Chain diff

Thought id put up a few pics of the chain diff ive made.

heres the diff from a 1.8 sierra


one side welded


side mounting plates cut from 5mm 316 s/s


I made the bearing housing from 3 rings of 6mm mild steel with a 2mm end plate.


The bearings im using


All together




Ive made this diff from s/s and mild to start with but i plan to make it from ali once ive tested it to make sure it will be strong enough. Once its all ali it will drop a kilo or two. The parts are now ali see below for other pics.

Fuel cell

Here is an Ebay find. a 4 gallon Jazz fuel cell, cost me £46 the other day. Its a perfect fit.









And part of the rear suspension mocked up today





Hoping to have it sat on its wheels by the end of next week. My front suspension are currently been made and should be here soon.

And a bit more progress

Floor and side panels are fitted and the engine is now in and im sorting the loom out. rack and column are also fitted. I have all the suspension in a box out the way for now.

Sorry some of the pics arnt too good, done a 12 hour night shift had 4 hours sleep then been in the gym for 2 hours so im a bit f**ked and cant hold the cam still lol.



Exhaust headers fitted, these are stainless ones that were off the bike. i will have to have a custom collector made but i will also reuse the end can on the car as its a road legal Micron can.



Starting to sort out the loom. Im using the loom from the bike and modifying it to suit the car. Most of the loom is ok but i will have the extend it for the front lights and a few other bits like the light controls etc.









The chain diff can also be seen fitted in these pics. I will do a seperate section showing the chain diff in a day or 2.





Steering column and rack fitted. The both come from a Metro but the rack is shortend by a few inches but the column is straight from the car. It has a lock-to-lock of 2.5 turns.



Here is the pedal box which is still to be completed. The pedals and brackets are taken from the design by Chris Gibbs which feature in the new Haynes book "Build a sports car on a budget" but i have made the pivot holes larger (now 19mm) A piece of round tube is then welded in and a 16mm bolt is placed through and held in with a split pin. The back plate which the master cylinder will mount on has yet to be fitted as i need to pick up a cylinder from a rover 416.

Engine trial fitted

Engine is in but not fully fitted yet, its only in so i can mount the chain diff and other components. The mounts are made from a mix of 25mm and 19mm box section. The bolt holes are sleeved with 3mm thick wall tube to prevent them crushing when the bolts are tightened up.







The diff built up but not fully complete it still needs the side shown welding up and a grease nipple fitting so it can be topped up with grease when needed. The diff is out of a rear diff of a ford sierra. It has sealed bearing fitted on each end and mounted in a custom made housing made of ali ans steel.




Sat in place in the chassis, will be making the mounts this week.





Will be fitting the steering column and rack this week, just need to nip to the scrappers to get a Metro column.

It begins

Right starting a build diary for this little monster. The chassis is an Onyx Mongoose item which i bought from www.Onyxsportscars.f9.co.uk near Grimsby. There own car is powered by a rover 1.4 K series lump producing 100bhp and weighed in at a little over 400kg and was quite impressive on the road and track but like most people i wanted more power and less weight. After contacting David at Onyx i was offered a bare chassis at a reduced price as it was all i needed as the engine mounts are different to a car engine.

My first plan was to fit the Mongoose chassis with a Yamaha XJR1300 engine but due to issues i would have had with cooling a mid-mounted air/oil cooled engine would have been more trouble than it was worth. So after a couple of days searching i found a 1988 Kawasaki ZX10 at MP Motor cycles just at the side of the M606 Bradford and got it for £600 with T&T.

The Chassis


The bike

It actually rode quite well and it was sad to break it.

The bike after about 3 hours


All the parts now all over the place


XJR engine now straped to pallet awaiting collect. Its going to Ireland.


The ZX10 lump stripped of its casings and cleaned up. Had 19 years of shit to remove



A few parts removed cleaned and painted up.


Stripping and cleaning the carbs


3 already done just need to polish them up now


The exhaust will be reused. Had a nice stainless system on it with a Micron can



My 3yo nephew liked the bike. He was in tears when i stripped it




The finished product will weigh around 350kg and have around 140-150bhp. should be fun.