J R's 2.4 Hatch Project

[andyc]

I'll start a new thread as the last one was for last year. So this time round the Remitt from John was

Strip Engine bay, tidyup and respray

Fit new 2.4 CIH engine with full 1.5 motronic Engine managment

Fit Corsa Electric Coloum

Upgrade Electrics

Re-wax under body

Stop water leakinging inro the cabin

Ok so first job once the engine bay and cabin were stripped was to fit the canister and pipework for the fuel evaporation system which involved fitting a charcol canister to the o/s inner wing and running the pipe work back to the tank, pics of this were in the last post if you want to have a look.

Next job was to sort the water leak. The car has had, lets say a bit of a water fall of a leak for a while but was a bugger to find. We finaly tracked it down to the seal between the bulk head and the A/C Evaporator box, for some reason the bulk contour was slightly different to the other two A/C Cars.

So a new seal was needed and fisrt job was to build up the mounting face which was done using so old blank number plate plastic

The thin edge is the new facing with a new divider at the top and then fitted a roof to divert any water coming through the air vent on the scuttle panel

and a leaf filter was fitted to the air intake

Once the back of the evaporator was sorted attention moved to the joint between the two halfs. I was never really happy with this as the facings of each half were never that flat and it was a case of using alot of DumDum to seal the box.

To get the faces flap was just a case of building the low spots up with some plastic filler and then used a very thin bead of Dum Dum to seal it back together.

Next job was to seal the evapourator pipes and instead of using DumDum again i opted to use for closed cell foam

That has finished the box off so next up is to start fitting all the captive nuts and bolts to the A/C Condensor and Fan.

Andy

Edited November 17, 2012 by andyc

[611]

Im looking forward to seeing the 2.4 going in :-)

Andy

[2908642343]

Andy;

Looking good, like "611" I am looking foreward to the custom built 2.4 going in.

John

[andyc]

Has it been nearly a year?

Well better get updating. So I've been round the engine bay and fitted captive nuts so i can use bolts instead of self tapping screws, some holes have been welded up that are not required any more and I've also welded in the proper studs for the wheel arch liners, again to get rid of any self tapping screws.

Nick Webb has made up a new Motronic Loom which i think started life as a 2.4 LHD Auto Carlton loom and with this we had another relay to find a home for. Nick had suggest fitting it in with the AC relays but there just wasn't the room.

So a place was needed for three A/C Relays & a Fuel Pump Relay. I decided to make a box that would fit in behind the battery

The empty box

and with the relays fitted, i also added some extra bus bars for + & - . If you are wondering the brown object is a mock up of the fuel pump relay as i didn't have one to hand at the time, this is just a cardboard mock up.

Pic of the Motronic ECU and loom, Nick done a very nice job as this fitted straight in. After finishing extending the wiring for the AC relays and FPR so they would reach the new box i thought I'd finished with wiring...............................................I should be so lucky

More on that next

Andy

[2908642343]

Andy, Looking good. Gt some more pics up....... Pictures speak a thousand words........ John

[andyc]

OPPS last pic was upside down

As i said before i through i'd finished with the wiring until i got a visit from Simon Peckham with parcel. This parcel was a complete EPS setup, now things get a bit complexed.

The coloum had already been modded to fit so that was one job i didn't have to do but the was going to be a long job. As you all know when fitting these EPS the motor gets in the way of the fuse box. I tried fitting the coloum as Kev Abbot had done by turning it around so the motor was at 10 o'clock but i didn't like the fact you could still see end poking out under the dash.

So this meant only one thing, moving the fuse box but first a couple of modds to the coloum

The coloum with the rear brace fitted. I was quite lucky while doing this as i had a spare dash panel to use so i didn't have to lay in the wheel well upside down. With the coloum fitted time to turn my attention to this

The fuse box i decided to use was a later tyre blade style type taken from a Mk3 Cavalier but were to fit it? My first idea was to fit it in the foot plate on the passangers side foot well as they did with the 928's

It did fit with lots of room but the problem was getting the wiring there. Next place was to replace the washer bottle, make a new box to house the fues tray and re-cut the bulk head hole,

I got as far as mounting to box but there was going to be a problem with hight as two looms had to run underneath the try, one in and one out, i aslo had the problem of re-locating the washer bottle, this idea was junked.

Could i fit the fuse box in the rear some place but running the loom that far would be a problem so the final place was in the bottom of the passanger side flitch panel

A couple of mods had to made to the panel for the box to fit but once in it didn't stand out any higher than the ECU on the other side. Now where to start!

Andy

[andyc]

Well the first job was to get all the battery lives fitted

Then start to build up the rest of the loom

While i was in there i took the chance to fit the quad relay in the fuse box as well plus run some spare live wires etc

Dash Loom taking shape

Bracket made to attach the coloum loom plug as there bis no way of keeping it out of the way

The loom took about six months to build in all, so far i've only tested it with an eight amp charger but i did get power to all the right places and nothing caught fire so that can only be a good thing.

Andy

[andyc]

More of the fuse box build up

Pic of the final set up of the coloum with the steering ecu and engine ecu in place

Next job was to make the new brake pipes. The car already had a half decent set of pipes but they were copper and i hate copper brake pipes, so without informing John i made up some new ones with OE spec pipe

URL=http://s178.photobucket.com/user/andyc2411/media/Manta%20B%2024/JohnsCar267_zps1fea4211.jpg.html]

Left Hand Pipe

Brake Valve Pipes

And Brake Master

If you think the master cylinder and servo look a little different thats because they Carlton items not Manta ones. The Carlton Cylinder is a tad bigger to help with the all round disc brakes

Next job is to sort the battery tray

[andyc]

So the next job was to sort out the battery tray. I'd never been really happy with the tray as it was a modded old Senator one and as it had to come off for paint i decided to make a new one

One problem to over come was to make the tray removable for painting so a couple of slots were cut and two feet made

And to fix it to the chassis two captive nuts were fitted

And tray bolted to the chassis leg

Now going back to the Relay Box i made earlier, i didn't like so i found one from an Astra i was breaking at the time. By using this i could also use the proper relay blocks that clip into the box but how to mount the relay box.

After mucking around for a while with different set ups i finally settled on this

I was a case of making up some flat brackets for the box to sit on

And fitted

Next is to get the motor ready for fitting for a pre-paint test run

Andy

[andyc]

So John had already had the engine re-built but as yet it had not been run. I decided that before having the engine bay painted it might be a better idea to fit the motor and do a test run to make sure all the little mods work.

First mod was to fit the Frontera heater pipes as this will mean doing away with the long heater hose from the water pump to the matrix, the Frontera one is a metal pipe that runs under the Manifolds, hardest problem was getting the U shaped hose that fitted

Once that was done a pipe then had to be for the Throttle body heater

Thts the Green pipe in the picture

The final setup for the pipes took almost a day as they had to be tweaked to exit in the correct place, miss the Exhaust Manifold, small heat shield had to be made and the pipes on the matrix also had to be adjusted

Not the best pic but you get the idea of the hose routing

Next was the pipe for the Fuel Pressure Regulator

and the pipe work for the evaporation valve

Next up was the Throttle Switch

2.2 Switch and

And the 2.4 switch

As you can see the 2.2 switch on the right is a tad bigger that the 2.4 switch which means an adaptor plate needed to be made so the 2.4 switch will fit the 2.2 throttle body

First the butterfly shaft needed to be shortened

Alloy sheet marked and centred

Fitting and adjusting holes

Cut ,cleaned and fitted

Adaptor plate made for the evaporation valve as these are impossible to find these days

Bracket made for the fuel pipes and evaporation pipe

Might re-do these in steel instead of alloy and will need to make up some harder bushes to hold the pipes

And a T Piece fitted into the cam cover breather pipe for the other end of the evaporation pipe

and the injection harness had to be modded to miss the heater pipes. This meant taking the large grommet of, turning it around and fitting a right angle connector to keep it tight to the bulkhead

Next up is to fire the motor and we are almost up to date

Cheers

Andy

[andyc]

Helps if the picture downloads. Injection loom modded

Andy

[simon p]

Need to pop over to see this

[611]

Looking forward to some pictures of the motor :-)

Andy

[2908642343]

http://forums.mantaclub.org/topic/25134-over-winter-jobs/

611 - the above are the link to the engine build thread.

Have loads more pictures as well.

[andyc]

Time for an update

 

Couple of mods to the instrument panel to take Steering and Engine EMLs

 

 

 

 

Well the car is now back from paint and again a top job by the bodyshop

 

 

Wheel wells re-schultz and another coat of wax will be applied later

[iM

G]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w245/andyc2411/Manta%20B%2024/004_zpsb0c4c1ec.jpg

 

Start of the engine bay re-build

 

New coil fitted with a nice new bit of bling. Found a place in the US that can re-cad plate but its not cheap

 

Brake pipes and balance valve fitted

 

Air con Relays to be sorted. Had a slight problem in the the fact i'd got the AC loom back in only to remember i'd forgot to re-wire it for the connection to the Motronic loom so the whole lot had to come out again, stripped back and re-done

 

Another job to be done was to mod the exhaust.Yes its a Catalyst..........................

 

 

 

Got this to be fitted but first it will go away to be overhauled into another set of casing as these ones are a bit rough

Between us we have work out that this axle has done about twenty thousand miles without even turning a wheel. Originally i'd brought a job lot of parts and this was one of them but unbeknowing at the time it was an LSD. I then moved it on the Nick Webb in the US and it went via The Netherland. Once in the US it then went onto to North Carolina to be used in a track car but the ratio was wrong so John did a swap for his original LSD and it was on its way back to the UK.

 

Some more of the wiring in place

 

 

Another mod was to sort the clutch pedal stop. Due to using a Monza Clutch pedal which is a tab longer and longer release arm to help with the weight of the Monza Clutch the pedal is straight and so misses the original stop.

Couldn't find the standard stop anywhere so had to make a new one from scratch

 

 

Bit more Bling. Original Bonnet lock re-plated

 

Engine back in

 

Thats about it for now

 

Andy

[andyc]

Bit more done

 

Starter was looking a bit sorry for itself and was the wrong colour so that has been stripped and re-painted

 

Compressor all built up on its mount, again this has also been re-painted

 

Its a tight fit and the whole thing has to be lifted one handed from underneath so the other hand is free for the bolts

 

Rad, fan and cowl fitted, that cowl need a better clean

 

and the condenser fan fitted

Sorry pic is not that great

 

Starter has also been fitted but i need to sort a new support bracket as someone in the past has butchered this one to fit, if i can't find one then i'll need to knock one up.

 

Just waiting on the 90amp alternator mounting brackets which should be here by the weekend and then i'll start to build up the inlet manifold

 

Cheers

Andy

[2908642343]

Hi Andy,

Time to put up a few more pictures and an update on progress.

John

[andyc]

Ok Ok keep your hair on 

 

Right where did i get to, ah yes the alternator. With all the extras the car is going to need a bit more power from the electrics so a new 90amp alternator was brought in, problem being we only have a 70amp bracket so John  was dispatched to source the correct mountings to take the bigger alternator, week or so later bits a pieces started to arrive

 

 

And we also added some extra support to the main bracket. In the past the straight six motors which this setup is from suffered from the threads pulling out on the timing cover so they added an extra bracket, good idea as Motronic timing coves are very hard to find

 

 

 

The extra bracket is the cad plated item in the picture and in that you can also see the Oil Pressure Switch and crank sensor

 

Next job was to sort the Inlet Manifold and the first job to port match it to the head Three ports down and one to to go. It took around two hours per port to rough it out, old gasket used as a template

 

 

Ports polished but not to a mirror finish, painted and ready for building

 

 

Some nice new shiny Manifold parts 

 

 

Also managed to find a half decent manifold heat shield, gave it a coat of heat paint but not before taking a template, once i can find a sheet big enough of this material i'll make a new one

 

 

All built up ready to fit although the vac pic for the pressure regulator has now been changes

 

 

Another delivery bring a box of extra large Opel Oil Filters and twenty litres of oil

 

 

 

Ok the answer to the question why the different oils. Well this motor has a  ceramic coating on the pistons and as such need to be broken in in a different way to a normal motor.

 

As more parts are getting added its getting a bit tight on the inlet side of the engine so things are having to be modded, the air box being one of them. With both the high and low pressure hoses and bottom rad hose all the same place the lower edge had to be adjusted so it didn't rub on any of the hoses

 

 

Right going to leave it there and finish watching the Blues Brothers

 

Andy

[611]

Hey Andy

nice to see some pictures :-)

Not got far with mine over the summer but im trying to get on and finish the exhaust on mine and then its just a few little bits left to go.

where did you get the large oil filters from? i tried to get one but it just ended up being about the same size as the original one and they look nice and big ;-)

 

Andy

[andyc]

Hi Andy

 

Picked up a box of twenty from OCP a while back but i think it was the last of there stock. It is a bit odd as it was only fitted to the Senator B 2.5 with air con so finding pattern ones is impossible as no one else made them.

 

Good for this project though as it gives a bit more oil capacity

 

Cheers

Andy