3 February 2008
Session 224 - Exhaust continued
Spent a further three hours on the exhaust today, I know a long time for what had to be done but had to search for various items and make fit. For example, after the middle box the exhaust fits to two brackets on the chassis and here you need some rubber insulating pads to smooth out the vibration and allow the exaust to move to take up any movement from the engine under load. A tip here, from Halfords and exhaust suppliers you can get a rubber strip, purchase one of these and then cut two stips of 45mm long and drill a 8mm hole through the middle and thats perfect. The bit I had to find and as luck would have it on a Sunday afternoon! The local DIY shop had some; 8mm coach bolts 75mm long. Coach bolts are those bolts that have a square flank, this fits the hanging down mounting brackets for the pig noses to support the rear box secions.
View underneath from the rear on the left to the front on the right.
This picture showing a better view of the centre box to rear section. Middle of photo showing exhaust bracket with the rectangular piece of rubber made up. I was surprised how much the exhaust was spaced from the car floor, however there are cross members, differentials and fuel tank to clear.
Granted not the best picure, here you can see one of the rear boxes off to the right hand side in the photo.
Photo showing the exhaust exits at the rear. I have installed some Ripspeed chrome tips. The rear lower spoiler will conceal the back boxes, but I need to cut large holes out of it for the exhaust. I cannot wait to hear the music these pipes will make.
My next little project is to bite the bullet and cut the holes in my carbon fibre dash for the various switches. I have made some templates to help me decide where to place them. I am going for the gucci brushed aliminium illuminated switches, you can see two of these in front of the gear stick. Click on photo to show better view.
4 February 2008
Session 225 - exhaust adjustment
You probably detected I was not completely happy with my exhaust yesterday. I thought it stange that the rear section was so low. I had initially tried installing the rear section so the exhaust bracket was between the chassis bracket and the fllor panel but the width of the exhaust bracket was larger than the gap. I consulted the WSCC forum as I know a chap on there Barry who has installed an exhaust fabricated by the same company. Barry confirmed that I had installed it wrong. So tonight I decided to have a look at the issue and split the system apart from the middle box back. Knowing that the exhaust bracket must be installed as Barry said and common sense I decided to fettle the exhaust bracket. I actually had to cut off 3mm of each bracket to make it fit comfortably. I also made up some more rubber pads to space the exhaust up a little more, it just clears the rear cross member now just like it does everywhere else.
The alignment at the rear and the clearance is much better and it looks like the middle section will be almost parallel in the transmission tunnel rather than at a slight angle as before disadvantage of which is doing up those flange bolts is going to be even more difficult with definite loss of nukle skin! Starting to make sense now, the issue is that you have to reach the destination first, ie.the tips of the exhaust before you completely fit all the various sections. The tips are now level and much closer to the body, I do need to adjust the rear box straps to equalise the rubbers but that can be done later, its too cold and dark now.
I Normally leave this job to the weekend but I couldn't wait that long to find out.
Compare the difference, the left handside shows initial attachment. Right hand side as it is now, much better.
Next I installed the centre box and this was quite difficult with the three bolt flange affair as you cannot get into the tunnel to do up the top bolt. In the end I decided that I would do this bolt up with it toward mean to pull the flanges close together at this point and then turn around to place this bolt in the tunnel and then tighten up the two bolts on the bottom, that's the only way I could see to do it. Could have taken the carpet and opened up the tunnel inside the car but then I have the propshaft in the way!
Here's a picture of one of the pig noses and silencer strap, you can clearly see the coach bolt.
Now the rear looks better. Old position on the left, new position on the right.
Having trouble spotting the difference? Okay apart from the car being on axle stands on the latest picture. 1) The right hand side exhaust was slightly lower, now it is level and 2) The tips are a little closer to the body but I'll forgive you not noticing that and 3) The tips are more centrally located, again slight but I am much happier with it now. The bigget difference is more gorund clearance.
I lowered the car and took some measurements to the floor from the front and rear chassis rail to see how much the suspension has settle after adding some more weight, I think its actually made a difference of 5mm! Front is 160mm and rear is 170mm. The minimum ground clearance is 70mm, which is at the point where the centre of the exhaust is bolted underneath. In fact there's not enough clearance to get over the apex when my drive meets the pavement, almost but not quite, doh!
9 February 2008
Started populating my dash today. Not nice cutting loads of holes in carbon fibre, one little slip will cost dear. So utmost caution required. Step drill is king here. The hardest bit is cutting the slot for the Westfield self cancelling indicators. Self cancelling indcators are an upgrade, well I only want to cut the dash once. So today I cut holes for the fan over-ride switch, fog lamp switch, side lights, dipped and main beam, hazzard switch, horn, engine start, indicator switch and RT dash2 (oh yes I bought one!). I spent about four hours doing this. All I have left to do is the 4 menu select buttons for the dash2.
10 February 2008
Spent a further two hours this afternoon finishing off the dash. Also drilled seven holes for fixing to the scuttle.
Following photos showing the dash temporarily in place. Next will be the actual wiring of the switches.
The missing switch is for the fog lamp.
The fixing allen bolts are temporary, I am going to use black ones to match.
16 February 2008
Session 228 - Hazard switch and warning lamp
Now my illuminated gucci switches are installed I wanted to see what they looked like illuminated so I connected up an external power supply, boy they are bright. So I gave this some thought and decided that I would install resistors on the dash illumination supplies. After some experimentation I found that resisitors of 1Kohm took the edge off the brightness but I had a brain wave, why not make the switch illumination quite dim but then when the switch is on make is brighter, yep definitely going to do this. I experimented again and found that resistors of 4K7ohm equated to a nicely dim light LED for use when the side lights are on.
So tonight, well actually over the last couple of nights I have been thinking about the wiring up of the hazard switch and found a useful post on the WSCC faqs on this very topic. The standard westfield hazard switch is a totaly different variety and is actually a 60s toggle switch! Of course the complication with the hazard switch is that the LED must flast as well! So the principle is that the switch is softly illuminated when the side lights are switched on, no side lights do LED required but when the hazard switch is operated it has to flash at full brightness with the indicators. Well actually it flashes between full intensity and off when no side lights but between full intensity and dim when side lights are on, this is okay.
I worked out that I could achieve what I wanted with a 1 4K7 ohm resistor and four diodes some heat shrink tubing and automotive wire. A few people have asked me about this already so there no follows a series of photos and description.
Picture showing components, 1 resistor, 4 diodes (one missing in photo, after resistor), heat shrink tubing and connectors.
Don't even think of using a hobby crimper, get a proper one like in the photo, you will be thankful not having to fixing bad connectors in an installed loom! Always tin the wires with solder it make a bit difference to crimping otherwise the strands part and offer little physical resistance to being pulled apart.
When installing components if you use joiners rather than soldering direct then I always get as close to the component body as possible as this provides extra strength. Photo below showing an example with a diode. Another point is do for the higher current components not because you need them electrically but they have tihcker and stronger legs for installing in looms.
I always use heat shrink tubing over installed components, again offers strength, here's a completed example.
Here's a photo of the loom almost completed but showing the missing diode. I tested the loom on the bench and it passed but then whilst I was putting this one together I realized the without this diode in place the if the side lights were off and this switched on then current could feedback into the dash illumination circuit!
Here's the finished loom.
So as pictured connect the indicators up to the two tails on one end and the dash illumination feed is taken from any one of many orange/red wires that accompany all the connectors for switches and dials. Connect LED A to that on the switch. These switches of 2 sets of three contacts providing double pole switching for both normally open and normally closed. 1 is the common, 2 is normally open and 3 is nornally closed. So disconnect the old Westfield toggle switch and re-locate the following wires:
| Pin | Colour | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Light green/Pink (LGK 78) | Feed to flasher coil |
| 2 | Purple (P 25) | 12v permanent |
| 3 | Green (G 18) | 12v ignition |
| Pin | Colour | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Light green/Brown (LGN 75) | Blinking Feed from flasher ! |
| 2 | Brown ( what ever color you used) | Connect to loom shown above |
| 3 | Not connected | Not connected |
| Pin | Colour | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| A | Red (what ever colour you used) | Connect to loom shown above |
| B | Black from car loom | Ground |
| Designation | Connect to |
|---|---|
| LH indicator | Green/Red (GR 83) |
| RH Indicator | Green/White (GW 76) |
*The instructions for relocating the wires from the Westfield switch was taken from the FAQs off the WSCC forum here. The credit for modification of these instructions to include the combined dash illumination and warning light and design of the loom is all mine!
I have been asked by one person for a photo of the rear of the Westfield hazard switch to clarify the original pin designations so I have included this photo below in case it is useful for anyone else.
Westfield loom schematic can be found here. All my switch connections can be found here.
Below are some photos showing the operation of the loom prior to installing in the car.
Picture of soft illuminated button when side lights are on:
Next picture showing bright LED communicating that the switch is on!
I couldn't resist, here's a picture of real indicators hooked up with a make shift manually operated flasher unit, aka, switch, the red switch just above my hand! And yes I know that this is not actually a hazard swich, the real one actually uses a Red LED and has the correct symbol.
16 February 2008
Session 229 - Switch illumination
Much like my idea regarding the hazard switch illumination I want the switch to be dimly lit when side lights are on but when switch is turned on I want the LED to shine brightly!
So here it is. Going from top left to bottom, you have dash illumination feed from the red/orange of the car loom, then a 1N5408 diode, any one of this series 1N540x will do. This then feeds to the the LED. The diode in the middle stops the dash illumination from feeding the device but allows the device to feed the LED at full current. You then have the feed from the switch Pin 2 which switches on the device and also the LED! That's it in a nutshell.
At the bottom of the photo you see a relay, this particular loom is going to be one of the car light swiches, sidelights, dipped or main beam. I am unsure of the contact rating of the switch so I am taking precautions to protect if from high current as used in lighting.
There's more than one way to skin a cat and after assembling a couple of these looms somethings occuring to me, I am sort of designing as if it were a PCB! My next version will have the wires flowing in one direction with junctions and components placed so that there are all in line and can be taped up. I shall have a think tommorow when I make up some more looms.
17 February 2008
Spent four hours making up some more switch looms.
Like I said yesterday I gave some thought to the loom and here's the final version. I need to make one of these up for each illuminated switch! My bright idea starting to look a bit of a pain now! Photo showing the more compact version. I have actually made up five of these today.
with the heat shrink applied.
I have re-made the hazard loom so that it is based on the above that way all switch looms are generic and I have made modular.
Photo show all the loom pigtails with labels attached using westfield loom desginations for ease of identification later on!
I made some enquiries regarding the contact rating of the switches and apparently there are 10Amps. This means as a bare minimum I actually only need to use a relay for the engine start button as the start solenoid is likely to be around 20Amps the next highest current drain would be the main beams around 9Amps and then the hazzards at around 8Amps. Of course as these switches have two sets of contacts I could pair the contacts together then I would have an effective 20Amp switch!
23 February 2008
Session 231 - Dash almost transplanted to car!
Started a little later on this than I wanted to today, usual shopping chores etc. So I managed to finish off all the wiring to to the switches and checked all the wiring via an external power supply, seems in order.
Looks a bit complicated and this is just to cover the basics, imagine what a fully loaded tin top would look like! Actually probably not as complicated as this as they use CAN buses and control modules now. Starting to look heavy thought I'd weight the dash with all its bits installed, it only weights 1800grams. The black square things are self adhesive pads with cable tie points in.
The single relay you can see is for the engine start switch.
I started marrying up the switch loom to the car loom, picture below. The little black box you can see in front of the handbrake is my indicator module for the electronic cancellating indicators, a worth while investment.
Well that's another 4 hours work on the electrics. I have documented all the connections from the switch contacts to the loom here
24 February 2008
Session 232 - Dash wiring complete, well at least for now
Didn't think I'd get all this done today. Finished off connecting all my switches, dash2, indicators, hazards etc to the loom. Even installed my engine start switch and the relay. The only unconnected wire at the moment is the fan override switch. I have wrapped every unused connector in insulation tape and also taped up the connectors that I have used. I have not tided up the loom yet just pushed it back.I have checked and double checked quite a bit but I think unrealistic to assume that I will not get a single problem when I power up the loom so until it is proven it remains a mess in case I need to fix anything!
Anyway, seen this before but not with the wires connected!
Here's a short video of the installation.
Go to March 2008