, mark, reattach, measure, swear (because it inevitably doesn’t fit afterwards), drill bigger holes etc.

We also reassembled (take 3, I think) the suspension. This was because… WE GOT WHEELS!

It is just so cool to have our racing tyres on our fancy rims, all ready for a rolling chassis. If we had:

• Steering column welded
• Steering wheel
• Brake lines attached
• Brakes attached
• Seat in place
• Suspension bolts on
• Wheel nuts

we’d have a car we could push down the road

The specs of the wheels are:

Rims: 15″, 6.5″ wide, ET35

Tyres (Locost formula regulations): Dunlop Direzza 03G 195/55/R15 from ATS

I also got a “standby” water temperature sensor (TS906SA) from Midas. Costs around R70. The plan is to fit it as a backup sensor in the heater outlet (these have to be plugged anyway). Some machining will be needed.

That’s it for the present, moving forward…

B

So March came, and March went, and some building happened. It started with the steering column and the bush mounting it to the chassis. The hole that it has to go into is too small, and it’s in some fairly robust steel plate. It’s a fairly hefty job making that bigger with the proper tools and, well,we don’t have the proper tools. So we did what any good boer would, and made a plan (Ons het ‘n plan gemaak). That plan involved a couple of U-shaped pieces of aluminium, which slotted together to make a tight fit around the steering bush. These were then bolted to the original mount point, making a very solid mount for the steering bush. A picture is worth a thousand words (see above). The bolts, as shown in the picture, are arranged in an optimal pattern for strength and stability. The layout was determined using a genetic algorithm on a beowulf cluster with 16453 cores.

The steering linkage needs to be lengthened, so it’s chopped in half first. The steel round-bar is 15mm indiameter, making it perfect for 19mm tubing with a wall thickness of 2mm. This is pretty common stuff, and you’ll need about 500mm. I have 5.5m still available, so let me know if you need a piece.

Below you can see the basic idea of what needs to be done, using a piece of curtain rail to line things up. In case you were wondering, curtain rail is not recommended for your final steering link.

We also upgraded our steering rack mounts. Previously they were simple steel flat-bar brackets and poly-bushings. While this is perfectly adequate ina road car, ours is meant to be a racing car. So we got ourselves a set of the new Locost-supplied aluminium brackets.

These are fairly solid and tight-fitting brackets,and should improve the feel and rigidity of the steering immensely. We’ll also be looking to upgrade the steering column rubber jointing at some stage.

When we were fitting the engine, we chopped quite a lot off the bell-housing. To cover the holes and add a bit of the mechanical strength back, a plate was cut and drilled. This will be attached using 4mm HT bolts. The remaining holes will be filled with fibreglass.

We’ve made some progress on mounting the radiator. First the aluminium edges were reinforced with another strip of aluminium. Then we got our radiator fan; just a simple aftermarket fan from Midas. It fits quite snugly.

Our main concern is that once full of water, the radiator is going to be quite heavy. It is also going to be bumped around a lot, so you want it to be securely mounted.

The chassis already has two mount points welded in place, and it was possible to bend these to be in the right position for the radiator.

Four small rectangles of steelplate were fashioned, both to mount the fan to and to mount the radiator to the chassis. We still need to weld the upper mount brackets to the chassis to finish off the radiator.

Although the picture above may look like a piece of fine art, it is in fact a fuel-line reducer (thanks Ronnie!). Unfortunately instead of displaying it in aglass case, it’s going to be hidden under the chassis covered in oil and grime.

The fuel pump has been mounted, and now needs to have the piping finalised to complete the fuel line loop. As you can see in the photo above, the various parts were marked to make reassembly easier.

The picture above shows the fuel pump in place, as viewed from below the chassis. The low-pressure filter is included simply to protect the pump from any metal shavings or other rubbish that might exit the fuel tank. The high-pressure fuel filter will be mounted under the bonnet in the engine bay.

Finally we started to mount the bodywork. The nose-cone is mounted with two 6mm bolts on each side. These attach to the chassis using 6mm riv-nuts. The radiator is a tight squeeze inside the nose-cone, but it does fit. It’s amazing how much smaller the car seems once the nose-cone, bonnet and scuttle are in place.

That’s pretty much all the progress to date. Still a lot to do!

B

The wishbone therefore rotates on the poly-bush. This has two implications – firstly you can use bolts with fully threaded shanks, since the insert should not actually be rotating on the bolt. The thread of the bolt will therefore not damage the insert. The second thing is that the bushes need to be properly lubricated. This new set of wishbones gave us the opportunity to really pack in the red rubber grease. (Note – this does not apply to the shock-absorbers, which do rotate about the bolt). Many thanks to Chris for helping out with this sticky, icky job.

We got our engine mount brackets welded – big thanks to Ken of Zodiac Steel for assistance and doing such a good job. As soon as we had those sorted, we were able to properly see how the engine and gearbox would fit in. Needless to say, several adjustments to the bell-housing were needed, and we chopped some more bits off.

To fit the gearbox we needed to drill and fit the gearbox mounting plate. This is an H-shaped piece of steel plate, onto which the rubberised gearbox mount is, well, mounted. With the engine in place and the gearbox supported by a size-14 temporary mount, we could see if the mounting plate lined up with the mount points on the chassis. It was a wonderful moment when we realised that the fit is perfect. We marked and drilled the holes (8mm, although one was a slight miss, so it became a 9mm hole).

Feeling inspired by getting 3 out of 4 holes right, we marked and drilled the engine mount plates. We’d obviously improved our skilz, because we got 8 out of 8 of these right (no cheating here – 8mm holes for 8mm bolts, and they went in smoothly).

Checking the engine again, we realised that there was a risk that the starter would foul against the chassis. So it was another “engine out, attach part, engine in”. Only we realised a slight problem – the starter does not fit. There is a small sticky-outy bit on the sump that gets in the way. A couple of panicked phonecalls to Locost SA, and we confirmed that this needed to be chopped off.

It’s actually quite an easy job, but you don’t want to get all “power-tool” on it. The sump is aluminium, so if you get too aggressive you are likely to chop a hole in it. Another tool you’ll be needing for this job is a torque wrench that can handle 67N.m (thanks JR and Nick). The process is:

1) Remove clutch pressure plate (about 6-8 bolts, fairly easy).

2) Remove the clutch plate, to be left with the flywheel:

3) Remove the fly-wheel (6 bolts, fine thread), resulting in this:

4) Now you can get to the sump, and carefully cut the piece off. See pictures for confirmation.

You might need to remove two of the sump bolts, but we did not. You will not be able to use a normal hacksaw. A junior hacksaw got close enough that the last bit could be snapped off. Then a file neatened it up. One of those blade-only hacksaws will work, as will a dremel tool.

5) Clean off any loose shavings.

6) Put the flywheel back on.

Use a touch of lock-tite (removable) on each bolt, then torque to 67N.m. (Following all the right rules for tightening sequence. I tightened, bit by bit, a triangle of bolts, then chose the next triangle as starting from the opposite bolt that I ended on. Clear as mud?)

Leave the clutch and pressure plate off for now – they’re not needed for a while.

7) The starter motor now fits very nicely:

After this the engine went back in – we’re really getting our money’s worth out of that engine crane. The starter is a tight fit against the chassis, but it does fit. We then tested the bonnet for clearance – the dip stick handle will need to be “lightened”, but the 710 cap is fine (thanks to the bonnet scoop).

While we were fitting heavy things, we decided to balance it all out and fit the diff. It didn’t fit, which is a painful thing to find out while trying to hold that stupidly heavy piece of metal in place. The grinder was called to service again, but not quite vigorously enough. We actually think we might leave it as it is, since with a couple of spacer washers it fits fine.

EDIT 2011-02-25: It’s actually recommended by Locost SA that you rather grind away the webbing on the diff, than the diff mounting bracket. The theory is that the diff is more over-designed than the chassis mount point. We’re holding thumbs that it all stays together.

With the diff in place, it was possible to see how the gearbox and diff lined up. Badly, it turned out. The gearbox was shooting mortars clear over the head of the diff. Undismayed we put some longer bolts in the gearbox mount plate, and dropped it by about a centimeter. This lined it up perfectly, so we’re almost ready to order the prop shaft.

A small miracle happened during the week. We’ve been searching for ages for a solution to our alternator problem. We have a small, awsome little alternator from a toyota forklift. Unfortunately it comes with a v-belt pulley, not a 6PK pulley (which is used on the rest of the Rocam). Also, it doesn’t like high revs, and the test sheet shows its only able to handle about 6000 RPM for any extended time. The crank pulley on the Rocam is quite large, so if you put a small pulley on the alternator it is going to see some pretty high revs. This is NOT good, and others have mentioned burning similar ones out. So we want a big pulley which will fit the thing. The solution is a 6PK water-pump pulley, just like the one on the Rocam. If you attach this to the v-belt pulley, you are sorted. Well, we’ve been to several scrapyards looking for pulleys, with no luck. It seems you very seldom find a water-pump pulley separate from a water pump.

I posted for help on the forum (as I should have done first) and immediately found one pulley, and a suggestion to try Ford for spares. “Maybe they won’t be so expensive” – yeah right. So I got hold of Ford (it’s really worth telling these guys what you are doing, often they are very helpful) and I found out they do supply the pulley on its own. The price: r50 .11 ex VAT. I figured there was a number missing there – surely it’s R500.11? Nope, they ordered the part for me, and it came to R57 incl! Amazing. Even the guys at the parts desk were amazed (they showed me a much worse pulley for R900). The part number is XS6E-8509-AA if you want to find your own. I’ll post more info if it successfully gets attached to the v-belt pulley.

Our engine bay is now getting quite full, and we are becoming more and more convinced that the sequence we did the build in is just wrong. The brake and fuel lines really should only be going in once the immovable objects have had their say. As part of this blog I’ll put together a suggested build sequence.

Phew, long post! Till next time, happy building. Don’t forget, more build pictures here.

B

I can still remember, how that building used to make me smile. And I knew if I had my chance, that I could make that Locost…

Building has recommenced, after a break of almost two months. Sometimes one has to bow to the demands of the job. And when those demands take you to far-off lands, it’s tough to bring the chassis along with you. So it was good get the hands dirty and full of little splinters of metal. Ah, the joy of building.

We started with a visit to the scrapyard. Our outstanding bits include the yoke (connecting the gearbox to the prop-shaft), alternator mounting bracket and alternator pulleys. Hermann actually gave us a yoke, but it seems it’s for the smaller gearbox output shaft.

I can’t help but feel a little sad when going to scrapyards. Hundreds of engines, diffs and gearboxes all just lying around. Like organs for sale. Those once belonged to Daddy’s (or Mommy’s) pride and joy. They came home one evening, and said to the kids “come look outside”, and got all the “wows” and “hoorays” – Daddy has a new car. Now that pride and joy is an unidentified chunk of metal rusting on the scrap heap. And that’s not even contemplating the final act that may have caused it to be there. Sheesh, that got melancholic rather quickly.

Anyway, on a cheerier note, the visits were a complete waste of time. Scrapyard 1 was completely closed, despite a confirmation call the previous day saying it would definitely be open. The others had prop-shafts, but not exactly what we needed. The alternator mounting bracket, as well as pulley, were a complete loss. Then they all closed. We did find out (thanks Brad) that actually the guy who makes up the prop-shaft can typically source the yoke anyway.

For the afternoon we decided to sort out the fit between the gearbox and the engine. Previously we had machined the  end of the gearbox input to 10mm. However, the pointy bit is too long and must be cut down a bit. To avoid changing the steel tempering (hardness) we decided to cut this the old fashioned way – hacksaw. But first we needed to measure how much to cut off.

So we removed the clutch pressure plate and clutch. Then assembled the engine, bellhousing and gearbox. Remember to attach the bellhousing to the gearbox first, not to the engine. We knew this, of course. The photo is just demonstrating the wrong way to do it.

Now because our gearbox needs to have a bit chopped off, there results a gap between the bellhousing and the engine. We adjusted the various bolts to ensure the gap was even the whole way round (check with the vernier), and then took that gap as being the amount to remove. The whole shebang was disassembled and then the tip was lopped off at the right place (well, more or less). Be warned, that thing is made of hard metal. You’ll need a good quality hacksaw blade to get through it (or rip the teeth off a cheaper one).

A file was used just to neaten it up a bit, and we’ll probably give it a last touch-up with a grinder. A bit of water-paper to polish it up.

The reason for all of this is that unlike a FWD gearbox, the RWD needs to be supported in the crank. The crank has a 15mm hole in it, for which a brass bush has been made. It’s 15mm OD, and 10mm ID. The gearbox fits into the bush, providing the necessary support. Since these only spin at different speeds when the clutch is disengaged (i.e. no load), it’s hoped that the bush will be sufficient.

Next up will be engine mountings, since we have now sourced all the materials we need.

B

Thanks to Hermann, we were able to get ourselves a brand new engine, straight from Ford. It comes in a box, with “Service Engine” on the side. “Service Engine“, like it’s some sort of spare part.

“Say Jim, how’s my car?”

“Bad news Bob, coupla problems wid da engine”

“Can you fix it?”

“Nah, but I think I got a spare in the box out back. I’ll just chuck a new one in”

It’s V8 5.7l hemi engine, with a twin supercharger. Not.

It’s a 1.6l Ford Rocam engine. “Rocam” stands for “rollerfinger camshaft”, obviously. This engine is well known for low/mid range torque. Why such a small engine, for a sports car? Two reasons – the car should weigh under 600kg, and the racing series restricts the engine to this specific engine.

To compare its performance consider the power to weight ratio:

• Mazda MX5 (2006 model) : 107 W/kg
• Rocam Locost: 135 W/kg
• Nissan 370Z: 162 W/kg

So it’s halfway between an MX5 and a 370Z. Until you chuck it round a corner, and then it’s got a lot less inertia trying to tear it off the track.

Specifications (from the Ford website):

Engine: 1.6i
Type: SOHC-Efi
Cylinders: 4
Valves per cylinder: 2 (8 valves in total)
Capacity (cc): 1597
Compression Ratio: 9.5:1
Bore and stroke (mm): 82.0 x 75.48
Power (kW) @ rpm: 70 @ 5500
Torque (Nm) @ rpm: 137 @ 2500

To quote “The RoCam design ensures a more accurate valve performance and greatly reduces friction and noise levels. Valve performance is controlled by hydraulic lash adjusters (the cam follower stays in permanent contact with the camshaft), which reduces maintenance bills as no setting of tappets or valves are required. Furthermore, the cylinder head is a cross flow design, which improves “breathing” and, as a result, combustion and performance. This is done without detracting from fuel efficiency”.

The RoCam has been designed to “withstand South African conditions”. This means that it can listen to Juli-ass without smashing its head into a brick wall. Although it doesn’t agree with it, it doesn’t get upset when its government spends millions on flashy cars and world cup tickets, but struggles to pay teachers, nurses and policemen properly. Ooh, politics and building, perhaps a bad mix.

It is manufactured in Ford’s Port Elizabeth based plant, which now supplies diverse markets such as Asia, South America and Europe. It is a highly robust engine, supposedly capable of being able to run on fuel of almost any octane rating.

Another article from Ford states

“The engine incorporates several advanced product and manufacturing technologies – including plastic intake manifolds, a fabricated camshaft and modern weight-reduction techniques. The engine has electronically controlled fuel injection and ignition which adjust automatically to cater for variances in fuel quality.”

Don’t kid yourself, a necessary building expense is an engine crane. Since the engine and transmission are quite light, you can get away with a very small crane. We got a mobi-jack 1 ton crane, apparently that’s a good thing? One thing that is good is how small it folds away. Very nice. Careful when picking it up – one of the mount points is right by the plastic coil pack. Better to remove this to not damage it.

Unfortunately both of us have got very busy lately with work, and we’ve pressed pause for the next (and past) few weeks. We’ll pick it up again towards the end of Sept.

B

We’ve been on a major purchasing mission. The problem is that so many build decisions involve interlinked parts. This is a small race-car, into which a lot of stuff must fit. So if you lay your brake lines before you know where the steering column goes, you are very likely to have two components fighting over their piece of space-time. The engine bay is probably the most crowded section, and so we’ve decided to try to buy all the major components and see how they all fit together.

Our radiator is from a Honda Civic 1.8 Vtec. This should be overkill, but we really don’t want to have issues with heat. It will definitely fit lying on it’s side, but that may lead to air-locks and resultant radiator inefficiency. It will be a tight squeeze, but we should be able to mount it upright, as it was designed.

We were pointed to a very nice and small Toyota alternator. The label on the box says it’s from a forklift. It puts out 35A, and weighs about 2kg. This will still need modifications to mount it to the engine (e.g. tensioner). It also came with a v-belt pulley, whereas the Rocam has 6PK multi-v pulleys. I popped past a local auto-electrician, who was very helpful. They are sure they’ll have some old pulleys lying around which should fit.

A problem with the Rocam engine is that the oil filter clashes with the chassis. This affects how low you can mount the engine, as well as maintenance. You don’t really want to have to remove the engine to change the oil filter.

Our starter motor is a standard Sierra 2L job. It weighs a million kilograms, and was bought while a fight broke out between the cashier and a customer. People get very passionate about motor spares sometimes.

We had some good news regarding our gearbox. We had it serviced, and they gave it the all clear (after removing several buckets of sand). This is a relief, because it’s difficult to get parts for these boxes. They also machined the end of the input shaft down to 10mm. This will mate with a brass bush in the Rocam crank. We still need to cut the length down, but we will measure that with the bellhousing and various spacers all together. Our gearbox does seem to be something of a mystery. It’s a four-speed sierra box, but the output shaft is 27.2mm, with 25 splines. Everyone seems to think it should have 23 splines, and have a smaller diameter. We’ve even got a prop-shaft yoke that should fit, and it doesn’t. So we’ll be going back to the scrappy’s to find one that does.

Two of the brackets on the chassis were welded on the wrong side – they sit where the fuel tank is meant to be. We had the option of cutting them out, or changing the size of the tank. We’d already been toying with the idea of a smaller tank (with just enough fuel for a longer race), since it will have less sloshing. So we decided rather than cutting bits off the chassis, we’d get a custom tank. It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and we’ve been making brackets for it. The reduced size has meant that the filler spout is now directly in line with the chassis upright that the bracket is meant to attach to. So we’ve put a cross-bar between the uprights, and put diagonal brackets across the tank. The brackets are made from 25x2mm aluminium flat-bar. Riv-nuts were used both for the cross-bar and brackets. Stick-on closed-cell foam was used on the brackets to increase their grip – that tank isn’t going anywhere.

To save a bit of money we’ve followed a couple of web descriptions for a DIY riv-nut tool. Slight improvements have been made to minimise the possibility of stripping the Riv-Nut. A coupling nut is used, lubricated with grease, to tighten a high-tensile (HT) bolt onto which the riv-nut is threaded. The HT bolt is not turned – so it’s less likely to strip the riv-nut. The coupling nut is tightened to crush the Riv-Nut, and since it offers more thread than a normal nut it’s less likely to strip. The only problem is that it’s fairly hard to operate with the normal human-complement of hands. You might need someone to help, or attend yoga to increase your flexibility so you can use your toes.

The diagram below shows the basic principle. The anchor is simply a piece of flat metal bar, with a hole the same size as the bolt. It is against this surface that the Riv-Nut is crushed.
1. Make appropriate hole in target, and seat Riv-Nut
2. Fit the tool as shown – with grease between the anchor, washers and coupling nut. Also grease the HT bolt thread where the coupling nut goes. Make sure the HT bolt is all the way through the Riv-Nut.
3. Tighten the coupling nut against the washers and the anchor, while keeping the HT bolt from turning.
4. Make sure the anchor is pushing the Riv-Nut firmly into the hole (otherwise it can become affixed proud of the hole).
5. With another spanner tighten the coupling nut (while the HT bolt and anchor are prevented from turning). Keep track of how many turns you use – typically 2-3 is sufficient, but practice on some spare plate first. If you over-tighten, you risk stripping the Riv-Nut.

Clear as mud.

So far we’ve done 4mm and 6mm Riv-Nuts this way, and haven’t stripped any (yet).

There are a couple of tight spaces on the front left suspension brackets. Everything fits, but two of the brackets leave very little space for a bolt to go through. On one we’ve had to make a threaded stud, since there is simply not enough space for a bolt with a head to fit. This stud will take two Nyloc nuts. D filed two flat spots on one end, so that a spanner can hold the stud and prevent it from turning. This should allow the nuts to be tightened.
When we realised that we needed to make the stud, I called the local bolt shop to see if they could fabricate it for me. I was very pleased when they told me they would make it for under R7 – awesome! Once I had finalised the sizes, I placed the order for one. “One?” came the reply. “Yes please”, I politely responded. “Sorry, we can only make this if you order 100, or pay us R700 for one”, was the unwelcome reply. So I made another plan with a long bolt, two hacksaw blades (HT bolts are HARD) and a friendly lathe.

With that tricky part done, we were able to complete the assembly of the suspension. With all the springs, dampers and wishbones in place, it really is starting to look like a car. One point to remember is that the bushes of the dampers are not “pinched” by the bolts. What this means is that as the suspension moves, those bushes rotate around the bolt. If you use fully threaded bolts (i.e. no blank shaft) then eventually the thread might cut into the core of the bush. Thus for the damper bolts, make sure they have a long enough section without any thread. The wishbone bushes should be mounted with sufficient washers that the metal tube in the center is pinched when the bolt is tightened. These bushes rotate around this bush, and so fully threaded bolts are less of an issue.

Once the suspension and uprights were in (front and rear) we could mount the brake calipers. The main goal of doing this was to determine the spacers between the upright and the caliper. The rear calipers need an 11mm spacer, while the front need 15mm. It’s remarkable how accurate the assembly of the rear uprights is – which is strongly contrasted with several welding anomalies on the rest of the chassis.

We have also got the necessary fuel filters. We will put a low-pressure plastic filter between the tank and the pump, with the hope of keep anything nasty out of our fancy fuel pump. After the pump we’ve got a high pressure (metal canister) filter. I got the Golf 1.4i filter, but I really don’t think this is the best option. The piping exits in a very strange configuration, and it’s going to be difficult to mount.
The fuel-line setup suffers from having multiple pipe-size changes: it’s 15mm at the tank outlet, which must be taken to 10mm for the LP filter inlet. The outlet must then be increased to 12mm for the pump inlet, and thereafter it’s 8mm. All the size converters take up a lot of space, and are a real pain to fit.

Sorry for the long read (and well done if you got all the way to here) – I definitely should have posted something sooner. Hopefully the next installment won’t take too long.

B

We’ve also sent the gearbox in to be examined and overhauled, as well as have the front of the input shaft machined. More will follow on this when it’s done, but essentially it will be machined to 10mm diameter, and shortened (that still needs to be measured). Then a bush will be installed in the crank shaft (I believe this is a 15mm OD, 10mm ID bush), which acts as a pilot bearing for the gearbox input shaft.

In terms of actual work done, we’ve largely assembled the suspension parts. It’s amazing how quickly this adds considerable weight to the frame. The chassis used to be relatively easy to pick up, but now it’s quite a beast.
Assembling the suspension resulted in us finding a slight flaw. The front left top mount point for the shock is positioned fractionally too far into the chassis (or the support strut next to it  is too far out). This means that although there is plenty of space for the bolt once it’s in, there isn’t enough space to actually get it in. The error doesn’t seem big enough to affect the suspension geometry, but it will need to be treated differently. The best solution we’ve got so far is to use a stud threaded on both ends, with no bolt head. There is enough space to insert the stud, and then it will have to have a nut on each end.
No pictures of the suspension as yet, will either post again or update this one.
In terms of parts, we now have a petrol pump and radiator overflow bottle. The pump is for a BMW E46, and it came from AutoZone (cheapest price). The one from Midas and Goldwagen is over twice the price (twice the quality? Time will tell).

The expansion bottle is for a Golf Mk3. It has a “gas” inlet pipe at the top, and a water expansion line at the bottom. Make sure you get the cap as well, since it comes separately. Once we have full clarity on the plumbing configuration, it will go up on the web.
On paper, the expansion bottle on paper didn’t cost too much. However, the actual purchase turned out quite emotional, expensive and included a trip to the police station. How’s that for an intro…

Essentially what happened is that I was doing the Saturday morning shop, and I figured I’d pop to Goldwagen and try to get the expansion bottle. En route, the traffic light ahead turns red, and I pull up with one car ahead of me. Out the corner of my eye I see movement, and notice that a truck, parked in front of the shops on my left, has his reverse lights on. Suddenly it starts moving – straight towards me. I started hitting the horn, with increasing panic, to indicate my presence. Unperturbed, possibly even encouraged, he keeps coming. The crunching noise and rocking motion of the car felt similar to those moments just after slicing your finger while chopping veggies. You can see it, and you felt the pressure of it, but there isn’t any pain yet. For a moment you think “maybe it didn’t really happen”. Then it starts bleeding.
I got out of my car, utterly speechless. He was very apologetic, and possibly as shocked as me. Eventually all I could say was “do you realise how much I love my car?”. Sigh.

B