Following the last trackday of the year I've decided that it's time for a complete stripdown and rebuild of the Super Six. Hopefully this will give me a chance to fix all the niggling bits that have been annoying me, and also to improve the cosmetics of the tatty beast.

A season of trackday abuse has highlighted the weak points of the car, so the priority is to address these.

One of the main aims will be to make some new wishbones - probably widetrack - with new mounting brackets on the chassis as the Tiger design is so woefully poor that I've bent both lower wishbones as nothing properly locates the bottom wishbone.

Also the cooling system needs rethinking, probably with some ducting to handle heat extraction behind the rad and some vents at the back of the engine bay to get some more air flow through. I also want to redo the wiring loom, fabricate an anti-roll bar, make a new exhaust manifold and downpipe, fit an LSD (and possibly convert to DeDion), repaint the body and strip and repaint the (rusty!) chassis.

Oh, and build my spare Zetec up with the forged pistons, steel rods and other nice bits that came cheap on ebay.

Busy times ahead!

Some pics of the stripdown:




Start of the stripdown



Rollcage off, front end stripped




Wastegate gasket. I suspect some of my horses escaped through here. I noticed in the last session at Brands that I was down on power. This has happened several times throughout the season - I suspect that as the wastegate pipe heats up it expands and pushes the wastegate away from the manifold, allowing the gasket to rupture. Might need an expansion joint in the wastegate downpipe. The turbo manifold gasket also keeps blowing, so I'm pretty sure that this is the cause. I think a new manifold design is in order.

I'll update this thread with pics as I go.

Tom

[Edited on 1/12/08 by djtom]

[Edited on 4/12/08 by djtom]

[Edited on 8/4/09 by djtom]

sorry wrong place

[Edited on 2/12/08 by RK]

More stripping down today - got the engine and box out and stripped most of the front end down. Lots of rust, dirt and a hell of a lot of gravel still in every nook and cranny from the last misadventure into the Druids gravel trap at Brands (thanks Dad!).
Found a weird narrowed chassis tube - no idea why it's like that, although I have a feeling that the alternator may have been located on that side when the XFlow was in there. Not great for torsional rigidity!



Spent a few minutes tarting up a spare cam cover as well - not convinced I like the colours but they were what was to hand and I was bored!



Started to strip the scuttle off as well - think I'm going to modify it so that you can take the scuttle off and leave the dash and bulkhead in place so that you can get to the dash wiring more easily. It actually needs narrowing a bit as well as it's wider than the chassis rails by about 10mm each side. The tub sides have been spaced out from the chassis rails to match it - bodge.... Typical Tiger fibreglass tolerances, I'm assured :-( Not sure how to narrow it easily - I've never played with fibreglass before, but cutting it in half , removing 20mm and sticking it back together looks like the best option.


Dirty engine bay!


Bits of car everywhere!

More to follow next time I get in the garage.
Tom

Im going to be following this very carefully.

I am hopefully picking up a Zetec Super Six in the next few weeks. I was aware that Zetec Turbo kits were available and 2+2 had also crossed my mind.

But it is nice to find someone locxal to me doing all the R&D in advance

Do you have any picks of the wishbone mounts. Do they just need filleting??

No close ups of the wishbone brackets I'm afraid - I seem to forget to take some every time I go in the garage - I'll try to get some next time!

The stripdown continues - as you'll see below from the pics. The more I uncover the more I am determined to do it properly when I rebuild it - the original builder was a bit of a bodge artist! Check out the thickness of the bead of tigerseal - it was seriously about 12mm thick! (mind you, it was probably needed to handle Tiger's fibreglass manufacturing tolerances, which are measured in cm....)



More panels off, rear wings off and wiring loom removed:


That's where all the wiring went.....


Side panels removed now


Look at this abomination of a front end! I reckon that there are about 5kg of unnecessary metal here. The angry grinder will be used to rationalise this mess!


Not far to go now - just the rear end to strip down



Ebay shopping has commenced - I've bought a bunch of flapdiscs and thin cutting blades for the grinder, so chassis surgery will commence soon. I intend to widen the transmission tunnel enough to fit a MT75 gearbox, trim various spare brackets off the chassis and sort out that front end by adding some proper wishbone mounts, removing several spare tubes etc etc.

The only thing holding me up now is the lack of a welder! Anyone selling a mig welder in the South East? Cash waiting....

More updates soon

Tom

Good thread this, it inspires me to think about a tidy up of my own car!

Please keep the updates regular!

I would put a separate wanted advert in for the welder as its a little 'lost' in this post!

What size tubing does the chassis use, looks a lot larger than the Locosts 25mm stuff?

I got my car, so ill be following even more closely now.

Is your cage an original tiger one??

@HOL - I'll sort some closer pics of the turbo conversion as per your request on the Tiger forum.

It's a cage from a Caterham Roadsport that I modified a bit - I cut the mounts off and fabbed some new ones. It had the distinct benefit of costing 150quid s/h rather than the 650 that Tiger want.... I also had to make a rear tub for the chassis though as on a super six there's nothing for the rear stays to fit to. It also at least provides a bit of protection for the tank against rear impacts - again, I'll take some pics.

@MikeRJ - tubing is a mixture of 40mm and 25mm box I think. Might be 50mm even. Not the lightest chassis, I guess. I suppose I'll have to add more power to make up for it :-)

Tom

quote:

---

Originally posted by djtom
@HOL - I'll sort some closer pics of the turbo conversion as per your request on the Tiger forum.

It's a cage from a Caterham Roadsport that I modified a bit - I cut the mounts off and fabbed some new ones. It had the distinct benefit of costing 150quid s/h rather than the 650 that Tiger want.... I also had to make a rear tub for the chassis though as on a super six there's nothing for the rear stays to fit to. It also at least provides a bit of protection for the tank against rear impacts - again, I'll take some pics.


Tom

---

Some posts I wrote but never got around to uploading:

12/1/09

It's been a while since last update - snowboarding holiday, Christmas and work all got in the way a bit! Got a few bits done last week, but no progress on the Tiger this week – the Clio blew its head gasket so the week got spent fixing that.

Well, 3 evenings spent clearing enough space in the garage to get the thing in there and then 4 evenings stripping it down and replacing the head gasket and timing belt. Which is a pig of a job in a unheated single garage without a lift unless you have double jointed arms and fingers. Fun fun.

I was thinking of scrapping it but it’s at least worth a few hundred quid if it’s running and I didn’t have anything ready to replace it with, so it was worth spending £44 and a few nights in the garage. If anyone has an old school Volvo 240 estate they want to get rid of I’d be interested – the next car needs to be a big estate! Also tempted by anything estate shaped with a v8 under the bonnet - BMW 530 / 540 estate?

15/1/09
Stripped all riveted panels off the chassis. Hard work. Tigerseal sticks like sh1t to a blanket. Still, done now. Just need to pop down to Spa Aluminium and buy some thin sheet to repanel with now. What thickness does everyone use? 0.8mm? Also need to pick some card up to make some templates.

I have a feeling that I need to spend about a week with a flap-disc in a grinder to get the powdercoat, rust and tigerseal remains off the chassis. The neighbours and girlfriend are not going to be pleased! Not a job I'm looking forward to...

Axle out:


Rusty training arms - now treated to some nice fresh paint


MT75 box to check for size:






[Edited on 26/1/09 by djtom]

16/1/09
Got some steel tube now – I bought some 25mm box section from Maidstone Engineering who are happy to sell small lengths and then found out that my mate Mark was about to order some steel to build himself a trailer. He offered to add in a couple of bits of ¾” round for me and also gave me some old Landy drag links which are made out of bomb-proof tubing. These will be used for the lower wishbones. I also salvaged a big bit of 5mm steel plate out of a skip on the industrial estate. Bonus.

17/1/09
Found a MIG welder locally and for the right price – many thanks to Sean. I’ve tested it out and it works fine - its a Sealey SuperMig 120. It’s fairly small (100A?) but with 0.6mm wire on full power it welds 25mm box section just fine. Should be ideal for chassis modifications! For heavy stuff like welding thick tube to 5mm plate for the lower wishbones I’ve got the old arc welder which does a good job on heavier stuff.

18/1/09
It’s now completely stripped down to a bare chassis and refurbishing parts has started. The trailing arms are wearing a nice coat of black Hammerite, and de-rusting and painting of various other bits is underway. I intend to start chopping the chassis about this weekend. I haven’t got a T5 gearbox yet but I do have a MT75 which isn’t far off the same size, so if I modify the transmission tunnel to fit an MT75 with a bit of room to spare it should be ok. Following chassis mods I’ll strip the old flaky powder coat off with a flapwheel in the grinder, prime and repaint before putting it back together. If only it was as easy as it sounds....

19/1/09
I’m still wondering what to do about the rear end of the car. I want to fit an LSD, but I have a problem in that they are not available for a type A (Koln) Cortina axle (unless you pay £700 from Quaife – not an option!). Current options are:

---- Buy Type B (Atlas) Cortina axle and fit LSD from 2.8i Capri axle (drops straight in).
o Likely cost: £50 for Cortina axle, £400+ for LSD because all the rally boys want them.
o Plus: no mods to chassis, keeps same track, keeps same brakes, keeps same prop, light.
o Minus: Need to redrill hubs to 4 x 100, expensive, need to fab brackets for axle.


---- Buy Capri axle and fit that whole.
o Likely cost £400+
o Plus: no mods to chassis, keeps same track, keeps same brakes, keeps same prop, light.
o Minus: Need to redrill hubs to 4 x 100, expensive, need to fab brackets for axle.


• Fit Isuzu Piazza Turbo axle that happens to be knocking around in the garage.
o Cost: £235 (axle, but I’ve already bought it), £20 (prop adaptor), £15 (disk pads), £15 (brake bias)
o Plus: Have axle already, gives disk conversion on rear, is already 4 x 100 stud pattern
o Minus: needs prop adaptor or new prop, narrows track by 4 ins, heavy, spares could be hard to find, brake pads missing, will need brake bias doodah.

• Fit Sierra LSD with De Dion axle.
o Cost: £100 (de dion), £30 (sierra beam), £20 (steel), £90 lsd diff
o Plus: De-dion handling
o Minus: Lots of fab work (diff mounts, de-dion, will be hard to make pick-up points on de-dion etc etc

Not sure which I prefer at the moment…aargh!

Have been having a think about the rear end, but no conclusions yet... although I bought a complete Sierra rear beam yesterday as it was close and fairly cheap. At least I can measure the different options now.

In the meantime I have been measuring up the transmission tunnel and surprise! the MT75 almost fits! Well, the box fits without the massive metal donut thing attached anyway. I don't see the point in having the donut attached - it's for shock absorption in the drivetrain, but even without it there's not much room at the front of the propshaft. I'll widen the front but see if I can narrow the rear of the tunnel to give the passenger side a bit more room.

Checking size with a spare block:


Side view:


I'd love to move the whole lot back, but there's no way I can narrow the footwells any more to give the tunnel any more room at the front - the pedals are already seriously close together.

Rear view:


And for HOL - here are some pictures of the rear tub that I made to support the back of the cage. The cage mounts on the two brackets sticking up at the rear. Lowered bit on the right is to accommodate the fuel filler. As you'll see on yours, without making something similar you'll struggle to fit a cage. Tiger's solution is to bolt some brackets to the diagonal down stays - it's a fairly crappy solution really. There are some photos in an old thread on the tiger forum somewhere.





And that brings us up to date.... :-)

Thanks forn the pics Tom.

I was thinking of a rear cage only now and fitting the rear drops directly to the rear lower end of the car. MNR do a kit, that looks like it will work.

quote:

---

• Fit Sierra LSD with De Dion axle.
o Cost: £100 (de dion), £30 (sierra beam), £20 (steel), £90 lsd diff
o Plus: De-dion handling
o Minus: Lots of fab work (diff mounts, de-dion, will be hard to make pick-up points on de-dion etc etc

Not sure which I prefer at the moment…aargh!

quote:

---

This is my preference, but my wheels are multifit, so i have no pcd issues.

Im going to be taking my bodywork off soon to repaint my own chassis, - so if you can get your frame and a de dion tube over to Chatham one weekend, you can stick it in the (double) garage next to mine and take measurements/mock it up.

I have a vested interest, in so far as I would copy/mimic the resulting design later.

[Edited on 27/1/09 by HOL]

---

djtom - 27/1/09 at 02:35 PM

@ HOL - I did consider fitting the rear stays to the lower chassis member at the rear, but the tank gets in the way on mine. Yours may be different I guess, but the tank uses all available room between the two diagonals and due to the angle the tank sits at there was no room for rear stays between it and the bodywork unless thay are at the same angle the rear uprights are at on my added rear tub. As kinking the rear stays is a no-no, I decided against doing that.

Tom

---

HOL - 27/1/09 at 08:04 PM

quote:

---

Originally posted by djtom
@ HOL - I did consider fitting the rear stays to the lower chassis member at the rear, but the tank gets in the way on mine. Yours may be different I guess, but the tank uses all available room between the two diagonals and due to the angle the tank sits at there was no room for rear stays between it and the bodywork unless thay are at the same angle the rear uprights are at on my added rear tub. As kinking the rear stays is a no-no, I decided against doing that.

Tom

---

Ill definietly have the same problem. In which case I will copy your design.


Have you seen the GTS De Dion? Its been built to fit the 'book chassis' and brackets for the escort axle. I am am wondering if the S6 axle used the same spacing.


I have had a look at the book dimensions and bracket locations and wondered how much out they all are on the S6 chassis.

On the book car the forward links are level with this upright section.



The book measurements to the back edge of that upright from to the centreline of the axle/hub/roll bar/shockmount: vertical line is 310mm.
(how long are the tiger trailing arms/).

The book does not give measurements for the axle brackets themselves, but the chassis width (to the inside edge of the box section) is 1016mm.
(How wide are the fittings on the cortina axle?).

You never know? It might fit with just one/or two brackets?.

[Edited on 27/1/09 by HOL]

---

mark chandler - 4/2/09 at 12:01 AM

Tom

There is another option on you axle, chop out the LSD and housing from the Izuzu axle and let it into you existing axle then cut the halfshafts and join to suit.

You could even extend the axle a bit to better fill the arches, really wide track !

---

Hugh_ - 5/2/09 at 09:45 PM

Looking good Tom!

Work on the Locost had stalled completely from late October until now if I'm honest. But I've got some minor things done in the last couple of evenings, and have the day off tomorrow so hoping to get cracking with it again in earnest.

---

djtom - 25/2/09 at 12:17 AM

28/1/09

Mark - thanks for the thought but that sounds even more of a nightmare than fabricating the de-dion!

Which, by the way is the way I'm almost certainly going to go.... just need to find some suitable tubing to make the thing now.

I've picked up a sierra rear beam complete for £30 (non-LSD unfortunately!) and here you can see it against the cortina axle:


However this is the problem - look how far inboard the trailing arm mounts and shock mount are on the cortina axle! Not sure how to mount these on a de-dion tube - it'd have to extend in a long way.


I can move the shock bracket outboard on the chassis by up to 3 1/2 inches, but unless I want to remake the trailing arms with more angle (not really!) I'm a bit stuck with the position of them. Although I suppose I could make nice new rose-jointed ones...

Chassis mods are ongoing - slowly. I'm now so thoroughly bored with trying to remove the old tigerseal, powdercoat and rust with an anglegrinder and flapdisc that I'm seriously considering getting the chassis shotblasted. It might cost a bit but it'll save ages and ages of horrible work!

Tom

---

djtom - 25/2/09 at 12:25 AM

12/2/09

Bored of thinking about the back end, so I've been hacking up my front wishbones to make a widetrack kit. Mark kindly gave me some Land Rover drag link tube (about 4mm wall and bulletproof!) which seems ideal after bending both lower wishbones last year.

Hacking the old ones up to reuse the top plates and bushing tubes:


New wishbone tube:


Loosely cut to size:


I've gone 50mm per side wider, so that should make a difference! I'll freely admit that it is mostly for cosmetic appearance as the Super Six is so much wider at the rear, but more front-end grip on turn in can only be a good thing, especially as I will be fitting an anti-roll bar that will lose some of it again.

Tom

---

djtom - 25/2/09 at 12:37 AM

22/2/09

Still not decided on how to make a de-dion, so I've ignored that problem and have decided to tart up some spare wheels instead! They are a set of multispoke 13" alloys that I bought cheaply (£30!) and came from a BMW E21 (sadly not with the Yokos on though...)

I had to use a flap wheel in the drill to remove about 20 years of brake dust from the inside of the wheels, but after that and a little rub down with some sandpaoer I think the surface should be "keyed" enough for some primer.

Drill attack:


Primered:


One of the wheels had a bad reaction to the primer:


This has since been rubbed back and will shortly be having a second coat.

Rain stopped painting, so my incredibly short attention span then turned to taking some throttle bodies apart to make a throttle body plenum using some GSXR600 TBs and a Nissan Pulsar plenum cover that I got cheap.

Removing the secondary butterflies:


Then I got bored of that too (I think I must have ADHD or something!) and went back to the chassis to test out the clearance for the prop now I have tacked the first bits of the tunnel in place:


It cleared by miles so the tacks were then welded fully. Can't really do much more until I finally decide on a rear axle setup...

Tom

---

HOL - 26/2/09 at 08:46 PM

And I thought you had been lazy

Have you worked out if the diff will actually fit in the middle of the car?

---

djtom - 27/2/09 at 09:19 AM

The diff does indeed fit in the middle of the car, and to aid it on its way I've now cut out all of the bracing on the back panel and tacked in some new diff mounts. Camera battery was flat so no pics yet, but I'll take some tonight.

Now I just need a de-dion tube.... see post in wanted section!

---

mark chandler - 27/2/09 at 01:20 PM

Keep taking the ritalin, you'll be fine!

I wish I had you energy Tom, my new bones have not moved on but my trailer is nearly done now.

Good work BTW, will TB's make much of an improvement over the original setup?

---

djtom - 27/2/09 at 01:32 PM

No idea, but they'll look nice....

Stole the idea from this thread, but I think I can do it for sub £50 rather than the £1k+ that he spent

http://boardroom.wscc.co.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=3;t=59215;hl=fw500

Tom

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HOL - 27/2/09 at 06:22 PM

quote:

---

Originally posted by djtom


Now I just need a de-dion tube.... see post in wanted section!

---

I saw that,

Aren't GTS down the M2 in Ramsgate?
http://www.gtscougar.freeserve.co.uk/dedion.htm

I wonder if he would jig and make some DD axles for the S6, if we got 3 or 4 of us together to make it worth his while?

The tube itself would be standard challenger, on the brakets would need to moved.

Just a thought???

---

djtom - 27/2/09 at 06:37 PM

Could do, but from what I've read on here about dealing with GTS I'd be hesitant to order anything from them! Think I may end up making my own, in which case I'd probably buy enough material to make 2 if you're interested....

---

HOL - 1/3/09 at 04:31 PM

Making one without it losing alignment is not going to be easy!!

[Edited on 1/3/09 by HOL]

---

djtom - 1/3/09 at 06:19 PM

True.... Any bright ideas? I was going to turn something very sturdy into a jig, like an RSJ or something like that!

---

HOL - 15/3/09 at 10:10 AM

Sorry Tom , missed this.

I would be interested in a copy, if you make one.

Yes, I think you would need a jig, based on a stripped cortina axle.

Or, you could weld in a tube first, brace it, and then cut the centre out.


Have you priced up all the bits?

---

HOL - 2/4/09 at 05:31 PM

Any updates????

---

djtom - 5/4/09 at 10:44 AM

Been away for a week, so not much happened, but back in the garage this afternoon when the Kuala Lumpar swimming race is over.....

---

HOL - 6/4/09 at 07:45 PM

Just got my contract extended at work til 2010, so Im cracking on with the more serious rebuild option, now I know the money can be spent.

One of the local S6 owners lent me his build manual, so I could sort my damaged wiring out and it has some good pics of the early DeDion rear end.

The diff looks to almost sit in the tunnel.!!

I did not know how your measurements were shaping out?

---

djtom - 8/4/09 at 11:01 PM

Any chance of some scans of the de-dion pages?


Anyway, time for some updates:

1/3/09
Spent a bit of time welding up the rivet holes left by the removal of all the bodywork and ally panels, as a) whoever built it couldn't drill holes at even spacings in a straight line, and b) I don't want the chassis filling up with sand when I get it blasted.

It tinkles nicely now with all the old rivet heads in the chassis though... I'll need a noisier exhaust to drown it out!

Welded rivet holes - now you see them:


and with the aid of a flap disc - now you don't!


I've also been building a new engine - but I'll start a new thread for that.

---

djtom - 8/4/09 at 11:08 PM

7/3/09

Got a bit distracted when I discovered that the lower chassis rails on each side at the very rear, under the tank, were rotted through. No idea how, as they tilt up and the rotted part is at the top, so water can't have been collecting, but whatever.



Out with the grinder....



It now has a nice new shiny bit of steel welded in but the camera died, so no pics of that. I've been over the rest of the chassis and there's no more rot. Good!

---

djtom - 8/4/09 at 11:29 PM

8/4/09

Been a bit distracted by snowboarding, and that travesty of a F1 race (honestly, who plans a race for 5pm in the rainy season in Malaysia? The rain is so regular that you can set your watch by it!). Anyway, after further distraction from BTCC (brilliant as ever), I finally made it to the garage.

Diff mounts fabricated and welded. That sounds easy but took bloody ages. Still, now done:


Diff, prop and gearbox test fitted:


I've now started triangulating the transmission tunnel, but ran out of welding gas and camera battery (again), so no photos I'm afraid.

Speaking of which, does anyone in the South East have a pub bottle of CO2, empty or full? Any idea where I can get one? The disposables are getting expensive...

Back to topic, and after a quick camera charge I started hacking up my old lower wishbones in order to make the widetrack versions - I need to use the plates from the old ones to save some effort. Imagine my surprise when I cut through the nice oval tubing to find that some idiot at Tiger made them from solid 15mm bar! The oval tubing had only been slid over the top for cosmetic value.



I thought they weighed a ton.....

This is partly why they are being cut up - awful original design meant that there was such a large bending moment under braking that even the 15mm solid bar bent under the load. The wishbone also cracked, hence the awful repair effected an hour before leaving for a trackday!



Sketch of planned replacement to follow.

That's all for now - engine rebuild thread will be started tomorrow hopefully.

Tom

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HOL - 9/4/09 at 09:34 PM

Pm your email for those scans.

I also have an empty pub bottle and matching regulator.
It ran out last year and I haven't been able to find anyone to refill it. In fact I just bought two disposable ones and a regulator.
Andy

---

mark chandler - 9/4/09 at 10:21 PM

Tom

Pub bottle here for you, still got gas in it + free.


Regards Mark

[Edited on 9/4/09 by mark chandler]

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djtom - 9/4/09 at 11:49 PM

Thanks Mark - that's brilliant! I'll give you a call to arrange collection.

New engine build thread started at http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=110671

Tom

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djtom - 17/4/09 at 11:51 PM

Change of plan - I decided I didn't like the MT75 box (not ideal ratios, probably not strong enough for ultimate power goals, remote extension too wide) so I now own a Cosworth T5 box thanks to ebay. It's pretty big and needs some further tunnel modification, but I'm going to take the opportunity to move the engine and box backwards by 100mm. Hopefully this will mean more room in the engine bay, better weight distribution and give me the excuse to only carry short legged passengers....


T5 box 2

Chop chop starts tomorrow.

Tom

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HOL - 18/4/09 at 05:34 PM

Its a better box, I used to have one in my MK2 escort, when they were 'quite expensive'.

Moving it back is not a problem as you can get a shorter shifter extension thatn the long tiger one.

I got myself a complete 4x4 sierra LSD rear end off the bay, so i'm keen to see how you get on with the de dion???

My car is body-less at the moment whilst I sort out the chassis surface rust - so I can get to the back and make the mods pretty soon.

What have you decided to do about the handbrake?

---

djtom - 26/5/09 at 10:33 PM

So, as promised, chop chop started the next day. 1 x pack of new cutting discs for the grinder and a trip to Mark's to pick up the gas bottle, and I was all set for some more chassis modification!

Shortening passenger tunnel


Shortened offset tunnel


Gearbox mounting - this supports the sierra rubber thingy:


Had to take a chunk out of one of the tunnel tubes to clear an annoyingly sticky-outy bit of gearbox:



Made a new gear lever to put gearstick in approximately the right place


New engine mount being made:


Reused the other engine mount - just had to drill another hole:


Tom

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djtom - 26/5/09 at 11:03 PM

Made some brackets to mount the handbrake on the side of the tunnel. I also welded some captive nuts onto the brackets to make future removal and replacement easier - when the tunnel is panelled the nuts would be a pig to get at:




The chassis engine mounts were fabbed and welded in place. This sounds easy, but it took bloody ages to get it in the right place - I had a spare block and head bolted to the gearbox and propped up on bits of 2x4 to try to get the engine and box high enough to give good clearance below the sump, low enough to only need a hole the size of Lithuania in the bonnet and centralised enough to allow a rizla between the gearbox and the tunnel uprights. I think it's in about the right place now!




I picked up a new radiator from ebay for silly cheap money - it's a nice little Spec-R aluminium number. God knows if it will be enough to cool 300bhp, but it will be ducted so that all the air passing through it exits via the bonnet, and there will be a nice big oil cooler as well, so hopefully it will be OK... It is a bit smaller than the Golf rad though, but hopefully more efficient.


Mocking up the nose arrangement - the left side is the chargecooler rad, the right is the oil cooler and the centre is the coolant rad. The chargecooler and the oil cooler will be ducted so the the air escapes to the side of the coolant rad, as shown (badly) in the second photo below by me holding a bent bit of ally sheet. The side panelling in these areas will be mesh, and this should exit into a low pressure area as it is shielded by the nosecone.

I'm trusting that the various reports of radiator air flow that I've read are true - most importantly that at 60mph you only need a frontal aperture 1/4 the size of the radiator area to provide as much air as can pass through the radiator. We'll see! In the past it only ever overheated on track at speed, never in traffic, so hopefully an efficient radiator ducted well so that the exhaust actually has somewhere to go should suffice.





Nose full of cooling gear!


Tom

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djtom - 15/7/09 at 09:32 PM

I'd always been annoyed by the lack of access to the ECU, fuses, wiring loom, wideband O2 controller and the other goodies under the dashboard, so I decided to alter the scuttle so that you could remove it but leave the dash in place. To do this I cut out the dash from the scuttle and made some supports to hold the dash independent of the scuttle.


Trimming scuttle


Dash support bent to fit scuttle


Scuttle supports welded on


Scuttle fitted on supports

I will weld in some bracing bars between the supports to mount the windscreen supports.

Tom

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djtom - 15/7/09 at 10:17 PM

I used the new scuttle mounts to brace the pedal box more firmly, as I wasn't happy with the lack of rigidity in the main pedal mount. This also doubles up as the steering column support, so removing flex can only be a good thing.



I also added some windscreen mounts to the scuttle bars - the uprights bolt through the scuttle to these.



Tom

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eccsmk - 15/7/09 at 10:21 PM

thats alot of work
top marks

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djtom - 15/7/09 at 10:41 PM

I finally decided what to do about the rear end and bought a GTS De Dion axle from HOL (cheers for that Andy!).

Of course, like everything else about this project, it didn't fit, so it required modification. This was because the linking arm of the De Dion fouled the petrol tank. I briefly considered getting the tank modified, but as I didn't know anyone stupid enough to volunteer to weld a used petrol tank I resorted to hacking the de dion apart instead.

Before wading in with the grinder I thought I'd see what geometry was built into the axle as standard, by bolting some 2m tubes to the hub carriers and measuring the width at the front and at the back. Trigonometry does the rest!





Turns out that the GTS dedion (well, this one anyway!) has approx 0.6 deg toe in (total) and 0.6 deg negative camber (total).

I thought this was probably a good starting point, so I built a jig to hold the axle in place whilst I chopped out the offending middle section and replaced it with a less sticky outy bit made out of some scaffolding pole, which should be fairly bullet-proof judging from the impressive weight!

The jig was made of a spare U-beam picked up for a quid from the local scrappy, with hub carriers welded on.


axle bolted on jig


chop chop!


Chopped off an inch or two inboard of training arm mounts.


replacement scaff pole being measured up


Scaff bar tacked in place and slotted for a bracing section to be added for strength


Back on the jig and welded - the bracing section is 6mm sheet, extending right through the axle and welded on both sides.


Axle trial fitted. Need to shave a bit off the rear diff mount, but it's not doing anything anyway. At least the axle misses the tank now!

Tom

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djtom - 15/7/09 at 11:07 PM

I wanted to do something about the mounting point for the rear trailing arms. As Tiger originally designed the car, the trailing arms are very short (245mm c-c) which promotes an unhealthy amount of roll steer. By moving the mounting point forward I can lengthen the trailing arms by about 100mm, which should help. I need to make some more trailing arms anyway, because a) I want to rose-joint these, and b) I've sold the old ones.

Old mounting point:


Chopped out:


New upright made out of 40mm box section, with one side cut out. This has 3mm wall, so should easily stand up to the job. I was only going to cut the rear away where the trailing arms protrude, but didn't want it to trap water and rust from the inside out, so cutting the whole back of the tube away should give the water nowhere to get trapped.


New trailing arms also made now, just need to buy some polybushes for the rear end of them. Anyone know where they are cheapest? I need 4, id of the trailing arm tube is 28mm, od is 33mm and width is 33mm.



I feel quite pleased now - feel like I've achieved quite a bit over the last week or so!

Tom

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MikeRJ - 15/7/09 at 11:17 PM

Probably a good move chopping that section of the De-Dion out as well, I always thought the loading on the central welded joint would be quite high, and someone did have this joint fail in use!

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HOL - 16/7/09 at 01:38 PM

quote:

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Originally posted by djtom
I finally decided what to do about the rear end and bought a GTS De Dion axle from HOL (cheers for that Andy!).

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Only cos I found and bought two!

Ill be bring the second one along for modification once you get all the bugs ironed out!!

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djtom - 16/7/09 at 01:49 PM

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Only cos I found and bought two!

Ill be bring the second one along for modification once you get all the bugs ironed out!!

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Polybushes can be turned down in a lathe, cheapest will be landrover panard rod or trailing arm I recon.

Any more progress?

Dan

Come on Tom, I know you are further in, lets have an update.

Andy

I thought I was mad rebuilding my E1 but this is a full redesign I am still thinking of replacing the sierra beam set up with something a bit lighter.

Its also a 2 year old thread?!

It is indeed a 2 year old thread - keeping it up to date rather fell by the wayside! However, I'm pleased to report that as of early this summer the car was back on the road, and barring a few teething problems all went well.

First trackday of the year was at Lydden a couple of months ago and it went very well indeed, the changes to the geometry all seem to have worked out nicely. It now looks like this:


Lydden
Regards,
Tom

[Edited on 29/12/11 by djtom]

Nice work .... Good bit of re-engineering