Engine Update 4

So I finally received my adapter plate & pilot bearing reducing sleeve (SWR Motorsport) and clutch & flywheel (TTV Racing) so I could bolt the two together.

I had trouble getting accurate readings while clocking the bellhousing however the gearbox did slide on easily. Even though, I've ordered another DTI so will likely do it again just to be sure.

There's a lot of bolt on, bolt off activity to set this all up but I got there eventually. The bearing sleeve was used as the TKO pilot bush was too small for the 1UZ crankshaft, it's a tight fit so was put in the freezer the night before and then fitted with a dab of Loctite 272 in to the end of the crank. The pilot bush just slots inside this.

Next the flywheel was bolted on with new ARP bolts and torqued up as per ARPs instructions. The clutch pressure plate, bell housing and adapter plate were temporarily installed so I could measure the distance from the gearbox mating face to the pressure plate fingers. This measurement was then used to set the adjustment of the Tilton hydraulic release bearing.

Next the bellhousing came of, pressure plate removed and bellhousing refitted complete with adapter so I could clock it in. The opening in the adapter is quite small so I struggled to get the DTI lined up properly so I will probably have to repeat this step once I get a different DTI.

With the bellhousing back off again I could assemble and align the clutch. My alignment tool needed a few wraps of tape to get the right fit but was pretty straightforward.

The bellhousing was then bolted to the gearbox and the clutch release was slid over the input shaft bearing retainer. This release bearing requires one of the bearing retainer bolts to be replaced with a pin which stop the bearing from spinning. The release bearing position can be adjust by screwing it in or out on its own sleeve. There are two hoses which need to exit the bellhousing so holes were drilled foe these, although they may have ended up too close to the exhaust!

With a bit of graphite grease applied to the splines, I could now mate the engine and gearbox together. The engine was on the hoist and the gearbox on its stand (old office chair) so a sexond pair of hands was needed to keep everything steady but it all slid together remarkably easily.

I will be taking the assembly up to GD at the beginning of April so they can make up the engine mounts with a view to hopefully picking up the chassis at the GD open day on 20th May, fingers crossed. 

Shiny adapter plate and bearing sleeve 

Sleeve and bearing partially installed 

Sleeve and bearing pushed home

Flywheel installed

Clutch assembled 

Release bearing installed

Engine Update 3

The engine has been stripped down externally, all the parts media blasted and painted. As the outside of the car is loud I decided to be a bit more restrained with the engine colour scheme using a matt black and graphite grey two tone, the only orange parts so far are the fuel rails.

I stripped the original Lexus wiring loom to its bare neceasities and have begun rerouting and sleeving the loom completely. I can't go much further with that until I have the gearbox mounted and decided on the oil temperature, oil pressure and MAF sensor locations.

With regards to the gearbox, I have ordered the following:
1. Adapter plate - Ford TKO to Lexus bellhousing (SWR Motorsport)
2. Reducing sleeve to fit TKO pilot bush in 1UZ crank (SWR Motorsport)
3. Custom flywheel and clutch (TTV Racing)
4. Tilton 6102 concentric clutch slave cylinder (from Jegs in USA)
5. ARP flywheel bolts

The above should allow me to finally connect the engine to the gearbox and finish the wiring loom. Then I can cart the lot off up to GD so they can design the mounts to fit it in the chassis.

Normally you run the engine to help cure the paint but that will be a while away so had to improvise 

Loom being sleeved one sensor at a time

Individual sensor wires come together to progressively build the loom from front back

Very time consuming but worth the effort I think 

Engine Update 2

It's been quite a while since my last post and progress has been slow of late, but has still be moving along steadily. Not much has happened with the body as I have been concentrating on the engine and drive train, there are two major challenges with this:

Engine Wiring Loom
To cut a long story short, I managed to compile a comprehensive list of pin outs for my ECU using a selection of wiring diagrams from various sources (some in Japanese!).

This allowed me to strip out all the unnecessary wiring (power steering, traction control, ABS, aircon, auto gearbox etc) and install a few relays.

I was then able to start it up on the hoist to prove everything; especially the OEM Lexus immobiliser, was working. Voila, it worked and sounded fabulous with out any exhaust fitted, I needed ear defenders! 

The loom will be tidied up and rerouted once the engine goes back together. 

Manual Gearbox
As I mentioned in a previous post, the Lexus UZ family of engines were never available with a manual gearbox so there is no direct bolt on replacement for the 5 speed Auto. Although briefly considering keeping the Auto and making it 'Flappy Paddle', I have decided I will have to vet a machine shop make an adapter plate.

There are already some off the shelf adapters for BMW and  Toyota gearboxes, but the ratios don't suit the final drive so I have opted for a TKO600 instead. A man called Roger; formally of Thor Racing, but now of SJ Performance Engineering has a lot of experience with these engines and is the only person I can find to has mated a 1UZ to a Tremec gearbox before so I'll be catching up with him on Tuesday.

With the wiring loom removed I now started stripping the rest of the engine for cleaning and painting, I'm not going to bother with the internals so the heads will stay put for now but pretty much everything else has come off including timing belt and water pump which will be replaced.

Engine with timing belt and pulleys removed but water pump still in place. A good spray with degreaser needed, especially the valley area which was thick with grime. 

Now with the water pump removed and half an hour with a steamer and wire brush. Just got the rest to do now! 

New water pump painted Graphite Grey, the top bit will be visible when all back together. 

Engine Update

I was originally planning on using an LS3 with T56 Magnum 6 speed gearbox but as the cost of this combination is around £10K I started exploring other options.

Although there seem to be plenty of small block Chevy and Ford engines available I want a modern engine so started looking at Audi, BMW, Jaguar/Range Rover and Lexus.

The 4.2 Audi V8s are plentiful but trying to find a suitable RWD gearbox is near impossible, I did briefly consider building a Quattro Cobra but shelved the idea.

BMW M62 engines are also affordable but I have heard that wiring them is very difficult so decided against that.

Jaguar and Range Rover engines are also readily available but do get quite expensive if looking for power.

So that leaves Lexus. The 1UZ-FE engine is found in LS400 and SC400 UK registered cars from 1991 - around 2000 and whole cars can be picked up cheaply. The pre-95 cars had stronger conrodssoncan handle a lot of power without modification and the 98 on engines received VVTi which bumped the power up from 260bhp to 280bhp and increased fuel economy. 

I managed to buy a low mileage (127K) 1998 LS400 with current MOT for £550, so it comes with the VVTi engine and 5 speed auto.  Having an MOT meant I could give it a good shake down on the run home and it ran like a dream. 

Another bargain I found was a M112 suoercharger which I got for £300.  It came off a Jaguar X350 4.2 and they even threw in chargecoolers for free. I'll probably put it through the IVA in standard form then shoe horn the Supercharger on afterwards. 

These engines are known to be extremely strong and reliable but only ever came with auto boxes, however do get transplanted in to lots of drift cars so it is possible to convert them. I plan on either using a BMW 6 speed or a Supra Turbo 5 speed by means of an adapter plate and bespoke flywheel. 

                              1st   2nd   3rd   4th   5th   6th

BMW ZF-S6-37  4.35 2.45 1.68 1.23 1.00 0.85

Supra R154        3.25 1.96 1.31 1.00 0.75

The Supra gear ratios seem preferable with the GD Euro rear diff but the BMW gearbox is cheaper, more available and known to be very strong so the dury is still out on this one. There's also the issue of IVA/DVLA and the 'one major reconditioned part' statement which might force me to buy a brand new box. If that's the case, I might go for the T56 after all.

LS400 giving up its heart

No More Bling

I never really wanted a Cobra with loads of shiny Chrome as I'm trying to build a modern alternative, but didn't think there was any other option for certain things such as the windscreen so just settled for it.

After recent discussions with fellow builders, I have decided I am going to go 'bling free' after all. The chrome/shiny bits I already have are:
- Windscreen frame and stanchions
- Fuel filler cap
- Headlight surrounds
- Wiper spindle ferrules
- Wiper arms and blades

The wiper arms and blades haven't been fitted so I will see if I can return them to GD and I'll buy black ones, I think Classic Mini ones fit.

I have made enquiries with a few local powder coaters and the consensus it that Chrome can be coated after being shot blasted to ensure good adhesion, and cheaper than I was expecting too.

I now needed to remove bits from the car, the headlight surround and wiper spindle ferrules just unbolt and the Aston filler cap needs a couple of roll pins knocking out but the tricky bit was the windscreen.

The powder coating process involves oven baking which isn't good for the rubber seals which meant the glass had to be removed and after speaking with Brasscraft (they make all the UK Cobra screens) I was assured it was possible.

The frame is made of two sections, the lower bit that sits across the scuttle and the rest. These are held together by 2 flat head screws at the bottom of each side. A sharp flat object needs to be run around between the seals and the glass, I used a 6" steel ruler. I then used a flat head screwdriver to prise the lower corners apart, I could then gradually ease the two sections apart.

The top frame is more difficult as it wraps around 3 side so there is more friction in the seals, I had to resort to a nylon faced mallet here! Whilst holding the glass, I lightly tapped the corner of the frame outwards each side, then upwards from the bottom.

This process was repeated gradually each side until I could pull the frame off the glass, thankfully with everything still in one piece. Now the seals can be removed for reuse when it all goes back together.

Two roll pins for the hinge and catch removed with a hammer and punch

Glass removing tools! 

This shows the two screw holes at the lower edge on each side. I'd already removed the lower frame before I remembered to take pictures. 

Prising the seal off the glass, a Stanley blade would probably have been better in hindsight. 

Two parts of the frame ready for the powder coaters 

Fuel Filler Cap

I actually fitted the fuel filler a while ago but never wrote it up.  GD offer 2 types of filler, Aston Style and flush fit, I went for the Aston style.  This is a decision that needs to be made at the body order stage as the relevant recess need to be bonded in place.

The first thing to do was rub down and polish the fuel filler recess, this was done by hand due to the confines of it.  The centre of the mounting surface was found and an 76mm hole was cut with a holesaw.  

The Aston filler cap comes in two parts, the threaded flange and the cap itself.  The two parts were separated and the flange bolt holes drilled to 5mm (these were already pre-marked on the underside) and countersunk.  With the flange held in position on the car I then drilled through for one of the mounting holes, then bolted it in place to drill the rest.  The flange was then removed again to make the gasket.

I used countersunk Allen head bolts, but you could use button heads.

I bought a large roll of 1mm thick rubber gasket material off ebay along with a tool to cut circles (basically a compass with a blade attached) and some punches for the bolt holes.  I then made my gasket at 135mm diameter with a 76mm diameter hole in the middle, remember to cut the outer dimension first otherwise you'll have no centre left for your compass point!  With the ring made I placed it on the car under the flange and marked bolt holes which were then punched out.  I used an M6 punch just to give a bit of wiggle room for the bolts.

Gasket cutting made easy with cheap tool (left)

Bolt holes punched and gasket offered up (right)

The flange and gasket were then bolted to the car and the cap screwed on.  Initially it didn't tighten up in the right place.  The cap comes with several shims, the thicker red ones are 1mm think and the thinner blue ones 0.4mm thick.  After some experimentation I needed the 3 thick ones to get the cap to sit in the desired position.

Bolted on to car, looking lovely (although I may still get it powder coated black yet....)

Rear wiring loom

There are four main looms for the car:
1. Front
2. Rear
3. Dash
4. Engine

The Font loom has already been installed, although not exactly as per the GD manual, see this link for the blog post.  The dash loom can be purchased from GD (which is probably preferable if using the standard layout) however I will likely create my own as my layout will be different.  I already have an LS3 engine loom, that will stay in the cupboard until I get the engine.

To start with a pilot hole was drilled from the boot in the bottom left hand corner above the rear axle tunnel, this appeared behind where the passenger seat will be. I then opened this out to around 15mm and cut a strip out below this to allow the loom to fold downwards.

The loom is then fed through bit by bit from the cockpit, around the near side and behind the boot latch striker plate. The front part goes down the rear bulkhead, along the transmission tunnel then half way up the front bulkhead where it will meet the front loom behind the dash.

Within the boot, the loom follows the corner down the axle tunnel, across the floor and along the rear edge finishing at the offside rear lights. There are 3 main bunches of wires:

1. Fuel system (fuel pump, level sender)
2. Nearside rear lights
3. Offside rear lights

There is also a lead just as it enters the boot for the number plate light and provision for reverse and fog are available at either side rear lights.  The loom comes with crimped bullet connections but I've changed these for Superseal connectors (for the lights at least) as they lend themselves better to being disconnected/reconnected repeatedly and offer a more OEM look.

Drilling hole in to cockpit area

Loom behind passenger seat position (looking rearward)

Number plate light lead just inside boot

Fuel system bundle

Nearside lights

Loom goes behind boot latch plate to offside lights

Superseal plugs

Rear loom connects to front loom behind dash (black & white plugs)