Loom Wiring

I made a brief start on this tonight, usin the loom from the Mondeo there is a lot to get rid of. Using guides from a couple of great guys on the LCB forum I managed to get it to this stage. The boot of my 3 series is now full of the stuff I cut out! The guide from Warren aka Big Wasa is awesome and has helped loads!

Pretty much done with the stripping out and now to look at what needs shortening and what needs extending

Fuel Pumps and Pipes. Zetec Throttlebody mod

Well after many design manoeuvres the LP and HP pumps are in (loose fitted). The swirlpot is in and the plumbing is routed (VERY loosely). I need to get a load of pipe clamps and p clips to secure all the piping and keep it out of harms way. Im really pleased I found room at the back to mount all this stuff. I think I'll give the diff a brush up and some Hammerite treatment.

I have modified the standard throttle body so it has an idle control screw as I wont be running an IACV as its really not necessary. All you have to do is remove the glue and then remove the grub screw that holds the throttle flap and then insert a suitable length bolt of the right thread. (the stainless flathead in my pic)

Water Rail

Ive mentioned before the cost of these and the issues with the Raceline one, some more of the parts for my design arrived and its going to work out really well. Need to get various other bits of hose but I didn't want to order all the bends and specific lengths until I was sure. The Triumph Stag rail brackets are perfect. Total cost for my rail? £40!!! :-)

Tomorrow I'll be on to finish the fuel system, pumps pipes etc.

Clutch and Engine Mounts

I got the rubber part of the mounts today and so today was the day it was going in. It has to as the crane will be gone tomorrow. I was surprised to read the torque settings for the clutch but I double checked and then used my clutch alignment tool and got it fitted. Also refitted the Retroford plate to. Check the fitment of the release bearing and the spigot and all good.

The mounts were tricky as I had expected them to be, I got the engine fixed to the type 9 (a joyous job! NOT as always) Then fitted the mounts to the engine and using the crane held the mounts at 35mm above the plate for the rubbers and then painted the marks on the plates through the bolt holes. Next bit was to get the car as high as possible and taking the measurements from the marks on the plates I drill up from underneath.

Above is the passenger side, below is the drivers side..

Just need to tidy up some of the paint around them

In and looking good so far!

Inlet plenum now trial fitted with the Focus throttle body and, MAF and Cone Pipercross. Fits very snugly!

Looks very different from how I got it with a tiny 1.3 Xflow....

Welding Zetec Engine Mounts

So all went to plan and my mate Rob came round to weld in the engine mount plates in. The welding didnt take very long at all but grinding out the old ones took a while, well a couple of hours actually. Robs up for chassis/MIG work on any of your kits. He is mobile but has a workshop near Alton in Hampshire....

Rob did an amazing job! Top notch and very pretty welds..

We also cut off the head rest plates on the roll bar but not tidied up yet

Then to finish the day I confidently carried on with the painting of the engine bay. Day off the car tomorrow and need to get the engine in on Wednesday as I listed my crane on ebay today and it sold in a couple of hours! 

Check out Robs Facebook page RH-Waste-Container-Services Ltd

Engine/bay work

My mate Rob the welder arrives tomorrow to put the plates in for the Zetec mounts so I addressed a couple of things on the engine/bay. The RMD Rally Design gauges I have need a sender for the oil pressure gauge. Basically you run the oil warning light and sensor from the car loom and you run a pressure gauge separately.

In the picture below the plug on the right is for the oil light, centre hole is for the engine mount and then to the left of that there is a torx screw, you need to remove this, then take your sender with 1/8th npt adaptor and fit to the block, I used some ptfe tape and a tiny bit of thread lock

Adaptor fitted

Flywheel now torqued up to 112 nm and the spigot bearing fitted to assist in the Rwd set up of an engine from a Fwd car. Note the oil seal on the bearing faces the gearbox if you are about to do this yourself.

I got the RetroFord cover plate to cover the exposed/open areas between the flywheel and the Type 9. I made one for my zero last time but I was never very pleased with it.

One of the major savings along with the ecu and TB's that I am making on this build is the water rail. Ive used the Raceline previously but they are £300 plus £80 for the GBS pipe kit. Lots of people have reported over heating problems as the Raceline one moves the location of the thermostat away from the engine block. IMHO thats a lot of money to spend and then to risk the life of your engine on.

Ive started designing my own one and have spent £22 on 1/2 a metre of 32mm stainless tubing, £11 on two Triumph stage rail clips and £9 on silicone tubing so far. I only have the piccy below for now but I dont think I'll be running it over the exhaust and will probably hide it away on one of the chassis side rails.

A little bit of a makeover

In between other jobs and waiting for some parts I decided to do some minor cosmetic work. Like most people these days I hate orange lenses on cars (unless it's proper old skool) so I swapped the rears out with some other ones I had in my parts bin from other projects.

The clear ones I had are a slightly different model but what you cant see in the pictures is that they actually blend in well with the angles on the rear of the Striker.

At the start of this project you may remember there was quite a lot of chrome bits on the car. Minor changes like this make a big difference.

A nice bargain from Carbuilder Solutions

HP fuel system and swirl pot

Having been up and under the back of the car Im pleased to say that I found there is enough space to fit the swirl pot there. Lots of people have them up front in the engine bay as the pots are a nice bit of bling. Like cold air, cold fuel burns more efficiently and keep a litre of fuel under the bonnet in such a compact engine bay is plain crazy if you ask me. Below are the components I have bought to change my fuel system from a low pressure carb syste to a HP efi solution;

Basically a Facet LP pump with pre pump filter (pre swirl) ODP swirl pot, non return valve, Sytec HP fuel filter and then lastly the HP pump. 

The above photo is a bit shaky but it was hard to get under and hold the pot and take the photo. The Striker has a surprising amount of room at the back.

Carbon Wrap for the wings

Well I bought some real carbon wings online and they were awful quality. Looking at other wings and the lead times Im glad I didnt bin the old ones. I removed the huge indicators and set to work with the P38 and 3M wrap.

The new indicators are going to on the front of the chassis so I filled the old mounts...

I'd done a lot of wrapping on my GBS Zero but that was all flat surfaces. Im really pleased with how these have turned out and saved me some more cash...

Look cool with the edge trim on and the little indicators. 

Compared to this when I started