A New Focus

I kept telling myself that I wanted to try to just do everything I need to do without further disassembling the car. Currently, that refers to the suspension turrets. Well, I looked at it closer today, and found that there were only 7 bolts, one tie-rod and a swaybar end link keeping that part on the car. (the brake line has already been cut and removed) So, off it went. Took all of maybe 10 minutes from grabbing the wrenches to moving the assembly onto my workbench. Now I have full and easy access to the right side frame rail! More parts, less car.

With that newfound access, I spent some quality time with the plasma torch and achieved a pretty darned clean frame rail. I trimmed the top and bottom pinch welds (a good portion of them were already removed, I just removed a little more to allow the whole thing to be cleaned up nicely). And trimmed the top of the rear turret mounting bracket even with the top of the frame rail so that I have a flat surface to attach the engine mount to.

The plan now is to cut a 1/8″ top plate and wrap it about an inch down the inside of the frame rail to make a good engine mount surface and make up for the removed pinch weld. The bottom inside corner of the frame rail will be wrapped in the same way to reinforce and clean it up.

Before attaching the top plate, I’ll drill holes for the engine mount and weld grade 8 nuts on the inside. I’ll have to punch holes in the top of the frame for clearance for these nuts and the bolts that will go through them. With that done, I can easily bolt the engine mounts in place and all will be well on the right side.

The left side will be easier, as none of the pinch welds are being cut out. It will simply be a plate welded to the top of the frame to better support the engine mount.

Aaaaaand then… I have to figure out how I want to beef up that cross-member. That will be fun, because it needs to be a solid “skid plate” to protect the front of the oil pan that hangs 2″ below the frame in addition to tying the two frame rails together.

Did some practice stick-welding today, and was pretty pleased with it. Tried to do some butt-welding of the corners where I cut out the seam welds. I don’t think I really need to weld that, since I’ll be wrapping the whole thing, but it was good practice. And it isn’t pretty at all! I’m going try to get get my argon tank filled and pick up some TIG supplies this week, maybe I’ll find it easier to get a clean weld that way.

Well, today wasn’t the day. Never made it out to the garage. Went out a little while ago and took some photos of the manifold, that was it.

Looking closely at the manifold, I still think that the best bet is going to be to remove the Zetec flange, cut a new flange based on the Duratec gasket, and tweak the front pair of pipes to fit it. Another option would be to do a sandwich plate adapter out of steel (1/4-3/8″) or aluminum (maybe 1/2″), but that’s not really going to be much less work, will add another point for potential exhaust leaks, and will require me to source longer exhaust manifold studs.

Here’s a composite photo showing how the Duratec gasket aligns with the Zetec manifold.  Top is centered on the left port, center is splitting the difference on the two left ports.  Bottom is centering the gasket over all ports, as would be done for an adapter plate.

 

And below are a couple reference photos showing a bottom view and side view of the manifold. As you can see, removing the flange and making a single cut on each of the left two pipes should easily allow for alignment of those two pipes to the new flange. It’s all welding from there. Seems pretty straightforward.

 

Well, I spent another evening out in the garage about a week and a half ago plasma cutting out most of the rest of the engine mount residue. A little more to go, then some grinding to clean it all up. Didn’t do shit last weekend. Just couldn’t get motivated. It happens.

But, this week… I got parts! Too lazy to take photos right now, but they look just like you’d imagine they would.

First I got the exhaust manifold gasket. Nice piece. Chose the one from the Ranger just because it was cheaper. The Focus one has a built-in heat shield thingy and costs more. Hope I don’t regret that choice. Anyway, I held the gasket up to the new Zetec manifold, and… dammit. Not as close as I thought. Pairs of ports are right-on. The front two and the back two match great as pairs. But, the spacing between the center two on the manifold is too close. I’ll have to hack the flange (plasma cutter!) down the middle, and either bend the pairs of pipes apart, or more likely do some cutting and re-fitting. I’ll have to look at it closer, it may be easier at this point to just do a new flange based on the gasket and maneuver the pipes to fit it.

The Jeep engine mounts were in the same order. I just ordered a set of cheap stock replacements. They were literally under $3 each! I ordered 3, and shipping was more than the parts. (and yet, still cheaper than I could get them from the local Autozone even after shipping) They look like they’ll work well. A little wider than I’d hoped. Almost exactly the width of a frame rail, which will work great on the left side, but could be a minor issue on the right side. Should be okay, though, since I’m going to have such freedom with the exhaust downpipe. I’ll just position the mounts as far forward as possible. That will pretty much leave the space of the factory Spitfire exhaust notch in the frame open.

Finally, today, Mr. Postman brought my driveshaft from Canley Classics in England. Took them a little while to ship it. They emailed me and told me they had to have a batch made (I was slightly annoyed because their website said it was “in-stock”) right after I ordered it, which was about a day before I brought the car home last month. It looks good, though. It’s got correct ends on it and new zerked u-joints. Nice welds and all. I’ll still probably have to get it hacked by about 8″, but at least I have the parts I need. Couldn’t even find a reference for that stupid front yoke piece in the US!

Oh, and I went by Jeff’s shop and picked up the rest of my crap. The (new) plastic tunnel cover, all the clutch parts, stock Focus and Ranger engine mounts (that I have NO use for) and a couple other odds and ends.

So, I gots parts. I gots a cutting torch and welder (though I still haven’t filled my argon tank or picked up any TIG supplies). I gots time. Just gots to find the motivation!

3 day weekend ahead, surely I’ll get out there for at least a few hours…

Didn’t accomplish much this weekend, but I’m sticking with my goal to “accomplish something each weekend” no matter how small.

Saturday, I replaced the front brakes on the Yaris. Been putting it off for a few weeks, but needed to get it done before the next autocross on Sept 11. I’d replaced the pads a couple months ago with what were supposed to be “performance pads”, but they turned out to be really crappy when I took them to a race track. So bad, in fact, that they completely faded to nothing after 3 laps! Apparently, they got overheated and glazed when that happened, because they faded even more easily after that. I even faded them half way through my first autocross run at the last autocross I went to. Freakin’ scary! (but not as scary as when it happened at the track)

So, I decided to get serious about the brakes. Put a new pair of rotors on and a set of EBC Yellow track pads. So far, so good. They have a little better feel than anything I’ve ever had on the car before. And having experience with these pads before, I know they can take a LOT of heat (and they actually work much better once they get significant heat in them), so now have confidence in my brakes… always a plus.

Some wheeling and dealing also happened Saturday:

My Zetec Focus manifold showed up. Looks good. I think instead of hacking off the flange, I’m just going to fill the bolt holes in it, and add some other meat to it if needed and just redrill it using the Duratec exhaust manifold gasket as a pattern. Should be even easier than I thought.

I listed some of the Spitfire engine parts (head, block and crank) on eBay to try to get them out of the garage. Auction ends tomorrow, but a local guy contacted me and wanted to come look. I made him a deal on the engine block. VERY happy to not have to pack and ship that piece! As of right now, I have a bid on each of the other two items, so they will sell. That frees up a shelf in the garage, which is good.

Finally, this afternoon, I got out to the garage and spent some time on the Spit. Fired up the air compressor, grabbed my plasma torch, welding helmet and gloves and went to cutting out those bulky engine mounts that I don’t like. After completely destroying one of my plasma tips, I realized that I forgot to the air hose to the welder. It made a nice arc… but wasn’t exactly making PLASMA. I proceeded to destroy a second tip because I didn’t have the air pressure dialed up high enough. I’m learning!

The wife was doing laundry, so my 220 source wasn’t available. I plugged into a 50′ 110 extension cord instead. It worked, but the end of the cord has a built-in breaker that kept popping. I reduced my amperage from 35 to 20, and it helped it last longer, but it still popped every few minutes.

Once I got things sorted out, I was able to cut through those engine mounts easily. The ones on the left side were just tacked in, so I did minimal cutting and just beat them out with the BFH. The right side mounts are going to take a little more work because base plates have been welded to the frame. But, I got the bulk of the brackets out so that I can at least see what’s left to do. I may go out there one evening this week and try to finish that up.

I wanted to play with some sheet metal cutting, too, so I trimmed the right side stock engine mount ear for more clearance for the alternator. It cut through that pretty well, but I think more amperage would have made it easier, since part of it was doubled sheet metal. Still, I made the cut. Will need a little grinding to clean up.

Making progress… slowly but surely.

This plasma torch is every bit as cool as I expected it to be. Just like welding, I’ll have to experiment with different settings of amperage and air pressure to see what works on different materials. But, it’s pretty slick!

I started at 30 amps and .6 bar (whatever the hell that means… it came with a metric regulator) It cut through 1/8″ aluminum like it wasn’t even there, but I had trouble keeping the arc lit. Too much air pressure. I cut it down to .2 bar and went for some 1/8″ steel. Steel is more fun to cut, it makes sparks instead of slag. My first steel cut was fancy, but I was moving a little too fast and didn’t get all the way through. Slowing down a little bit allowed for a clean cut.

I’m ready to start hacking on the Spitfire frame! There are a couple feet of frame rail pinch weld that need to be cut out. I’ll seam weld the cut and then overlay it with some sheet stock and weld it again. That should give it the strength that it had while opening up more space between the frame rails. I’ll do the same to open up a little more space around the exhaust header. Then I have to cut out the front crossmember and the engine mounts that I’m redoing.

I still wish it wasn’t so damned hot outside. Maybe I’ll find some motivation this weekend.

Welder and bottle showed up today! Gotta go get the bottle filled and pick up some TIG welding supplies before I can test out the TIG, but I did get it hooked up and tested the basic arc welding function this evening. First, I had to make a run to Lowe’s to get the power hooked up. It will run on 110 or 220, and it came with a 220 plug on it. Of course, it was the new style, and my dryer socket in the garage is an old 3-prong. I could have (probably should have) just gotten a standard plug for the cord and called it a day, but I decided to go ahead and do that AND build a 220 conversion cable using a dryer cord and a 110 female plug. (the extension cord from hell!) So, now I can use 220 in my garage if I want to, but I retain the portability of being able to use it anywhere on 110.

Picked up some 1/8″ 6013 rod while I was at Lowe’s, and laid down a couple crappy welds just to test the welder and the wiring. The left weld is 1/8″ steel at 100 amps (on 110v) and the right weld is 18 gauge at 40 amps (on 220v). Compared to my very limited prior MIG experience, I was very impressed with the stability of the arc that this welder produces.

In fact, it was so smooth and quiet that it was partly responsible for the ugliness of my first weld! I struck the arc, jumped at the flash and lost it. Then struck it again, and after the initial flash, it was so smooth and quiet that I wasn’t even sure I was welding. The old MIG welder I used before would crackle and spit and make all kinds of noise. This one just hums quietly when you turn it on, and continues to hum quietly when you start welding. Pretty cool. I think I’m going to like this!

Tomorrow, I’ll hook up the air compressor and try out the plasma cutter. That should be fun!

It’s a shame it’s so damned hot outside.

No work on the Spitfire this weekend. Still waiting on the new welder. I feel like my next goal should be to get all of the frame mods and engine mounts done, and I can’t start on that until it shows up and I get some time to practice using it.

Meanwhile… I spent all day Saturday with the Euro Trash team (we do 24 Hours of LeMons and Chump Car races in a crusty old BMW 325) doing some work on the race car. New clutch, fresher (but not new) shocks, a little cutting and grinding to get more negative camber in the front, new tires. The car should be better than ever when we hit the Sebring Chump Car race at the end of September!

Still more work to do. We screwed up and put the clutch disk in backwards (raise your hand if you’ve ever done that). So, the transmission has to come out again. We bought a nice new race seat with our $300 purse from taking 2nd at the Homestead race in July. Gotta build some brackets and get that installed. And Barry (our team captain/car owner/BMW fanatic) has a better set of tie-rods for the front suspension (one of the ones on the car is bent… has been since before our first race over 2 years ago… and the ends are getting a little sloppy) to install. After that, we’ll need to realign the front to even out the camber and set the toe.

It’s always something, and yet we somehow manage to get most of it done and keep the car on the track!

Bought a new welder… now it’s time for all the accessories.

So far, I’ve been finding decent deals on things. Got a used Chicago Electric auto-darkening helmet for $22.50 shipped. Found a new 80cf Argon tank for $160 shipped. (and talked my dear wife into buying it for my birthday!) Probably should buy some other odds and ends like clamps, magnets, brushes, hammers, pliers, etc.

And, of course, this whole project is all about nickels and dimes. I got the Focus alternator for $36 shipped, and just got the exhaust manifold (the Zetec one) for $30 shipped.

What’s next? Oh yeah, I still haven’t ordered those engine mounts. And trying to decide if it’s worth going to a local supplier for metal stock. More expensive to order online… but a helluva lot more convenient, and you can plan around specific materials without worrying about having to change your plan based on what’s available locally. Besides, it keeps UPS in business.

I just can’t wait to get my hands on this welder so that I can start practicing!

His canvas is clean.

And he has a new brush.

I really didn’t accomplish much this weekend, yet I did get everything I had planned to do done.  I started by removing all of the MegaSquirt hardware from under the hood, along with things like fuel lines and heater hoses.  Much less clutter to work around now.

This afternoon, I decided to get that old busted welder that Jeff gave me working.  I’d moved it into the kitchen (much to my wife’s dismay) last night so that I could work on it inside where it’s cool.  But, when I went to work on it, I quickly learned that the box that has been on top of it for over two months that I thought had the repair parts that I’d ordered was… empty.  Apparently, I must have gotten some boxes mixed up and ended up pitching the box with the parts in it.  It was lightweight stuff, a new plastic  handle, a plastic spindle, some screws and springs and such, so that seems possible.  I searched the house and checked every box I could find, but it’s not here.

I was just about to re-order my $25 in parts when my frustration at raising my investment in this POS welder to $50 got the better of me.   I started poking around on Craigslist to see what was available.   A couple of dirt cheap stick welders, but otherwise, some pretty expensive stuff.  But, I did find something that I’d not considered before… a combination welder/plasma cutter.  Hmm…

Before I knew it, I was on eBay looking at a new (cheap Chinese junk, but well-supported by the importer/seller in NH, who is active on several welding forums) combo TIG/Stick/Plasma unit that’s bid up to $310 with free shipping. About 90 minutes on the bid clock, so I spent most of that time researching it and reading reviews on it on some forums. Watched some videos about plasma cutting and TIG welding on YouTube. You know, the usual obsessive research things. Then I put in a snipe bid at 2 minutes… and got auto-outbid. Some of my research showed that this same welder from the same seller was on eBay with a $419 buy-it-now, so I went ahead and threw a bid up for $360.  Figured it was worth that much.  I snuck that last bid in at about the 10-second mark and ended up winning the auction for $333.  Cool!

The plasma cutter should make quick work of removing the engine mount brackets that Jeff put in, as well as cutting out the cross-member that I’m removing, and cleaning up any other cuts… not to mention cutting any piece of metal that I need to cut.  It’s supposed to be good for up to 1/2″ thick material, and I can’t imagine anything thicker than 1/4″ that I’d need to cut, so it should be very useful for me.

And, of course, having a TIG welder will be handy for… anything.  Will be fun to learn to do some real welding.  I used to be really good at soldering, I suspect that TIG welding will be similar.

Finally, as the sun started going down and it cooled off outside somewhat, I headed out to the garage.  Moved the engine/transmission out from in front of the car and pushed it out into the driveway for some cleaning.  Parts of it are still a little greasy, but I got the majority of the thick gunk and sand and dirt washed away.  I can spot clean the areas I’m working with using some carb cleaner and a rag now and be pretty happy.

So, that was my plan for the weekend:  Declutter under the hood, clean the gunk off of the frame, fix the welder.  Mission accomplished!

I’m not an early riser.  If I’m awake at 5am, it either means I’m headed to a motorsports event, headed to the airport to go somewhere, getting an early start on a road trip… or… I stayed up all night.

Yep, I got deep into “research mode” last night, and just kept at it.  I’m usually up until 2am anyway, so it’s not too much of a stretch.

What did I learn?  Well, I’ve been finding a lot of great forum posts and blogs lately where folks have put this engine in a lot of different cars.  And many of them have hand-built a lot of the parts to do it.  And not all of those parts are “pretty”, but they’re functional.  I am inspired.

I figured out some stuff with the cooling system that I don’t want to get into right now.   But, it will save me about $500 over doing it “the easy way”.

I’ve figured out how I want to do my engine mounts and my new cross-member, and I’ve almost pulled the trigger on ordering the materials.  Will cost about $55… shipped.  Not including the engine mounts, which are something like $22 each if I go with poly, or about $7 each if I use stock rubber.

But, what’s kept me up for the past 2 hours has been exhaust manifolds.  SO many options.  Bolt-on manifolds and headers from Ford Focus/Escape/Ranger, Mazda 3, 6, MX-5 are all on the table.  But, while every one of them would bolt up to the head easily, they would require major modification of the piping with the insertion of creative bends and usually the recreation of a collector.

Then I found it.

It’s not a Duratec manifold, but it is a Focus manifold.  It’s from a 2001 model with a Zetec engine.  But, I found photos of the two manifold gaskets and compared them.  The ports are round on both, and the spacing is almost identical.  I’m thinking, hack off the flange, weld on a Duratec flange, and then build a simple flange and down pipe.  No fancy pipework.

It comes with a heat shield, and it should fit with about 2″ clearance to the bonnet, so no worries there.  And there’s one on eBay right now with a starting bid of $0.99 and 3 days left ($35 shipping).  I can get a new Duratec flange for $75 if I want a new one, or if Jeff can find it, I have a my stock Focus manifold, could hack the flange off of it and go that route if I want to be cheap.