The Crazy Taxi - Fg F6 / Tr6060 Powered Ba Futura

[luke187]

Gearbox is in, engine bay complete and everything ready to go. Started bleeding the clutch to run the car through the gears on the hoist and as the clutch pedal came up higher and higher, then one last pedal press and it dropped straight to the floor.

A few more pumps and fluid could be heard, looks like the slave cyl has either over extended or blown a line. Most likely the former as the gearbox is sitting back further, normally not an issue as the clutch was made to fit in the car but we got 1 measurement wrong and now appears there was confusing in re-measuring the box and clutch a couple of days ago.

Unfortunately rather than tomorrow go for a drive it'll be tomorrow gearbox back out and in, hopefully the slave cylinder is undamaged as I rather not spend the money for a new one.

A positive note though the car fired up first time with no issues and sounded solid, helped mostly by the open dump pipe.

[hoarspower]

Yeah for sure will get a piece turned down once everything is done, dont want to be doing this more than once. Luckily we're cheating with a hoist and transmission jack so left the plates loose, pushed the box in, gently removed it and tightened it up. Worked first time. Everything is done now bar exhaust and fuel pump then re-assemble interior. Fuel pump will be a bit of a time consumer but I'll have a crack at opening the rear door tomorrow. Have a few cars in the workshop atm so that has to take priority.

EDIT - On a side note, anyone know the cruise spots for brisbane on thurs/fri/sat nights?

Harries on Thursday night and munchies on Friday night

[luke187]

After a couple of 12-14hr days the car is alive and running. Got it going about 11pm last night, took it around the block a few times then dropped it at the exhaust shop to get the tail pipes done. Its booked in for a wheel alignment at 1pm then its all go... except for the fuel pump.

Still running the stock pump and 91 so only rolled around on the streets to make sure it didnt fall apart. Seemed to have tripped something with the ABS and lost my speedo so when I get it back I'll check for error codes and go from there. Sounds tough though with just the front muffler from an x-force exhaust, will try get some videos up tonight as well as pics from the rest of the build - lost my phone for a couple of days.

I can see why direct clutch recommended to not use the 5 puck clutch plates for a daily driver, its pretty brutal and has been over 12 years since ive driven a car with a good clutch in it - love it though. Feels really light, quick blip of the throttle and it revs quick, overrun noise on the tr6060 is loud loud which ive since read is accentuated by light clutches and flyhweels, light clutch plates, and aftermarket shifters all of which it has so par for course I guess.

[luke187]

Cheers.

Had issues getting the fuel pump to fit, but eventually at 7pm got to do some full power runs but it had a heavy miss. Swapped plugs and still similar, noticed 1 coil with slightly different colour so took an extra one with me and swapped it on the road. All good now and lots of fun. Will do a proper update tomorrow just been flat out the last week. Hers a quick rollon coming onto the highway. Cant turn traction control off atm, didnt get time to drill the hole out for the button.

http://vid28.photobucket.com/albums/c228/lukep187/WP_20141004_012_zps6e2ca1ea.mp4

Not sure how to post the whole video

[luke187]

Well I've really been enjoying the car. Put 3-400kms on it last night and today, will be running a spanner over everything tomorrow to make sure my wheels dont fall off and engine drop out. So far ive been absolutely stoked with how it is. Normal driving around town im actually getting 3-4 l/100km better than when I had the stock engine/auto and highway consumption is round 8 which was what it was before but driving around it now has a sh*t-ton of personality which is something I appreciate in a car. Aside from the engine and gearbox the handling is by far the most noticeable improvement, havent really hooked hard around corners as ive only just gotten the guards to clear the rear wheels but turn in the car is awesome. Mid turn even with fairly heavy cornering you can dial more steering angle and it still follows which is a huge improvement over before despite having the same bilsteins, and swaybars it had before. Between the stiffening up of all the suspension and the torque it makes im really impressed with how small it makes the car feel, it never feels like im driving around in a 1700kg boat which I was frequently reminded of previously.

Im starting to adapt to the clutch and really like it now. The response of the engine is noticeable over how it was before in the gold xr6, gear changes are already quick and im way out of practice so that was one of my driving forces for going with the 5 puck light weight plates. Spent the night stuck in a 20min traffic jam on an incline and was tolerable so it wont get much worse than that, best yet launches are pretty controllable but I can definitely see the need for firm engine, gearbox and diff mounts.

The car is absolutely suffering from fuel starvation problems. Give it a few thrashes and it'll lean out so a surge tank is a must do, and ASAP. Was hoping to avoid it with this engine in but get it done now and properly and it'll be done for good. Not surprisingly its suffering from heat soak and a hot charge during the day with the small cooler that's on it. Not a huge difference but its still there. Theres also an issue with the exhaust, first one is the small length of pipe running off the rear of the cat uses part of the OEM 2 1/4" exhaust. This was on the gold xr6 and unfortunately the 2.5" xforce stainless system from the second donor car isnt a straight fit to the SMB dump/cat I have and need to wait for my friends work to settle down so he can make a 4" - 3" cone extension and flanges to make up the difference in length. Second is the tail pipes... The system im using was off the second wreck which had impacts everywhere and destroyed the rear muffler. We cut it off after the diff and planned to run straight pipes out the rear. Took the exhaust to a local exhaust shop, explained the car, what sort of power its making and what it will with the f6 engine, and that I just wanted 2 straight pipes with a couple of dumps before the rear bumper which I got... its just that I also got heavily press bent dumps which have probably compressed to around 2 - 2 1/4" each side which would be more suited on an old bluebird or something. Positive side of all that is theres more power to come and hopefully a bit more top end and spool to be gained as it starts to drop off early and doesnt come hard till 3500rpm, something which can be attributed to the bigger .7 housing im guessing.

Less talk more action, heres some pics of the work:

Gearbox with 6mm adapter plate to space the spigot of the back of the crank, behind the concentric slave cylinder you can see the spacers we had to install after the mishap previously. The input shaft is quite a bit larger but ~6mm longer han the FG F6/GT TR6060's we get in oz.

This is a view we saw far too much of. I would estimate the box was pushed up to the back of the engine something like 10 - 15 times. Difficulty came from having the larger input shaft and still the larger falcon spigot. Any clutch locating tool's spigot that did fit the clutch plates was too small to locate accurately into the back of the crank. First install before the CSC failure was done by pushing the gearbox up with the clutch loose enough to move the plates and removing it with surgical precision to not bump the plates. This only worked one time and after rectifying the slave cylinder issue we couldnt get to work again. In the end thanks to the lads at direct clutch we worked out a stupidly simple solution which was overlooked early - wrapping electrical tape around the spigot on the tool, increasing the width and subsequently matching the bearing. Worked first go, grateful yet a little frustrated.

Finally gearbox in, clutch bled and no issues

The box from the second wrecked xr6 also came with an ultimate street shifter. Im currently using a hurst shifter from a t5 box which is a tad small, hoping to get some more pics of the car and interior once ive given it a proper clean.

Due to the box sitting 6mm further towards the rear of the car we had to notch the shifter boot. Unfortunately the rubber boot is already destroyed far worse than this picture so we'll have to find another solution.

Stock rear bump stops were pretty close to the lower control arms so they were swapped for cut down superpro items.

The issue that held up the fuel pump install was the rear door. I had an issue a while ago with the door mechanism which allowed the car to be unlocked whenever the outside door handle was pulled, my ingenious solution was to drop the handle off so it no longer worked. An unfortunate side-effect of this was that if the inside door handle stopped working the door was stuck closed "forever", and of course it did. The solution seems barbaric but I have leather ghia door trims to go on so no real biggy and with those holes I managed to squeeze my hand in and actuate the handle lever bush mechanics style.

Yesterday whilst rushing to repco before it shut to buy some submergeable fuel line, the pootrol broke down. Luckily I had my girlfreind pick it up and camped out on the highway. I'd be lying if I said there were profanities vocally directed towards nissan and diesels around this point in time.

All in all it was a tiring couple of weeks rush to get the car together, even my pup "Hemi" was stuffed and took ownership of my drivers seat. I've dropped the passenger seat off to get re-stitched which will be ready on wed, and so will the interior part of the build begin.

Cant thank my old man enough for all his input, advice, and help through the build so far. The car exceeded my expectations of what it will be like for this part of the build, which was a massive undertaking for us. In the end from the original car of all the major bits the only parts that really remained were the body, dash pad, and drivers seat rearwards wiring loom. All other parts were re-shelled and or rebuilt. Look forward to enjoying the car, but ultimately my eyes are already set on swapping in the fg f6 engine / big turbo combo in the near future. Power is good, more is better!

[luke187]

Forgot to post this one. Beenleigh racing guard rolling in action. $20 wooden baseball bat from amart allsports and a jack, did its job well! Falcon guards are quite tough and ended up with worn out hand from spinning the baseball bat around. The s1 evo2's have really soft sidewalls but still managed to roll enough to clear the guards on all but the biggest bumps under heavy power. We dialled in a maximum of .4deg of camber which was limited by the adjustable stub axles so will probably end up going with adjustable arms as well before I hit the strip, allowing us to keep the biggest contact possible. Most likely scenario is ill probably end up getting rid of the lips on the guards all together but this will get me by until then, unfortunately one of the tyre sidewalls was gouged pretty good but should only be aesthetic.

["Captain Retard"]

Awesome effort, well done!

Enjoy

[raz1911]

Falcon guards are certainly much harder to roll than weak import ones lol.

Mine were done with a heat gun and a guard roller, much easier once some heat is applied.

[luke187]

Yeah got them done properly today and are much better. Though id give it a bash in first and a short shift into second to keep it driving, then boom, grinding sounds and no drive. Looks like the diff blew will have a proper look tomorrow. spun in first but wasnt tramping so seemed unsual for the diff to blow first, how strong are they normally?

[barnz]

A drive shaft maybe?