Well, this is a post I thought I would never be doing.......The J15 has been sold to make room for a new project. More about that in another blog.

But, it was a genuinely sad day watching it drive away. Shes gone to a good home in Birmingham.

Reality was, the J15 was not getting used, and quite honestly I really missed the building and tinkering.

So, I'll close here......bring on the new project which has 8 cylinders.

This is Paul............................signing out!!!

800 miles and counting

Not a massive amount to report....car now has 800 miles on the clock, and so far no real issues. It's been reliable, even through a particularly big downpour!.


The screen is now working well with it's new additional Perspex clear add-ons, but I'm not overly happy with the way it looks. I asked JP if he could do one of his screens for the J15 with a tint, but alas, no can do. I'm not in a rush to change it, but will park it in the 'things to think' about bucket.

Also, you may have noticed the vent in the bonnet. This is to try to minimise some of the parachute effect you get with these designs. It allows air to escape a little quicker...does it work?........

................who knows, but it's carbon and looks good, so that will do for now.


I'm trying a smattering of lipstick on the very front of the car. Again, something I did with previous westfield and does add to the look. It's done with peel off rubber spray which is great for when I inevitably get board and decide to change the look of the car again.

500 miles update

Having now done 0.5k miles in the little Sylva I thought it time to update the blog. most of the miles have been a sneeky trip into work on a Friday (1/2 day which means I can take the 'long' way home). So, rush hour traffic and the J15....Not as bad as you may think, the hydraulic (and standard) clutch is a welcome bonus in comparison to the fast road clutch I had in the westfield. Lets see how it copes on track but with a car weighing less than half its original intended application, my guess is it will be fine.

I mentioned in the last post that the screen needs some additional height, this has now been sorted with two small perspex screens, thats really helped, and on  a private road I took the J15 upto 105mph with not too much in the way buffeting.

I also popped over a fellow J15 builders house on the weekend. His car has a duratec 2.0ltr engine that I'm sure is going to be a beast, but has built the car with a period look, really good to see the same car with 2 different build briefs. Anyway, looking good Chris, I'll be cheering you on for an IVA in 2015 :-)

I'm still saving my pennies to get the suspension set up. I keep toying with the idea of 4 ebay 180kg scales, some string and some luck.....but I just know I'll always wonder if its' right, so no, no, no...naughty boy for even thinking it!.

The driving

Before I had really driven the car, I had a number of modifications already figured out. However, having now put a few hundred miles on the car I'm going to ease back on what I had initially thought.

First off.........Power!

A standard engine was never really going to cut it, the old westfield was camm'ed, tuned, and torquey, it was chucking out around 175bhp of 2ltr loveliness...no way was standard 1.7 going to do it for me. Well, I'm pleased to say thus far I've been wrong. The shear revviness of the little puma engine is a delight, and currently full throttle acceleration runs are scaring me far more than they should. So, engine upgrades are on the back burner for now which is a nice surprise. It sounds good too.

Suspension and the mystery of the jumpy throttle
Sounds like the title of a Harry Potter book, but I assure you, the jumpy throttle and suspension are firmly linked and form a rather funny story...read on.
One of the gripes of the driving experience was that the transition from off throttle to 'a tiny, weenie' bit of throttle was to put it mildly, a bloody nightmare. The car would basically kangaroo down the road if you were trying to take it easy. A few emails to Northampton regarding the mapping, and there were a few thing to try. That was on hold while I tried in vein to solve another problem...that of a ridiculously stiff front end. I went down to 175lb springs, but that still didn't seem to make much difference. It was only when cussing about my wasted £30 on new springs I tried coming a further 2 clicks of the shocks. Now, in my defence, the Gaz shocks have in excess of 20 clicks from full soft to full hard, so I assumed (yes I know, assumption is the mother of all.............well, you know the rest) that going in at around 8 would be a good starting point. Turns out that on the J15, anything over 4 is rock solid!!!!!!!...opps.
Shocks now set with three clicks on the front, and my mysterious throttle jumpy problem disappeared, because it's now possible to keep your foot on the throttle pedal without it getting knock around from the stiff car. Now, having worked on a few cars in the past I consider myself to mildly knowledgeable of the problem solving process on car faults, but I never would of thought that changing my shock settings could solve a self diagnosed 'mapping issue'......you live and learn as they say.



ARB's
Still undecided about this one...The car currently seems stiff even though I've gone down to 175lb springs on the front. It's really a track day that will decide if ARB's make sense or not. There is so much grip available that I've not come close to exploring the cornering ability, and thus can't really tell what the roll angle is on the limit......roll on suspension set up and a track day.

Aero
The aero screen is good, but I need to install a small clear screen atop of the aeroscreen (ever seen the tiny postage stamp size ones on the ariel atom?) just to brake up the air flow as it smacks you in the face, this will make the driving experience a little less 'frantic' all being well. On the same subject, I still like the idea of a front splitter of some sort, but nothing has jumped out at me thus far that would do the job...the search continues.

Other issues / observations

• Wing mirrors, with hindsight, I should have gone for something smaller than the current e-tec's. Fact is, the driver side wing mirror vibrates around and is close to useless anyway, so a smaller lighter mirror may be the answer. It's a shame, because the mirrors look good!.
• Wheels - They need to be black!
• General crap flying around under the front clam - I removed the make shift protection I put on last year, but reality is the front wheels really chuck up the grit and mud. The solution really is to construct something like I did on the rear clam...Thats now on the to do list
• Rev counter - the electric speedo is actually rather good (I wasn't expecting that!). But the rev counter at the top is just too small to see - The solution has been to install a shift light that sits on the steering column, and is perfectly placed to shout 'CHANGE UP' when the time comes
• Driving position - Even though I spent many hours on this, I could still do with a tad more rake on the drivers seat, just to support the backs of the knees a little and pull the arms out a tad.

What else has been happening...ahh yes, I was delighted to receive a call from Complete Kit Car (CKC) asking if they could run a 2 part readers car feature on my car...yes, my car...what a genuine surprise. By the time I post this I think the april addition of CKC will be out so I'm going to rush to the shops to get my copy. The first part is build related, and the second instalment is more based around the driving and finished article. But, they seem like a great bunch, and I cant wait to see it.....the front cover is on thier website ( so I hope they dont mind me doing an image cut and paste) and in the bottom left hand corner you may be able to see a little blue car with some 15 inch puma wheels holding it up :-). We also recently did a photo shoot, but don't want to give anything away until it's in print...Needless to say, I hope I can get a few of the prints.

Now, when am I going to get this first track day out of the way?............Until next time!.

Finished.

For some strange reason, the 25th Nov 2014 feels like a bigger milestone than passing the IVA. So, whats happened?......Well, the V5C form arrived today, and when I checked online the car had also been taxed. I had to check as the DVLA no longer issues tax discs, and there was no paperwork.

So, I picked the kit up on the 10th Nov 2012, and completed it on the 25th Nov 2014. Just over two yrs to build...not bad I suppose.

I've had a few moments recently where I've stood back and pondered what I would do differently if I was to build it again, and I guess its good to report that the answer was not a lot. I should have hacked off the steering lock gubbins and fitted an immobiliser (much neater), and also moved the key ignition to the side pod. Apart from that I think it's car I intended on building.

So, I should stop the blog?

Well, as anyone who has built a kit car knows, getting through the IVA is just a start, I'm now looking forward to some track days next year and trying to 'develop' the car into a quick track car.

Things I will ponder over the next year or so:

• Anti Roll Bars
• Side impact protection
• New camshafts / remap
• Brake balance adjustment
• Suspension set up 
• Aeropackage - front splitters / rear diffuser

Watch this space!

Aeroscreen!

 I had a letter from the DVLA on saturday...Dear sir, you enclosed the incorrect amount for the first years tax payment...etc...etc....

Turns out, the first year you tax a car, it must be for a year...DOH!. Oh well, a few more weeks to wait then.

Meanwhile, a job I've been itching to do for a long long time......THE AEROSCREEN :-)

The standard Sylva offering for a windcreen is fairly tall and clear perspex. Point being it's tall enough that you need be able to actually look through it. It's a nice design though, just not exactly what I wanted.

I've always like the lip aeroscreens like you see on Caterhams, but the shape of the J15 does not lend itself to this sort of screen. The plan was to use some flat carbon, wrap it around the lip on the tub and secure it...Job done!..note quite. As there are two curves to contend with my so called simple job turned out to be actually quite difficult. To a point three attempts at a card template, and I gave up. What now?......A call to a fellow builder who has yet to fit his screen was the answer (thanks Chris). I took a template, and few hrs work on the weekend the J15 was sporting it's new aeroscreen. Still needs some further securing, but that can wait until the tub comes off.

Side duct number 1.

I promised I would keep everyone updated on this, so will try my hardest to keep taking photos as I go.

Moving on from the top vents in the engine bay, I've now installed the first of two NACA ducts in the side pod. After some measuring I realised I was able to squeeze in a 75mm duct. The main issue here was the fact that the side pod is not flat over the area of the duct. However, by strategically tightenin the rivets in an order so it pulled the fiberglass out evenly, I was 'JUST' able to get the duct flush to the body work.

The 75mm ducting came from ramair, and is good stuff...feels nice and strong.

The pipe work in the engine bay is pointing towards the air filter. No idea if it will make a real world difference, but as it was getting genuinly warm around this area, I can't see why not. By having a very slight

upwards angle on the duct, I was able to route the 75mm tube between chassis tubes. This holds it nicely. 

More on the venting

I mentioned in my last blog update about my musings regarding engine cooling via some movement of fresh air. Since then, I've cut the 5 holes just above the throttle bodies and added some mesh. With the engine run up to temperature, you can really feel the warm air rising from this area, so it can only be a good thing with regards to inlet temperature.

I was also pondering the very rear of the car and thinking about some holes just above the exhaust silencer. While doing one of my 35 min staring sessions with a cuppa, I noticed some recesses in the back of the rear clam. I say noticed, I mean remembered....these were originally meant for rear reflectors, but as I changed my light arrangement from what Sylva intended (reflectors were built in to rear light cluster), the recesses were redundant.

For a laugh a I drilled them out and finished the edge off with a grommet. Yes, I know they won't do much in the way of cooling, but I think it looks rather good (better than a wasted recess anyway).

And finally, I have just noticed a nice little area just in front of the rear wheel arch, that would fit a small(ish) NACA duct just perfectly. With one of these installed each side and some nice 50mm ducting pointing up towards the throttle bodies, I think I could really make use of the top vent holes.

Ride height revisisted

Having now done a few miles to and from IVA centre, it was clear that the car seemed way to stiff at the front end. The springs were 200lb, and having now seen the axle weights, my guess is 200lbs is too much for 200kgs. Something needed to be done!.

In addition, I used an extension bracket to add an inch of ride height to the car to allow the front lights to pass the 500mm height requirement for IVA. This actually proved useful in that gave me effectively a 13" shock which suits the car better with the 13" wheels.

The bracket used was a) heavy, and b). borrowed, so it needed to come off. The solution was potentially to sell the 12" shocks and buy some 13", but a quick call to Gaz and a new set of shock tops were on their way to me with almost an inch increase in length...perfect and cheap solution.

That solved the ride height, but to also soften the front end a little, softer springs were needed. I put these on while replacing the shock tops. I've only gone down to 175lbs as I still want the car to be more track focused than road compliant, so we will see how the 175's perform.

This pic shows the different length of the tops, and the different colour of a 175lb spring!.

Another hot subject is the engine bay cooling :-)

not much in the way of free air flow with these rear engined cars. Look at any production car that has an engine stuffed behind the seats, and you will notice fairly sizable vents in the side to channel air in to either the engine bay or to a radiator / oil cooler. The J15 as standard offers very little in the way of air flow. Yes there are two small vents just behind the drivers and passenger ear, but that's about it. This means the engine bay (which of course includes the entire exhaust system) stays pretty.....bloody....warm. not so good on track days, and as the induction is firmly located behind the rear bulkhead, not so good for power as the warm air is far less dense than nice crisp cool air from outside the car.

So, what to do....Well, I've started by introducing some 'escape holes' into the rear clam. The first to be drilled are just above the air filter. The next step is to try and get some more air forced in. My plan is to place two NACA ducts and some tubes pointing at the air filter from below. That's the plan, and while I'm waiting for the DVLA to make a dream come true (and send me my plates), now seems like a good time to do these sort of jobs.

IVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....tis done m lud :-)

Goodness me, it's been a while since last post, but that's not to say nothing has been going on. To be honest, I can't remember all the various bits that I've done but it matters not......IVA is done and dusted.

It went through on the second attempt after a couple of surprising fails first time around. 1st was the wing mirrors. Basically they were not high enough to view the bottom dot on the IVA testers wall. Interestingly, other J15 builders had used the same mirrors and put them in the same position, but mine were 'way out'. Second on the list was the noise level. The pass mark was 100dBs and the J15 came out at 102dB. The issue here was not the exhaust noise but the fact that the engine was / is right next to the exhaust, so the meter picks up both exhaust and engine noise. Not good!.

Anyway enough of all that fail rubbish....retest took the best part of 20 mins, and with my new 4 inch mirror extensions, and 30 quids worth of sound deadening in the engine bay, she flew through. Job done. Since IVA, and by that I mean approx 36.324 mins after IVA, the look of the car has changed a little. The 'not so nice' mirrors have vanished (I think someone stole them), and as luck would have it, I had spare SPA central mirror, and some e-tech wing mirrors.

Also the steering wheel now looks 'different'...it's reduced down to 270mm, and a nice 90mm extension, and now sits perfectly where I want it with the added advantage that my knees don't hit it when driving. The experience is much more 'race car' like when sat in the drivers seat.

Other new additions are the two light covers, which I've been gagging to fit, but have resisted until through the IVA. These make a huge difference to the look of the car. The fitment of these is not great, as the mould of the front clam is not really designed to take them (i.e. there is no lip for them to sit in). But, nonetheless they certainly improve the look of the car in my opinion. I made the fixtures using some stainless washers bent over, then tapped a thread through them to take an M4 hex bolt.

And finally....back to the wheels. I've ditched the image split rims as I was never really quite happy with the size and fitment (mainly the offset). The previous rims had an offset which pushed them out of the arches, but not quite to the edge of the arch extensions. They were also 7 inch and although ok for a 185 tyre, was not optimum. So, I've reverted back to compomotive CXR's 6.5inch all round with an offset of ET01.

Well, that will do for now......I'm going to stop writing this and get on with what I should be doing, which is completing the DVLA forms!. Here hoping I get to drive it before the end of November.............2014 of course.

Self centering steering - an IVA requirement

The IVA manual states:

"When the vehicle is driven at speeds of over 10mph, there must be a degree of steering self centring evident"

This is a difficult one to get right without driving the car so I used a local private road to drive up and down to see if I could best gauge what was going on with the steering. The consensus on various forums seems to be a small amount of toe out and much increased front tyre pressure.

I tried this, and to be honest the car felt close on undrivable with the front end feeling like it made no contact with the road!. Back to the drawing board, tyres back to 18psi, and a tad of toe out seemed to do the trick. What was really interesting was the amount of difference just one turn of the track rod made on the feel of the car. In such a light car the geo set up can really change the entire feel of how it drives. I remember getting my old westfield set up by track developments just before a track day, and it was probably the single biggest improvement in performance terms that I made.

Plan is to get through IVA, then take car to the specialists for a suspension set up. Currently, the front end seems to stiff, possibly because the car is built as light as possible, but will do for now.

Engine bay protection

One of the (what I think) major issues with the rear of the J15 is the total lack of any protection of the engine bay from the rear wheels. This part of the build is left to the builder. I thought long and hard about this and came up with more seemingly unfeasible ideas that I care to remember. A chance glance over a rear engined 1960's lola at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed gave me the inspiration I needed. That used a nicely crafted aluminium wheel arch that sat within the rear clam shell.

Clearly I couldn't dream of panel beating some Aluminium like they did in the 60's, so I opted to use the remainder of some plastic sheets I purchased in bulk some time ago.

A large piece was bolted to the inner arch, and the inner part bonded using sikaflex and some additional aluminium brackets for strength. End result should see the engine bay kept a little cleaner. You can also see some of the aluminium strips I've put over the exhaust cuts in the hope that it avoids the fiberglass catching fire!.

In other news.........One item that has been bugging me was the front indicators. I purchased them ages ago, and they were not E marked. For IVA, this is not a must, but no E marking means the IVA man must measure the brightness etc, so I simply opted to change the indicators for some that were E marked...Job done.

Also, because I've used 13inch wheels, the front ride height was not quite high enough for the lights to achieve their 50mm min height, this has now been taken care of via some brackets on the front shocks.

Finally...IVA....It's the 13th Aug 2014 now, and I applied two weeks ago. The money came out well over a week ago, but still no date. I was hoping for an aug date, but it's going to be sept I suspect...Oh well!.

The final push

It's the the 7th July and I've still not booked IVA....I think I'm ready but....but....but what!. I should just bloody book it and quit with the excuses.

A few general updates.

Rear view mirror, now installed, it needs to be high enough to get over the rear engine. This should do. I madeit from ally, and grafted on the puma mirror.

Also completed was some water proofing to the rear, in an attempt to shield some of the grime from the rear wheels.

More on the vct system

Here are a few additional graphs showing the operation of the vct system in just an on/off mode.

• Run 3 is with VVT on all the way
• Run 4 is with VVT off all the way
• Run 8 is with VVT on up to 5500 and off after, plus final tweaks on fuel and
  ignition.

What really stands out is the additional mid range that it fills, and clearly the cam is capable of making power high up the rev range (normally compramised with the mid and low down).

Will try and writ some more on this interesting subject when I get chance.

Engine set up - Does VCT work?

Friday was a big day for the Sylva J15. It was time to get the engine tuned and ready for IVA.

I have used Northampton Motorsports many times in the past, and find them nothing but perfectly professional, pleasant to deal with and talk to and most importantly...bloody good at their job. You also know that the power you end with is real and not just beefed up pub fodder.

We kicked of at around 12:30pm, and the engine was all over the place. It would not idle, and there was something not quite right...we ended up tracing the issue down to a TPS sensor not allowing one of the butterflies to close, and the bleed screws leaking. Once sorted, we had a good tick over, and the car was ready for mapping.

Now, this was always going to be an interesting one. There has been many, many threads about the function of the variable valve timing system on the st170 and puma 1.7 engine. The system used by ford is continuously variable, but the Omex 600 in the J15 will only do on/off control. The question really is, will this work?.

The answer is yes, and it worked very well. Troy at NMS, did some power runs with the VCT fully on, and with it fully off.

• With it on, the tick over and first 2000 rpm were compromised, but mid range looked good, with power trailing off beyond 6000rpm
• With it off, tick over was fine, but the mid range was low, but top end power looked good with the engine puling right up to 7200rpm.

So, with these two plots overlayed, it was very clear where to turn the vct on, and where to turn it off again. This is done via the alt function in Omex, and also you can specify the throttle load, so if your are cruising gently, you can have the vct off.

Anyway, what was the result of all of this. Headline figures were a stonking 155bhp, but decent torque in the mid. You can see the plot shows the kick at 5800rpm, where VCT is disengaged. The curve is smooth, and the engine is bog standard apart from the Throttle bodies, and exhaust. so up from the 125 hp of the puma by 30bhp. Very pleased...I took the car for a sneaky drive down the industrial estate and it felt suitably fast. The next step was the emissions ...and with the addition of the CAT, it sailed through without any further alterations to the fuel map. All in all, a great day out :-)

Wheel arch protection and lighting

Not a massive amount done of late, but at least the rear lights are now completed and working. If you have been reading the blog, then you will no I opted not to use the lights that came with the kit for no other reason than I found the LED autolamps all in one units to be a good fit with style and ethos of the car I'm building. The LED units mean the drilling and mounting is easier as they sit on the fibreglass rather than poking through it, it also means the rear of the lights are less exposed to the inner wheel arch environment.

The fog, reverse and number plate lights are also LED, and suitably bright as can be seen in the pic below.

Other additions to J15 include some font inner arches to at least 'try' to keep the inevitable road grime away from the rest of the car...quite how effective this will be remains to be seen. I actually made them from the same material they use for most production cars. It's a plastic which is bendy enough to go around corners, lined with some rubber finishing strip. It's simply bolted into the panels that close of the end of the sills. More of this stuff needs to be strategically deployed around the car, but all in good time.

 Last but not least for May 2014.....what car would not look complete without a huge black dot on the side!. Number to be decided.....might put my age when I finished the car!

Next step...wire font lights and rolling road.