Latest progress on the Gooster

[Chris Cussen]

Excellent job, though I liked the wood boot floor, seems a shame to hide it under carpet

[peterux]

That's coming on a real treat!
I notice an acceleration in the work rate now you can see the end of the tunnel

[MartinClan]

Looking very professional. Its going to look fantatsic when the body is painted BRG.

Robin

[GreatOldOne]

Guys, can anyone tell me what size and orientation the block is that is placed on the seat to act as a reference plane for the turning point of the seat belts? I seem to recall it's about 50 X 130... But which dimension goes where?

I know it's 450mm up from that block, and I assume that's a minimum height, not an absolute.

I'm asking as I need to locate my turning bar - and I have a funny feeling that I may get away with attaching it to the top of the shock towers inside the tub, rather than welding it to the rollbar.

[Chris Cussen]

From the IVA manual, Piccie attached from manual

16. A harness or three point belt “effective upper anchorage” location must be at least 450mm above the reference point. (see note 14)
17. A lap/diagonal belt “effective upper anchorage” location must be at least 140mm from the longitudinal centre line of the seat. (see note 14)
18. The lower anchorages must be at least 350mm apart.
19. The lower anchorages on side ward facing seats must be at least 350mm apart but no further apart than 500mm

[Chris Cussen]

Damn, forgot to upload!

[GreatOldOne]

So, the block dimensions are as follows?

[Chris Cussen]

Yep.
The widget my tester used was a steel template about 3mm thick with a hinged arm at the reference point. He held the arm vertical using a sprit level and to the top was tied a piece of string that he took back to the slots in the seat. He had a second spirit level that hooked over the string.

There was in my case a bit of umming and erring as the slot was 1mm too low, but I persuaded him the seat would comress 1mm under my weight.

[MartinClan]

Originally Posted by GreatOldOne

I'm asking as I need to locate my turning bar - and I have a funny feeling that I may get away with attaching it to the top of the shock towers inside the tub, rather than welding it to the rollbar.

I thought about doing this but in the end welding it to the roll bar proved to be a far better solution. My reasoning:

1. The seatbelt has a nice clear run - even through the slots in the rear bulkhead.
2. Its not just an "SVA" fix. Its a solution that would actually work should the seatbelts be required to work in anger (heaven forbid...).

In practice it was an easy job - albeit a bit of a pain having to remove the rear tub. I even managed to match the paint finish to the coating Marlin use on the chassis. - You can't see the join as a famous comedian once said...

Robin

[GreatOldOne]

Bought a new bit for the car of eBay - an Omex shift light.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...#ht_500wt_1182

I decided I may as well go for it as I kept procrastinating over building one, and the price seemed a snip compared to a new one.

The only problem is I'm going to have to rewire the LED, as the guy selling it seems to have gone halfway through the cable when he was taking it out. Not a problem, but a pain.

[Patrick]

nice look forward to seeing that installed

[GreatOldOne]

Installed the shift light unit tonight - works like a charm

I've taken a feed from the back of the tacho for the coil -ve line (the unit reads the pulses in the same fashion as the tacho), given it switched power & an earth from the dash, and hooked my incandescent lamp up that I fitted as a shift light (it turns out that the box can drive any light / buzzer combo up to 7 watts / .5 amps)

The box of tricks is quite easy to program - it's set to 4 cylinder, 6000rpm activation out of the box or after a reset. You can select 2 through 8 cylinders and set the shift light activation in increments or decrements of 100rpm using a couple of buttons. And thats it. It just works!

I've set the shift activation level to 4,300 rpm for the time being, as the bently manual mentions this as the Max torque figure.... I don't know if that's the right point (does anyone know?)

I'm sure after driving the car for a bit I'll get an idea where the best point is, and if it's anywhere else it's dead simple to reset and plug in a new point.

I'll post some tomorrow piccies.

[Chris Cussen]

I don't think you want to shift at the moment you are developing max torque because you will immediately drop to a point there you have lower torque and hence less acceleration.

I'd set the shift light at either
1. Just below max RPM
2. At the point where the gear shift will take you to max torque in the next gear. For instance if second gear at 5600rpm is the same road speed at 4300 rpm in third, then 5600 could be the point to change gear when in second.

Option 2 may not be achievable in every gear depending on the gear ratios of course, but a quick play with an excel spreadsheet could give you the best compromise rpm.

However I'd go for option 1 myself.

[MartinClan]

Actually - its easy to know when to change gear - its when your ears can't take the cacophony from the engine any longer. ;-)

[GreatOldOne]

Yes - and once you've lost your hearing, you just change up when you feel the blood start to run from your ears!

[Chris Cussen]

I thought it was when you saw valve springs come through the bonnet

[GreatOldOne]

Pics as promised:

I made the bracket out a strip of ali - the box does have some self adhesive pads, but I took them off as they'd probably give up the ghost at an inopportune moment and drop into Pauline's lap during high speed cornering.


Blue line is the -ve line from the coil, red is +12v from the ignition switch, and the black is an earth


The other pair of wires is the power to the lamp - red +ve & blue -ve

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTRENONQ1dM

Flashing lights!

[Patrick]

very flashy