A non Audi build thread !

[Jonnybravo]

So a bit of a long overdue update.

As some of you may of worked out after the photoshop thread I have decided to paint the car, this wasn't the original plan but after a offer I couldn't refuse I thought what the hell, it needed sorting at some point !

A friend of mine who is a panel beater for an Audi bodyshop came over to straighten the roof as the previous owners son had jumped all over it years ago, that quickly led to him suggesting having the car painted by a friend of his that had recently left Audi and set up on his own so out came the tools and the strip down begun.

The pictures are in order of how things progressed, typically at first we only planned to wash it lol

So :

Oil catch tank for the dry sump setup



The front uprights were changed to Cosworth ones as the original Cortina one were described to me as dangerous and lethal thanks to them flexing under the strain caused by the huge slicks, you can see in the picture how they have been modified to work with the double wishbone setup and the custom coilovers designed for the car.



The fronts brakes are as big as will fit under a 16" wheel, 330 x 36mm, I wanted to change the floating rotors but at £700 they can go for a few more trackdays as they still have some life left in them as do the pads which are DS3000's.





It was at this point where the quick wash turned into the strip down.

Engine out :









From there I got all the panels off and had the interior out leaving the fuel system and axle in as I still needed to move the car and hadn't decided on the full respray.
















And not so suprising on a french car... a bit of rot !



This then led me into looking into finding someone who could blast the front of the car as working around the spaceframe was turning out to be a nightmare and I didn't want to be missing anything.

A company that SHP (company that built the car) advised me to use were called Wrights Engineering in Littleport, very fair prices and Kevin turned it round quickly and kept it dry stored until I could collect it, I was very pleased with the results and in the long run this was going to save me a LOT of time.

[Jonnybravo]

After collecting the shell, Pete aka Acidburn off here popped by to drop some parts off then I headed down the other unit to help Daveknee off here do a bit more work on his coupe, typically it had been a long week so we went home, took a deep breath and ended up watching the F1 quali swiftly followed by wasting the rest of the day playing F1 on the Xbox lol

The next day I did manage to crack back on with things and I popped up to use my mates blast cabinet as I wanted to get all the wishbones, pedals and suspension parts ready for powder coating.

I started with this :





and ended with this :







Whilst I was doing that my mate was putting his finishing touches to his Nova track car, some serious money in the car, only a 1600 engine but looking at over 200hp from a all steel C16xe which is fitted into a very well thought out shell with all the right bits.

The car : ( its not faded, just came out that way in the pic



The engine



More info on that if you want but back on topic for now

The following evening my friend from Audi said he had a few spare hours so we made a start on the roof. The car has had all the inner skins removed so trying to prep the roof with a DA would of been impossible so out came the paint stripped ( nasty bloody stuff )



Leaving us with this once we had cleaned it all off and washed it down.



I decided to remove the fuel cell cover as to get the tank out, for some reason I expected a small tank but no, its HUGE ! good for endurance racing I guess lol



It runs its own swirl pot underneath but there is also another to the side of the tank where the pumps are located.

Whilst all this was going on one of the friendly guests in my unit left a suprise on my mates phone



And from there on I don't have the pictures uploaded but I'll get upto where we are now over the weekend.

One last thing that I forgot I had managed to sort was the exhaust, after speaking to the original owner of the car it turns out it was Hayward and Scott who made it for something like £1500, I had planned to have it remade as its not quiet but no one will guarantee the sound level so I have sent it down to a old workmate in Essex who has just started up a Longlife franchise, he is only going to fill it up, repair some of the holes in it and we'll see what its like from there, 106db static last time out with the silencer empty to fingers crossed it will be considerably more quiet than that next time out.





Thanks for reading, lots more updates to come as it will be in for paint before Glastonbury next month so I can get it back together throughout July.

[Tonks4x4]

Good stuff what was the final paint choice?

[Jonnybravo]

Cheers Brian, Ford frozen white is what were painting it in, it's the White used on the new focus rs which I really like

[Jonnybravo]

So on with the last 7 days worth of progress

The holes in the roof were carefully welded, slight distortion in the panel but a few knocks in the right places sorted that back out, from there it was on with a skim of filler, I left my mate to that as he does it everyday ! I just watched and hoovered up the ton of dust.





Then onto the rear 1/4's, not overly hard to get them cleaned up but most of the panels have areas that have reacted when it was last painted so they needed a good going over.





They are now actually finished, no pics though but more importantly no stonechips or marks anywhere.

Now time to attack the front bumper, sadly no before pics but you can imagine what 15 years of stone chips look like so hours later it was stone chip free with only a few areas to be tidied up.








Fuel cell cover needed a quick rub down, I was going to get it powder coated but I'm probably going to just have it painted now.



From there it was quite straight forward, the doors just needed a quick going over, the drivers having a few stonechips on the lower part but no damage, I think I'm going to try to convert them back to original door handles though as the current setup is crap. ( pics to follow )



Bootlid done, not sure wether to stick with that spoiler or fit something I have been offered which is lets say ummm big lol





Couple of pics of inside the boot area





And finally the front end going back together for a fit up, I'll be using new riv nuts where I can as most have fallen out or been replaced with whatever was available at the time.





Its not that wide really



More updates soon, now on a mission to sort all the new bolts, switchgear for the dash and the other smaller bits, plus get the new spoiler so I can see if its even likely to fit !

[Jonnybravo]

Double post !

[Acidburn]

loving that shot, can't wait to see it all back together mate, i'll let you know what day i'm coming up, it "might" be tommorow evening but will have to check and see. Should be able to stay a bit longer rather than the rushed visit last time.

[Error404]

Good work dude, its going to look sweet in white

[Jonnybravo]

loving that shot, can't wait to see it all back together mate, i'll let you know what day i'm coming up, it "might" be tommorow evening but will have to check and see. Should be able to stay a bit longer rather than the rushed visit last time.

Ideal Pete, let me know, I'll be about anyway tomorrow night.

Good work dude, its going to look sweet in white

Thanks ! I'm hoping so

[bertman]

Looking good James,following this thread with a great deal of interest mate,can't wait to see the finished article

[Jonnybravo]

Thanks Rob and me too ! can't wait to see it painted, still got a LOT of hours to get it ready for that though.

[Jonnybravo]

Small update, more spending !

Having had Glastonbury last week I had to watch what I'd been spending but with that out of the way I've got back on with ordering a few things.

Progress wise on the shell I'm hoping by wednesday night all the inner wing area will be finished with more clearance for the exhaust downpipe, this time with fabricated panels rather than a sledge hammer as clearly there wasn't quite enough room in the first place or were thinking they maybe sat the engine back further and the exhaust then touched in a few areas, either way I won't have that problem now but pics of that to follow.

Parts wise I think I'm finally getting there :

Firstly all the bits are back from powder coating, still got a lot more bits I want to get done but hadn't made my mind up on those until these were being done so I'll add those to the next order







ARB powder coated and blades zinced, unsure if the coating on the ARB will last but I'll have to see how it goes



I sorted 2 pairs of 5 point Sabelt harnesses and cleaned the seats up as they needed it !







Not that it was crucial but I did fancy a new steering wheel so got a suede Sparco wheel and 4 buttons to operate the dash



The standard battery was just a normal car one stuck in the passenger footwell, it was heavy and right in the way for the passengers legs so got a new Odyssey battery to mount off the back of the footrest.



Then a huge roll of heatproof wrap, if anyone knows of a cheaper brand of supplier I'd be pleased to know as it was mega pricey and I suspect I will need atleast the same again



I decided not to have a new silcencer made as there was a chance it would still be too loud for some tracks so for now I've had it cut up and repacked, they also braced it and sorted the odd hole it had in it so it should be a lot quieter now. Massive thanks to Jamie @ Longlife Southend for sorting this, anyone in that area that needs a exhaust should give them a call.



Lastly probably the biggest spend of the month is a pukka Raychem wiring harness for the Motec. The ecu is full of features I could not use as it was on a modified standard loom which was getting a tad old, I now have all the available extras wired in and as the ecu is fully unlocked I can use it to its full potential.











Oh and just for a laugh I sized up the Hi Spec "Monster" 4 pots against the front calipers off the car, slight difference in size I'm sure you will agree.



Hopefully some of the fab work will be finished wednesday, possibly a few more evenings work on the shell before its ready to go into primer then it will go straight to the paintshop. I am right in the middle of giving the house a once over though so as you can expect thats taken a priority over the car.

Thanks for looking and cheers for the nice comments, it all helps keep me motivated !

[Jonnybravo]

Only other picture I forgot was of the intercooler trial fitted, typically my mate the panel beater had bashed the headlamp surrounds straight but I found that had been done to get the damn thing to fit ! doh





I think for now though I will stick with the RS500 cooler, its been on there a while but they are proven so I'll assume it works well enough, possibly in the future I'll have a look at having one made with the new Garret cores that will use the extra space below the current one and relocate the oil cooler to the passenger wheelarch as there are fixings there already for a cooler of some description, certainly not essential and £700 I could do without spending right now !

[Jonnybravo]

Well one heck of a long overdue update.

Were still plodding along with the shell, all the floors have been removed, extra bracing fitted and new flat floors installed. The sills have been cut out and had 2 areas replaced, it seems that any metal near the exhaust has gone rusty and in some cases led to rot so thats all now done with.

After literally hours of cleaning the floors up we ended up cutting them out as there was a bad water trap between the 2 skins

Before :



After :




Floor pans were made in 3 sections per side, to avoid there being another water trap between the chassis and floor they were fitted from the underside and welded in from underneath. The top side will be stitched to the chassis then sealed, just need to get the car down before moving to that stage.





and fitted :




We have now made a final list of its that need doing before paint. Besides the rest of the welding there is a steel bootlid to cut up and fit as I've had to use a phase 2 bootlid so I can use a off the shelf polycarbonate rear window and more importantly have something solid to mount the uprights too for the rear wing.

One of the last things to do before the car came back down off the make shift ramp was to clean up everything from the floorpans backwards, I've spent most of the weekend doing this but happy with the results, no rust either which was a bonus !



















I'm going to make a start on the boot area tomorrow night, if I can get that to a similar stage I'll be happy, hopefully my mate will finish the floors then its just harness mounting plates to fit and a general tidy up then its probably not far off going for paint.

I also had some carbon panels made which are to be used as 4 inner wheel arch liners and parts of the floor, I have had a undertray made but I may stick to using a alloy skin under the car as that will take far more of a beating than the carbon would.

[Christophski]

Looking good bud. When do you think the car will be in for paint then? Sure you have a date in mind. If you go for the carbon flooring will that not make it lighter than with the alloy flooring?