Winter re-spec

[Lankan]

Well done Jon. Seems like you are finally getting there. :approve:

Look forward to seeing it some time.........

 

[taipan]

Well done Jon. Seems like you are finally getting there. :approve:

Look forward to seeing it some time.........

Yes progress is definintely being made. So nice to be able to actually drive the thing now. lol

Spent longer than I should have yesterday rerouting and cable tying a few of the various engine bay wires. Funny how the OCD comes out when you can see the whole engine bay. lol Lots of general prettying to do in the engine bay dept. Access is considerably easier without the covers!

 

[Lankan]

Spent longer than I should have yesterday rerouting and cable tying a few of the various engine bay wires. Funny how the OCD comes out when you can see the whole engine bay. lol Lots of general prettying to do in the engine bay dept. Access is considerably easier without the covers!

I guess you are now catching up for the all that time lost - starting to get withdrawal symptoms myself - must dig mine out from storage soon, when it stops raining!

Question: are you going to leave the covers permanently off? If so, what are you going to do with all the dust that is more than likely to blow inside, not the front but the rear areas? Do you still have the standard headliner or has this now been recovered with some 'washable' stuff?

 

[taipan]

Question: are you going to leave the covers permanently off? If so, what are you going to do with all the dust that is more than likely to blow inside, not the front but the rear areas? Do you still have the standard headliner or has this now been recovered with some 'washable' stuff?

Yes, the covers are permanently off. The bulkhead was specifically designed to be as air tight as possible to counter the effects of losing the covers. The headliner has been chopped in two to allow a better seal with the roof. The set-up is more effective than I even hoped in terms of both sound, smell and - so far anyway - heat. Need a hot summers day to really test the heat aspect though.

In terms of dust and debris etc I honestly haven't noticed anything untoward so far. Yesterday would have been a classic dust type day as, due to the bad weather, there was lots of detritus all over the roads that had pretty much dried to a crust with a solid 10 hours or so of sun. Digging about in the back after the drive I didn't notice anything in there that shouldn't have been there. The way I, perhaps simplistically, see it is that things are still sealed back there but by way of the bulkhead rather than the engine covers.

 

[Duncan]

Cracking stuff Jon, well pleased for your reading your above posts. Sounds like you have a bit of an animal there.

If i were to do a project vee, id do exactly what you have with the bulk heads, looks so hardcore when the engine is on display.

The enthusiam in your writting makes me itching to tax mine again!!

 

[taipan]

Cracking stuff Jon, well pleased for your reading your above posts. Sounds like you have a bit of an animal there.

If i were to do a project vee, id do exactly what you have with the bulk heads, looks so hardcore when the engine is on display.

The enthusiam in your writting makes me itching to tax mine again!!

Cheers Duncan :approve:

It's the only car I've ever owned that I've genuinely had some sort of attachment to - feels sort of like a member of the extended family, which is strange and more than a bit weird! Because of this I never lost the faith through all the various ups and downs of the past couple of years. Just so good to finally have it home and available at any time again! [smilie=yay.gif]

Glad that my passion and enthusiasm filters through. I've always tried to write things in a way that I would find interesting to read.

I agree with your thoughts. The overall aim if you like is to have a road racer along the lines of an R26.r or GT3 RS i.e. not all the way mental like an F40 for instance, but a sort of half-way house. Having the engine on display has always been something I've wanted to do. I obviously understand why the decision was made, but to my eyes it just seems such a travesty that Renault went to all that trouble to get the engine in the back only to then cover up the excellent results!!

Oh and go on. Tax it and get out there an enjoy it :race:

 

[taipan]

So, on the off chance that it is the rear wheel bearings that are causing the wobble I contacted RPD regarding replacements. Immediate response from Paul with all the required details and a discount voucher as the price advertised on the website was incorrect.

Absolutely first class service. Well done RPD. :approve:

 

[hualpa_jo]

It really is a complete shift from “impossible to crack” to “change anything the hell you want”!

Sounds great!! So the OEM ECU is really gone now? What ECU are you using now?

 

[Ollie1]

Great write up, loved the detail and enthusiasm sounds like it's a totally transformed machine.

 

[Will]

Brilliant to read it is all up and running and it certainly sounds like quite the transformation :approve:, would be great to see some videos if possible in the future and maybe some more pictures of the bulkhead .

 

[taipan]

Sounds great!! So the OEM ECU is really gone now? What ECU are you using now?

I’m running two ECUs and a throttle controller now Jonas. The standard ECU does the boring stuff, but nothing engine related. The second ECU runs all the engine and engine related parameters. The throttle controller – well that’s pretty obvious! Lol

Great write up, loved the detail and enthusiasm sounds like it's a totally transformed machine.

Cheers Oli. Yup, in full-attack mode it’s pretty far removed from the standard car, but if you’re just bimbling down to the shops there is very little difference from the OEM offering. It would be a lie to say I was aiming for this duality, but now it’s been realised I think it really does represent the very best of both worlds.

Something I hadn’t quite predicted was the benefit of the modest weight reduction from high up the car. You’re probably only looking at maybe 7-10kg net reduction – bearing in mind the addition of the bulkhead – but because of where the weight was in the car it makes the car FEEL lighter and really does improve the dartiness (for want of a better word) compared to the car pre-bulkhead.

Brilliant to read it is all up and running and it certainly sounds like quite the transformation :approve:, would be great to see some videos if possible in the future and maybe some more pictures of the bulkhead .

Thanks Will. Strange you should mention videos. I’m in the process of acquiring a dash camera with all the mounting gubbins, which will make videos a whole lot easier, not to mention better to watch the a wobbly i-phone!! So watch this space.

 

[Ali]

Very interesting...Caught up from page 2!

Power was a little less than i thought it would be especially with some mild flowing to the top end and manifolds....But heyho RR's are only part of the equation, it's the drivability that counts.

 

[taipan]

I agree Ali. Seemed a little low to me too. Having said that though it's hardly like there are loads and loads of modified vees out there. It's hard to know what to expect, especially as you can't do like-for-like comparisons.

245ish to 259ish isn't too shabby a result I don't think considering I've not really done much more than basic n/a tuning. It's the bhp/ton that's the real key though. Much cheaper/mire reliable to lose 50kg than find 50bhp!!

 

[k1ano]

I agree Ali. Seemed a little low to me too. Having said that though it's hardly like there are loads and loads of modified vees out there. It's hard to know what to expect, especially as you can't do like-for-like comparisons.

245ish to 259ish isn't too shabby a result I don't think considering I've not really done much more than basic n/a tuning. It's the bhp/ton that's the real key though. Much cheaper/mire reliable to lose 50kg than find 50bhp!!

Absolutely agree about weight loss and it's easy to calculate the bhp benefit with simple maths ...

IIRC standard seats are 25kg each, you can reduce that by half by fitting racing seats and get a more confortable ride to boot ... I expect losing the engine covers and interior trim at the back has seen a good weight saving.

I had an engine bulkhead in my Vee btw when I owned it and thought it was great though just a DIY job - yours looks fab !

Martin

 

[taipan]

Absolutely agree about weight loss and it's easy to calculate the bhp benefit with simple maths ...

IIRC standard seats are 25kg each, you can reduce that by half by fitting racing seats and get a more confortable ride to boot ... I expect losing the engine covers and interior trim at the back has seen a good weight saving.

Yup, there are a lot of very heavy parts in the vee that can be taken out or swapped for lighter parts. There are the obvious things but also things like coilovers vs OEM suspension and Janspeed vs full OEM exhaust system where some useful sabings will be had I expect. Would love to get it to sub 1250kg. I'll be getting it corner weighted at the same time as the BCs are set up so will be able to see where it currently stands.

I had an engine bulkhead in my Vee btw when I owned it and thought it was great though just a DIY job - yours looks fab!

At one point I was seriously trying to track donw one of the perspex bulkheads that Ray made back in the day. Glad I couldn't get my hands on one as I much prefer the solution Scott's provided :approve:

 

[k1ano]

At one point I was seriously trying to track donw one of the perspex bulkheads that Ray made back in the day. Glad I couldn't get my hands on one as I much prefer the solution Scott's provided :approve:

To be fair those are a really good non-destructive solution to a bulkhead and very well made but of course a fully engineered permanent bulkhead is a great solution if you are not worried about going back to OEM easily - clearly that wasn't your intention.

This was the one I made, engineered differently from the perspex ones to make it a little more authentic looking as a bulkhead ... It's still kicking around in the garage somewhere - those bloody side panels are a pain to create, it was like stencil city in the garage as I was mocking it all up ... I liked your alloy window idea ...

Martin

 

[taipan]

Looks really good Martin :approve: Did you run with your covers off as well then?

 

[k1ano]

Looks really good Martin :approve: Did you run with your covers off as well then?

Yes Jon ... IMHO the Vee is absolutely crying out for a full engine bulkhead with the engine covers removed so the engine is on full dispay, after all the installation is a work of art ... OK you can stack stuff on the engine for extra storage and the covers look nice and OEM but with the engine visible through the window and through the bulkhead window you get a real sense of the Vees uniqueness from inside ... How many sportcars look good from the outside but not from the inside - Oh and the noise of the engine is a treasure though my perspex could have been a bit thicker as it was a little noisier than is comfortable on long journeys ...

My further intentions were to cover the bulkhead side panels in carbon and also to make some carbon trim panels for the sides and rear of the engine compartment but these are by no means necessary ...

I am totally at a loss as to why full engine bulkheads are not more widely appreciated or used ...

Again yours is a credit to you :bow:

Martin

 

[taipan]

Completely agree Martin. :approve: Bulkheads really do show the main asset of the car off to it's fullest extent!! Like you, I love glancing in the rear view mirror and seeing a working engine rather than a sea of grey plasctic!

Touch wood mine seems to be pretty effective at keeping all the unwanted stuff out of the passenger compartment. Only thing I haven't been able to test satisfactorily yet is heat, but then again I've always got the AC or windoes to open, if things turn out not to be great on the heat front!

One thing I did find is that when you remove the covers the edges of the rear carpet and parcel shelf carpet bulge out and aren't covered by anything: not a good look. Luckily I was getting rid of my rear carpet anyhow, but Scott fabricated a nice (dare I say OEM looking. lol) bracket that runs the length of the parcel shelf and keeps things looking all neat and tidy.

 

[k1ano]

What might compliment the bulkhead and help any cabin or engine bay temperature issues are the opening rear windows which Simon (Bill Patchall) fitted to his car - which are also remotely operable :bow:

Remote Opening Rear Windows

Martin