Dax Cobra Build

Saturday, 4 May 2013

Radiator Pipes Fitted

Right then, the last bit of radiator pipe came today, I had to wait a couple of weeks for a 45deg reducing elbow from Merlin but its all in now. It took us a while to work out what the route was from the sketches we made but eventually got there. The lower section is currently dangling and needs supporting on a bracket somewhere as it is all quite heavy and one of the elbows is creased due to being bent slightly too much but should be ok.

Exhausts Continued

Right. Passenger side all seems to fit so we painted them but haven't gone for final fit yet. I don't want the exhaust on just yet as it massively restricts access to the clutch slave and I still need to put the oil temp sensor in the sump. A bracket still needs making for the tail end of the sidepipe. I got some mini exhaust mounts off ebay for a quid each for this.

trial fit passenger side pipe for making a bracket

trail fit of headers prior to paint

The drivers side was a bit harder. Dave Brookes advised me that one of the headers might be slightly misaligned so I put them in the collector off the car to have a look.

There is a bit of misalignment but when I put it all together on the car its nothing that won't be cancelled out by the gasket and some high temp copper RTV. I'l be using copper RTV on all the slip fit joints rather than the regular hardening gasket paste.

Yet another job has become apparent though, the rear most header (cyl 8) gets in the way of my main battery cable. I made the cable over-long as I didn't know exactly where the starter motor would be. I made a loop with the spare cable to take up any movement of the engine. I think I can re-route the cable without having to shorten it as the ring terminals are pretty massive and need a special tool to crimp them.

I will also fabricate a heat shield for the starter motor before the exhaust goes on.

So, exhaust status as of this evening. Passenger side fits together and needs hole in the body adjusting ever so slightly. Bracket needed for sidepipe. Driver's side: need to move steering column up 1 inch and move starter cable + make heat shield. Need to paint drivers side collectors/header.

Sunday, 21 April 2013

Exhausts

Right then. Picked up exhausts from Dave Brookes and sent them off to get sand blasted ready for painting. I used a local company - "Sandblast It" who are based out of a local farm, excellent service and very quick.

First job was to trial fit headers, the spacing of the holes in the flanges meant that the heads of the bolts wouldnt clear the headers but luckily Max was on hand to do some re-shaping with a hammer. I marked roughly the point where the pipes come through the body on the passenger side and cut a slot, then slowly enlarged it with a dremel until I could get the collector on.

The instructions in the Dax "build manual" (HAHAHAHAHAHA!) say to leave a healthy fingers width between the sidepipe and the body work so this determines how much the collectors have to be pushed onto the headers. Top tip from Dave Brookes, make sure the headers are unequal lengths and its a lot easier to get the collector on rather than trying to line up 4 pipes at once. Leave the headers slack on the cylinder head bolts to give wiggle room.

Toilet roll and kitchen paper roll centres are extremely useful for cooling pipe and exhaust related jobs :)

Everything in place ,just need to widen the hole in the body slightly and tidy up the edge, then paint the pipes. Couple of other things became apparent on the passenger side, I'll have to slightly relocate the clutch hydraulic line as where I've got it p-clipped to the chassis rail it is only 5mm away from one of the headers. Not the end of the world though.

The drivers side is a different story, the header from the rearmost cylinder (number 8 I think?) on its journey to the collector goes right through the steering column, which will have to move up a bit. That's next weeks job.