Day 77: Newark Show and contact at last

A mate of mine has been thinking about a kit car.  And with the Newark show on the horizon I ask if he want to join me.  It was looking like it was going to be a great show Ronart were going to be there, some new vehicles were being launched/displayed for the first time and from last year’s experience there was a pretty good club scene.  It was all gearing up for a great show.

However we can’t plan the weather which was atrocious with high winds and lashing rain.  Hence the majority of the club cars stayed away and those that did turned up it wasn’t a nice environment to peruse the cars and chat to the owners.  I did manage to talk to Arthur Wolstenholme the creator and director of Ronart Cars.  There was a V12 W152 which looked awesome especially for a 10 year old car.  Arthur showed me an article in the June edition of Jaguar World magazine. The W152 uses a Jaguar XJ series as its donor for engine, transmission, suspension etc. I recall reading ages ago that Jaguar had an issue with their name being used on the Ronart cars as it wasn’t a “proper” Jaguar.  Could be Jaguar World think a little different.

I decided that seeing as I hadn’t heard from the lads I tracked down a fellow Murtaya owner who had a completed car (IBIS White) and asked him if he could take a few pictures of his car for me.  He happily agreed to help though when he told me the car was in storage and soon heading to Scoobyprojects I felt a little guilty for putting him out and curious about what he was having done.

I also decided another email to Andy was in order asking if I could come down and meet him and if he had access to the workshop, a car, drawings etc, and most important my outstanding Kit.   To my surprise I got a response the same day agreeing and offering access to cars and the workshop.  I got in touch with Stuart and we quickly agreed to fix a date.  Fingers crossed I will get the miriad of questions buzzing around my head answered.  The cars they have available, I’m guessing slightly, are the red race car and the Avendator Orange RT2 which according to andy was still waiting a custom ECU for that highly modified engine.

Day 76: Gong deep with the wiring

After much discussion with myself I have decided the front engine bay wiring loom will have to be split. The first half follows the existing route and contains the wiring for the lights, fans and horns.  The second half of the cabling links the internal fuse board to the engine bay relay box and will route back to the location of the internal fuse box using the same hole in the bulkhead the wiring harness used from the engine control unit (ECU) in the car to the engine harness connectors.

The other benefit of doing this is I can remove the huge connector that was connected to the ABS unit.  I don’t know whether I will need to keep it in the harness but by doing it this way I can bring the all the cabling inside the car under the dash.

It took a while to unwrap but after an hour or so I was left with a mass of cables on the garage floor and I’d had enough already of working on the garage floor.  I set up the wallpaper pasting table and the workmate, laid cardboard sheet over the two and laid the cabling out on the cardboard and began separating the cables into four groups common, ABS, front end connections(lights, horns, fans etc) and internal wiring.  Thank god I labelled every connector well.  2 connectors were dedicated to ABS.  There were over half a dozen other cables for the ABS connector one was power from the fuse board so that was quickly cut and pulled back. There were actually 4 separate commons, 2 were on a separate connector (I assume for fault finding) and two others wired into the common cable. These I cut also.

Next were the lights, the main cabling was fine from the fuse board and easily segregated but there was a loop back into the car which I would have to chop and extend. There was a mass of offside indicators wiring as the side indicator and main indicator were combined. I coiled up and cut to extend.  The side lights were next to get the same treatment.  The only outstanding problems were a pair of connectors that were unused in the donor car I suspect they are either day running lights or possibly the fog lights.  I will have to check the wiring manual. 

Now it was the time to check the other connectors.  The Fans were okay although I had to run a new common back to the main common connector.  There are also a pair of commons that previously connected to the metal body work on the donor car.  I kept them on for know and will extend them to the metal sub-frame if necessary.

The only other pair of cables was the air intake temperature sensor which I will extend I’m just not sure how far to extend it though.

With regards extending cables, I have a bunch of crimps but chose to extend the cables by soldering the joints and covering the joint with heat shrink tubes.  I specifically chose cut points that I should be able to get to once the loom is back in place in the car should I suffer and problems later.  I know the headlights will need the connectors cutting off but not until the headlights are in place and then I will create a loom and use the crimped bullet connectors.

Day 75: Silence is not Golden

I have been trying to get in touch with Ben and Graham without success.  I don’t have much in equipment outstanding but I could do with as much data as possible.  If as they have stated previously they have gone silent.

I recently went to the Stoneleigh kit car show hoping to find a fellow Murtaya owner so I could get some photos of a completed model to help with the build. But all I found was Arden Automotives, for want of a better description, rough build.  It was complete, but unpainted and in its roughest form to pass IVA and it was for sale.  It looked like an earlier version of the tub from looking at the condition of the GRP components, there was no carpeting, the dash wasn’t the same, the internal door release were manual levers from the donor car, it had no door windows and in all it was bare to say the least.  It looked like it had been thrown together - literally. So much so I didn’t take any photos.

The show itself was a little subdued compared to the previous shows I’d been to highlighting the struggling self build and custom build industry.  However there were some new ideas and some interesting developments including a couple of MX5 shell switchovers. One from Tribute Automotive converts a series 1 mx5 into what looks like a Ferrari 250 GTO without requiring an IVA test.  This makes for a low cost alternative for car builder wannabes and MEV showed its alternative skin option by actually doing it in the show in about 20 minutes (pre-work had already been done e.g. disconnection of headlights and etc).

The clubs made up for the somewhat subdued manufacturers halls, and the weather held off to bring out a fascinating range of cars. I managed to find the Single Ronart W152 which is another one of my favourites.

Day 74 Exhausting trip to Horncastle

I haven’t been able to do much since before Christmas.  But now things have warmed up again (above freezing) I decided to make another start.  Having worked with cables in my job I know messing about with cables when it is freezing below 1 deg C is a bad idea as the insulation can crack – Granted I’m talking about Steel Wired Armoured cable the thickness of my forearm but with a 14 year old wiring harness and the fact I’m freezing my butt off I decided not to risk it.

So my primary concern is the hole for this wiring harness from the engine bay.  The problem being to keep it away from the turbo catalytic convertor and down pipe, but not such that it will be exposed in the wheel arch.  I have to do the same with the throttle cable but that is protected by its metal and plastic sheath.  After mulling this over I decided I would need to put the downpipe in place to see what space I have to play with.  The HKS down pipe (marked competition use only) was not going to be any good as the downpipe I would be using would have a catalytic convertor round about the area I want to put the cabling harness.  So I put a few questions together for the lads at MSC one being where can I get a downpipe with a cat.  Last night, having not heard anything from the lads for a week I went hunting on Ebay. 

I have been looking round the internet on several occasions over the last few months the costs to be honest depressed me with figures of £400 - £500 for a full system.  With all the cars around that have had the cats removed and downpipes increased in bore you would have thought there must be somewhere I can get a second hand unit.  The cat is important the reason being the IVA test on emissions.

Emissions levels on the IVA is one of the more “political issues” on the test.  The levels are, I believe, the same as any MOT test.  However, most of the replacement cats available online that say they will pass MOT will only actually pass when they are Hot full operating temperature.  On the IVA test they put a temperature probe in the oil dip pipe and take the emissions reading from when the oil reaches 80 Deg C at which point the cat is not fully up to normal operating temperature hence it can fail on emissions.  This is what I am trying to avoid, obviously.

So back to the internet. After trying a few more new websites which told me nothing I didn’t already know I gave Ebay one last try.  Jackpot! There it was a Full classic STI exhaust system original downpipe, 2 Catalytic convertors and a Subaru back box.  It still had 6 days to run but with no bidders.  My own paranoia made me decide not to bid but to pay the asking price.   I got a call from the seller half an hour later and this morning with the sun shining I drove across the bridge en route to Horncastle.

The seller wasn’t there it was his father in law who ran a small garage.  The unit had been his son in laws who had used it to get his Subaru through its MOT each year until he crashed it a couple of years ago and was now driving a 2.5litre model.  Closer inspection showed it in good condition with nothing from my limited understanding to indicate there was anything wrong with it.  So money paid we put it in the back of my car. This leaves me with a small issue for later on the pipe ID is 57mm whilst the tail pipe unit in the kit is 72mm.  This I will solve later.  It is not a difficult problem.

Other questions I put to the lads @ MSC  were the structural PU adhesive nobody local or internet could offer me anything that they would describe as structural PU this had been really frustrating. I chatted with a mate at work and he directed me to a the U-Pol site.  After some browsing I found U-Pol Stronghold panel adhesive.  A fast curing adhesive designed to stick GRP panels together and GRP to Aluminium which U-pol describes as semi-flexible.  It is as close as I can find to what Graham had described in previous discussions.  It’s not cheap @ £27.00 for a 200ml tube but at least I can make progress.

My other question which I need a response to is this cable hole was if they knew of another owner that I could ask for some photos of the cable routing in the engine bay round the turbo.

Day 73: Winter is coming and the goose is getting fat... well me actually

The winter solstice tomorrow, at last the nights will start getting shorter. It is bloody freezing in the garage.  Work is not progressing at any rate of knots.  Every time I reach a point where I have to think what to do next or work out what needs to go where I start to freeze.

Note to self: Next time you build a garage fit under floor heating.

I tried laying out the wiring loom about the garage floor on cardboard and identified which plugs I would need and which I wouldn’t.  Those that I wouldn’t need I taped up to the loom.  Once I was reasonably satisfied I laid it in the car.  I pulled the loom for the rear of the car as well as the boot release. I figured to use the bottom boot catch as a grounding point for the rear lights. So I removed the boot lid latch and mounted the bottom release (the last thing I need to do was lock the boot with no method of release).

Then I came across a problem the connector for the fuel pump and sender harness was halfway down in the sill of the car and there was no way the fuel pump loom would reach.  This would be the start of the harness modifications.  I had recently bought a couple of reels of cable red, black, brown and blue. At least I can keep warm with the soldering iron.

I pressed on with the other legs of the loom passing them through the forward bulkhead into the engine bay working out the other changes I would have to make.  The windscreen wiper motor would now be mounted inside the car instead of the in the engine bay as it was on the donor car.  It is a new mono wiper blade system. And I’m assuming the screen wash “bladder bag” and pump will also go in the inside but will have to confirm with the lads at MSC before stripping back the loom so the cables.  There was something wrong and it was bugging me.  The internal fuse board. The board was originally mounted above and to the right of the accelerator.  The board links to both the internal loom and to the engine bay loom. So getting the position right is going to be critical.  And so far the harness isn’t in the right place to mount the board.  Now because the distance between the wheel is actually shorter (hence the prop shaft had to be shortened) in theory I should have a bit more loom spare. But I still have the problem of cutting a hole for the engine bay loom.