5 February 2005

Short visit to MK to collect our modified steering column. Visit local breakers to find a replacement radiator from a Micra.

6 February 2005

No problems fitting the quickrack... (special thanks to MNR)

Using the Foliatec paint on went another coat... this makes it two and it's still not opaque enough.. a final coat should see them looking well. Another coat on the master cylinder makes it three and it's so good it almost looks like plastic. The reason why we have used foliatec is simply due to it's resistance to brake fluid. It is extremely hard and obviously heat resistant to 300C.

The new SVA compliant headlight bar from MK. It comes complete with a skirt to shield the securing nuts on the headlights. We don't think that the skirt is deep enough but we shall see. We ground on the radii ourselves and basically cleaned it up which took hours as we require a very good smooth surface for the chroming process.

Locate the centre of the headlight plate and drill... first with 10mm then with 16mm drill. Deburr sharp edges.

Drill the underneath - we are going to route the wiring through the bar itself.

Drill the headlight bar 25mm in from the bolting holes. This allows for the wiring to exit at this point which is inside the chassis member when in position.

The radiator fan bracket was in a very sorry state... this was rubbed and wired down until it was bare metal. It was then sprayed black and allowed to dry. The Fan itself was bleached white again.. before refitting. We used the motor from the damaged radiator as it has the correct connections to enable us to simply plug it into the existing loom. Brake lines were secured on the specially placed brackets. The fuel line was temporarily placed ready to be secured. So... all wishbones and headlight bar are now ready for chroming - first port of call is Goldrite in Sheffield for a quote for work involved. Watch this space!

8 February 2005

Tonight see's the final coat of painting for the brake master cylinder, also the top hat on the brake disc both front and rear. Steering column fitted Front brake lines fitted and secured. Goldrite - Sheffield We emailed Goldrite in Sheffield regarding a quotation/estimate for chroming the wishbones and headlight bar. We never received any response after 1 week, so we decided to pay them a visit. I asked Goldrite of Sheffield if they would be so kind as to quote for the front wishbones and headlight bar. They asked if I could leave the items with them, they would contact me within a few hours to advise. 6 hours later I called them to ask the situation, the response I got back was "Oh, they are going to Birmingham tomorrow for polishing as we have no polishing booth's onsite". "Marvellous" says I... "but before you send them" I say "can you give me a ballpark figure on cost?". "Not really" he says "we don't know how much to take off due to pitting". "I'll get our technical guy to have a look later on today and he'll call you back tomorrow morning" Tomorrow morning came and went... I'll call them, says I. 4 o'clock the following day I called them again. "have you got that price please for the wishbones and stuff?" "Ah", he says, "I was just about to call you, to let you know he can't prejudge the polishing to that extent, they need sending away!" "Well, just give me a rough figure on job please..." says I. "I can tell you exactly how much the coating will be" he says jovially. "£150 + VAT. Then polishing is extra on that, normally £100". So I turned around and went to collect the wishbones from Goldrite of Sheffield. If you stumble across this site whilst searching for Goldrite, or chroming... don't use them, despite what the website professes, they are not very professional whether their product is good or not. So anyway, we then contacted "SURFEX" who are now owned by Custom Chrome and arranged for a pricing with them.

Steering column was easy enough to fit as we had many of the original parts.

Using the original front brake pipes (slightly unbent) we were able to run the piping in exactly the same position.

10 February 2005

Tonight: Assemble and fit newly painted callipers to rear. Get engine from other house, remove old sump from engine. Fit new modified, chopped and baffled sump. Get wiring loom, battery box, fuse and relay black box and start to prepare for splicing.

Whilst fitting the re-cleaned and restored callipers we noticed a problem which had occurred. The old pads had been placed into position not observing the piston lugs. This caused the pads to wear unevenly and initially cause overheating of the calliper... this time they have been replaced according to instructions and are as far as we know correct.

Due to the extra weight and awkwardness of the ZX12-R engine - we needed to support the engine using the roof joists... and rope. We are sourcing some wheel run to mount inside the garage to make installation and removal of the engine easier. A price of sub £150 came in for the chroming from Custom Chrome - who have assured us that they use 3 layers - copper, nickel then chrome after polishing. So - pictures will be posted and a prominent link to them placed... excellent Customer Service and did what they said they were going to do. trouble is the 3 week lead time is a ball-acher. Oh well... we shall see if the wait it worth it... Due to the amount of time we spent on none engine issues no further work was done tonight...

13 February 2005

Today: Clean up engine Assemble Front Callipers Manufacture new brackets for radiator and fit Fit modified sump and baffles to ZX12-R engine Fit heavy duty clutch springs to ZX12-R Fit engine into engine bay Tonight was a bit of a mare... the lugs in the new modified sump needed to be ground down to fit the old oil feed pipes which are supported by these lugs. Unfortunately for us the older modified sump is slightly different to the newer fitted one and the 4 internal lugs had to be ground down to replicate the same dimensions as the newer sump to prevent the old feed pipes from working loose. We also have a modified PRV and oil pick up pipe to fit.

Off came the original sump, we had slight reservations about new gaskets however, these were unfounded as the gasket came away in one piece. A graphite flake type stuff not used on the Honda but obviously effective.

Using a pre-modified sump from a 2002 zx12-r originally from Pace Engineering we set about the task of modifying further. There are oil pipes on the lower engine block, these are supported by small pegs on the inside of the sump pan. On the later models of zx12-r Kawasaki increased the diameter of the oil-ways. This means a reduction of the peg length on the 2004 sump. As the sump pan was 2002 to go on a 2004 we needed to shorten the pegs by approximately 2.5mm

On two of the pegs we could use hand tools. The other two we used a Dremel hand tool as the pegs were too close to the side of the sump to get a hand tool in. The pegs were ground to achieve a 0.05mm difference between them.

Once the sump was complete we then changed the pick-up pipe - this simply pulled off the o-ring connector and we replaced with a new modified version. As can be seen, this is to suit the new sump profile...

On went the up-rated PRV

Once completed the engine was now ready to be re-fitted with the modified sump. As can be seen there is quite a lot of fabrication work in there... but bearing in mind that this format has been in use for the last two years on a ZX12-R on fast road/track days it is a proven formula which we were more interested in.

Once this was complete - the engine was returned to it's upright position and it sat lovely and flat on the new sump pan... off came the clutch cover. Again we were fortunate for the gasket to come off intact. After stripping down the springs we then replaced them with Barnett up-rated one's from PDQ. Once we had fitted these all that was left was to drive them down equally until a torque of 8.8Nm was achieved.

Once the heavy work was done - all that was left was fitting the engine into the chassis. The ZX12R engine is a comparatively heavy engine... and awkward to carry. We manufactured a securing fixture using the garage roof joist and rope slung around the engine bracket... eventually it went in.

I assembled the front callipers in preparation for them to be fitted

We then concentrated on fitting the radiator - new brackets needed to be fabricated as the originals were damaged in the accident. We retrieved the offside bracket and basically worked from that one... the bracket manufacture was complete in nearly an hour. Awkward but quite easy and light but strong.

As my batteries went flat (due to extreme cold) I have no 'during' pictures. However, I shall post some at a later date of the end result

15 February 2005

On to tonight: Make sense of the engine installation Begin to assemble ZX12R particulars Run fuel pipes (feed and return) Due to the ZX12R being fuel injected and fuel loop fed, we need to route two fuel pipes into the transmission tunnel. We used mini-bore piping of 8mm OD which gives us a ID of 6mm similar to the diameter of the original equipment (O.E.). At the end of the fuel loop is a "fuel separator" this is to remove any air from the system (so it says in the manual). It looks pretty complicated as there are four pipes in/out of the unit. Feed (loop) Return (loop) Carburettor feed Air outlet

This is the fuel separator is position after manufacturing a suitable bracket for it. From the carburettor feed to the engine we will be using stainless steel braided hose.

Tonight I begin to splice the wiring loom... as can be seen, there are plenty of wires including some undocumented one's which were probably for an aftermarket alarm/immobiliser system. I am building a scratch loom from wires remaining from the donor car build.

Here is the loom which is being connected up. Doing this will allow me to discover what connectors are used for the engine and what are used for the lighting and other items like foot-peg etc, which can be removed or bypassed. It was at this time I found a rouge component which after an extensive search i think is a diode. I'm assuming this was used to modify the signal for the alarm system.

This is the item in particular - it has been poorly connected; as have all of the aftermarket wires. The rest of the wires are simply twisted together and as I was splicing them the joints were falling apart. Hardly a quality installation.

17 February 2005

Tonight we're expecting a visitor, Craig (aka Chunkielad) from locostbuilders... he is making his own design of car so is interested how we're doing things and has come to seek help. However, jobs must get done as well as chat.So tonight we are: Fabricating and fitting rear bulkhead. Sorting wiring loom Fitting certain electronics This is the new battery tray manufactured from the floor panels of the original Hellfire. This will fit into the void in front of the engine and behind the steering rack. We are using the original battery from the bike together with the relays and fuse box supplied on the bike try. We didn't manage to get this item fitted due to socialising....

We managed to make this rear bulkhead better than the original Hellfire one. We will be using countersunk rivets for securing together with P.U. adhesive. Finally it will be covered with carpeting of some sort. The creases on the top and bottom of the aluminium were generated by trapping the sheet in the door jamb then carefully bending by hand. This item we also did not manage to fix...

This is the location of the barometric sensor required by the E.C.U. this senses the pressure on the day. It is intended to reproduce that crisp throttle response you find when first starting your engine. We have chosen to fit it here to prevent full blast of air from the engine bay interfering with readings. It should sit immediately behind the front bulkhead. The loom needs to be lengthened somewhat to allow the connector to plug in.

Most of the connectors for the engine are now identified and marked up accordingly. The only bug-bear is the aftermarket alarm system which i need to sort out and eliminate. Progress with the engine loom is almost complete - it's not far away from it's first turn... (ah-hem)!

20 February 2005

Today on our agenda was to complete was we didn't complete on Thursday... Rear Bulkhead Wiring Loom anomalies Query with Quick-rack... today is again very cold, around the 2c mark... so, where we left the rear bulkhead was; all drilled ready for holding then drilling of the chassis can commence. This we did, deburred all of the holes, P.U adhesive on then pop-up using countersunk rivets. Jobs done. Label up all of the odd connectors - it was then we discover that the manual I bought from eBay is not the version it said I bought. I should have 2004 manual as advertised... but the version I have is 2001! Robbing so and so, I will post his name/id later for you all to avoid buying manuals in the future. A potential problem with our quick rack has evolved... when we figure out what it is we will let you know... As we are waiting for 8mm diameter P-clips we cannot fit the fuel lines... or Prop

21 February 2005

Pay a fellow LB builder a visit for advice on a number of issue's re:

• Engine Fuelling
• Engine Wiring
• Fuel Pump and Sender
• General fuel and coolant pipe routing questions

Turns out that many of our idea's were wrong regarding fuel lines etc. the bike is over killed to meet European restrictions on emissions. Out comes one of the fuel lines... a few of the canisters. Photo's to follow what we are to do...

We had a few developments this week. We received the newly chromed suspension wishbones and headlight bar. We also had to have a new prop-shaft as the existing one was too short, this will be retained for use on another build

For tonight's agenda we have: Fit MK Brake pedal Set As this came from Hellfire I, is simply fitted up and secured. We split the prop-shaft to make it easier to manoeuvre. We then got some old motorbike inner-tube to coat the shaft. Hopefully this will reduce "dinging". Coating the tube with Silicon grease enabled us to slide on the tube easier. Once it was on - the dinging was reduced.

Using floor panel from the original Hellfire we manufactured a heat sink panel on which we could mount the CDI and ECU units. We fabricated the front of the panel to lip down so as to aid flow of cool air from the nose. We also put a small angle on the trailing edge to improve rigidity. Over this panel will fit the headlight bar and through it one one of the downdraught angles will go the radiator top pipe. Due to the size of the CDI and ECU it leaves very little room for any other relays or ancillaries to be placed in this position.

The GTS suspension wishbones were all chromed up ready for fitment. Due to the shape of the bones the coil-over's are very close to the arms... within 4mm. As the coils are at their lowest positions we figure that this will be the closest that they get to actually touching the arms. A word about the chroming... which incidentally is absolutely rubbish! The work was done by a company called Custom Chrome in Rotherham. When we dropped off the suspension parts we told the guy that they were to be of good quality as they could be viewed very easily when fitted. He listened well, then ignored everything we had told him. The nickel plating underneath the chrome can be seen very easily as staining. The arms were not polished at all - they were plated in exactly the same state as we handed them over. Anyone who wishes to use this company - don't say we didn't tell you! As the chroming process is very much a "one shot" process and difficult to reverse we have got what we have got... so it will have to do.

So the suspension wishbones all went together, the disc's and callipers went on and all was assembled up