Collection Day

Time to collect the kit!I went up to Newark yesterday to collect the kit for the GBS Zero, and I was so impressed to see the chassis powder coated and poised ready to go. All the other parts of the kit had also been prepared and ready tick off the checklist and loaded into the van.

It was all very easy and laid back as is every time I contact and see Rich and Keith from GBS. The fibre glass wheel arches, dash panel and nose cone look really impressive as they do a double gel coat on the components to give them a really deep look. They also use the colouring in the actual resin itself to keep the colour running throughout the component, which not many people do.

Unpacked and ready to go,  well almost. I just need to sort out some stands to rest the chassis on to make it a more comfortable height to work on.

Let's get building!



Building the engine

The main point about building this Zero is that it will be something different and the first Zero to use the Audi 1.8T engine. So I needed to make sure that the engine looked as good as it would perform.


I started with an engine from an Audi A4;

 

I selected this particular engine because it mounted longitudinally in the A4 to make mounting the engine in the zero a bit more straight forward. In addition, this way I knew the sump would have been designed in such a way that oil surge would not be a problem. This is where oil would flow to one side of the sump under cornering and G forces and starve the oil pump of oil briefly; not good.

I began by stripping the engine down to the individual parts and eventually was just left with the block, which I had rehoned and the top face of the block where the cylinder head is located skimmed.

I also had the cam cover and sump shot blasted and cleaned up and painted them, and the block, with a very high temperature engine paint. This is readily available from Halfords or similar places and is really good stuff, and well worth doing for aesthetic reasons but moreover protection.

Once I'd cleaned and inspected all the parts and replaced worn components I was able to start building the block again. Fairly, self explanatory so here's a few pics!

As far internals are concerned, I've left them standard in order to make the engine reliable and keep it as close to what was in the A4 as possible. I replaced the piston rings and crankshaft bearing shells, and all gaskets of course.

I neglected to take many more pictures of the engine build itself so my apologies for that, but there's a few of when it was complete :)

The cylinder head I had sent to a professional who specialises in reconditioning 1.8T heads, who shot blast the head and supplied new tappets and made a really good job of it.

I reassembled the head with the aid of a friend who works at MRC Tuning; a company who specialise in tuning Audi's; very handy!

So once everything was ready to it was a matter of bolting it all together, and here's the finished article!

 I bolted on the main parts of the engine that would take up space in the engine bay so the guys at GBS would be able to see what would foul against the chassis when building the engine mounts. Then it was just a matter of taking the engine up to them and awaiting a call to collect the chassis :)





First things first

So here we go!
I have decided to build a Great British Sports Cars (GBS) Zero kit car; using an Audi 1.8 turbo charged engine, instead of using the Zetec 2.0l engine.



http://www.greatbritishsportscars.co.uk/

The choice was made a lot easier at the Stoneleigh Kitcar show earlier this year when I was able to have a really good look around the car and saw the quality of these kits for myself.
It was also great to speak with Keith Bird face to face about the build as when I told him my plans on the phone he laughed; quite hard. But after a short discussion he was actually really excited about the project and very keen to help.

Now this will not be a straight forward build because GBS have not used this engine before and will therefore need to make bespoke engine mounts and make minor tweaks to the chassis for the engine to fit. In addition, the wiring loom will need adjusting also to accommodate the Audi engine loom and ECU; but let's cross that bridge when we get to it!
Furthermore, because the chassis is designed around Ford Type 9 or MT75 gearboxes I had a decision to make about whether to use these boxes still or try to make an Audi box fit. I opted to use the old reliable Type 9 as this is a well tried and tested box and would mean a lot less messing around in the long run.
Ok so engine and gearbox sorted. However, I somehow needed to make the two match as of course it is not a straightforward bolt on job. The two options were;

• to make an adapter plate to make the Ford bell housing fit the Audi block
• or find somewhere that makes adapted bell housing for this application.

I've opted for the adapted bell housing option because it just seems to be a proper way of doing things and it wouldn't add to the overall dimensions of the gearbox/engine combination due to the adapter plate; which would mean locating the gearbox further back or the engine further forward to accommodate it, and as the engine hasn't been used before I'd like to make the engine bay as large as possible.
I'll have more to follow on the bell housing and gearboxes when I get to it!

More to follow soon, stay tuned!