Track Car Project

[Gaverick]

MY advice would be to drive it standard as much as you can on a circuit to get a feel for it and then you know what it needs.

Most important is going to be tyres (R888) and suspension setup making it stiffer and adjustable so you can set it up.

The only worrying thing here is you are piling a fair bit of cash into a joint item. If one of you stacks it, what's gonna happen? You could re-shell it.

If you make all the changes to the car and then drive it you wont appreciate and get the best out of the upgrades.

Yes we will be trying to get it on a track ASAP. At the moment it has leaking rear shocks so we will just have to get the coilovers on and get some decent tyres.

you removed the heater so now you will always be cold and if the windows steam up you cant clear them. nice.

personally id get the head ported before fitting cams.

I'm not bothered about the cold. From my karting experience, no matter how cold it is you will soon warm up when you're in a race suit and throwing the car around a track. Our Puma also has a heated front screen which will be wired up meaning we won't have misting issues.

I thought you said you removed the sound deadening? I see loads in there.

Yes just waiting for the cold weather to arrive so we can crack it off with a hammer in big sheets.

Safety is obviously an important factor so I will be looking in to battery and fuel cut offs, will also be looking at getting an extinguisher in there.

As I said it's all a very steep learning curve to us so any advice is welcome, I'm sure there are things we have done wrong or things we shouldn't have done at all but as long as they are pointed out we will try to do it in the best way.

As for the comment about throwing a lot of cash in to it and then stacking it, well if that happens then we will just need to deal with it. At the moment though we have both just left uni and got straight in to well paid jobs so have quite a lot of disposable income to spend on the car, just trying to be sensible and not buy everything at once.

 

[Gaverick]

you removed the heater so now you will always be cold and if the windows steam up you cant clear them. nice.

personally id get the head ported before fitting cams.

Thanks that's something to look in to, I'm sure there are many options we have not yet explored.

Just get some decent rubber on there and get it onto the track, any other upgrades needed will be apparent once you have tested it.

Your best money will be spent on instruction.

I would certainly be looking in to getting some instruction.

HI Guys,

Fair play for having a go, the best way to learn mechanics is to jump in at the deep end, have a load of bits on the drive then finally work out how it goes together. Once you have took a car completely to pieces you realise its not that complicated.

As for mig welding, don't just have a go on the car straight away, you can write off a shell by doing that. A night coarse is a good idea, its again not that hard it just takes practise to get the hang of it.

An engine swap wouldn't be that hard, don't be put off by it. A 2.0l zetec should go straight in and is more tunable than the 1.7l.

Polybushes would be a good upgrade, they will make as much of an improvement as shocks and springs.

I would heavily advise a few safety measures, fuel and battery cut off switches.

To be fair it looks like your doing well as it is and a puma is a good choice for a track car. My girlfriend used to have one, before she sold it I wanted to do the same thing to that. Best of luck guys.

Yes I would love to learn to weld, there are quite a few welders where I work so I'm thinking of asking one of the guys to give me a few lessons on some sheets of scrap metal.

I suppose the engine swap is the ultimate end goal, maybe not in this car but I'm sure at some point and on some car I will do it.

 

[iaind]

Can't imaging a fairly standard puma ever being a track "weapon" but it's a good starting point.

I'd be concentrating more on safety mods rather than collecting air fresheners and painting things green though - its looking like most chav wagons at the moment!

 

[Gaverick]

Can't imaging a fairly standard puma ever being a track "weapon" but it's a good starting point.

I'd be concentrating more on safety mods rather than collecting air fresheners and painting things green though - its looking like most chav wagons at the moment!

It's all a bit tongue in cheek. It will be mechanically sound and safe, we don't want to kill ourselves, but at the same time it's just a bit of fun for the weekend. Were not really bothered what people think of the looks as it's all personal preference, but it's always going to look a bit mental and off the wall just because we can, I mean when else do you get a chance to paint your car luminous green?!

Oh and the air fresheners came with the car, just keeping them as a legacy of the old owner who is a good friend, plus they smell nice. Will be taken out when driving though as it swings a bit.

I suppose the difference between this and a chav wagon is we haven't just stuck on a back box and put some lowering springs on with neons. We are trying to do it properly with good quality parts that will actually aid performance rather than sap power. It may look similar but underneath it will have been thoughtfully modded with performance and safety a priority

 

[Gaverick]

We bought a pair of Mondeo Mk3 front callipers today for £40. We will be using them with the 300mm ST170 discs.

I need to get hold of the 12mm bolts, I'm thinking a Ford dealer will be the best bet and enlarge the mounting holes to match as the Mondeo uses a larger diameter mounting bolt than the Puma.

The callipers have a fair amount of surface rust so I'm in the process of cleaning them up, anybody got any tips on getting all of the flaky rust off, I'm thinking a wire brush and a dremel. Are there any chemical solutions I could use instead?

I'm hoping the bleed nipples come out ok, going to replace them as long as they come out in 1 piece. I may also look at replacing all of the seals and dust caps to ensure they are in good working order.

The came with 4 almost new pads but were looking to replace these, thinking about using Ferodo DS2500's, anybody have experience of these?

 

[fonzee]

check out bilt hamber products re the rust chap.

 

[saitrix]

For the 12mm bolts go find a local fasteners specialist. They will sell you them much cheaper. Whenever I needed new ones I would go to my local one and it wouldn't ever go over £2, a lot of the time it was free!

 

[Will]

The came with 4 almost new pads but were looking to replace these, thinking about using Ferodo DS2500's, anybody have experience of these?

As far as I am aware you can't get DS2500s in the right fitment for those calipers....seems odd but I couldn't find them anywhere when I was pondering a 300mm upgrade for my Fiesta ST.

 

[tigerstyle]

Are there any chemical solutions I could use instead?

vinegar, in a bucket of that for 3 days, wicked bad rust removal!

 

[Shimmyhill]

Are you fitting bigger wheels? the 300mm brakes conversion doesnt fit under std 15s unless you modify the caliper and IMO the Puma is better on 15s than 16/17 wheels.

You also need spacers to fit them if you didnt already know that is!

 

[Gaverick]

Are you fitting bigger wheels? the 300mm brakes conversion doesnt fit under std 15s unless you modify the caliper and IMO the Puma is better on 15s than 16/17 wheels.

You also need spacers to fit them if you didnt already know that is!

A bit of shopping yesterday, we now have the bolts and spacers. I need to find a 12.5mm drill bit to enlarge the knuckle holes, none of the local hardware places have this size so it looks like I will need to order one online. After that the only remaining parts are the discs and pads, which we will hopefully get on Monday.

We cleaned up the callipers with a wire brush drill attachment yesterday and they have came up almost new. Also fitted new bleed nipples to them and tested the piston movement with compressed air. They will be painted up now to protect them from any more rust.

As you say the callipers will need grinding back a bit to fit the wheels over. We are undecided on whether to do this or just buy new wheels, once we have seen how much we need to grind we will decide then, as we don't want to be taking massive chunks out of the calliper.

 

[Overlag]

280s would have been enough surely?

 

[Gaverick]

Yes 280mm would most likely be more than adequate but these callipers popped up at a good price and there is a lot of info about them on the internet so it seemed like a good option.

Plus it provides a challenge which is what this is all about really.

 

[Gaverick]

The callipers have now been ground, spaced and tested fitted under the 15" props, it's very tight under there but they do fit. This won't be a permanent solution though, we will be getting some wheels which give more clearance. Here is a pic of the callipers painted up ready for fitting tomorrow, they cleaned up very well and are unrecognisable from the lumps of rust we had on Friday. The brake system is now dry and won't be refilled until the rear disc conversion is complete, just need to get hold of the parts needed first.

 

[-westy-]

Looks good, but I would have gone with what other people said - drive the car on track first, and see what needs attention.

 

[Gaverick]

That's what we hope to do, but upon closer inspection we found leaking rear shocks and the brakes we pulling to the side badly.

It's had a new calliper on the right side but the left looks like someone has tried to change it (rounded off bolts) and failed. The brake lines are also looking slightly worse for wear so for safety we are replacing the brakes (upgrading at same time to save cost of replacing twice) and getting new suspension, then it should be ready for it's first track session.

Once we have had it round track a few times we should know if we want an LSD, more power, poly bushes etc. just trying to get it working safely first.

 

[Gaverick]

Brakes on today, it's definitely tight in there!

 

[Gaverick]

Picked up the necessary parts for a rear disc conversion on Friday. The parts came off a Focus ST170 so it's the 280mm setup. The parts were in very good condition and included a set of nearly new discs and EBC greenstuff pads. Spent a few hours yesterday fitting them, here are some pics.

The old drums

The new discs

Spent the rest of yesterday removing all of the brake lines from under the car and detaching them from the master cylinder as we are going to run new lines through the inside of the car. Took quite a while to get them out but now they are all out, we just need to make up new lines and buy the grommets/p clips etc.

 

[Maz]

Looks ace!

I'd be tempted to go for the rat look with the bodywork!

Save the weight of the paint LOL!

 

[Gaverick]

We started making some prep for throttle bodies today, started to make the inlet manifold using the short section of the original inlet, planning to use some GSXR bodies with Megasquirt management.

I'm expecting a lot of problems along the way to getting these working, but that's what this project is all about, challenging ourselves to do things we never knew we could.

The basic idea is to use silicone hose to join our inlet manifold to the throttle bodies, leaving the injectors in their original location, and making all the other bits work such as throttle cable and all of the other stuff that goes along with it.

Bought the throttle bodies today also, from a 2002 GSX-R1000.