Hi all.

Just a little background on myself.

I am a 19 year old man who lives in a smallish village called Rhoose, this is located just 1 mile from Cardiff International Airport. The skills I have acquired i learnt from my older brother and my father. I have always been pretty good with my hands and have always been involved in Motorsport. Since I was a young kid I was always interested in karting, but now i have grown up a bit I have decided I need something more suitable.

After doing lots of reading I have decided that this is the car I want to build. My future brother in law owns an R1 powered westfield which I have spent a fair amount of time in, but after being realistic with myself I soon realised that this was out of my budget range.

I will be building this car to help advertise my business.

My business is called "The Turbo People" and I disassemble, inspect and diagnose, clean, machine, balance and rebuild turbochargers for Fast Road, Performance and Commercial Automotive applications. I also offer a shot/media blasting service.

The car will have business advertisements displayed on it (not to much) but will also be used for personal use on the weekends and sunny evenings, so will need to be road legal.

Before I started reading this forum, I went and downloaded "the book" online. Soon after downloading this I learnt from AshG that (quoted...) ..

"If you like the book and fancy building a car from it maybe you should think about buying the book like the rest of us. I don't want to come across as mean to a new member/builder but the sales of the book are essentially what pay for this nice forum that brings us all together to share loads of information. Also Chris that wrote the book isn't very well and has no income other than the small royalty check he gets every six months. we all love getting things for free off the internet, its great but if the book dies so does the forum."

As soon as the weekend was over I went and purchased the book from "Halfrauds" and spent the next 3 evenings reading through it and preparing my self for what tools I will need and what skills will be required. After having a good old read I realised that I have all of the tools and skills to complete this task. The first thing I did was ring my father and ask him to bring home lots of 3mm sheet and a couple of bits of 5mm sheet, so I could start making the chassis plates.

The pictures are taken in my fathers garage by my younger brother, there will soon be some of my business garage (where the chassis will be put together) next to the westfield.

Not bad for an afternoons work considering all i used was a hand and bench grinder. Pics..









Gotta start somewhere, will continue these tomorrow.

I did take a picture of the log burner i built for my father, but the limit of 4 photos wont allow me to show it.

All the best,

Nick.

Also made CP3 & CP4 last night but noticed i made the error of making 2 x CP3.

After looking at some pictures of othere peoples builds i have decided i am going to cut these nuts off and weld the holes back up so it is a solid peice of metal again and then weld the roll bar in place. Much stronger that way.

Had a look at pictures and they brought so many bad memorys back. Grinder, Wood and petrol can.
I was at work when there was an Explosion and a man engulfed in flames. This was caused because there was a can of thinners next to where he was welding. (I had to put him out.)
But if i can help in your Zetec Turbo project i will. In a week as i am of to spain at 9am tomorrow. Kev.

Welcome!

Good call on the petrol can - I personally never managed to set off a petrol can by welding, but I did find out that engine oil is very difficult to put out if you do get a blob of weld on it!


I've also got a blacktop which I'm hoping to turbo, so will be watching with interest!

Good luck with your project BUT please use safety gear [goggles in 2nd photo ] we don't want to read bad things about accidents

I know from experience spending hours in hospitals
Jacko

Thanks for all the replies guys. Really looking forward to watching it take shape.

Thanks for the advice both! Will do next time.

Tonight I cut those nuts i welded up yesterday off and filled the holes back in with weld and then ground the plates level again. Decided I am going to wend my roll bar in place. So will get the suspension mounts made and welded up tomorrow night. Should have some pictures for you.

Cheers.

Small update..

Haven't been able to make much progress over the last week. This is because I have been extremely busy with work, also had to do a gearbox change on my friends car. Hoping that over the next week I can start to finish off the plates and look at getting the steel ordered!

Spent a couple of hours yesterday and managed to complete CP18 x4 (seat mounts) and get the nuts welded into place too. Weld's are not completely clean as the nuts I welded on had some kind of Zinc coating on them to stop them rusting. I ground these off before i welded and also buzzed over the plate before welding so i have 2 clean faces, but i think there must be a small reaction with the metal in the nuts to the metal of the plate. Either way it aint too messy and wont be falling off.

Pic...





Also after making a thread called "Chassis Nut and Bolt List" i managed to find out the different sizes and lengths of the nuts, bolts and washers for the suspension and the diff.

My father was able to bring these home from work with him tonight, i only gave the list to him last night!

There is more than enough plus plenty of spares.. Also got him to bring me home some more grinder disks.



In the pic above is...

- 10 grinder disks
- 32 M12 8.8 bolts
- 54 nylock M12 nuts
- 78 M12 Crimp nuts
- 211 M12 washers
- 20 M10 normal nuts
- 20 M10 Crimp nuts!

Just need to order the 2 x diff bolts, 2 x upright bolts, and the head/nut caps now and I should have all the bolts I need.

I noticed after reading IVA that you need to use nylock nuts to stop them vibrating loose. Well these are great but can only be used once or they end up loose, also the nylon can melt in temp conditions and also come loose. Was hoping to use these crimp nuts. The last few threads in the nut has a slightly smaller pitch making it like a crimp, so cannot come undone form vibration and can be used as many times as possible. Would this pass IVA?

They are Zinc coated so are rust resistant the same as stainless ones.

Cheers.

Small update:

Been advised not to use set bolts as each thread inside the bush will become a weak point. So give my father another list and he brought these home for me. Perfect.

60's and 80's. For the 70mm ones i will just have to cut 10mm thread off. Not a problem.

Pic..





Cheers,

Nick.

You beat me to it about using set screws!

Yeh those will be fine, as for the nuts I would use normal nuts whilst you're building and when the car is finished just prior to iva I would replace all of them with nylocs and then after torquing up add witness marks to the nyloc nut and surround. Mr IVA likes detail like that.

Cheers

Rich

Thanks for your input Rich, I will ensure I do this.

Cheers.

i do hope your seatbelt mounts you have made have a 7/16unf or you maybe in a pickle come iva time as the iva man will want to see somting with the right grade bolt with a min 11mm cross section also almost every belt out there has a 7/16 fixing

will be way easyer to sortthis now and not later