General X in NZ

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General X in NZ

The car is going extremely well at the moment, still haven't checked the float levels or eliminated the flat spot, but it is a bit of a monster anyway...

In other news I have scored some items of interest - an early model stainless steel header tank which has a ding but quite frankly I am not the sort of boy to care too much about that;

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And another engine cover;

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Which I will modify to get some more airflow + a cold air box for the induction as it gets extremely hot under the bonnet.

This?;

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probably more like this;

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The one on the car is so mint it would be wrong to chop it to bits.
 
So I am beginning my engine cover mods, this is where I have got to but I am not that happy with the looks, kind of budget back to the future somehow. I think the pods are too tall and the mesh looks a bit backyard.....

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I had to give up on the MR2esque side feed as it would mean making the whole thing removable as the hinges would not work. I will cut a bit of height out of them and change/remove the grilles. These are not attached yet, just sitting there....

What do you'all think...?
 
Found new-style frameless wiper blades for X1/9

I found the newer-style frameless replacement windshield wipers for the 74-89 X1/9. The original 14"/15" wiper blades are nearly impossible to find in the new upgrades, but I found 'Trico NeoForm Beam Blades' come in 14", they look and perform great. Got them online. Hope this helps others.

:worship:
 
Picked up another engine cover yesterday, hacked and welded today. I had already cut half the height out of the pods as they looked so average. I also put the mesh on the inside, think it make it look slightly more subtle ;) I fully welded the pods on so then had to spend some considerable time grinding and smoothing the welds back, I may still need to smear a bit of poo down the joints to make it look a smidge better. Bit of barbeque paint and will be done then.

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I put the unfinished bonnet on to check it's performance, but before I swapped it I checked the working temperature of the airbox with a thermocouple, which fluctuated between 50 and 55 degrees. I swapped the covers and checked it, and it fluctuated between 50 and 55 degrees. A worthwhile result....

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I will hack more out of the inner skin though, and it did cool down a lot quicker....

And I kind of like how it looks too, you get a wee peek of the internals through the slots :slayer:

Also I have rechecked the float levels, which I tweaked a tiny bit, and I have drilled out some spare idle jets to 0.55mm - this has almost cured the flatspot issue, plus fuel consumption is not quite so rampant as it was. I will still try and find some new 32mm chokes which should improve the tractability.
 
Borrowed a kevlar race seat off a mate for the up and coming track day, so I don't get a sore elbow from bracing myself going around the bends... it came out of a Peugeot race car that was raced by Peter Brock at bathurst, so I will be channeling the awesome obviously.

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It took about half an hour to mount rails to it as the rail spacing in the car is 350mm, and the bolt hole spacing on the seat was 345mm so I simply had to ****cough**** ......sorry what was I saying?

I had ripped some rails from the seat of a Fiat 850 sport that I helped chop up a couple of weeks ago, as these turned out to be the same profile as the X's, this meant I didn't have to find a set of impossible to find X seats and cut them up to get the rails...

Looks pretty awesome in place, and is low enough for my helmet to clear the hoop thing behind my head - which is good as I have terrible trouble keeping my helmet from banging things....

I kind of want to keep in in there permanently, however getting into the car is difficult anyway - with this seat it is f**king near impossible for a man of my advanced years and infirmities.
 
Swapped the wheels front to back as I though the stiffer sidewalls on the fronts would be better off restraining the engine end of the car which seemed to bear out + the new rears are slightly less grippy than 'tother ones :D

While they were being swapped I thought I would smash some black goodness on there...

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Also I have basically sorted the fuel consumption issue; by the simple expident of correctly reading the tripmeter in miles instead of kilometers my consumption has improved by a factor of 1.6 .......

:idea::idea::idea:

I have had the car for 2 years and it has only just occured to me. I am ashamed of myself.
 
S I went to the Fiat Lancia club track day, was awesome fun. I had emailed as many people in the NZ X1/9 Register a couple of weeks ago to see if I could get a good turnout of X1/9's - it worked alright, at one point there were 7 parked up.... not all were racing but there were at least 5 that did;

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I only lasted for the morning session unfortunately as quite a lot of oil started to get blown out of the crank seal :(

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This coated the pulleys and cambelt so i thought it best to call it a day...

Up till then it was going really well, discovered that the best method at the hairpin was full noise sideways :slayer: . Scared myself with a couple of tankslappers too. Didn't get to see how fast I could get down the straight as I only ran the morning short courses...

Also got a ride in a replica prototipo, that was sweet, twice as much of everything as mine has, power/handling/brakes..

In the afternoon, a chap I know lent me a Fiat Punto GT for a few rounds, that was pretty good for a FWD car - it spent most of the time with one of it's wheels cocked..

So I finally got around to starting to sort the oil leak issue, poor thing has been up on stands in the garage for the last 3 weeks after the track day with nothing done.

However I had a couple of hours today and got to this stage - seeing the offending blown out crank seal which is pretty obvious actually when not hidden by vital engine ancillaries, although maybe not so much for you good people due to failphone useless.

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I have a new seal and cambelt, goodness, joy end eternal crankcase seal integrity shall follow.
 
Long time no post, mostly because the car has been behaving itself :). So there is another track day coming up with the Canterbury Fiat Lancia club. Last year I used a kevlar race seat which was good and supportive but this wasn't low enough to let me have the roof on while wearing a helmet which sucks quite badly. I have been looking around for a year for something that will do the trick, including looking at getting one of my existing seats modified to be lower and more supportive, but it was all difficult and/or expensive. So i though f*ck that, why don't I just build one, then I can make sure it is as low as possible within the space that I have. Not too worried about the legalities as I will probably never use it on the road or for proper racing, and I can make it suit my awesomely chunky arse as well.

Still got a couple of bits to tack on yet - extra bracing between the hip and shoulders, and probably a couple of bits by the thigh. I will no doubt pull out of shape a bit when it gets fully welded, but as I have done it all pretty much by eye so meh. Initial indications are that I will have a spare 50mm or so above my helmet = yay.

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Not sure whether to tack in some thin steel for the actual seaty bit, or pop rivet some ally sheet. Probly just velcro some padding straight on to whatever that ends up being.

In other news, the crank seal has been fully continent since seal replacement. We will see what happens during the next track day, if it blows again I will try and get a baffled oil pan thingy as a chap here in NZ has made some copies of a PBS one.

Also a bushing fell out of the steering rack a couple of months ago and tore the boot, I was quite confused when I went to the garage and found this;

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It is sorted now with grease instead of oil, that way if the bush falls out again I will be able to ignore it as there will be no evidence.
 
Line the seat with thin sheet metal and get yourself a bag seat kit - it is just a big plastic bag filled with what looks like expanded styrene beads. You pour liquid resin in to the bag, lay it across the seat frame and make yourself comfy. The whole thing then moulds itself to your body and when it sets you are left with the perfect seat liner. Some people just line it duck tape, others go a bit further and use proper fabric to protect it. Either way it is light and gives optimum support.

It isn't a particularly cheap option - I think the kits are about £80 plus any additional bits (vacuum pump for example) so probably the wrong side of £100. No idea how much they might be in NZ.
 
I have not seen these kits anywhere here, I was told that the midget/stock car drivers use a bin liner and expanding foam to get the same result...might give that a go :D

A couple of people here have queried why I am making the frame so rigid, as they say it should move if you crash so as not to cause injury... this is seems wrong to me, I would have thought that the more rigid the better. Any thoughts on this?
 
Ignore them, they are idiots. Stiffer is better, but try to make sure there is no inherent "weak spot" in the bar work, as if (god forbid) it all goes wrong, then you don't want the seat snapping.

As for the seat fitting, I think there is (or was) a two part expanding foam mixture, I will ask Dad if he can remember the name of the stuff.
 
Currently using expanding foam from a can to make the plug of a body kit with a friend, it's cool but it's not particularly controllable and isn't all that appropriate for what you're thinking. The two part stuff might work better as you can generally control how much it will expand.
 
Ignore them, they are idiots. Stiffer is better, but try to make sure there is no inherent "weak spot" in the bar work, as if (god forbid) it all goes wrong, then you don't want the seat snapping.

As for the seat fitting, I think there is (or was) a two part expanding foam mixture, I will ask Dad if he can remember the name of the stuff.

The two part "fixer" is actually an araldite product - I'm sure if you find the right code you could get it separately... This particular one is an epoxy but only sets in a vacuum, it also includes a black dye so you can see that it has flowed fully into the bag and around the beads.

The seat should be pretty much rigid. The foam also needs to be pretty tough - as it is moulded to your shape it doesn't have to move much at all unlike the foam squabs in a regular seat.

Think about rollcage padding for how tough and springy it needs to be. This padding is actually very tough and pretty inflexible but does a superb job of absorbing a lot of energy in an impact between your elbow/helmet and the cage. If it was any less stiff the energy wouldn't be absorbed and you'd still hit the steel pretty hard (hard enough to do some fairly permanent damage).

There is a balance between stiffness and toughness that has be achieved. Your welds will be stiff but brittle while the tubing will be tough and slightly flexible. Too much welding will actually weaken the seat. This is why most seats are made from a composite as the control over the stiffness is better and offers a smoother transition so you don't get inherent weakpoints from joints.

Going back to the bag seats - they were originally designed for single seaters. The drivers actually just sit on the chassis/tub and are held in by the harness. The bag seat is just padding - there is no separate seat.
 
Track day on Saturday so I thought I would actually try to finish my seat, this is today's effort;

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It is really quite comfy and my helmet fits too...
Will cut belt holes etc tonight hopefully then find something to line them with. Then I need to find some padding, probably foam held down with duct tape for maximum rough.
 
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