MX5 Westfield build

It's nearly time to put it away....but not just yet

2011-09-28T01:21:00.000-07:00

Where has the summer gone? I seems like only yesterday that I was getting the car out of it's winter hiding place only now to see it's time to put it away again. But with the weather forecast this week I don't think I will be putting it away just yet.

So far this year we have only covered about 2500 miles, and these haven't always been without an issue or 2.

A few weeks ago, the engine developed a serious thirst for oil, consuming about 3/4 litre in 200 odd miles. With no sign of obvious leaks this means it could only be going one way - out of the exhaust!!

So after a bit of investigation, with no oiled up plugs, very dry cylinder bores across all pistons, a lack of smoke from the exhaust under hard acceleration or on start up it started to become a bit of a mystery as to which cylinder was burning the oil.
After a bit of research and a bit of head scratching online, I ended up coming back to the MX5 owners 'must have book', Rod Graingers guide to all things MX5. This book has been a godsend during my build. And looking back at it I should have refered to this book from the start, under diagnostics at the back, a section entitled 'excessive oil consumption' to which it's first port of call Is the PCV valve on the top of the engine being faulty, I read on one site some where that if the pipe that goes from this valve to the inlet manifold was wet with oil, it was likely that the valve had stopped working causing the oil to be burnt. Off out to undo the pipe on the car and guess what I come across, a very wet and oily pipe. So a new valve was ordered and fingers crossed after a few hundred miles things seem to be running ok.

Also are some pictures of the LED light upgrades that I purchased at the kit car show, these were well worth the money and are seriously bright bits of kit. I will do any thing to make sure that I am seen by others road users, one thing you get to learn whilst being out in the car is that other road users do not see you what so ever. So with some bright brake and indicators I am doing my best to ensure this is not the case.

stoneleigh kit car show

2011-05-09T12:33:00.001-07:00

well the time had come to go and visit the stoneleigh kit car show, and what a lovely
day it turned out to be!

fantastic turn out from the WSCC, i don't think i will ever see that many westfields in one place again.

it was really nice to chat to people and put a few names to faces, ( thats you Dean!!)

now i have to admit it was rather hard to go to the show and manage to keep my hands and wallet firmly in my pockets. now sadly i failed at this and ended up buying a few bits on the day, i managed to pick up a set of floor sill covers from carbon mods cheap, and a full LED light upgrade for the rear of the car, including the fog and reverse.

these are currently half fitted but i am hoping to have this all installed by the weekend. as usual it turned out to be more than just a five min job, as the plastic light housings have to cut and modified to fit the new lamps into them.

i also bought a little some thing for the front of the car but i am keeping this quiet for the time being.

colour change of doors

2011-04-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

another job to complete was the doors, now originally i purchased a set of blue doors for a very good price on ebay, now blue doesn't really go with the rest of the car, so after some research i found a product that should hopefully change the colour, and the results are above.

The time has come ....

2011-04-05T07:24:00.000-07:00

I am finally able to sit down in front of my laptop and do some much needed blogging updating.

after being so busy at work these past few months with the F1 season starting i have been lacking in much needed time to get parts done to the westie, but just in time for the sun to start coming out the road tax is back on and last night it was taken out for a quick spin around the block after getting a few jobs done over the winter period.

first job was purchasing a playskool MSA roll bar, this has been stripped of the original black powder coat and repainted in a Zylan black finish which is a matt finish and more in keeping with the rest of the coatings on the car.
to go with this i also got a new carbon mods boot box cover, as the last cover was a vinyl carbon effect one, again to keep in with the carbon theme running on the car.
to add a little more finishing touches i turned up some stainless steel spacer bushes with a collar on for the seat belt eyelets.

next up was the carbon mods front mud guards, i have had these for some time, but after buying them i was unsure about liking them or not on the car, so over the winter i got them in and out the box a few times to see if they finally grew on me, and i have to say they have, i am now kind of regretting not fitting them sooner.

Updating for Dean. How's the snow again?!

2011-03-14T06:25:00.000-07:00

Dean I am updating my blog just for you!!

It's nearly time to get back out on the road so I have been trying to get the final jobs done and dusted.

Really looking forward to finally being able to get the car to stoneleigh this year and show off all the hard work I have put into it.

Now due to a busy schedule I am having to update my blog via my iPhone which means I cannot upload any pictures of the work in progress but once I get back infront of my laptop I will add some.

The roll bar has been off for blasting and has now been painted Matt black and is looking very nice. Just need to re install my high level brake light on to it. The new carbon mods boot cover has been cut to shape and and has been marked out ready to cut the holes in for the rear stays with the assistance of some string and auto cad to generate my Ellipse shape to cut out where the stays pass though, to keep the gap as small as possible and tidy.

Now some time last year I purchased some carbon mods front mud guards, now at first I was unsure if I actually liked the look of them so never got round to fitting them, but over the winter I sat them on the brackets to see if I did get to like them. So last weekend I finally decided to fit them as they grew on me, and now they are fitted I have to say they do look very good. I decided to go with drilling and bolting them on as the safest option. But to make it a little less noticeable I have ordered some anodised black bolts to blend in with the carbon. Will get pics up of these soon.

The new clutch slave cylinder has been fitted after the old one shit itself. Easy job to get sorted.

All of the suspension bolts have been regreased as I was suffering from a few squeaks which was driving me mad.

Still awaiting for some dye to re colour the side screens, purchased some dye which after doing a small sample looked terrible as it was very shiny.

Upgrades have started

2011-02-07T09:57:00.000-08:00

Now the weather has started to warm up and you no longer freeze when in the shed it was time to get a move on and do some work.
First job is getting round to fitting the new playskool roll bar which I purchased back in December. This like every thing else on the car needed some work to get the bar to fit. First hurdle to get over was the fact that the lower plate where it bolts to the chassis do not quite line up. Now they are not far out but it still needed the holes slightly enlarging or dragging across with a grinder to get them to line up. once these had been sorted the next apparent problem was that the plates on the bottom of the bar slightly overlap the bushes welded to the chassis for where the harness eye bolts go, so once again out with the air tools and a light scallop was put in place to give me clearance for these. But the fun doesn't stop there...
Now i could get the roll bar bolted to the chassis the next issue came along.... The rear stays on the roll bar that go into the boot and bolt to the chassis are 20mm to short of lining up with the holes. (nothing is ever easy with this car) so a quick phone call to Luke a playskool confirmed that Westfield have 2 chassis jigs one of which is longer than what the roll bar was originally jigged from. Luke apologised but said they have come up with some exstentions that need to be either bolted or welded in once the old ends have been cut off. I have opted for the later option and weld these in properly.
Now I really like the shape and look of the roll bar but the only downside in my eyes is the fact that it has been powder coated, which is ok but nothing else on the car has a shiny appearance. So I had decided from the outset that I would have the bar repainted to match the satin black that goes with the rest of the car. So today I had the bar shot blasted and all the powder coat removed ready to be welded and be repainted. Luckily for me the company next door to where i work deal with specialist material coatings. So hopefully by tomorrow I will have a nice satin black roll bar to fit.

Another job that had to be taken care of was a new clutch slave cylinder, now for some reason whilst the car has been up on axle stands I noticed a small few drips on the floor. On closer inspection the seals in the cylinder had given up and started leaking. I wouldn't have minded but this was new when I rebuilt the engine and as it had been ordered over a year ago there was nothing the supplying company could do any more. So a new one was ordered and has been fitted but now just awaits bleeding.

Next job will be getting the doors dyed black, now I have managed to get hopefully a good quality black dye in a satin black, the out come might be interesting but worth a try.

I am also having a rethink about the carbon mods front mud guards, I wasn't sure on them at first, but after sitting them on for a while they are starting to grow on me.

a little update

2010-12-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

Well i haven't managed to get much on here for a few months, but the car finally passed the IVA test and within 2 weeks we finally had a registration number, so out onto the open road it went, in the 6 or so weeks the car was registered before it was sorned for the winter we managed to rack up about 1800 miles, and touch wood, every thing seemed to go very well.

the first few thousand miles have been pretty gentle on the car so far, mainly just making sure every thing settles in well, and that nothing has worked it way lose or wants to drop off.

ear plugs have become the must tho i have to admit whilst out in the car, as the exhaust is a little on the noisy side. during high revs it sounds good, but at steady cruising speed it becomes pretty droning and boomy. this may need some attention!

the car is currently tucked away for the winter period and due a few winter upgrades, which i will hopefully get on here as they get on the car, but apart from that a good clean is in order ready for plenty of use next year.

oh dear......

2010-09-23T12:53:00.001-07:00

What sundays are for......

2010-09-12T13:49:00.000-07:00

well i have had it sat in the shed for 6 months, and i thought it was about time that now it has passed the IVA that i should fit the carbon dash, i knew this wasnt going to be an easy task but with the car going for inspection tomorrow it left me with one day to get it all done.
but i am pleased to say it was well worth the effort.

IVA done and dusted and DVLA

2010-09-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

So my last post was a little short and sweet, but at long last i have passed the IVA, after rectifying my few little problems, phoned them up on tuesday after the bank holiday and was told i could bring the car in on the friday.
So friday comes round, and this time the car was driven up to the test station, i drove it up there, and dad drove it back. Now i have come to the conclusion that it is most definitely not a car to be driving if you don't want attention.
After a very conservative drive up the motorway we arrived in good time, and was only at the test station for 30min, after testing the emission this time it passed with flying colours, now running at 0.19% CO, instead of the 11% it was pumping out last time. so heading home with an IVA cert every thing was finally coming together.

So on the monday after the IVA, the paperwork for registration was taken to my local office, they took it in and told me they would be in contact, so on thursday a phone call came asking me to bring the car in for inspection on monday, and after this we should finally have a reg.... fingers crossed.

PASSED IVA!!

2010-09-03T15:25:00.001-07:00

As above!!

Specification and work run down

2010-08-24T13:42:00.001-07:00

Engine:
1994 Mazda Eunos 1800cc
Standard bore
15mm shortened sump and oil pick up
new big end shells
new oil seals sump
full new piston ring set
.09mm total head and block skim to bring back to tolerance
full de-coke of pistons and combustion chamber
full new genuine mazda head gasket set
new inlet / exhaust valve stem seals
reground valves
new spark plugs / leads
rocker cover gasket
block painted satin black
new water pump
new cam belt
all related tensioners
cam shaft seals
modified 2 1/2 inch polished alloy intake with ITG cone filter
MAF sensor relocated
Adjustable fuel pressure regulator

Transmission:
Standard mazda 1800 manual gearbox
new clutch release bearing
new clutch slave cylinder
2L 75/90 fully synthetic transmission fluid
new prop shaft seal
new gear shaft oil and associated gaskets
Baily Morris shortened prop shaft
Torsen LSD differential

Cooling:
one off alloy fabricated radiator
full coolant re-route
silicone hoses with alloy pipe work
after market rad fan switch
5 year advance pink coolant
standard mazda cooling fan

braking:
AP racing split master cylinder
dot 4 fluid
Goodrich braided brake hoses
EBC Green stuff pads
CRN grooved discs (front)
Standard discs (rear)
Mazda calipers and hand brake system

Electrical:
Mazda loom
with the following removed:-
air con
power steering
headlamp motor controls
electric windows
speakers
auido system
heating controls
heater motor
standard mazda ECU

Interior:
Carbon mods dash
Trilogy Savage blue illuminated switches
Revolution gauges:
Speedo
Rev counter with shift lights
fuel
temperature
oil pressure
Momo 290mm steering wheel
Westfield 4 point harnesses

Exterior:
Post office red ZK body work
V8 bonnet
black mesh vents
Carbon mods cycle wings
Carbon Mods rear arch protection
Caterham font indicator pods with clear lenses
Carbon rear light upgrade inc reverse and fog
Hella Thinlite high level brake light
Team Dynamics 1.2 pro race 15" wheels in satin black
Toyo T1R 195/50/15

westfield SEiw walkaround

2010-08-14T05:46:00.000-07:00

Sorting out the emissions

2010-07-31T12:27:00.000-07:00

After failing the IVA, with the car back home it was time to get to the bottom of why the emissions are so high, turns out after little bit of research and a test gauge, it turns out the fuel pressure regulator has packed up, the fuel pressure in the rail should be 35 - 40 psi, but it is currently running at 65 psi.

a new pressure reg has been ordered, so here is hoping that this cures my problem,

IVA test day!

2010-07-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

So tuesday the 27th was the big day, after about a 4 week wait from sending off my paper work it was time to head to the test station, the car was taken to Birmingham VOSA, i had booked an AM appointment, should there be any problems i might have allowed me time to rectify any problems there and then if possible.

To save the hassle of driving the car up to the test station, i managed to borrow a van and trailer off a friend of mine, i didnt want to have any problems on the way up there and not be able to make my appointment. the car was loaded up the night before and at 6 am that morning we headed off to the test center, we were going to arrive mega early so a steady drive was taken up there. the test center was very easy to find, it was even well sign posted off the motorway.

Once we arrived at the test center, the car was unloaded out side, and the opportunity was taken to give the car a warm up around the the industrial estate, and my god did it sound good, roaring down the little road with high industrial units for the sound to echo around, barking at passers by.

with the car now nicely warmed up it was time to head into the test station, as i headed round the building and parked up waiting for the tester to arrive.

My testers name was Paul, he was very polite and explained every thing that he was doing during the test.

test took about 2 hours to complete including a break, every thing seemed to go well,
every thing was checked over for projections, sharp edges, etc, the car was put onto the ramps and checked every thing underneath, he commented on how tidy the installation was, and how every thing was very neat and tidy. the speedo was checked for true speed indication, and we then moved onto the brake test, where every thing was good.
afterwards it was time to go outside to give the car a test run, make sure the mirrors were all in order and steering self centered, after this it was onto the noise test, to which the car stuck out 95db so just within the limit at the 3/4 engine power, but on the overrun the pop of the exhaust took this 104db, but he over looked that.

once that had been completed the test was over and he went in to do some weight calculations for the braking and issue me with the fail certificate.

Double bogs dollocks!

Paul had informed me during the emissions test the the car was running a little on the rich side, as the car had produced 11.2% on the co2 emissions, where the tested limit is 3.5%. seems we might still have a slight over fulling issue......

Apart from that the car sailed through with no problems, so it was back into the trailer and we headed for home, disappointed in one way, but happy in others.

Remember when going to the IVA test, the best way to think is, expect to fail, and a pass is a bonus.

a couple of bad points

2010-07-04T08:46:00.001-07:00

Not every thing has gone so well, unfortunately a few weeks ago when fitting the side repeaters, one of the cycle wings has shattered on the gel coat around one of the bolts, i have no idea how this happened as the bolt wasn't even tightened up.
this mean the carbon cycle wings will have to come sooner now.

Another problem that needs to be sorted is that the fuel tank is leaking from one of the welds, which goes to show that westfield cannot properly pressure check the fuel tanks for leaks, i am going to try and fix this myself, as i am really not in the mood for removing the fuel tank at this moment in the build, and i have a few tricks to try and fix it with out the need to remove it, just need to pin point the exact location of the leak first.

Car is now progressing well....

2010-07-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

things have been busy, and have not found much time to do any blogging so i suppose i best catch up on where things have been going......

in my last update the car was finally moved from the workshop to the great outdoors where it got to see day light for the first time as a complete car, and i have to say i felt like it has given birth and become a proud father.

now with the car finally out the shed a few little more odd jobs were able to be sorted, the main one being able to correctly do the tracking using a gunsons drive over trackrite. this has been set to currently toe out to aid the self centering of the steering, and once the car has passed the IVA it will set up to its correctly alignment.

with the car now outside temptation took over and it wasn't very long before we found the car going for its first drive under its own steam just down the road and back. yes this was a big moment but it was over shadowed by the fact that some where on the ECU i had a bad connection that was causing the car to run rough every time i moved the ECU and unless it was in a certain position the engine wouldn't even run, during these issue the ECU kept throwing up a fault code to do with MAF sensor, so this was replaced ( altho it turns out the fault didn't actually lay with the MAF sensor the original one was dead any way )
trying to diagnose the fault took a little while but i eventually tracked this down to bad connection on the earth for the MAF sensor where it plugs into the ECU, so after a lot of swearing this issue was finally overcome. which then moves me onto the next problem....

After getting the engine to run correctly it was time to give the car a little shake down on a private stretch of road, every thing was taken very gently to begin with, but there was one big issue, it appeared that the engine was suffering heavily with air locks, which was not allowing the cooling system to work at all. now to aid problems with this, my temperature gauge gave completely the wrong readings, every time the engine was run after a few min the gauge would go off the scale, with no real way of telling what temperature the engine was actually running i have had to wait to get my hands on a laser temperature sensor.
after a bit of head scratching and some trial and error trying different ways to jack the car up and fill the cooling system up, last week i remade the blanking plate the covers my original thermostat housing, but this time with the addition of small threaded hole and a dowty washer which enabled me to jack up the front of the car, this in turn allows the head to be fully bleed and removes all the air from the system which had been causing me all the problems.

also today i fitted some ally panels to provide some ducting of the heat that is given off when the fan kicks in to stop the air intake sucking in loads of hot air.

other jobs that have also been completed....

Side repeaters have now been fitted to the front cycle wings to comply with the new IVA regs, now these were supplied by westfield, but in a fetching shade of chrome, these really did look out of place on the car, so with a little rub down and a can of satin black paint, these where given a much better look.

IVA caps have now been fitted to most of the parts that need to be covered for the IVA test, all the front suspension bolts etc etc along with some inside of the car.

Brakes - now this is a very interesting section that seems to high up on the much asked questions on the WSCC forum, how to bleed them correctly procedure?
After my initial fill up and bleed of the brakes it turns out there were rubbish, and i had managed to get a lot of air into the system leaving me with a very spongy pedal.
after another bleed it seemed that they were getting no better, so off the forum and have a look through the much asked questions and theory's on how to do this, now one post caught my eye which said that you needed to take the calipers off the mounts and try to get the bleed nipples higher than the pipe work that feeds them, so with this info in had i set about whipping them off and giving it a go...
now during this attempt to bleed the brakes with the calipers higher up, straight away this time i was able to notice loads of tiny bubbles being pushed out, so all the calipers were done in this manner and i have to report that so far the brakes are feeling so much better, the pedal is still not as hard as i think it should be, but at the moment i am not to worried as i fitted a new set of grooved discs, which these are yet to be bedded in.

Coolant re-route 1800 engine in a westfield

2010-07-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

a lot of people have gone on about the poor cooling of the mx5 engine when fitted into the westfield chassis, the biggest issue is now due to fact the the westfield does not have a heater, now this causes problems because when the engine was in the MX5, mazda relied on the heater matrix to provide cooling for the rear of the cylinder block. now the heater matrix has been taken away there is nothing to provide adequate cooling for the rear of the block, as now the water is returned straight from the back of the cylinder head and fed back into the lower water pump inlet completely missing the radiator, and because the thermostat sits right above the water pump the majority of the water just gets pumped directly back up and out the thermostat to the rad, and not actually supplying any cooled water to the back of the cylinder block.

So to cure this problem the solution is to move the thermostat from the front of the cylinder head to the back of the head (this was its original position in the MX6)

to do this you will need the following,

Thermostat cover from an 1800
Thermostat cover from a 1600
1 1/4 aluminum pipe work
2 90 degree silicone bends
1 dog leg silicone bend
1 90 degree mx5 specific silicone bend
(the above were designed by Mark on the forum)
m16 bolt - to fit the 1600 thermostat cover thread
lots of jubilee clips

the pictures below show how the assemble the above parts to move the coolant flow from back to front. the thermostat itself has now be relocated to the back of the cylinder head, which now has the 1600 thermostat cover fitted to it. the bolt fitted is to block off where the 1600 engine has it temperature sensor fitted, on my engine i have relocated my temp sensor to a tapped bolt hole just to the right hand side of the new thermostat cover, all i did was remove the bolt and screwed the temp sensor in with a new sealing washer.
then the first pipe you see is the MX5 specific pipe which bring it to the right angle to start running the ally pipe work towards the rad.
Now in the picture you can see that i have relocated and fitted an after market fan switch into this pipe, now i have done this because my ECU for some reason has decided to no longer operate the original fan switch.
next pipe is the dog leg silicone hose, this then fits to the top hose on the rad after another section of ally pipe work.
you will then need to take off the original water pump inlet fitting and all the associated pipe work with it, and replace all of this with the original 1800 thermostat cover from the front of the head. this will the allow you to take the 2 90 degree silicone hoses and with the aid of a small section of ally pipe work get this pointing towards the bottom hose of the rad. now this small section of pipe work has had 2 pieces of pipe welded to it, one is for the feed from the header tank, the other is for the feed back from the idle control valve, now the idle control valve feed originally connected to the thermostat housing on the front of the engine,but this has now been blocked up.
The original outlet on the head has had a blanking plate make up and fitted, now if you want you can actually remove this fitting all together, but you will need to remove the cams pulleys in order to do this, now seeing as i have already had this engine apart many times, i left this in position for the moment. now one key element to this plate that it is worth noting, is that i have fitted a small M5 screw into the front of this, now this is to enable you to bleed the cylinder head correctly when filling the water system back up, as after the past few weeks i have discovered that the head is prone to air locks if this is not done, and has now actually cured my cooling / air lock issues that i have been having.

Smile for the camera

2010-05-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

Now that the car is out of the shed, dad couldn't resist taking a few pictures

Now that the car is out of the shed, dad couldn't resist taking a few pictures

A westfield is born.......

2010-05-25T13:27:00.001-07:00

So over the past few weeks much tinkering has been done, and this weekend is the biggest moment to date was set upon, getting the Westfield out of the shed!

Now since the build was started every one who has visited has always asked the same question?
'how are you going to get it out of here?'

Well the answer to that question is - Remove the wall that sits between the two !

SO with a hammer/ big screwdriver / and a saw it was time to demolish the wall!!

and with a little squeeze and a make shift set of ramps.....................

The car finally gets to see day light for the very first time as a whole car!

I can almost taste it now ...............

2010-05-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of pics to show that is very nearly finished!

'Jobs to complete list' grows ever smaller.......

2010-05-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

Time for a 4 day weekend, time to crack on with more jobs.........

First job on the list was to address a few minor problems with previous things that i had fitted to make sure i have them in the bag before the IVA.

First job was where the fuel lines come up the front bulk head, one of the lines was getting rather close when the clutch depressed, now there was a gap of about 5mm with the clutch fully depressed, but i thought it best if i try and gain some more room, so luckily i was able to move the mounts where i have secured the fuel lines from one side to the other, this needed one of the fuel lines bending a bit more to clear the clutch reservoir. with this done everything was re secured and i now have a small mile between the clutch and the pipe.

whilst i was working on the fuel lines, there was a couple of places where they ran very close to welds/corners of the chassis underneath. a small amount of tweaking was done to bend the pipes away from these trouble spots. also to make sure they cannot question how close they are during the IVA some rubber pipe has been cable tied around them just to avoid any risk of touching.

another area that needed some attention was the steering shafts. the problem was where the lower shaft fixed into the UJ that attaches to the steering rack i was running very close to the chassis rail, the steering shafts have not been welded concentric to each other meaning that they get a fair old wobble on when turning. this was leaving such a minimal gap, time to dig out the drill and move the support bracket over slightly, this will then help to move the shaft away from the chassis rail.
now when i moved the support bracket it became very close to the inlet support brace on the engine, meaning that if the engine was to move under hard acceleration it may clash with the bracket. so i made a small relief in the engine brace to clear the bracket.

now that i have address a few small problems it was then onwards with the building, to finish of the interior was then the main mission, so today i fitted the central carpet which was all secured into place, with the small addition of a memento from the MX5 added to remember what the car is based upon.

with that all done all that was needed was to fit the harnesses for the final time and bolt them all up, and then fit the seats for which i hope will be the final time.

Still alive and have not set fire to it....yet!

2010-04-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

Been a while since my last update, but again things have still been moving forward.

Coolant re-route:- Things have been moved on with this, all parts have now been sourced and the last parts are arriving tomorrow, there parts are custom made silicone hoses that have been designed by some one else on the WSCC forum.
One of the biggest problems was the lack of cooling capacity from the standard supplied radiator, so to over come this problem i have manufactured my own 'all alloy' one, with a much more efficient rad core, this one has more rows and is 50mm thick as apposed to the 35mm of the polo rad. this should be more than enough to keep the engine cool, and will also be efficient enough for when the car is turbo charged later in its life.

Cooling fan not working - after a lot of head scratching and looking at wiring diagrams i was unable to come to a conclusion as to why this doesnt work, the fan is ECU controlled so unless there is a problem with the ECU i cannot work it out. so to get round this i am going to add an electric fan switch purchased from CBS and use this to override the mazda's fan control. this will be incorporated into the re-route pipe work. set to come on the standard temp of 97 degrees, i have used one of the relays i fitted under the dash to operate it.

Engine running very rich - now when i have previously run the engine, it has been running very rich kicking out large amounts of black soot and running bad on idle, after reading a few forums the issue pointed to a choice of 2 options - a faulty coolant temp sensor, or a vacuum leak.
now after trying to work out why the cooling fan wasn't working i knew that the coolant temp switch works fine. which lead to me believe that the problem lays with a vacuum leak.
Now after a lot of searching, and head scratching, a light bulb come on and i remembered that when i rebuilt the engine i wasn't very happy with how well the fuel injector seals were sealing to the inlet manifold. so a new set of these were ordered and fitted, so once the cooling is back together i shall see if this cures the running issue.

new wheels - these arrived on monday and were very promptly fitted to the car, and i think they look amazing in the matt black finish. one small issue is that the toyo's 'Rim protection' on the side wall of the front tyres is making contact with the front mud guard bracket, but this will be 'adjusted' out of the way.

Carpets in - all carpets have now been fully fitted apart from the central tunnel which is in need of a bit of sewing to attach the leather gaiter of the hand brake to it, but once that is secured this will also be fitted.

Seats and harnesses are also now ready to be finally installed once the tunnel carpet is in.

Stoneligh Kit car show on sunday, lets hope the weather stays nice and i am sure my wallet will not stay in my pocket for very long, ( already eyed up my next carbon fiber purchase ) but will also be purchasing a lot of 'finishing' parts, such a various trims etc....

The Good, The Bad, and The Not Working...

2010-04-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

So things have moved on a little this week over the easter weekend, so far the temporary dash has been finished off, the vinyl has worked very well now all the dials and switches have been installed, and all for under £20, as long as it passes the IVA it will be well wort it.

Now for the bad...... after running the engine over the past few weekends i have been keeping a close eye on the cooling when its been running, and it certainly seems that the engine is not cooling very well at all. now after reading into a few other peoples build and blogs a lot of them have resorted to re-routing the coolant on the mazda engine, this involves moving the outlet of the coolant from the front of the head to back. now i will make a new section on how to do this once i have done it, i will make sure it covers in detail all the parts and how you go about doing this on a 1800cc engine,

and the not working, Now during the above and running the engine up to temperature it appears that the cooling fan is not cutting in when the temp gets high, now after many hours of wiring diagrams and tracing wires, it seems i cannot yet find a reason for this not to work, now my only concern is that during the removal of the air condition wiring, i might have removed a wire that i shouldn't have, now the air con use to over ride the cooling fan to be used in conjunction with the AC condenser fan when the AC is switched on, so i will be trying to get this to work which ever way i can.

The end is becoming near....... Well maybe!?

2010-03-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

Now for a little further update on the past weeks work,

After successfully starting and running the engine in my last post, i am pleased to say that it wasn't a one off, the engine has run 7 or 8 times more since, mainly to check for leaks in the fuel and cooling system, which so far every thing has seemed to hold its fluids, but the most important thing is that there is still no sign of water appearing from around the head gasket (breaths a big sigh of relief) since running it a few more times the HLAs have gone a lot quieter after filling back up with oil. all thats left to do now with the engine is just check the timing when i can get my hands on a timing light.

Now after reading Complete kit car magazine this month there was an article on a guy that had taken his car for IVA and had failed on a few points, one of them was concerning some thing that effected me!

Now in my earlier posts right at the start of the build, i wrote about the fact that westfield has not welded the bracket to my chassis where the T piece for the brake light switch is fitted, now after speaking to 'Westfield Technical' they said that it would be fine to fir a riv nut into the chassis to attach this, so i did as they said.
But it turns out after reading the section in the mag, this was one of the points he had failed on with his car. So to get round this it needs to be properly bolted to chassis rail with visible threads passing through it. so this was promptly changed at the weekend, luckily it was spotted in the magazine other wise we would have become stuck on this point when we went for IVA. )Good spot dad!!)

As things are now starting to come together nicely, i am starting at the back of the car and working forward making sure every thing is finished, and getting all the little jobs sorted out.
So to finish off the back end, the crud catchers have been fitted into the rear wheels arches, the speed sensor has been located facing the drive shaft nuts on a small bracket and the wire run along the tunnel.

next job was to fit the new high level brake light to the roll bar, in the end i purchased a Hella Thinlite, this comes in at only 10mm thick and makes for a very unintrusive fit on the back of the bar, the wire for the light has been run through inside the bar and down underneath the rear boot cover, i had previously placed a wire from the main rear loom to power the high level brake light already.
Once this had been done it then meant that the rear boot cover and roll bar could be fitted for hopefully the final time! see picture above.

the IVA spec dash is now ready to be covered with vinyl and fitted to the car.

The issue with the wiper wiring has now been sorted out, this was down to some iffy instructions from westfield with regards how to wire up the motor.

there are some little bits left to do with the wiring, but that should be sorted out over the easter weekend, which i hope to spend it all working on the car with a big push to complete the final parts.

Steering wheel arrived today, after much debate over size and what to go for, i left the choice to my dad, to which i have to say he managed to make a great choice, and went for a 280mm MOMO wheel. pics to follow soon...

New wheels have also been ordered, i have stuck to tradition and gone for some Team Dynamic 1.2s but in a matt black finish, 15 inch running 195/50/15 Toyo T1R tyres, now it turns out that i think i need to thank westfield for a bit of a muck up on their part with the front mud guards, when i went to collect the chassis i asked for black fenders, but in true westfield tradition when i turned up it had red ones, and that they didnt have any black ones in stock, but after phone call i was told that they did have some black ones, but they were meant to be going on a race series car, but after a little chat they said i could have those, now it wasn't till last weekend when i was measuring up for the wheels did i notice the width of these fenders, they measure 240mm internal width and make the current 185 tyres look lost. meaning that i should have any issues running my 195 tyres and an ET35 offset with the new wheels.

Steering all fitted

2010-03-23T14:41:00.001-07:00

Now in one of my earlier posts i wrote about westfield making my steering column to short, and not willing to send me a spline to sort the job out myself,

well i am now pleased to say that i have fully working steering column.

to get round the issue a spline was ordered from car builder solutions, and after a trip to work the UJ that wesfield fitted incorrectly was soon cut off and in its place was welded a standard spline section, which now fits into the lower shaft perfectly, also by doing this myself i was able to make sure every thing measured up perfectly.

once it has been all welded up i had the upper and lower shafte properly painted in black Kephos, and not that crap paint that just flaked off that westfield had done.

2010-03-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

Todays big moment....

2010-03-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

Well after this weeks task of rebuilding and refitting the engine, today we decided to find out if it started...........

some fresh oil back into the engine, and the fuel tanks first batch of fuel placed inside it. it was time for some pre flight checks...

after ensuring all wires has been connected up on the engine block and bay area, my first concern was that i seemingly had no power going to the fuel pump, but it turns out there is no feed to the pump until the starter motor and fuel injection system kicks in.

first stage was to the the engine over manually by hand to get some of the oil pumped around the block and try to prime it up to the head so that when it was turned over on the starter motor there wasn't going to be a lack of oil up top. so the plugs were left out to do this.

once it has been turned over by hand, the engine was then turned over with the starter motor, at this point the fuel pump also kicks in and enabled the fuel system to be primed, the engine was turned over until fuel was being pumped into the chambers. once the fuel system was primed a good visual checks was made on all the fuel pipes and fittings to ensure no leaks were present.

the spark plugs were then fitted and the HT leads connected up and it was then time for the moment of truth..........................................

and on the first turn of the key................

It fired up into life!!!

as it was being run in the shed it wasn't taken much over tick over, but so far every thing seems to run all ok, idle currently seems a little low, but this could be down to now having a whole new air in take system not giving enough back pressure, so i will adjust this later along with checking the timing of the engine. in a few days it will be hopefully taken out to enable it to be run up to full temperature to check for leaks in the cooling system. after 6 months its alive again!!

Engine rebuilding and refitting

2010-03-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

this weeks task has been to rebuild the engine after last weekends skimming of the engine block, this is now becoming a rather simple job after the amount of times it has now come apart and gone back together.

once every thing was refitted and rebuilt, it was a case of refitting the engine back into the chassis on friday night, this again went without a hitch and in no time it was bolted back up to the gearbox, all that was then left to do was attach all the wiring and pipe work and refill with water, fingers crossed no more water shows up..............

Switches

2010-03-14T00:43:00.000-08:00

whislt the hunt for the water leak has been ongoing, in the mean time i have been working on the dash and electrics, now as i have a carbon dash this will not pass the IVA due to the radius being to small on the lower edge, so to get round this i have made myself a dash out of ally which i am going to foam pad and cover in vinyl to get me through,

Now as i am using a carbon / standard style dash i am not able to make use of the original mazda switch gear, which gives me the task of relocating all the switches with some thing else, now i had decided a while ago that i was going to use the savage stainless steel illuminated switches, so these have arrived and i have now set about sorting out the loom to make all of these work, currently they are all illuminated and this weekend i am setting about making them work,
now these switches are very small but reading in a few places it seems they are rated to 10amps, which means in theory i could wire all of the lights etc directly into the switches as the maximum draw the lights pull is about 9amps, but i have decided to be on the safe side and run relays for every thing for peace of mind.

again for the IVA i haven't used the savage switches for either the rear fog light, or the wipers, as the fog light switch has no real way of being able to distinguish when the fog is switched on, so for this i am using a plain switch with an led in to show when the fog light is switched on, and the wiper switch only has an on or off position, i would need to wire in some sort of toggle switch to be able to select the 2 speeds needed, so to save me doing this i bought a cheap wiper switch with 2 positions for 2 speeds.

The water continued to show....

2010-03-14T00:19:00.000-08:00

In my previous post i had just reassembled the engine after having the head skimmed, to see if this cured the water leak... well unfortunately i have to say the water has still continued to seep around the sides of the head...... BUGGER!!

Now we are onto the serious business of looking for a warp in the block, so it was back off with the head again, ( i am starting to get very quick at doing this now ) after removing the the head i brought home a long parallel from work and set about checking the top of the block for distortion.
it then became clear that i also had issues with top of the block being warped, at the moment it looks like there is a .04mm deviation in the center and across to 2 corners, now reading online it appears the maximum tolerance for flatness on the mazda block is .015mm. so now it was time to take the engine back out and strip down, ready for a trip to work to be machined.

So yesterday the engine was taken into work, first job was to remove the 2 locating dowels in the block that position the head, i then made 2 new ones to replace them. the block was ten set up on the machine and clocked up, it then showed as expected slight distortion of about 0.038mm.

so a light fly cut was set up and the distortion was machined out, i am now really hoping that this has cured the problem, other wise i might be looking at a new engine if this doesn't work.

i shall find out this week!

other jobs done whilst tracking down water leaks....

2010-02-13T11:00:00.001-08:00

whilst awaiting for the water to show up, i have completed another few small jobs,

first job was remake the battery clamps, i wanted to use the original battery tray from the MX, so to clamp it down i would need to make another hook which goes through the panel at the back of the battery, so whilst i was making that i decided i might as well re make every thing, so now i have an all stainless steel clamp system, the original bracket which bolted to the chassis was re used from the MX and 2 riv nuts were fitted to hold this into place, the other side is in theory the same as the one on the front but just turned upside down, and as there was no bracket to screw this too, a hole was drilled in the panel and a large stainless plate was made up to spread the load underneath.

Boot box cover has also been fitted.

Head light lifters for IVA, because i have gone for 'cateringvan' style indicators these would not pass the IVA when fitted the standard head light mount brackets as they would not be visible from a 45 degree angle as they would sit behind the nose cone, to get round this issue i made some 3" lifters that would sit the indicators above the nose cone, this will hopefully keep the IVA man happy, once the car passes they will be removed.

The hunt for the water leak continues......

2010-02-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

t

so after my last post the head has been taken off yet again and was heading to work for skimming,
the head was set up and machined with a very slow fly cut and a very slow feed rate to make sure a good surface finish was achieved. once it was set up it became apparent that there was not much in the way of material that needed to come off to get the flatness, overall i only took off 0.06mm which was a lot less than i was expecting, i could have actually got away with only taking off 0.04mm but decided to give it another 0.02mm, just to make sure.

after skimming the head was cleaned up to remove all traces of swarf ready to be refitted.

once i got home the cams were re fitted and the head was installed back onto the car and filled up with water again, now it was just a case of waiting to see if the water showed up again.........

DOH....the story continues

2010-01-29T12:50:00.000-08:00

So after my last post, i had re fitted the water outlet from the head and waited in hope that no more water appeared and started running down the block, well 48 hours after doing this the dreaded drips continued to show up.............................

BUGGER!

this now means the problem lay with in the head itself, so the tool set was cracked out and off comes the head again.

After removing the head and stripping it of the intake manifold it was time to see where the problem lay..... now before the head was refitted when i rebuild the engine i has taken the head to work and had checked it for flatness, i didnt rush in to skim it as i have read in a few places that the limits you can actually take off are very small with mazda head, so with the aid of a surface table, some parallels and some feeler gauges and a height gauge me and a college checked the head for flatness, now at the time everything seemed to be fine, and the head had seemed as flat as it could be, so it was decided it would be fine to re-fit.

after removing it for a second time i checked it again, and again every thing seemed fine........ so i cracked out the inspection lamp and found a straight edge, this then reveled what i should hope to be the cause of the problem, one corner of the head has actually lifted and is not sitting right by what appears to be .25mm, knowing my luck its probably the one corner we didn't check the first time round with any of the fore mentioned equipment, its also the corner to which the source of the water seemed to be originating from.

so the head will be making its way back to work tomorrow to be skimmed, which stupidly i should have just done in the first place, lets just hope it cures the problem this time.

But in the mean time during all of this i have managed to complete a few other little jobs from the list....

the roll hoop is now fitted and bolted up for the moment, altho this will need to be removed next week so that i can set about making up my boot box cover.

with the head removed i have also been able to gain access to the oil pressure switch, which i was not able to do up due to restrictions on getting a spanner in to tighten it up. so that saves me another job, all tho it could be said that removing the head was a rather radical approach to tightening it up ;o)

Front headlight raiser brackets have been fully finished, painted and will be fitted over the coming weekend, also meaning i can re wire the head lights back in.

i have also with the head removed been able to fit the cable tie anchors that i should have fitted down the drivers side of the engine bay to hold the wiring out of the way, and which i could not fit because the inlet manifold was in the way, i have also moved the wiring to the alternator and starter.

have also started to make my IVA dash, the ally panel has been bent with a good sized radius on the bottom of it all tho i will also be covering this dash in foam and vinyl to be completely on the safe side. and i will start to trim this in over the weekend.

i will add a few more pictures over the weekend for the parts that i have recently covered.

DOH

2010-01-16T10:52:00.000-08:00

having filled up with all the fluids 2 weeks ago, went to start looking at getting it started the other night and discovered a few drips of coolant on the floor, hummmm........

on closer inspection it seems that the water is coming from around the top of the engine some where between the head and the block, having a good look it was hard to see where the water is coming from, it is either coming from the head gasket some where, or from the outlet of the cylider head into the thermostat housing, (even tho this has had a new sealing 'o' ring and silicone when it was re-built) but i thought being the easy of the 2 to re-do i would start with the thermostat housing, this means i have had to remove the rocker cover, cam pulleys, and all the engine covers to gain access to the 2 bolts that hold it onto the head, took it off and have checked the seal and re siliconed it, went to fit it back onto the head when i noticed that there is large tab that hangs on the underneath of the outlet was actually hitting against the front of the water pump before it can be fully bolted up, it appears that the after market water pump i fitted is wider than the original pump, so getting out the trusty hack saw, i removed about 5 mm from the bottom of this tab, and it now misses the water pump, so fingers crossed it seals this time and i dont have to remove the head again.
just got to wait for the sealant to dry and will hopefully find out tomorrow.

also i have fitted my new temp sensor that works with the dials which have now arrived, and have also fitted the new oil pressure sender, but i am regretting not fitting this whilst the engine was out, as its rather tight and currently not able to get a spanner in there to tighten it up, so its back to work on monday to make some thing to over come this issue,

Dash board

2010-01-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

when the kit was ordered, every thing seems to work well on it apart from the dash that wesfield supply with the kit to fit the mazda clocks, now a kit car needs a nice dash and in my opinion they do not come much nicer than a carbon mods carbon dash, ( the carbon fever has started )

i also going to offset the carbon with some Savage stainless steel switches that illuminate blue, an expensive option but its one of the main parts of the car i think it will certainly be money well spend, also gauges have been ordered and should be delivered this week i hope as long as the snow doesn't hamper Mr postie for too long,

now there is some questioning as to will the dash pass the IVA test as it does not have the correct radius on the bottom edge, now some people have not had a problem and some people have and i think a lot of it depends on which VOSA test station you take it too, now Adam Reeves has also fitted the same dash to his car and i hoping to see what happens to his when he takes his for IVA before fitting the dash.

Now if it doesnt pass i will make myself a dash up at work with the correct radius on it and then cover it in vinyl for the IVA then come home and fit the carbon one once its passed .

i also need to track down a crash pad for the dash, as this will be a permenant fixture on both dashboards, but i refuse to pay westfield for one!!

Other jobs that have been completed

2010-01-07T12:55:00.000-08:00

just to add some little notes about other jobs that have been completed,

Prop shaft has been shortened by bailey morris is St. Neots, this was reduced to the measurement that was supplied by westfield,

once fitted back into the car it became obvious very quickly that we have some issues of the prop hitting against the side of the tunnel supports, mostly on where it has been re-welded, so i had to set out hacking out a small scallop to allow some clearance between the prop and brace.

panels fitted to transmission tunnel, there have all been riv - nutted on with M5 stainless head bolts.

brakes have been bleed along with the clutch, now the brakes currently still feel like they have a bit of air stuck in the system, so after reading a few posts on WSCC about brake bleeding i have wedged some thing against the brake pedal and lifted up the back end, and hopefully the 'westfield brake fairies' come to visit and make the pedal firm.

all suspension bolts have now been torqued up, and i have roughly set the camber adjustment on the fronts to 1.75 degrees in the negative, the given base sus geometry recommends between -1.00 to -2.00 degrees, now 1.75 is the closest i can come to that figure, as another turn each way on the top ball joint puts it outside of the figure, but this might need to be readjusted as i have yet to set up the tracking, as i still have yet to sort out the lower steering coloum, but i am going to wait till i have fitted the dashboard before doing this as i may need to adjust the position of the coloumn where it comes through the dash.

Oil and watered up

2010-01-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

As the title says, the engine now has fresh oil, and now the header tank is fitted, filled up with fresh water anti-freeze mix, i ordered a 3 meter length of red silicone hose from ebay to link the 8mm bleed off on the radiator to the header tank.
the gearbox has also had a dose of fresh 75/90w gearbox oil, but this was only when i was able to get the fill plug out out of the gearbox, little note make sure if you are going to change the gear box oil, make sure you crack the fill plug off before you install it into the car as access is a little tight, i had to make a hexed tool at work to remove the fill plug as it was very tight and with the aid of meter length of bar it was finally persuaded to come out.

now this is done i will soon hopefully be starting to look at getting the engine fired up for the first time since its rebuild.

Rear Light fitting

2010-01-07T11:56:00.000-08:00

Next up was fit the rear lights, i have gone for the carbon light upgrade as they look much better than the standard 'sherpa' rear lights.

now these were very interesting to fit, i started with the passenger side light, now the light position is set by the pattern on the mug guard, so it was just a case of lining up the carbon effect housing to line up nicely with the ridges and corner of the body work, a little trimming of the housing was needed to get it to sit nice and flush all the way round the body work, once happy i had found a position i set about drilling off the holes, to do this i used a little bit of guess work and some rough measuring, to obtain a datum i marked out the 2 large holes where the light units fit, and found the center of the these 2 circles, i then worked out the hole positions for fixing relative to these. i then started off by drilling the holes with a 3 mm drill, this then enabled me to see if the hole centers were in the correct position, if they were not i still had the ability to drag the hole into its correct position. the light unit was then fitted with m6 bolts and large washers, i then drilled off the large holes to allow the light units to pass through the body work, to do this was the easy bit, with a 46mm hole saw it was a case of using the light unit as a guide and drilling through the mud guard and body work,

now this light went out very easy and lined up very well, it was then when i set about fitting the drivers side unit did things sort of take a turn for the worse, first of all the light unit did not sit very nice in relation to rear body work, the gap was very large and sat 7-8 mm away from the corner, so out comes the dremel and a lot of trimming started, now the unit also pointed upwards more than the opposite side, so i started trimming the bottom section of the light to get it to sit more level, to achieve this i cut away about 5 mm off the bottom of the light unit, this also let the into to sit a lot better against the body work, once i had done this i then got out the tape measure to ensure i had it level, when i notice that this side of the body work sits nearly 40mm higher than the opposite side, not this is down to the molds of the rear arch and the location of the part where the light units sit, now i have tried my best to move the unit down but i would never be able to get it low enough for both lights to sit level.

looked a few other peoples rear pictures and have noticed that it is deffinately a mold issue as they all seem to do it, well done westfield!!

Wiring loom - engine bay

2010-01-02T12:34:00.000-08:00

next part of the job was to get the wiring loom into place, first job was to cut 2 holes in the scuttle for the wiring loom to pass through from inside the scuttle into the engine bay, now the manual states to drill 70mm diameter holes, but i would recommend going slightly smaller around 68mm would be a good size, as the 70mm holes are a little bit to big and the grommet wont sit quite tight enough in the hole, i may have to apply some glue in places to hold them in.

Once the loom was passed through it was a case of again making sure every thing is run within convoluted tubing and then the time consuming job of running all the wires to the locations needed within the engine bay and making sure that the loom is well secured to the chassis, now at this point i do kind of regret not fitting more of the cable tie anchors in certain positions before installing the engine and the body work. this was mainly the chassis rail that runs along the inlet side of the engine, as its too tight to be able to get a drill or a rivet gun between the intake and the chassis rail, so i have had to resort to getting cable ties where i can around chassis rails.

once you have secured all the wiring running down the chassis rails i then moved further back to securing the fuse box, now i have decided to mount my fuse box centrally on the scuttle, i fabricated an ally bracket, same style as the one used to secure the bottom of the header tank and fitted a couple of riv nuts into it, then bolted the bracket on with M5 stainless dome bolts,

wiper system

2010-01-01T13:42:00.000-08:00

Now this proved to be quite a fiddly and time consuming job to get these to sit right along with the windscreen fillet (then again i should be use to this by now).

once the screen was in place, i opened up the indentations on the scuttle where the wiper arms have to pass through and did the same to the 2 raised parts on the windscreen fillet, to allow the bushes to pass through which then screw down onto the arm mounts to hold every thing in place.

once i had decided on my position for the wiper motor i drilled that off and affixed it to the scuttle with 2 m6 stainless dome bolts, and large washers each side to spread the load, once bolted up, and in placed i could then set about bending the pipe that carries the wiper wire that operates the arms, i did this by hand and roughly bent it into location to where i thought the first wiper arm would go, it was then a case of having to joggle every thing into position, i found that the center pipe that links the 2 wiper arms together was about 8 mm to long meaning that they wouldnt line up with the holes on the fillet, so this was cut down, the next problem i found was that westfield give you some angled cut bits of rubber that act as sandwich pieces between the fillet and scuttle were both to long and had been cut at the wrong angle, so with my trusty Stanley knife i set about trimming these into the right shape, and my goodness did they need a lot of cutting, the fillet wouldn't sit correct until i had nearly trimmed them all away.

my biggest tip is to just be patient with this bit, even more with the fillet, as it can be quite tricky bending it to fit between the pillars, now mine had to go in and out a few times, so a little of the gel coat got chipped off the sides, but luckily this is hidden.

Windscreen fitting

2009-12-31T09:32:00.000-08:00

Once the body work had become fully fitted it was time to fit the windscreen into place,

First job was to cut down the wing mirror mounts so they fit inside the cast screen pillars as described in the manual, now these seem to be a very tight fit into the recess on the pillars, now at first i thought they didn't want to fit properly, but once i tightened up the mounting screws on these they seemed to fit lovely.

with that done, it was time to be let lose making holes into the scuttle to bolt up the pillars, now to assist in this task i made a pole up at the 1007mm dimension to give me the right angle on the windscreen. now in the manual they give you some dimensions for the positioning of the pillars, all i can say at this point is to ignore those and crack out a bit of ingenuity and some eyeball measurements, as the pillars will naturally want to fit in their own position on the radius of the scuttle, and from side to side the pillars seem to sit at slightly different angles. also at this point the pole i had made at work was far to long, and the windscreen and the pillars were all sitting to far forward and no where the radius on the side of the scuttle, so i shortened it by about 25mm in the end, and this seemed to make every thing sit a whole lot better.

once i was fairly happy that every thing was sitting roughly where i wanted it to be i set about drilling off the bottom holes only on the pillars on each side, this still meant that there was still some room for adjustment, and then when i was fully happy with the position then top holes were drilled off and every secured in place, now when fitting the grub screws to pillar to hold the windscreen in place i ensured that these were just nipped up, i have heard a few horror stories about over tightened grub screws and cracking windscreens.

and also......

2009-11-29T13:11:00.000-08:00

the filler cap was fitted

This weekends antics - Body work

2009-11-29T11:27:00.000-08:00

So this weekends task has been to make the body work a fully permenant attachment, i now hope that the body work doesnt have to go on and off as many times as it has done this weekend.

the main thing with the body work is patience, and making sure every thing lines up, and don't be afraid to cut slots into things like the nose and scuttle to ensure you get the best fit, this will give you the room for adjusment needed, and as you use repair washers to hold the body work making the hole bigger isn't going to cause problems.

the longest time spent was ensuring the bonnet and nose cone lined up pefectly where the pins go from the bonnet into the nose cone, a bit of trimming was needed here and there, and more around where the nose fits into the bonnet. once happy with how the nose and bonnet lined up the holes were drilled off into the nose cone and bolted into place, now with the use of the slots made with the dremmel some fine tuning was then needed to get the front shut lines correct.

once happy with the top the bottom was then secured along the chassis with 20 large headed rivets, now every thing starts to feel very secure and soild.

next stage was to then get the rear secured up onto its mounting blocks, now at this stage the car has been placed back on axle stands to allow room underneath to do the riveting and be able to take the wheels off to align up the rear arches. now the rear needs to come up a fair old amount but this is easily done, with the aid of an assistant and a trolly jack it tends to sit where it wants, and then you need to check measurement between the center of the rear hub to the arch front and rear, now the manual states that these should be within 10-20mm but with a bit of pulling and pushing i managed to get them to within 2-3mm. happy with that the rear was the drilled off and and riveted up with 6 large head rivets. there was a small amount of distorsion in the body underneath but this was not a problem.

now things are starting to take shape and it was time to start hacking some holes into the body work, first up was the exhaust system.
to do this 2 holes were needed, one large one at the front where the exhaust exits the body work and a smaller hole at the back where the mount goes through into a M10 boss on the chassis, now whilst the body work was off i made a masking tape template around the exhaust section, when the body work was placed over and the masking template was used to find the center so a hole can be hole sawed in.
The rear hole was first pilot drilled from the inside out, and then opened up to allow the bush to pass through the body, every thing else was then bolted up with out to much hassle. the exhaust needed to twisting to get it to sit right.

Current standings as of 24th nov

2009-11-24T13:45:00.001-08:00

i have lots more still yet to add, but just an update of my current tasks in hand. the body work and arches have been fitted, next step is to get the exhaust cut out in the body work. i have now trimmed the scuttle to fit round the dash hoop, i ended up buying a dremel to do the task, and wish i had bought one sooner to be truful, also done the cut out for the steering column.
currently trying to source some smaller grommets to go through the scuttle with the wiring loom, as the mazda ones are a little on the large side, once i have sourced these i can get one with getting the loom into the engine bay,

other parts currently in the production process are a new intake system for the air filter as i am doing away with the standard air box, mounts to move the front indicators up next to the headlights, which will keep the IVA man happy to forfill the 45 degree viewing angle, these will only be fitted for the IVA then moved back once its passed.

Prop shaft will be shortened next month, and it seems that the measurement that westfield supply for this is correct.

Just a little picture.....

2009-11-24T13:31:00.001-08:00

...to show how far out the engine mouting bracket was on the passenger side, and shows where i had to re-position the mount.

Cooling system

2009-11-24T12:48:00.000-08:00

Next up, Rad and fan fitting, plus pipe work.

Again this part of the build went fairly easy, first jon was fit the upper rad mounts, these needed to be drilled and rivited, first job was to shorten some dome head stainless steel bolts to fit into the radiator mounts, approx 2 at 12mm and 2 at 16mm, the rad was then fitted up to the 2 lower brackets which are part of the chassis, this then gave me a natural sitting position for the rad meaning i could then place on the top monts and get them rivited into position. once i was happy with its position, i could then fit the fan, the lower fixings needed 2 M6 rivnuts fitted into the chassis, and i then made up some 14mm nylon spacers to place behind them, the top fan mount could then drilled and rivited in the same way as the radiator mounts. now i offered the raditor back up and found that the fan cowling was in contact with the rad, to get round this i used a sharp stanley knife blade to cut away the pastic from the front of the cowling, taking away about 12 mm of plastic meaning that i now had plenty of room but still having the fan close enough to the rad.

Next was to connect up the pipe work, the rubber hoses bends for this are cut out of 1 pipe supplied by westfield, for the top hose connection you have one 45 degree for the connection to the radiator, and a 90 degree bend forom the outlet of the engine, now on trial fitting up these, i found a slight problem, the outlet on an 1800cc engine faces the other way to a 1600cc meaning that the 90 degree bend was not tight enough, as the angle is more like 135 degrees, this meant that as i connected every thing up, the bend just kinked in half and squashed, so to get round this a 135 degree bend in red was ordered from SFS silicone hoses, with a bit of trimming fitted perfectly, now i also had to shorten the ally pipe that connects these 2 hoses and re-swage the end.

the bottom outlet on the rad is in a great position which puts it pratically in line with the lower part of the chassis, now westfield supply a S bend silicone hose, but no matter what you do this will still come into contact with the chassis, to get round this problem i have got my hands on some sticky backed rubber to attach to the chassis rail and hopefully this shouldnt wear through the lower pipe.

Hand brake system

2009-11-24T12:22:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the poor picture quality.

With the diff and hubs all fitted the handbrake was next on the agenda, once i had sorted out the mouting bracket issue for the cables ( see previous post under 'issues to date' ) the rest of the job was fairly easy, the cables were fitted through the bracket and clipped in and then run to the brake calipers, a bit of spare coolant pipe was cable tide around the cables to provide protection where they come into contact with the lower wishbone.

The lever was then bolted up onto the mount at the rear which is pre-fitted to the chassis and the front holes were lined up with the brace in the chassis which i needed to drill through to bolt the lever up, to get the hole positions to be able to drill through from the passenger side of the car i took a few measurements and with the aid of a plumb line some pilot holes were drilled which were pretty close to where they needed to be, once happy i then opened up the holes to 8.5mm, now the manual says to drill these holes to 6mm but i prefered to use the bigger bolts, now to get a flush finish within the passenger side of the trans tunnel i then counter sunk the holes to allow the bolts to sit nice and flush, that way i get no horrible lumps in the carpets. then the spacers were fitted and every thing was bolted and connected up nice and tight.

Now reading a few others blogs, it appears that in some cases the cable that connects the 2 cable ends to the lever has been to long, meaning that when the hand brake was applied the cable was not able to fully apply the hand brake tightly, meaning that they have had to shorten this cable, luckily it seems that i dont have this issuse and still have plenty of adjustment left to tighten the cable if needed.

Issues to date.

2009-11-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

Thought i would just add a little section to cover a few problems that i have so far found with the build:-

Brake light switch mounting plate missing - this was not welded to the chassis during production (maybe the welder miss placed this, or had decided to use it to prop up a wobbly bench, who knows?!) To over come this a Rivnut was fitted to bolt the swtich, brass T piece too. fairly easy to over come.

Hand brake plate in the center of the chassis with the 2 holes in for the cables is the wrong gauge - The angle thickness according to westfield should be 10swg (3.2mm) but a bit of 4swg (5.8mm) angle had found its way onto my chassis, (the welder was having a bad day so it seems?) so by the time you added the paint thickness it came up at 6mm, this causes a problem as the mounts on the cables do not pass through far enough to allow them to be clipped in. to over come this i had to get hold of a 26mm drill bit, and drill out the holes in the bracket about halfway through the material to create a recess for the cables to sit in, and pass through enough to fit the clips.

Steering rack brackets out of alingment - a common issue it seems, where the bracket centers are to wide enough to allow the steering rack rubbers to fit within the mounts. to over come this, some of the rubber was cut away from from the passenger side mount.

Paint quality - This in general i have found to be pretty poor. i am currently on my second set of wishbones on the rear, second set of headlight brackets, the engine mounts to the chassis i ended up having re coated myself as i have been getting fed up with sending parts back to westfield. Now the bit that really concerns me, is that when the paint has flaked off the parts, none of these parts have actually seen the inside of a blast cabinet, let alone a single grain of shot blast media. as the paint flakes off it reveals unblasted rusty metal, which means the paint has nothing to key to. Now i only bring this up because if you looked in the brochure for the chassis kits, westfield actually charge you extra for 'grit blast and epxoy coating of chassis and wishbones' when clearly none of the parts have been blasted, so i feel this is little bit naughty if the grit blasting hasn't been done when they are charging you for it?? and obviously if the parts have been blasted the piant would stay on?! Just some thing to bear in mind!!

Modified steering column wrong length - this was sent back to westfield for them to modify FOC, when returned to me it turns out the the column is about 50mm too short, this means another part needs to be sent back, now after seeing that Graham during his build has asked for just a plain splined end so he could get his modified his self, i thought this would be easier for me as i could do it myself. After a chat with the guys at westfield, they refused to send me the splined section, and denied suppying Graham with just the spine. it would have just saved a lot of time and hassle if i could do it myself

Front wiring loom fun

2009-11-15T12:08:00.000-08:00

Now that the engine has been installed it was time to start the front wiring loom, this was laid into rough positions, and then the tedious job of removing all the elctrical tape and covering from the loom, as the old stuff was removed i placed rings of electrical tape around the wires to keep them in position, once every thing had been removed i could then start the job of removing the wires that are no longer needed. the main ones for me to cut out were:
Air conditioning system
Head light lifter motors
Power steering system
Heating system
Audio system.

now this became the most time consuming part of the build to date, as the loom was removed from the MX5 i made sure every thing was labled up and i could decided what needed to stay and what had to go, i started by cutting off the connector for the no longer needed item and then tracing the wires back to the origin, either the switch or the fuse box, after about 6 hours of cutting i had removed the bulk of the wires, i have also done the changes to the loom such as wiper motor, adding additional wires for the new brake light switch and for the brake fluid warning light. once the wiring loom was all cut down, it was then covered back in elctrical tape.

now i came across the slight issue in that the lights front and rear come with looms that have water tight electrical connectors fitted to them, now currently with the modified mazda loom i just have bare wires and nothing to connect to them, now i did not want to have to solder the wires in, as this would cause problems with the front loom and the headlights, where you need to get the wires through the scuttle panel once that had been fitted, so i made a phone call to Ian at westfield and explained the problem to him, he then put a bag of connectors in the post, and were promptly fitted.

One of the IVA requierments is now that all of the loom needs to be covered in plastic convoluted tubing, well westfield only supply you about a meter of this which is no where near enough, so i made a visit to a local motorsport factors and picked up about 15 meters of tubing in verious diamaters, to cover all the loom and fuel lines. every thing was then covered and once i was happy with the location of every thing i removed the loom, to get it out of the way whilst i concentrate on other items.

Engine fitting

2009-11-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

Now time for the big moment, getting the engine in, with the aid of a hoist borrowed from my mate Paul, me and dad set to work, the new engine mounts were bolted onto the engine before it was dropped in, and the rubber mounts were then attached to the mounts, now from reading a few other peoples build diarys, it appears that westfield have not yet managed to the passenger side mounting holes on the correct place, so i did not bolt the mount to the chassis on the passenger side as i would need to re-drill the holes. also when then engine had been settled in, the rear gearbox rubber mounts needs holes drilling into the chassis, so a layer of masking tape was applied to the bracket in the chassis to show me where the holes needed to be drilled.

the engine was then hoisted up and moved into pace over the chassis, with a bit of care it made it into position first time with no real issues, then still being supported by the hoist it was time to see how well things lined up. well i wasnt surprised to see that westfield were still not able to get the position of the passenger engine mount correct, so this would have to be re-drilled into a new position, the bracket was lined up with the rubbr mount and g-clamped into position, so that i could drill it when the engine is with-drawn to allow me the room to drill the gearbox mounts. the engine was then pulled back and all holes were drilled off. now a few other people have tried to position the engine over to one side to help clearance in the propshaft tunnel, but looking at it with mine, i decided to try and mount every thing fairly central, as the clearance on the gearbox to the chassis is a bit close on both sides. the engine was then dropped in and finally bolted into place.

Shock fitting

2009-11-15T11:03:00.000-08:00

With the completion kit collected, it included the very import shock absorbers, as they need to be fitted next to give the wishbones some support, and also means i can get the car onto the floor and support itself under its own weight so the engine can be fitted, as i dont want to do a TOP GEAR effort when they built a *cough* Catherham *cough* and knock it off the axle stands if we have a bit of a misshap with the hoist.

Again these were a relatively easy job to do, again ensuring you remember the reduction bush sleeves into the rear shock mounts, and then just bolting them up, making sure lots of copper slip is applied to the bolts,

also dad couldnt resist the addition of the headlights and the indicator mounting pods, we have decided to not go with the westfield nose mounted units, and go caterham style under the headlights as they look much better, but we have a few hills to get over to get the car to pass the IVA with these on, as they are no visable when you look at the car from 45 degrees, so some fabrication trickery will be applied to these by myself to make them visable just to pass the test,

Cat exhaust and IVA

2009-11-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

When i first ordered my kit, and having a bit of a discussion with the guys up at westfield, i was told that a CAT would not be need to be fitted to the car, Simon pointed out a loop hole in the regulations, that would mean if i was to get a letter from Mazda saying that the engine was manufactured before a ceretain date, i could pass the emissions test with no problems without a CAT. Well after a bit more digging into the IVA manual it turns out that you are no longer able to do this, and that all cars manufactured after 1992, if they were originally fitted with a CAT then it would need one regardless of the year of manufacture, this means that i have had to order a CAT exhaust from westfield.

Completion kit collection

2009-11-15T10:37:00.000-08:00

so on the morning of the 9th october, it was back off to the Westfield Factory to pick up my completion kit. every thing that was collected fitted nicely into the back of the Golf with the back seats folded flat, which i was rather chuffed with. every thing that i needed for the kit was all present and correct, apart from having to order a Cat exhaust system.

Wishbone / uprights fitting

2009-11-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

Next stage was to fit the wishbones to the chassis, the bushes were fitted with no reletive problems, just needed to remove the paint from the bores with the aid of some trusty air tools and flap wheels, once they were clean with the aid of a vice the bushes were pressed into place,

then fitting these up was easy, they fitted into the chassis mounts with no real issues, bolts were put in ensuring the correct orientation of the heads of the blots, and making sure lots of copper slip was applied to the bolts.

after the wishbones were loosely bolted up, it was time to put the uprights on. these have had a good lick of fresh paint, along with the brake calipers, the top ball joints were fitted to the front upper wishbones, and i had to buy replacement boots for my lower ball joints as these were splitting when they were slavaged from the MX5 along with the bolts the secured the lower ball joint to the wishbone.

the front hubs fitted with no problems what so ever, along with the rears, it was just rembering the reduction bushes that push into the lower mouting hole on the rear up rights, also whilst fitting the rear hubs, the drive shafts were connected back up to the diff.

diff fitting issues continued

2009-11-15T10:00:00.000-08:00

so in the last post i was having some issues with the diff and the drive shaft boots not fitting correctly, the problem was that once every thing was bolted up, the boots were in contact with the chassis leg, and the prop shaft coupling was sitting far to close to the chassis rail, meaning that when the prop was fitted it would have been in contact with this rail, so to get round the first problem i had to make up some 4mm thick spacers that go between the diff bushes and the diff mounts, this will push the diff down slightly giving the needed clearance with the boots.

the second issue with the prop coupling being to close to the chassis rail is caused due to the distorsion when welding up the brackets, when i went to pick up my completion kit, i spoke to Ian to ask if i could have a look at another set to see if this distorsion was as bad, it turns out it was, so i came back with the same set, and have had to space out with washers when bolting up to the suspension mounts to try and pull the diff around, this seems to have done the trick.
.

The story continues.......

2009-11-15T09:23:00.000-08:00

over the past few weeks we have still been very busy carrying on with the build, but have not found time to get many updates onto here, the picture attched shows how thw car currently stands as of the end of the week, 13th november.

I have got to the stage where the body work has been placed onto the chassis, and today i started to trim in the scuttle panel to fit round the dash hoop and steering column,

Lots have pictures have been taken, so i will be getting some detailed information up to follow,

Diff fitting issues

2009-10-05T11:03:00.001-07:00

Have got the diff into the chassis, but on initial fitment it appears that there are a few fitment issues. i have since discovered that the diff i have is a Torsen LSD diff, this means the diff and casing are bigger and wider than that of say a standard 1600cc diff.

first initail problem that became apparent on installing was that that the drive shaft inner boots are in contact with the chassis rail, this is even before the diff has been fully tightend meaning that the diff needs to move up still about another 10-12mm.

second issue is that the diff mounts have distorted badly during welding, this in turn is also throwing the diff off to one side, giving me no more than 2mm clearance on the transmission tunnel to the prop shaft, i am hoping that during collection of the completion kit i am going to swap the brackets for a set that are not as distorted.

Rear Wiring loom

2009-10-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

The rear wiring loom was next on the agenda, splitting it from the main front loom via 2 connectors the tedious task of removing all the plastic trunking and loom tape is the longest task.

Once all of this has been removed, the task is to the identify to which are the wires to keep and what wires are to scrap. luckily all wires are individualy color coded and the build manual gives you the wires and colors of these which you need to keep. also during the removal of the loom from the doner car every connector was marked up, which made this process a lot easier.

starting from the 2 blocks, all the wires needed were i dentified at this end then traced back to the ends, a lot of un-tangling and cutting of wires that are no longer needed. at this i also cut out all earth wires from the loom, as new ones will be added later.

it is then just a case of running the wires from the front panel along the trans tunnel and to the correct parts of the chassis, and then cutting the wires to length, from here lengths of earth lead have been added leaving plenty of extra lenght on these.

once all run ans formed into shape the loom is then covered in electrical tape, but further to this and needed by the IVA the loom will also be covered in plastic trunking.

Steering rack fitment issues

2009-09-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

steering rack has been modified by shortening the rods by 25mm as per the build manual, i had the run of the mill issues when coming to fit the rack where the mounting faces on the chassis are not wide enough for the rack, (why they don't sort this at the factory i will never know), so reading a few forums it has been stated that as long as the main large clamp lines up and bolts down the other smaller clamp will need some of the rubber mount bush cutting away to allow it to sit down.
pictures will be added later

Engine finished

2009-09-14T14:24:00.001-07:00

during fitting the all the fluid lines to the chassis, the engine was also finished off, and is now awaiting the use of an engine hoist to get it into its new home,

fuel lines

2009-09-14T14:05:00.001-07:00

once all the brake lines had been fitted, the job then turned to running of the fuel lines, this can be fairly tight to do, as on one side you need to run 2 fuel lines, and the brake line that goes from the master cylider to the back t- piece.
so after a little thinking and planning i went to make my first 90 degree bend in the pipe, and stupidly place the pipe in the wrong side of the benders, resulting in a pinched line, (DOH!) instead of buying another length of pipe from westfield, i managed to get my hands on some plastic coated aluminium pipe, which in my opinion looks so much better than the stuff that westfield supplies.

on the drivers side of the chassis you need to run 2 fuel lines, the picture above shows how i have loacted the pipes and tried to keep them well spaced and away from touching the chassis,

2009-09-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

once all panels had been fitted and i was happy it was time to run the brake lines, these proved to be fairly stright forward, with the help of a set of hand benders, i have tried to keep all radius nice and neat, and kept as close to the chassis rails as possible to aid fitting of the retaining clips.

2009-09-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

the chassis arrived, and soon set work on getting the panels fitted and rivited, most of thses went on with out to much of a problem, ok there was the normal miss fits of the seat belt harness mounts on the transmission tunnel, verious panels needed trimming to stop nasty over lap with the chassis rails, nothing a pair of snips can't sort out. a good bead of silicone was placed behind every panel to stop water ingression, before being rivited up (by hand) and then all corners and exterior panels had more silicone added to keep feet dry.

2009-09-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

gearbox was removed and cleaned as it had also got covered in oil from the engine, once this had been done, a new rear oil seal was fitted on the drive shaft output as this had a small leak, a new thrust bearing was also fitted whilst it was out, and a new gear stick gaitor seal will also be fitted and fresh oil once every thing is back in place in the chassis. plus a new slave cylider on the clutch.

engine story continued

2009-09-11T14:54:00.001-07:00

after reading a few other build blogs, it was noted that there was clearence issues with the sump, so whilst the engine was out i took about shortening it, approx 17mm was removed internally from the sump which overall takes about 25mm off the external measurement, the oil pick up was shortend and brazed back on, the base of the sump was machined flat, before a 3mm plate of aluminium welded into place, a dash fitting was then added to act as the sump drain,

The engine story

2009-09-11T14:21:00.000-07:00

as mentioned earlier when the engine was removed from the MX it was rather poorly, for reasons unknowing to me (but i fear some cheap nasty oil might be invloved) 2 of the cyliders were burining oil very heavily, both on start up (vavle stem seal) but also under acceleration (oil scraper ring)

so the engine was removed from the MX with the plans of re-building it, (until a visit to the westfield factory changed that)

so with the engine out a full strip and re-build was carried out.

Parts that have been replaced:-

valve stem seals
piston rings
big end shells
water pump
cam belt / tensioners
all gaskets

also whilst the engine was stripped, a full clean up and de-coke was carried out, as well as a full clean up and a new lick of paint on the exterior, a previous oil leak had left a fantastic mess of oil and grit over the engine.

now some may ask why not just go and buy another engine?

well it would still leave me with an MX that i would need to have an engine put back in and repaired, so the descision was made to keep the engine and fully rebuild it.

well on first stripping off the head i was very pleased to discover that the block and bores were in an almost brand new condition, with no ridge at the top of the bore and a lot of the original honeing marks still there, is appears that the engine has not had a hard life.
there would also be a risk of not knowing the history of any other engine that i would buy, so in the long run i feel better knowing the full history of the engine i have, just to have peace of mind when going to track days, and the nurburgring.

to replace the valve stem seals, the head needed to be completely stripped, so all the valves were removed, de-coked, and re ground into the head, making sure every thing was done properly before rebuilding every thing.

Parts already completed

2009-09-11T13:39:00.000-07:00

Build has currently been going for just over one month already, a lot of parts have been already been fitted, these include;-

All ally panels have been fitted and sealed with silicone
Brake lines have all been run and secured
fuel lines have also been fitted and secured
bushes have been fitted to suspension wishbones,
master cylinders have been fitted
steering rack fitted.
rear wiring loom trimmed, fitted and tapped up,

pictures to follow for all of the above stages,

so far have only come across one issue, (altho i fear there are more to come) westfield had 'forgotten' to weld on the bracket to which the brake light pressure switch mounts too, not a massive issue as a M6 riv-nut comes to hand, and is then bolted to that.
the location of the switch now mounted of the riv-nut i feel gives a better position from which you are able to run the brake pipes from.

before the build could commence, the engine that was taken from the doner car needed some serious attention.

The main reason for deciding to buy a westfield MX kit, was that the engine from the MX had become very poorly, a leaky valve stem seal on one cylider and a broken oil scraper ring on another, had lead to the engine being removed from the MX to enable a full rebuild, so whilst it was taken out, it had been decided that the engine would not return to car it was taken from, instead it would be re-incarnated into a westfield,

a lot of time and money has been spent on the engine so far, i will cover what has been done to the engine in another section.