One way vacuum valve conversion. A left over part from Richard's E36 Compact engine conversion! Blocked off the hole in the intake boot and one of the two holes on the side of the throttle body and placed the one way valve in place of the very complex early E30 type layout. Taken the car for a quick spin on the drive way and all is well!

Idle

After much head scratching we purchased a Gunson gastester with build in RPM read out. Low and behold it turns out the engine is idling around 750RPM which is pretty much spot on. Its the gauge that has the wrong read out. It over reads near the bottom of the scale, sits about right at 2000RPM and above it under reads.

As it's overfuelling on idle the mixture needs setting, that's for another day as I can't find the manual.... :o)

A final round of engine tuning! Decided to set the idle mixture today as the engine was very obviously running rich. Got the gunson gastester out and it verified the rich running by showing 3.5% CO. After a bit of tweaking of the idle mixture control on the AFM we got this down to around 1.2-1.3%. It's not going to be 100% and it can be fine tuned at the MOT test before SVA.

Wasn't in the mood for much else after the fuel pipe off the tank started spewing petrol all over the place. Replaced the cloth covered stuff with some 3/4" rubber pipe I had in the parts bin. This was a tighter fit and also found a more suitably sized hose clip. Figures crossed it will be fine now!

As it was such a nice day it seemed like the perfect time to take the car for a little spin (on the driveway at least!)

Me driving the first round (mixture not adjusted) and Richard driving second after the adjustment (but the neighbours had returned so he had to be a bit more careful not to take out their car!)


Click to download the test drive video (12Mb)

New gallery section - Other peoples pictures

These are various pictures taken by other people that I've found on the net. Please contact me if you would like any of these removed, or a credit added.

Wiring



We've made excellent progress with the wiring, pretty much everything is in place now ready to go!

Bodywork



Rear lights are in and the tank filler hole is drilled. The wings are not the same, the left one is longer than the right one. Makes for an interesting task lining up the lights. Rear view is nearly done, the real lights still need to go in (rather than the reflectors) the fog lights need to go on. As do the number plate lights!

Also started removing the flash lines from the tub, what a PITA job!

Finally a bit of future tuning news:



This is a crank from a BMW M52B28 engine, with a spacer at the front end this will drop right into the M20 block. Combined with 130mm conrods from a M20B20 and the pistons from the M20B25 this will result in a 2.8 ltr stroker engine. The parts been put in the box ready for rebuilding the engine at some point in the future.

We've add a new preview function to all images on the site, it's now no longer necessary to download large images to get a closer look at each one.

Just click the thumbnail or the "preview" button. You'll get a short loading animation and the image will appear. If you want to download a full size one like before click "Full Size" button or the "Right Click Save As here to download full size" link in the preview.

Time has come to spend hours and hours debating where to put the gauges! After many, many permutations using prints outs and bluetak here's the results:



Dash masked and all the hole centre marked from the graph paper used to precisely layout the dials




The next question, how to cut the holes in the ali without needing to spend a good £50-£60 on the correct hole punching tools for the job!

Gauges! Hole cut and the gauges are resting in there - looks really good :D



Our dad had an adjustable bit for his lathe he made many years ago which he used to cut the holes for us :)



Without 3 tones of wires hanging out and a nice cover it will look really good.

Got these a while ago, conrods from an M20B20 - 130mm center to center. 5mm shorter than the standard M20B25 and will mate well with the M52 crank!




Spent too much time on eBay and ended up with a model of an Alfa Romeo 2300 Monza 1932 which very clear shows some of the styling inspiration of the Marlin line up!

Did a lot of prep work on the bonnet side panels today. Did some initial cuts on the metal today to start fitting the panels in. Also spent a lot of time on the passenger side re fitting the door and adjusting it. For some reason the passenger side causes more trouble than the driver side!

Bumper holes!



Rather than taking the recommend route and blindly drilling holes for the bumpers in the back and then fitting the tub around it we fitted the tub and then did the bumpers. Drawback, the mounting holes for the tub are now slightly wrong - not to bad can fill those up and move them as needed.

On the + side the bumper holes are now pretty much spot on.



In order order to located the exact position of the holes we inserted a felt marker in each bumper mounting hole, put masking tape on the inside of the tub. Mounted the tub then marked out the approx position of the holes with the markers. Took the tub off and had a look. The passenger side (shock horror!) was too far up and the driver side about right. So taking the height of the driver side as the default - which is approx 25mm up from flat of the area where the fog / reverse lights are mounted. The centre to centre between the bumper mounts is 930mm so we measure 25mm up and 930mm between the two centres. The estimate from the marker was only 4mm too closer together.



To double check all the measurements we drilled a small pilot hole from the back at the marked location, making sure the drill ran parallel to the mount hole. The tub was then refitted and a visual check made through the pilot holes to make sure then were in the correct place. They looked like they were correct so we took a hole saw and cut out the final size holes, again making sure the drill ran parallel to the mounting holes. After drilling the first hole - due to it not being straight on - I though it was a full hole size out. Turns out it just my eyes and the fact that the hole is not straight on! Stuck a bumper through the hole lift the back of the tub a bit and it went right in! Repeat for hole number 2 :) Very happy these are now sitting right it was one of those things we were not looking forward to.



Spent more time on the front of the tub on the passenger side trying to get it to fit better after the bumpers were installed. Took quite a bit of material off the bottom to bring it down. Its now sitting much better but still needs some work. You may also notice the colour sample (formerly part of an E39 M5 diffuser) pretty sure this will be the cars colour, but what is it? So far the top suggestion is LeMans blue as that was a standard colour on the M5.


Max inspects our progress and checks on the cars colour scheme options:





Finally, does anyone know what colour this is?

Lots of wiring done under the bonnet :



Bumpers bolted in - the nut is welded to the top so the bumper can be taken out from the bottom. There is also a bolt in the side to stabilise it.



Additional bracket added to the striker pin plate to make it stronger. Its bolted at the bottom and held to the striker plate with a rivnut - this should serve well in pulling the bottom of the fiberglass tub into place on the passenger side.

Spent a long time today fiddling with the tub and doors, the driver side seems fine now but the passenger side it still a little off. Had to stop to order new rivnuts, counter sunk bolts and counter sunk washers. Also ordered lot of rubber trim, door rubbers and a few supplies (an easy way to spend £150!)

Found a away to stretch the scuttle! One big ass clamp in reverse! I have a second one to do the other side too.



This is how it sits now, going to let it rest a bit before moving it out further. Another important question - how did you do up the front scuttle bolts? I can't find a sensible way to get a spanner or wrench in there.



Did a bit of cutting here too, may remake these panels without the louvres.

Driver side front wing, and I thought this one would be easy! If you want to stick to 7J wheels then you can bolt these one without modification. However at some point we are planning to but 8J's on the front with 225 tyres. For these to fit (and they do very snugly) the wing needs to come out a bit. For that you need chop holes on the inside - easier said than done!

The holes are a bit of a mess and the bolts need to be replaces with smooth dome ones. However this was several hours of fiddling after which it was time for a break!

The plan is to open out the holes a bit more so they run exactly parallel to the mounting.

It's not quite on centre but it will be easy enough to open up the mounting holes underneath so they can be moved. The powder coat on the brackets cracked when we bent them (to fit a bit better) so that will need repainting. The brackets are not quite in the right place yet but its getting there.



You can take the wheels off just needs a slide out and pull from the bottom and they drop right out!

The search button is working again, sorry for the inconvenience!

 

The striker pin plate re-enforcement is complete on both sides. Each has a rivnut in place to help secure the front of the tub in place. It helps pull the passenger side in which naturally sits slightly wrong.



The counter sunk bolt and cup washer really finish it off nicely!



Also done loads of fine tuning and clean up on various fibreglass bits like the scuttle panel (to make it easier to put the front bolts in and the rear tub.
As a part of this week decided to rivnut the rear wings on. This means they can be taken on or off without the tub needing to be taken off the car - a good feature should the worst happen and the wing needs to come off for repair. The rivnuts are fibreglassed at the back to reduce the chances of one spinning free and stopping the bolts form coming out.



Finally a more wiring! This time we've installed door jam switches for the interior lighting and as part of the security system:

Tub cutout for rear strut towers - only required because we've made the towers wider than standard to accommodate coil overs.



Driver side view - its been a long tedious process getting everything lined up, but the countless hours have been worthwhile. All the panels are held on with counter sunk bolts and cup washers. Below is a counter sunk rivnut - an excellent device that lets you put a thread for bolting items to anywhere, but more importantly being counter sunk the rivnuts endup flush with the surface they are attached  to.



As you may know the passenger side has always been more of a pain, so I started here first and made one or two mistakes. The bolts on the scuttle panel should be a bit higher, and its not cut off straight. However, I plan on making new ones so those can both be fixed when the time comes!

Getting the rear tub to fit this side was a challenge - its now very close, still slightly off so it may need a bit more tweaking.





Finally had time to get an old tyre swapped on to the spare, small issue though the cover is too small to fit over it!

Cold air will be taken directly from the outside world through this ali intake.



The chicken mesh to stop small animals nesting in the engine - and stop it sucking up larger lumps of dirt from the front wheels. Some kind of mud guard may be required on the front wheels.

It was another good day out at Stoneleigh today! It was great to meet up with all the builders from the madabout-kitcars again this year - next year we'll all be in our cars I hope! :D

Lots of pictures to take a look at here
























Also picked up from parts from the SVC stand (nice chap I bought the fog/reverse and indicators gave me a discount!) Also got some new head lamps - these use standard H4 type bulbs!

If ever there was a job for two people its putting the bonnet on! Took a lot time of measuring, eyeing up and fiddling.



This is not 100% final yet. The whole panel is slightly over size most of the way round by around 1mm to allow for fine tuning once everything else is in place. With the clamps in place this will side nice and flat the whole way along - right now the masking tape is not holding it very well!



Hinge attached at the scuttle - will be putting a pictures of the front up too but the file for that one broke for some reason!



Biggest tip we can give here is getting a permanent marker and draw lines and guides everywhere - the rubber moves around a lot so by drawing your ideal line directly on the scuttle and nose cone you've got a line to follow.

Step 1: Mark a line with the bonnet off using the rubber as your guide, then place the bonnet on and use tape to run a parallel line to the one you drew with the pen.

Step 2: Run a marker along the tape and pull the tape off - we used an angle grinder with a very fine cutting disk (1mm) to cut the ali along the line.

Here you can see the parallel line on the bonnet - remember that the back of the bonnet is not sitting flush so use a bit of force to push the bonnet into its final place to get the line in the right place.

With the front cut, clean up the back using the same technique - follow the red pen line with tape, run a pen along the tape and cut!

We've left a few mm each side of the bonnet panel that can be trimmed down further once everything it bolted on and clamped down.

Once the front and back is cut its time for the hinge cut - mark front and back then run a straight edge between the points, mark with a pen and cut!


Fitting the bonnet to the hinge - start by fitting the hinge and drilling holes along it for bolting the bonnet to - a piller drill is great for doing this. Fit the L shaped ali to the opposite side to the one your working - this will keep the hinge nice and straight!


With these clamps on here its possible to open and close the bonnet to check fit before drilling holes.


We drilled every 4th hole and bolted them to start with then moved on to the remaining ones.


Close up!


All holes drilled! That was a lot of work :)


Both sides now in place - looking good :D The L shaped ali piece that provide support underneath just fit past the engine without need to modify anything.


A short break in the rain meant another run on the drive way! It's really looking like a proper car now :)

Another shot of the completed bonnet! The sides need a bit of trimming but it's nearly there!

Looks a bit hotrod ish without the headlights!

Bodywork wise all it needs it a bit of tweaking! The front wings need cleaning, the rubber needs adding to the rear wings and everything needs to be made SVA friendly!