Well the engine has been out of the car for a few weeks, while I weld some dzus fasteners onto the bottom tubes of the engine bay. This is mainly to allow me to remove the floor more easily.
Currently I have to undo about 20 self tapping screws and it really kicks in the RSI in my wrists.
While doing the welding I did have a mishap with a stray welding spark, a drip tray of … lets call it “accelerant” and things got a little hairy there for a while with large flames burning merrily under the car’s fuel tank. However, we got it sorted out and it only cost me some eye brows and a few heat curled eye lashes.
So with regards to prepping the engine, I’ve changed the clutch and oil filter, refitted and sealed the sump and removed the water pump. Paddock chatter is that running an electric pump, releases some horse power. I’m not sure I see this is the case as the electric pump is driven from the engine’s alternator which also saps power, and that the energy is being transferred from kinetic energy to electric energy and back again so it is by definition less efficient than the purely kinetic pump. However I currently have both types of pump so losing one of them is surely a good thing. Plus I had no choice. I broke the pump drive taking it out. “Pink”…. went the sheared bolt.. “Oh it’s a left hand thread!” said I to Duncan…hmmm.
One of the things that I want to do this winter is put in a couple of mechanical gauges so that I can release the data logging channels to watch the suspension movements. So I’ve ordered a couple of Racetech mechanical gauges. Unfortunately the Oil temp sender “bulb” is quite large, so I had to make a little standoff on the lathe to get it to fit instead of the sump plug. I needed to space it out so that it didn’t protrude far enough into the sump to Jam the swinging pickup. This took a while plus I learned thread cutting on the lathe along the way.
Cool. Just waiting for some daylight this weekend and the engine can go back in