1978 Fisher Fury - whoosh!

[mylittletony]

I'll do some measurements this eve, once the kiddos are in bed.

The wheels use sleeved nuts which are a very good fit in the holes. Plus tapered seats. I do need to craft some sort of centre cap solution, which could be combined with a spigot ring.

The 7" might be a touch heavier I suppose, I was only using some bathroom scales. Nice to lose a couple of kilos per corner with the 13s though

[mylittletony]

I snuck out for a few mins of lying on the floor in the cold.

The sump sits about 2.5" below the chassis at it's lowest point, just by the bell housing.



Need to do something about that drip...

It's about 2" below the chassis at the front



The front chassis is about 10" off the ground, with just under 4" of ramp


(Sorry, that's really blurry)



So there's definitely some room for adjustment

[edwardbear]

I love the direction this is going in.

Always fancied one these

[mylittletony]

Well the postie brought the studs today, only ordered them yesterday...

If I can get them out/in without removing the hub I'll try and do that tomorrow.

[mylittletony]

Nov 25, 2023 12:41:43 GMT mylittletony said:

If I can get them out/in without removing the hub I'll try and do that tomorrow.

That was Saturday, Sunday was occupied by trying to seal the third brake light on our Vito based camper before it rained a lot, but I did manage to check a stud against the hub and figured it was worth a crack.

So this eve I had a crack. Got one side up on an axle stand, used one of the taper nuts and gave it a tap with the club hammer. To my joy the old stud came out nice and easily. Then the new stud went in, nice! All the way in... Oh.

I had bought 13mm spline studs, because mk2 escort hubs and that's mk2 escort size. But the old one that came out is 14.3mm spline...

I did chuckle, could be worse

[Darkspeed]

With the sump 2.5" below the chassis you would not want to drop the chassis much below the current circa 6" - 3" off the deck for the sump is about as far as I would risk it.

Bit of a about the studs - par for the course with kit cars unfortunately.

[ducklooker]

What a cool little car.
I was at a track event a few years back in Ireland and there was a very similiar car but it was bike engined and seriously rapid.

[mylittletony]

Nov 28, 2023 20:40:14 GMT Darkspeed said:

With the sump 2.5" below the chassis you would not want to drop the chassis much below the current circa 6" - 3" off the deck for the sump is about as far as I would risk it.

hmmm, I may need to address this another way then - can't have a high riding car!!

I think I'll try lowering incrementally until I get scraping. It's very firm so I doubt I have more than 1" of travel (can't really bounce the front)

Longer term I could possibly raise the engine, but even looking at my meagre selection of photos I would need to reclock the turbo outlet as an absolute minimum... It *might*, might improve things as I would have to re-arrange the turbo piping, intercooler and radiator.
However, that's much more than I want to be tackling this winter and I want to be out in it as much as possible next spring

Thanks for all the comments everyone

[Darkspeed]

What aspect looks high? Arch gaps, or the 5.5-6" ground clearance

[mylittletony]

Nov 29, 2023 19:05:28 GMT Darkspeed said:

What aspect looks high? Arch gaps, or the 5.5-6" ground clearance

It's the arch gaps, they're more noticeable going down from the 185/55/15 to a 185/60/13. It's not far off 2" of gap.

I like this height, and thought I'd seen pictures of lower cars but now can't find any



In related news, I've fitted the new studs this evening and mounted one front wheel. I got excited and thought I'd fit the other, then remembered it's blue... So I'm going to try and do something about that tomorrow.

Then I can manoeuvre the jack to the rear of the car and swap the back wheels and take photos to illustrate the arch gaps.

[shandylegs]

As he’s been said, go careful on the sump clearance. I built one with 3” of clearance and caught it on the run back from IVA.

I was very lucky that day not to take out a fully rebuilt engine and am always now cautious with ramps etc..

[Darkspeed]

That will be the same chassis height with a lot more side wall - Easy to sort on the rear with 205/60/13's - On the front less so.

Check to see if the front clam has been adjusted to clear the engine.


We had to adjust the Fury to meet headlamp regs for IVA by winding the platforms up to get ride height, and then by moving the bonnet up - needed wedges.





Once done with IVA the body and suspension were dropped.





It was still running a good clearance though





Getting that Duratec in there balancing between sump and bonnet was not easy - Bonnet needed to be chopped to clear the ITB's and some expensive Raceline parts top and bottom to reduce the overall height.




Looking at the MX5 lump being able to clear the bonnet without mods - I would say that engine has been dropped a bit lower than ideal and the bonnet possibly raised a bit.





Have a look of there are extra holes for the bonnet mounts.





And quite glad I found that picture as I will be robbing that mount for the Gemini

[mylittletony]

Thanks as ever for your advice, it's really appreciated.
I've not had a lot of time to look into it, but early findings are that I think there's ~1" between the cambelt cover and bonnet, just from sticking my hand in there with the front wheel off.

The giveaway on the really tight clearances are the little sticky black squares. I'd circle them on the pic, but I'm on my phone...
There's one on the wastegate actuator and one on the intercooler exit.
Hence my thinking that if I reclock the turbo so it exits downwards, I could rotate the actuator closer to the engine.
Then redoing the intercooler pipework means no contact on the exit bends.

Assuming (I've not checked at all) that the gearbox has enough clearance, I could then lift the engine. I'm fact looking at the pic you've posted, the engine looks at a funky angle...

The bonnet lines up nicely with the sills, so I'm not sure it's been raised. I suspect someone has taken the path of least resistance to get the turbo in there by winding the coilovers up - they seem to have a lot of visible thread

Current plan of action over the coming days is to remove the blue from the front wheel and fit the rears.

[Darkspeed]

Now you mention those pads they can be seen quite clearly above. We had similar on ours but stuck it to the bonnet - It contacted just on the front edge of the cam cover.

The engine does look to be running a little downhill to the front installation wise in that picture.

As for the sills and bonnet alignment - the bodies offer quite a bit of "flexibilty" in that respect but if the bonnet is already in contact with the engine dropping it is not straightforward.

Typically the Zetecs and MX5 lumps end up under the Le Mans bonnet or modified Classic bonnets. We were told on numerous occasions that you cannot get a classic bonnet through IVA and you will never fit a Duratec under a classis bonnet. In the end we had to fill in the hole and put back to stock that the original builder had cut.




Modified Classic for MX5








Chopped for an XE





Which reminds me I must order some of those stainless spring retainers.

[mylittletony]

I'm not averse to modifying the bonnet to make it fit. But I want to do it properly which means a fair bit of work...
I'll do some checking and measuring when I can

One thing I definitely need to do is get rid of the dzus fasteners holding the bonnet down. They're incredibly hard to engage and caused a LOT of profanity the one time I've done them up.

[rysz]

My, this is a splendid thread to find on a Friday morning!

I will be following with interest, hope to have a ride in it at the Weekender!

Rysz.

[mylittletony]

For sure rysz, we can go pick up chicks. They'll have to sit on your lap though...

I want to get the 13" wheels fitted so I can sell the 15s as I'm a little in debt for this (in theory, spent more than I planned rather than in actual debt).
So the natural thing to do is spend more money! Got a polished spoke steering wheel on it's way and something to mess around with for a roof solution.

Keep your eyes peeled for updates

[Alpina99]

Wire wool and Autosol, those slots will look amazing,
Nice little car,
Nigel

[mylittletony]

Right then!

I attacked the blue wheel with various wire brushes to remove the paint, that's done to a point I'm happy enough to fit it. So I did, removed the ramps and also put the rears on.

Turned out the rear studs also have a non threaded portion, but I simply left the 3mm spacers on because I'm not changing rear studs too!
This is the best picture I have, it was p***ing it down so I couldn't get a better angle inside the garage. Behold my gappy arches!!



On the topic of under bonnet clearance, the engine definitely leans forwards. I might borrow an inclinometer to put a number on it. Check the bubble at the front...



The intercooler arrangement is causing bonnet issues but in terms of things actually attached to the engine, I think the inlet is going to be the limiting factor that prevents lifting the engine.



Taken from inside the rh wheel arch.



I've seen aftermarket inlets, but not sure how much lower profile they are, further investigation required.

I do think a smaller intercooler will help all round, but this is snowballing!!

What I would need to do is remove all the pipework and inlet, raise the engine to where I want it, cross everything it clears the bonnet and then remake the pipework to fit.

Having reached that conclusion, I decided to swap my side mirrors.

New one.



Old one.



Much better!

I've got some folded steel to create side window mountings.
And I looked at fitting my shiny new steering wheel, but the boss needs rotating. Then I ran out of time.

[Darkspeed]

Intakes do tend to create a problem on a Fury - hence why many of the have cut outs either side of the hump.

It also looks like the MX5 motor is a few inches further forward than where many would be. I wonder if that was chosen for gear lever positioning. With the type 9 we had to fit and extension to move it back even with the Duratec a reasonable way bay.

Dec 4, 2023 10:10:11 GMT mylittletony said:

snowballing!!

Very topical/festive.

Yes, well, that does happen more than a little with kits - With well build and well finished cars - "upgradeitis" sets in. And with kits not as well built, well finished or bought at a budget, the correction works can escalate to full project status with very little warning.

As long as you can keep the total expenditure below the market value - all good.