Australian Kamei replica build.

Pulled the beam and tank out again today to change the breather hose now that I've decided on a roll over valve setup.

With that done it was time to install the filler.

I knocked the bearings into the rear discs and greased them up today so they got fitted up.

Waiting on bits in the mail to finish off the rear brakes.

 

Last of the bits for the rear brakes arrived this week.

New MK3 caliper carriers.









MK4 Alloy calipers. Scirocco handbrake cables.





New braided lines. These took some fiddling about to figure out.

 

Also in this week were the fuel system bits I was missing.

This is a rollover valve. It replaces the stock atmospheric breather and prevents fuel spilling if the car gets inverted.

It took a while to find a style that would work, mostly roll over valves are used on fuel cells. This one comes from the Hot Rod scene.







Ideally they mount higher than the filler neck. There's only on place I could find to do that, right up inside the rear guard next to the filler.

I made up a bracket from 3mm aluminium bar.








I decided to replace the fuel sender and seal. I'll have to do a bit of testing and math to hook it up to the data logger.




I'm using a diesel tank, this is a new in tank filter.

The diesel tank internal design is actually pretty good from a fuel sloshing point of view so I'm not going to bother with using foam blocks in the tank.

I'll be using an external swirl pot in any case.

 

Another couple of things arrived this week.

All the decals from Mike Wright have arrived It'll be a little while before they're on and I've got photos.

I'd decided on a CAE shifter some time ago, (Surprised no one noticed I'd cut the gear shift brackets off the steering rack.) It's an amazingly made piece of kit. Need to think about best cable routing. Seeing as I don't need to consider a passenger I might do both bends in the cabin and go straight through the passenger footwell onto the gearbox.

 

Looks cracking Peter.

 

Coming together absolutely amazingly!!

 

Update as promised.

Finished off the front hubs and loaded the bearings.

You're looking at 16v MK2 Golf Hubs, ARP wheel studs, 19 mm ball joint & extender, MK2 rack arms.

I've got an old MK1 outer CV tightened up in there so I can roll the car around without damaging the bearing.

The MK2 steering arms are a little long, there's still some sorting out to be done there.





280mm Euro Spec discs.

Note the welding burn on the inner guard, I resprayed those bits today, it's from my pedal box adventures.



Girling 60 caliper fitted up. No pads yet I'm still trial fitting things at this stage.



I'm going to get these wheels widened now I know what offsets will work. I put these tyres on just for the moment.

Those calipers are a close fit but work well inside the wheel.





Here's what I did to the pedal box area. I just hacked out the tin and welded two diagonal brackets straight to the bulkhead.

The tin isn't structural it's mostly there to hold the carpet up and trap water so I'll just edge it with some pinchweld.







Back on the ground!



Minus the bracketry. Fitting up a couple of guards to check wheel/tyre clearances.

It's lower than it looks, the wheel arches have all been moved up which make it look high. Front valance has been cut off too.

Frame horns are about 6" off the ground with no motor fitted.



6 Inches is way too narrow. Plan is to go to 8" which is a CAMS/class thing and also about the widest tyre I can heat up properly in a car this light.

Final wheel size is 15 x 8 et 0 - et 10.







After modifying just about every part of the suspension and assembling by eyeball what are the odds that the top plate would read to the exact camber measurement?

-3 on top and -3 below. I was a bit nervous about the range of adjustment I'd have with this setup but it look like it's all worked out OK.

-3 seem to be about the max and I can get it as far back 0. Pretty much the perfect range for me.





Caster measured at +4. I need to do some research on the ideal figure but that seems in the ballpark.

 

Back into it with some help from the overseeing wildlife.



Figured out the steering arms using some alignment jigs I made a few years back.

These are a bit flimsy and were only meant as a proof of concept but good enough for the task at hand.

I've got MK1 and MK2 rack ends to play with. After lot of measuring I've discovered that the MK1 arms are too short and the MK2 arms are too long.

I'll modify the MK2 ends by shortening them and extending the thread further back along the rod once the M13 die I've ordered arrives.

In the meantime the MK1 arms work for rolling the shell about the workshop.



Finished off the hatch today all up about 4 days of work in it.

Just putting the window in was an adventure.

Firstly the perspex window wasn't window shaped.

Secondly the fibreglass hatch wasn't hatch shaped.

Lots of cutting and sanding ensued until the two would marry up.

Then I had to fit up the aerocatches. These took some figuring out!

Here's some pictures.





I used nutserts in the fibre glass. For the bonnet I think I'll get the proper backing plates.




Just aligning the two pins and getting the lengths right probably took a couple of hours.



Came out pretty neat.

The hatch need to be secured at both sides rather than just the middle as there's quite a tweak the the fibreglass hatch that needs to be pulled into alignment.

I wouldn't be using one of these hatches on a show car, the fit is terrible. Fine for a race car though.

I also made up a brace for the back window to avoid high speed blowouts.

Internally it's a 20 x 30 T section, externally backed up by a 20mm strip.

Inner and outer bars both tuck under the rubber.

Top and bottom of the bar is secured back the hatch with 20 x 3mm bar bent to shape.

Fasteners through the window are M3 Unbrakos with nyloks. M5 dome heads into nutserts in the hatch itself.







The window brace is the most rigid part of the hatch!



Detail of Aerocatch.

Two stage operation. First you press the area where the keyhole is to pop the lever up.



and the puling the lever up slides the locking pin out of the hood pin.



I've got one of the doors built up today too, Perspex window mounted, lock back in and door card mounted. No photos till I clean up the huge mess I made with the silastic!

 

A small detail, I cut a vinyl sticker for the fuel filler.






Back windows are in. Local race regulator, CAMS, says that the roll cage manufacturer's name must be visible through the back window hence the stickers.

I'm leaving the cling film on the perspex for the moment just to save it from scratches and dust.



Here's the windscreen just sitting in place. I've booked a pro in to fit it on Saturday morning.

Normally I'd fit it myself but I've got a lot invested in this screen. It's an electrically heated unit from Ricky Evans motorsport.

Heated Windscreens

It will be a long time before I get the opportunity to ship another one of these here to Australia, the logistics are formidable.




The heating elements are very fine. Here I'm holding a piece of paper up against the inside of the screen so I could photograph them.

The screen is dived into separate sections for driver and passenger sides.



The connections just come out from between the glass and the rubber on either side of the screen.



I've been trying to find a swirl pot that would mount hanging from the floor of the car. Most are designed the other way up to mount in the boot of a sedan.

This is a brand new design from Integrated Engineering which incorporates the mounting of the fuel pump internally.

Integrated Engineering Billet Surge Tank- Submerged 044 Pump




Here's the pump to go in it. No surprises, it's an 044.

I've been using the SAE handbook to look up suspension geometry and brake hydraulic info. Great reference for anyone attempting to build a car from first principles.



Mounted up the dashboard.

I folded up some aluminum sheet to box in the remains of the upper column bearing.

It's secured on one side with 3 M4 screws and on the other by the M8 clamping bolt.

The sheet is quite rigid, I don't think I'll need a diagonal brace on the vertical section. In any case I need to re-check the viewing angle once the seat is back in.

Once I've done that I can easily add in a small brace.













Here's a couple of shots with a dummy wheel on it from roughly the driver's perspective.





It's about time to start on another gearbox.

Here I'm recovering a 3.94 ring gear to go onto that Peloquin I've had sitting about for the last 3 years.

 

Stunning mate.

I will be interested when you wire up the windscreen as i have the same one here fitted but not wired in.

 

Project's slowed a little whilst I accumulate funds for engine components.

Meanwhile I'm trying to knock off all the chores, the little stuff that takes more time than it should.

I lobbed the 16v and a spare box in the bay so I could figure out some stuff.

I decided against the recommended routing of the CAE shifter cables as I've read the less bends the better.

As this isn't a street driven car I can lose the slack in the cabin.

I also did some welding on the exhaust manifold to include the o2 sensor bung. I needed to have it in the car to see where it would fit.

Now the manifold is sorted I can send it out for ceramic coating.

I'll need to fab a heat shield for that steering boot.



Haven't bothered doing much adjustment to the shifter. This was just to locate the firewall holes.









There's a bit of slack in the shifter cables, I think I'll hold them down to the floor with some sort of clamp.



Installed the remote for the kill switch. I had to make a spanner to do the effing nut up under there.

Cable enters the cabin via a grommet directly below the handle.

Haven't figured out a final position for the main kill switch yet.

(Note to UK readers. Our Australian race regulator , CAMS, requires that the kill switch be operable from the driver's position and also from the base of the A pillar on the drivers side. This style of cable is just a mechanical remote for the usual type of electrical cut off that I'll have somewhere within reach inside the cabin.)



I'm not planning on using a dizzy so here's the beginnings of a blank off plate.

I made it in 2 pieces because that's the scraps I had lying about.

Not going to buy a billet for a little thing like that.



A friend donated some stub axle spacers to the cause.

"Some assembly required."



I managed to find an original Rallye Racing decal online from Germany.

Top decal is the original below it is a reproduction I made from it in vinyl.

Now that I've done the artwork I'm going to scale a pair of the to fit the headlights nicely.

 

Nice one Peter

 

Made some parts.

I needed some clamps to hold stuff to the rollcage so I made some from some 16mm aluminum plate.

Here's some pictures in no particular order.













Local wildlife helping out again.







Bit of cleaning up to do at this stage, you'll see what they're for in a post or two.

 

Got around to finishing off attaching the throttle throttle cables to the pedal box.

This is a delicate little job, that bit is only 3mm diameter.



Put a flat on the pedal shaft for the grub screw to lock onto.





This is the part that attaches the cable to the pedal. I really hate unreliable throttle linkages, this is probably over engineered.







Cables coming into the engine bay.



And the pedal box back in the footwell.

 

ANother quick job, I mounted up the rear view mirror.

This came with rollbar mounting clamps but I couldn't use them as there's not enough room between the bar and the windscreen frame to use them.

So rather than use the included clamps I made up a couple of new ones that bolt into a couple of nutserts I put into the bodywork.



Here's the bracket I knocked up from some 5mm aluminium angle.



Brackets installed.



Super wide angle 17" mirror from Joes Racing.

The view is crazy wide you can see out of the doors!

 

The clamps above were so I could mount the oil tank.

There wasn't enough room in the engine bay for the tall tank and it's fittings so It had to come inside with me.

CAMS (local race regulator) won't allow this unless it's shielded off from the driver so I re-purposed a lightweight aluminium tool box from my local hardware store! :-)

Rather than use bulkhead fittings to get through the metalwork I used nylon cable glands and saved about $1500 in alloy hose fittings. I'll use the same in the firewall.

Meet my co-pilot!





Here's where those clamps went to.









Lid is quickly removable and held in place by cam over latches. I put a foam seal around the edge.

 

Moving into the fuel system now.

I won't be using the vacuum port on this reg so I'll replace the banjo fitting with a plain screw and o ring.




This is the low pressure side of things Fuel comes from the tank via the FRAM filter to the Carter 4070 pump and on into the surge tank.

I'm still roughing everything in at the moment, there's tidy up work required yet.



This tank will contain the high pressure pump, a Bosch 044.

I've just temporarily mounted it for the moment to size the hoses. I still need a couple of fittings for the 044 before I can lock it in place.



More hoses and pipes to come.





tidied up the hoses through the cabin by making some aluminum restraining clamps backed with neoprene foam.

I'll trim those cable ties in a week or so once everything settles in and takes on it's new shape.





Firewall penetrations came up nice and neat.



Catch can mounted up.

Note the modified bonnet hinge, The roll cage leg is the way of the stock hinge.



Wheels are being sorted this week and the tyres are on their way from Tire Rack.

With a bit of luck I'll have the race rubber on the car next weekend.

 

Nice updates Peter, class bit of fabbing and thinking again.

 

Hi Peter,

Are you sure these are perspex?

 

Not sure at all really, could well be polycarbonate. I'll have to trawl back through my correspondence.