Project water cooled

Okaaay. update time. I'm now officially glad that I re-did my radiator cage in the front of the car. As when I came to trim my side panels, I realised that everything would of been out of wack and nothing would of lined up. I didn't think the welding through on the radiator supports and the side panels would of been on 4 different levels when it came to mounting them. A space out about 1/2".

The new radiator support is level all throughout and with the exception of the minor mistake with trimming the fiberglass panels, everything looks kosher. The minor gap I can repair with cotton flox and a resin. Then they'll be painted. 

I really got the hang of using the CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) by the second panel. Still, we live and learn. And yes the car got a wash for the first time in 7 months. 

The front lip was something that I was trying, but I decided to rather take it off as I want this done in fibreglass and integrated into the trunk. Here you can see the tabs that I've welded on the bottom for the panels to attach to and there is another on the top. I still have two more to go on the sides, but it's damn study. 

Some trimming needed up top and then finish with a rubber edge and then it's time to mount the top slam panel. You can also see the diamond blade tile cutter on my grinder..........man that thing slices through fibreglass like a hot knife through butter....a must have. 

Here you can get an idea of how she all fits together. I want to close it off like this as on the right hand side of this, I want to mount the fuel filter as well as the fuel pump in this gap so that it's close to the fuel tank, but also easily serviceable. I'll do this once the two flaps are done for the last of the air intake. The other side will hold the car jack and the tool kit. 

To give an idea of how she sits. The radiator has been dropped about another 1" which will give it more air and it still sits lower than my battery pod used to sit and that never hit anything, so I'm safe. 

So next is finishing off the welding on the cage as it's all just been tacked in place, trim off the extra panels as well as put in the tabs for the upper slam panel and then box in the top. I'm hoping to have that done this saterday morning so that work can start on the fuel pumps and filter. 

I missed the car show yesterday that I was aiming for, so this gives me the time to find another motor. 

Do you plan on adding some sort of air scoop for the rad?  When I redid the cooling system in my old V8 Miata I fabbed a crude front air scoop out of aluminum to force more air into the rad.  I also boxed in the rad so no air escaped.

Ron

V8 Miata........lol......you Americans......(I mean that in a nice way btw).

Well the radiator will be boxed in, the panels above are for the side, next are the two on the side that will go to the nose cone section at an angle as well as going down a bit. The top will also be closed up with just the radiator cap sticking outInitial design will be without the lower section of the bumper trimmed to see if cooling is good enough, if not, the lower bumper section will be trimmed below the beading.

A friend has done his beetle like mine using the same radiator and a much bigger subaru motor (turbo) and he only started getting hotter temps when he was on track days, so I should be safe.

Managed to get an hour in last night as I got suckered into going to a kiddies party on Saterday. So I decided to kill some small projects that have started to stack up that had to be done before the nose could be closed up. 

Enter the fuel pump clamp that was pulled from a 92 Honda Civic so that I can use a stock Honda filter that's nice and small and has some cool angles in order to mount the hard lines and a beetle coil clamp that I had lying around that I knew would come in handy one day, plus it looks way better than a plastic tie or a hose clamp. I've been a honda fan for ages and I like the way that they do certain things on the older cars that are just so well thought out and simple, hence me using a lot of the ideas on this build.

You're not even going to see the two fuel units, but I wanted them to look good. I also wanted to make service times easy. 

I had to cut the fuel filter brace at the bend and then pull it back and then re weld as I wanted the bolt to be accessible for service times. Stupid I know, but I'm hoping that service times on this engine set up will be a 1/2 hour affair for oil, plugs and filters. 

This is almost a match made in heaven. I have some nice rubber mat somewhere which will be made into a gasket between the filter and the clamp. There will also be a rubber base on which the clamp will mount as I want to try and keep the fuel pump as quiet as possible and also transfer as little vibration and noise into and onto the rest of the vehicle.

Where it's all going. The fuel pump will be mounted below the fuel filter against the fender well to keep the fuel lines as short as possible. The routing will be from fuel tank to fuel filter to fuel pump, then under the car to the fuel pressure regulator and fuel rail out back and then to the engine, the return line will go from the fuel rail under the car into the overflow pipe on the tank that will mean that I won't have to cut this tank to get all of this to work. 

I also want to use as little High pressure rubber pipe as possible. I want majority of this fuel system to be hard lines mounted to the car to keep things clean and simple. 

I've also been putting off the front scoop now for at least a week as I know it's a crud load of work and the A-frame has to come off the car as I need to get proper access to the front of the car and while it has to be rock solid, it also has to be removable as the A-frame has to be able to go back on for moving it around until she's under her own power.

Good on ya , Gary...yer getting closer and keep us posted.

Finally got my fuel lines from a local supplier last week. Only took about 3 weeks to get them. I was planning on using old fuel lines from a Honda Civic, but they didn't like to be bent and so I just pulled off the end fittings and will add them to my newly bent fuel lines this weekend.

I'm having 4 High pressure fuel lines made up this week for the fuel filter, fuel pump and the fuel rail. But I'm getting there.

Also picked up from mandrel bends from the place across the road from my pipe supplier, nice guy, cheap prices and good stock.

I've also decided that I'm going to use these guys for my parts for my exhaust. Parts will be about R800 and then I've got a friend doing all the welding for me for some help with his water-cooled build. That is down pipe, flanges, and a bespoke silencer.

The fibreglass panels have been completed for the front and now it's a case of just fitting them.

The last of the radiator lines are in and this weekend is some wiring and fitting of my fuel lines and hopefully next weekend is the engine.

My supplier also has 40 engines in stock.......for a little over $500 all in.

Had a good weekend. I finally got my fuel lines in. All I can say is that there is a LOT of work involved in getting the bends right, and also doing it all in one shot, front to back. 

After seeing pics of what a guy on an Australian forum did (PS his picture below, I wish that I worked like that). Can't think of who it was off the top of my head, but to get it this good must have taken a crud load of work. So I seriously take my hat off to the guy that did this lot. 

Started in the front with braising rods to get the bends right and then pulled out the pipe bender and started going to town. 

Fuel tank out and routing the main line and the return line.

The main line comes out in the spare tyre well as along the outer wall is where the fuel pump will be mounted. We want to take advantage of the gravity feed from the fuel tank as well, hence it being so low. I have some glass work to do in the nose section before I can close all of that up, but that should be the last fibreglass work on the car. 

The return comes out right by the top of the tank and we'll have a 180 bend going right into the tank. That way no cutting. Once this has all been sorted and I make a new tank, I'll redo this, but at this stage, it needs to be neat and reliable so that testing can start.

This gives you an idea of the where the lines are run. They are attached to the pan using P clamps with a rubber insert which hold the fuel lines very secure, I'll have a total of about 20 holding the lines from front to back.

The fuel lines are run between the radiator lines, so it'll give some protection if I do ever hit anything, but that's highly unlikely as even with the car slammed all the way down, I'm yet to hit anything. The lines run down the center of the floor pan and is attached with tec screws all the way to the frame rails out back, where it then goes up to the Honda Fuel filter.

Some things did change this weekend, for starters, the fuel filter is being moved again as the spot for it would be putting it right above the distributor, so we're going to move it to the other side of the engine bay and then make a hard line to go around the rear of the car. 

This week I have a friend picking up the last items that we need for the build. (new water pump, my new rubber lines, manifold sensor, knock sensor, new air filter box as I can't bring myself to using a cone filter and some misc stuff, cam belt and tensioner and then we should be set). 

The car goes on Friday to have the radiator pipes nudged up a bit as I'm not happy with how low they hang where they exit for the radiator, so the shop is going to bend them up so that they exit through the front H beam. That way, I won't have any issues. They also have to weld on an adapter so that I can use stock radiator pipes as the last thing that I want to do is to pay 100 odd $$ every time for a damn radiator pipe that has to be custom made.

I've also worked out that once this is done, I've got about 40 odd holes to fill up in this body. I've probably drilled about 1/2 of that with my placement and replacement. Thanks to my buddy, it's a simple case of prep the area, make some cottonflox and then tape the back of the hole and then plug it up.  The Nose will probably need the most attention because of me changing my mind with the radiator mount, but at least fixing it it easy. 

Another cool weekend. 

Got all my goodies together to find out what I had to fabicate mounting brackets for in order to mount the whole lot. Looking at the boxes of stuff it quickly dawns on you how much more stuff there is on a modern motor compared to an AC motor. I also decided to replace the dizzy as to get MP9 to work with the import motors, the internals have to be modded. At $30 for a new one, it's easier just to replace. 

This is about a 1/3 of what I bought for the build. One thing that I have to admit is nice is how cheap good quality parts are. It was however weird seeing so many small water pipes in the mix. 

Expansion tank and it's bracket mounted to the firewall. One this bracket there is another bracket that holds my fuel lines that come through the back to the fuel filter as well. I have to refit the section that I cut out of the back and then the fuel filter will mount to that and then in turn, the airfilter box will mount in front of the expansion tank. It's all a tight fit, but the final arrangement will make servicing easy as well as allowing access to everything that I need to do. I was thinking of pulling a lot of brackets off a mk1, but at the end of the day, I would of been cutting and modifying everything to fit, so it was easier just to make my own. 

I've already fabbed the brackets for the airbox, but that can't be mounted until the fuel filter and it's pipes have been fitted first. Hard lines will run from the fuel filter to the wall opposite the fuel rail as that way my rubber hoses are as short as possible.

This weekend coming is making the last radiator pipe for the back as well as some finishing touches on the fuel system and some minor fibreglass issues as well as wire in the engine harness and fuel pump and then we're good to go for the engine.

Good on ya, Gary. Looking very nice. Keep us posted !

It gets me down a tad when I look at the boxes and boxes of spares sitting in my garage right now for the car that still have to go on. Luckily, 90% is just for the motor and one by one, small things are being added to the vehicle. I've been tackling the car now after work as well, doing all the small crappy jobs, really frees up my weekends to get the big stuff done. 

It's nice though as the list of things to do is getting less and less. One thing though, I estimate the cost of this build to be double what I originally planned as I haven't skimped on anything for the car. Complete service kits, cambelt and tensioner change, oil seals, new everything. 

You've probably mentioned it somewhere in you thread, but is that a VW water cooled engine? 

Yup, the engine is a watercooled VW motor. 2.0 8valve from a 4/5th gen Golf. Obtained from a local importer with under 50 000miles. Which is fine with me. Locally they are cheap, parts for them are good quality and the aftermarket scene on them is HUGE.

The downside is the initial conversion, that isn't cheap, I'd say about $3500.00 to covert it all over.

The motor in the back at the moment is a dummy block, head, intake and exhaust, just to get all my measurements spot on.

Hopefully the second last update before I can post a video of a running motor. 

The fuel system on this car has been a challenge of note, but I have to admit that I've loved every single minute of it. We bent the last of the hard lines that link the tank in the front to the engine at the back. My lines are now just awaiting to be attached to the car with P-clamps as I need a few more in order to finish the mounting. I also have to weld a few tabs to the cars frame in order to make sure that everything is neat and solid mounted. 

I had to first repair the rear fiberglass section of the car that I pulled out way back when because the lower section of it was totally rotten and looked like it had been badly joined. So that was trimmed and a new piece was sectioned and then glassed in, this had to be done because on this panel I'm mounting my fuel filter as well as my expansion tank. (It's moving from the firewall because I want it more accessible. 

Yes I can assure you that the very bad picture is indeed the repaired section. Still needs a lick of black primer which I'll do when I'm 100% sure everything is where I want it to go. 

The filter finally in it's final resting place. There is a rubber hose to the rear of the car, then it's all hard lines from there with a rubber hose to the fuel rail. 

Where the last of the hard lines will be located. It's been fun bending these pipes into the shape that they're supposed to be in order to follow the steel frame of the car. 

This is the main line and to give you an idea, this has seven bends in it. 

So the plan of action, during the week I've got to fit all the small stuff like the pipes as I need more P-clamps and also get some more hose clamps. Then it's back to the exhaust shop to get the to make the final changes to my undercar cooling system, then it's off to my buddy on Saterday to tie up the electrics and rear radiator hoses......

Very productive weekend as well as a public holiday that I had yesterday.

Willem finished off my hard line radiator pipes that go out to the back, including adding all my bends. A quick lick of paint on these to clean things up and then we've got to wrap the rear section to help with heat. I'm making a few homemade P-clamps in order to hold the last section of the hardline. But that's a quick job. 

Crappy photos. Sorry about that. dummy engine out, which only means one thing.......I'm done with mock up and dont' need it anymore.

I also decided to move the overflow tank from the firewall, to the side wall, this will make it easier to fill up if need be. Even with the engine lid on. I also wanted the pipes to point either towards the engine or the firewall in order to clean things up. 

I'm still waiting on this part from VW as well as the two screws that go with it. This prevents the water being sprayed over the engine bay and instead directs it straight down in case of over-flow.

Then work started on hooking up the last of my high pressure fuel lines, this was a bit of a pita because to get it all evenly spaced, took a bit of thinking. Luckily we had bent these before hand and all that I needed was a bit of tweaking.

I'm drooling with anticipation, Gary. Nice work. My Soob is running so well it's well, boring. Just a thought, this is your last chance to check your throw out bearing and it's workings and maybe check the tranny oil. 

Hey David

The throw-out bearing is pretty new anyway as is the tranny oil. Plan of action is to drive the snot out of her for 30 days and then do a removal and strip down of everything after we've concluded that I have no cooling issues. I have V8 engine mounts that are going in to offer a bit more support and then we'll also do the cross member for the engine as well.

I'm really looking forward to hassle free driving by going water-cooled, hence me taking WAY too long with planning this project. In fact a lot of stuff I got pretty carried away with to be honest.

I would of loved to go the subaru route, but damn maintenance costs in South Africa are just insane.

When I first got involved with car building, I was fortunate to be able to hang around a terrific engine builder who also raced a bit and built his own cars.  He was very patient with me as I learned how to fabricate "stuff", but I'll always remember him telling me, when I was fabricating something from scratch:  "Make it look like somebody cares how it was done."

The workmanship on your car looks like you care a whole lot.

Nice Job!

gn

Excellent workmanship on your project! She'll be a beauty!

Aaah man you guys are too kind. 

I've always known what I wanted to do, but never had the skills to actually put it into reality. Hence me having to rely on other people and then in turn not being 100% happy with what was done and sometimes putting unrealistic expectations on them. With this project, one thing that I have learnt is not to rush things and also that good work takes good planning and time.

My friend Willem has been a great teacher and leaves me hanging with a spanner in my hand then shows me the basics and then I have to figure out the rest for myself. 

Minor set back this weekend. After wiring the car up with the ECU during the week, we found out that city used spares didn't include the injector plug for the harness and that I'm going to wait 2-3 days for it, so the decision was made to delay putting the engine in as I was going to lose a week in running time, plus I can't do anything this weekend on it, so that would mean 2 weeks with no running. 

So I used the time to do some ducting work as I had a lot of left over dry fibreglass panels that I had made. This craptacular picture will be replaced this afternoon once I get her out of the garage and also get the A-frame off.

It gives you an idea of the side ducts that I have bolted into place to the radiator cage that direct all the air through the radiator. There will be a steel lower scoop section that will bolt to the frame as well as the side panels. Besides that, we're done, nothing else to do now, but kill time till we can put the engine in. 

As soon as my BB charges, I'll post pictures of the final install.

I wasn't expecting to be able to do anything this weekend as I was on kiddy watch, but the kids were playing in the garden, so dad tied up some final things. Pulled the engine wiring harness through as well as trimmed the firewall for the brackets etc. Got to finally use my Einhell dremel knock off.

280 fittings and 6 speed with workm drive and table mount for $30, plus 2 year warantee?.........dremel can go and screw themselves. My last dremel gave me so much issues and the replacement parts were so dammed expensive, I sold it after 6 months and bought this cheapy. I can't fault it.

All in all, not a lot of wiring to pull through, this is pretty much everything. Coil pack, injector harness, dizzy wiring, throttle wiring, knock sensor and map sensor. Not too bad, I was expecting way worse. I still have to pull the last of the temp sensor as well the power for that, but now it's killing time till the weekend.

Also had a bit of drama as my bonnet wouldn't close. Got under the car and felt around and it seems that my nice trim panel that fits over the top of my radiator is hitting the underside of the bonnet. Trimmed it a bit and all is now fine.

The final plan will be to drive the car for a while and sort out the bugs and then drop the radiator about another 20mm, but only once I'm sure that there is no clearance issues. This will allow the radiator cap to sit flush with the slam panel for the bonnet. I have a day off this week, so I'm going to pick up some sheet steel to fab the scoop for the front as well as fit the bumper back on, so that I can get an idea of how much lower it will have to sit.

Had a good day yesterday.

Pulled the last of the harness through. This is all tucked up high against the firewall, so that you won't see anything. The cables will be attached with extra P-clamps that I have lying around. At $1 each, I'm planning on using all the old ones that I had left over. I also got my cover for the expansion tank in place to clean things up. 

Decided to start on the scoop for the front. This thing looks huge. I had some hardboard that I mocked up to the right size and then hot glued the lot together. After this weekend I can get an idea of how much of the lower section of the bumper will have to be trimmed. At the end of the day, I'll have a radiator opening about 40cm x 10cm. 

And how much of this do you exactly see when the bumper is back on?

Obviously the bumper section will be trimmed below the belt line, but the scoop, (which will be made in 1mm galvanised plate) and then painted black will be able to poke through. Very chuffed with how non-evasive the install looks. A few little projects to kill before the weekend, but we're getting there.

Looks good.  I'm going to build something similar for my front mounted oil cooler.

Hmmm, what about putting the oil cooler behind the horn vents?

I'm already a bit nervous about having my radiator so low...lol.

Giday, Gary. For reference, my rad has a 48 x6.25 cm entrance which gives 300 sq. cm and it is adequate for very high ambient temps. I placed two vertical vanes to prevent incoming air from drifting left or right and I also put in a horizontal vane ramped up ( curved up ) to feed air to the front 1/2 of the rad. Apparently at high speed incoming air might get compressed to the rearmost section of the rad and this prevents this from happening. I can't quite tell where the entrance to your scoop is in relation to the bottom of your bumper but the top of my scoop is about in line with the bottom of my bumper and about three inchs back. I have 12 cm ground clearance. My rad is a mid 90's Saab and measures 34 cm x 50 cm x 3.2 cm single row and it is mounted almost horizontal with the front end canted slightly up. Maybe some of this info will be useful.

Hey David. Thanks for the refrence, yes I found it all very useful. I've been told that the radiator and the way that I'm going to vent to it are sufficient, but I'll always worry, until I see the temp gauage sitting rock solid at 81 degrees while driving and the fan not being on.

Any chance that you have some pictures lying around with regard to your set-up?

Our set-ups sound very similar, I have two vanes on the side to channel air into the radiator as well as my scoop at the bottom will be curved up to channel air to the top of the radiator. I do still have to seal off the top of the vanes as well as the top of the radiator to make sure that everything is being pushed through the radiator. I'm sure that I'm going to have some trial and error with my set-up. I will be re-doing the radiator set up some day as I want the radiator to fit closer to the H-beam and that will involve dumping the stock Honda civic fan cowl and going custom as it's taking up a lot of space.

My final plan is to have my spare wheel back up front in the nose.

The opening that is exposed to the outside through the bumper will be almost 10cm x 600cm as that is the hole that I have cut on my spare bumper, once I can guage the cooling, I can scale it down till I have a final size that I can transfer to my proper bumper.

I checked last night and on the lowest point of the radiator, I have about 15cm clearance to the ground.

Will update the thread later today as I have another weekends work to add.

Cheers David

- G

So this weekends work.

Braised two bungs onto my radiator pipe work int he front and back, 1 for the temp gauge that's found it's way under my dash and the other in the front for the fan switch. 

The one for the temp gauge is tapped into the back before it goes in the engine. 

Will take some new pics once the car is out of the garage as we only finished late. I also ran the cable for that as well so that we're sorted in that department. 

The second bung was braised to a pipe that will fit to the radiator pipe in the front of the car.

Both of the work was done prior to clean up and painting, so it looks pretty neat and blends in with the rest of the water pipes. 

I also found out after mock up that my wiring wasn't going to work out as the harness is made for a VW golf, so I had to proceed to pull off all the insulation tape upto the firewall and then split up what I wanted and what I didn't need and then clean it all up again. 

I also had to make up some plates for the grommets to go through the firewall as the fibreglass is too thick fot it to seal properly. I was thinking of painting them silver, but they look neat. I'll maybe get them powder-coated at some stage. 

The ECU is mounted on the other side of the firewall and then the rear area will be split in two, one for the battery which will be vented to the outside and the other side which will house all the cars electronics.

Then finally it was finding a decent spot for the water temp gauge. Requirements were simple, must be inb clear sight and not too far away, but must be pretty much hidden from onlookers. With the 3 porsche guages that are going on the dash and with the layout of the 356 dash, there was no ways that it was going on the dash, so I had to look underneath. 

Here it is installed.  

Yup, from where most people will stand, you can't see it. I was first thinking of mounting it to the fibreglass panel that runs under the dash, but then changed my mind as it was too far forward. The speedster has a steel beam that runs the length of the dash and this is about 20cm behind the bottom of the dash.

Will snap a picture of the view from the driver and you'll see it's spot on. 

The plans for the week is to fab up the steel intake flap for the front and then wait for the weekend.

Incredible work.  By the way, who's the future copilot on the floor in the last picture?

Cheers, that's my buddys dog sitting shot gun, little bugger was growling at me when I was working in the cockpit as she had to move all the time. After an hour of my antics she got pissed and slept under the car. 

Gary, I'd be a bit concerned about that loop you have in the coolant hose just above the bellhousing in one of the pics. Based on what I experienced, that bugger will trap air without you placing a vent at the highest point. I had two similar loops, one on each side of my horizontal rad to clear the front suspension members. The right side one had my fan temp switch fitted to it. I had problems and finally fitted a vent alongside the temp switch and it partially cured the problem. Then with more overheating I concluded that the drivers side loop might be sending air over to the right side and it got trapped there so I installed a vent on the left side. Still had a bit of trouble under certain conditions. The final solution was to join the vents...left and right together at a very high spot up in the rear of the trunk just between the hinges.

Problem solved.

Dave, you don't miss anything do you?

Goodstuff!!!

The hose was looped like that because we had rain throughout the day and I didn't want water going down the pipe. Normally that hose would be angled off 90 degrees towards the engine with a bleed screw at the highest point, which must still be added.

I've been pretty carefull with avoiding water locks in my system. I'm also set to add a second overflow tank up front by the radiator so that burping the system will be made much easier during services.

Pictures of your set up by any chance? Very interested in the radiator/ nose set up.

- G

awesome awesome AWESOME weekend, but, she's still not running......will get down to that now-now. 

Willem picked me up and we were off to Engine Den in Pretoria West to have a look see at what they had, I'd glad that I waited, because 3 weeks ago they got in a stash of at least a few hundred 2.0 8v units. I was spoilt for choice. 

Straight away 4 units caught our eye. Not only because they were new looking (which you should never go by), but they we're sealed up properly, still had all the stickers on the engine as well as soft and supple rubber hoses and almost brand new looking water channels and also had perfect cam covers which are an agent only part and it's what I wanted, and at a few hundred for the part it was a no brainer. 

Cranked each one over to check for compressed and this one by far was the best. The dude was trying to talk us out of buying it and rabbiting on about book and cover yadda yadda yadda. But I reckon he had it stashed for a buddy or something

Willem gave me the look and said that this by FAR was the nicest one here, it also had it's power steering pump, starter, AC pump and all the sensors. The sensors I wans't too phased as I've bought new, but it's always a bonus to have some spare. Plus once the 30 days are over I have a buyer for the starter, ac pump and ps pump which will recoup $100 of my money back. We had the tappet cover off as well as the spark plugs out and we were both happy with what we saw....so we bought it for about $450.

Got the motor to Willems house to start stripping it down. Most of the stuff we won't be using, but it was the perfect time to replace the plugs, drop in oil and a filter, the camebelt, tensioner and sensors will be added once I know that the motor starts and that there is no knocking or smoking. We also still have to shop around for a new drive belt so that I can remove the power steering pump as well as get a belt for the alternator. 

This is about half of what came off.

Adapter is on, flywheel is on, but the clutch kit......she didn't fit.

sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo close, yet sooooooooooooooooooo far.

The Motor is officially in. Willem told me that the intake manifold, exhaust manifold and alternator had to come off in order to get the engine in. 

From the side shot, you can see that it's going to be a tight fit. But I had a feeling that most of the inner skin of the decklid would have to be cut away. No real concern there. But you can see that this is still going to be a tight fit. 

And plus I still have to get an airbox in there. My plan is to keep the polo upper box and the trim of the bottom and then make a lower section that will go to the bottom of the car. The exhaust that was made for the ride was also too big and it hits against the pulleys, so it's got to go back to the shop this weekend to have the last rear peice and a new tip fitted.

We've also had to pull the wiring again as we want to hook up the factory plug that will allow, quick plug and unplug of the system.

The pictures pretty much show how it is back there, but holy crap, it's a tight fit.

That is going to be one sweet ride!!

There is life......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_cbhUMdfGA

So as per the link above...........the car is now running and moving under its own power.

1 simple wire swapped and she started up first time. This is probably the 3rd-4th start. The hesitation in the beginning is because my starter is not among the most healthiest and the motor has damn good compression. Video and pics from my BB, hence the cruddy quality.

The knocking that you hear is the big truck exhaust hitting against the body of the car. They have to change my mountings for it on Friday and also do a new tail pipe as the current one isn't going to work. But you can hear at 20sec when I pull the exhaust away it's dead quiet. 

I've actually decided that the truck exhaust will remain on as damn it sounds throaty. Because my whole exhaust system is less than a meter long, I need every bit of silencing that I can get. I will however re-do my downpipe. 

And after a lot of trimming the engine lid also fits. Albeit, I'm going to have to trim my vent at the back so that it won't foul my oil breather. But from the outside, you won't see any indication of what's in the back unless you peak through the engine vents. 

Yup, all of the bottom of the engine lid had to go, because of the shape, it's actually damn stiff and once we put the gussets under the hinge points, you shouldn't be able to see any different..........from the outside. 

Next step is 4 water leaks that I have on my main water pipes. These will be sorted by the shop on Friday and there is a small one out back that I'll do as it's on the engine. Car will now unfortunately be off the road for the next 2 weeks as I have family commitments that I can't break and then on the 14th, we'll do the final settings and make the cross member.

Many people have asked me if going EFI is worth it and also if going 2.0 over 1.8 is worth it as well. On the lighter cars, the 1.8 should push a car like a beetle along with no issues whatsoever, but I wanted the torque more than the outright power and the price difference between the two is marginal. The parts are basically the same and also easy to get. The issue is space. The height of the 2.0 8v long block that I have means that it's had to be squeezed into the back. I'm sure that you could look into clocking the motor on it's side, but on a beetle, you would probably run into issues. This has only JUST fit into a speedster and I have way more space than a beetle on the sides. 

As for EFI...............only time will tell. One thing I do know running fuel lines, fuel pump, and return lines etc is a pita of a job and that's not even touching the wiring. I kept it easy and stuck with stock mp9........so it was all plug and play. But it still look some sorting out to do.

Well............the conversion is done. 

Just a few pics to show you the outside views. 

Once the scoop has been painted black, you won't notice anything. I've been driving this thing for a week with only really one issue. (fan won't switch on sometimes), but I'm putting that down to the fact that it's a 12 year old part that's come out of a junkyard and that it was suspect to start off with anyway. 

Some points.

1) Engine - She sure as hell has some power. I was feathering the throttle most of the way and the first thing that you notice is torque. I could potter along at 60 in 4th and push my foot down and she'd launch. I forgot how much better throttle response is with EFI. This car was built as a cruiser and damn, she does that so well. The one thing that I noticed was that she runs damn quiet, I mean super quiet. When she's idling, you can't really hear it. The truck silencer kills it all. I may be looking at changing this as I think that I do want an exhaust burble. I really need to get my tach fitted as I kept on tapping the throttle pedal to hear if she was still idling or not.

2) Cooling - This is one thing that I was really worried about as I had mixed and matched cooling systems from 3 different makes of cars and also used a radiator set-up that has not been done locally yet. The Civic dual core unit was fitted because it was small and fit in the nose like a dream. I was however worried that I was going to have issues with cooling while the car was running as I doubted that I didn't have enough cool air coming in as the actual opening is about 400mm x 50mm. I shouldn't have worried though. The car came up to operating temps pretty quick, (2 minutes or so) and then proceeded to stay rock solid at 82 degrees the whole way home. I was in traffic a few times at a few robots and the temp gauge crept to 84 degrees, but didn't go any higher. Once I was moving again, it came down to 82 and stayed there. I was mainly worried about moving temps, nice to know it's sorted though.

3) Brakes - They actually felt good. I will have to adjust them up a bit as they haven't been done in ages. But stock brakes have no issue reeling in this car. The speedster only weighs in at 740kgs though. 

4) Misc - The engine mounts are 100% toasted, I get tonnes of vibration through the body of the car. So this means that the upgrade to the V8 mounts next year will be done sooner as well as fitting the cross member. The vibration comes in around 4k rpm and is annoying as hell. 

This weekend I'll be making the last few changes to the scoop up front as well as the bumper and mounts and try to get everything back to normal looking and also to clean the car as it hasn't had a decent wash in about 8 months. I also have to start fabbing the air intake and air box set-up. I do first have to clean out the rats mess of wiring behind the engine and that'll take me a few weekends to do on it's own. 

But at least I can drive it and enjoy it while fine tuning.