Skoda Rally Blog

…. than none at all.

This weekend’s challenge is to get the car fired up with the new engine in it. Not to get it mapped, but just to fire it up and check that everything holds liquid, etc. However, I’ve been ILL all week – same kind of thing as I had the other weekend, being totally off my food, feeling sick all the time and stomach cramps. Lovely. Anyway, I’ve battled on…

There were several jobs to get done today – first of which was to fit the new (NEW!!!!) radiator. First time I’ve ever bought a brand new radiator for anything, as it happens. Typically it wasn’t straightforward as the mounting bolts are captive in the front panel and one had gone missing so a new one had to be made up, and involved removing the front panel to do it up… So that took a LOT longer than it should have done. The crank sensor bracket needed to be fitted then, and this involved much messing about with the alternator mountings, so again it’s 100% but it took a lot longer than it should have done.

Next up was fitting something that should help with reliability – an oil cooler. The Favorit had one fitted and while it leaked from the take-off plate, it definitely helped with reliability when thrashing the poor little thing – the original engine I had in R477 KRU suffered from low oil pressure when I’d been thrashing it (such as after Crychan on WRGB 07), so this was essential. While the engine was already fitted with take-offs for the cooler (and indeed these are a standard Skoda option, so the tappings are there already), the standard cooler would be in a rather vulnerable position – it would be placed vertically next to the radiator and extend right down to the crossmember and be very close to the alternator; a small pushing back could see that bang into the alternator and that would be end-of-engine! So, despite it being less efficient as it’s partly behind the radiator I decided to mount it horizontally and higher up. Some sturdy mountings into the front panel saw it in place, but then there was the small matter of making the pipes up. The connections into the engine were in two parts (an adapter then a right-angle), while the oil cooler connections were just right-angled. The hose was “push-on”, but that involved a vice and my entire bodyweight to get them anywhere near, but they went on in the end, and look very, very nice. Hopefully they’re perform very very nice! While lying under the car looking up at them I began to feel that it’s all starting to look quite “works” – obviously it’s not, but it’s way more complex than anything I’ve had before and looks really good. Pity it’ll all be covered in mud in seconds.

And then the next big job of the day – making up the cool air box for the engine bay. I’d already made this out of cardboard, but apparently that won’t cut it, so 3mm aluminium was the order of the day. While cutting out the basic shape and bending it was fairly straightforward, making up all the brackets and mountings took ages, and then there was the much more difficult task of cutting the elliptical hole for the tube where the air filter will go. While I’d worked out (with cardboard) where it needed to go, I wanted to get it the right shape quickly as most of the day was already gone. Fortunately I found an ellipse shape on the internet, printed it out and then resized it horizontally and then vertically to suit, and within 4 printings I was ready to do it for real, and cut it out from the sheet….

… and it was spot on first time! I was pleased. But then there was the issues of fixing the tube to the plate. And I remembered that I’d got some argon in my big bottle, and had the MIG parts to have a go. So although my aluminium welding is poor in comparison to steel and stainless because I don’t have a TIG and so on… I thought I’d give it a go. And it came out… OK. Ish. I’m sure anyone who can actually weld aluminium would laugh their asses off at what I’ve done, and I’m not pleased about it, BUT it is definitely functional. And it’s something I can replace in the future if I ever get an AC TIG welder (unlikely given the money!), so please, no grief about it from anyone unless you’re offering to make up a new plate and tube and weld it in place!

And that was about it for my 10 hours effort today. Seems like I’ve done NOTHING but tomorrow I should only need to weld up the downpipes, and then bolt a bunch of stuff in place – the only ‘modifying’ that’s needed is for me to re-space the injector rail, which is really just making up a couple of spacers. Or at least that’s how it is in my mind!