Plasticfantastic's project corner, Back on the F40.....

Hhmm shall have to think more on brakes then, I'm happy the discs will be big enough at 240mm,its a road car not a race car.

Just looked up the 14lf calipers and they are way above my budjet, not quite sure what to do now as i definately have more braking at the front.

The vent will scale down if it does stay, i havent thought about it much lately, i still think the look of the car woud benefit from the right design.

Cheers

My Carter 998 powered mk 5 had drums all round and never needed more stopping power...

Girdling 14lf s are fitted to Heralds, Spitfires and Marinas (iirc) so should be ten a penny at autojumbles.

If you want lightness why not have a day out at the scrappies and find a single 48mm piston sliding caliper?

Sciclone, i do plan for the pedalbox to be bias adjustable so it will help as you say.

mdh, I realise i don't need anymore stopping power than the drums,my main reason to switch is drums have less maintainance and i have never lived with a car with them soitwould just be something new to learn.

If its recommended to fit 14lf's alround, what do you do on the rear for a handbrake?

For now i plan to stick with the 4 pot fronts but i will head to the scrappies to find something better for the rear.



Hi all,

Today i got the last few front end parts ready to bolt back on to do a dry fit hopefully tomorrow. I cleaned up the steering arms and stripped the steering rack. Does anyone know of any ball joints that have the same taper as the imp steering arms? I need to replace them but its around £90 to replace the 2 then an extra £30 to upgrade the inner bushes to poly bushes. Id like to fit the poly bushes to this set then to cut off the original ball joints and put a thread on the arm ready for the new ball joint. The taper of the original imp one is around 13.5mm - 11.5mm and about 13mm long.

I have used extended bolts to drop the steering rack 1 1/4" the same amount i have dropped the front pivot points. At the moment i amusing nuts to space the rack but i will make alloy spacers eventually. I have also made a pair of plates that acted as drilling jigs so i could drill the new pivot points in the right position, but these will also be welded in position once the otherwelds are done. The extra thickness around the pivots will stop them from opening up over time. With the mount now ready for fit up i decided to drop the pivots in the front arms to gain back a bit og ground clearance plus itwill make the pivotpoints stronger and a little neater.


























































Comments appreciated

Cheers

yeah pivot point reinforcement its great !

i've read some articles which claim drums actually perform BETTER than equivalent sized disks just due to surface area and self servo effect of leading shoe setup, this is purely braking effort of course.

disks are superior in terms of cooling, so whilst not as much stopping power, they will stop repeatedly without over heating, and also superior self cleaning, easier maintenance (pad swapping)

Ford Fiesta track rod ends is a common Imp mod, you really should look in on the Imp Club forum as loads of Imp based advice available there.

Hi all,

Sorry no pictures of progress but its much the same as you have seen before, more grinding! I have taken out the engine and box, the rear cross member is off and almost finished being cleaned up ready for seam welding. I have stripped out some old repairs from the cross member mount and today i spent the day grinding inside the pieces of mk3 front and rear, thinning itall down ready to piece it all back together.

After finally deciding on my engine setup, a 1020cc imp block with a kawasaki zx7r head fitted. I was also planning to add a supercharger and a turbo into the mix for fun, my aim was only around 130bhp but the big spanner in the mix at the moment is the transaxle. I don't think the imp transaxle will take it as standard and I'm looking at 1000's to have one built which is way out of my budget.

I'm feeling pretty lost on what to sling in the back of her now? because the thought of doing all this work and putting a standard (39bhp?!) 875cc imp engine in is pretty depressing. I'm really wanting to hear what other peoples thoughts are because my only idea left is bike engine but i really didnt want to go there.

Thoughts and opinions very much appreciated!

Cheers

I'm pretty sure that it will be of no use...but there is a early 928 transaxle on ebay at the moment for £200.00 start but that uses a torque tube

You don't want a bike engine... How about a BMW flat twin?

The new one has oil cooled heads, makes 110hp and should be mountable onto an imp box....

In regards to the imp transaxle your right in the sense that it will be the week spot but in the last 10 years of imp turbo ownership and fun ive only managed to smash one doughnut when dropping the clutch at 5k revs on max boost and then six years or so later dropped the diff inside a casing after coming out of the bottom corner at Curborough in second sideways at about 50mph with ten inch wide wheels at the rear!!

Basically if controlled and sensible then no problem I get going then floor it.

Only ever used std boxes that ive had stored in the garden untested lol.

In its prime my imp (at least twice as heavy as yours will be) was running around 120bhp at the wheels.