325TI - Project Mpact
Discussion
MDifficult said:
geeks said:
GoPro mount get its own thread? 
/subscribedBigRusko said:
amc_adam said:
... made a nice little mount for the GoPro .
In the theme of exquisute over engineering, I immediately thought of this;
james_TW said:
Can't remember if it's been asked, but how do you insure this? What do you declare? What's the insurance value of the car?
Sorry if that's too personal to ask, but given the fabrication of some of these parts, is the value immeasurable?
A few different Companies wouldn't touch the car, One Company wouldn't insure me as I hadn't previously driven a performance car (even though I drove the Donor M3 as a daily vehicle).Sorry if that's too personal to ask, but given the fabrication of some of these parts, is the value immeasurable?
Two well known Insurance Companies were happy to Insure the car with all the changes/mods, they had some photos and a link to this thread, both companies accepted the Value that I asked for.
After taking out a policy with one of the Insurance Companies and sending them copious amounts of information that was asked i.e Spread sheets of costs and hours spent, every receipt, photos and links to this Thread and my Website, I received a phone call to say that the Agreed Valuation they were going to give was less than half of what was accepted prior to taking out the policy, So I have been somewhat mislead..... and Is proving to be a bit of a battle at the moment.
"It needed lots of holes in the Aluminium mount to make it lighter" 
It's been a busy few weeks since my last update, the Compact has had teething problems again.... This time it was in the driveway luckily.
Since getting the Compact on the road I've covered roughly 1000 miles, for peace of mind an oil service was done at 700 miles to make sure all was well since the rod bearings were changed and that no horrors had risen, all was good. After that I was more confident to put my foot down and take the revs higher...... it feels pretty nippy, although the traction control keeps stepping in even when it's turned off
After it's first spirited drive round some local roads and to see some friends I pulled up to home and into the driveway, realiseing I wanted the car the opposite way round to wash it, I popped it into reverse and a single "twang" noise was heard, I reversed out onto the road only to find the gearstick flopping around like a
in a bucket. Instantly knowing where I'd had the Bell Housing machined/converted from SMG to Manual had failed, the gear detents had popped out. Just about managing to find a gear to limp it back into the driveway, and that's where the Compact stayed for a few weeks until the ramp was free in the workshop.
And.... the underside of the car was stripped (again) of it's under trays, Exhaust and Prop etc to access the gearbox.
The offending items, found on layed on the under tray.
With the Gearbox removed and under closer inspection it seemed as if where the bell housing had been machined for the C-clip to locate, the groove wasn't quite deep enough and the C-clip was unable to hold the pressure of the spring and had given way.
After a bit of head scratching, the hole diameter was the right size for an M22x1.5 fitting. So I tapped the holes out (decided to do the top one too, just to be safe),
Found some M22x1.5 Sump plugs which I turned down so that the Springs had a pin to locate on, and that the Springs where under the same compression once the plugs were wound in.
All done, fingers crossed.
I'd noticed that it was quite common for the clutch fork pivot to be changed to a stainless item as the OEM Nylon item wears or can snap, So while the Bell housing/gearbox was off I made a new pin and fitted that,
With all that done the Compact was reassembled, Apart from the Exhaust, which I decided to cut up the silencer again and add some quietness,
The end/top half of the casing was cut off, the merging part I had previously made was perforated by spending 3.5hrs drilling holes....then re-packed and welded.
It's made quite a bit of difference to the drone which is what i'd hoped for.
And the GoPro mount photo for those who asked, it's not the prettiest as it's been cut up 3-4 times for different cars, but it works
That's all for now, hopefully nothing else breaks!.
Since getting the Compact on the road I've covered roughly 1000 miles, for peace of mind an oil service was done at 700 miles to make sure all was well since the rod bearings were changed and that no horrors had risen, all was good. After that I was more confident to put my foot down and take the revs higher...... it feels pretty nippy, although the traction control keeps stepping in even when it's turned off
After it's first spirited drive round some local roads and to see some friends I pulled up to home and into the driveway, realiseing I wanted the car the opposite way round to wash it, I popped it into reverse and a single "twang" noise was heard, I reversed out onto the road only to find the gearstick flopping around like a
in a bucket. Instantly knowing where I'd had the Bell Housing machined/converted from SMG to Manual had failed, the gear detents had popped out. Just about managing to find a gear to limp it back into the driveway, and that's where the Compact stayed for a few weeks until the ramp was free in the workshop. And.... the underside of the car was stripped (again) of it's under trays, Exhaust and Prop etc to access the gearbox.
The offending items, found on layed on the under tray.
With the Gearbox removed and under closer inspection it seemed as if where the bell housing had been machined for the C-clip to locate, the groove wasn't quite deep enough and the C-clip was unable to hold the pressure of the spring and had given way.
After a bit of head scratching, the hole diameter was the right size for an M22x1.5 fitting. So I tapped the holes out (decided to do the top one too, just to be safe),
Found some M22x1.5 Sump plugs which I turned down so that the Springs had a pin to locate on, and that the Springs where under the same compression once the plugs were wound in.
All done, fingers crossed.
I'd noticed that it was quite common for the clutch fork pivot to be changed to a stainless item as the OEM Nylon item wears or can snap, So while the Bell housing/gearbox was off I made a new pin and fitted that,
With all that done the Compact was reassembled, Apart from the Exhaust, which I decided to cut up the silencer again and add some quietness,
The end/top half of the casing was cut off, the merging part I had previously made was perforated by spending 3.5hrs drilling holes....then re-packed and welded.
It's made quite a bit of difference to the drone which is what i'd hoped for.
And the GoPro mount photo for those who asked, it's not the prettiest as it's been cut up 3-4 times for different cars, but it works
That's all for now, hopefully nothing else breaks!.
Small update of whats been going on recently,
The Compact has been faultless the last few weeks, slowly getting more confident driving it again as it feels totally different now compared to how it was before the conversion was done.
That being said, last Sunday (10.11.19) I had booked on to a track day at Snetterton. The weather was dry but a bit chilly, the cold didn't stop a good turn out though..... there was some expensive cars on track!. It was a good day minus a few red flags and track closures (nothing to do with me), I was very cautious to begin with and was trying not to hold up the quicker drivers, but as the day went on my confidence built up and I really started to enjoy myself.
The Compact done brilliantly, I've never had a car that revs for so long and the brakes work very well indeed. Although to begin with it did seem a bit "understeery", I think this was due to the front of the car being a bit too stiff and me not knowing the car well enough yet.
So, I'll be softening the front shocks a bit, swapping the front M3 anti roll bar back to the Compact one and maybe another wheel alignment at some point.
But here's some photo's from the Javelin Track days Flickr,
In other news the M3 donor shell is going to be going up for sale soon, I'm currently still pinching bits off it at the moment.
I wanted to keep the bonnet and front wings from the M3 as part of another project on the Compact at a later date, but the M3 front wings were quite rusty, mainly the near side so..........
I fabricated a new repair panel,
Cut out the previous bodges and tacked the new repair panel in,
Fully TIG'd the panel in,
Ground the welds back smooth,
Job done. Or so i thought
I didn't have anywhere to safely store the Wings and especially the bonnet being Aluminium, I wanted to fix them to the wall up and out the way.
I ordered some lengths of Aluminium tube and worked out what I was going to do,
Started notching some bits,
And bending some others, then TIG'd them all together and ended up with this,
Which was fixed to the wall,
And now I have a giant 1:1 scale AirFix kit
The Compact has been faultless the last few weeks, slowly getting more confident driving it again as it feels totally different now compared to how it was before the conversion was done.
That being said, last Sunday (10.11.19) I had booked on to a track day at Snetterton. The weather was dry but a bit chilly, the cold didn't stop a good turn out though..... there was some expensive cars on track!. It was a good day minus a few red flags and track closures (nothing to do with me), I was very cautious to begin with and was trying not to hold up the quicker drivers, but as the day went on my confidence built up and I really started to enjoy myself.
The Compact done brilliantly, I've never had a car that revs for so long and the brakes work very well indeed. Although to begin with it did seem a bit "understeery", I think this was due to the front of the car being a bit too stiff and me not knowing the car well enough yet.
So, I'll be softening the front shocks a bit, swapping the front M3 anti roll bar back to the Compact one and maybe another wheel alignment at some point.
But here's some photo's from the Javelin Track days Flickr,
In other news the M3 donor shell is going to be going up for sale soon, I'm currently still pinching bits off it at the moment.
I wanted to keep the bonnet and front wings from the M3 as part of another project on the Compact at a later date, but the M3 front wings were quite rusty, mainly the near side so..........
I fabricated a new repair panel,
Cut out the previous bodges and tacked the new repair panel in,
Fully TIG'd the panel in,
Ground the welds back smooth,
Job done. Or so i thought
I didn't have anywhere to safely store the Wings and especially the bonnet being Aluminium, I wanted to fix them to the wall up and out the way.
I ordered some lengths of Aluminium tube and worked out what I was going to do,
Started notching some bits,
And bending some others, then TIG'd them all together and ended up with this,
Which was fixed to the wall,
And now I have a giant 1:1 scale AirFix kit
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