PPC_CGL
Member
Hi,
A few of you might remember my project to put 1.9TDi into a Westfield SEiW (Lotus Se7en type kit-car similar to a Caterham). I posted on here a couple of times regarding the project, but most of that was some time ago. Well, after more than two years, the car is finally finished and on the road!
I thought I'd post a few pics and let people know how I went – the project was also part of a series of build-story articles in a UK magazine called “Practical Performance Car” – I can scan and post up some PDFs of them as well if anyone’s interested...
I’m sure most of you guys are familiar with the concept of a Kit-Car – basically you take delivery of all the basic components (steel spaceframe chassis, a pile of aluminium panels, fibreglass bodywork, suspension parts, etc.) and gradually piece them all together. It’s great way to do it because you can really stamp your individuality on the car and spec it as high or low as you like – no two ever turn out the same.
Here’s the car at a very early stage – I’d just spent ages drilling hundreds of holes to rivet the aluminium panels on. That’s the chassis loom laid out on the ground next to it.
Front suspension, brakes and steering rack fitted
Rear suspension and diff fitted – the car uses the differential from a Ford Sierra (European mid-size car built in the 80’s). There was a diesel version of this car that had a longer final-drive ratio than most (3.14:1) – I had to search long and hard for one of these a they are very rare. I re-built the diff with a Quaife LSD as well.
Here’s the car at rolling chassis stage
This is the donor car I used – ’96 A4 Avant 110hp model with AFN engine. I chose this one as I thought the simple electrics/electronics in the earlier model would make it easier to get the engine running standalone – before the project I’d never built a car from scratch before, and had zero experience with diesels, so was looking to make my life a little easier.
Here’s the motor and gearbox bolted up together – I used a pre-engineered kit from Acme Adapters. Gearbox is a Toyota Supra W58. The kit wasn’t cheap, but was built really well and worked exactly as promised, no complaints at all...
Here’s the motor installed in the car – I’m really happy with its final position – nice and far-back in the engine bay, well behind the front axle line. There were a few clearance issues in the transmission tunnel as the Toyota gearbox is a bit bigger than the boxes normally used in these cars, but it went in fine in the end.
Westfield make a version of their car with a VAG 1.8t engine, so I got hold of a pair of the engine mounts they make for this installation, as the blocks are basically the same. The mount was fine of the right-hand side and bolted up nicely, but on the left there’s a large aluminium casting for the water-pump and alternator mount that I guess the 1.8t doesn’t have, so it wouldn’t fit. Luckily the original mount out of the A4 was a perfect fit and came down perfectly on the chassis rail!
I had to convert the clutch release mechanism to use a hydraulic release bearing, as the standard release fork was fouling up against the foot-well bulkhead with the engine in its final position. Clutch is a little heavy, but not too bad.
A few of you might remember my project to put 1.9TDi into a Westfield SEiW (Lotus Se7en type kit-car similar to a Caterham). I posted on here a couple of times regarding the project, but most of that was some time ago. Well, after more than two years, the car is finally finished and on the road!
I thought I'd post a few pics and let people know how I went – the project was also part of a series of build-story articles in a UK magazine called “Practical Performance Car” – I can scan and post up some PDFs of them as well if anyone’s interested...
I’m sure most of you guys are familiar with the concept of a Kit-Car – basically you take delivery of all the basic components (steel spaceframe chassis, a pile of aluminium panels, fibreglass bodywork, suspension parts, etc.) and gradually piece them all together. It’s great way to do it because you can really stamp your individuality on the car and spec it as high or low as you like – no two ever turn out the same.
Here’s the car at a very early stage – I’d just spent ages drilling hundreds of holes to rivet the aluminium panels on. That’s the chassis loom laid out on the ground next to it.
Front suspension, brakes and steering rack fitted
Rear suspension and diff fitted – the car uses the differential from a Ford Sierra (European mid-size car built in the 80’s). There was a diesel version of this car that had a longer final-drive ratio than most (3.14:1) – I had to search long and hard for one of these a they are very rare. I re-built the diff with a Quaife LSD as well.
Here’s the car at rolling chassis stage
This is the donor car I used – ’96 A4 Avant 110hp model with AFN engine. I chose this one as I thought the simple electrics/electronics in the earlier model would make it easier to get the engine running standalone – before the project I’d never built a car from scratch before, and had zero experience with diesels, so was looking to make my life a little easier.
Here’s the motor and gearbox bolted up together – I used a pre-engineered kit from Acme Adapters. Gearbox is a Toyota Supra W58. The kit wasn’t cheap, but was built really well and worked exactly as promised, no complaints at all...
Here’s the motor installed in the car – I’m really happy with its final position – nice and far-back in the engine bay, well behind the front axle line. There were a few clearance issues in the transmission tunnel as the Toyota gearbox is a bit bigger than the boxes normally used in these cars, but it went in fine in the end.
Westfield make a version of their car with a VAG 1.8t engine, so I got hold of a pair of the engine mounts they make for this installation, as the blocks are basically the same. The mount was fine of the right-hand side and bolted up nicely, but on the left there’s a large aluminium casting for the water-pump and alternator mount that I guess the 1.8t doesn’t have, so it wouldn’t fit. Luckily the original mount out of the A4 was a perfect fit and came down perfectly on the chassis rail!
I had to convert the clutch release mechanism to use a hydraulic release bearing, as the standard release fork was fouling up against the foot-well bulkhead with the engine in its final position. Clutch is a little heavy, but not too bad.
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