[nova16sv]

bloody hell drew... your nuts, haha.
dont yank on it too hard, it might snap off

good carbon skills tho, you could probably work for a racing team, doing stuff like that.

have you had this wagon out on track yet ?

 

[mr drew]

If I need to do any handbrake turns I have the hydraulic though the first time I pulled on the carbon lever I did put on my heaviest leather welding glove, just in case..
Unfortunately I haven't had it on track since last year's shakedown at blyton.

 

[mr drew]

Cant really get a good picture of the handbrake but its fitted and works..

Untrimmed carbon parts for the oil cooler mount/duct

The weight of the aluminium...

versus carbon

The carbon parts are much stiffer.

Assembled and ready to be fitted back on the car

and fitted..

There's probably not much of a weight saving compared to how the oil coolers were mounted, even with the shorter hose runs, but the weight is lower down and the ducting should make the whole cooling package a little more efficient.

 

[cav turbo ben]

Cracking build matey, might pick your brains at somepoint to help improve my race car and help reduce some weight out of mine within my regs.

 

[mr drew]

Thanks, always willing to chat about this stuff.

 

[mr drew]

Crappy lock down and winter meen I havent been doing much except for some CAD drawings for parts I need making and cant do myself. More on those when I have physical parts!

What I have been doing the last few weeka is prepping the cam belt cover for carbonising, the standard design of clips and what not doesn't lend itself to replication so I'm using the standard back as the basis of a pattern and the front parts will be made from scratch. The standard set weighs a little over 700g, I should be able to half that...I think

gelcoated

First layer of glass on

Mould finished

Whilst I was waiting for the resin to cure I decided to lighten the damper reservoir brackets, no idea why..

before

after

6 grams total saving, for the pair. Now I think about it I probably have some aluminium screws laying around that could replace the steel ones and save another 6 grams.

Original, if slightly tatty and chopped about cover

roughly trimmed rear, not a bad saving when you consider..

That compared to the original it is 'full depth'...

Retrieved my engine block over the weekend and continued trimming the back cover.

Here I set up a laser cross level that was parallel with the bottom of the block then used the vertical line to trim the front true, you can see the cut edge on the right of the image is green where the laser catches it on the way past.

As I left it, I'm now waiting for a delivery of pulleys and a water pump so I can finish trimming where the idlers fit and then start on the front parts of the cover.

 

[ayresyy]

Amazing work as usual !

How much does it cost roughly to make your own carbon replacement parts?

 

[mr drew]

Amazing work as usual !

How much does it cost roughly to make your own carbon replacement parts?

Very roughly the mould materials will be £100 per square metre. The product will somewhere around the same.

 

[mr drew]

I had a little play in the steering rack so ordered up a recon unit and replaced it, wont bother with any pictures , its just a rack and not even a corsa one so it wouldnt help anybody. Anyway, Once fitted I got out the scales and the strings..

and did a full geometry set/check, 0.5 deg camber on the rear, 1 deg on the front and 2mm toe out at both ends. Unfortunately our scales were right on the limit so I couldnt corner weight the car. Total weight was 932kg with 10kg fuel on board. 615.4 KG on the front axle, 313.6KG on the rear.

I've also done a little more work on the pattern for the lower timing belt cover.

 

[mr drew]

Finished the mould for the lower timing belt cover.

Made a cover

Original.

Not a bad weight saving

a lot of trimming and test fitting

When I fitted the top front idler pulley and then tried to fit the cover I realised I'd made the cover a bit too slimline by literally two millimeters! So, I removed the standard bolt.

and fitted a low line hex

problem sorted.
I also ordered some standoffs to allow me to bolt the front cover on, but I'm going to have to make some replacements as they weigh 17grams each, not exactly light.
And to finish a couple of pictures with the cover and cam sensor bolted in so i can start on the top section.

 

[mr drew]

Got some more done with the timing covers, didnt take pictures of the pattern and mould making, but its the same as everything else!
Top cover roughly trimmed.

When you make the patterns they have to have a draft on them ie, they are wider at the back than the front otherwise they wont come out of the mould, I've slightly overdone it on this part so rather than starting again i've put some 1mm thick foam on the inside edge to seal the gap, it doesnt look as bad in person as it does in the photo.

Just need to add fasteners

Original set weighed

New set, a 400g saving isnt bad

 

[mr drew]

Managed to get on the lathe and whittle up some spacers.

Fitted them

And bolted everything on.

 

[mr drew]

So, I was finally in the mood to swaping the timing belt covers today.

A couple of before picks.

Whilst it was all in pieces I cut the excess material from the engine mount that I presume is used to locate the engine at the factory.

Only another 50 odd grams but every little helps.
All fitted without issue.

 

[AidyM]

Hi Drew, I have just tried replying to your PM but apparently I can't reply until I contribute some more. Mint!
If you want to PM me your number and we can arrange something that way.Probably have the maxi on the road again by the time the site lets me respond lol.

 

[mr drew]

Finally an update. Literally the day after my last update I went down with the covid which knocked me out for two weeks, then work crap and christmas means I havent done much, however the last few weekends I got back on it..

The rear undertray I've been using was an off the shelf item that was thick fibreglass and didnt really fit and I have to run a large aluminium tray to reach from the suspension beam to the undertray which made suspension checks and adjustments a pain, so, off with the tray and out with the power tools.

added an extension to the front, the 'skid plates' give it some shape and will have foam embedded in them to increase stifness of the finished tray, also added two ' diffuser tunnels' at the sides which will do nothing but will look trick.

Adding lots of filler to get the radiuses in the corners etc

and the first coat of primer applied.

It will probably need another four coats before I can start flatting it to the final finish.

 

[mr drew]

Now the weather has finally warmed up, a bit, I've made the mould for the undertray

and started on a cover for the fuel tank. First step is to create an offset mould off the boot floor so i covered the area in 1mm thick wax.

then made a splash mould

So I could make a collar that fit the floor perfectly and then started building the rest of the cover.

 

[Coopy]

😮😮😮😮

 

[mr drew]

A little more work completed on the tank cover pattern.

Then we stripped the aluminium undertray off of the back of the car. It bridged the gap from the rear seat back to the old fibreglass undertray so the piece that was in the way of suspension adjustments was chopped off.

and the new longer, lighter, undertray fitted, it needs new fasteners and its a impossible to get a good picture of but here you go.

Total weight saving around 2.8kgs, but more importantly I can get to the rear suspension much easier now for adjustments.

 

[Coopy]

Nice