Bilbo's mk1 Cavalier

So I've been carrying on with the wet sanding, and it's going alright. A lot to sort out, but it is slowly getting better.

The roof was pretty bad as well:




I went with a new method as the hand sanding was getting tiresome, and it is working very well for the initial flat back. I have been using a DA, bought some ultra fine sanding discs and using it on a very low speed. Starting off with 1500, then 2000, then 3000. Of course wet, with a bit of soap to avoid excessive paint removal/scratches etc.

It is working alright, this is after that process and then a cut back with a compound (no final polish as not happy with remaining texture):





The roof still looks orange peely, but it feels incredible to the touch now compared to before, like glass. The unit strip lights are incredibly unforgiving for stuff like this, when my mate took some of his Land Rover panels outside they look absolutely amazing in daylight, but the various ceiling lights show up every single imperfection. 

Boot is in roughly the same sort of state at the moment:




I think going forward I will stick to this method for the initial flat back, with the DA. But to prevent burn through I will get the last of the orange peel areas out by hand on each panel, far more control for the final bits of sanding that way. I don't expect it to be mint, but I want it to at least look decent, and it's worth the effort. You will notice in the photos all panel edges are still super rough, I will be doing all of these entirely by hand as I don't want panel edges to cut through the paint with the machine, not worth the grief.



Oh yeah, here's the red engine bay:



Once it is cleaned up a bit, my newly painted cam cover is fitted, I've tidied some wiring, and fitted a red interior it will suit it really well. 

Exactly this. I did the same when I painted the Mazda blue and left the bay white as it looks intentional.



Great work so far. Colour looks fab!

Cheers, definitely agree, I think it'll look fine when it's all cleaned up.

Cheers mate. Painting the wing edges was definitely a good call, as it looks much more blended into the overall look that way. If they weren't it would just look like a blow over "I'm not doing the shuts" kind of job I think.

Haha I wasn't either until not too long ago! I'd like there to be lots more, but money is a little tight. Red interior, or at least some red front seats has to be next on the agenda I think.

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Ok the car is looking well now. Needs a couple of paint touch ups in a few small areas, but overall it's looking glossy, and looks lovely when the sun comes out which is practically never since it's been done. Little bit of a polish on a couple of panels and a tiny bit of wet sand and buff in a couple of missed areas (not noticeable particularly) and it'll be good enough for me!


 

So now this process is 90 odd percent complete, I really needed some time off from paint, wet sanding, and all that. I'd never really liked the small trumpets on the ITBs. There was nothing really wrong with them as such, it was convenience more than anything as I had them lying around from my initial ITB setup on my old MX-5 and they slotted perfectly on the 750 bodies I am using now. But they're like 30 or 35mm. I ran 90mm ones on my old MX-5 and they were glorious.

However me being me I don't like to drop £150+ on something before knowing if I actually want it or not, so I went about making something up of my own to try them out.

So I went out and bought some pipe, ABS waste pipe to be precise. Chemical resistant and withstands temperatures much higher than say PVC, though to be honest my bay temperatures have been pretty low since I wrapped the exhaust. The trumpets only really get a little warm to the touch, even after a hard drive. Also it cost me £13 for 3m of pipe, so I couldn't really argue.

We're currently sorting a new workbench at the unit, so here's how it looked:


 

I found a couple of people online who had posted about flaring/bellmouthing the ends of pipe like this for various purposes, such as bass reflex tubes on custom bass speaker boxes. The main challenge was finding the right "forming tool" from what we had lying around. As you can see above, a few failed attempts occurred after trying all sorts of things. The top of bottles. top of an empty rattle can etc. They all kind of bellmouthed the end out but not very well, and then I found the perfect thing.

My mate's 46mm socket:



Perfect. I cut 4 pieces of pipe down to size. Gently heated the ends with the blowtorch, and then squared each one of them up and pressed them over the socket, resulting in a pretty decent bellmouth on each of them to aid airflow.

The pipe has a 50mm inner diameter, which exactly matches the inlet internal diameter of my ITBs (they taper down to 40 odd at the head end). Obviously I needed to flare the ITB end of the stacks to slot them over the ports, so again I heated this end up, and then pushed them over the port on the throttle bodies. Once cooled each trumpet was a very tight interference fit onto the throttle bodies with no attachment clip/jubilee etc. they just push fit and they stay there, much like the original ali 30mm ones did.


I then took them off, gave them a little key up, and sprayed them with black plastic paint on the outside, just because the white looked a bit weird to be honest.

I went a bit big with them 😂 150mm long, approx. 15mm of that is the attachment point over the ports, and lets say 5mm or so on the bellmouth end from the flaring over. So 130mm ish actual length, +/- a couple of mm.

Before:



After:




 

The plan is that these are temporary, obviously without dyno power runs it's impossible to really estimate what is best. General consensus seems to be short trumpets for high RPM HP, and longer trumpets for mid range torque.

My mate has just acquired a TIG welder, so eventually I'd like to make these out of metal, and perhaps about 20-30mm shorter would be ideal as they're just a touch closer to the strut tower than I would really like.

Good points: they don't get too hot, I really gave the car some grief on the way home and they haven't been affected, still in place, no issues with deforming or softening, they just stay there and work. They also sound ridiculous, even just cruising at low RPM, the growl from the ITBs is way more pronounced than before, and flat out they have a much deeper aggressive intake noise than before which sounds absolutely mental.

Bad points: they're plastic. Let's be honest, even though they're black which is ok, they'd look far better made out of polished metal. Bit too long and a bit close to the strut tower, possibly affecting airflow. Maybe the final versions I will add a small bend to at the flange end to raise them a little.

 

Honestly not too bad for a few quid, and they do look ridiculous at that length which I kind of love 😂 need to get my painted cam cover on now and tidy the bay a bit!

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That's interesting, I suppose any material that won't melt in an engine bay would work fine as long as the inside was smooth. I did see some people made some titanium ones, but that's a bit rich for my blood haha.

So not too much going on, not had much spare cash for stuff for the car lately. I've quit smoking so hopefully that'll free up some car money soon 😂 Been enjoying the new trumpets and doing a few small bits here and there though.

Painted the spare cam cover ages ago, but not touched it since. Bought some little syringes and decided to infill the letters red. Same red as I used on the front badge, just something I found in the cabinet. Ford Radiant Red.



Realised the photo looks weird and the red is a bit blurry/overexposed. It actually looks pretty neat in person. Not sure if I like it, it's alright, but it is definitely an improvement on the oxidised one that is currently on there. Will get that fitted with a new OE cam cover gasket soon.


Also gave it it's first wash since the respray. Noticed a couple of defects in the paint in small areas, but nothing too worrying to be honest.



Looking pretty good I think.



 
But I need red seats/red interior asap. I have found some red seats out of a mk3 MR2 that I think will look good. Pretty cheap and local enough, I may go get them and make them fit. Not too bulky, slight bucket seat look but not overly modern. Also they're red material, I'm not a fan of leather seats so all the red leather options I ignored. Either way the red needs to happen soon as the cream and black colour scheme isn't for me at all.


I have my ticket for Sunday at Retro Rides Goodwood now, and I have applied for Players Classic too. They accepted it into concourse last year 😂 so surely I'll be accepted again this year you would think, now it has been painted and whatnot. It was a good show actually, some great stuff there.

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Haha cheers mate. I think it's because at the unit I am surrounded by mates who do/have done various things for a living, including resprays. Always want to work to that standard, which probably isn't fair on myself to be honest haha. While I'm not a perfectionist at all, I am pretty critical of anything I do, because I want to make it as good as I can. But yeah overall, I don't think this could have gone much better for a first ever attempt, so I'll give myself some rare self-praise 😂

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Right, I like having a bucket seat, but the old Sparco has seen better days. I bought it for £60 about 7 years ago and it wasn't new then. Plus it isn't red.

So I started looking around at red seat options. I thought about buying some red Sparco buckets, but I don't know, maybe just a little modern looking, and also I don't really have much cash at the moment. And the red retro seat offerings all looked uncomfortable, or too low backed for my liking (I like a headrest). So I started looking at OE seats from various cars. I discounted anything leather or bulky looking, so modern stuff with all electrical bases and stuff (i.e. very heavy and high seats).

Came across red cloth MR2 seats, from the mk3 MR2. Thought they'd be a good option. Looked up the weight on some MR2 forums and they're fairly light, no electrical stuff in the base, from a small car so not going to be bulky. Then a pair popped up on Marketplace not a million miles from me for £120. Then they were £100. Then £80. I really couldn't say no, £80 for a pair of pretty good condition seats, can't argue!



Pretty good nick, bit of a bucket style, fairly supportive, on adjustable runners, and reclinable. Also the drivers seat has a twist knob to lower the seat base down for taller drivers, ideal!

So then it came to fitting them. Took the Sparco out of the driver's side, and then worked out the height difference between the mount points. The left hand rails sit on a ledge of sorts, approx. 7cm higher than the right side mounts. So I needed a way to make up a mount extension to get the seat nice and level.

I took the MX-5 side mount rails I had been using for the Sparco, and these seemed ideal. I only needed the right side mount. So I cut it down to about 7cm tall, cut the feet off of the right side runner, and welded it directly to the runner frame on the MR2 seat.





You can clearly see the height difference between the 2 sides here. I'm happy with the welding, I seam welded the entire length of the runner extension, so it is plenty strong. I may however add a little bit of lateral support to it in the form of a bracket of some kind, just for extra safety and peace of mind.

Anyway with this done I needed to place it in the car. Roughly in place it sat level, so I was happy the rail was correct. The width of these runners is about 7cm wider than my previous setup, so I had to drill a couple of new floor holes for the bolts.

With the Sparco I was using some large circular washers as spreader plates, but I feel these were just a little too thin material for my liking, so I've fitted some thicker spreader plates underneath for the seat bolts to bolt up to, and used Nyloc nuts to make sure they stay put:



3 of the mount points use these plates now, and the rear right uses one of the original strengthening pieces that the original seats bolted through, so that's all good.

Now the left side rails I kept the original MR2 feet on, I just bashed the front one flat with a big hammer so it mated nicely to the floor. The rear left foot is actually transmission tunnel mounted sideways as opposed to the other 3. So once the other 3 mount points were bolted down I got a hole drilled into the tunnel, and had a look how to bolt it down effectively. There is a bit of a gap between the tunnel and the foot, so I added a very thick spacer so that when bolted down the seat foot and the tunnel are pressed hard against each other. Obviously added a spreader on the other side to give it some strength, and it all bolted on nicely.


 

The seat feels super solid now it's all torqued down, I'm pretty happy with it. Removed the seat mounted belt buckle they came with as my Vauxhall seatbelts won't clip into them, and I am using my original tunnel mounted buckles. They sit at the right height so the belt feels nice and tight against you when clipped in.





The passenger side is slightly different as the raised floor is only on the rear right, but similar principle, so I will get that done as well this week.

First piece of the red interior is done. Need to sort the rest when money allows and I find some red interior pieces. I'll get some proper photos when they're both in, I think it's going to complement the paint quite well, certainly did on my MX-5.

The seat is quite nice, you don't sit as deep in it as the Sparco, which takes some getting used to, but it's still marginally lower than the OE seat when the height adjustment knob is bottomed out. It is slightly too high for my liking, but that's just because I'm used to almost sitting on the floor with any seats I fit into my cars 😂

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Cheers mate, I really like them. Yeah I need to keep an eye out for a set for sure.