Cosworth 2.9litre in my Crewwy

[dickspanner]

Just come back from my lock up and have now ground the KEP plate and the engine and gearbox are now bolted together.

Still hoping to get the cab in primer by sunday night, but there is still alot of prep work to do.

D I C K Spanner

[dickspanner]

Well. I have just returned from my lock up after fitting the engine and box into the crewcab. I will take my camera tomorrow night and post a couple of pictures.

Its tight, chuffin tight, to be honest I am not even sure it is going to fit. I may have to modify the rear gearbox mount and move the whole assemble forward as it looks like the main belt drives that will be fixed on the rear of the engine may hit the rear member. I will only be able to tell this when the full unit is fitted in place.

She is going up on the fout post ramp tomorrow night so should be able to get a better idea.

D I C K spanner

[dickspanner]

Well I got the crewcab sheeted up and put on the four post ramp last night.

The mock up engine assembly is in place and the real work begins now in relation to creating the support system, exhausts, cooling, fuel, wiring.

Going to be some serious midnight oil burned over the next couple of weeks.

Here is the first glimse of the motor sat in the back of the crewcab. Did not have much time to tinker last night as I spent most of the night rearranging things to get the crewcab up in the air.




Although it does look quite small in there, that is a bare engine, and I think I am going to have to cut some of the reat panel out (hopefully inside only) to get all the front end on the engine.

D I C K Spanner

[dickspanner]

Got rid of the awefull cosworth cross member today and fabricated my own cross member (picture in modified section), just to finish off got to strengthen up the chassis rails and strengthen up the gearbox mount where I have butchered a lot out of it to move the engine back 40mm.

Looking good to have the engine supported on its new frame by the end of tomorrow night.

D I C K Spanner

[dickspanner]

Well after returning from my lock up tonight, I have finally finished the engine cradle. I have tacked my strengthening plates to the chassis and will fully weld them on hopefully over the weekend so the engine can finally sit in the enginebay supported by its own mounts.

Photos of the work so far on the engine support bracket.











Cradle complete, strengthening plates in place. Engine sat in its final resting place soon.

Come on!

[dickspanner]

Well now the engine is finally mounted and sorted out, I have decided to move onto the exhast system. I originally thought about using the cosworth exhaust and just bending the end round to make it blow out of the side but have changed my mind after a trial fit.

I have decided to leave the twin cats and the first box as standard as this gives great clearance around the driveshafts and gearbox, but after that the exhaust is too low.

I have cut the exhaust off after the first box and am now going to bend both pipes through 90 degrees and discharge them out of the side of the vehicle.

After trying a couple of mock set ups, I like the look of a discorvery middle box on either side of the vehicle between the cill and chassis. Basically the cosworth exhaust is 51mm diameter and I have to find an exhaust to fit.

I have a small section of the exhaust and I am going to call in at the exhaust centre and see if they are willing to help me to find a suitable box I can chop and change a bit to get what I want.

The good thing is that the system I have built already allows me to undo 4 bolts and split the power tain from the ehaust and lower the complete unit downwards.

I will keep you posted on how things go in relation to building the exhaust and post some pictures of it. Dependant on what parts I go for I should imagine I will be able to build this full exhaust for under £100. Although it will not be the best exhaust out there in relation to performance, it will be practical and quiet.

Picturs to follow, I am going to collect the full engine mid week so will eventually have some pictures of the complete unit instead of the mock engine as present.

I will be moving onto fuel next

Can I confirm what I think about the tank, The outlet from the drivers side (with filter) is the outlet for the tank and the inlet on the passenger side is for return fuel?
I need to get the correct for the swirl pot.

Cheers

D I C K Spanner

[Kenny]

You are right about the tank, at least mine is like that.

Still not had chance to get round to my mates but it seems you are doing fine as it is!

Looking forward to seeing the exhaust solution. Never been happy with my set up with the Cologne...

[dickspanner]

I managed to call in at my local Kwikfit and the lad there was most helpfull.

I took a section of the chopped off exhaust and basically he took me into the store and showed me all the boxes I wanted to see.

I purchased a couple of back boxes off a Astra which need some slight modifications but basically they will fit in the gap between my cill and chassis nicely.

All I have to do now is get some bends off ebay as a guy will bend any pipe to any dimension. I am ordering two expansion joints as well which will fit in the section which cranks the exhaust out 90 degrees to take any vibration out of the system and some cheap tail pipes to stick out of the side.

Should have the exhaust fully fabricated by the end of the week, maybe earlier, but finishing it depends on recieveing the parts from ebay.

Photos to follow.

Kenny, what does the exhaust look like on yours, can you take a piccie of it and post it on this thread for me to have a look at please.

Cheers

D I C K Spanner.

[dickspanner]

Exhaust to date

waiting for parts to finish it off









New engine arrives tomorrow night complete and ready to fire up. Just got to do wiring, water and fuel

Maybe mid next week she will be running

D I C K Spanner

[Kenny]

The exhaust on mine is very poor. A big mistake really. There would be nothing you would want to copy relating to it really, though if I can get some photos over the weekend I will.

It is basically the original F*rd cast siamese manifolds running down into the engine bay where there are just two of the biggest boxes I could get, which then point out at the back admittedly quite nicely just below the standard rear valance with some nice chrome tailpipes.

The problem is there is just not enough pipe/silencer to quieten things down. I bought some Ashley tubular manifolds and have been planning on doing something along the lines of what you are doing now, as the end of the header pipes point forwards and finish quite nicely just by the driveshafts on the gearbox end.

Its got to be the best way forward (literally) as its what VW did on the Audi 5 pots in SA from what I have seen.

[dickspanner]

Kenny

The exhaust has two cats fitted then run into a joint box and two pipes come out. I have decided to 180 the system at this point and am fitting a Astra diesel estate back box to each pipe and hopefully it will not be too loud. I was trying to get the system as queit as possible but I think this system will get loud when the revs get higher. The only way I will tell is when the thing is up and running and by that time I will probably not feel like modifying it again.

Dropped the engine back out of the engine bay tonight so I can start working out the water system. I am going to run two stainless steel pipes around the engine bay and connect them to the existing plastic pipes that run to the front of the crewcab. I was reading however that hot water does not like to be pumped downwards in a V8 book I have. They suggest I boost the power of the water pump buy running it 1:1 with the crank pulley. Does your frod V6 have a standard pump and if so does it pump straight to the rad and if so do you have any cooling issues?

We were making space tonight at the lock up and one of the lads has a V6 injection motor complete, so if you need a spare engine, he is willing to let the lot go for £150.

Anyhow, got to continue with the water system before I move onto the fuel system. One of the lads at the unit near me has a twin fuel pump and swirl po in one unit, and I am trying to get it off him at the moment but I am struggling, I will give it to the end of the week then I fear it is scrapyards on sunday morning trying to get some pumps etc.

Cheers

D I C K Spanner

[Kenny]

Sounds like a good plan for the exhaust. Pete the guy with the other Cossie engined vans are both along those lines and are about right on volume I would say. Mine just booms and is unpleasant after a while!

Not really sure on the water pumping issue. I know mine runs a standard pump in standard configuration, which from what I've heard pumps slow. Coupled to the fact its got to pump the water all the way up and down the van its no wonder I do have some cooling problems! To be honest mate I have been interested in what you are doing to help me possibly modify mine!

You see my van is off the road at the mo and has been for a year. Mainly due to lack of time but also admittedly due to lack of knowledge to improve things. Although it has never 'boiled' the water it does run quite hot and I suffer more with what I think have been vapour lock problems in the fuel lines.

Everything can be sorted but its all down to time and knowledge....or money to pay someon else to do it!!!!?????

[dickspanner]

Well the heart of the wee beasty has finally arrived home where it belongs. I took delivery of my fully reconditioned V6 tonight and I am chuffed as a chuffer can be.

Pictures below:







Just got to get the thing plumbed in now with the wet stuff, the burnable stuff and the sparky stuff.

Hoping to crank it over by next weekend.

Kenny, In relation to the engine running to hot, you could always stick an inline water pump in your cooling system and convert the rad to have more cooling capacity. I am thinking of sticking a pair of twin T4 fans on my rad and an oil cooler on it as well with underbody scoop to push air through the oil cooler. A bit like a F1 car has on the underneath.

We are going to start the wiring of it this weekend as I have to convert the harness with nine brains down to either one or two brains. I recieved the cosworth wiring diagram book yesterday and it is 102 pages of A3 diagrams. Blimey, I say Blinky Blimey. But it should not be a real problem.

D I C K Spanner.

PS I would love to do this work as a real time job, but would not make any money on it as I like to do things the correct way and that takes time, and there are people out there who could probably do things cheaper than me. I will give any advice and knowledge I can on projects and would help people out if they needed my help.

[dickspanner]

Well the fully assembled engine is now bolted to the gearbox and fitted in the crewwy. There is a 3mm gap between pully and rear of engine bay, not even enough to get the v belt in. This will have to be adjusted.

All the componants for the exhaust are now in the workshop, but work has to stop on it now for three weeks as I am down in the big smoke next week, then France the following week the the big smoke again the week after.

I think I am then going to have to concentrate on finishing off the mini I have, so I can get rid of it, so if anybody knows anyone who wants a fully blown hotrod 1967 mini cooper, that ever part is brand new on and the engine has done 0 miles since being fully rebuild by Ralle Equipe let me know, I will be looking for about 8k for it as it is a minter and it stands me at about 12k, but needs must and it has to go.

If anybody is interested PM me and I will get in touch or post a picture of it on here.

I will update the crewcab photos in a few week when I have done some more work on it.

Cheers

D I C K Spanner

[toomanytoys]

Davis Craig (IIRC) electric pump EWP is what you need by the sounds of it.....