Firstly, Happy New Year! Which is kind of exciting and depressing at the same time. It's exciting because the car is well on its way to being finished and will be registered and on the road soon, but depressing because it's been over a year in the build! Ah well, onward we go...
With the objective of getting the car fired up for the first time, the job list was to get the car off the dolly and onto its wheels and then connect the fuel line and various senders etc.
I'd been a bit concerned about getting the car off of the dolly now that all the additional weight of the engine and transmission were in the car. Having it on the dolly for the installation made life easier, but the time had come to get it off. The problem was, I was pretty sure that my engine crane was only rated for a ton lift, so getting the whole lot airbone would be pretty close to the max. capacity. The last thing I wanted was for the whole thing to come crashing down halfway through removing the dolly! I got the crane attached to the car with a strop round the rollbar, but a few pumps of the lift handle confirmed my suspicions. With an increasing bend on the lift arm with no evidence of the car being lifted, it became apparent that the crane just wasn't up to the job! Oh dear :) Never mind, plan b) came into play. I firstly placed a couple of spare wheels under each of the Ultima wheels (which I'd finally fitted to the car for the first time - hurrah!) so that should the car drop, it would only fall a couple of inches. Then, I jacked up the front with the jack on another pair of wheels and raised the rear with the crane. This was pretty hairy as the whole car was being supported along a central axis, but a mate turned up and helped stabilise things whilst I removed the dolly. With the dolly gone, the car was lowered onto the spare wheels. The first time that it's ever been supported by its own suspension - albeit about 2 feet off the ground! :) Then came the rather tricky process of see-sawing the car down to ground level. The front was jacked up, 2 of the supporting wheels removed, then lowered again. The same followed with the rear. The entire process was repeated until all 4 of the Can-Ams wheels finally sat on terra-firma - phew!
So, with the car on the deck, I could think about prepping it for it's first start :)
First job was to finish plumbing in the fuel line by making the connection from the fuel filter to the fuel rail of the carb. I also needed to incorporate an adaptor that had a 1/8th NPT take off for the fuel pressure sender. A trip to the local raceparts supplier relieved them of the appropriate adaptors (2 trips in reality as my first combination wouldn't work as there was insufficent room between the filter and the carb for the various -6 JIC fittings!) so I could set to work. In the GTR, I used a male to male -6 JIC inline adaptor that had the 1/8th NPT takeoff in it, but this time, I used a more efficient setup that used a female to male -6 JIC. This means that you save on the number of fittings required and at a price of £7-£20 a fitting - it's worth working out the most efficient combo! I ended up with the female to male sender fitting into a -6 JIC straight, then hose into a 90 degree -6 JIC to female which bolts to the fuel filter. Don't underestimate the cost of these extra adaptors - they soon mount up!
With the connection made, the Stack pressure sender was screwed into the fuel rail ready to go.
Next up, the water temperature sender. With no place on the manifold to take it (the manifold inlet hose covers the 1/2 fitting making that a no-no unless I replace the inlet itself), I opted to use the 3/8ths plug on the head. I had a 3/8th to 1/8th NPT adaptor which was simply screwed into the head, then the 1/8th NPT sender was screwed into it using some PTFE for a good seal. I did cut down the 3/8th adaptor a bit so that more of the sender core was exposed to the water as the original adaptor is a bit long. The Stack sender uses 2 connections, the resistive feed and an earth. I used the original loom for the stack feed and took a local earth from the chassis.
Next up, the oil pressure sender. I had previously bought and fitted a remote take-off fitting for the oil pressure sender as i) the intake mainfold design means that you can't get the sender in without a T-piece and ii) the remove fitting protects the sender from vibration of the engine. The fitting has 2 take-offs. I used one for the pressure sender and the other is blanked. Use of the second take-off for the oil temperature sender isn't viable as the sender wouldn't be accurate given the remote nature of the take-off and the fact that the sender head wouldn't be in a good oil flow. I need to think about another location for the oil temperature sender which is made more tricky as I don't have an oil cooler at present, so no sandwich plate to tap into?
Finally, I connected the clutch pipe to the slave cylinder using the appropriate adaptor (Goodridge part number 306-04-M121D). The clutch pipe seemed a bit short to reach resulting in a bit of a hose kink, but I've just heard that this is a known issue with the Getrag installation and the factory are kindly sending me a 6 inch hose extension for this purpose.
So with all the messing about getting parts and getting the car off the dolly, along with yet more p-clipping and re-routing of cables/hoses, the day kind of got soaked up. The car is now ready to fire save for the addition of necessary fluids. Am off on business next week, so looks like it'll be the weekend after. Still, hopefully it will be a bit warmer in the workshop at least!
Back in the workshop again after a week away. It's always a pain having to get your head around where you were, to get going again even after only a week of no progress. Never mind.
The objective of the day was simple: to get the engine fired up! So I made a mental list of jobs that needed to be done and got to work.
The first, most obvious, was to fill with fluids. The coolant system was filled with water with very little antifreeze for the time being as I will partially drain and re-fill it later. I took care to open the heater solenoid (valve) so that the system was as air-free as possible, and left the cap on the swirl pot off to allow any trapped air to get out during the initial run. I noticed that the swirl pot, despite being as high up the bulkhead as possible it perhaps a little lower then the manifold intake. A squeeze or two on the top hose helped eek out a few trapped bubbles until I was happy that most of the air was gone.
Next up was the oil. I was consternating about this as I aim to fit an oil cooler, but don't have all the bits yet. I opted to run it up as is, then drop the filter off at a later date and fit the cooler. The engine was filled with 7l of Valvoline Racing 20W50 and the spark plugs were all removed to minimise bearing stress when cranking it over to get oil pressure. I gather that there's an oil pressure priming tool available which I'll use in future, but hindsight is a wonderful thing so I stuck to a method that I've used on all the engines I've built (which is a fair few).
Finally, a litre or so of super unleaded was put in the offside fuel tank. Just enough to run her up as I will do a proper tank calibration later. This way it saves having to fill both tanks.
Right, so with the vital fluids in place, I just needed the spark of life for the beast! I'd spent a week searching the workshop high and low for my MSD 6AL ignition unit, to no avail? I finally asked the factory as I was convinced I hadn't been sent one? Well, in fact, I hadn't - because it wasn't needed! The engine uses a Pro-Billet PN8360 which simple runs with the Blaster SS coil, 3 wires and you're away - doh! This setup is more conventional than the 6AL, so it was going to be interesting finding out how well it performs.
Once I'd found this out, it just remained to connect the dizzy to the coil... with no instructions :) Well, that's not sctrictly true as the blaster coil came with some. It appeared that I needed to connect the red wire from the Dizzy to the coil +ve and the orange to the -ve with the black going to a decent chassis earth. I wasn't completely convinced we'd got it right, but if it all goes bang I'd know soon enough :)
Well, the moment of truth arrived. With the spark plugs removed along with the blanking nut at the end of the oil pressure take-off (I didn't want air trapped in this for obvious reasons) the engine was cranked.... and cranked... and cranked a bit more. Just at the point where I was getting concerned the Valvoline came gushing out of the oil pressure take-off - phew! The Stack dash pod was connected temporarily and the engine cranked for a moment more to check that I was getting an oil pressure reading - which thankfully I was and a damn healthy one too. The plugs were duly replaced along and the oil pressure take-off blanked once again.
I set up the camera and started the video rolling as I wanted to catch the very first attempt at starting it. Who knows, I may even get lucky! The ignition was turned on and I switched on the fuel pump to the off-side tank. I realised that this was the first time I'd even checked that the pumps worked! Again, diligence when installing them paid off and they worked just fine (both sides!). So with a deep breath, it was time to hit the starter button...
I was shocked and relieved to find that a whirr, whirr BRUMMMMM heralded the first start of the engine on the first prod of the button - euphoria! It died in about a second, but that was just lack of carb fuel. A few more pumps of the throttle and another couple of prods of the button and she once again roared into life. Man, I was so happy! Hels and Charlie had come down to the workshop to see it and it didn't fail to perform :) As I said, I caught the whole thing on tape and it can be viewed here:
Stig's Ultima Can-Am, first startOnce the euphoria and hand-shaking were over it was back to work getting more odd-jobs done now that this milestone had been overcome. The start-up showed that the Stack was working as it should and also allowed me to test the alarm/immobiliser which also functioning as expected. Blimey! :)
So I moved onto the transmission side of things, or at least, I tried to. I aimed to install the gearbox breather, but upon locating the packet of parts, found that it was a bit of a non-starter. Firstly, the braided hoses had banjo connectors at one end (but no banjo male connectors in the bag?)? The GTR ones were female/female to the male/male adaptors which fit to the breather tank and transmission bungs respectively, so I'm not really sure what's occuring here? Additionally, the bottom thread of the breather tanks was basically, shagged. The thread had already been torn out, so installing the male/male adaptor, even if I could have attached the hose, was an exercise in futility. Never mind. I'll send the lot back and get Ultima to send me a new kit out. At least I could fill the transmission with oil.
Now a word about the transmission vent hole. If you're smart, you'll have pulled off the transmission vent cap before installing the tranny in the car and tap it out to fit a bung. But as I'm not, I ended up doing it laid on my back on the workshop floor! Luckily the tap went in OK and I was able to black the hole with a copper washer, spring washer and M5 button head machine screw. Now that the oil wouldn't all drop straight out again, I removed the filler bung from the side of the transmission (the top one is directly under the top chassis rail, which should prove to be a laugh when I have to install the vent!) and filled with 3.5l of EP75W90 semi-synthetic gear oil as recommended by the factory. That was as much as I could do, so I replaced the bung and fiddled about elsewhere.
I get annoyed when I have to stop mid-way through a sequenced 'part' of the build as it all starts to feel like I've just got a huge list of partly finished jobs. Ah well, such is a builders life. So for no good reason, I decided to fit the grills into the rear canopy. Actually, given that it was getting late in the day, the rationale was that I could fit them and leave the sika to cure after I'd left. First job - and an important one at that - was to correctly orient all the grills as you really don't want one or more facing the wrong way! Now these grills can be fitted in 2 directions. One way seems to give better airflow 'into' the canopy, whilst the other deflects it. On any Ultima, you should try and get as much airflow into the canopy as possible to aid engine cooling, so I oriented mine so that they would all direct air in, when the car was travelling forwards. As the canopy was upside down for this, I put a bit of masking tape on the underside of each one with an arrow showing the correct orientation. No excuses for messing this up!!
Once they were all correctly labelled, the corners were radiused (made round) and were dry fitted to the canopy. To get a neat finish, you'll probably need to bend the edges back a little. Try and keep the overlapping mesh flush with the underside of the canopy to allow the sika to make a good bond. Once they were all trimmed and dry-fitted, a bead of sika was put round each apeture, the meshes put back in place (with the right mesh in the right hole as they all vary slightly) and weight hung by wire through them to hold them in place. A second beat of sika was but over the mesh edges and smoothed down with a finger wetted in WD40. Job done and a neat one too :)
Enough for today, but a milestone conquered. More next week as the end of the build starts to look closer.
I have to say, that there are times in the build where you really start to question your enthusiasm - well, I do. Unfortunately, today was one of them.
I think the reason is that today I'm due to tackle a job that I've, frankly, been putting off. That of fitting the side scoops. Side scoops you ask? Yup, side scoops. In a pique of shopping therapy, a few months back I joined a few fellow builders in a bulk buy (thanks Ike) of Reverie's carbon fibre side scoops. These babies are absolutely gorgeous, being pukka autoclaved and 2k lacquered for a near flawless finish. What with all the carbon fibre in the cockpit, it would seem churlish not to use them to replace the rather lacklustre grills that are fitted as standard. Not only that, the grills always seem to come adrift as they're a pain to bond in. The downside is, as with all things carbon fibre/F1'esque, they are eye wateringly expensive!
So to psych myself up to doing them, I tackled a couple more odd jobs first to try and get the rear canopy a step closer to completion. I fitted the rear canopy grills after making sure they were both oriented correctly. Whilst you can just bond them in place as a flat mesh, I prefer to bend the edges so that they hold the form of the apeture. You get a much better sika bond this way too and it looks neater.
That done, seeing as I was in the area, I fitted the number plate light boxes. These are usually just bonded in place, but i prefer to bend back one of the box tabs and rivet them. You have very little room to do this to avoid drilling holes through the number plate face, so take care.
The standard sidepod grills rely on low pressure inside the engine bay, when the car is moving, to draw air through the oil cooler and aircon radiators. However, the Reverie scoops have a duct which extends into the airflow along the side of the car to gulp huge volumes of air into the engine bay. The scoops have two large ducts (approx. 100mm) at the rear which can connect to an airbox on the carb for ram-air as well as vents just behind the leading edge that use the same low-pressure principle of the original mesh to take air in. However, these ducts are only practical to use if you don't have aircon or an oil cooler as they are both positioned just behind them. That's where the fun begins!
First up, the oil cooler on the nearside. With no oil cooler yet fitted, this was pretty straightforward. During the week, I'd got hold of a 235mm wide, 25 row oil cooler with sandwich plate (many, many thanks Brian) and associated hoses and fittings. The factory kit is supplied with -10 JIC fittings/hoses, but I opted for -12s on the basis that the slower oil flow (larger hose, slower oilflow) meant more time in the cooler, therefore more effective cooling. Well, the hydrodynamics may be flawed but I'll give it a go anyway!
I taped the side scoop into position in the sidepod and trial fitted the oil cooler behind. I found that by trimming away about 20mm of the top duct (that's about 40 quid's worth!) and tilting the cooler back it would fit a treat. In fact, the orientation of the oil cooler like this is better suited to the ducts and deflects heated air away from the fuel tank (which has got to be a good idea). Besides, I'd already insulated the fuel tank top face with aluminised matting. I'm convinced that the forced induction of the scoops will be more efficient than the grills at taking air in,despite effectively covering 50% of the sidepod apeture.
So, out came the hacksaw and off came about 40 quid worth of carbon fibre duct! I refitted it to the sidepod and trial fitted the oil cooler once more to be sure. Once I was happy, I ran a beak of sika around the inner edge of grill apeture in the sidepod and carefully bonded the scoop in place, securing with tape and a cable tie to keep it all flush. Once this is bonded in place, I will fill the small gap around the edge with more sika after carefull masking off for a neat finish.
So the easy side done, onto the aircon. This was MUCh harder. The issue is, that I not only needed to move the aircon radiator assembly further into the engine bay to allow room for the scoop (which is deep backed to allow for the ducts), I also needed to make sure it could be removed from the engine side as once the scoop is bonded in place, it's never coming out - gulp!
After a LOT of measuring, trial fitting, trimming, re-fitting, re-trimming etc. I finally got the scoop down to a size where the aircon rad and fan can fit behind it. I had to extensively modify the original top and bottom fan mounts and change the radiator mounting to be suspended from the sides. This was not a fun job and was a bit like being a gynaecologist having to work in such a confined space. In the end, I found that the aircon rad could be fitted and removed by dismantling the entire assembly inside the sidepod. I had to make captive fittings so that everything could be secured from the engine side, so thank goodness for rivnuts! Finally, it was ready to final fit. I decided to make life easier for myself by installing the radiator assembly before bonding in the scoop, so I hope to goodness I've got the disassembly theory right!
That said, as I finished bonding the second scoop in place, I stood back to have a look a them. They may have been a complete pain in the ass to fit, but my word, they look AWESOME! :)
So fitting 2 grills, 2 number plate light boxes and 2 scoops took a whole day! But then again, it's a day I'm glad to have behind me :) More next week...