5/17/06

Progress has been made on various systems on the car.

The clutch hydraulics are in and functioning. I made a new line out of two off the shelf brake lines, one with metric fittings and one with British fittings. It is the darker greenish/gray line in the picture. I cut off one end of each line and used one to make a new line with a metric fitting on one end and a British fitting on the other and re-flared the line. The British fitting goes into the clutch master cylinder and the metric goes into a braided steel flex line that connects to the Mazda factory hard line going to the slave cylinder.

The original Mazda slave cylinder bolted to the bell housing and showing the hard line that connects to the flex line coming from the clutch master cylinder.

Once the trans and engine were in place, I installed the neutral and reverse switches. I had to cut this hole in the sheet metal on the driver side of the tunnel to install this switch. It sticks out of the hole about 3/8" so I will have to make a dimpled cover for it before re-installing the carpet.

This is the only irreversable change I have made to the chassis so far. I expect to drill and rivit a few places to attach brackets for the clutch plumbing and other things like wiring harnesses. I will also have to alter the shape of the retangular hole for the Ford ECU in the passenger footwell to accomodate a seal for the Link wiring harness. All other changes have been made to the Mazda drivetrain.

These are coolant adaptors made by the same machinist who did the work on the transmission and motor mounts. I wanted to use larger water outlets to improve the flow to the radiator and back to the engine. There will be fittings for the heater hoses and cooling water for the turbo, oil cooler and throttle body added.

The finished adaptor mounted on the rear of the engine. The brass fitting supplies hot water to the heater. The thermostat resides inside this one. Hot water will be routed along the cool side of the engine to the Caterham triple pass race radiator.

The race radiator mounted on the chassis. This is a used radiator I bought from Rocky Mountain Sportcars Inc., the local Caterham dealer. It had sprung a leak and I had the leak epoxied at a radiator shop. Not the radiator I was planning on as there is room in the nose for a larger one. However, I was quoted $1,000 for a custom radiator with fan. So I will see if this one will handle the thermal load, if not, I will have to look at custom radiators again.

Rear view of the radiator showing the electric fan.

Nose cone view. I plan on fabricating a shroud to make sure all the air going in the nose goes through the radiator as there is a lot of space around the radiator.

The front adaptor. The brass fitting is the heater return to the system and the main outlet is cool water coming from the radiator.

Front view of the front adaptor showing the fitting for the return of hot water from the oil cooler, throttle body and turbo bearing.

Test fitting of turbo and exhaust manifold. This shows the clearance problem with the turbo exhaust outlet and the steering shaft. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the excellent cast outlet from Flyin Miata is going to work as it bends in towards the engine and right through the steering shaft. I plan to get one anyway and see if it can be modified to work, otherwise, I have a blank turbo flange and will have the rest of it fabricated.

Rear view of the turbo and manifold. I have a Mazda factory crossover pipe that I will modify for use between the compressor outlet and the throttle body. The first iteration of the car will run without an intercooler at about 6 - 8 psi boost. This should give about 170 - 180 RWHP. Next winter's project will be to add the intercooler and up the boost to around 12 psi which should make a solid 230 RWHP. A few years down the road when 230 RWHP starts to seem tame, I want to install a 2.0 liter stroker engine good for about 340 RWHP. Should make for an insane power to weight ratio (around 3.8 lb/hp) with a 1,300 lb car.

Front view of the turbo and manifold. No clearance problems here. The turbo is a Garrett GT28 with ball bearing center section for fast spoolup.

Is there room for an intercooler in there?

The start of this project is here