Differential Oil

Fitted the drive shafts which have now sealed the differential. As the standard fill point is difficult to access, I have used the uprated breather as the fill point, fitted a funnel and tubing in to place and then left the oil to feed in to the diff. The filling took a good few hours but eventually all the new oil drained in to the diff. Will fit a longer breather tube vented to atmosphere and coupled the the chassis.

Hubs and Brakes

Fitted the hubs and brakes. Packed all bearings and pushed grease in to all possible spaces to ensure that they are fully covered. Pressed the bearing dust covers in to place and then packed with more grease. Fitted the hubs and then fixed with hub nuts.

Assembled and fitted the brake discs and callipers. Drilled a holes in the bodywork to allow the brake hoses to pass through, will need to get some grommets for a better finish where the hose passes through the body.

Wiring #2

Tidied up the wiring and fitted the kill switch, solenoid and fuse rail to the carbon fibre under the scuttle on the drivers side. Fitted the carbon panel to the passenger side with tiger seal and rivets. Mounted the ECU, CAN bus interface and relays to the panel. Tidied and tie wrapped the cables in place. The relays for the MBE ECU are tie wrapped to the loom.

Wired a separate relay and cabling for the 044 pump, this is needed as the pump draws 15.5A at full load current. The relay and cable is rated for 30A and is fed directly from the main isolator switch. The relay has an integral fuse on the load side to offer circuit protection, this will be fused at 20A.

Coolant System #1

Started to put together the coolant system, finally received all of the parts for the Mocal Laminova Oil cooler. Started positioning parts and fitted the electric fuel pump and speed control module along with the oil cooler and the Radtec Motorsport radiator. Need to fit the exhaust to see what clearance there will be for the coolant pipes as they run under the exhaust area.

Fuel and Oil Pressure Sensors

Fitted the oil and fuel pressure sensors. I made up my own connections based around -3 fittings and decided to use some coloured braided hose for a change to add a little more colour to the engine bay. The pressure sensors need to be mounted remotely to avoid early failure of the transducer due to excessive vibration.

As i have only 4 inputs on the Dash 2 I will connect the oil pressure to the MBE and the fuel pressure to the Dash 2. On the Dash 2 I will also connect the gear position, fuel level and oil temperature. The oil pressure, engine RPM, vehicle speed, water temp, intake air temp and various other values will then be displayed on the Dash 2 via CAN bus.

Wiring #1

Spent a day with Gary from Autosparks based in Harrogate. Gary is a top man and he arrived at my house at 8am and put in a full day wiring he car. He fitted the MBE loom to the engine, new Lucas starter and wiring, immobiliser and the MNR loom. He then grafted the looms together with a high level of competency and attention to detail. The end result is a real tidy job and a finish that would have taken me three times as long to achieve.

Battery Positioning

After looking at various options on positioning the battery the choices seemed to be: in the passenger footwell, above the rear diff, in the engine bay, under the scuttle or mounted on the scuttle panel.

As I didn't want to reduce the passenger footwell space any more or to mount the battery above the diff as it is too close to he fuel tank and unfortunately there was no room in the scuttle area I ended up choosing the engine bay area on the off side chassis rail.

I made a template, then riveted and tiger sealed the plate in to place. Then I bolted the battery bracket in to place using m6 fixings.

As there was space I also fixed the regulator in the same area, as the regulator needs to be mounted on metal to help dissipate heat and carbon fibre is not ideal for this. Will tidy cables later.

Scuttle Fit and Dasboard

Leon took on the task of mounting the switches and cutting the slots for he steering column. He made up templates and then cut out the holes with he Dremmel. He also cut the fixing holes for the Race Technology Dash 2 using the template provided.

Centre Tunnel

When I ordered the kit from MNR I was advised by Leon to specify the tunnel cover to come uncut to allow a neater finish. It would seem that when the MNR is fitted with an electric reverse motor the centre tunnel Is raised about 50mm compared to one without, with the cover uncut this allows shaping to achieve a perfect fit.

Leon dropped by yesterday to give me a hand, while I was working on finishing off some other jobs he cut and fitted the tunnel cover and scuttle panel for me. The fit of the centre tunnel is spot on.

Oil System #1

Started work on the oil system. Plan to connect the dry sump tank system with braided hoses and -12 fittings. Again bought the components from Torques and opted for black fittings again. Must say I'm impressed with the price, quality and availability from them. Made off the first -12 oil hose to connect the oil tank to the pickup in the bottom of he dry sump.

For the oil cooler I'm going to install a Mocal Laminova oil cooler that uses the coolant to cool the oil via a heat exchanger core within the unit. Using the Laminova means that I don't need to mount the cooler at the front which leaves space for an intercooler if I decide to go that way in the future. The Laminova is on order but unfortunately Mocal are waiting for -12 fittings.

Fixed the oil tank to a plate of aluminium and then bolted in to place. Fitted foam insulation strip to stop the tank vibrating against the engine and the chassis rail. Cleaned out the tank, the fitted the top half and baffles.

Fuel System #2

Finished off the fuel system. Mounted the standard MNR pump on the lower chassis rail, made a P clamp from a length of aluminium strip and mounted on the chassis rail. Fitted a 10mm fuel hose from he tank to the pump inlet then an 8mm fuel hose from the outlet to the inlet of the 044 pump, the -6 connections for the rest of the fuel system. Need to order some 16mm p clips to replace the temporary tie wraps holding the fuel pipe in place.

Mounted the fuel pressure regulator in the engine bay and fixed it to a chassis rail near the return from the fuel rail. Made a short hose between the rail and regulator. Still need to fit the fuel pressure sensor to allow monitoring of fuel pressure on the Dash 2, will set to alarm if the pressure drops too low during use and to avoid possible engine damage.