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Thread: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

  1. #81
    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    i might revisit it in the future, but i needed something asap, and the unknowns of where/when the adapters were coming from, getting a speedo working, making new mounts etc etc not to mention trying to then calculate a new diff ratio that might work, buying one then building it etc, just looked like too much hassle at the time. are you still planning it?

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    Racer Decade Plus User mexicotait's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    I know this sounds stupid but I.don't think I could get into the habit of going to 2nd rather than first
    Plus I need to be able to swap to my rs box for historic stuff
    I doubt this affects you onecam as your regs seem more relaxed
    Hexham and District Motorclub

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Quote Originally Posted by mexicotait View Post
    I know this sounds stupid but I.don't think I could get into the habit of going to 2nd rather than first
    Plus I need to be able to swap to my rs box for historic stuff
    I doubt this affects you onecam as your regs seem more relaxed
    Just pretend you have a zf dogleg box ;P

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Haha good idea
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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    no doesnt affect me really - but im watching Johns rx8 progress in the thread, i cant wait to see what its like now that someone actually had the balls to go out and fit it rather than talk rubbish for pages - well done freddy, looking forward to seeing it - if it works out - i could be tempted back!
    Where is reverse on the 6sp box by the way? and will it go from 2nd to 1st easily?

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    What size tyres are you running onyour 7 inch wheels
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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    185/70/13 Yoko A021R's - when the rules allow (our endurance championship has banned them on cost cutting grounds to level the playing field for the guys that cant afford them - so then i use 185/70/13 snow tyres

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Quote Originally Posted by onecamohv View Post
    no doesnt affect me really - but im watching Johns rx8 progress in the thread, i cant wait to see what its like now that someone actually had the balls to go out and fit it rather than talk rubbish for pages - well done freddy, looking forward to seeing it - if it works out - i could be tempted back!
    Where is reverse on the 6sp box by the way? and will it go from 2nd to 1st easily?
    reverse is net to first so in the right place. and the box will go into any gear at any time pretty much it really does select gear nicely. I haven't even fitted the quick shift yet either

  9. #89
    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    il need an XE plate now

    Just noticed I should probably do an update while im here!

    So after the last multivenue, it was time to pull the box back out again to sort out the 5th gear and also sort out the slipping clutch. I also had a bit of work to do on the rear suspension, with some modifications to do to the leaf spring mounts and replace all the leaf spring bushes and tramp bar bushes. Its incredible how some hard use jut makes absolute sh!te out of bushes in no time. These are less than a year old.




    I also had a number of other fiddly jobs to do like modify the accelerator pedal, make a new sump guard mounting system direct to the chassis legs, and a million other things.

    I pulled the box out and found there was a pin had slipped out no more than 1 mm out of the shaft stopping it from slotting into 5th. With that sorted, I went and got the flywheel faced, and a new clutch, and popped it back in. I say popped, it was more like a load of huffing, puffing, struggling, etc. it is one heavy beasht with a cast iron bellhousing lying on your back.



    So with all that done, I had a 5th gear, a good clutch, I was ready to go to Last event really of the year for me was the highly anticipated Birr Motor Club endurance trial 2015. I had been really looking forward to this event for a long time after hearing the selective the COC had planned. 95% on the loose, and most of it on forest tracks where their forestry rally takes place during the year. It was going to be epic, couldn’t sleep the night before thinking about it, and it didn’t disappoint one bit.
    The selective route:



    We loaded up the night before and headed for Birr Sunday morning. Weather was perfect, calm dry and mild. After one or two small issues at scrutiny we were ready for a day of unbelievable fun on the forest tracks of county Offaly.



    The selectives were absolutely incredible, they were around 6km long of pure forestry rally roads, with chicanes, stop marshalls and code boards thrown in to keep the speeds within regulation and keep the navigators on their toes.




    I was really hoping for a good result this time as this was my type of event, open tests, no reversing, just across the selective. I knew the lack of grunt would hamper me somewhat on this event, being only 100bhp or so and very little torque meant id have to wring the old girls neck quite a bit.
    We started off well, second fastest in class on test 1 and 2, pipped to the post be piers both times – test 3 we were fastest in class so it was going great. We were in the top ten overall each test which was great for the old escort, we were loving the tests and swinging the escort through the forest bends like it was the 76 RAC, it was fantastic fun.
    I love this sequence of photos from speedy:









    Naturally given my luck, on test 6 it all went to pot, when I burst 3 tyres on the one test! This was a re-run of selective 1, so I had an idea of the lay of the land so planned on a full attack. About a minute into the selective I was waved down by a marshall signalling a rear puncture after firing her into a hairpin left. Balls. I pulled in, dived out to get it changed, only noticing when I got out the DS front was burst too! Double balls. I got both wheels changed and back on the road in 3.50 seconds which I’m pretty chuffed with.



    We landed at the end of the test only to find we hand another puncture. This extra 4 mins pretty much put us completely out of the running for a good top ten finish which was really disappointing. Regardless though, we were having great craic, and after a good afternoon run despite a bad misfire rearing its head we managed to take the class 5 win and bring the escort back in one piece. I was delighted to finally get a class win, my first in the escort.











    So now it’s back into the workshop for some winter development, get it ready for the INTBD possibly or failing that, mondello MVAT as there are many developments in the pipeline.

  10. #90
    Racer Decade Plus User mexicotait's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    That looks amazing
    Have to get over to Ireland to try one of these events
    Hexham and District Motorclub

  11. #91
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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    it was, fantastic events - your more than welcome, and no regulations from a car spec point of view, the only thing you need to have is 4 point harnesses, and if you have a cage, you must wear a helmet. other than that, your good to go!

    the new heart


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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    One of your pictures with blue Mk1 is my mate John Bertram he loved the event
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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    So a bit more progress to report

    Naturally, I’m in a lot deeper than I first envisaged – shocking. Not.
    I think I was only fooling myself at the time when I said id give the engine a once over, new set of shells, set of ARP’s and im away. Realistically, the perfectionist in me knew that was never going to happen.
    So, a quick big end shell changed ended up like this






    When I took the shells off, I wasn’t mad about what I seen - there was more wear than I expected, not so much wear in a general sense, the engine only has about 65k miles on it and the bores are perfect.
    It had all the characteristics of an owner was completely careless and neglectful – either that or the car was regularly driven hard from cold or had been stolen.
    There was a lot of signs of infrequent oil changes and complete lack of care. So next step was to pull the oil pump and see what I had going on in there – again, nothing drastic, but casing scoring, wear were evident again showing lack of fresh oil changes.
    That was enough for me, so a complete rebuild was in order.
    Tore down the engine to every last nut and bolt to assess what I needed to get, meanwhile I sent off some parts to the machine shop for some work I cant do myself.
    Block cleaned
    Crank ground, cleaned and balanced
    New valve guides installed
    Head skimmed and pressure tested

    New parts so far:
    Ported Cosworth head
    Mahle main and big end bearings
    ARP Bolt kits
    SBD oil pump
    Mahle forged pistons
    SBD thermostat
    Water pump
    Timing belt kit
    Head gasket set
    Head bolts
    Valve lifters
    AP paddle clutch kit
    Steel flywheel








    In the meantime, I’m going to balance and polish the stock rods, they are more than up to the task as they are.
    I haven’t started the build yet as im still waiting on a lot of parts.

    Time is getting away as I still have the actual car to do, ive the make a wiring loom for the engine bay, weld in a grp4 chassis strengthening kit and of course the chassis mount engine mounts.
    Lots of things to crack on with! More soon

  14. #94
    Pole Position Decade Plus User freddy686868's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Quote Originally Posted by onecamohv View Post
    So a bit more progress to report

    Naturally, I’m in a lot deeper than I first envisaged – shocking. Not.
    I think I was only fooling myself at the time when I said id give the engine a once over, new set of shells, set of ARP’s and im away. Realistically, the perfectionist in me knew that was never going to happen.
    So, a quick big end shell changed ended up like this






    When I took the shells off, I wasn’t mad about what I seen - there was more wear than I expected, not so much wear in a general sense, the engine only has about 65k miles on it and the bores are perfect.
    It had all the characteristics of an owner was completely careless and neglectful – either that or the car was regularly driven hard from cold or had been stolen.
    There was a lot of signs of infrequent oil changes and complete lack of care. So next step was to pull the oil pump and see what I had going on in there – again, nothing drastic, but casing scoring, wear were evident again showing lack of fresh oil changes.
    That was enough for me, so a complete rebuild was in order.
    Tore down the engine to every last nut and bolt to assess what I needed to get, meanwhile I sent off some parts to the machine shop for some work I cant do myself.
    Block cleaned
    Crank ground, cleaned and balanced
    New valve guides installed
    Head skimmed and pressure tested

    New parts so far:
    Ported Cosworth head
    Mahle main and big end bearings
    ARP Bolt kits
    SBD oil pump
    Mahle forged pistons
    SBD thermostat
    Water pump
    Timing belt kit
    Head gasket set
    Head bolts
    Valve lifters
    AP paddle clutch kit
    Steel flywheel








    In the meantime, I’m going to balance and polish the stock rods, they are more than up to the task as they are.
    I haven’t started the build yet as im still waiting on a lot of parts.

    Time is getting away as I still have the actual car to do, ive the make a wiring loom for the engine bay, weld in a grp4 chassis strengthening kit and of course the chassis mount engine mounts.
    Lots of things to crack on with! More soon
    looking smart! Out of interest what starter and flywheel do the vauxhall boys run?
    vauxhall starter
    vauxhall flywheel adapted to take a pinto clutch?

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    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Cheers John! Yep standard xe flywheel and starter (starter mounts through the block so works just as stock) the clutch is a few mm bigger than a pinto so a pinto can be used if your stuck or you can get a proper xe diameter Ford splined clutch which is what I got. Standard xe pressure plate also works perfectly

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Quote Originally Posted by onecamohv View Post
    Cheers John! Yep standard xe flywheel and starter (starter mounts through the block so works just as stock) the clutch is a few mm bigger than a pinto so a pinto can be used if your stuck or you can get a proper xe diameter Ford splined clutch which is what I got. Standard xe pressure plate also works perfectly
    thanks for the quick reply i am just wondering as i haven't put a ford starter location on the adaptor plate for the vauxhall to rx8 plates and thought i might have droppd a boo boo. Also i'm loving the fact i'm not the only one with a motorsport/garage dog helping when i work on the cars.

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    if by helping you mean robbing tools, eating screwdriver handles, stealing sockets, robbing stuff out of the bin then yeah, helping
    and constantly in the way, no matter what im doing hes up in my face - see above - of all places in the world to lie while im degreasing the engine

    the starter goes through the block from this side obviously. there is a small lump on the bell housing for the pinion to shoot out thats all !

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    Small update time!

    So i had planned to get tons done over the Christmas break, but through one thing and another i get very little time in the workshop with so much other stuff going on.
    I had planned to build the bottom end first, however I immediately ran into a snag. I installed the new bearings into the block and prepped with super sticky lucas assembly lube.
    carefully i lowered the crank down and immediately noticed something was not right, the crank was jammed.
    i knew pretty much straight away what the problem was and so couldn’t go any further.
    the bearings for the XE have integrated thrust bearings as part of the main centre bearing - most engines of this vintage and older have separate main bearings and thrust bearings.
    when supplying .25mm undersize bearings, the bearing company to cover all angles also oversize the thrust faces also.
    naturally the machinist didn’t know this and I wouldn’t really expect him to, so sh!t happens. when i mic'd the bearings and the crank, the bearings were about 0.17mm wider than the crank.
    The solution is to get the crank machined to accept the new thrust clearance.





    So with that on hold, turned my attention to the top end and got cracking on that.
    I had previously sent away my cosworth version head away to get some work done including:
    Chemically cleaned
    Pressure tested
    Skimmed
    New valve guides
    Recut valve seats




    The head also needs some modifications done to suit RWD arrangement,
    the mods needed are:

    cut the rear cam cap, and corresponding distributor recess to allow the engine to sit back at the bulkhead.
    i was able to cut the cam cap in the band saw, but the head was too big to get into the saw, so i had to go good oul manual on it. Yes i was sweating bullets afterwards.
    Once this is done the exhaust cam then protrudes out as it drives the dizzy through the hole in the head.
    to solve this the end of the exhaust cam need to be cut off and a blanking plug made to go in the last cam bearing which is now unused.




    i turned up a nice aluminium plug on the lathe to fit snugly in the head.





    as the oil gallery for cam lubrication goes down the centre of the cam, there is not a gaping hole where i cut the cam in half. i tapped this as well and blocked it off with a bolt and loctite.

    Just under this there is a small oil hole which lubricates the dizzy shaft - i simply tapped this and put in a grub screw with loctite.





    the final mod was one i came up with myself as everyone i had talked to said plug it and make do without a heater. this wasn’t an option for me so i set about an alternative.
    on the XE the water outlet for the heater exits directly out of the side of the head - fine in FWD but obviously butts up against the bulkhead in RWD.
    So, i sent my dad off on a hunting exercise to find something i could work with. in the end we found the perfect solution.
    I got a tight 90deg brass fitting that looked like it would fit the head with some fettling.
    i got a plumbers tap, and tapped the head the same as the brass fitting. i modified the threads so the fitting would end up in the place i needed it to.
    Add a bit of JB weld to the threads, and that’s not coming out without a fight.



    After all the mods were done, it was back to building up the head. i send about 5-6 hours lapping in the valves to ensure a perfect seat.
    Previous to this i had cleaned and machined the valves on the lathe to ensure a perfect finish and any small pitting removed.
    Once the new valve stem oil seals were installed, i popped in the valves, springs, retainers etc and finally the lifters.





    the cams were last to go it again with lucas assembly lube. the head is now ready to go on once i get the crank back and build up the bottom end.
    in the meantime i still have lots to do:
    Strip the new oil pump, check for imperfections, deburr edges and polish where necessary

    Unfortunately after getting so deep into this project there is no way im going to be able to get the car finished for mondello in time, its simply not possible without rushing the whole thing.

    Over the next few days i have to decide whether to go to all the effort of putting the 1600 back in again for the next event or two or leave it and do something else.
    im raging as its the one event of the whole year i love to have the escort out for.
    Decisions!

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    Racer Decade Plus User mexicotait's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    So what happened in the end?
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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    in the end of what dude, the event?

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    if thats what you mean then Well yes I decided the event was just too good to miss so I bit the bullet and went back at dumping in the xflow the week before the event – I do love a bit of punishment.



    Unfortunately this left me with very little time to iron out any small problems, which would eventually lead to my detriment.
    I only got to test drive the car properly the day before the event when I realised the clutch wasn’t biting as it should whatsoever. The disk was close to new and unworn, so it was either contaminated by something while sitting in the garage or the pressure plate has failed, either way it was slipping under hard use badly. The thought had crossed my mind to whip it out but without a ramp it just wasn’t worth the hardship the night before.

    So last thing before leaving at 6.30am was to do the David Sutton endorsed trick of coke and flour on the clutch disc to help it stop slipping temporarily. It worked very well for about 3 tests and then the heavy abuse just got too much for it and it started slipping worse than ever. I had to baby it through the rest of the day especially on the starts and the line throws as the clutch would just spin if I dumped it on the start, so a bit of a disaster of a day after all the work put in.

    To add insult to injury I was suffering from a very bad misfire only when the engine was very hot, so I had to let it cool between tests.
    After this started I knew my day was ruined, so I just decided to spend the rest of the day having as much fun and getting as sideways as possible. It was a fantastic day overall for the event and the club with a massive entry and everything going smoothly.
    So with just a dead clutch, a pair of dead tyres and a bit of body damage after a few rubs of a tyre wall, I drove it an hour home at the end of the day.

    good old fords!













    a few of other competitors:



















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    Racer Decade Plus User mexicotait's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Yeah that's exactly what I meant glad you managed to get back out anyway

    Onwards and upwards!
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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Just read this from start to finish, cracking read and pics. Nice to see the xe going in now, you will love it. Some nice info on rebuilding the xe too, be handy for me when I get round to rebuilding my spare.
    What made you change the Pistons and what spec did you go for?
    Are you going to fit any upgrade cams, and what management?

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Quote Originally Posted by mexicotait View Post
    Yeah that's exactly what I meant glad you managed to get back out anyway

    Onwards and upwards!
    yeah managed to get back out and had good fun but its frustrating after having put all the work in the car doesnt run as you want for the day. ah well thats what happens when you do things at the last minute.

    Quote Originally Posted by lukem30 View Post
    Just read this from start to finish, cracking read and pics. Nice to see the xe going in now, you will love it. Some nice info on rebuilding the xe too, be handy for me when I get round to rebuilding my spare.
    What made you change the Pistons and what spec did you go for?
    Are you going to fit any upgrade cams, and what management?
    cheers luke! yeah ive not researched this engine literally to death, so if you need any info or help when you come to do yours just shout!
    i have everything now to complete the engine build, now starts the fun of all the dummy building measuring, stripping, building, measuring....etc
    over the last few months ive tried to spread the spending out but I've ordered a lot of specialist building equipment that i should have got years ago, but happy that i have it all now!
    once i get around to balancing, measuring and polishing the rods, ive to also ring gap all the rings, but then the bottom end should be ready for a dummy build to check bearing clearances. once all is in order i can get the build underway.
    the head is built and ready to bolt on pretty much so it should go together relatively quickly

    i cant wait to see what the xe feels like?!

    Luckily the engine is an early low mileage coscast item so it came with the MAHLE forged items in it already.
    im going to deepen the valve cut outs so it will give me better scope for cams in the future if i wish.
    at the moment im going to run the stock cams, the budget doesnt stretch to that at the moment - for now i just want a meticulously built reliable engine i can feel confident to thrash.
    im running megajolt mapped ignition with TPS input and bike carbs for the minute, but hope to go down the ITB route eventually.

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    Spanner Monkey lukem30's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    My engine is very near standard spec and it's more than enough for plenty of smiles.
    I expect I will be dropping you a message when the time comes to sort mine, be following your engine updates with interest, I've been putting off doing mine for so long as it's so time consuming. I tend to spend more time on the net researching things than I do actually doing the job these days.

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    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    no problem happy to help, well either way i will keep this thread updated with the build when i start next week and record all measurements and data.
    im the same, every thing i do i research the sh!t out of it until ive gone way deeper than i ever should have
    hopefully this weekend il hone the block, take the bore and piston measurements, gap the rings strip and deburr the new oil pump, and then it should be ready for assembly

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    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Update for anyone interested!

    So this got slightly put on the back burner for a bit as i had some other fabrication jobs on, but finally got back at it this weekend.

    first job was to hone the bores to their final state so i could measure them, and then gap the rings and check the piston dimensions accordingly.
    the flex hone is an awesome piece of kit - so easy and quick to use, and produces a finished far better than any 3 legged honing tool ive used in the past. the idea is that it contours to any size or shape (within reason obviously) and produces a honing procedure and a plateau hone all in one. This means that the rings have the bare minimum amount of bedding in work to do knocking the sharp peaks off the surface which means less cylinder material in the oil, less ring wear as they bed in, and compression coming nearly from the first few pulls on the dyno. with a standard hone, that a general machine shop might do, the bore surface has an RA finish that has sharp peaks that the rings have to wear down in order to bed in - not good for rings, or the lubrication system! the plateau effect knocks off these peaks for the rings, but leaves the valleys, with a surface keyed enough to hold oil but not too rough to wear the rings. A plateaued bore surface will stabilize after about two hours of running - the rings will seat very quickly and experience almost no further wear. A more conventional surface finish, by comparison, may take anywhere from three to 12 hours to seat in depending on the grade of stones used.

    a great trick to test this is to rub a cotton ball along the cylinder, and take a photo with a flash on. with a standard hone you will see a load of micro fibres from the cotton ball where the microscopic sharp peaks have grabbed the cotton. with the cylinders plateau honed, you can still see a scored surface to the eye, but it wont grab the cotton and will feel perfectly smooth to the touch.

    it took me about 20 mins to complete the whole process, i think the finish speaks for itself.
    perfect 45degree crosshatch.



    before


    after




    the obvious down side to this is that the honing oil sprays EVERYWHERE when running it in and out of the cylinder, along with all the nasty cast iron particles. the resulting solution is an engine block drenched in grey oily abrasive paste - yuck.
    obviously the clean up is vitally vitally important as you can imagine - hot soapy water and a scrubbing brush for at least 15 mins. and when it looks clean, scrub it again for another 15 mins. the iron particles will be embedded in the valleys, which need to be scrubbed out with a still bristle brush and loads of really hot really soapy water. not to mention every other orifice it can find its way into.
    cylinder cleaning brushes really come into their own here.

    after the block was washed and dried it was time to gap the rings.
    I went for Mahle Ductile iron rings, a good upgrade on the more fragile and less ductile standard grey cast iron rings, perfect for moderate performance/heavy duty use.




    the specs for the engine in question is .3mm to .5mm on both the compression rings - so i went about seeing what i had.
    i spent alot of time swapping rings from one cylinder to another to get as close to the figure i wanted - ideally .35mm to .4mm. im not sure i would be too happy running .3mm as this engine is going to get hot autotesting - the chances of the rings butting and scuffing the cylinders increases.
    im also going to open up the second ring about 0.05mm more than the top to prevent gas build up between the top and second rings.
    This can cause the top ring to flutter or bounce and lose its seal.
    with ALOT of fitting, removing, testing and filing, im pretty much there with .4mm on the top ring and .45mm on the second ring.

    the next job was to test fit the crank to measure the bearing clearances with plastiguage - if the clearances are a tiny bit sporadic, its good practice to swap the tightest one for the loosest one and vice-versa - it takes alot of time, but is worth it in the end for uniform clearances.
    for this engine im looking for 2 thou, which luckily was nearly spot on - the front main is slightly larger is between 2 and 2.5, perhaps 2.3/2.4 thou, so im happy with that.

    so i was able to fit and torque the crank on the main line.
    i also stripped the new oil pump, deburred all the sharp cast edges on the gears and the housing with a small fine mill file, and packed it with vaseline
    so it draws oil pressure instantly on start up.



    some other tasks done was to hone the gudegon pin bush, and polish the pins on the lathe.





    over the next few evenings i need to lighten, balance and polish the rods, caps and pistons.
    the pistons are MAHLE forged so will likely be less than .5g of each other

  30. #109
    Racer Decade Plus User mexicotait's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Any updates on this?
    Hexham and District Motorclub

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    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    started it yesterday! i didnt think anyone was really interested, so i kinda didnt bother updating, il do one later

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    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project




















    in for the last time hopefully!
    tunnel is now in, seam welded, front chassis rails/bulkhead,rad box etc all strengthened and seam welded, prepped and painted. new

    gearbox mounts done and now all sitting on her own happy now. since the pics ive made all the radiator brackets, got the rad sitting

    perfectly. i then used some 35mm allot 4mm wall tube to turn up a few hose joiners on the lathe, and got it all plumbed in.
    i also turned up this nice little weld on adaptor for one of the hose joiners as a take off for the inlet manifold coolant hose as its not good to

    block it off.


    next up is the inlet manifold for the bike carbs, and a massive amount of wiring.
    im moving the battery to the boot, fitting an FIA kill switch and a new fuse box, plus all the wiring for the megajolt, crank sensor, tps, coil

    pack and EDIS module.
    the XE alternator and starter are also on the opposite side, so i need to completely strip the loom back and run all new wires from the

    ignition switch, fun









    So after a long long project, hundreds of hours of work, i programmed the megajolt yesterday, and fired it up! started on the button!
    i was delighted after putting so much work in, i preactically rewired the whole car, and it was my first time to do a megajolt install, never

    mind rewiring the car at the same time, so i was a tad surprised actually that i got everything right first time.

    engine sounds good, tappets are even fairly quiet, about 75psi of oil pressure, all seems good so far. i just warmed it for a about a minute if

    even to check for leaks and make sure everything was ok. i wont be starting it again untill i am ready to hit the road to bed in the rings.
    ive filled it with Mercedes Classic SAE30 for the bed in proceedure, then will change the oil and filter and do it again.






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    Racer Decade Plus User mexicotait's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    I think alot of people are interested and look at threads but don't post
    Car looks good Glad you have it running


    The gold wheels look spot on!
    Hexham and District Motorclub

  34. #113
    Bodger headbolt's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    I bet you cant wait now to get it out and use it in anger again

  35. #114
    Spanner Monkey Pikey15's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Looks spot on, well done

  36. #115
    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    thanks chaps, had a day off yesterday, so got stuck in to get it finished, finally ready for road ! few pre flight checks and its ready for the run-in. nervous would be an understatement




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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    Fantastic attention to detail...and an enjoyable read...engine looks spot on...keep posting ...cheers mark

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    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Cheers thanks for the comments will do!

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    so shes finally finished! (ish)
    went on the first run-in test drive yesterday, all went really well
    had a bitch of an air lock in the cooling system that was hard to get out but i think i have it sorted - few niggly fixes like a leaking exhaust, nip up a few hoses and small oil weep for the temp guage il sort out later and all is well.
    feels great down low, no smoke, no flat spots, pulls really well. im only reving it to about 4k at the moment on heavy load to bed in the rings but as far as its going, all is good.




  40. #119
    Spanner Monkey

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    Congratulations mate. Good job well done. Car looks top!

    Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

  41. #120
    Pit Crew Decade Plus User onecamohv's Avatar

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    Re: Mk2 4door road/road rally project

    cheers! not much to report, still running in the engine / bedding in the rings.
    did about 50 miles or more on sae30 mineral oil, then did a filter change and cut open the filter to inspect.
    oil was already dirty, and under a strong light you could see how the material from the new build, mostly bore material, was mixed with the oil, it was like there was a bit of silver paint mixed with the oil, but no filings or any particles
    2 more runs and oil changes and it should be ready for the rollers.
    ive switched to 10w40 semi this time, before changing to mobil 1 fully at the end.





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