brumster

Packed the engine mount up last night just to check 100% if the starter motor was going to be an issue. It is.

The starter motor (or the solenoid to be accurate) hits the vertical chassis tube on the front inside of the tunnel. The way I see it I have 3 options in order of preference.

1. Find a smaller starter not much hope on that one I think

2. Swap for the QED bellhousing (or an equivalent) that puts the starter motor on the front of the bellhousing rather than the back. Problem solved. Only issue I could potentially have then is the angle of the engine will be different, more vertical, and I am then very worried about interference with the top engine bay tubes. I am awaiting some detail from QED to confirm whether this is a safe route to go.

3. Cut out the vertical tube and brace from the top point down on a diagonal to the bottom tube, allowing room for the starter. Now obviously hacking about bits of the chassis isn't ideal but I'm not too worried about this if it's necessary as I will put some strength back in with a diagonal and some additional webbing. But I will consider this a last resort if the alternatives all fail.

I'm going to stop worrying about the engine for a bit now as the QED bellhousing is expensive and there are higher priorities - expenditure needs to go on the coilovers first so I can get the chassis rolling. So next job is the usual one I think people start with - fit all the nylon bushes, paint the wishbones, get the rideheight roughly measured and then get Procomp to make me up some dampers.

I attempted to have one very such thing made up. The machine shop cocked it up in the end, so I ended up not paying for it, but the bill was going to be just shy of £80 for labour and materials. In the end, I felt it was more cost effective to have a custom prop made up to the exact length - £125 all in. That was from 105speed. Other places can probably provide for similar money.

It's all the rage, dude. You'll be well in with the kidz at Maccie D's get some camber wedges and put them on upside down!!! Yeaaaah!

Ok, understood. What I'll do then is, when the pedals come back from dipping, rig them up temporarily and get a feel for if their positioning is good for me. One thing that I fixed in the Exmo was the pedal positions to my liking; which is to say amenable to a bit of heel-and-toe when necessary. If the standard GBS setup fits my size 8's comfortably then I'll stick with the standard setup.

What's the standard master cylinder used on the Zero anyway (heads off to search function.....) ?

Cool, thanks. First job when I get round to that area will be to just get some measurements of my pedal box with respect to the zero chassis and how easily it will mount. Picking up an unused kit means I haven't had the choice on the pedal box so if it comes to it, I'll be grinding off the GBS bracketry and welding up my own arrangement. Issues around strength and flexing fully understood but I won't be chopping anything off until I know for sure it'll fit, don't worry !!

Was delayed at the weekend stripping the donor Exmo, so didn't get to offer the engine up until tonight.

In general it fits with no issues. On the right hand side there's no issue with the throttle bodies clearing the top tube, but then the engine is tilted over a fair bit due to my bellhousing being of a one-off design for a Fisher Fury. The right hand engine mount doesn't land anywhere near where the Ford lump does (this is an unmodified Caterham engine mount) but I can weld on a plate eventually - for now, bonus points if anyone can tell me what's temporarily serving as a base

You can see below the angle the gearbox is currently at, so it's not right. The camera is square onto the chassis. I can tilt the engine over more to get this vertical, but the engine mounts will need packing up on the right-hand side.

In terms of fore/aft location, there are no issues in the engine bay. The crank pulley clears the crossmember with room to spare.

The left-hand engine mount lands perfectly where it's intended, and the oil filter clears too. The alternator will have no issues either; there is loads of room this side, basically.

Here is my problem area. The starter motor. This bellhousing retains the Rover flywheel with the starter motor running out the back of the bellhousing instead of the front. And this doesn't look to me like it's going to clear the chassis tubing. Now granted the engine needs to tilt over a few more degrees to get the gearbox upright, but I'm not entirely sure it's going to be enough to open up clearance here. We'll see, I'll get round the spacing it up tomorrow, but I think this little area here will mean I need to replace the bellhousing with one where the starter extends forward instead of backwards.

Exhaust-wise, no issues whatsoever (and this was the bit I was worried about!)...

Sump clearance doesn't look like it will be an issue, but then I was never worried about this bit so much as the Rover is quite shallow in the sump... obviously without the ride heights set up this is all a bit inconsequential at this stage. But you can see the sump doesn't extend much below the gearbox bellhousing anyway.

Final pic just gives you an idea of the current engine inclination - and it STILL needs to go over a little further to get the gearbox vertical, IF I want to keep this bellhousing! This is taken level on the battery tray panel. Having said that, if when I fully tilt it over the starter motor issue isn't solved, then I'll go for a conventional bellhousing which will keep the lump nearer vertical... although I need to be careful if I go this route that it doesn't make the engine fully vertical, otherwise I don't think the exhaust and inlet manifolds will clear the top tubes then X-(.

Plastidip anyone? Or failing that, wrap as mentioned above.

Bias bar

The IVA manual makes it clear that adjustable bias pedal boxes are accepted now provided the adjustment mechanism is lockwired from operation (section 09B).

The required standard statements :-

26.

It must not be possible to manually adjust braking rates between

axles see note 4 and 5

27.

Vehicles fitted with adjustable twin master cylinders that have been

rendered inoperable by mechanical means to comply with RS 26

must have a label affixed on the master cylinder or the immediate

vicinity with legible text as detailed in note 6.

...and the clarifying notes...

Note 5:

Bias bars and other mechanical adjusting devices fitted to twin

master cylinders

must be rendered inoperable by mechanical means

e.g. lockwiring of components.

Note 6:

Adjusting front/rear brake bias may invalidate approval and

breach Construction and Use requirements.

So, what is the legible text that must be affixed via a label? This test is detailed in note 6 - what do I do, make a sticker up that just has the full statement of note 6 in it? Is it that simple?

Reservoirs

Also, moving on to section 09D and RS statements 16 to 20...

16.

It must be possible to check the fluid relative to the manufacturer’s

specified minimum level on all brake fluid reservoirs by the actual

fluid level being visible through a transparent section of the

reservoir, with the minimum level marked permanently on to this

section. As an alternative, a red warning lamp (see figure 1) must

be capable of illuminating when the reservoir fluid falls to the

minimum level.

17.

An indelible label must be affixed in a visible position within 100

mm of the filling ports of the fluid reservoirs to ensure that it is

possible for the end user of the vehicle to identify the brake fluid

used in braking system. DOT fluid references and/or the Symbols

and text in table 1 are considered acceptable.

18.

Where a warning lamp is provided as the only means of checking

the fluid level without opening the reservoir, it must be secure,

operational, visible during daylight and darkness from the driving

position, and fitted with a “test facility” that enables its operation to

be checked from the driving position without opening the reservoir.

19.

The hydraulic system must be fitted with a red warning lamp,

sensitive to line pressure and capable of signalling the failure of any

part of the hydraulic system as soon as the brake is applied and

remaining lit as long as the failure exists (with the ignition switched

on). As an alternative, the warning lamp must be sensitive to the

reservoir fluid level, providing the reservoir is directly connected to

supply the pressure side of the master cylinder when the piston is

in the “brakes off” position, so that a failure of either part of a split

system would result in a continuous draining of the reservoir fluid

when the control is released (see note 2 and 3).

20.

The hydraulic system failure warning lamp must be secure,

operational, visible during daylight and darkness from the driving

position, identifiable (i.e. labelled in a recognised form – see figure

1 for an example) and fitted with a “test facility” that enables its

operation to be checked from the driving position without opening

the reservoir.

Now 16 states about a transparent fluid reservoir, which is all fine and good, no issues there provided there are permanent low level marks on them. In these cases it clearly states "as an alternative" the use of a red warning lamp for low level. Since I have transparent, marked reservoirs, this means I don't need a warning lamp.

18 you start reading and it's quite clear if the warning lamp is the only method... which it isn't, because I can visually check, so you stop reading that paragraph as it doesn't apply.

Then you get onto 19 and that appears to override 16/18, because it states if you can't have a warning light that's monitoring brake line pressure drop then you need a fluid level warning light as an alternative.

So, given I've currently got 2 separate reservoirs for each master cylinder, I am thinking the easiest thing is to just switch to one of these and feed both from a single, partitioned reservoir with the fluid level warning in it.

I could fit these to each of the individual reservoirs but that just seems a faff.

Anyone disagree?!

Brake light switch

I see most people use these pressure switches in the line to switch the rear brake lights. Any reason for this over a pedal switch? Is it mandated or just 'easier' since it's at the back of the car already?

Yeah, go for it, no issues with me. Thanks for asking first though

Front uprights/springs/top bearings provisionally sold...

That's not a bad idea. You could even make the build threads closed to members only, another good reason to "join the club" in order to get the benefit of advice. Might help keep it on-topic too, although I don't mind some discussion so long as it's relevant.

So I'll start the ball rolling with a build thread - almost definitely this is going to be a very long-running one . First post will just be an introduction to what is being planned, and some background to how we got here.

Donor

The donor is my old Robin Hood Exmo. Since the value of this in the market is so low these days, and having poured a sizeable chunk of cash into it last year getting it back on the road (engine management, BGT gearset, etc), I'm really happy with it apart from one aspect - the chassis. Built it back in '96 with a mate (we both went 50/50) on a budget and far less experience than today. Bought out my mate's half in the mid-noughties. Originally a Pinto, but converted to the K-Series in the late 90's.

It's a good, known car, and obviously the ideal donor. And before anyone asks, yes I will be doing it properly via IVA

Zero

Spotted an unused kit on eBay back in the spring. Now I'd already got plans to do the transplant into a Zero around this time of year, but was originally just going to buy a new kit. However I thought I'd have a punt on the unused kit and put in a suitably low offer. Well, it all came through, the guy was happy with the offer and must have been eager for the cash as he ended it early and we did the deal. The kit got stored away until now, no time to really do anything with it as my time was taken up with motorsport during the main part of the year, and rebuilding an engine for another car.

Now the season is over it's time to start up the winter project

So at present time we have a Zero kit from late 2010. The Kwak green is going - I've picked up a new set of white bodywork for it (the newer one-piece rear wings and revised nosecone) and the necessary bits of plate/bracketry to bring the chassis up to present-day spec (thanks Keith at GBS). First job is to strip the Exmo of all the donor parts and I've taken evidential footage of its make-up, including a video of it running, in case anyone later queries it.

The suspension arms are off to be dipped/cleaned with a mate, as their paint was peeling off and surface rust on some portions of them, so we'll start again with those.

First task is to offer up the K-Series and figure out what's going to interfere with what. The bellhousing I have was originally for a Fisher so tilts the engine over considerably from the vertical, so I suspect the top chassis tube is going to be a problem. If this is the case I suspect I'll either need to get the bellhousing modified, or get a new one that keeps the engine vertical. We'll see. Hopefully get this done the weekend.

In all fairness, 12 years out of a PC is bloody good going but I think you are due a refresh now !!

AMD 8-core, 8GB ram, AMD HD6870, Win 7 64bit works more than enough for me. Worked fine on my old 4-core Intel too.

Sounds like build thread it is then

Well I had a test drive of their MX5 demonstrator last saturday, and I was impressed, drove very nice. Nicely sprung, grippy, and very good on the brakes. They still had to sort the geometry out but in fairness to them, Keith was quite open about that. Not particularly quick on a standard 1600 lump but I'm sure more will come with time. Certainly got my thumbs up.

I would go for something with a decent 'scratch disk', that being where you store all your temporary video files while you're cutting it together. If you really are 'going for it' on the spec, maybe even run 2 SSDs and 1 hard drive. Say a 100GB for the OS, a 256GB for the scratch device, and then obviously a pretty large conventional drive to store the raw footage on (1TB+).

Otherwise the usual spec should do - 8GB ram at least, multi-core CPU and a middle-end graphics card.

I used Pinnacle for years and put up with it but last year I finally snapped and looked into an alternative; it really is a POS.

Invested in Adobe Premiere Elements (bundled with Photoshop Elements) for about £80 and it's excellent. Does everything Pinnacle did, but reliable

By blog I mean website-with-timeline-kinda view, or something like on Blogspot. I suppose all it really means in this context is some build log OFF the forum but on your own controlled site...

Question - do you guys tend to do build threads on here? I notice there seems to be a tendency for people to do blogs. On another forum I frequent it's more popular to do a long-running forum thread, a 'build thread', and keep all the info on the forum for other people's reference. Seeing as I'm about to start the Zero build in earnest, what's the general preference? Do I not see many build threads because people don't tend to like them/read them? I suppose the risk is control of content - in a blog you get to say exactly what you want to say and sod everyone else's opinion whereas on a forum it's more of a dialogue, with contributions from other members... but I quite like the idea of having people check what I'm doing

Do I start a blog or a build thread ?

Oh no, did someone say friction-welded driveshafts not very good experiences here...!

I've got some Zero fronts in Kawasaki green if you want them. Brand new, unused, still in wrap. £60.

Oooo I'm gonna need an ECU but don't quite have the funds yet (need to sell another). If someone beats me to it then fair enough but keep me in my mind for a few weeks time and hopefully, if it's still around, I'll take it.

<CLACK> Sold to the man at the back with the funny goggles!

Looks like a Mk.II or III S7 to me, not sure how to identify the differences between the two though.