funnily enough, it saved my skin the other day looking totally standard, i came home at about 3 o clock in the morning and the police were sat there in layby, they heard me coming with the re-circ valve chatter and all, but i crawled past them at 30mph, they looked and pointed and they both shook their heads as if to say "it must have been somebody else'

Were you in Fareham town centre last week by any chance? I swear I saw your car...

Yes I saw you too on Osborne road.

Ahhh! I did think to myself, that's a very nice Felly! Sorry I didn't let you turn, usual post shift angry drive home

Right I've been having a good hard look at the outstanding teething problems and how I can solve them, the obvious answer is that it need to move the engine back into the engine bay towards the bulkhead as far a I can get it so I can make the driveshafts as straight as possible, I'm sure this is the root of a lot of the minor bugs I'm having with this, I've not pulled this car off the road just yet but I'm going to start working on it again very soon, first and foremost I need to get the new turbo fitted up first because that is the limiting factor on how far back the engine can go. I might have to chop a small piece out of the exhaust downpipe too to give a few extra mm of clearance, as it stands there's only about 30mm of clearance between the steering rack and the downpipe at it's closest point and if the engine is moving back that gap is getting smaller.. Ive also figured out that I can sneak one side back without actually making anything, the top plate in the vibratechnics mount is offset one way, so I can just dismantle it, flip it upside down then bolt it all back together, also need to get in touch with some laser cutting companies too the one I used to go to has closed up now, bad tines

this lot of info might not mean much to many but it makes sense in my mind, all these little tweaks here and there, it's the nature of the beast as they say.

Still not had a chance to put any of this stuff into action yet, been quite busy, although the engine has developed a unusual ticking noise, it sounds like the noise a dodgy hydraulic lifter would make but much quieter, it's got me stumped, I can't figure out where the noise is coming from.

I think ived decided the lift the entire engine out rather than fiddling about trying to change the turbo in limited space.

Sounds fun to me to I just snapped up pinkskuds felicia as a run around till funs sorted needs some tlc tho sorted the bad cat and down pipe I believe its got hp sporting coilovers on it :-) goes well....

The other thing I've observed by strapping a gopro camera underneath the car is that this part

is flexing when A high amount of torque is applied to it, after all it was only designed for a 75bhp engine, when it gets a kick in the teeth from the big 20v engine it squirms about, it's only thin 1.5mm steel plate which is folded and welded to shape, so I'm either going to fabricate a new one or reinforce this one by adding spars to the outside... But like you say, it's important that this thing is perpendicular to the to the load applied to it, I don't know why I didn't think of this before tbh.

 

Hi Tom,

 

Did you get anywhere with your plans for the bottom mount?

 

I think I'm suffering from a similar problem.  I was going to replace the part with a rose-jointed link, but that will only work in controlling fore-aft movement - don't suppose you have the video you took of yours moving about do you?

 

cheers

 

James

alright jimbo

 

i think i have it on my computer at home, it was the 2 prongs that clamp around the curcular bush that were flexing badly, but to be fair on mine it is not perpendicular to the load applied, i haven't done it yet but i'm going to reinforce this part, i'll let you know when i get round to it :sun:

Massive thread!!!! What a power of work...

Well done man!

What brakes have you used up front?

Huge amount of work carried out by the looks of it, hope your pleased with yourself result looks a beaut!

wow just found this..   nice sleeper mate love it.   your attention to detail is spot on too

I love this motor, I find all your work fascinating. Keep up the good work.

Read through the whole thing, what an amazing build!

Well done sir!

do you think it's possible make a felicia or felicia sw awd with a haldex transmission and 20v engine? 

il like your project,

 

thanks response.

Wow. I can't believe it was last October that you got it on the road; I thought it was more like May! I absolutely love this - I really want to see it in the flesh sometime! 

It passed the mot first go again Norm.. Then I promptly went and smashed the sump, engine is out at the moment.

Whoops. Least a sump isn't too tricky to replace?

Maybe time for a shallow sump lol

This is properly cool, i'll have to keep an eye out for it as i'm near(ish) to the island.

She is hibernating still, engine still out.

Maybe some stiffer springs? (forget I spoke if you worked out the rate you need rather than fitting something and hoping), or an Octy 1 diesel undertray is light but tough, and will tend to make the car rise a bit rather than plough the sump pan into sticky up bits of road.

very nice! perfect 

drivers side vibratechnics mounting, i have modified the mounting by removing the upper part.

passenger side vibratechnics mounting, i completely dismantled it and flipped the black top late upsidedown so the mounting is offset towards the back, plus i bolted on my cnc made spacer, these 2 things together moves the engine back on the passenger side by approx 25mm

also i shortened the rear lower mounting hy chopping a section out and welding it back together.