MadaboutKitcars

Here's a sound clip of the engine, only the center resonator and original manifold: http://www.msportster.co.uk/exhaust.mp3

Yesterday we changed the old gearbox mounts with new ones and fitted the battery clamps.

Today it was time for some body work:

Rear wing fitment - nothing quite seems to line up anywhere on the rear tub so its not bolted down yet. Still need to spend some time jiggling it about.





Wing/door fitment. The space between the wing and the chassis is quite big so we'll need to do a bit more jiggling.



Striker pin stickout out the body work. Probably going to add a washer to move it a tiny bit further out. The body work will need bolting down here too.



Striker pin and body fitment this still needs work.





It really is starting to look like a proper car!

Back boxes are here!



Too much?


Nah!

OK, so now i'm really jealous!

Very cool Mr Short.

Exhaust parts arrived today from Jetex. I ordered them yesterday morning!

Patrick,
I have been having the same thoughts after seeing a post on John's SVA section above. I'm thinking of mounting a galvinised heat shield above the exhaust boxes mounted about 10mm from the box and another 10mm from the fuel tank.

I have had a look at the old SVA manual and all I can find is a statement that fuel system 'components should be mounted to avoid the risk of fire in the event of a fuel leak.

The light blue Sportster at Stoneleigh (S683 AWP) has an under floor system and I think passed it's SVA this year. Does anyone know the owner? Perhaps we could get some photo's?

Any other ideas?

Peter

I was looking at leaving 2 - 4 cm space between the boxes and the tank with perforated ali + heat mats.

There's a bunch of pictures of the blue sportster on our site: http://www.msportster.co.uk/detail.asp?cat=12&offset=48

It looks like its using an E46 M3 rear box very close to the ground. My plan was to have the boxes and the tank much higher up.

Yes, that's the one. The boxes certainly look very low?

If you raise the tank higher, does the fuel filler neck hit the rear GRP bodywork?

My fuel tank came with a very short piece of filler connecting hose, so I assume that there is not a lot of space?

My Rover 75 uses that perforated ali stuff all over the place underneath but I think it is expensve? Nice and light though and I expect the SVA man would be pleased.

Peter

There's a cheap source of it right there then
go get under some 75s in the breakers Patrick.

Yep the boxes are very low, there cant be more than 5 cm ground clearance - i hope he has no speed bumps where he lives!!

Not tested filler height yet, but I did run into an issue - if you put the tank too high the seat belts rest on it - not good. If you have an incident it woud dent the tank and make the belts slack. I think I've found a good compromise hight where the seat belts dont get in the way, but you still get a good 8-10cm between the boxes and the tank (with out the boxes looking too silly). I'll post some pictures later on the progress.

My E46 uses those metal things too, so there should be a decent supply in most scrap yards - good tip Eddy thanks

Been busy working on moving the tank up to make more room for the exhaust boxes. A few issues, go too high and the tank gets in the way of the seat belts, same with the filler. I think it should just work in the current position. The tank need to be moved forwards a bit too so I've trimmed a little off the diff bracket - the shouldn't have any effect on the strenght of this bit as its braced further down.



Just enough room here for the belt - its a bit slack and low in this pic





Lots of room


Rear ARB in place using BMW E36 Compact ARB links

Spent a little bit of time in the garage tonight. Chopping the center resonator out of the old two piece exhaust. This is where the 6 branch will connect when I get it. Everything seems to be slowly coming together. The passenger side is too far to the outside of the car with the full 1meter pipe length between the two 30 degree bends. Will shorten this so that its the right size.

Noise wise, will have to see what its like, but Jetex sell DB plugs that can go in the long pipes that should quieten it down a bit if needed.

Sorry its been a bit quiet lately, I've just become a home owners for the first time which has completely eaten up all my time (and budget!)

That and Richards away on holiday! Watch this space for an update on the exhaust at some point soon

Oh Patrick,
that's a disaster! You should have finished the car first!

Now you'll be like the rest of us with our "Honey do" lists...........

In sympathy. . . . . .

I bought most of the bits I need (I hope) and there's a bit of cash left over for small things and paint Fortunatly I dont have a "honey do" list at present

I wasnt seriously looking for house but, this one kinda came a long and I couldnt pass it up!

BTB 6 Branch is here! Its absolutely stunning!









And on the car:

loooking good Patrick, what you got left to do now?
you booked the sva yet? its still about a month wait around here for them.

Looks superb!

Its been a while since the last up date, other things having gotten in the way of spending time working on the car!

Work continues on the exhaust system:







And thanks to Ziggy on E30Zone we now have a spare TSW BSS style alloy to use as a spare:

Probably not the best way to join exhaust pipes but this what we have so it will have to do! Anyway this is how the backboxes will join to the rest of the system at a different height



Another view of the exhaust construct



After some careful taping up this will have to be held under the car again to see how it all fits around the rear axels.

Little update

The exhaust has been tacked into place thanks to Black-Cat (from TalkAudio.co.uk)! A little work will be needed to align all the parts, once the exhaust is in the correct place it will be fully welded and ready for the first sound test

The wiring is close to being finished with the completion of the reverse switch, internal heater and radiator fan wiring. Just waiting for a interior light control unit to complete wiring loom.

The exhaust mock up is finally finished! After a complete disaster last year with a shop in Southampton that didnt do their job we've changed plans and created our own exhaust with a BTB 6 branch manifold and two Magnaflow glass packs. The rest of the piping is made of Jetex stainless universal parts.



This week we finished the mock up on the exhaust! Due to Richard's Compact project we've got a MIG welder now! This meant that we could tack weld the bits together! It needed the 35 degree angle replacing with a 45 as the back box on the Y pipe ended up sitting far too far back and there wasn't enough straight parts to move it far enough in. With the 45 everything now fits with just enough adjustment room to get the back boxes aligned.



At some point soon we'll take the parts than need the welding finished off to Black-Cat (a talkaudio regular) who will finish it off properly - not quite read to make nice stainless welds yet after about an hours practice!



We've also re-done the brake pipes at the front and fitted the BMW master cylinder with adapter plate

The exhaust is installed, and it sounds great! Possibly a bit loud for SVA. Will test it with DB plugs from Jetex, or possibly install some extra mufflers. But first we'll dig out an SPL meter and see what it reads!

Here is the video: Exhaust Video 12Mb Xvid / MP3

We were playing with a db meter today (Radio Shack!) and on the a weight setting it's idling around 80db 40cm back at a slight angle. On the way up to 4000rpm it peaks over 100db and at 4000 it is in the high 90's. Will really need to keep a close eye on that and do some research on exact testing conditions for SVA. I think it's pretty boarder line right now. I did find blocking one of each of the pipes on either side with my hand made it significantly quieter (by ear anyway) So I may just need to block those off for the test

DB plugs, not really the answer they just make the exhaust resonate really, really badly and it doesn't really seem any quieter!

I think blocking or one exit per box initially and a pile of steel wool should do it!