"old hillclimb car FREE!!!" - '78 Fiesta + Honda V-4 swap (Page 2 of 3)

Just about spit coffee out all over the monitor.

Keep up the good work and you'll be down in the "epic builds" section

Oh hi. I heard my name called?

I've been around the block in a bike engined car and seen a few things. Maybe I can pitch a couple ideas.

Short chains are bad news. They overheat because of the aforementioned duty cycle issue causes too many FPS (flexes per second). They heat up, eject the grease under the o-rings, and then really get hot, loosing their hardness and failing in cool ways. Avoid. I made Geo Metro Gnome 1.0 (80 link chain) survive by having an oiling tube dump oil on the chain the whole race but it was indeed a mess. Is there a way that you can go straight from the bike coutershaft to the car trans input shaft? Make some sort of double ended splined adaptor and skip the chain? If you can't do that then use the largest sprockets you can to reduce the rotation of the individual chain links.

While it's intuitive to use a bigass chain it's a mistake unless it's really long because what governs duty cycle is the number of links not the length. 120 links was enough to have chains last more than a weekend on Geo Metro Gnome 2.0. We used a 530 Oring Chain and no oiler on GMG 2.0. Yes smaller chains are weaker so you'll need to stack them. But two 420 chains in parallel will last longer than a short 530. If you can't have over 100 links then go to smaller chain(s).

This calculation totally changes if you can submerge the chain in oil. From what I can see you have a chance at that and it would allow you to use fewer links plus a non oring chain like drag bikes use that are really strong. Properly oiled the chain will not wear at all after break in.

As for motorcycle clutches in a car application, we never had any issue with our CBR1000rr clutches and believe me we HAMMERED on those engines mercilessly for hours on end. Surprisingly the transmissions also survived horrifying abuse. 12k rpm clutchless shifts for literally days. The only time we ever lost engines where radiator failure causing overheating, and running one out of oil due to a leak.

While I am pretty out of the Lemons game I'm still a patron of the motorcycle engine powered arts.

Opened up engine #1 to see what was knocking. (and to steal a dowel pin for engine #2)

Then a cracked insulator to boot.
No wonder it didn't want to idle.

Thinking back to the seller's words, "The Honda shop said it was starting to tick so I stopped riding it, but it was just out on the highway no problem." 

Also got some work done on steering and brakes.

The steering rack had a tear in one of the boots, so it was filled with water. (sensing a theme here)
I didn't take a picture of the poo it left all over the floor when we took the boots off.
Took a good long time to get the steering rack cleaned out and re-greased.

More parts that can't be left to chance.

Cleaned off and re-greased. Just waiting on a couple parts before reassembling.
These calipers were probably made for a period BMW or Fiat. There weren't any Ford parts in DBA's catalog until the 90's Mustang.

If anyone knows where to get caliber rebuild kits for old DBA (Disk Brakes Australia) calipers, please holler.

All this that has nothing to do with putting the engine in the car.

On that subject...

The working plan hit a snag when we started test-fitting with more parts in the picture. Clearance wasn't going to work. Thankfully we had only fabricated a couple small parts, so it wasn't that painful to go back to the drawing board.

The current strategy (which seems obvious in hindsight) is to just get get engine as close to the transmission as possible.

Clamping and shimming everything square in order to take the one measurement that would really suck to get wrong.

Hope this is right.

Time for an update.

Brakes are on.

Still missing some hardware.

This thing holds the axle stub in place, it still needs some reinforcement.
Some of those welds need to be redone.
I am not good at welding.

This shaft slips over the input shaft of the transmission.

Sawing the bike's u-joint in half, preserving enough of the i.d. to center a stub.

So this extends the engine's output shaft.

Something like this. I shoulda used gears... next time.

There's still plenty left to do to get that chain box enclosed and holding oil.

Hoping to have wheels on the ground by the end of July.

I had no idea how much time on this project would be spent on not being able to find a tool. Doing things in all weird orders on account of "Maybe in the course of X I will find my magnet stick and then I can continue Y which is way more pressing, alas."

In the meantime, ordered a cage from RCC, bought new single-piece safety chairs and a fire system.

These chairs are safer than what I was going to use, which Pagel informed me were "buggy seats."

Safety was at the expense of orangeness, though.

The engine spins the wheels when turned by hand, and vise versa. Nothing binding or scraping, but I'm kind of terrified about what this all looks like spinning at 8K rpm. The chain is very short, but the chain box is oil tight.  Had to go to the steel yard to get some beefier scraps to make the chain box out of.

*gulp*

At least the chain easy to change, and since it's short I can make a lot of them from the one 8ft section I have.

Put in a NOS Bendix brake master cylinder, brakes are done. (in theory)

Damn. This thing is sick.

i'm so excited to see this thing IRL. think you're going to make it to the ridge in october?

There's always the exo-radiator

This was the only way to bleed the air out of the clutch without pulling the engine out, because honda skipped the bleeder valve and because the slave cylinder is now buried. Got some of the air, not all of it. Engine has to come out again.

Otherwise, it's holding coolant and oil, the shifter is hooked up, throttle is rigged, and all the suspension is attached.

http://www.sndup.net/p678  (firststart.mp3)

Today I hack-sawed the exhaust off a prius (legally), for its 1-1/2" pipe and muffler.
The speeduino still needs to be tuned but it seems to work good.

Waiting a couple days before calling to pester him again, but yeah.

In the meantime, wired up the estop.

Holding the green button energizes the contactor (unless the e-stop has been pressed).
If the ignition is on, it latches.
The diode between nodes (1) and (4) is so that pressing start with they key out does not send power to the accessory circuit.
Video testing it out: https://i.imgur.com/UouIgha.mp4

Still need to:
- Rubber grommet for starter cable where it goes through the body.
- Covers for all hot terminals. (I'm considering a peanut butter jar to go around the contactor) 
- Battery strap, cable attachment (after cage is in)
- Add a flyback diode across the contactor coil.
- Labeling.

Hooo boy, hopefully rcc sends that stuff soon. it's gonna be down to the wire. If you get to the final days and need help thrashing on the car I'm in the Olympia area.