Deimos Evolution

Hi,

A quick intro, then more about what this blog is all about!

My name is Simon and I live in the South East of England with the wife, two sons and a couple of cats.

This blog is all about the evolution of Deimos, my toy car (if you're wondering where the name came from, it's the name of one of Mars' moons, and it means "panic", appropriate I thought). Deimos was started on the 6th July 2002 based on the plans and ideas set out in Ron Champion's book "Build Your Own Sportscar for £250". Ok, so the budget didn't quite work out, but the car did.

If you're unfamiliar with the book, I'll tell you it's about building a Lotus 7 style car without the Caterham type budget. The book has drawings, pictures and suggestions (based on several cars built by the author) for getting your own car on the road.

Now, there is no way I could afford to justify another expense to the wife of say a new Caterham, Westfield or Dax Rush, much as I'd like one sitting in my garage. However, the cost of building a car over three years with the annual price of a golf club membership might be possible.

Anyway, to move things on a bit quicker, I bought the book, got a donor and stripped it over a weekend. Bought 40+ metres of 16swg steel tube, an 8' x 4' sheet of mdf for building on, and on 2/7/02 starting cutting and welding. I had a rolling chassis in a fortnight, and on 3rd January 2006the car was registered and legal. It had cost slightly over £3,000 and that included all the legal costs (ie the SVA test and retest, insurance and a year road tax) and a couple of things I bought that were wrong or rubbish!.

Now, in the best traditions of people who like nothing more than to get something that works perfectly fine, working finer(!), I decided that the car needed more power (it has a 3.5l Rover V8 engine, LT77 gearbox and Sierra based (3.92:1 diff/driveshafts; homemade 'bones and uprights).

So in the April of 2006, I acquired a pair of KKK 03 turbos (from an Audi S4, the owner had upgraded to KKK 04, a popular mod I gather), a pair of Renault 5 GT Turbo interccolers, an injection plenum, manifold, fuel rails, injectors, loom, ECU, some stainless steel for new exhuast system etc etc.

On the 16th October 2006, I made a start by cutting a bllody great hole in the bonnet as somehow, I'd need to replace the SU carbs with the injection hardware.

After the hole was cut, all the non injection bits and pieces were removed and replaced for trial fitting. Bear in mind the Rover plenum and manifold is actually quite tall, and I didn't want too much sticking throught the bonnet.

After much umm ing and rrr ing, I decided it was way too tall and with the help of a friend machined about 1/2" from manifold, same from plenum base and 1/4" from plenum.

Those in the know also know that the plenum is side entry and I decided was also unacceptable, so acquired a second plenum. During a moment of madness, I made a dual entry manifold - one each side, but decided a) it was massive, b) didn't allow room for intercoolers, c) found out someone else had done the same thing, and was having trouble getting it runniing right abd finally d), decided that the throttle linkage would be an absolute nightmare.

In the end I made up a rear entry unit.

I then took the two intercoolers apart and joined them together to make a large dual entry, single exit intercooler. This is mounted to the rear of the plenum, with both inlets slightly downturned toward the turbos.

The turbos themselves are attached to homemade stainless manifolds and are connected to the rest of the exhaust. The oil and water feeds/returns are in and connected up, though I have a slight leak on one of the oil feeds, so I'll have to replace the pipe before I run it properly.

That's as far as I've got so far suffice to say that the next few instalments will be about me trying to wire up the new Emerald ECU and finally getting it running again. The six week project is now into its 14th month:)