The game is afoot!

Yesterday was a good landmark. After a beaastly wrestle with a 14 foot trailer and a very tight entrance to the garage yard, I finally got the Sivlia into her new home! At last, the garage is now filled. (Sort of... still need somewhere to store all the gubbins and what not...)

Gave me a good chance to start sizing up what will and wont fit now that all the components of this V8 build are in the same place. First off, the basic dimensions of the block are indeed smaller than that of the bay. On paper, it will fit! That sweeping statement could not be further from the truth though. As anyone who has ever moved an engine around an engine bay can testify, an engine is not a 6 sided block, and an engine bay is not a square hole. The engine bay in fact looks a little like this:

The front of the car is on the left of the picture, the firewall on the right. One thing that you will see straight away is the large subframe and steering rack smack bang in the middle of the bay. I think this will be my first hurdle, as the V8's sump drops down to pretty much exactly where this is. Solution? Custom sump with repositioned oil pickup. Will require some fancy welding but not outwith my capabilities. Next issue?

This. The steering arm comes down in 2 universal joints to the rack, and the V8 has its starter motor positioned almost exactly where this lies once its fitted. Will maybe get away with rotating the rack so the shaft comes in at a different angle, but i wont know for sure until i offer the V8 up with the motor in place to find out....  Probable solution will be a wider rack that lets the arm come in at a tighter angle to the crossmember and interferes less with the engine bay space.

Last issue i could see last night was this:

This is the hole and 2 bolt fixings for the clutch slave cylinder on the firewall. On the original car it was blanked off (an auto, remember?) but for a manual the clutch pedal will act on this. Usually a 4 pot (or even inline 6) engine will never cause this to be an issue, but the V8 is one wide bugger, and the left bank rocker cover looks like it will possibly foul against this. Not entirely sure on the solution to this as yet either, but i guess actually having the relevant slave cylinder would help to establish if i'm gonna have an issue here!! The 2 pipes to the right are for the heater matrix. I think i can get these to offer up to the inlet manifold takeoffs on the V8 easily enough, so no qualms there.

So thats us for now. Plenty to think about, but nothing earth shattering in engine conversion-land. Unlike our Simon, who has a slightly more complex build ahead of him......

Tommy's aims and aspirations.

Without delving too much into my history (which i will at some point mind, dont you worry), the basic bones of what i am focusing on in my side of the garage is this:

A 1984 Nissan Silvia for those amongst you not in the know. Disclaimer, it sadly has aged somewhat from those first pics. Newer ones still to come. 

I purchased this car many moons ago from Bedford (a brutal drive back to Glasgow, incase you were wondering) and ran it for about 6 months as a daily driver. 1.8, 1 camshaft, wheezy turbo, slopmatic autobox and 2 leaky rear calipers, it was everything you would expect from classic motoring and less. For beating about Glasgow though nothing could match it. And if you wonder why that is, it cost me 300 quid and came with a fairly long MOT.

Circumstances change though and a commute from Glasgow to Aberdeen every few weeks meant that the beater car was beaten. Me being me, i saw the fact that the car had a solid, reasonably rust free shell, and refused to let Bawbag Brown get his scrappage scheming hands on it. It was forced to retire in my brothers garden, and subjected to many a whimsical plan of glory. One such plan came to a head with this:

...but that idea quickly diminished once we discovered the sheer quantity of wiring involved, plus the overlying knowledge that CA engines are shite.

Out it came, onwards it went and the car sat again with no engine, interior and 4 scabby wheels holding its husk off the ground. Now however the means and knowledge exist to properly do something with this old shell. Enter the V8:

so far I have acquired the complete 3.5 with full EFI, and a 5 speed LT77 box. What we are missing is a clutch (consumable part anyway so it will get a new one) and a shifter for the LT box.

For those paying attention, yes i know the Silvia was an Auto, but during the CA conversion we put a manual pedal box in, so clutch problems are resolved there. 

At present the V8 has managed to find its way into the garage, and is resting at the back under the rest of the junk still to be organised. The Silvia has not. Work is a bit hectic right now, but the idea is to get her trailered the 40 miles to the garage next week once i have a spare day. The car wont know what hit it, i dont think it has ever seen the inside of a garage in its life.... I just hope the shell hasnt deteriorated too far in the year its been waiting for some love and TLC.

More to come folks, stay tuned.

How and why we are here

Well as i said in my previous entry i will give an account of how i got to this stage with my build and also what my plans are. Back in 2005, I bought a 1971 Fiat 500L with the review of resoring it to former glory. As a chap who is 6'4" this car is rather a strange choice, however i have always had a soft spot for them. Be it the Italian roots I've got (somewhere) or just the eccentric nature of my car choices.
The car i got had been left in some ones back garden in Ayr for 5 years previous to myself owning it. For those of you who don't know Ayr is by the sea, and salt air rots cars, fiats manage the trick of rotting extremely well without the help of the sodium chloride enriched air, but it actually didn't seem to bad to my inexperienced eyes. This was to be my first real project:

as you can see a fine example of the Marque.

So this is where it all started. I decided that the height of the vehicle was unacceptable so a set of lowering springs for the rear and a "reverse eye" leaf spring for the front was purchased,
Also i didn't like the standard wheels so i wanted a set of minilite as the period style would suit the curves of the car a bit better: fiat 126 hubs and minilite wheels ordered:

Sadly the wheels didn't fit under the arches, so a set of flared wheels arches was the most obvious solution.

Various changes have happened through the years to this project like the addition of disk brakes, a roll cage, tubed rear wheel arches, and what was going to be an engine swap to a larger capacity Fiat F.I.R.E. engine mated to the original 4 speed gearbox, as the factory 2 cylinder air cooled 18 bhp wasn't too appealing

Finally after having lived in Glasgow and being a student for 4 years with the car being kept in Ayr and rarely worked on an opportunity arose in the form of a lock-up garage in glasgow less than 300m from my current flat.
So for the first time in 5 years the little fiat packed it's bags and made the 35 mile trip to the big city!

Since then, which was a couple of months ago i have decided to lose the mentality of not looking for the rust and go searching for it as i realise i have done this project incorrectly,
Like i said it's my first one, so i'm currently on the hunt for rust cutting it back and replacing all the bad bits!

The engine and box are out, all the suspension is off for powder coating and modification.

What's the plans for the future.... lets just say Japan will meet Germany in the back of an italian!

I have also attached a video that hit a very true note with me, it's a bit cheesy but very apt:
enjoy and thanks for reading!

The right hand man

Good day to you, and thanks for taking the time to read this, as you can probably guess i am the other contributor to this blog, the right hand man as so kindly put a.k.a. Simon. I will be writing in white over the course of this automotive adventure


Over the course of, well if i set a date I'll just get disappointed, lets just say over the foreseeable future this blog will be up dated with pictures, progress, bloodshed and the ramblings of mad men!


Good luck and i hope you enjoy!


I will soon be adding pictures and a back round to how i have actually reached this stage and hopefully a lot of progress to come!

Welcome to the garage!

If you've found this blog, congratulations! God knows how you managed it, but you have. Over the next few weeks there will be a variety of posts tracking the progress of my own personal car projects, and the projects of my garage partner, Simon.

Wait, i'm getting ahead of myself. Im Tom. Essentially, i'm the left hand side of the garage, and Simon is the right. The garage is in Glasgow, is a double, and has been sourced as a place where we can both create some interesting vehicular nonsense. Now lets make something clear, its not like that chop shop tripe you may have seen; oh no. We have taste. Over time this blog will be updated by myself and Simon (who will be along soon to add to this and introduce himself). You will be able to tell who's who by the colour of the text. I'm posting on this in red for now (assuming it can be read ok), and Simon will be in a different colour.

Coming up, My outline of the projects i'm undertaking, Simon doing the same, a fairly hefty progress diary, and plenty of pictures.

Stay tuned!