I managed to get a few more hours in yesterday and make a little bit of progress.
Saturday afternoon, I covered the engine in GUNK and left it for a while, then hit it with the jet wash. Surprised how clean it came up, removed all the loose rust, and pretty much all the grime.
Then masked it up as good as possible, and dusted it over with some VHT black and Silver to tidy it up a little.
Then yesterday morning, in the sun, I spent a little while running some new brake pipes. As I will be using a twin-port MC, I need to run a T-piece on each inner wing to diagonally split the brakes.
Hopefully the replacement MC and T pieces will be here this week so I can get it fitted up and bleed the system.
At this point, I'd pretty much hit my limit in what I can do, due to requirement of parts, so decided to just stick the engine back in and see what I've got to work with. It's really no hard-ship dropping it back out again if I need to.
So I got the engine and subframe dragged into rough position under the front of the car.
And began lowering the car down over it.
I found sitting the subframe on two blocks of wood to raise it up a little, then having the jack on the front cross member, with another block of wood, made it very easy to move the car around into position, rather than trying to keep moving the subframe.
And it's in:
I would like to look into fitting a top gearbox mount. I believe the F7R Megane has a bracket which bolts to the passenger side chassis rail.
The gap in which I have to work with, to fit a Master Cylinder, AND a 2.5" exhaust down pipe, is very small.
I'm fortunate enough to have read all of Neal's R19 thread, multiple times, and also badgered him on FB messenger at all hours of the day for advise on this. I knew what I was up against before I even got to this stage.
I've got some mandrel bends on order. I shall cut, and weld something that fits. Hopefully.
Alternator can be moved back a good 1", by using a shorter belt, and modifying the rose joints. So if needs be, I can gain more room there for a radiator and / or boost pipe routing.
Surprisingly, the heavier engine has not affected the ride height too much, if at all. Of course, there is about 6 million miles of wiring loom to go on yet, along with pipe work, FMIC, rad etc. But it shouldnt affect it too badly.
Engine top cover fitted to test for bonnet clearance. It touches ever so slightly. Worst way I will leave it off. Although it does tidy it up. The F4R-t isnt a pretty engine!
So, initial to do list is:
*Brakes*
Fit new MC (Laguna 2.0 item)
Fit T Pieces
Bleed up braking system (Rear bias valves will be something I'll look into once it's all running)
*Exhaust*
Fab up a front pipe
Make a flexi / joiner to connect it to the current middle section
*Wiring*
Start installing the Laguna wiring loom to see where I stand with what I do and dont need. There is A LOT of wiring.