What a tart I am......Check out these beauties that arrived today....Colour coded to the car. How about that for some totally unecessary spending!..I paid extra for the colour....But......They do look very nice. Also purchased EBC Greenstuff pads for them.

Curse the day I decided to make the inlet manifold!!!

Seriously, if you ever think about making an inlet manifold which has massively convoluted angles......DON'T!

I should have bought a weber dcoe manifold and spaced the throttle bodies....you live and learn, but I'm too far down the road now to be beaten.....as you can see the two flanges are finished and I'm almost there with the first tube.....ended up bolting the two together to get the distance and spacing. But my hands are covered in blisters from trying to file them down...ouch!.

Although I always vowed to keep this blog about the car, we had some good news about our youngest who is now 2 and a half yrs old...he had reconstructive surgery on his trachea 6 weeks ago at gosh, and another trip up this week has confirmed all seems well...we are hoping we are on the home run now to getting his tracheostomy out which might mean he can make some noise. He's a real trooper who just plods on and gets on with life....inspirational really, watching these young kids coping with life's ups and downs.

Saturday now, and although the wife doesn't know it yet, the main loom is going to be slithering into the house tonight like a giant python, and will park itself on the lounge floor where the buzzing out and stripping starts.....can't beat that for a sat night can you?

Fuel pump, inlet manifold and wiring

I spent some time dismantling the fuel pump bracket last night. The pump itself looks very small, but obviously up to the job. For the build, you use the existing bracket but it needs lengthening to the pump reaches the bottom of the fuel tank. The fuel tank is deep thin rather than shallow and long (as it is in the Puma), and sits in front of the bulkhead in the passenger footwell. The advantage of this set up is there is no need (as far as I can see) for a swirl pot set up to aviod fuel surge (which involves a lifter pump, additional small tank, and extra pipework). The fuel should keep the pump covered as the pump sits at the bottom of a high and narrow tank. Time will tell of course, and a track day will be the real test.

More fetling on the inlet manifold, I am currently chain drilling the portholes around the plastic gasket...In all honesty, I should have bought the flange from ebay, as one of the chaps on the locost forum makes them for reasonable prices. Said person has also supplied me with a blank air filter back plate that will be used to mount the pipercross PX500 air filter.

Made some progress on the wiring too...have now buzzed out two of the sub looms so I have all the connections written down. When doing the wiring, I like to be able to disconnect the various looms where possible, so currently loom 1 has the injectors, TPS, VCT, camshft position sensor. Loom 2 has the inlet manifold temp sensor, alternator, VR sensor. Both connect into the main loom that will go to the ecu.

On another note, the DVLA have let me down (or possibly the royal mail), the V5 never arrived for the Puma, so although I've now finished with it, I can't get rid of it. I've just sent off my V62 for a replacement logbook, and a V890 to apply for SORN.

Looks like pickup date is going to be the weekend of the 10/11th Nov 12....

Finished with the Donor Car.

I've now removed the loom from the Puma, this involved removing the dash. Once you know where the screws are it's easy!, but finding the screws ain't!.

At the mo, I'm not sure how much of it it I'll be able to make good use out of, but just automotive grade wires are worth keeping even if I use them to make my own loom. I did find an emergency cut off switch hiding in the passenger footwell, and that is something that can be used.

Steering column came out, then went back in as I need it to get rid of the car, and also, the fuel pump has been relieved of it's puma duties and will find a good home in the J15.

So, what next?....Well, I keep talking about the inlet manifold, and that's now well underway. Currently making up the two flanges that will be joined via the alloy tube. Also made an idle adjustment screw up.

Will try and get some pics of the inlet manifold posted soon. Meanwhile, I've strung all the bits I have up from the garage roof...and this is what it looks like so far :-)

Right then....Jeremy from Sylva contacted me today...a). to tell me my kit will be ready next week, and b). to inform me that he is looking into a slight change in the way the rear clam shell opens (was backwards, now will be forwards). The reason for the clam now going forwards is mainly to do with the exhaust clearence.

As much as I want to get my dirty mits on the car, I'm going to pick up early Nov...I've got quite a lot on at the mo with my youngest up and down to Great Ormand Street Hospital. Plus it does give me time to finish the engine / gearbox and also get rid of the donor car.

Updates this week.....well, it was time to attach the 'very dirty' gearbox. Yet another tenna spent in halfords on a litre of gunk, and boy did it need it!....two nights scrubbing an I finally ended up with something worthy of being painted. At the same time I have replaced the clutch slave cylinder, and of course the clutch will be replaced when the engine and gear box are finally married. I will need to take both up when I pick up the car as one of the engine mounts is slightly different and Jeremy will weld up a different mount while I wait...Great service.

Back to the gear box...Here she is in all of her flat black glory :-)

In addition, I have cut down the puma top engine cover as it acts as a nice seal for the spark plug area.

Not too much progress over the weekend. Alas, it was my 40th Birthday meaning I really needed to drink lots and eat lots :-)

Anyway, I did manage to do a little bit of engine dressing on Sunday afternoon. As you can see,  it now looks very respectable, and is ALMOST finished.

So, rocker cover sanded down and finshed off with a crackle black finish (as is the aux belt tensioner), injectors, and fuel rail all cleaned up and fitted.

TB's are hanging in place at the mo until I get the manifold made.

My idea for the air filter is similar to my old Westfield. Using some large rubber gromet inserts in the back plate, the plate will then double as securing plate for the trumpets.

Not to much going on now the cam belt etc has been done. I've been doing much staring  at the inlet manifold and the alternator position and come to the conclusion that I simply don't want to move the alternator, so so the inlet manifold is going to have to fit 'SOMEHOW!'.

The cambelt sprocket is an interference fit, so the torque on the crank bolt needs to be enough to hold it in place..i.e. lots of it!. You also have to be very careful with the VCT system, as you loosen the cam belt off the inlet cam pulley can spin. For this reason, I made a cam locking tool, but ALSO made a mark on the cam pulley to make sure when the belt went back on the cam shaft / pulley were as before.

New aux belt / Idle pulley arrived and fitted (thats not very exciting is it).

Throttle bodies will not need re-spacing as they need to be offset slightly from cylinder number. Purchased some 'air ducts' from ebay that I have managed to make fit as TB trumpets (very cheap, so quite pleased with that). The air filter back plate will be mounted on the trumpets via some rubber grommets.

Anyway, can't leave Thursdays blog without a pic, so here are the TB's:

Just finished the engine refresh. New cam belt, tensioner, water pump, thermostat and housing.
The aux belt will also be replaced with one from a 1.25 zetec as many of the Fiestas these were fitted to did not have power steering or air con.

A couple more jobs to do.....crackle finish the rocker cover, and design and make the inlet manifold for the throttle bodies....This is going to be difficult as the alternator is in the way...but will work something out. Once this is done, I will make a start on the gear box (just needs a clean and paint).