Track Day Special - Finished 19/04/09

[D3DNA]

Good little project you have there. I'm hoping to start something similar myself next year.
One of my mates has a Westfield bike engined car. He built it himself, using a Hayabusa engine instead of the typical R1.
The car has a SVA but now isn't eligible for road tax as it has no lights, slick tyres, no wipers or anything of convenience. It still has the standard gearbox but with <400kgs with driver and some sick launches its eaten its way through a few rebuilds! That's something you will need to consider on a bike engined car.

Good luck with the project and I look forward to seeing how it progresses!

 

[vwbassett]

Flapper you owned a TT pinto crazy, back in college i was lucky enough to work on a mk1 escort race car with a N/A 2.0 pinto lovely engines and cars.
D3DNA sounds like a beast i really wanted a busa or ZZR but as for problems thats the main reason we chose an R1 - reliable, cheap, dont need a hugely expensive dry sump, simple-ish and in good supply
Thanks for the rest of the support guys got one more update till the wip is where i am at today

 

[Fl@pper]

nothing too drastic just a couple of charade turbo's bodged in the back of a metro autograsser for half a season - went well too before it shot the rods out the side

i know of another one being developed as we speak that's a lot better thought out - ill get some pics when i see it next

how can you say an R1 cheap ? every time i've looked at bike engines they always seem horrendous money ?

 

[vwbassett]

R1 engine and box no electrics or clocks etc for me £700-1500 vs busa £3-4k and a £2k for a not all that reliable dry sump. Ok not exactly cheap but you can see the difference and wont quite bankrupt me if i needed a replacement.
Adam

 

[vwbassett]

Time for another update

With the engine in i could fit some custom cooling hoses and pipes. There blue silicone but im thinking of going for black at a later date to keep the engine install very OEM looking plus its too expensive to replace all the original R1 hoses. Theres a welded nut on the top hose ready for a 1/8npt temp sensor that il fit once ive selected and bought the right gauge. The radiator has two middle locating lugs pre installed to the chassis to hang the radiator and ive tapped through the top of the radiator casing to secure it with a bolt to the top of the chassis.

Once we made all the necessary connections, removed unecessary components and loads of other bits we started tidying up the left over mess. Its been p clipped to the chassis and covered in convulated tubing that i've borrowed from work

To finish off the interior panels we have a GRP gloss black tunnel cover. Its taken a lot of work to get it to fit as it has to be a tight fit on the sloping back panel so minimal amounts were trimmed off at a time. Once trimmed we mounted the handbrake although we still need a gaitor for it.

Thats it again, thanks for looking.
Adam

 

[vwbassett]

The Chassis's Been Tango'd

Hi, Finally got to a stage where we can get the body on. the body comes as a 5 piece kit - the main tub, scuttle, bonnet, nose cone and wings/arches. First to fit is the tub. Its all the right shape but getting it to fit is something else. On the day we started i think it came off then on again about 20 times trimming it very slightly each time then finding it would rub somewhere else. Sounds like an easy job but really is time consuming with files, dremmels, hole saws and drilling. After a weekend it was looking like this;

We had a little play with the rest of the body parts and the scuttle and nose will also need a lot of trimming. Heres a teaser of how the front will look. Notice the R feeling sorry for itself in the background

Its not all physically bolted down yet as there was still holds needed to be made for the suspension steering and exhaust. We also need to bolt it to the chassis and were not at the stage yet to do that as its comming off again to finish little electrical bits and the final engine plumbing etc.

 

[Willie]

Coming along though
It's properly taking shape now though, not long now

 

[vwbassett]

Cheers and yes shouldnt be too long, it is still missing a lot but the driveshafts, steering, suspension and brakes have all been on before and are hopefully going to be far simpler than wiring the intire car. It also cant take too long either as the current registration rules are changing comming in to effect from April so our deadline to finish is then or were going to need a reverse box/electric reverse kit and lots of other bits and thats not good.
Adam

 

[UncleFester]

Keep the pics coming - it's making me fancy a Tiger / RobinHood next summer!

 

[vwbassett]

Upadet 14/12/08

Hello, been a while so thought id add an update. Done loads lately in the ice cold garage but not really much worth taking pictures of like the assembled exhausts, complete wiring, gear change brackets, brake resevoir, coolant tank, hooters , silicone water hoses, fuel pipes and filters, battery bracket and wiring, cut off switch and probably some more. Heres of few pictures of other stuff though.

Mounted all the R1 wiring mess to the steering column support rail

0

After waiting weeks for some R1 air cleaners we ended up getting some for free and i dont even know who from . This allowed me to fit the air filter base plate and attach the pipercross sausage filter.

Tapped the core support to mount the rad fan - bit of a scary moment as too deep and you need a new radiator heres hoping it doesnt leak

The even more scary tapped the oil cooler for the oil pressure gauge to help us avoid meltdown when on the track. Damn American sender meant we needed imperial tappered tap's! Also fitted a new filter with some fresh oil.

I was bored one evening so I assembled the small265mm's (compared to the LCR) discs, uprights, wiklwood 4 pot calipers and alluminium hubs.

 

[vwbassett]

Before finally fitting the tub we checked the scuttle, bonnet and nose cone for fitment

All together

Held down while we made the holes in the tub using steel rivnuts and M5's with 2p washers

And thats where I am at the moment. As i mentioned before we've got some tight deadlines and with some time off round christmas there will hopefully be some more action soon. Hope you all like it.
Cheers
Adam

 

[vwbassett]

Its on wheels

Ive missed out a few weeks of updates but the car hit the floor last weekend which was quite exciting. The leons felt a bit left out so have sneaked into some of the pictures

Could someone remind me how to change the thread title?
Cheers

Adam

 

[Willie]

For the first post go to the first thread and at the bottom edit it or this one go to edit at the bottom right, you might have to go advanced in the edit functon

 

[Fl@pper]

sorted Title np

you done a lot more to make me wish i'd done mine in a garage

 

[vwbassett]

Cheers, should have the sweet sound of it starting soon if i sort a little wiring problem out first.

 

[vwbassett]

It starts!

After loads of messing round with the wiring i soon realised the original loom has been completely butchered but well hidden as i thought it looked original. Looks as if it had a alarm installed or removed as all the wires are black which is fun to work out whats what. Other wires do no where, some just fell out and the others i aint got a clue. After all saturday and bit of sunday morning i was happy with what id chopped out, resoldered and bypassed so i thought id try and start the thing with fire extinguisher at hand

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4jMFXMvojOE (you tube link)

Amazing feeling getting over that as your never sure if a used engine left standing for that long will work. As for the start I think my dad blipped the throttle to 4k and its got something like a 7k to go upto the 11k limiter so should sound really good . From looking at the clocks we think the bike has only done 2,400 miles as the clocks are original and match up with the other engine numbers so hopefully many happy years of track abuse

Adam

 

[vwbassett]

Finished

Been a bit slack on the old updates but its finished!!!

I've put in so many hours since christmas its a massive relief to have finished this all consuming project. Had loads of last minute issues like welding in a catalyst and sorting the various running issues that arose from test driving - new clutch, new fuel pump, cleaned faulty injector etc. Wiring also proved troublesome with 9 switches 3 gauges and 1 yamaha clock. The switches alonge have 6 wires fed to each one!

A picture from our sva test at 9am in Mitcham. We almost didnt get there as at 7am when we planned to leave the clutch spring inverted after the pedal was pressed. Took an hour of mad mechanics to sort remove and refit the clutch and changing the pedal stop but atleast we made it in the end

Im going to run it a for a while like it is then begin on the mods
Thanks for looking
Adam

 

[ibizacupra]

nice.. always fancied one of these.
whats it like?

 

[vwbassett]

In one word simply awesome. There is just no weight you turn in and its instant, throttle is snappy and just takes off as soon as you press the pedal and then theres the noise - it rivals a neighbours v8 cobra. Only thing ive been in that i can compare it with is the feeling of being in a renault single seater. Rides not great at the moment as its sitting about 2-5cm above where it should be as i need shorter push rods and it could really do with full geo and corner weighting to make the most of it. Il be taking it easy for a while though as its taken just over a year to build and recently thats been every weekend and most evenings since new year!

 

[Feel]

Nice bit of kit, and very nicely done.

Out of interest, I've always wondered how you actually mate an R1 to a diff? I can see the engine's canted round, but do you keep the bike gearbox? No reverse? How does it actually mate up?