Induction Mods

Right time to have a look at the induction side of things, cooling the air getting into the engine, with a plenum isolator plate and heat reflective sleeving for the induction pipe, and helping it get air into the engine with new carbon fibre trumpets.

Heat reflective sleeving:
Easy enough to fit;

1. Undo the clips around the AFM and plenum
2. Unplug and remove the AFM (you don't have to do this but it makes life a lot easier)
3. Now you can slip the sleeve all the way down the long induction pipe until you hit the front bulkhead
4. I also covered the 90 degree bend in a couple of pieces of the heat sleeve, just to make sure

Trumpets and Isolator Plate:
This is a bit more involved, instructions to remove the plenum and trumpet base can be found here

A few pictures of the various stages;

You can see the various pipes and throttle pot removed from the plenum:


With the plenum removed; don't forget to remove the vacuum pipe to the FPR, it's at the back of the plenum:
Disconnect the vacuum hoses for the brake servo and carbon canister then remove the PAS reservoir (if fitted):


With the trumpet base removed; mine needed a bit of persuading, as you can also see, the use of kitchen towel to stop any crap getting into the engine:


Now to remove, clean and fit the new trumpets to the base.

Removing the trumpets can be a bit tricky, one method is to heat the trumpets and base in the oven for a while to melt the glue and they should just pop out, this can cause arguments with her indoors as she chokes of oil fumes!

So I played it safe and went for the brute force method, as I wouldn't be needing the trumpets in the future. I took a mid-sized hammer individually tapped the trumpets, on the side, so they started to rock in there slots. Eventually this broke the glue and they popped out one by one.

Cleaning the base was straight forward, degrease the thing using Gunk, and gently remove all the old glue with a Dremel, as you can see below it's a bit cleaner:


Now to fit the trumpets. Practice fit all the trumpets to the base before hand to make sure you know which way round they all go, hint: the trumpets meet on the straight edges:


Right now to prep the inlet manifold, this is just the process of removing all the old sealant from the mating surface:


Now to create an intake sandwich, on the inlet manifold a coating of red sealant then the t-spacer, another layer of sealant then the trumpet base. The base is then torqued down to 14-16 f/lb. I now reattached the vacuum pipes that lead to the front wing and the PAS reservoir.

Now to fit the plenum, putting sealant around the trumpet base, I squeezed the plenum between the last trumpet and the metal cover on the bulkhead. Remembering to reconnect the vacuum hose to the FPR beforehand.

Now to put the rest of the hoses and electrical connections back on; the stepper motor, the throttle pot, the dizzy vacuum advance, the breather hoses and the induction pipe.

Job done!

Does it start: YES....good start!

How does it drive? Well after getting the engine up to temperature I managed to get my right foot down, the car seems to pull a lot stronger mid to top range. On a rolling 2nd gear start it felt quicker up the speeds where I'd be saying goodbye to my license, glad I was on a private road.
Update: Note to self; when the roads are ever so slightly damp and you are at accelerating in 3rd gear, hitting around 3500 to 4500 revs the rear tyres (which have LOADS of tread) will spin!!!! :)

When I got back I got the bonnet up and the plenum was very cool to the touch, IIRC I wouldn't have been able to touch it before! Let's face it the bonnet stay was burning my hand when I put it in place!! I also felt as far as I could under the heat reflective sleeving on the induction pipe and the pipe was not as hot as it was previously

MPH06 and Seat Belt Locks

Well popped down to MPH06 last Sunday to see Clarkson and his gang do the usual tricks, very good way of spending a day! Especially when they had models like this in the halls...



CG-Lock also had a stand there and I'd been looking at these for a while, after just missing out on the group buy on Pistonheads. I now have a shiny new CG-Lock in my possession!

Fitting: In the dim and distant past I remembered that you need to alter the way that you fit them to a Chimaera, as it has a multi-pass tongue on the seat belt. A little digging and emailing and TVRBob had the answer and a full pdf document on how to fit it!

Right now for a test drive...

Chips Chips Chips

Well I took the plunge, based on the fact that it's a long way from Yorkshire to go to get Mark Adams to custom map an ECU chip I bought one from his shop on eBay instead!

Fitting was quite simple, if not a bit nerve racking (must not get static on the chip! must not get static on the chip!) and the instructions included with the chip are very informative and straight forward, luckily I had an ECU that the chip and decoder board slotted straight into with no messing.

It was all a matter of whipping out the ECU from the passenger footwell, undoing the torx bolts holding on the cover, carefully removing the standard chip, replace with the decoder board, add the tornado chip and refit!! :)

So now for a test firing, ignition...the fuel pump whirrs away, which is a good sign...engage the starter motor...the engine does a few revolutions (to build up oil pressure) and then sparks into life, GET IN!

Right time to take it for a spin; first impressions are good, the engine behaves well at low speeds (town driving) much more refined and smooth. It had a tendency before to be lumpy while crawling along at low speed, this seems to be all but eliminated. On the open road the car responses to the right foot a lot better, pulling up the rev range smoothly. I've still got a slight misfire but I think that's down to the plugs. I need to check them over...time to return to base.

New front boots and a rattling rear

Had a couple of new front tyres fitted, Toyo Proxes T1-R's, the Bridgestones were looking a bit too warn, pretty much between 1.5 and 2.5mm left. It looks like they don't make the T1-S's anymore or at least blackcircles.com can't get a hold of any :/

All I need to do now is put them through a few heat cycles and about 500 miles to get rid of the mould slip and they should start to stick to the road like very sticky things!

I had also noticed that the rear end was clunking a bit when going into bends, and when the car was in for it's MOT the mechanic pointed out that the rose joint on the near-side anti-roll bar was a bit loose/warn. So it was time to raise the back end and take a look, sure enough the rose joint was a tad loose. I do have to hold my hand up and take the blame on that one, got distracted when fitting them :/ Now all the nuts are tight it's a lot quieter, there's a joke in their somewhere...

Mod-Wise Boot Opening and Light Kit

Well another day and another Mod-Wise kit to fit, after this I should have the ability to open the boot from the outside, without having to put the keys in the ignition and press the button under the dashboard, and I should be able to see in the boot at night!!

Here's how I went about it:
Fitting the relay to the boot actuator. This was a matter of pulling up the carpet in the boot to the right hand side of the boot catch (as you look at the car from the rear) and finding the wires that feed the boot latch actuator, here are mine (picture taken from inside the boot looking backwards, the light pod is the off-side rear):


Now attach the wires with the supplied clips, and I've also taped the relays in place with good old duck tape!


Now it's a matter of feeding the door micro-switch and it's wire around the boot, again I used little strips of duck tape to keep it in place, and fed the switch over the near side wheel arch and through to the passenger door lock actuator. This was the trickiest bit of the job, getting the micro-switch to work consistently when attached to the lock mechanism, I had to very gently bend the long switch arm so it stayed in place when the lock mechanism was moved between the locked and un-locked positions, also at this time I tapped into the live purple wire that heads to the interior light:


Right now to sort out the reed switches and the LED lights in the boot, first the reed switch for the boot. I decided to put this through a hole I found under the boot catch plate. I had to enlarge it slightly but then it enabled me to put the reed switch through and have it behind the number plate:

As you can probably just make out from the picture the wire is held in the hole by duck tape, who invented this stuff? They deserve a medal!! Right, so after checking that it was working it was time to fit the light reed switch, I fed the wire up the off-side side of the boot and placed the reed switch on the bracket, putting the magnet on the rod that holds the boot open (I can't for the life remember what it's called) I was able to activate the switch when the boot opened:

Fitting the LEDs was straight forward again, just a matter of feeding the wires around to where you want the lights to be and using the small magnets behind the carpet attach the light in front of the carpet. I placed one, as shown, under the off-side rear wing, the other had to be placed on the rear panel facing forward because the wire wasn't long enough to reach to the near-side wing. Let there be light:


All that there was left to do now was to hide the magnet somewhere on the key fob so I could use it to gain access to the boot, I had the idea of putting it in the remote blipper like so:

Which was all well and good for a few days then the blipper stopped working! Taking the magnet out made it start again! Coincidence? I don't think so! At the moment the magnet is just clinging to the key fob until I find it a permanent home!

Mod-Wise Two Stage Cooling Kit

I noticed during this weeks MOT that the left hand fan wasn't working, I did wonder why the temp was creeping up in stationary traffic, when it hadn't done so before. So it was time to get dirty and sort out the electrics and to fit the Mod-Wise two stage cooling kit I'd ordered even before noticing the stationary fan!

First get the fan moving again, simple answer, dirty connections. The plugs that sit straight behind the fans were the culprits, the first ones you come across if you follow the wires from the fan itself. So it was a matter of a quick poke and scrape around with a suitable screw driver and some wet 'n dry, short out the connectors to the otter switch with a paper clip and hey presto, spinning fans!

Now for the kit, generally following the instructions given in the kit by Mod-Wise and the additional instructions on The Chimaera Pages, these gave me enough information to fit the full kit.

I will be attaching the additional power supply this weekend, this allows the fans to stay on for one cycle after the engine has been switched off.

Dashboard Replacement

During this summer the veneer on the dashboard started to crack a bit more, so I decided to replace it with a Leven alloy item. After reading up on www.chimaerapages.com and using Steve Heaths bible I set off removing the old dash and putting the new shiny one in...Here's a bolt by bolt guide on how I completed it-

Dash top removal:

1. Unscrew the passenger "glove box" under the dash
2. Find and remove the three elusive bolts that hold the dash top on
3. Now try and move the dash top into a position where you can get the right hand side bolt to come free, this was completed with a lot of swearing and sweating

Dashboard removal:

1. Work your way along the dials and switches removing them from the old dash one-by-one and reconnecting them separated from the dash
2. Unscrew the screws that hold the heater controls to the dash bottom, keep hold of the bolts that are used as spacers between the controls and the dash bottom
3. Now you should be able to lift the old dashboard from the dash bottom
4. There are three small nuts and bolts that hold the heater controls to the dash board, remove these and carefully separate the two
5. Carefully tip the dash forward to remove the wires from the MIL and Inhibitor LEDs (see pics) along with the nylon nut that holds the PCB of the main indicator/main beam/hand brake/frost LEDs
6. Now you can remove the dash!

Radio panel removal:

1. Remove the radio
2. Remove the radio cage
3. Remove the four self tapers that hold the panel on
4. As with the dashboard remove all the switches and alarm LED one by one, reconnecting them away from the panel

New dashboard preparation

1. On the old dashboard make a note of the position of the bolt that is glued in between the tacho and speedo, mark on the new dash the exact position and remove from the old dash
   
2. Remove the glued in LEDs, be very careful, seen as it was 9 year old glue holding them in it had gone quite brittle, so with a little persuading they came free from their holders
3. Remove the LED holders from the old dash, I used a screwdriver to carefully lever off the locking thingies around the holders
4. Now transfer the LED holders to the new dash, I reused the locking thingies, placing the dash on a suitable bit of cloth and using a suitable sized socket from my socket set and a suitable sized wooden mallet the locking things where persuaded back onto the LED holders! Make sure the holders are correctly aligned before striking the final fixing blow!
5. Once all the holders are in place, time to glue! Put a few dabs around the LEDs and put back in their holders. Glue the bolt back on in the place you marked earlier
6. Now leave and don't touch until the glue has fully cured

New radio panel preparation:

1. Mark on the rear of the new radio panel exactly where the two pieces of angled steel are glued on the old radio panel
2. Remove the two steel angles and nut that are glued to the old panel
3. Glue the three items to the new panel and leave to until fully cured

Fitting the new dashboard:

1. Quite easy really, do the steps completed in the removal in reverse!
2. Watch out for the LEDs around the heater controls, they're a bit of a snug fit, also the hole for the top small nut and bolt that hold the heater controls to the dash was a bit out of alignment on my dash (so I didn't refit it, the blower switch does a good job of holding it all together and the bolt hole is hidden by the top dash panel)
3. I found it a good time to straighten all the metal work that hold the clocks in on the dashboard, sort out all the i.c.e wiring.

Here's some pics of the wiring and dash (helped me when reconnecting the new dash):

Inhibitor LED Wiring:

Tachometer Wiring:

MIL LED Wiring:
Knowing TVRs the wire colours may change, so I accept no responsibility if you wire your dash up incorrectly, should have taken your own photos!

As you can see the PCB won't fit through the hole! Time to *gently* break the LED out of its holder:

Here's the results...


...goes well with all the other shiny Leven accessories IMHO :)

Cars and Cars @ VUE

Organised via the Pistonheads web site and VUE cinemas there was a meet and film night on the 28th July. Here's my pics...

The story so far...

Right to bring it up to date here are the mods/work I've completed so far...

Outside:
Clear indicators, front and side
Replaced rear screen
Fitted wire mesh to bonnet holes/louvres
Leven petrol cap

Inside:
Leven stalks
Leven pedals (inc. new accel. linkage)
Leven air vent covers (top and front)
Leven handbrake lever
Leven steering wheel screws
Leven alloy dashboard
Leven ashtrays
Leven gear lever surround
Pioneer DEH-P5600MP CD/MP3 headunit
Focal V Slim 5.25" & 1" component speakers in front
Inifinity 5001i 5.25" speakers in rear
Alpine SWD-1600 subwoofer
Chrome cigar lighter
Alloy tax disc holder
Mod-Wise boot opening and LED light kit
Seat Belt CG-Lock
4 point harness
Tuscan seats
Headlight reflector
Roll Bar

Greasy Bits:
Mod-Wise hot start kit
Mod-Wise 2 stage cooling kit
SH drop links front and rear
Magnacore 8.5mm HT leads
Bosch Coil
Braided brake pipes
Braided PAS pipes
Leven oil filler cap
SH swirl tank plug
ACT induction kit, fully covered in heat reflecting sleeving
Silicone water hose kit
ACT swan neck pipe
Mark Adams Tornado chip
Magna Parva t-spacer (plenum heat isolator)
ACT carbon trumpets
SH exhaust heat shield
Gaz Gold shock absorbers
Powerflex bushes
Oil filter magnet

Outstanding Work:
New windscreen due to de-lamination (got it painted so it doesn't look so bad)
Have RR session
Set up suspension geometry
Fire extinguisher

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog!

I've owned a 1997 TVR Chimaera 450 since June 2004 so I thought it was about time to make notes on some alterations I've made to it, so I can hopefully maybe help other people.

Here are some pics from just after I bought the car: