MOT time looming again

28 Feb 2010
The turbo buggy was becoming a slow process again as the realisation of the fact that the engine would not fit was a major blow as I had two major hurdles to overcome before the engine could go back in.

I decided that the best option was to take the turbo modifications off and revert to the 1600 basic engine in an attempt to run the engine in and get the MOT ticket . This was annoying as I new it was going to be another year of modifications. The major of these was a 3" body lift kit. I had been asking on several websites about the Bugpack kit but had been told that it was not as strong as a box section version. This meant that I had to have one made which would take some time to be fabricated. The good thing was at least my engine would be run in prior to the fitment of the turbo. It would also allow me to fit an electric fuel pump in front of fitting the turbo and check the systems work.

After reading a for sale post open eBay for a turbo Dell IDF carburetor I was surprised to see that if it was jetted back it would still function well as an aspirated version. With this in mind I decided I needed some new jets 28 vents, 9164.4 emulsions, 112 mains, 180 air, 52 idle. Fortunately my trust box of Dell tuning parts came up with most of the parts including the 52 idle jets but no 112 main jets. I started removing the turbo and exhaust from the engine and started to clean up and paint the previous exhaust I had used. the Carplan VHT paint was fantastic and bought the exhaust up like new. I hoped the new main jets could be located soon but would have to wait to source the parts. I found the new jets and continued to paint up the rusty exhaust. There would be some fitting issues possibly with the braketry but this would have to be sorted out after fitting. I hoped my new body mount would not be obstructing the old exhaust as it had been modeled to fit the drag exhaust. The fitting or changing of the exhaust from the turbo collector was undead a problem The no3 cylinder J tube was tight on the Heavy Duty Gearbox cradle and at first would not move. This eventually came free with the help of a friend John and the next problem was also evident. The new body support I had built was right in line with this new exhaust. I decided as as I was trying to have the 3" body lift kit made that this would have to change anyway as the whole body would rise 3" making the support arms the wrong length and angle. I removed them and refitted the drag link bars that now fitted. The bracket that held the oil filter was also directly in the path of the new exhaust. I made a new bracket that placed the external oil filter lower by using the old one i had manufactured as a template. The resulting bracket can be seen left. With the bracket made I could now refit the oil filter . I now needed to start work on the electronics to run my electric fuel pump. The electric design had been given to me by a VIZI member and I was intended to fit the new electric pump I had bought with a return flow to the tank ready for the turbo to go back in.

Winter and a frozen wet garage

25 January 2010
The winter that usually gives amiss in the United Kingdom hit with vengeance this January and made road conditions treacherous and impassable for days. I also discovered that my garage leaked and this would possibly mean another garage move in the near future.

My buggies body work issues where still very much in my mind as my engine still had not been fitted. I had had a lot of discussions about re fibreglassing the rear body work to raise it up enough for the engine turbo components. I also was considering my other options and had found a 3" Empi body lift kit which would raise all of the body work up 3" and this also seemed an option as I was needing more headroom for a hood. It was going to be some time before temperatures in the garage made working possible and I decided to see if I could locate the Empi body lift kit. It seems as if it is only available in America so importing it would take four weeks. With this said a decision would have to be made soon.

Fitting the turbo lump to the strengthened gearbox - part one

12th December 2009.
The installation of my turbo engine back into my buggy was something that I had long awaited. I had had the engine with some parts mounted for the turbo sometime ago but it was going to be interesting fitting the completed engine and my spirits were high as I new with it fitted I only had to plumb the fuel up to the engine through the new pump to get the engine fired up.

From the onset this proved more difficult than I had underestimated the extra height the pressure caps took and the cross air intake ducting had took the engine height much higher. I decided I would have to jack the rear of the car up and allow the engine to go under the rear boot area. This soon became difficult and I realised that the caps and engine would not fit under the engine compartment. In addition there seemed to be some interference with the ceramic drag exhaust and the CSP Torque bar. The exhaust J tube went right through where the torque bar anchored. My own bar that I had made up to support the rear seat area fitted perfectly.

I decided that I would have to remove the CSP Torque bar diagonal triangulations to the frame horns and remove the pressure ducting and caps so that the engine would fit and the Clarence issues could be seen. The engine fitted perfectly after these items had been removed. I had enlisted some friends to help me lift the engine.

With the engine fitted the top of the carburetors and the clearance can be seen in the photograph to the left. It can bee seen that the wooden block and the lower tear of the back was obstructing the pressure caps from going on. It was clear I would need to do some re modeling of the rear to allow for these parts to be fitted. In addition I knew that the CSP Torque bar would never fit with these J tubes I wondered if different tubes could be made up which would not interfere with the CSP Torque bar.
I was gutted my turbo engine refit was slowly turning into a disaster and a new list of jobs to complete. I started looking at the rear body work on an attempt to figure how to modify the rear of the buggy to allow the components to be fitted. I new I would have to sketch out some ideas for this before starting to cut the rear end and re-fibreglass it to shape. I tried to see whether I could modify the rear of the chassis by moving up the rear wing. This looked like the most easiest and best option and would mean with careful cutting the approximate shape could still be captured giving enough clearance underneath for the new turbo pressure ducting system. I would have to remove the engine and cut the fibreglass before re-bonding it in place. |The photo above shows the approximate difference with the area moved up. You must ignore the lover light clusters which would not be there after the wings were highered. I used a photo to see how it would look.

Body work and Gel coating the rear seating area

18th November 2009
Since making my rear body support I had noticed that the rear seating area that it attached to on the left side was not allowing it to sit straight. This was mainly caused by the fibre glass seat area work that I had undertaken in Mad March affairs with the CSP Torque bar installation and rear body modification but not been able to get access to. Luckily with the engine still out I was able to dismantle the body support and the torque bar to give access to the area under the seat. Where I had moulded the shape on cardboard sections there had been some seapage underneath that was obstructing the off side body support bracket. I used a rotary disk sanding attachment for my drill with an 80 grade disk. This cut the area back so that it was in line with the bottom panel. The process was slow going but rewarding as it gradually came back in shape.

The next problem was going to be how to remove the gel coat from the areas where I wanted to fibre glass were they were very close to the chassis or suspension. I had to think about this as I didn't want to spend a lot of money buying a Black and Decker rotary file. I remembered using a carpet layers knife in the past and set out to see if I could find one to see if I could cut the old gel coat off in slices.

When I cleaned up the left hand side I noticed that the bracket came back into orientation. I had to fill the holes I had made to mount it originally, I cut the surounding area down with the rotary sander from both sides and re fibre glassed from both sides to make a strong bond and re drill to bolt to its new location.

I was going to try to get my grey gel coat in a jar from the last place I got it made up a small fibre glass company. Unfortunately I believed they had moved on so a new search was on to find another company that would be so reciprocating. The red I thought would only come from one source as its not used commercially or so I thought. Luckily a search using the Yell search engine provided me with a surprise that the company Castle Mouldings I had purchased the original gel coat was still trading and would happily still sell me gel coat. This was great news and the gel coat was applied using a brush to the new fibre glassed panels. The red was quite a bright colour and hoped that it would merge with the existing coat overtime as the grey had done some years previously. I used about 5% catalyst with the gel coat as it was quite cold . I mixed up the grey gel coat and coated the underneath of the seat area. Some of the underneath was not accessable and I new I would have to attend to this at a later date. After considering the areas I had gel coated I decided to cover the whole rear seating area. The fibre glassing work that had been done on the underneath of the body whilst on the car had not been done as neatly as I would have liked with the body removed. I am hoping that at some point in the future this can be re addressed.

I also managed to sell my twin manifolds and linkage kit I had bought prior to deciding to go turbo. This was going to be helpful as I hoped it would allow me to buy an inter cooler for the engine. The search was now also on to find one. I was not sure after searching through the classifieds online whether this was going to be easy.

Manufacturing a buggy rear body mount

29th Oct 2009.

I knew that with the increased engine performance I was adding to the buggy that I would have to strengthen the FibreFab body panels as compared to modern equivalents the body thickness was a lot thinner and lighter. As a result of this I knew the biggest area without support had to be the rear seat area. Since I had cut this to facilitate the CSP Torque bar I knew that it was in desperate need of something sturdy to hold it up. Previously I had fitted a heavy duty cradle and this had a flattened bottom section that looked like it was made to take a 30mm tubular cross beam. With this and some galvanised farm gate hinges I set out to make a strong body rear mount that would fix to the gearbox cradle.

I bought the galvanised gate hinges from a local farm store they were pretty inexpensive too under £10.00 for the pair. I bought some 20mm x 1.5mm x 90mm bolts to hold them together from my local bolt specialist. The 30mm x 30mm x 2mm tubular section on the other hand was something that I was finding hard to locate. My stock piles had long since gone with several moves , eventually I found a suitable item a towing bar that was made from galvanised steel this was exactly what I was looking for. I cut a section of the 30mm x 30mm x 2mm tube 40cm long and held it against the gearbox cradle to mark the locations of the bolt holes.

I packed the farm gate hinges with three zinc plated washers. I used a nyloc nut to secure it all together and cut the end of the bolt to shorten it to 15mm longer than the face of the nyloc nut. I repeated this twice. When I bought the farm gate hinges I bought more nuts than I needed . The reason for this was that I was going to have to grind some of the nuts down so that they were square and would fit inside the inch tube. Once the nut would fit inside the tube four holes were drilled in the 30mm x 30mm x 2mm tubing so that they could be puddle welded. It was immediately apparent that the gate hinges would need more than one support in the 30mm x 30mm x 2mm tube so I started about making three more square washers from the hexagon nuts. This was made easier by using a vice clamp to hold the nut whilst using an angle grinder to flatten the surface. The next problem that I realised was going to be positioning the two nuts in the tube prior to welding and also allow them to thread up OK. I decided the only way to achieve this was going to be to have to drill the locating holes in the 30mm x 30mm x 2mm tube first. This meant putting the nuts onto the thread and spacing them and positioning them on top of the 30mm x 30mm x 2mm tube so that the position for the puddle weld holes could be marked and drilled. With the holes cross drilled the nuts could be reinserted into the tube. The thread of the gate hinge was then used to position them and the nut and the tube was drilled to get a better puddle weld that would penetrate into the nut. The puddle welds were then done on opposing sides so as to keep the tube square. This was repeated for the other opposing sides to secure the two nuts. The same process was done for the other end of the 30mm x 30mm x 2mm tube making the base for the body mount ready to fit. The farm gate hinges would just screw in so that they would provide an angled threaded section up towards the rear seated area. I originally thought that 10mm bolts would hold it but the weight and size of the holes in the cradle has made me consider 12mm or 14mm bolts instead. The 14mm holes were drilled after the picture was taken.

I made the diagonal risers from 25mm x25mm x 2mm square tubing slightly smaller than the 30mm x 30mm x 2mm as its was the material remaining from the towing bar kit. I welded the nuts onto the end of the bar to make an upriser that would reach just below the bodywork. I also left part of the hook that attached the bar to the car so that the nut could be welded firmly onto it I cut half circle sections into one face of the nut so that it would fit the remnant bar and give a good contact area for welding. I felt this should be made of lighter material as the double skin I had used for the base was heavy but strong. I was intending to make a stainless steel plate that would attach this to the body work, with bolts that went straight through the body work.This would need to have a 'U' shaped upstand fabricated onto the bracket to receive the bar. Having bolted on the bars It was soon visible that this would not be the answer.

I contemplated using the sections of larger tubing to make a boltable on end plate that would have the advantage that it could be removed and welded up easily. I was not also sure whether to use an angle iron across the back of the buggy seat area so as to tie the two diagonal uprights together and make a solid section to which things on the seat area could be bolted through too.

I decided after a considerable time looking around to buy two galvanised joist hangers these were fairly heavy duty and I had realised that if I removed one side of the hanger I would have a corner piece that would give me a large enough area to weld on a piece of larger diameter tubing that would slip over the diagonal uprights. This in turn could be bolted together making a strong joint that would give a large mounting area on each side of the body work. The first job was to remove the side of the joist hanger these had been spot welded together so initially I tried drilling them out. I managed to drill deep enough to just remove the weld. The remaining weld could be removed with a hammer and chisel. For a strange unknown reason the second bracket seemed to come apart more easily. The two opposing corner brackets can be seen pictured left without the diagonal bars welded in place. I would have to source some 30mm x 30mm x 2mm square tubing to make the diagonal guides as I only had one piece remaining from the tow bar.

In addition the area the engine was going to come into was becoming quite crowded and I needed to ensure that none of my new pipe work interfered with the engine cylinders or exhaust system. I decided to make up a wooden template that would hang off the gearbox final drive so that the position of the new bars could be determined and then placed on the back of the engine to see if the new metal work impinged on any of the engine before the brackets were welded up. The images show that the wooden template was made from thin fence slats cut down to 35mm wide. The drop from my final drive to the top of the bracket was 200mm. The narrowest point was 23mm from the centre point. I drilled the ends to make the angle adjustable and set it using a gauge to be the same as the angle coming of the bottom bracket. You can see that the bracket misses the exhaust. Phew! With this all checked and the constraints off the engine taken into account the brackets could be welded. It is important to note that different exhausts have different profiles and may extend into this area in different ways. Ensure you check your exhaust configuration in a similar manner otherwise you may not be able to refit your engine..

With both sides removed I trimmed off the surplus material and placed the corner piece on the buggy and slid on the larger diameter tubing so that I could mark the angle that this needed to be welded. This was then repeated to mark the opposite bracket. Both brackets were then removed and the galvanised surface removed for the welding to adhere. They were then welded taking care not to warp the steel in the process. The Galvanized coating was quite difficult to weld even with the surface removed so it was vital an area along the join had to be ground out.

The corner brackets where then cleaned up on a wire brush and the welds thoroughly checked. they were then mounted on the buggy and checked for position. It can be seen from the picture right that some changes had to be made to the adjustment screws to get the angles the same on each side. Originally the left bracket kicked up a little because of the difference in angle. Suitable mounting points were determined and marked so both brackets could be removed so that they could be drilled. 4 holes were drilled into the side plate big enough to take a 10mm bolt. One of the holes went right through the diagonal upright securing it to the body and mount. The parts were re assembled with 10mm bolts. Suitable large washers were also found to stop the body work chafing on the bolt heads. Ideally the items should be re zinc coated. The finished mount was very strong and could take a heavier load in the rear seating area. It also eliminated the flex that is inherent in fibre glass body panels.

The next step would be to ensure the gel coats were added to the newly fibre glassed areas prior to the engine going back in.

Turbo Baby and unscheduled garage move.

19th October 2009.
My first turbo engine was looking pretty good. I had managed to fit all of the pressure inlets and pressure pipe work to connect the turbo to the carburetors. Luckily I had a length of tube that I could use to connect up the last bit of the inlet to the turbo as really I wanted to fit a Charge cooler or Intercooler but also wanted to get my engine in an running.

I needed to locate a new fuel pump to power the engine as I had removed the mechanical pump so that I could control the fuel flow and not end up with the engine pulling fuel and self feeding itself. I started looking for a Renault 5 turbo fuel pump and regulator. During this time I was made aware of an issue with my tenancy on my garage. This resulted in moving to another garage. The move was a lot easier than I had anticipated as I had many friends help and want to thank them them for thier support. In addition I had managed to buy a towing bar that allowed me to easily tow the car without an engine in it.

I had been also researching different types of charge cooling including the RS500 Pace charge cooler kit and had came across some new ideas using paraffin wax in a charge cooler to keep the cooler temperatures down: http://autospeed.com/cms/title_The-Fusion-Intercooler/A_110772/article.html . This is loosely named the Fusion Intercooler and seems an interesting article. However I could find no further detail of anyone trying this on a VW engine so have put the whole subject of Charge coolers on hold. The original article was written in 2003 some six years ago. The concept seems good but there are no links on the Internet stating it actually works in practice. I am considering trying it out but need a suitable charge cooler which are not cheap.