Initially we had the idea to hide a jumpstart connector behing the fuel tank door. This way we should be able to start the car without opening the hood in case of problems with the battery. Since we chose to use a big gel battery this option was abandoned.
Instead we use this location to hide the air lock from the fuel tank. Putting this at the rear of the car was not really an option because there is too much vacuum so the fuel is being drained from the tank…
Sometimes a solution can be very simple, unfortunately most manufacturers don’t aim to please! Basically this story had ended but our 45 degree rotating disc to place the TPS sensor onto the actuator wasn’t state of the art production. We thought it would be so simple that we wouldn’t even have to bother our mechanical guru Nick but nothing could be further from the truth.
To avoid having to admit that I had been premature about the simplicity of the installation I thought I could remake the axle of the actuator and rotate the cogwheel 45 degrees. Apparently this was more complicated than we thought and manufacturer Jenvey wasn’t really up to it. Another even more simple solution would be that instead of having 2 fixation points for the sensor they would foresee multiple fixation points but yet again our UK manufacturer wasn’t feeling up to it. Strange actually when you think of it because the easier to use the more they would be able to sell them. Because there’s was no collaboration from the UK we were forced to become creative yet once more and we moved the sensor to the back and made a joining piece with a 45 degree twist. Unfortunate but couldn’t be helped. Plus side is that we now can use an P&G sensor.
To keep a space smelling like a summer breeze or morning dew is child’s play, that is if you watch the TV adds. Ambi Pur and associates might do the trick and keep the cockpit of the R-Box fresh but spending an entire rally in a pine or lavender scent is a bit too much. We’re in favor of keeping all smelly favors and pollution out of the car to begin with, minor detail is that we still have a gaping wound in the tunnel so that we’re able to stir the shift shaft sufficiently to find the right gear. It doesn’t seem too complicated to keep it air, dust and waterproof. Yet, this silly little box has been driving us to the edge of insanity. Valium came to mind more than once.
Was it a moment of weakness, lack of space, it’s capricious shape or something else, I don’t know but after some crafts version 1 finally ended up in the bin. The creation of version 2 took at least as much time but luckily it was usable. No spare room, definitely not the easiest to install but feasible and especially hermetically sealed. Only the rubber stocking , previously belonging to an MKII Escort, is a bit oversized in outer diameter and is slightly rubbing against the top of the tunnel. So now we’re looking for a more fitting variant. The housing of the cable for the rear gear has also been a real challenge but we managed.
So eventually we got the job done but if we ever decide to start building a second body we need to think about all those things in the earliest stage possible. You know what they say.. live and learn…
Due to some wrong decisions in the beginning of the project , it causes some headache to keep the gearbox in its place.
We had welded 2 cylindric shaped tubes onto the body to keep the gear box in its place. Because we hadn’t decided yet which gearbox we were going to install it was almost impossible to define the final position.
At a temporary moment of insanity we decided to place them horizontally instead of vertically which was obviously so wrong…
Furthermore we complicated things due to the fact that we wanted adjustable supports to align the height of the drive shaft.
Eventually we succeeded but this is something we will definitively change but not at this moment because welding is not acceptable due to painting at this stage.
We machined some purple Powerflex bushes on a lathe to connect the gearbox and the supports in a way that the gear box remains in suspension but it is a very rigid construction. Even Dirk thinks its overkill
As usual, when we’re not convinced 100 %, the air filter installment kept running through Dirk’s mind night after night like a bad ghost. Knowing there’s a prehistory , water still scares us immensely, so big puddles or even extreme big puddles forcing us to quit is no longer an option. To prevent this from happening we quickly came up with a solution by adding an extra relatively small filter ( 38 mm diameter ) in the intake pipe. Under normal circumstances this is very restrictive as opposed to the big intake underneath and will barely let any air pass through. In case a huge amount of water feels like entering the system, it will take less effort to suck in air through the small filter then to suck in the whole water column.
The breathing issue needed some more thinking. I recall that during the DTM era they once used a filter stocking which was placed in the funnel leading to the airbox. With this knowledge and supported by our curved intake pipe the idea came to mind to have a cone shaped mousse filter developed. The cone has 2 reasons: 1 we need sufficient filter surface. 2 we need to be able to follow exactly the shape of the intake pipe. This will create enough space between the sides of the pipe and the filter so we’ll never suffer from “shortness of breath”.
We made a custom muffler as mentioned in a previous topic. It will be located on the spot of the original petrol tank. The exhaust housing just needed some cutting and bending. The only thing left to do was to catch a sheep and put its wool in the stainless steel housing. We don’t know how it is going to sound like but we already like the “looks”…
The new fuel rails arrived from Sweden. 2 pieces ; one rail for each row of 4 injectors We use the original location for one rail and placed an extra rail on the carbon airbox.
We gathered some parts to be coated. Gear box supports, sensorwheel for the launch control, rod for the gearbox, shock absorber bolts and a new rod for the pedal balance bar. We hope this will be the final shipment.
Our mechanical guru “Nick” created a very nice model to mount the pedal sensor. Very compact and very well detailled. The aluminium parts were anodized so they look like the r’eal Tilton OEM stuff.
It would have been easier if we bought a standard pedal sensor from any make of car but this is in most cases a pedal assembly which we strongly dislike. We don’t like plactic pedals and it is ethetically not done to use it in combination with the Tilton pedal box.
This meant that we had to create/invent something. As usually we used the well known and very solid P+G sensors. These P+G sensors are hall based and have a very long life cycle. In an earlier topic we described what we had to do to be able to use these sensors.
We planned to weld the exhaust this weekend but unfortunately the parts did not arrive at the R-Box workshop in time.
The exhaust collector is going to stay for antother week at Zirotec in the UK . Zirotec installed some new machinery and production was delayed for a week.
The rest of the parts ( steanless steel pipes , curves,..) didn’t make it either.
The only thing ready are the parts for the rear muffler that have been plasma cut in Belgium. It might seem a crazy idea to make a muffler ourselves while the market is flooded with aftermarket parts. We searched the web for a suitable 2 in 2 out muffler but did not find one that matches the dimensions we need.
