Project Korean Cortina - going back in time!

[Billy SR]

hero!

[fordperv]

excellent 

[mat_the_cat]

Back home now, and managed a reasonably impressive 12.5 mpg. Slight problem is that the place which will be doing the exhaust had a power cut today, so they still have a car on the ramps which needs finishing. So not sure when it'll be finished - my initial plan was to drive over Friday night, camp over and collect first thing for a leisurely drive down to Devil's Bridge. That looks unlikely now, as they'll probably still be working on it Saturday So I'll just get there when I can, hopefully in time for the museum visit!

[mat_the_cat]

Finally, I'm on my way after picking up the car again!

 

 

Exhaust looks good, shame the rest of the car lets it down.

 

 

Devil's Bridge here we come!

[tooSavvy]

Kool as....

 

 

 

TS

[mat_the_cat]

Made it! And every other bugger is having fun at the museum. Nothing for it but to turn to drink. Oh, and have a photo.

 

[mat_the_cat]

I'll just leave this here...

 

[panhard65]

I'll just leave this here...

 

tmp_DSC_50891069180244.jpg

Well that's one way to save a few quid on a Hyundai fuel pump. It looks a perfect fit how you managed to keep quiet about that little modification I don't know.

[dollywobbler]

Wonderful to finally see this car in the metal. I've been 'in' on the engine swap for some time. It sounds awesome! That exhaust was well worth whatever you paid for it. Sounds really nice, but isn't stupid-loud. MOT next then? And thanks for letting me have a drive of the LT. I drove it without a hefty trailer and Stellar behind it, and can only applaud your bravery! It was soooo slooooow. But ace.

[mat_the_cat]

 It looks a perfect fit how you managed to keep quiet about that little modification I don't know.

 

Thanks. I'll add a bit more of the build story in due course. TBH, when I first started the thread on here I wasn't certain how well a modified car would go down so I kept quiet. And then I started thinking it might be fun to surprise everyone! I've deliberately kept visual modifications to a minimum, simply because to my eyes it looks better that way.

 

It sounds awesome! That exhaust was well worth whatever you paid for it. Sounds really nice, but isn't stupid-loud. MOT next then? And thanks for letting me have a drive of the LT. I drove it without a hefty trailer and Stellar behind it, and can only applaud your bravery! It was soooo slooooow. But ace.

 

Yeah, I'm really pleased with the exhaust - I wanted it to look as much like the original as possible (position and even the rolled tip) and still give a decent sound without being overly large. Hopefully the next stage is to sort out the fuelling; I think these should help:

 

 

Brand new carbs, swapped with a mate for a crate of beer If I'd had time I'd have fitted them before last weekend, but need to make gaskets and sort out a different fuel line arrangement so not a 30 minute job. Then I need to put a patch on the nearside chassis rail and space out the original wheels (plus afford new tyres!) But then it should be MOTable, and I might 'forget' to mention the increase in engine size to them when I drop it off in their car park...

 

The van was slow, but got there and back without the temperature gauge even budging above half way, despite first gear and sub 10 mph on one of the hills! Off in it for a couple of thousand miles around France next month, so it was a good shakedown trip (first use this year) in preparation for that.

 

Oh, and one last thing - can you guess which one is mine?

 

[scruff]

LOVE IT 

[overrun]

You sly, old fox. Excellent!

[Ratdat]

Exceptionally excellent! I bet that sounds glorious!

[cort16]

Bloody hell you sneaky devil. Is the original engine a cortina (pinto) derived or is it a derivitive of some hyundai industrial bilge pump?

[KruJoe]

Is the original engine a cortina (pinto) derived or is it a derivitive of some hyundai industrial bilge pump?

I asked Mat the same on Saturday, apparently there should* be a Mitsubishi-derived engine and box, similar to something in an old rwd Galant.

 

 

I bet that sounds glorious!

Correct. I can confirm it does.

[dollywobbler]

Did the Scotoshiters get some video of the engine?

[mat_the_cat]

 

This is when I got back home on Sunday, but needs decent speakers to sound realistic. Shame about the engine bogging down when I give it a bootful of throttle when I pull away though

 

Hopefully someone has a better video?

[Mr Lobster]

Thats bloody ace. Do like!

[Mike D]

This didn't come from Grimsby back in the day did it? A guy down my old street had a Stellar the same colour in his garage that had a Rover V8 in it! Sadly I can't remember the reg as I only caught the odd glimpse. Well done on getting it back on the road whatever though, it looks and sounds GR8!

[mat_the_cat]

No, this was all done by my fair* hands. Although gutted to discover I'm not the first!

 

You may well ask why? And there's no real answer apart from the fact the original engine looked a little lost in there, and someone suggested a V8 might fit. I'd never even done a straightforward engine change at that point, but looking at it logically all I needed to do was get the engine and gearbox in roughly the right place, weld up some engine mounts and get a propshaft made to suit. How hard could it be?

 

Looking around at what passed for the internet back then, at the turn of the century, I found people who'd done the same to Cortinas so it looked doable. Although with the new engine dangled above the engine bay it started to look a little more tricky. The front end of the crank just wouldn't clear the slam panel, even after I lost my rag and beat it with hammers. So I just cut it out (which I now regret) without thinking that simply by tilting the engine a lot, I'd have been able to get it in.

 

There followed a bit of engine in and out shenanigans as I got it reasonably central. Cut 'n shut the sump to clear the crossmember, and made up cardboard templates for engine mounts which were then welded up. Engine went in around 2004, along with a fair bit of welding to the shell but then we moved house in 2005 and the project ground to a halt. The only other bits I managed to sort back then were the clutch actuation, and fitting an Audi 200 Turbo radiator underneath the slam panel. Which meant that even the shortest available (P6) water pump was still too long, so I shortened that to suit.

 

The Stellar was originally cable operated clutch, but there was no room in the engine bay for a clutch master cylinder. With a little bit of metalwork under the dash, I managed to put the master cylinder in facing the opposite way round, and welded an extension on the clutch pedal past the pivot to operate it.

 

 

The original brake servo and master cylinder also fouled (but I can't remember on what), but one from a Mazda 323 was a good fit and also had a fluid take off for the clutch, although I only sorted out the lower end of the clutch hydraulics late last year.

 

I did have a crack at building a manifold for the right bank, but I was never too happy with it. As I don't have a tube bender I cobbled it together with bits of bent tubing I had, and it sat very close to the steering UJ and upper wishbone bushes.

 

 

But a lucky find of some Rover P5B manifolds fitted better, although it was an epic job getting the old one off!

 

 

The Audi radiator I had previously fitted had gone a little crumbly, but managed to find a decently priced brand new one in Denmark which I bought and fitted.

 

 

As I had no room for an engine driven fan, I had to squeeze two electric ones between the front crossmember and radiator. I don't know whether they'll be up to the job, but think they should be OK as they flow a huge amount for their size. Off a Discovery V8 but that had an engine driven fan too.

 

Another issue was the rev counter - it was reading twice as high as it should with obviously twice as many pulses per revolution. So I built a simple divide by two circuit, was was less than successful...anyone spot the problem?

 

 

Even with a couple of protection diodes to limit the pulse spike to no more than + or - battery voltage it still didn't work, but then I did a little bit of research on the (bizarrely) Lucas rev counter circuit. It seemed that if I connected a resistance of 48k ohms across a couple of terminals, it would work with the V8. Had to crudely make up the right resistance with what resistors I had, but nobody will see inside it!

 

 

Happily, this works perfectly I also managed to find a new Hyundai water temperature sender, which I fitted to the Rover manifold so the gauge reads correctly. By some stoke of luck, the M16 x 1.5 mm sender was a close enough match to the 5/8" UNF hole (only 0.1 mm different in both diameter and pitch) therefore screwed straight in!

 

 

Similar story with the oil pressure sender, although I had to get a 240-33 ohm American spec. aftermarket part as Hyundai wanted £180 + VAT for a sender and I'd binned the one on the old engine. All wiring was extended where necessary using the original wiring loom colours for neatness, and mainly because I'm sad like that

 

 

More in the next instalment...

[fordperv]

Excellent I do love a v8

[mat_the_cat]

Me too! Which may be why I've ended up with three

 

Moving on from getting the engine in, the next step was transmission. I acquired an unknown condition (but probably ropey) LT77 gearbox fairly early on in the project, and a trial fit showed it would just fit in the transmission tunnel without any metalwork. Bad news is that the gear lever wanted to pop up behind the front seats! It turned out that the remote linkage from a Sherpa van would be a lot shorter, but on eBay they were going for £70+ which was out of my budget. But at the farm where Mrs_the_cat went horse riding was the remains of a Sherpa van...£20 was offered to the farmer who clearly thought I was mad giving him so much for a piece of scrap! This brought the gear lever up in roughly the right place requiring only minimal trimming of the aperture.

 

And then I had a stroke of luck. I was working for a heat treatment company at the time and one of the jobs was hardening synchro rings. Our customer was desperate for a quick turnaround as his customer ( a gearbox reconditioner) was in the shit. Half jokingly, I said you can have them back in time if you sort me out with a good deal on a gearbox. To my huge surprise he just asked what I needed. Ideally I wanted an R380, but the 2wd version was pretty rare, only being fitted to LDV vans and Morgans. The 4wd version was in loads of Defenders and Discoverys, but unfortunately not suitable...

 

After speaking to his customer he offered me a freshly rebuilt 'box for nothing, so needless to say the heat treatment was completed on time and everyone was happy I didn't get chance to fit it, so it sat around until January this year. Getting the gearbox in is interesting to say the least, as the engine has to be tilted back at quite an angle for it to clear the transmission tunnel! But after around 3 or 4 hours jiggling, I got it in place. When I worked at QH they had a scheme where you could buy parts at cost price, so the complete clutch kit cost me £25. I put it on the test rig before taking it home, and it coped with 400 Nm of torque so I know it's capable.

 

I beefed up the actuating arm with a simple flat plate, as it's not unknown for the pushrod to wear though:

 

 

Top bellhousing bolts are tricky to access, but by removing the inlet manifold, tilting the engine and using a ratchet spanner, just about possible!

 

 

To actuate the clutch I used the pushrod from a late TD5 Defender, as the one I had was too long for my slave cylinder. To my great relief, once I'd bled the circuit, the pedal actuation was lovely and light. And as a bonus, the gear lever came up in exactly the right place, as the R380 was about two inches longer than the LT77. I cut off the old, long gear lever from the van, and welded on the lever from the Stellar.

 

 

It worked well, apart from the fact that without the leverage of the long gear lever, shift action is very short and rather heavy. It does appear to be getting easier though, so possibly the gearbox loosening up a touch.

 

[mat_the_cat]

Back to the present now, and I've started with the carb swap. The old ones have a cold start enrichment device on the side of the LH carb, which is missing from the new ones.

 

 

This feeds the RH carb via a hose and a press fitted pipe.

 

 

The 'choke' mechanism is leaking on the original carbs, so I thought I'd take one off a spare set I had. But when I took them off I realised that there should be several more drillings on the new carbs, in order for fuel to get into the airflow.

 

 

These are missing on the new set, although the hole which takes up fuel from the float chamber is there.

 

 

So, I have two choices - blank off this fuel feed and run with no cold start enrichment (tempting, as the choke cable is fraying and snagging on the liner). Or modify the new carbs to suit. The drilling is fairly simple, apart from one long hole which is drilled at an angle. It's the one which has been partially drilled at the base of a short curved slot in the last photo, and you can see the part of the casting it should follow. I may wimp out and call in a favour at a machine shop, as I don't have a pillar drill at home and am wary of messing it up!

[mat_the_cat]

Here's the blanked off feed to the RH carb next to the cheese head screw. After a couple* of drinks last night I decided to drill it out.

 

 

This was successful, so I got a piece of tight fitting copper tube and pressed it into place, before giving it a tap with a hammer to bell it out and hopefully seal it in place.

 

 

Actually, I tell a lie - I put the copper pipe in place and then realised I needed to drill the carb It was enough of a PITA getting the pipe out again to reassure me that it should be a fuel-tight fit though! It's a very slight interference fit, so I had to chamfer the pipe before pushing it in.

[Semi-C]

Dear Mr the-cat,

I have given up wearing hats due to your Stellar exploits and the compulsion they incite, within me, to take aforementioned headwear off in the direction of yourself.

 

Molto good.

[mat_the_cat]

I've just finished drilling and tapping the LH carb where needed, so they're both ready to go back on. 'Tis a bit late to be starting it up now, so I'll hold back on the reassembly for now - I know I wouldn't be able to resist firing it up once it's back together!

 

 

I didn't need to do as much work as I thought, as it turned out there was a passageway for the enrichment fuel to pass through, although it comes out downstream of the throttle rather than upstream as on the original carb. Oh well, so long as it starts easily and runs OK when warm I don't mind a bit of poor running when cold, if the positioning is not ideal.

 

There's a couple more differences between them that I've rectified - no tapped hole for the choke cable bracket, and the throttle spindle has an extra tab on it which contacts a cam on the 'choke' mechanism to increase the idle speed when cold.

[gtd2000]

I wonder if anybody has ever fitted either a Starion or Lancer Turbo engine into a Stellar yet?

 

That was always a bit of a dream for my old Celeste back in the day....

[mat_the_cat]

I vaguely remember hearing about a turbo Stellar using some Mitsubishi engine, so will have to find a link!

 

I've now fitted the carbs, and swapped over a few more bits for the throttle linkage. Annoyingly I only have 8 mm tee pieces and the fuel inlet pipes are 6 mm unlike the old ones which were 8 mm. So I've not been able to plumb them both in yet although I did temporarily connect up the LH carb via a reducer, and turned on the pump at 2.5 psi pressure with no return pipe. No leaks, which is encouraging!

 

 

Once I have all the bits I'll plumb in the return line too, as that should help prevent fuel vapourisation in what is likely to be rather a hot engine bay. It would be nice to fire it up before we go away on Friday, as otherwise the will it/won't it start will be on my mind...

[mat_the_cat]

Still no 8 to 6 mm reducing tees, although they were sent first class Tuesday morning So unlikely to find out how well it runs for a couple of weeks. Oh well, something to look forwards to when we get back!

[mat_the_cat]

Managed to temporarily plumb in the carbs this evening (still no tee pieces in the post) and this was the result, without any tweaking. Happy with that!