Forgot the obligatory engine bay shot!!!!

 

I decided that I like this when I saw the first picture! cool man!

 

Good track tool, Willem. Was going well at Donny.

 

he he! thanks guys,

Here's another photo, i like this one:

 

As I alluded to I've recently fitted a GRP seat on the drivers side, passenger side will be done in the next couple of days so I can carry passengers (such as track instructors! and also my dad...) I've not had a passenger seat for a while because weight saving...!

Anyway, I had a couple of issues after getting the seats, i wanted it nice and low but mounting to the stock runners meant my knees hit the dash!! Mounting the seat straight to the floor wasn't an option either as i want to be able to share the car in the future, so adjustable runners had to be part of the solution.

So I got two of these:

https://www.kitpartsdirect.com/item.php/sn/STA37

Not the greatest quality, but they are fit for purpose! you get what you pay for! Also the kit i got has different cross bars, H shaped ally pieces rather than a drilled flat piece, which is far better IMHO! you can see the H pieces in the second pic below.

So, the subframe was a little surplus to requirements, even on the lowest settings possible with the brackets and bolts in the kit was far too high, but luckily the cross bars from the subframe did allow me to mount the runners to the floor of the car with enough clearance to adjust the seat position.

However, It did require the deletion of the standard seat mounting humps:

After a lot of test fitting i eventually had the seat in a position that i felt was central to the steering wheel, NOT IN LINE WITH THE ORIGINAL HUMPS! which was a little confusing, but here's a pic underneath the seat mounted to the floor:

Also the door bar meant I had to be carefull about making sure the seat moved front to back perfectly straight (this proved even more of a problem on the passenger side, which i'm yet to finish for that reason)

Piccies of the seat fitted and the harnesses in place:

Next job is finish mounting the passenger seat and fit the harness there.

I'm also a little unhappy with the fit of the lap belt, the original seatbelt mounting points seems to be in a good position on first glimpse, but after a couple of trips round town i've found the belt rides up quite high when done up tight, so need to re-assess whether its possible to move the mounting points forward... not something i really want to do given the strength in the standard mounting points. Maybe a 5 or 6 point harness will be the better solution, especially as sliding forward and down (aka submarining) is much more likely in this setup....

We'll see how things go at Castle Combe next weekend!!

 

Almost one year on! I took her top end apart over the winter, then we had to move house, so i hastily rebuilt, but ended up with a bit of a smoking problem..

She has a new home tho!! Warmer brighter and bigger than her last! Also MOT passed in June, zero advisories, i remembered to take the blue lights and sun strip off this time!!!

I'm now busy cleaning these:

I've realised i'm rubbish at taking pics while i'm working, so this will never be a build thread proper!

I'm putting in new rings and bearings, new seals all round, and hopefully this will fix my smokey engine problem once and for all... no upgrades just yet, lets get her running smoothly again first!

Once she's alive again i have some beautiful paintwork to share too!!!

 

Wow, this looks really good! Not getting the attention it deserves though.

Looking forward for some action shots on the track

 

how about some artistic still life instead?

South Wales Midnight Run some time last year:

[thanks robd]

or how about this awesome pic twoggy took at Llandow some time ago:

[thanks twoggy]

 

[double post]

 

Almost ready to go back in, just waiting for coolant reroute spacer and some piping!

Also need to do a serious de-rust, just look down that one coolant pipe! WTF!! mental note, use de-ionised water, its only £2.99 per 5L at Halfrauds!!! why didnt i use it before?!?!??!

Also took all this junk out:

Next step, put non-PAS rack in (thats the one on the bottom), it just needs a bit of a clean!:

[my phone camera is so shite, 8MP of blur......]

 

some sneaky glimpses of my newly sprayed GV lip in there too, once she's on the road I'll get the good camera out for some nice sharp piccies! Painted the sills as well, car looks the dogs nuts now IMHO.

 

How do you intend to remove all that rust?

My seicento has had a new engine in this week (swapped for a 1.2 liter) and it's badly rusted inside.

 

hopefully this stuff will do the trick:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390907140848

Planning to pump it through the engine from a bucket while i'm still working on other parts of the car, the method is covered here under the "3-day power flush" : http://www.sancarlosradiator.com/VoltageDrop/flush.htm

 

these arrived this week too! Only took 6 months.... LOL i'm sure Phil though his group buy would go a lot smoother!

 

first attempt at fabricating was a major ball-ache, i hate NPT threads, i think it stands for non-parallel thread, which means it gets wider the deeper you go? i ruined 3 blanking plates before i realised. Anyway, finished article:

Was going to put 2 hose connectors, but its too tight to fit them next to each other, so will be fitting a t-piece instead.

 

Just bought a new rad off MX5Dan (group buy) , should be here tomorrow!

Managed to spray my whole garage with water, including getting some in the combustion chambers via the spark plug holes, stupid idiot didn't unplug the pump doing the engine flush, then moved the stupid float switch (its a sump pump with an automatic switch inside a float). this pump does 150l per minute, thats 2.5l per second, thats a very wet Willem!!!

Anyway... at least i hadn't put in the rust remover yet!!!! Will do that tonight ready for the new Rad!!

New steering is also in! got rid of all the rust with my trusty dremel. Put new grease where i could reach, its only temporary until I de-power the old rack properly, thats next month's project!

Pics to follow tonight!

 

Coolant reroute update, bought reroute spacer from whisper here: http://www.mx5nutz.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=149997&hl=

i'm installing my engine back today, in the meanwhile some pics:

and my solution at the front:

 

Glad you're getting the 5 back on the road mate, looks like you've been a busy boy! Your garage looks rather nice too! :thumb-up:

this pump does 150l per minute, thats 2.5l per second, thats a very wet Willem!!!

:lol:

You planning any more track days once the car is back on the road?

 

new rad, rubbish pic:

 

Glad you're getting the 5 back on the road mate, looks like you've been a busy boy! Your garage looks rather nice too! :thumb-up:

this pump does 150l per minute, thats 2.5l per second, thats a very wet Willem!!!

:lol:

You planning any more track days once the car is back on the road?

Getting there slowly!

Will definitely be back on track once i get this thing running smoothly again!! Can't wait to be honest, i'm missing it, last time out was September!!!!

 

Well, coolant flush update, the rad flush stuff was rubbish!! Had it in there 3 days and still I could wipe rust off the inside of the engine with my finger, not good,

so i got this stuff called OXALIC ACID instead!

This worked very well, still took me three day-long flushes, but thats because i wasn't sure what dosage to use for rust removal!

It seems to have worked in the end, just don't put normal water back in!!!!! Had to re-lush with oxalic acid again after putting it all back together because i flushed the acid out with normal tap water, and two days later it was going orange again!!! What a pain!!!!!

Anyway, fingers crossed it stays relatively rust free now!!!

 

Update on the engine rebuild:

SHE'S ALIVE!!!!!!

[pardon the shitty phone pic]

Beautiful new radiator at the bottom there! Thanks to MX5 DAN!

Just waiting for some new hoses to arrive so i can do this properly:

So, to recap on what's been done:

• total strip & rebuild
• new piston rings
• new crank shaft bearings
• new conrod bearings
• new gaskets and seals (again)
• HLA's cleaned (again) - one is still tapping intermittently though....
• exhintake mod fitted
• coolant reroute spacer fitted at back (had to chop off a bit of the coil pack to get that to fit in the end as the temp sensor sits where the bottom bolt would go on the pack)
• front blanking plate fabricated - quite pleased with this!! one hose outlet to t-piece for auxilary hoses at the front. looks very tidy (see pic below)
• engine thoroughly flushed with oxalic acid, refilled with de-ionised water.
• Removed power steering gubbins
• Installed standard non-pas rack (PAS rack to be depowere in due course)
• decat installed
• sun strip reinstated (after being removed for MOT... shhhhhh!!!! )
• oh, and also resprayed sills silver and sprayed GV lip silver!!! (did that before the MOT in June though, but I don't think i've properly mentioned it on here..

Front after coolant reroute - with custom blanking plate:

The to-do list is quite a lot shorter now:

1. refit wheels, check alignment (i'm guessing my toe will look like the feet of Forrest Gump's illegitimate love child with Kaiser Soeze from Usual Suspects!!)
2. run in engine for 50 or so miles
3. replace engine oil with Fuchs Titan Race Pro S 10W50
4. Replace spark plugs for new
5. Fit new coolant re-route pipework when it arrives
6. fit Performance 5 frame rails
7. fit Recaro double locking seat runners (as the current ones are shit!)
8. remove stereo and speakers (yes, i've finally decided this needs to go for a track dedicated car!)
9. fit FIA cut-out switch
10. design a new centre console to properly locate starter button (and connect it!)
11. buy and then fit fire extinguisher kit.
12. buy and fit full rollcage

That's no longer a long list at all!!!!!!!!

 

Sneaky peek of the gv lip:

it looks so cool, cant wait to get it back on the road and drive it!

 

Nice looking build. It will be interesting to see how you get on with the double locking seat runners. I'd love to fit some better seats to mine but so far have struggled to find adjustable runners to suit both me and my taller co-driver, keeping the seat low enough that we are under the cage being the main problem.

 

I'm 6'2" so I had to chop the humps out to get a half decent seating position. even now i still feel like my head is quite close to the rop of the roll bar, but at least i'm not sticking out any more!!!

The runners should be at the post office now, or sitting on my front step, Parcel Force decided to deliver the one day of the week i'm not at home!

Will not have much chance to work on it over the weekend because i'm off for a lovely weekend away with the missus, so will probably it done next week.

Booked Pembrey for the 27th September, so that's the deadline for it all to be set again!! That'll be the 1st track day in nearly 12 months!

Need to write an update as she had a test drive last night!!! WOOHOO! Need to make up a home alignment kit, just to get the toe-out on the front set right, i think she looks a bit like Pingu right now!