Had to be done!


Anyway, that seemed to fit so nicely just by the inlet manifold it seemed a shame not to use it:



However, the more we looked at the space in the bellhousing, the more we wondered...so we bit the bullet, chopped the new front mount for the gearbox back out, took the angle grinder to the bellhousing, and started moving things again...

Bellhousing, meet angle grinder, angle grinder, meet bellhousing.
And bring your friend TIG welder...



Redid the engine and gearbox mounts, which required even more frame surgery:





And as a comparison to where the old engine was, this is the old engine cage:

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Oh it gets better
Having had enough of chopping out old bits of the car, we decided to make more shiny new bits instead, and everyone loves a shiny exhaust, no?



It took quite a while to get the lengths and routing all right, there's about 2 weeks of evening work in this, even though most of it was sorted by the first two nights, tweaking and altering after that/finishing it off took a while!





As the gears are fairly wide in the van transaxle (haven't fitted that shorter gearset yet, needs lots of fettling to make the syncro's work with it), the lengths are set to bolster the bottom end and midrange torque rather than outright peak power.











That should be enough shiny exhaust pictures to keep anyone satisfied for a while.

And before you give me some stick over the welding, it's all secondhand tube, so it wasn't the cleanest thing to work with, and we couldn't be arsed with purging old tube, it's water tight so it'll do
Excuse book page #3, paragraph #8.

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- Bespoke rollcages/additions/adjustments. Half cages right up to complete custom spaceframes - MSA/FIA spec, CDS, ROPT, T45, etc - PM me
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Custom-made polybushes available - need an odd size or fitment? - anything from batch work to one-off pieces.

I hope you're doing a proper job, sod working on that when it's been running

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need a part number? get on here - http://public.servicebox.peugeot.com

Bring on the Trumpets.

I was going to say, given what a bas**rd stainless manifolds are to make that the welding all looks pretty good.

________________________________________

R H Davey Welding Supplies. I sell new and used welding equipment in the Hampshire area. I take on welding jobs in the evenings, ally casting repairs are one of my specialities but I can weld pretty much anything. PM me with your requirements.

Some of my services: (See my for sale threads)
Engine mount/chassis repair
Solid Beam Mounts BACK IN PRODUCTION
Harness bars

Was that dry sump from a bloke in the midlands - just noticed the RED on it? Race Engine Developments?

I'll be honest, the one thing that didn't seem to be missing at curborough that time was power...

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Nothing to see here

Was it incredibly slooooow to arrive? Tried to do some work for them once. Was like pulling teeth. Out of a chicken.

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Nothing to see here

Onwards....after fitting the supercharger on some temporary brackets, and tack welding the silencer up for it's final position, it quickly became obvious that our oversized 165 amp alternator wasn't going to fit in the stock location.
In fact, it wasn't going to fit anywhere we could get the belt drive on it, short of putting a gear on it and running it off the flywheel teeth...which resulted in a slightly poor solution of driving the alternator on a seperate belt that's also driven from the supercharger pulley, this might result in too much belt slip/wear, but it was the easiest way around it.
Well, the easiest way around it would be to fit one of the new starter/alternator all-in-one units, but the aftermarket versions of those at the minute bring a tear to the eye and a squeak to the voice when the invoice appears, so that was a no-go.
Try it and see method

Did a couple of beer-mat sketches after mounting everything of the old bodywork vs roughly where the new will need to sit:





I, err, well, everyone knows big wing = racecar, and it kinda works:




Old rear with Mazda:



Possible new rear end:



And 2 minutes of sketching later....



But everyone knows, if some is good, more is better:




One problem with moving the engine and gearbox so far forward, is it didn't leave much room around the radiator/fan setup, so we ended up chopping those brackets off and moving the radiator up and forwards, not ideal, but cooling takes priority over CoG here:





You can also see how much ground clearance/departure angle we've gained, as that's the old engine cage, which used to have the topmost bar horizontal.

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- Bespoke rollcages/additions/adjustments. Half cages right up to complete custom spaceframes - MSA/FIA spec, CDS, ROPT, T45, etc - PM me
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Custom-made polybushes available - need an odd size or fitment? - anything from batch work to one-off pieces.

Will this thing do wheelies?

________________________________________

R H Davey Welding Supplies. I sell new and used welding equipment in the Hampshire area. I take on welding jobs in the evenings, ally casting repairs are one of my specialities but I can weld pretty much anything. PM me with your requirements.

Some of my services: (See my for sale threads)
Engine mount/chassis repair
Solid Beam Mounts BACK IN PRODUCTION
Harness bars

I'll, errr, think about those.

You may want to change your dealer though, that's weird s**t.

________________________________________

- Bespoke rollcages/additions/adjustments. Half cages right up to complete custom spaceframes - MSA/FIA spec, CDS, ROPT, T45, etc - PM me
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Custom-made polybushes available - need an odd size or fitment? - anything from batch work to one-off pieces.

Putting the exhaust out of the side/roof with 4 pipes would have made things a lot easier

________________________________________

- Bespoke rollcages/additions/adjustments. Half cages right up to complete custom spaceframes - MSA/FIA spec, CDS, ROPT, T45, etc - PM me
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Custom-made polybushes available - need an odd size or fitment? - anything from batch work to one-off pieces.

I'm not too sure the scrutineer would like it.

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- Bespoke rollcages/additions/adjustments. Half cages right up to complete custom spaceframes - MSA/FIA spec, CDS, ROPT, T45, etc - PM me
Email me!
Custom-made polybushes available - need an odd size or fitment? - anything from batch work to one-off pieces.

What, you don't mean it'll break down do you?
Never happen, it's always been 100% reliable (at being on a trailer before the event finishes)

Okay, another update before you all get bored of seeing it

Bit more of the plumbing and mountings were finished, yes, I know, the outlet on the charger and the inlet to the plenum aren't great, but it's a case of make something quickly that will work well enough for those pieces, as they can be easily upgraded later on when we have more time spare:



You can also see the fun we're having with the alternator...



It was starting to look a bit tight in there even with the old cage on, so we cracked on with making a new one (against, out of T45 tube - you never know if someone is going to give you a love tap up the rear...)
As the dry sump has lots of clearance in the middle between the fittings, we went a little more substantial with the under-engine guards this time, as we were forever beating the old ally sump plates back straight after events, it's only thin-wall tube so it weighs very little and gives a lot more stiffness behind the sump guards:



Oh yes, we mocked up the silencer there too, just about fits :hehe:

And the new engine cage from the side:



It shows pretty well how much extra clearance we've gained from moving the transaxle/engine/shortening the bellhousing and tilting the transmission slightly (now there's no torsion housing tube in the way).
Unfortunate side effect is the centre of gravity is going to be higher at the rear of course, but needs must.

________________________________________

- Bespoke rollcages/additions/adjustments. Half cages right up to complete custom spaceframes - MSA/FIA spec, CDS, ROPT, T45, etc - PM me
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Custom-made polybushes available - need an odd size or fitment? - anything from batch work to one-off pieces.

Old dashboard got ripped out along with the wiring, to make room for some additional instruments and a new dash:





Still needs a rub down with some sandpaper and a brushed finish creating to keep reflections down, plus waiting on a few more electrical/gauge bits, but:

________________________________________

- Bespoke rollcages/additions/adjustments. Half cages right up to complete custom spaceframes - MSA/FIA spec, CDS, ROPT, T45, etc - PM me
Email me!
Custom-made polybushes available - need an odd size or fitment? - anything from batch work to one-off pieces.