205 Endurance Racer Prototype

[CamMoreRon]

Evening! Sorry it's been a while since the last update, as I'll explain it's been a busy couple of weeks.

To cut a long and very frustrating story short, I was let down by the (nameless) people who I'd asked to design & CNC the bellhousing, wasting about a month of collaboration, so had no choice but to take the work on myself. It's not something I've done before and it's a very large and expensive chunk of scrap if it doesn't fit properly, so I took a bit of time to get it right!

Measuring up the engine mating face was a massive pain.. especially without any specialist CMM equipment.

The Formula Renault starter motor was awkwardly mounted up inside the bellhousing and there was no space for it with the new part being so much shorter (as well as the motor itself being obsolete now) so I decided to revert back to Clio parts and future-proof the build. Now it uses a TTV 184mm race flywheel and AP twin plate clutch, as well as a standard Clio starter in the normal position.

Some bellhousing pics:

It's been sent off for CNC now, so time will tell if I got everything right! :fearscream:

The chassis is also coming along well, and the driving position is almost sorted. This has been a very tricky thing to get right and has taken a lot of time, but it's definitely worth the effort.

Seats have 3 options for lateral position as space is tight!

Don't worry, that isn't where the steering wheel will go! 😅

I've also been finishing up the frame.. just a few more bits of tube to go. You can see in these last 2 pics how the drivers seat has been offset towards the centre of the car to try and get enough space - the 205 is a small car!

 

[COSTA_MK1]

Enjoying this read a lot!

 

[jamesycc]

amazing job.

 

[CamMoreRon]

Woops! Sorry, I haven't done a very good job of keeping this updated!

A lot of niggly details sorted over the past few weeks, and now the driver controls are 90% finished. The big job has been mounting the bodywork, which wasn't a simple task given that the replica bodywork didn't fit very well. I have the lower quarter panels and headlamps left to do, and the rear clam needs hinges, but the rest of it is solid.

You can see in this pic there's a slight bulge in the tailgate, around the lower LH corner of the screen aperture. The ducting inside the hatch seems to have been installed with the outer skin out of shape and pulling it back has distorted the outer skin, so there's still some work to be done here.

Aerocatches on the rear quarter windows to keep this corner pulled in:

The front and rear bodywork is supported by sacrificial bumper beams, which should stand up to light damage but will crumple in heavier impacts.

I'm waiting for the bellhousing and struts to arrive, which should be any day now. Once I have them several big jobs can be finished and the car will be very close to done!

 

[Mr Burns]

It's all taking shape nicely... I'd be scared to get it dirty once it was finished, let alone race it!

 

[Ian_182]

Bloody hell, fair play.

 

[Tony Hunter]

Some interesting stuff, be nice to see it finished.

Nothing even "relatively" cheap in here though.

 

[Crybert]

I love this thing so much and it's not even 50% complete. This is why I love forums

 

[COSTA_MK1]

i find this thread really interesting keep up the good work looking fantastic!

 

[Ricardos]

Epic, love this thread

 

[haimsey]

Great work @CamMoreRon .
You going to be creating some of the interior from scratch? Using fibreglass/carbon fibre?

 

[Tarmac Adam]

Well this mega ! Bloody awesome build mate love a proper project like this , have you every seen ha isles swb quattro build on the inter web might be worth a look it's of similar crazyness great work keep the updates comeing

 

[CamMoreRon]

Great work @CamMoreRon .
You going to be creating some of the interior from scratch? Using fibreglass/carbon fibre?

It'll have a simple folded aluminium dash, similar to the original, but otherwise a very sparse interior! No luxuries at all. 😅

Well this mega ! Bloody awesome build mate love a proper project like this , have you every seen ha isles swb quattro build on the inter web might be worth a look it's of similar crazyness great work keep the updates comeing

Is that the guy who built it in the attic, then hoisted it down to the garage? If so that's an awesome build! :up:

 

[Tarmac Adam]

That's the one Hamish bloody spec chech thing , looks like ya know what ya doing serious undertaking there bud

 

[cat171]

Nice update! This thing is absolutely awesome!!

 

[CamMoreRon]

A quick update!

I've spent a fair bit of time this week dealing with the tedious job of tidying up the original metalwork and sealing it to the frame - especially around the main hoop to seal off the engine bay. Lots of head scratching and careful trimming involved! This job has been made extra fiddly because the shell will need to be removable and bolt on to the chassis. I can't really explain how much of a PITA it's been so I'm pretty glad to see the end of it! Just a few little patches to fill and it'll be done.

Here's a WIP to show how it started.. I had cut off the original sills and formed a panel to replace them. There'll be removable sill extensions fitted later.

Here's how the B-pillar section looks now:

And the A-pillar - very fiddly!

A slightly nicer job was re-making the strut top mounts, because I wasn't all that happy with the first attempt and it made for some overly-complicated tube joints. Profiling the box-section was a pain, but fitting the supporting tubes was then much easier!

I'm much happier with how that looks!

Also my struts arrived today, after a long wait!

Really looking forward to fitting them, but I need a few more bits (such as wishbones) first. I should have the car on the ground in 2-3 weeks, which will be a really good thing to see!

 

[NorthloopCup]

A quick update!

I've spent a fair bit of time this week dealing with the tedious job of tidying up the original metalwork and sealing it to the frame - especially around the main hoop to seal off the engine bay. Lots of head scratching and careful trimming involved! This job has been made extra fiddly because the shell will need to be removable and bolt on to the chassis. I can't really explain how much of a PITA it's been so I'm pretty glad to see the end of it! Just a few little patches to fill and it'll be done.

Here's a WIP to show how it started.. I had cut off the original sills and formed a panel to replace them. There'll be removable sill extensions fitted later.

Here's how the B-pillar section looks now:

And the A-pillar - very fiddly!

A slightly nicer job was re-making the strut top mounts, because I wasn't all that happy with the first attempt and it made for some overly-complicated tube joints. Profiling the box-section was a pain, but fitting the supporting tubes was then much easier!

I'm much happier with how that looks!

Also my struts arrived today, after a long wait!

Really looking forward to fitting them, but I need a few more bits (such as wishbones) first. I should have the car on the ground in 2-3 weeks, which will be a really good thing to see!

Another excellent update! Do you do this sort of thing for a living?

 

[K_McDermott]

Threads like this are what I love about this forum there is so much skill and detail gone into this build it's absolutely epic [emoji7] will keep my eye on this see how it progresses. And those shocks are a piece of artwork on they're own lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tarmac Adam]

Yep hats off mate some mega fab work and such neat welds very smart

 

[CamMoreRon]

Another excellent update! Do you do this sort of thing for a living?

I sure do.. this is the first full car though!

 

[Pauleds]

Can I be a test driver?

 

[CamMoreRon]

It's actually going to be a demo car, so if you're interested in endurance racing then yes!

 

[Pauleds]

Could be a good challenge and another box to tick.
So far I have done......
Road rallies
Stage rallies
Rallycross
Sprints
Hillclimbs
Comp safaris
Landrover trials
So perhaps endurance racing is next!!

 

[CamMoreRon]

That's an impressive list.. if you fancy adding to it then get in touch!

Trying to do a better job of updating this, so..

I've re-worked the door bars to give a bit more room for the driver's elbows than the conventional X allowed. Having had caged 205's in the past, the space inside is a pretty big issue, so the door bars are now bent outwards and tucked inside the doors, about level with where the inner skin was. I've tested with the seat & steering wheel and there's miles of room now, so sore elbows shouldn't be an problem after long stints!

They were actually a lot less time-consuming than an X to fit, but gussets will be a bit trickier. The A-pillar support is also bent to give more knuckle space around the steering wheel, which can be another tight spot in little cars.

 

[CamMoreRon]

This week I've got a few of the more difficult things out the way - first off was the fairy simple job of finishing up with the harness mounts.

Then moving on to the radiator and fuel tank, which is where things get a bit more tricky. Space is so tight between the pedals / column and the fuel tank that it had to be mounted higher than I'd like. It's not ideal but it's better than forking out a tonne of cash for a custom bag tank. The fuel tank is an ATL Saver Cell with their returnless collector system - not cheap, but approved for any FIA series this car might end up being used in, and that sort of thing never is.

This pic shows the position, and the next two show how tight the space is!

The radiator was a bit more simple - it just has to go somewhere between the bumper and bonnet duct.

Actually having the tank a bit higher isn't so bad.. There's space under it to put the fire extinguisher bottle, which keeps that out the cockpit, and also loads of room for coolant pipes etc which need to pass through. Speaking of which, getting those to the rear of the car is going to be a total pain as there's so little cockpit space, but I'll figure something out!

 

[CamMoreRon]

Today has been a good day! I ran around picking up all my CNC bits yesterday, so I have some serious eye candy to show.
First up is the adjustable top mount parts - more on these to follow in a few days, but they look cool!

On to the more serious item, my long awaited bellhousing is done! The past few days I've been seriously stressing about whether this will fit or be a £1,000 lump of scrap, so I wasted no time testing it out!

First up - bolting it to the gearbox.

Then bolting it to the engine and checking starter motor clearance.

A quick shot of the clutch and flywheel..

Then the moment of truth!

Aside from a burr on an engine block dowel that needed to be filed smooth, it all slipped together perfectly! All the bolts wound in effortlessly by hand, and everything lines up just right - not bad considering the Heath Robinson method I had to use to measure everything! I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to know this fits. :dizzy:

With that potential heart attack out the way, I did a quick dry build on the engine and stuck it back in the car. It'll stay there while I finish the last fabrication jobs, then come out for the proper build.

I had a little time left, so checked the exhaust manifold fits.

Clearance to the driveshaft is probably going to be non-existent, so I think I will have to modify the cat outlet with an offset cone. Not a big deal, and certainly beats fabricating a manifold from scratch.

Not long until it's on the ground now! :beers:

 

[NorthloopCup]

Today has been a good day! I ran around picking up all my CNC bits yesterday, so I have some serious eye candy to show.
First up is the adjustable top mount parts - more on these to follow in a few days, but they look cool!

On to the more serious item, my long awaited bellhousing is done! The past few days I've been seriously stressing about whether this will fit or be a £1,000 lump of scrap, so I wasted no time testing it out!

First up - bolting it to the gearbox.

Then bolting it to the engine and checking starter motor clearance.

A quick shot of the clutch and flywheel..

Then the moment of truth!

Aside from a burr on an engine block dowel that needed to be filed smooth, it all slipped together perfectly! All the bolts wound in effortlessly by hand, and everything lines up just right - not bad considering the Heath Robinson method I had to use to measure everything! I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to know this fits. :dizzy:

With that potential heart attack out the way, I did a quick dry build on the engine and stuck it back in the car. It'll stay there while I finish the last fabrication jobs, then come out for the proper build.

I had a little time left, so checked the exhaust manifold fits.

Clearance to the driveshaft is probably going to be non-existent, so I think I will have to modify the cat outlet with an offset cone. Not a big deal, and certainly beats fabricating a manifold from scratch.

Not long until it's on the ground now! :beers:

I have no words, but this thread delivers on every update! Cnc stuff is just p**n though!

 

[CamMoreRon]

Things have been flying along this week.. here's an update from the last couple of days.

Yesterday I was working on the steering, first off getting the rack mounted. I'm using a Caterham LHD quick rack and some CNC clamps, bolted up to some folded brackets that allow some height adjustment to tune bump / roll steer. Contrary to popular belief, zero bump steer isn't necessarily the best thing, so this system allows to adjust between +/-0.25Deg/Deg to tune steering response - roughly +/-10mm rack height.

Here you can see the rack mounted in the highest position.

Then the next job was to sort out the steering column. I'm using a mixture of Caterham (lower) and 205 (upper) bits here, and very conveniently the Caterham lower column fits perfectly inside the 205 upper, so welding it together straight was easy!

There's another "contrary to popular belief" here, in that the UJ's require a very specific alignment top & bottom. Conventional wisdom (if you were to search Google) would tell you that the top & bottom yokes on the intermediate shaft need to be aligned with each other, but this is only true if the column has no lateral offset; since the input on my rack is further towards the centre of the car than the upper column, it requires a slightly different UJ alignment or there will be tight spots in the steering and / or an inconsistent feel. (If you're wondering why, it's because a UJ is not a constant velocity joint - the output accelerates / decelerates at different points of input rotation. You need to align 2 UJ's in a specific way to cancel this out or you'll have sudden accelerations in the output which can be felt as jerkiness at the handwheel, or worse you could get tight spots / binding)

Working this out requires software which I don't have / have yet to develop any of my own, so I had to resort to some trial & error. I found that the steering is smoothest & most linear when the top & bottom UJ yokes are in-plane with their respective input & output shafts - I'll try and explain with pics.

Here you can see the finished alignment - note that the yokes on the UJ's do not align.

Then in this pic you can see the upper yoke axis is on the same plane as the upper shafts

And likewise the lower yoke is in-plane with the lower shafts

They're probably out of alignment with each other by ~20Deg on the intermediate shaft. With them perfectly in-line you could feel a tight spot at certain points when rotating the handwheel, but like this it's nice and smooth.

On to today.. I've been assembling the wishbone brackets, ready to make wishbones. I had some spacers CNC'd to get the spacing right, with a slightly larger width than the bushes to allow for easy fitting / removal. It was a pretty simple job to assemble them, but the bits look pretty cool.

Here's the bits I started with..

The bits assembled..

And then welded!

Note that the weld stops on the outside to allow clearance for the bolt head & washer, with an overlapping weld on the inside.

I'm about half way through the wishbone jig at the mo, so hopefully I'll have some pics of finished parts tomorrow!

 

[bashracing]

This is awesome workmanship,
I can't weld like that but I am s**t hot with a tube of sikaflex to hide it all

 

[CamMoreRon]

As promised, I have wishbone pics! I haven't got much time to type, so I'll keep it brief.

Starting off with a pile of bits..

And the finished jig..

I got the first one finished!

Then moving on to the nice CNC bits I showed the other day, the bearing housings I was missing have arrived. These get tacked to the threaded ride height adjuster and hold the top spherical bearing.

The small threaded collars then get a laser cut plate welded to them, so they can be bolted to the chassis.

And the assembly in place:

Then I excitedly started bolting bits to the frame, but found that the brackets on the struts don't fit the uprights! The gap is about 1mm too narrow at 25.4mm, vs the 26mm (+0.25/-0.00) I stated on the drawings. Pretty frustrating, as it means I can't finish the corner today. I'll have to get hold of something to open the gap up without damaging the coating, so I can finish assembly.

Bit of a hassle, but I'm happy about the wishbones at least!

 

[Martin.]

@Ant_Smiggy have you seen this!!

 

[haimsey]

Amazing effort so far. Keep the updates coming!

 

[dann2707]

What welder are you using? Amazing stuff

 

[Stay Puft]

I have no idea what is going on in any of the above posts but it looks bloody cool!

Are you basically building your own car from scratch? Mental.

 

[Mr R.]

What welder are you using? Amazing stuff

Not a fcuking s**t one like you...[emoji23]

 

[dann2707]

Not a fcuking s**t one like you...[emoji23]

I'll have you know I welded a piece of metal the other day and only burnt myself 28 times due to spatter.

 

[Mr R.]

I'll have you know I welded a piece of metal the other day and only burnt myself 28 times due to spatter.

Good lad. X

 

[CamMoreRon]

😂

I use a Murex TradesMIG 171.. bought it about 5 years ago (around £700 new) and it's bloody brilliant. Also got a Murex TransTIG AC/DC which is sweeeeeet. :hearteyes:

Oh also getting showered with hotrocks doesn't get any easier with nice welders.. some days my arms are totally obliterated! The best bit is when you have one go in your ear and you can hear it sizzling all the wax / hairs. :fearscream:

 

[Tarmac Adam]

Yep welder flash is ace #not I love it when the splatter burns and rolls down ya arm and ends in the cruck of ya elbo and burns both parts of ya arm just as it goes leavening a lovely pattern of red ouch

 

[Pauleds]

Worst is welding rusty old banger racers and having a big blob of splatter go down the front of your boots and stop on the top of your foot!
Surprising how quick you can get a boot off!