Finishing up on the wiring.

There have been many discussions on the fog lights and what / how / when etc they need to be switch on, and with what lights.....It's not that clear in the IVa manual, but my initial wiring allowed them to come on with the dip bean ONLY. I have come to the realisation that to play it safe they should also be able to be used with the main beam...this was a pain in the wotsit, and required some though on how to integrate this into the previous loom....The solution came with the cunning use of a couple of 12v Diodes, but I now think I'm covered for IVA.

The light looms are being designed to be quick release in the event the front or rear clam shells need removing.....so I'm splicing in a good quality waterproof ford connector.

Also recently finished off was the pedal box cover (Carbon of course)....a few holes were needed to allow for the steering column and the brake light switch. It was actually a difficult panel to fabricate as the pedal box is...umm...well....sort of wrong..in that I mean not square, and a bit of an odd shape. You can also see in the pic below the addition of the brake fluid warning signs..again, an IVA requirement.

The main switch panel is also complete and sits in a panel in the drivers pod. It releases via 3 m4 bolts for ease of access if required, and the aux fuse box is located under the switches.

The main Fuse and relay box is in the passenger side pod (towards the rear).

Cover on:

 Cover off:

For most of the wiring, I've used the slit convoluted tube to offer a level of protection, and where required some loom tape. The drivers side pod also has a small loom which takes the speedo, temp, oil signals from the engine. This comes together with the throttle cable on exit from the main chassis:

Finally, a few other pics of other areas of wiring:

Shafted!.....

.......in a good way of course.

Drive shafts..........ah yes, drive shafts.

Unfortunately, the puma drive shafts are a little too long for the J15. There are two viable options...shorten the existing shafts from a Puma / Fiesta or get some new ones made up. My first thoughts were to shorten. I had a few quotes from to do this ranging from £280 to £500, which to me seemed way too high. I ended up using a small engineering firm (and by small, I think it's one chap with a Lathe), said gentleman has been making drive shafts for many years, so I sent him up a shaft from the Puma, and he copied it exactly, all be it being 40mm shorter for the drivers side and 37mm for the passenger side. The shafts made from EN24T, and on assembly fitted perfectly...So, I'm a happy chap, as technically speaking the car could now potentially move under it's own steam.

Another recent purchase were the seatbelts. From experience with my Westfield, they had to be 3inch, so I called Titon in Poole who offer a custom service and can tailor the belts to your requirements. For this build short belts are needed, with snap hooks on the shoulder straps, and eye fixings for the lap straps with the lap adjustments that pull down from the buckle  rather than up from the fixing. Anyway, fantastic service from Titon who are a pleasure to deal with, and some very nice quality belts and a good price...can't ask for more than that.....

And so 2013 comes to an end....

 A bit of time off work, and apart from entertaining the kids, I've also managed to finish off a few niggles on the car build.

One of them was the fan which I had originally wired in to operate simply from the fan switch in the radiator. As it turns out, the ecu can take charge of this task, with the advantage of being able to program in the temperature you want the fan to switch in and out at. I figured as the the radiator is so far away from the engine in the J15 / Vectis, having the ECU reading the temp direct from the engine would be a better strategy. It's a simple case of using the ECU to provide a 0v signal to a relay, thus making the circuit to turn the relay on, this then starts up the fan...simples.

Also, completed (thanks to some helpful fellow builders / drivers on the locostbuilders forum) was the alternator wiring, the Puma has a two pin connector, so this was simply connected to a switched 12v supply and the other pin to the warning light on the digital dash....I wired all the engine using the semi assembled loom from Omex via connectors so it's all quick release if required.

Finally for 2013, I celebrated the end of the engine wiring by adorning it with a newly sprayed and lacquered engine cover...I was going to make one out of carbon, but thought better of it as the one on the Puma engine has a rather nice design which seals off the spark plug area.

2013......over and out....roll on 2014, which may well be the year the J15 hits the road...we shall see.

And so it continues.....

'First of all...apologies....I wrote this post some time ago, and should have been posted before the engine start post...not sure how to swap them around!'

This wiring lark really does take a while doesn't it.....

I keep wanting to move to the engine loom, but I'm determined to fully complete the rest of the wiring to a point that I never have to think about it again...Reliability is a big part of my own design brief, so simply no compromise with any of the wiring.

If you've been reading this blog for sometime, you will know that I really wanted to use the high quality fuse and relay box I removed from the Puma. At the moment, I'm still glad I pursued this route, as it's made for a good solid platform for the rest of the wiring.

This shows the main fuse box (lights, switches, etc,etc), you can also see the rear of the switch cluster which I have kept on a 'stand alone' panel with a connector - This means I can detach the lot of I need to.

 Moving to the other side of the car, the heavy stuff (starter / power / etc) is taken care of via the engine bay fuse box (from the Puma).....

Moving onto the ecu - although I've not started it's wiring, I have positioned it so I know where the loom will go. I ended up making a bracket on the passenger side which keeps the ECU easily accessible.

Engine.................STARTED :-)

A momentous occasion this evening......The engine started, and whats more seemed to purr like a kitten.

I'll be honest and say it's not been all plane sailing getting it up and running the map the Omex came loaded with did not want to open the injectors (still really don't know why), but a little help from the Omex helpline and a new cal file sent had me underway....a big thanks to Omex, their support has been great thus far, and worthy of a sticker on the side of the car when finished :-)

To recap - the ECU being used is an Omex 600 which uses one of it's aux outputs to control the cam solenoid. The function is an on/off function rather than that used on the Ford Puma which changes the cam timing on the inlet cam gradually as the revs and load rise making it not detectable. using it with the Omex means it will act more like the Vtec found on a Honda. I wired it in using a relay to be safe, although the ECU would probably have been capable of driving it.

The theory is that the cam can be switched in lower down the rev range (around 3000rpm), with the car mapped correctly (which it will be at Northampton Motorsport) should give a worthwhile performance gain........that's the theory anyway...we will see. So, in the Puma, the engine is rated at 125bhp, I've added individual throttlebodies from a gsxr750 motorbike on a homemade inlet manifold, and a decent (I hope) exhaust system...anyone care to guess what the bhp will be?.....I'm hoping for around 140bhp, and I also have a set of ford racing puma camshafts in the crosshiar when the cars through Iva and the bank balance has recovered a little.

Apart from joining the appropriate wires to the lights (that clearly can't be done until the body work is on), that's pretty much it for the wiring, I have some tidying and securing to do.

I'm pleased that I managed to keep the main loom from the puma, this connects to to the ecu via a 16 way connector, but it makes for a very neat install, and keeps the engine bay un-cluttered.

I'm hoping Mr Christmas brings me a few bits....I still need seatbelts, rear lights, some carbon panelling and driveshafts....

Exhaust is finalised, on with the wiring..oh and a little bit more on the rear brakes.

I'm lucky enough to have some skilled welders on hand for advice where I work...... This has really helped with the final exhaust system. My original plan was to simply hand car over to an expert and let them sort the exhaust system, but, once again, my bank balance got the better of me and a few quotes of 1k plus put me off the whole idea.

The system is now finished...lots of measuring, cutting, welding followed by purchasing the next section bend. I'm pleased with the end result (of course the proof is in the pudding and I'll not really know what it's like until I fire the engine up).

I purchased the base silencer first, this came open ended with no bends - It's stainless (as is the whole system), 6 inch wide and around 20 inches long - this should be plenty for IVA and 100db Track days.

First job was to weld on some mounts and get the silencer located. The rest was just figuring out how to get the outlet of the manifold through the silencer and back out the rear of the car....it's a fairly convoluted system, but the constraints of the J15 space meant it had to be like this...plus I'm going for a forward hinging rear clam.


The build:

• Mounting lugs welded on, and chassis mounts needed two brackets to allow the rubber mounts to be inset to fit the silencer.

• Two of the bends welded in:

• The most convoluted of the bends was the bottom bend that needed two angles to get it to point in the right direction:

• Almost finished system with the cat in situe, the link pipe on the left and side was changed for a welded on connection that only need one clamp (see the finished  pic):

• Anyway, here it is the finished article (note: the cat slots into the space where the lower link pipe is located):

Back to the rear brakes.....As I saved some hard earned cash on the exhaust, I scummed to a set of rear hispecs with the IVA rear handbrake mechanism built in (in blue of course), they conveniently do a vw lug mount calliper, which is very lights and should fit straight on....they've been ordered and I hope to get them in a few weeks. I just wasn't overly happy with the VW callipers being so close to the 13inch wheels (although they did go in). Will post some pics when they arrive.

Roll bar measurements