akciddento

making progress

back as early as possible to RaceShack and get going...
after a slow morning of pottering on stuff waiting to attack it all I sort out some jobs like capping more pipes and investigating a leak in the right hand cylinder head jacket.. yes, it leaks... i've drained the coolant and if it's dry tomorrow i'll fill it full of silicone and hope for the best.

I realise that yesterday was a comedy of errors on my part... not only did i measure the oil drain wrong, I bust off a 4mm tap inside the hole in one of the manifolds i had just drilled, then i broke the needle nose pliers trying to get the drif out then i bent the centre punch trying to get that out ... i also put the engine brace bar on back to front (it's only a few degrees different but it twists the engine mounts if its on the wrong way.. so all off again (and it's a stupid tedious job...)

after lunch Kevo and I went to the lasercutters to collect the flanges....
the laser cutter is amazing.. it's a HUGE piece of equipment with a bed and overhead gantries and the laser unit on an arm. we wathed it cut out the flanges we wanted from 10mm sheet steel. Guestimating the cutting speed of the thing I don't think i'm exaggerating that it was cutting somewhere near 10m per minute... amazing to watch. the flanges louie designed were great.

after dropping three of the injectors into the bottom of the sonic cleaner... i fished out the throttle body and here it is with the base flange fitted up..

then i was away with the plasma cutter hacking up pipes and getting metalwork ready to line up the hotside of the turbo and get the throttlebody flange mated to the plenum chamber (again the original VW digijet injection one)

here's the plenum chamber with a hole cut to accept an angles 60mm stainless steel pipe...

The plasma cutter works by passing a current down a stream of ionised air and vaporising the metal at the shortest path to earth... it's amazing to use but a little messy until you get the hang of it.

the next thing was to start to tack weld the exhaust manifold & plenum chamber etc... I was actually starting to get excited now, i can see it starting to take shape... there's loads more to do (injection, electrics, fuel, chargecooler etc etc) but it's actually happening, at last !

the exhaust manifold is finished and has the turbo input flange in the right place..
utilising as much as possible of the existing 2.1 system has made it very simple..

and here it is in place (but not braced yet, hence the axlestand to keep it steady)

and here it is from above, you can just make out the curved oil return pipe and see the new exhaust manifold and also the plenum chamber with the throttle body ( and blue pressure hose) test fitted.

more tomorrow!

it's petrolheads club night in the evening, will we get it running to put on the rollers in time ???

off we go...

everything ready to go and packed and off up the M5 to Raceshack in Tewkesbury...

first job, cup of tea then over to the lasercutters to collect the flanges and collets that louie had designed. unfortunately only the collets for the fuel injection are ready, the others will be done tomorrow..

and they fit ! the mechanical injectors from the Bosch K-jetronic we're going to be using sits into the old 2.1 digijet injection manifolds nicely... one or two things to figure to make them seal properly but it's looking promising..

got on with some other small jobs in advance of a few things coming together. removing the old carb and manifoild and fule pump, installed the fule pump blockoff, capped some pipes etc..

some logistical thinking precipitated a move of the turbos intended location from one side of the engine bay to the other. from bottom left by number 4 cylinder to upwards above number two cylinder and higher up. this allows us to fabricate a large gravity oil drain for the turbo with less hassle and also seems to make the top side plumbing slightly simpler too....
so with the spare oil filler neck (thanks dave !) we fab in a section of oil drain pipe for the turbo...

kevo did the welding on this and made a lovely job of it... unfortunately (and i wasn't going to type this but...) after measuring it and kevo marking a pilot dimple for drilling the hole I decide to move it up about 10mm...

but succeeded in moving it down 10mm so that when the rear engine brake bar was replaced it fouled the drain. after some surgery the pipe was cut and sectioned and rejoined looking like john wayne bobbet frankenpipe...

BUT it works!

a long and exhausting day... a welcome bath and more tomorrow!

'twas the night before christmas...

will glennon from the BBC in bristol came down this afternoon to go through a load of stuff. will did a shoot at the portrait exhibition i did about drag racing (petrolheads) and is keen toi add more material and make a short film... no idea if anything will come of it but it's always nice to be asked... anyhoo, he's coming up to raceshack wednesday/thursday with a camera crew and also planning to come to bugjam to see the first outing of the bus...

and talking of the bus, it's into the workshop tomorrow to start stripping down the bus and starting the turbo install at RaceShack...

i spent much of the afternoon laying out all the bits in a nice pattern on the lawn and then off round town playing sillybuggersin the panelvan... i think there must be something wrong with the tyres because it kept ending up going sideways around roundabouts ;)

the bus is all packed with the 'turbo in a bag' kit and with a lot of luck should be back home again thursday nighta after the petrolheads meet at Raceshack... if you'vce not been then coma along, if you have then we'll see you there !

www.raceshack.co.uk

shiny shiny !

the stainless steel pipe I ordered turned up today...
very shiny :)

2m of 50mm diameter and 2m of 60mm diameter...

this goes into the turbo hose setup to route the air from the airbox across and down to the turbo and then back up and into the intercooler/plenum chamber...

i think theres far too much but i'm sure that i can do interesting thinsg with anything left over :)

more bits...

all week i've been doing the last assembly of bits n pieces from all over the place...

from forge motorsport..

all the assorted clamps and some 25mm vacuum hose for the recirculating dump valve..

and another ebay special !

a badly painted/anodised adjustable boost controller. thsi goes in line before the dumpvalve/ wastegate actuator and let me wind up and down when it activates (in theory) let's see what happens when i get into the install next week...

more cutting!

used quicte a few grinding discs so far.....

:)

and made a nice big pile of scrap...

so i put it on ebay for sale and I've had quite a lot of interest....

:)

I was a little disappointed with the amount of weight that i removed but with a target of removing 250KG i only need to find 250 places to get rid of 1kg or 100 places to remove 2.5kg...

i had been uhmming and ahhing about the cabmats as i like the cab looking and feeling comfortable and stock but i bit the bullet and dragged out the cabmat and the rubber seat base surrounds and ^%&%(!!!!! me it all weighs about 8KG !
(and i've got it on ebay for sale to help the bus budget !)

onward and upward!

so far the bus cost £80, I found over £5 in change in it plus a stanley knife and half a small socket set.

out of it I've sold

the heater matrix
the dashboard
the exhaust
the distributor
the coil
wing mirrors
bumpers
seat belts
seats

and a load of other stuff and I think i've made a profit of about £100 and still have the van! how cool is that ?!

bump n grind...

been having a busy few days attacking thigs on the bus...
I finally bit the bullet and got the grinder to the interior of the bus.

and managed to hack out a total of 18kg of skinning and reinforcement from the rear of the bus. The sliding door, the rear door and the rear load area.

I was hoping it was going to be much more, especially considering the effort but i haven't touched any of the reinforcement and crash protection around the cab and haven't cut the floor out. I think these two areas have lots of additional weight. As far as i've been able to calculate 3mm mild steel is 25kg per m2 so the floor in the back of the bus is about 75kg. if I could afford the aluminium sheet to replace it with as ali sheet is only about 8kg per m2 - ie if i cut the floor out and replaced witth aluminium sheet i could save about 50kg in one go. If i attacked the engine bed and rear wheel arches i could save even more....

The sliding door is now a little bit comedy... I eventually cut out all the internal braces. When it's closed it's still stiff because of the shape of the panels and the swage line but when it's open it wobbles like a jelly...

I alos found out how to get around the tired gas struts that hold the back door up when you open it.... Cut the whole interior of the door out and the gas struts now open the door quicker than a quick thing!

Ollie came over on saturday and started installing the clocks and gauges... now it's starting to look right :)

splurge !

My son Louie finished the last technical drawings of the pieces we need laser cut - a flange for the bottom of the throttle body and the flange for the hot side of the turbo. These two and the two collets to hold in the k jet injectors and we'll be rocking. They went to the machinists and should be done in 5 days. I also ordered all the hose clamps I need and another T piece adapter for the other side of the recirculating dump valve (YES it's true the bus wont do that chav 'whoosh' noise). Some more turbo hoses, in blue, and some other bits and bobs.
I set off across town to find the steel suppliers. I need to get some lengths of stainless steel tubing to make the runners in the turbo system. After driving round for about 45 minutes i realised that i couldn't remember how to get there or what they were called... doh.

so the next thing on the list... PrtoTyre in lawrence hill said they could do me a good deal on tyres for the BK racing rims but would need to order in nuts for the studs on the back. because the wheels are dual fit (5 x 100 or 5 x 112) the bolt holes are tiny and take special tapered bolts.... but they can't get them so i need to search the web to get some. they called them tuna bolts or is that tuner bolts.

i need to find a new clutch too.
the stock clutch won't survive the power the bus is planned to be making so i started ringing round trying to find a 228mm Kennedy stage2 Racing Clutch.

fat chance.

funnily enough there aren't that many VW transporter tuning shops in the uk...
so after find a few places that would order one in (lead time 3-5 weeks EEK!) i bit the bullet and phoned Kennedy direct in California and ordered one. The shipping was a bit hard on the wallet and i'll probably be clobbered by VAT and import tax but at least that's another bit of the jigsaw in place.
I'm still way under budget on the bus. I priced up teh correct cost of the Twisted Sanity Nitrous injection Kit and even with the smart Digital progressive nitrous controller I'll be under budget.

However...

If i buy tyres for the BK wheels I think i'll be over budget and I need to save money for contingency during the build up....

i need to go back to the spreadsheet and work out the costs again...

oh yes, and Conor at RaceShack was kind enough to email me through the data for Torque vs Rpm of the powerpull the bus did on the Dyno. I have a veru clever spreadsheet modelling program that will take all the data and let me run different scenarios and projections... Heh heh heh :)
(thankyou jimby ;) )

running forward to christmas

well it's been quite a day, the lovely blue samco turbo hoses turned up from demon-tweeks. apart from the one that was red - but i sent that back and asked for a blue one... i told conor and he called me a tart and a wuss for wanting all the pipes to be the same colour... i reckon that i ordered a blue one so i should get a blue one....

had a VERY fine time test assembling all the big components on the kitchen table, it ended up looking like a cross between sticklebricks and that weird game where you roll marbles around everywhere... lovely !

I've got a quietly excited feeling. pretty soon will be day of judgement and then it will all be done (with or without a huge amount of swearing and wringing of hands - only time will tell) I think i'm just looking forward to when i can stop talking about it and just do it....

at last !

I started out in the yard, stripping the exhaust off the panel van. I had reversed into Conor's trailer at raceshack last week and bent one of the flanges on the exhaust and it pops and bangs like a machine gun on the over run now. It Makes people in St. Pauls nervous ;). (if you know Bristol that will makes sense... if not then it probably won't - sorry that's not much of and explanation but - hey, there it is...) So off with the header and hit it a bit half heartedly with a hammer....

hubbs came up for the day from london so i put it all back together, not really done but back together nonetheless... of course, it still backfires like some kind of mobile rocket launcher...



in the afternoon we rolled over to see arthur at MAD and drop off the t25 seats i've been accumulating in the garden... The back bench seat was an ebay find that i picked up in devon months ago for £5 and it;s been cluttering up the bus, house, garden and then house again ever since. I't doesn't fit in to the panel van because there aren't teh mounting points in the back for it but i still can't seem to get rid of it... it's that 'it might be useful oneday ' syndrome...

ollies bus was over there too having some welding sorted out....

when we got back i got this picture...

i can't tell you where from but it feels like an ambition is complete at last...

someone got an akciddento sticker onto a police van...

look who we found!

driving back from vw action we got passed by nicola and conor and family from Raceshack...
they followed us back to akciddento towers for some tea and conor left a happy man, proud owner of a new intercooler...

flamingoes

and in their natural habitat after we got home on sunday

:)

with thanks the reformed Rod Jeremy-Price - pornstar extraordinaire and dolphin killer- and Dude - the secret mohican skater psychologist...

Rod and dude were running a stall sellling old coke coolers and other retro stuff for Julian. It's amazing the things you find out about people after a few drinks...

;) i'll keep schtum about the rest, for now....

vw actionwards

off to vw action, pack up early and get all ready, i'm djing on the radio there tonight, 3am - 4am (closedown)
Brian has organised a temporary radio license, like last year and i've got the closedown slot. I played the same slot but in saturday night last year and thoroughly enjoyed it.. sat in a portacabin behind the main stage om my todd watching the dawn comeup... fantastic!



The big problem was staying awake until three.. by 1 am all was getting quiet and people were huddled round barbecues in the darkness. the weather was COLD, well, cold for the middle of june...



i went down to the hut early and caught the end of loggys set, mark and twinks were there too... i took over just after three and played out a random mix flash and the pan, daft punk, laurie anderson, bb king, earl 16, two new tracks by lazyboy that are definately worth checking out and a host of other junk interspersed with snippets of speeches and sound fx and stuff...
I finished a bit after four with the lark ascending by ralph vaughan williams...

i felt like i could have played on for another few hours but sadly the radio technician came to shut the station down at about 4.15...

wheel!

after a bit af a scare with the BK racing wheels -
after cleaning and rattle canning them it turned out tha one had a BIG crack in the rim...

they were an ebay special so...
... i rang around and talked to the distributors etc and it turns out the wheel is discontinued and none are available... so that's that... i called the people i got them from - jeff fowkes wheels and they said 'send some pictures' then they called and said - 'ok, we'll fix it, we've organised a courier to collect the damaged wheel'
a week later they phoned and said ' we don't like the idea of repairing it but we've found a new one for you' then next day it turned up by courier ! brand new (ex display by the look of it...) how cool is that !

so a VERY big thankyou to robert at fowkesauto.com ! heartily recommended !

more clockage !

another ebay special arrived this morning
:)

all done now... nearly

turbosystems are go...

it's all there bar two flanges and the hoses...

:)

HOW LOUD !%^&!*&@*!!!!!

if you find that noisy neighbours keep you awake at night or the noise of the airconditioining in your place of work annoys you here is a simple and fun solution to noise related problems that you can make at home.

1 remove stock backbox...

2 hack up expensive strange exhaust you got from Marco Mansi's wasserboxer bug

3 hack up old back box and combine with expensive wierd exhaust

make sure you have an irresponsible adult help you with the potentially lethal bits, and never look directly at welding arc - especially not with a new and very expensive but crushingly, poorly designed motorola E1000 mobile phone camera.

then remove elbow below number 3&4 cylinders and bolt straight up...

voila!

if you are short of friends and like chatting to random police officers by the side of the road or are in a hurry to fall out of favour with your neighbours this is just the thing!

pimp my ride- butcher my bus

rolled up to RaceShack early on thursday, Conor had organised a Petrolheads monthly meet for later that evening and asked me if i'd like to put the panel van on the rollers to get a baseline so we can see how much extra power we can wring out of it after turbo fitment...

when i turned up Kevo was there stripping down his dragster in preparation fo rthe new gearbox and back axle (the previous box exploded (literally) on the line at big bang...)
kevo wondered out as i arrived and remarked that it sounded a bit rough... i explained that the old vacuum distributor wasn't advancing but i'd got a cheap 009 dizzy to put in but no pertronix or points etc etc yadda yadda yadda..
so kevo wanders off and returns with a 009, leads, pertronix etc...

next thing i know conor wonders out and two of them start poking around inb the engine bay... within minutes Louie (who is doing work experience there) was getting orders to search out parts from cupboards andboxes and kevo and conor are hell for leather ripping things out, crimping, wiring, spannering and generally re-enacting an episode of pimp my ride

first off, fit a huge MSD distributor...

then the MSD, blaster coil and other gubbins...

then chuck away all of the airsystem & boxes and stick a cone filter on top of the carb. save some weight too... it helps if you have a professional mechanic rip this out and dropkick it derisorily (sp?) across the carpark for you...
then modify the cables & linkages so the throttle actually opens all the way...

when someone asks you 'do you reckon it'll wheelspin now ?' drop the clutch at 5k rpm and left foot brake it leaving smoky black trails across the carpark - then collapse in a fit of unseemingly giggles...

to top the evening off pop it onto the rollers after hooning around like a fool and run an 18.12 quarter mile and make just over 70BHP at the back wheels...

and don't forget, before you leave steal the seat out of your hosts racecar and leave 60ft tyremarks across his carpark see new video in movies section for example...