April 17, 2020. Progress.

Progress on the engine has stopped whilst I wait for parts to arrive. So the focus switched to other parts of the car.

I finished the rework of the fuel tank cover. By cutting off most of the top sections of the existing 2 part design, the top could be replaced with a flat single piece. As its flat I can bend it to get it in and out of place and this bit is the first part to go in so the clamps for the fuel filler hose can be accessed still at that point.

Most of the interior sheet metal in this picture will be covered in Nomex fabric, how is yet to be determined. Also the pass throughs for the gear box cables and hand brake cable need to be done.

The cooling system expansion tank needed to be mounted, the bottom of this needs to be higher than the rest of the cooling system to enable it to drain into it. This is easier on a mid engine car and it was fitted as high as I could sensibly get it on the firewall.

The prototype design was first 3D printed, some crude adjustments made and the real thing was then cut and folded from 3mm aluminium.

with a lot of this stuff there’s no need for diabolical accuracy so, the bracket was designed in Onshape as a sheet metal part I made a drawing of the flat pattern then stuck this onto the material to be the bracket.

First the holes were drilled, then the rest was cut away on the band saw.

From there the edges are cleaned up, it is was folded and finished.

Next was getting the radiators mounted. This is the design I decided to go with:

The floor is not strong enough to support the radiator so the brace to the roll frame stiffens the whole arrangement. Shown above is a small bracket that may be used with a rubber mount to stop the top of the radiator moving. This might not be needed due to the ducting that’ll be either side of the radiators. Below is the basic design the radiator ducting.

Again I’ll 3D print prototype parts to check the design, then probably 3D print molds to make the parts from FRP.

The lower support brackets were made in the same way as the expansion tank bracket. The crush tubes are to support the bolt that passes through the bracket to the support to roll frame.

To attach the radiators to the brackets the bottom pegs on the radiators would need to be drilled and tapped. Doing this by hand was a disaster waiting to happen, so I made a drilling jig to keep the hole in the right place.

This worked well enough and the 4 holes were completed without issue.

The radiator would need rubber mounting to the bracket otherwise vibration would break it in no time, the radiator peg goes through some 1/2″ heater hose and either side of the bracket is neoprene foam. The picture below shows the stack of parts at a corner.

Attached to a radiator you get this…

Two done…

Then bolted to the floor.

At the front of the car I started making the supports for the splitter. This is all a bit awkward as this is a revised design from when the radiator used to be at the front of the car. So its not elegant at all.

The braces that used to support the radiator have been recycled to support the splitter.

More holes need to be drilled to connect the rear of the splitter to the floor. The plywood will be laminated in carbon fibre. This part needs to be stiffened up a lot and is going to be subjected to abuse I’m sure.

The support tubes cannot come any further forward from where they are and stay under the bodywork.

The support tubes were notched in the lathe like this…

I fully expected this to go horribly wrong, but it worked nicely. It’s been pointed out it may have been better if I held the hole saw directly in the chuck rather than using the arbour. Which is probably correct.

Now I’m waiting on gaskets for the engine to arrive from the USA, and parts for my welding machine to arrive from Sydney. I’ve plenty of other things to get on with though.