plenty of holiday progress!

Over the Christmas break I have been able to spend some reasonable hours on the car. This has resulted in the following:

subframe top-coated and now complete. Rear brake lines installed:

various suspension components rubbed down, cleaned and re-painted:

alternator lower bracket fabricated:

throttle cable linkage bracket fabricated. I've made this adjustable so I should be able to get a set-up which works well when the engine goes back in the car.

 Oil coolers have arrived. Settled on a 7 row cooler for the gearbox oil. This will be positioned in the left cooling duct. 30 row cooler for the engine oil, this will be positioned behind the right hand air duct, and right next to the dry sump tank which it will feed:

EliseParts GT rear uprights. These have a massive number of advantages: lighter, stronger, 16mm lowering of the car whilst maintain correct shock length, and they take S2 bearing packs so I can run 4 x 100 wheel stud PCD which is a much more common than the S1 PCD of 4 x 95.25!

I cannot refit the engine for the final time until I complete a solution for the camshaft driven alternator pulley attachment. This is because it fits into the front of the camshaft sprocket and ends up pretty close behind the bulkhead once the engine is installed. 

engine mounts and rear subframe mods complete

All the engine and gearbox mounts, and subframe bracing bars are now fully welded and primered ready for top coat paint over the Christmas holidays.

I may add one more lateral bracing bar in aluminium underneath the gearbox, but this can be a bolt-on or rivet&adhesive affair so doesn't need to be fitted right now. This may give me an additional support for the rear floor/diffuser later in the build.

Just a reminder for anyone joining the blog late, the work I'm doing here doesn't affect the rear suspension geometry in anyway. The fuel tank cutout will probably reduce the torsional stiffness of the chassis in that area somewhat, but counteracting that the rear upper shock mounts are now directly tied together and will be better than a stock Elise.

The well-known weakness area on all Elise/Exiges of the rear toe-links is being addressed by fitting the pilbeam style lower wishbones (watch this space) and by tieing that area into the main 50mm diameter bar supporting the gearbox.

mocking up engine mounts

Mock up of the front engine mounts. I am happy I have got them within +/- 2-3mm of each other. The cardboard gusset template in both of the pictures is the same and as you can see it fits perfectly.

Over Christmas I am hoping to get the mounts and subframe fully welded, painted and the engine back in properly for what could be the final time. (future driveshaft, gearshift and wiring loom dramas notwithstanding!!)

makings of a dry sump tank...

Air Suspension canister from an Audi A8. 

5.8L capacity is a good start and it's very light. Next step is to gather fittings for welding on, and finalise placement in the engine bay. 

new radiator arrived & fitted!

New radiator and fans have arrived. Very happy with how the cooling efficiency should increase over a stock Elise set up, which is rumoured to be good for 200bhp as it is.

My radiator has the following improvements:

• Fully alloy (standard has plastic end tanks which are prone to cracking)
• core depth increase - 56mm vs 31mm (181%)
• fan area increase - 905cm² vs 707cm² (128%)

New on left, old on right.

Fully sealed in with aluminium foil tape to prevent any air circumnavigating the core.

Installed (bar the fans which I will do later)

BMW waterpump mounted

apologies for lack of updates. I have been very busy on the build though.

BMW electric waterpump now trimmed of it's original mounts, and mounted on AV mounts right at the front of the car for weight distribution.

The pump is fed directly by the outlet from the rad, and pushes the water to the back of the car and through the engine...

engine is in!

and fits!

just! :)

All joking aside, it took only a couple of hours to get the engine into a position I am happy with for now. There were no major dramas and it appears my CAD and cutting were accurate to within +/-5mm or so as I had hoped. 

The lump is just resting on stands for now but will allow me to put the final touches tot the engine and gearbox mounts, as well as beginning the interesting stuff like figuring out coolant, oil, fuel and exhaust routings, and measuring up for driveshafts.

Some evidence:

in this last shot you can see the beginnings of the gearbox mount bar.

more progress

in no particular order:

• rear suspension pick-ups refurbished.
• rear subframe bracing continued
• Cosworth Pi Omega D1 digital dash fitted
• bulkhead heat shielding nearly finished

pics:

Dash has integrated shift lights. Looking forward to experimenting the functionality once it's wired in.

I am very close now to being able to hoist the engine and gearbox into position for the first time. Just in the process of arranging crane and additional stands. It will be a big milestone. :-)

engine rebuild complete & gearbox connected

finished rebuilding the oil pump and fitting the sump, after which it was time to connect the gearbox, which, due to the layout of flywheel and clutch being at the back of the gearbox, should be the first and only time the engine and box need to be connected. They can stay together from now on... :-)

pictures:

This picture makes me pleased with how far I've come already!

Ferrari 360 fuel rails are fitted and also get some of the gold foil treatment.

bulkhead & fuel tank panelling 1

bulkhead construction is now complete, and the re-panelling around the cutout in the fuel tank area is 90% complete. Best to let the pictures tell the story:

  

managed to bend the entire V-section out of one panel. Looks neat!

 ultimately the entire bulkhead will be gold foil covered in order to minimise heat transfer through to the cockpit compartment.

engine mounts

Annoyingly the engine didn't come with the stock engine mounts attached (probably as was mounted in the racecar via custom mounts), but the gearbox did. After a couple of months of searching I managed to track down a pair of engine mounts at a sensible price, and set about modifiying them for use with the ubiquitous Land Rover engine mounting rubbers. I turned down some aluminium inserts to a heavy press fit, and pressed them into the engine mount bores with a hydraulic press. The press was reading 5 tonnes as they went home, so they are never coming out, under vibration or otherwise!

Then it was simply a case of tapping the centres of the inserts to M10 x 1.5 and screwing on the mount. Very happy with how they have come out.

The gearbox mounts didn't need any modification as they take an 10mm bolt as standard anyway.

exhaust system - part 1

Managed to pick up the above manifolds for a bargain price. They are from the BWM E92 M3 V8. It's an engine not dissimilar to the 355 V8 in terms of output. Making 414bhp and revving to 8000rpm, the diameters and (nicely equal) lengths should be a good match to my ~380bhp at ~8250rpm.

They need the flanges grinding off for now, then I will set them aside until I modify them as required once the engine is the chassis.

first welding complete

Harness bar now fully welded in. Ready for primer and paint.

preparing for re-fit of standard oil pump

This afternoon I pulled the sump pan off the engine in order to get ready for re-fitting the standard Ferrari dry sump oil pump unit and drivechain. There are one or two small components I still need to purchase but I should have the engine back together within a week to 10 days.

Once the sump pan is back on there is nothing preventing me from connecting the engine and gearbox for what should be the final time. An event that will really feel like some good tangible progress is being made! I really like the rear flywheel clutch layout of the gearbox as it means the necessity for splitting the engine and gearbox in service is very low, and clutch flywheel maintenance is straightforward.

Gratuitous shot of titanium con-rods! (piston spray jets also visible)

stripping more stuff out

about time i posted an update on the weight reduction totals so far:

REMOVED		344.773	kg
interior trim	3060
Audio system	3323
stock wing mirrors + side indicators	1247
rear glass	2277
rear clam	26813
driver seat	7000
passenger seat	8400
petrol cap	314
gearknob	141
alarm	642
engine cover	4800
exhaust	20655
bulkhead (including heatshield)	3713
fog lights	1062
front grill	308
front bonnet lock	143
battery & bracket	10313
evap system	769
rear bracket	150
numberplate plinth	216
wiper motor trim	57
k-series airbox	1416
fuel filter holder	45
wiring loom	159
heater	3940
engine mounts	3997
front wheels	28800
rear wheels	32600
front mudflaps	500
tow hook	50
locking wheel nut key	94
front brake calipers, discs, pads & hoses	16000
Koni dampers	10200
fuel tank cutting	1480
front anti roll bar	1986
steering wheel	1786
old fuel tank	12693
engine & box	130000
subframe cutting	3624

quite substantial. Obviously a lot of this stuff either has to go back on, or be replaced with similar. I hope to be able to weigh the new engine and gearbox in the next couple of weeks. The 130kg value for the K-series lump was a number I found online so may not be entirely accurate.

Wheels are another area I may be able to make some decent savings (despite aiming to run a significantly wider rear tyre).

more cutting - rear subframe

As you can see the rear subrame crossmember has now been cut away to make space for the F355 gearbox. The suspension pick up locations are un-affected by the work I am doing so hopefully the finished car will retain the magic Lotus handling, with a lower and more central CofG.

Many of the bars for re-bracing the rear subframe are now cut and profiled, so tomorrow the welding will begin. We are starting with the harness bar which is inch tube, seamless CDS as per MSA rollcage regs. 

I have decided not to run a full cage in this car as the car will primarily be for non-competetive trackday use. The standard roll bar in the Elise chassis is very substantial, and the seats and harnesses I am fitting should offer the driver/passenger significantly better protection than the standard items.

The reason for starting with the harness bar first is to allow me to continue with fabricating the new bulkhead which will sit up against the rear of the bar, and just behind the seats. The bulkhead will be a carbon fibre panel, bonded into place.

Barely visible in the pictures is my new steering wheel, just having a few issues getting the brand new quick release boss to a state I am happy with in terms of free-play. I will post some pictures of the finished wheel in a later update.