Sylva J15 Build

[adithorp]

I liked the black recesses... until Neil mentioned Panda eyes and now thats all I see.

[peter030371]

Hi Peter, yes I'm currently using 13" Prorace 1.2's. I also like the Compomotive CXR wheels so it's good to know they fit too, does anyone know are they available again?

Adi, I noticed your write up on the leverage, but I hoped I wouldn't have to bother but I guess this is the time to sort out whilst its all still accessible.

Keith.

Good to know they fit under 13" wheels but as has been pointed out the leverage on the handbrake mechanism is weak

I know Steve and Fury has fitted these to some cars http://www.hispecbrake.co.uk/Sie253UL2SVA.html but no feedback on if they are any better

[kdempsie]

Deviating from standard specs brings some unexpected challenges. Fitting the front to back cooling pipes and clearing the gear change has been quite a pain. The gear change for the ST150 engine is a cable change system and takes up more space in the tunnel than the standard Zetec SE gear change. I thought (over thought) about the problem until I eventually decided to just put a gentle curve in the pipes and 'shave' the gear stick until it cleared. To hold them in place I decided to use a couple of stacked hydraulic tube clamps and that worked quite well.



Maybe I have mentioned already but I put the engine in, just to get it off the floor really and there didn't appear to be any reason not to. I still don't know if it will clear the rear clam shell, I bought one of the Raceline low profile cam covers to help matters after I saw it on Richard's J15 build.



As I mentioned I had decided to use stainless steel brake lines, the picture below shows the front lines installed with the bling T pieces I bought. I had a small justification for using them, other that I just liked the look of them, that they are bolted on to small plates I had welded to the chassis earlier. That meant I could demonstrate the locking with a nyloc nut. I got the tubes fitted by an expert (not me), whilst trying to learn about the finer points of how he makes such a good job of it, thanks Adam.



I'm a fair bit further ahead than I have posted so far, I'll try to do a mega update at the weekend to get up to date.

[kdempsie]

I'm not going to manage a mega update tonight, but will manage to cover a few things.

I have some questions that someone might be able to help with, I am trying to select a battery just now and wondered if anyone has advice or experience that might be useful. On my last car I used a small standard style car battery, one that came from a Japanese market Nissan Micra. This worked OK most of the time but I always had some reservation to it's ability to turn over the engine after the starter was hot, especially after I had fitted the new Zetec engine. In my current build I have added more electrical equipment, specifically a heated windscreen in place of a small electrical heater / blower the last time and a pair of heated seats. I have fitted a Raceline alternator kit which is a 60amp Powerlite alternator and is mounted on the inlet side. I went to this side to keep it away from the exhaust and to try and put the weight forward a little.

The belt adjustment was a head scratcher for a while as the alternator is fixed to the block with aluminium brackets. I eventually worked out with the help of the web that the upper pulley is a spring tensioner. I still have to size the belt length and work out exactly how I pretension the spring pulley. Any collective wisdom on that?



My other question is on fuel hose. I have used teflon overbraided hose with JIC (AN) end connections. I did this for two main reasons, The hoses run from the front to back of the car along the nearside sill, so essentially inside the car. I wanted the zero fumes advantage of the teflon hose, I also wanted the additional protection of the stainless steel overbraid as I guess it might be more exposed in a side impact. I also think it looks good! My problem now is I am thinking about IVA and wonder if this will be a problem as it is not marked with a BS type number. Anyone already been here and got through?

I have found a sensible location for the fuel pressure regulator, I need to finalise the bracket and fit it this week, that will be the last of the fuel line installation. One thing I had decided to do was make my own fuel pump assembly over using a modified Ford pump. I'll follow that up with a later update. It wasn't too tricky except the wiring loom, more later.

Last thing for this weekend is I fitted the throttle bodies, a reasonably straightforward job - normally. I am using the AT Power TB's, they are very neat and compact but that means fitting them is a little fiddly. I had fitted them and was tightening the bolts up when I realised one of the holes was not tapped in the cylinder head! I thought how could that possibly happen, those in the know here will be laughing a little here. I took all the fiddly bolts out again and removed them, set about tapping the hole when I stopped to think for a few minutes. I checked the old spare engine I have and consulted the internet, the hole of course is not tapped! So I refitted them, easier the second time.



The filter will fit too, although admittedly with not much spare room. They do look good though.

More later, if anyone has any ideas about the battery or fuel line I'd be happy to hear them.

Thanks,

Keith

[kdempsie]

Hello Folks,

Sorry long time no post. Progress has continued despite the silence, it had been so long I had to re read my posts to check where I had got to!

So in the last few weeks I finally managed to get a suitable wiring loom to go through the new fuel pump hanger that I decided to make. I needed a proper fuel and vapour sealed joint and the cabling inside needed to be teflon coated wiring, to resist the petrol, and long enough to reach the fuel pump. The design of the tank is quite deep so it was a little difficult to find something suitable. I can't remember if I found it through a recommendation or not but a company in Canada had what I needed. Racetronix has a universal bulkhead wiring system, although I got stiffed on postage and customs, http://www.racetronix.biz/itemdesc.asp?ic=BCWS%2D001&eq=&Tp=

There is a slight complication with this in that I had chosen a 5mm aluminium plate to make the pump hanger as I wanted something solid to weld the pump hanger stick to but the fixing for the bulkhead connector will only accept approx. 1.6mm thickness. The plate is being spot faced for me to sort that, before the stick is welded on. I'll post a picture once I have it back.

I'm beginning to get a bit out of sequence with the parts I have and a logical build sequence. I have run the loom for the car and a separate loom for the engine roughly into place. I wanted to make any modifications required to the loom to suit the position of my parts and make sure it looks neat when I'm finished. I then realised that in order to do that properly, I needed to get some instruments and switches etc. The problem with that is deciding the position of the instruments before I have fitted seats, which I haven't ordered yet. Gauges and switches are also a big decision as far as the look of the final car is concerned, I could go with a Dash2 and Savage style switches for a more modern look or more traditional gauges and toggle switches. So I basically need to wait for seats to arrive now before planning the dash layout and then buying the gauges.

In the meantime I will finish up the engine wiring and some of the small panels I have left to do to seal the rear of the sills. I have started to fit the body work to allow me to properly make these last panels, I couldn't help pushing the car out into the sun to see what the gel colour looked like. I'll need to wait to get some assistance on body fitting as it is really a two man job, although I wrestled them into position on my own that day!



One small detail that has caused a bit of irritation is a connection to the clutch slave cylinder, I didn't have a an old part for reference but it was obviously an o-ring sealed connection. To get to the bottom of it I went to a local breakers yard and took various connections from Ford Focus and Fiesta's and fortunately got what I needed. It is an aluminium version so I will modify it to put a thread in the end to allow connection to a -3 JIC hose. I also picked up a gearbox reverse switch connector all for the princely sum of free.




Hopefully by the next update I will on my way to get an exhaust made, the car will need to be trailered there so that is a bit of a PITA but needs done nonetheless.



Keith.

[dopdog]

Looking Great well done fantastic job.

[Paul AS]

Looking really good, but I have to say, everything looks far too clean!!

[kdempsie]

Thanks guys. I must concede I haven't got too dirty so far!

Keith.

[kdempsie]

Well I can't believe it's been a year since I updated progress, I feel like I have been working on it pretty much non stop but I'm still not finished, closer but not there yet! I'm in a relaxed state of mind about it, when I realised I wouldn't manage to be on the road this summer so I'm now hoping to be complete by the end of the summer / autum. I'll then get a few miles in this year and work on set up and development before getting more use in 2016.

So, what have I been up to in all this time? I really wanted Compomotive CXR wheels and since they are trading again I managed to buy some. This however causes some clearance issues with the Wilwood brakes on the rear. I currently have a set of Pro Race 1.2s (13") on the car and they are fine but the internal shape of the CXR is a little different and that fouls the outer handbrake lever. To solve that I designed a replacement lever that gives a bit more clearance, I had the profiles water jet cut and then finished them with a grinder. That seems to work pretty well.





After this I started giving some thought to the lights, then ordered some 95mm circular ones that would mount to the rear body. Once these arrived I decided, coaxed by a pal, that it would look better if I fitted some 55mm units recessed into the body. This was, perhaps unsurprisingly, quite difficult to finsh nicely. I ended up using a small piece carbon tube bonded to the fibreglass. I think it looks quite good but I will reserve judgement on the success until after a number plate goes on.





Other than that I have been getting the exhaust sorted out. I bought a stainless steel manifold from ebay, it was really good value at £140 and actually looks very good in the metal. It's not a performance item as such, just a stainless recreation of the original. I sent it for ceramic coating to try and help control engine bay temperatures, it looks pretty good and fingers crossed it makes a difference with the temperatures.



The car finally went off to get the rest of the exhaust made today. The car looks tiny on the transporter, which is the exact opposite of how it feels in my garage now that the body is on!



I've done loads of other bits and pieces but the one thing I could use some opinion on is the front indicators. I was all set to use the same solution I have seen on most J15s, but that was before the group buy for LED headlights on Locostbuilders! So what I wanted to do now was put something in place to pass the IVA and then use the LED with built in indicators, I don't want to add any more holes to the body for indicators that I will be removing later so I added these small LEDs to the light bezels. The blue paint sample taped to the bonnet is my chosen paint colour, hopefully the panels will be off for paint soon.

What's the collective view, will these be likley to get through the IVA? They are very bright and I don't see any rules about the physical size.



One last thing for this update, I got to drive this Carver three wheeler on a work trip. Really good fun, fetching big money second hand these days too.



Quite exciting to drive a car that has three wheels, pivots in response to the rate of steering input, on the 'wrong' side of the road around Rotterdam docks, I reckoned it was a once in a lifetime chance so had to go for it.

[jeffw]

Other than that I have been getting the exhaust sorted out. I bought a stainless steel manifold from ebay, it was really good value at £140 and actually looks very good in the metal. It's not a performance item as such just a stainless recreation of the original. I sent it for ceramic coating to try and help control engine bay temperatures, looks pretty good and fingers crossed it makes a difference with the temperatures.

I suspect that you may live to regret the decision to fit a Toyo Sport manifold to the car, especially having had it ceramic coated (which must have been three times the cost of the manifold itsel). I hope I'm wrong....