Nova track day project history. (start to almost finish) 56k warning

[ctunnicliffe01]

Ok alot of people already know the car. But ive not done a full progress thread on how the car came to life.
Firstly i owned my first ever car Nova 1.4 sr which after only 12 months turned into a 2l 8v twin 45 nova. Then had all the usual upgrades until i found a nice place called velos. Rolling road place which i then paid to build my first ever valver. Ran 200bhp once done. not bad considering id only been on the road about 3 to 4 years. lol. But after so long the shell started to have its problems coping and a few mates cp/dan/stu kept having to peice it back together. After so long i decided to break it. Someone pointed me towards a very mint shell which already had a roll cage fitted. a few phone calls later and it was purchased. Went up to fetch the shell. It was totaly bare. no running gear nothing. completley naked! the nova project was born! Went and fitted my old rear beam and front struts and transported it home







As you can see the base was perfect for the project i had planned. No rust on the shell. It had the HH kit already plated in. Also seat rails had been pre welded and all boxed in. Just had to finish a few ends of which my mate did quite easy with the welder.

The roll cage is 6 point and has been tagged to the car body for extra stength. Also rear brace was pre welded . nice!

[ctunnicliffe01]

Next was deciding which way to go with the car. Decided it would still be a 2 litre so the engine was kept. (come back to that later) Decided a fully stripped out racer was on the cards due to the nature of the shell. So work started.

Firstly decided a dash was going to be needed due to the wiring that needed to be hidden. So opted for a corsa dash. We had the luck of finding a nice nova gte in a scrap yard and decided we needed the full loom. Only problem being car was on the top pile. but we wasnt to be beaten. We also opted to go with the corsa epas column. So we purchased those and set about fitting them.

[ctunnicliffe01]

Fitting the epas is a bit of trouble as the cylinder on the column sits where the nova fuse box is. So decided we would relocate the fuse box to cancel this problem out.

The column bracket had to be cut of and re welded with extra support. Bit of hassle as you need to get the dash in to make sure it all fits well and lines up. But we got there in the end. (also the corsa epas needs a modded ecu to work correctly on the nova) Again this will be mentioned later in the thread. We also made a start on the loom wiring ect.

[ctunnicliffe01]

As you see above the dash fits just right after much messing about. Alot of the dash has to be cut out and also reshaped to fit against the nova window line.

We also started bolting in the seat brackets. Made sense at this point so everything could be tested for reach ect and correct heights. Oh the joys of mods. nothing ever fits !

Anyhow the wiring started coming together. A new fuse box was orderd and lots of crimp bits ready to relocate the fuse box.

Anyhow with the dash fitted and fusebox re wired this was how it looked. we used a acewell motorbike dash for a display. works quite well tbh. had to modify the fuel tank sender but not that hard.

[ctunnicliffe01]

On the inside i also opted for a hydraulic handbrake instead of the usual cable operated. Should make for a touch more fun in those tight twisties.



On the suspension side i opted for front leda coil overs with camber bolts and stuck with my avo rear ajustable shocks ' Had some custom springs made to 90mm for the rear.




On top of this i opted for solid top mounts (concenctric)
The rear beam has the rear disc conversion fitted so that didnt have to be touched. Brakes were piped in using internal copper brake lines with end flexi hoses. And stuck with a standard master for now until a bias box becomes available.

[ctunnicliffe01]

The next step was to sort out the brakes . what calipers to use and what pads and discs.
Decided to go with the v6 setup but use some ferrodo DSC-2500 race pads and went for some fiat coupe 16v discs which were grooved. All together it worked out quite well.



goodridge braided hoses were used with the calipers too.

[ctunnicliffe01]

Anyhow with suspension fitted and brakes all on the shell was rolling. complete with dash in and column.
We also used a quaife quick rack with the epas column. 2.5 turns lock to lock i beleive.

So next the attention turned to the engine bay. The engine was fitted and car ran for a short while but the engine was later pulled out for a rebuild and decided to alter the bay as you will see.

first things first the battery wall was removed. But carefull not to cut to far. saved having to weld it back together.
Grinder did it fine and quick. then just a touch of smoothing. Then it was of round the unit to blast over the engine bay. this was done around midnight. lol!

[ctunnicliffe01]

so the bay was blasted clean. And decisions to be made on the engine were next. Rebuild it / what spec / xe or let / but to be honest it just sort of happend . And cost me more than i ever imagined lol!



so first the engine was taken out and stuck on the stand and work started. Strip the thing to death first and see how it was.







When the engine was stripped we found the bores had shined and the previous rings hadnt bedded. looked like bore wash had taken place. The engine had previously given of oil smoke which looking at this isnt suprising. But everything else had held up well considering. So the rebuild started.
We stripped the engine right back and got a new block. Block was bored out to .5mm larger and re honed. The carbs were sold on with the dta ignition management leaving me without any induction! lol!

[ctunnicliffe01]

The block was taken to the engineshop in birmingham for the work. Also the head was taken to be overhauled and tested. Anyhow the block was fitted with accralite 86.5mm intruder pistons and rings. The rods were already shot peened and deseamed . All shells and seals were replaced. The crank was checked over and seemed fine. That was balanced of.






As you see the engine came together rather quickly. Vernier pulleys were purchased .
The Head was machined earlier on by velos (no longer going) and ported ect ect.






To be continued

[ctunnicliffe01]

Continued from earlier with the engine almost together pyper cams were fitted ' oil breather mod sorted on the cam cover ' Was going to do a solid head but after weighing up the options it just wasnt worth the gains. So opted to stay on the hydraulic lifters .



Anyhow the time came with the carbs gone which way do i go. So i went silly and purchased some qed direct to heat throttles and dta management. Complete with dta loom and sensors . Yum!



These went on a treat . Got them all fitted up nicely to the engine. And sorted out the cam cover.




How slutty.! Throttles on and proceeded to fit the extra bits onto the engine ready to be installed. Blanking plate was bought for the dizzy and a nice mount to hold the dispak on. But better was to come.
Dan rang to tell me he had found a nice add in a local motorsport place. after a few phone calls this turned up on me drive.

one straight cut f16 quaife gear cluster. I had this rebuilt onto a 3.94 cwp. So we set about cleaning up the box ready for the cluster to be fitted

But there was still one bit missing a diff. So for this i opted for a 90% plate gripper diff. made this decision based on dans car and the way that handled with the plate diff.
Only problem i had was the diff would not fit the box due to the standard speedo pickup holder inside the box. so this i had to modify with a dremel tool.

As you see that was all sorted and diff and cluster located in the box with all new seals ect
Just here was one of the biggest mistakes of the build. I left the cream injectors on the rail and forgot to fit the yellows i had purchased. this will become apparant later in the thread.

[ctunnicliffe01]

Next was what clutch to fit. With the engine expected to produce a nice healthy figure we thought a decent clutch was needed. So from the clutch specialist (many thanks) we purchased the following.

That should be fine for the application.

So the time came and it was time to offer the engine up to the car. Would the hard work pay of. lets see. lol!
The clutch was fitted first then the gearbox was attatched up to the engine.



As you see the front mounted alternator was also fitted with a braket made and attatched to a spare place on the engine mount.




And with everything attatched we was all ready for action. well not quite. Me mate was froze but with a spare coat i managed to convince him to help ! lol!
Note the ice on the drive. yes it was feckin freezing. But not being the usual garage fannys we continued with our mission!

[ctunnicliffe01]

Next the car was hoisted up to about 6ft lol! overkill.
Then the engine was placed under and the car lowerd. Then used the hoist to pull the engine up and into place.




It was like the blind leading the blind. mind that paint work. Oh feckkk! lol


As you can see from the following pic. it was late by the time we had finished mounting the engine. we bought the mount kit from valvers.com which was fantastic peice of kit.worked a treat and the engine finally laid rest in the bay.





At that we was quite happy with the days work. Engine in and bolted and fitted well. quite happy with that. :thumb:

[ctunnicliffe01]

Next we sourced a alluminium rad . used a rst rad fan front mounted instead of the usual gsi stuff. Did make a difference tbh leaving quite alot of room behind the rad.



With the rad fitted the next thing was a oil cooler which we again sourced at a good price . Just a case of buying the pipe work from a local factors and setting about fitting.





At this point i decided to fit the cossie regulator for the throttles and get the front fuel lines sorted. I decided these would run into the car so set about it.

We used braided line into the car and round to the pump as you can see

A fse motorsport pump was aquired. THis can run to 180LPH so easily good enough


Things were rolling along. Alot of the main bits fitted inc engine. ect. still alot to do tho! the joys of projects.

[ctunnicliffe01]

An ITG filter was purchased for the throttles / eco tec strut brace for the front. The rear has a welded in strut brace / Some lowerd tie bar mounts were orderd very simlar to the ones chris astley sells (picture from site. will remove if requested) these are rose jointed.


For the exhaust i had a powerflow stainless custom system fitted. And used a SBD competition manifold.

After debating the wiper we went for a single wiper. Using a ax wiper motor. Had to make a few brackets but soon got it fitted.

as you can see it fits just fine.

Another little job sorted. Just a case of finding the wiring which makes it work. but overall a nice little mod.

There were a few more boring issues such as 2 new wings and painting them / Orderd a gsi front bumper and painted that along with the rear bumper.
Also we swapped over the airdale polycarbonate windows of the old shell .

[ctunnicliffe01]

The oil cooler sat perfect with the front bumper fitted. And things started to look good.



With everything getting close to the big startup date a gearshifter was neeeded. The normal linkage was crap. But Mr cp (rifle range motorsport) managed to come up with a direct linkage to the gearbox. More direct and much better gear change this way. The shifter was made from a cav shifter housing and a few extra bits. the pivot has to be reversed which meant i could just fit the shifter straight up.



Thanks to cp the troublesome gear linkage was sorted.

[ctunnicliffe01]

Wheels were needed next. Bigruss came to the rescue and flogged me some of his RL7's . Cheers big man. I got them powder coated up and coverd with Eagle f1 rubber.


The front gsi bumper was fitted and the standard mk2 rear. Both were put on quick release pins and dezus fastners. Just to make life easier if they ever need to be removed. The wheels were fitted to the car and the car then had its first clean of for months lol!
Manta mirrrors were purchased from A. Bishop which were a huge improvement on the dtm cups i had.
And k7 racing leads were purchased. i think there 10mm leads ' good stuff!
Also sourced a matching bailey catch tank to make things look nicer.







Came up well after a good clean up. Starting to look the part slowly but surely.!

[ctunnicliffe01]

Has for the interior. well what interior. lol!
Not much to say. No heater / no carpet / no rooflining / no rear seats.
ALtho i did purchase 2 corbeau revolution buckets for the front



Sparco steering wheel with a spacer to bring it away from the dash were purchased. And that was really it for the interior

So by this point im starting to get itchy knackers. i want to start it. ect ect. After making sure all the oil / water levels were fine i consulted stu on the map to make sure it would ok to be started on it. We were happy it was ok so time to get it started . Then problems struck. A real bad oil leak. Turned out it was the oil pump. Seems it had warped or the sealing surface was knackerd. so changed that and put it back together again! lol! Oh the pain!

Anyhow once we got it going again holy feck did it sound rather slutty. Real nice raw sounding. Bought a smile after months of winter graft and problems. But the car ran like a pig ' was in need of a proper map ect. but i was over the moon that my work was actually working!

The next part was find a rolling road and get it booked it. More fun was to follow on this trip lol!
After a bit of looking about Jam sport of northants was reccomended. So after a few calls it was all booked in. The car had only had a few miles put on it but was so much in need of a map we decided to cut the run in a bit short and get it down there. The drive down to northants was the first real test for the car. And it seemed to go down well. Once we got there met up with the owner 'jamie' And another jamsport worker 'Mark broster' 2 great guys and know what there on about. ANyhow let the games commence. Jamie started running the car up ' full map from scratch ' But after a few hours a oil leak became apparant. Then it spilt its guts all over jams rollers (oh dear) I thought here we go.! After inspecting seemed the sump bolts had undone themselves (probably due to being brand new and the engine doing very few miles) no chance to scrutineer it. Anyhow after all the problems id have previously i decided to leave it with jam for them to sort in there own time. Just made no sense taking it home to bring back another day.

[ctunnicliffe01]

Anyhow after mucho scratching my bollocks and head i got a call from mark telling me the car had been repaired and fully mapped. ecu updated ect . Thank the lord!

While it was there we had the full map ' diff carrier replaced ' gearbox oil replaced with some proper spec oil for the plate diff' sump gaskets replaced and some other bits. the next question of course. what power has it made.

the result was


214bhp @ 6618 rpm / 173lb ft torque . I was quite happy tbh. It was quite a gain on the carbs i previously had. But then some bad news came as i noted earlier in the thread. I left the cream injectors on ' Forgot to replace with my yellows. The creams had reached there cycle during mapping so timing was backed of a bit . if id been using yellows we could have expected around 225 to 230bhp. But these things come to try ya. I could have cried. But on the other hand i was happy it was sorted and it drove totally mad on the way home. Couldnt resist the odd blip up the motorway.

Anyone needing a RR session or mapping i highly reccomend these guys. No bull**** talk ect. Just down to earth. So if you like dreaming not the place for ya

So with engine purring and the car all in 1 peice i was a happy chappy. Well not quite. 215bhp these days is small compared to many let owners. (striaght line quarters) On a track im sure ill be happy to give away alot of bhp and still be there or there abouts. But purely for the odd quarter mile i fancied a bit of extra Hump! Sooooo!!!!! along came




One wizards of noz nitrous kit. with minimax controller /
11/ Lb Polished bottle with valve and pressure gauge/ all the lines and fittings/ jets / ect. everything to make it work. The kit is not yet currently fitted due to winter months and xmas being imminent. But after xmas it should be fitted and ready to use hopefully.
Hoping to use 100bhp shot but depends on a few things.

[ctunnicliffe01]

Following the purchase of the nitrous ive tried my look on several sets of fibreglass doors but not had any luck yet.
Ive got a fibreglass boot lid waiting to be fitted. And also a bonnet will be orderd early new year.



Ive since aquired the add on for the epas so i can get the power steering up and running. heres a few peeks at the unit.

[KeithRobinson]

Just sat and read the whole thing, superb car you've built chris!

Keith

[RobJenko]

wow! hope to see it at a few shows/track days next year! looks fantastic matey, well done.

[Drizz]

Good lord you got some kit there!

[Benn]

Amasing read,
love the car to bits dude,

looks great!

[Grim Reaper]

that is awsome...very nice build

[irmycorsa]

how did you centre the fiat discs?