KiwiBirkin

Slomove we would get the BBQ out for a catch like that

My thoughts on the Blacktop 20v motor so far. What I really noticed about this engine is its utterly solid power and they way it is deliverd strongly and smoothly across the entire rev range in every gear, the rev needle rips across the tacho and the car now hauls its ass right from 1st all the way up to 4th the power is so usable and the engine so free reving that its just so much fun to drop the clutch at 7000rpm in first and light the wheels up which just adds to the big grin factor as it keep spinning in second and third if you keep the foot firmly planted on the GO pedal, yet its quite happy pottering around town in 5th at 50km per hour which makes this engine a great over all package for a car that weighs less than 600kg. Sure I have lost that lovely burble the kent made with the webbers on and the noise from the engine just sounds like every other Jap engine now but the conversion has been well worth it for the power upgrade that has been planted into my car Im also pretty rapped at the extra fuel economy im going to get now, initial test are giving me 11.68 km per litre and that with me having a lead foot so far with most of the driving I have been doing the last couple of days but as its going now i think I may well get over 400kms out of my 34L tank which will be a massive improvment over the 280-300kms I got from the kent motor. The other thing about this motor is if it goes bang its now anywhere from $700-$1000 to drop another one in where as if the Kent went bang I was more than likley up for a $3000-$4000 engine recondition bill.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/bits%20and%20pieces/Lotus%20Cars/SRV81.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/bits%20and%20pieces/Lotus%20Cars/SRV82.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/bits%20and%20pieces/Lotus%20Cars/SRV83.jpg

I know a few guys watching my rebuild diary spotted a red seven replica car in the back ground of the McGregor Motorsports work shop and wanted some more pictures and info. All I know is the car was built as a turn key car by McGregor Motorsports and is useing a 3.5L rover V8 that has had work done to the top of the engine. The guy who orderd the car had only driven it 2000km and then brought it back to Mcgregors for some bottom end mods as he wanted more power its now reported to be putting out about 300+ HP at the rear wheel from what I can gather from listening to the guys when they were discussing the engine and will go on the dyno once it has been run in which was a specific request of the engine builder. Anyway here are some pictures. http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/bits%20and%20pieces/Lotus%20Cars/SRV85.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/bits%20and%20pieces/Lotus%20Cars/SRV86.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/bits%20and%20pieces/Lotus%20Cars/SRV84.jpg

Well I have taken the car home today and its finished, I didnt get on the dyno but have booked it back in for 2 weeks time when I take the car back for a check over at putting some KM's on it. I will post thoughts on the whole change to the car when i have had time to drive it some more and have good feel for the changes. Cheers Stephen

Well the car passed the re-certification process today with Wayne Martin (cert engineer) commenting on what a nice install the guys at McGregors had done. Today i went to McGregors to finally get the heater in the front of the car and get the hoses fitted up, Mark also decided to fit a new Thermostat in as he thought the one I had purchased with the Silvertop rear housing could have been playing up and causing us the over cooling issue, it seems to have helped the car jumped up another 10 deg while driving but we are still not reaching the desired 80-85 deg. I also decided too ditch the 7" sealed beam units today as they just are not bright enough at night time and now I have a more modern motor I would fit some new light units that can use some of the new H4 globes, the increased lighting to the front is great and will help with those night time blats. I also started to sort out the ride height today and get it sitting back to its ride height prior to getting the car re engined at McGregors i had noticed over the weekend that the car was sitting quite high in the rear end and found it was sitting 15mm too high, sorted out that issue tomorow ill do the front. Refitted the boot also today and then it was off to do some more testing. So back tomorrow again, im going to see if it can be put on the Dyno for a power run and to see if its lean or rich and then i just need the brakes sorting out a little as they feel a bit soft and hopefully i will drive it home tomorrow.

It doesnt change either Twobone I have had my car for 19minths now and I still got a silly grin and yelled out loud while road testing it today ready to take it home tommorow.

Looks great Oyagi suits the car.

Car has passed the re-certification process today for the new engine so is road legal again I just need to wait for the new VIN plate to be issued but im still able to drive while waiting for that. Now on to finish tidy up the last few small jobs and it should be home by Friday. :hurray::hurray:

Well well I hadn't even noticed that I didn't really think my upgrade would create that much interest. Im really glad i did this upgrade diary though its been great to share my experience.

So thats 8046.72kms thats pretty impressive for Toms first time in his car :auto:

Well the weekend has passed and I took the car back to McGregors today to finish of some small jobs and send it to get its cert done.. Over the weekend I coverd 257kms and used 22L of fuel giving me a return of 11.68 km per liter which isnt bad considering we did some pretty hard driving over the weekend and I wasnt easy on the throttle at all, on the way to Mcgregors I filled up with fuel the 35L fuel tank was full and I then went and weighed the car at the local weigh bridge and it came to 580kg with out me in it. At Mcgregors had a chat with Mark about the 2 electrical issues and no sooner had we finished Steve raced up in his Mcgregor 7 and jumped out yelling he had been reading my reports and knew what the problems were and was into it right away fixing them, The first one being a faulty key barrel turning off the car while driving and the other being a wiring issue between the old loom and new loom putting the ignition light on and not turning it off, both were fixed within the hour by Steve which is a tremendous job by a guy who really takes pride in his work, well done mate. Next up I fixed the new rear panel in place behind the seats to finish that area off and then left the car there to go of to hopefully get its cert tommorow. So whats left to do.... well the heater box still needs to be sorted out and fabricated by me which i will start on Wednesday, I want to replace the rear springs from 175lbs to 150lbs on Marks advice as we have dropped about 30kg in weight over all and Mark feels the back is too stiff even when the dampers are set to 0. We also have to get the car running hotter its currently only getting to 40-60 deg on a really hard run and it should be running up around the 8-90 deg mark where the electric fan would then turn on too cool the engine. Then its a matter of setting the cars ride heights back up as I discoverd on the Sunday afternoon that the rear ride height is sitting about 15mm higher than normal. Thats about it for now I think. I will give a full report of my car and what i think when all the final jobs have been done and its been on the Dyno too.

So how long is Toms drive and how long will it take him to get to his final destination ??? is anyone able to do a google maps route for me in the Southern Hemisphere so i can fully understand his undertaking.

Hi Mike No it didnt and I was lucky as we found out it wouldnt work at a very early stage as I was really going to use it which ever way I could. The issue was because im using a remote shifter setup the remote shifter bars couldnt get low enouge to get to the center where the gear stick stuck up as the new Birkin console sits very low towards the front compared to the old console and it would have been a major project to get it there. Anyway its being passed on to a guy on my lotus 7 forums who is building a car so its going to be put to good use.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/BirkinFriday_20th1.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/BirkinFriday_20th10.jpg Alll thats left to do for me is finish of the heater and get it connected in so I can get rid of the long hose thats connecting the heater inlet and outlet.

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/BirkinFriday_20th6.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/BirkinFriday_20th3.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/BirkinFriday_20th2.jpg

Well after all the work and effort that has gone into my car its finally on the road for testing. The day started off with a early vist to McGregors, Mark had offerd for me to come in if I wasnt working as he gets some quite time on a Sat to finish off some projects he has on the go as there was no overtime on this morning and we stayed in town over night at friends Marg and I headed down to finish of some small bits that needed doing in the hope I could drive home in the car for a weekend of test driving. I need to fit the roll bar on and get the exhuast fixed in place and the seatbelts and seats in this was all done within the hour and Mark did a once over again before we took it out for the day. Marg headed off home and I was soon to follow...... or was I !!!!. We started the car up to warm her up and Mark noticed the ignition light didnt go off at all so after a quick ring to Steve he got mark to check the battery was charging which is was, we dicide that it was a faulty wire some where so Mark took the car out for a quick spin up the road and came back not happy as the car was spitting and farting and running like crap.....Bugger. Mark checked a couple of other things and then we noticed that the fuel gauge was on empty so we put in a litre of fuel and Mark went off again, this time he retuned with a grin on his face and said the ignition light was also off now since we had put the petrol in, we have come to the conclusion that Birkin have wired in some sort of low fuel light to the ignition light system when it gets very low, this is quite possible because Birkin send cars all over the world they have to meet the rules of a lot of countrys so its quite possible this is true. Anyway it was off too a petrol station to fill the tank up and then home after putting in 34L of petrol (the most its ever taken so the tank must have been nearly dry) I discoverd I had Marks wallet and mine was at home with Marg in Kaiapoi....Bugger again. A quick phone to Mark and I soon discoved he didnt have any cards in his wallet to use to pay for petrol either....Bugger for a 3rd time :shock: . Anyway now what to do :?: ... next thing i know a young lad called Rob with a Celica who had been looking at the car while filling up walked up to me and offerd to pay my petrol bill all I had to do was give him my email address and phone number and he would email me his bank details and I could pay him via internet banking after some conversation about that he paid the for my petrol and I asked him to follow me back to McGregors so i can drop Marks wallet off and I could give him a ride as a passenger which was the least i could do. We dropped the wallet off and me and Rob were off in Grace for a quick spin around the block and back, after a chat it turned out that Rob is a friend of Rookie's (a guy on the NZ lotus forum) and has seen Rookies car, so it turned into a very interesting start to the day to getting a few K's on Grace. As I wrte this up we have coverd about 150kms so far today on the shake down runs over the weekend and plan on doing a few more tommorow, so far we have only had 1 issue and that is the ignition/engine turning off on its own accord 2 times today as soon as I pull over though and switched the ignition off and then back on it starts again fine so im putting it down to maybe a lose wire for now. Other than that its going great Ill stop rambaling now and post the pics up from today. http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/BirkinFriday_20th5.jpg Shift I lights from my view http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/BirkinFriday_20th7.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/BirkinFriday_20th8.jpg

Oyagi your car looks great with the new fenders and the stripes Twobone dont do it you will ruin the look ofthe car, if you want a stripe you are going to need to paint the bonnet green also to make it match in.

Well today we nearly finished the final assembly of the car the scuttle went back on and the windscreen and the rear wheel archers were fitted I finished off some more small jobs that needed doing and then Mark started to check over the car. All thats left to do know is fit the rollbar and boot and fit the 4 point harness back in which I will be doing on Sat morning. Steve did a final check of all the wiring and passed it all off that he was really happy with it, Steve has done a really nice job of fitting the wiring loom into my car and has managed to even make the bad Birkin wiring look good. So once these last small jobs are done on Sat morning the plan is to give it a bit of a shake down run over the weekend and then its back to McGregors on Monday to to sort out the only issue we have so far that the car is running too cool and wont run at its normal operating temp and maybe any small niggles that could crop up from some daily driving, once these are fixed it will go the the local engineer for recert and then I will get it back untill the VIN plate arrives. I didnt manage to get any pics for the last 2 days as my camera battries went flat and I forgot to charge them up.

Hi Jim cherrs for the nice comments Yes I did consider a Fraser car and it was my first choice as they build nice cars and also supply pretty comprehensive kits but a fully built car is anywhere from NZ $45k to $60k and putting a kit puttiing a together your self will set you back between NZ $30k-40K depending on engine choice. They spec there cars with the Toyota 4AGE (1600cc) and 3SGE on carbs (2000cc) with the 3SGE being the most popular choice. Fraser cars tend to hold their value at around NZ $25k to $35k for a second hand one depending on year and specs so it was out side of my budget, I didnt know about Birkin at the time but then cam across my car for sale localy for $16k but knocked them down to $14k prior to the engine install I had spent NZ $5K on all its new bits and refurbishing it. The motor transplant will have cost me another $2K once I credit the sale back of my 1600 crossflow to the costing which i got NZ $3740 for on a local trading web site (http://www.trademe.co.nz). Search Fraser under the motoring section. So all up im at NZ $21000 for my car and its now on par with a more expensive second hand Fraser.

I took half a days holiday today and also have the day off tommorow as the car is getting very close to the 100% complete stage with just final testing to be done. This morning Mark pulled apart the steering and pedal box and sent the bits to Pro-Metal for powder coating black and they had them back within the hour by the time I had turned up to start helping out, I started on making the inside ali panel that sits befor the scuttle on my Birkin it had had a small brake fluid leak over the years due to some one having the duel brake cylinder on the worng way and had dripped brake fluid over the ali for god knows how long any way it was in a bad shape with really bad corrosion so I decided to replace it while the car was apart so today i cut a new bit of ali the using the old piece as a template I have also on Marks advice decided to use rivnuts where ever possible now, so after about 4 hours work the new ali panel was in place with all the holes drilled and rivnuts in place and was ready to be screwed down. Kelvin who was doing my upholstery had arrived with my new back panel and the new carpets and then fixed the rear boot cover in place with black press studd fastners instead of silver, Kelvin has done a fantastic job of fixing up the upholstery in my center consol and I can not recommend him enough. Mark meanwhile had put the pedal box together and had it in the car all hooked up we only have the throttle cable to secure now and we are back to where we were when we drove the car the other day. Tommorow we really start to get it back to how it looked the day I drove it in and back on the road for testing. Pics to follow when I take some tomorrow.

Gday Skip Ill get some pictures ofthe V8 McGregor Mach7 for you next time im in their workshop. The timeing belt covers will be going on as soon as the car is finished, the extra power is fantastic.

Mark then jumped in started the car and headed out and up the street after a few short trip up and down came back with a big grin on his face and said he was really really happy with the results. When he gave me the thumbs up I jumped in as a passenger and we were off. After a short blat I jumped in and had a drive of my car with its new 4AGE engine in, what can i say this swap has exceeded all expectations its a rocket ship the power was pretty full on and im going to have to learn to drive this car all over again , its so easy to wheel spin the rear end up where as the 1600 xflow had to be really reved up to get it too lose grip from take off, the power is much smoother and the roar of the induction through the snails sounds fantastic. Anyway shes alive again and very very happy now its a matter of finishing her off.

Cheers Martin Well a big update today Took a day off today as Mark expected some of the last parts to come back for the car so he could crack on with it so I decided it would be a wise move to get in and help hime by doing some of the bits I needed to get finished too. I need to finish of the center consol as it needed sealing down with RTV to stop any water of the road coming up through the floor and into the cockpit, Mark meanwhile started to sort ot the clutch and brake system which all need to be put back onto the car and positioned around me before being sent of too the powder coaters for painting Mark got all this hooked up by the afternoon and in position for a test fit as I wanted to move it about 1" forward to give me some more room as it happens its sits in the perfect place as it is so I have decided to leave it as is for for now. Next was to bleed to clutch and brakes and then to test that the clutch was working ok on the stands which it did, we then put the steering back together as by now Mark was keen to give the car its first test drive as it was only 3.30pm and we had time. After a quick clean up of tools and check around the engine systems & bay was done we lowerd to car of the tressels and sat the car on the ground for the first time in 5 weeks. http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/Birkin_Monday17th2.jpg http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/Birkin_Monday17th1.jpg

Also fixed in place the new rear boot cover ready for the popers to be put on on Monday http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu326/Hotdognz/Engine%20Swap/Birkin_Friday13th3.jpg The car is nearly back together now and i would say is 90% done we are just waiting on some steering & pedal box parts to come back from powder coating now and then Mark can fit them on and sort out the new hydraulic brake & clutch master cylinders and hook them up, the rear wheel guards need to be put on and the hand brake connected once all that is done its then on to test driving for the first time and tweaking the engine and everything else to make sure its right for the road. Pnce Mark is happy the car will head off to the cert engineer to make sure that everything is ok and hopefully that should be it.