Overdue updates

Right, so this blog has gone from being a bit out of date to being very out of date, so it's time to get things back on track.

Following my last missive, the inlet manifolds now all match-up with the head a lot better now after a bit of fettling and I've managed to get most of the butterflies to seat a lot better, one is still a lot worse than the others, so that manifold will have to come out again. The trouble is that the manifolds and butterflies are all clean and I have heard people say that they are a pain to seal up again when clean.

Engine mounts,

This is the new design, it uses the original bracket with heavy box section and a tube welded on the end for the bolt to pass through to the new rubber (Jaguar E-type)

The pic below shows how much the rubber has sagged and the new bracket behind it prior to being tacked in.

I fitted the newly modified engine brackets and I am pleased to say that so far there is no noticeable increase in vibrations or noise from the engine.

All the butterflies in the inlet manifolds fit a lot a better now and other air leaks from the top of the manifolds have been sealed off, so I can have the engine tick over at 600rpm again if I wanted.
Driving around, I can sometimes hear a knock from the back and some of the blue Polybushes fitted do not look as good as they should, so I will probably end up replacing those with Superflex ones.

The next area I feel I should concentrate on is air delivery to the inlet manifolds. All of the components for this need a good bit of thinking through, the basic plan though is to have a box over the manifolds, fed by colder air from the front of the car.
Considerations to be made;

• Air box backplate buy or make? - Both ITG and Pipercross sell them for around £30, but they are only pieces of alloy sheet with fasteners
• How to secure the backplate to the ram pipes? - Again ITG sell these, but £8 for a grommet
• How to seal the backplate to the air box? - Adhesive foam? rubber?
• Where to route the pipe/s to the air box
• Where/how to induct air into the pipe? - Under the radiator, but not so low that it picks up water?
• What size pipe/s to the air box? - I'd like to have two feeds so not to starve one end of the engine

I've seen Pipercross and others sell air boxes of a suitable length, but at over £200, I'd rather make my own from fibreglass or Carbon Fibre and have something that is exactly what I want.

I've been going through some more of those finishing off jobs. The Facet low pressure primer has now been replaced with the pump from George, fortunately it has the same mounting centres as the previous pump, so it made for easy fastening down and I now have two quieter rotary fuel pumps.

The search for the elusive speed vibrations have led me to reduce the gap between the bonnet and sill on the passenger side, so the bonnet assembly no longer vibrates as much at speed. In addition to this, the rear tyres have now been replaced with Conti Eco Contacts and doing these two things have really made the car much more steady.

Had the Bank Holiday over in East Anglia, which meant doing a bit over 400 miles in the GT6, the miles just flew by and it was a pleasure to drive, much changed from 18 months ago.

Unfortunately my camera did not get any video from the last rolling road session, but I have put together a video from footage collected by Alex at Maynards. GT6 PI on the rolling road