I'm gonna get The car fitted up first and leave the wiring until last but before the body work. I don't have an ecu yet so that needs building. The front of the car is currently sat high on stands waiting to receive the engine which, frustratingly is only waiting for a rubber sump seal otherwise it'd be in already :mad:

So many annoying little things to order/remember. As for the wiring, you might enjoy it! It takes a while to settle into it but by dealing with one wire at a time whilst working hard to ignore the spaghetti wiring nightmare around you is key!

I perversely, get a kick out of it, a bit like a giant stringy jigsaw puzzle! :D

Having good wiring diagrams helps too.

But your going straight to microsquirt are you not? A challenge I have yet to rise too!:cool: Nice engine btw?

Yes ms for me. I've fitted one before which went well. Wiring it up was easy compared to setting it up then mapping it... Never a whole car though. I'm not dreading it but I'll be giving it the most attention I can muster.

So I've had another go at zinc plating some bolts.

I tried a tumbler to help cleaning them but I failed miserably :(

I need the correct media rather than the aquarium sand I had to hand.

Here's the plating kit.



You have to derust/everything the part to be played. It really does have to be spotless! Then it gets a dip in an alkaline cleaner, then a water rinse, then a dip in hydrochloric acid, water rinse, plating tank, water rinse, another acid dip to activate the zinc plating, water rinse, blues passivate, water rinse, yellow passivate, water rinse theeeeeen you hang it out to dry.

There's an art to knowing the anode to part to be plated ratio. The surface area of each needs to be close to equal I believe. If not, it goes wrong...



Or it can go well!



Like painting it's all about the prep, but more so. You can paint over things but you cant plate over a poor surface. They really do need to be perfectly spotless. Sand blasting to prepare the part would be good. So far I've been using wire wheels in drills, grinders and bench grinders which is fine for basic shapes but I can't imagine I'll have much fun prepping say a fuel rail with these.

I'll take some more pics showing the stages of plating tonight or tomorrow.

Can anyone offer any insight into the likelihood of getting an originally naturally aspirated car through the iva emissions test with a turbo fitted?

I do want to ultimately turbo this car so I'm curious about starting out like that rather than re engineer several parts to later on take a turbo. Cheaper too.

More work now but less in the long run and likely cheaper and tidier too.

Moot point now anyways as enthusiasm got the better of me.



I'm not taking it out again to fit a stronger clutch.



Mrs Norton trying it out for size.

Loads of clearance around the in and out manifolds despite having the two braces in place.



I have to unbolt the passenger engine mount and drop the engine slightly in order to get the exhaust manifold over its studs but it otherwise clears the additional brace that side.

Hi
I was just wondering what size plate you used for the wishbone plates and where you got the threaded tubes from. Also what model is the bmw drag link from.
Thanks
Steve

looking wicked, i wish i had some wheels on mine!

The car and engine look great!

I don't know if it is an optical illusion of the picture, but it looks like the top front wishbone are the wrong way around. If it is the same as on the Sierra chassis, the threaded tube should be pointing upwards, and on your picture, it looks like it is pointing downwards. Perhaps the wishbones' set-up on MX5 based chassis is different ?

If I'm wrong, please excuse my comment :)