Welcome to my never ending GKD Legend build. The car became road legal in September 2011. The Swedish summers are fantastic but to survive the dark winters I always have a long list of improvements to do. The 1900cc 4 cylinder engine comes from a RHD 1998 BMW 318is M44. It has been upgraded many times over the years with eg. Mini Cooper S Eaton M45 Super Charger taking it from 140 to 220HP. (Parts list Jan 2020)
My favorite metal shop in Huddinge just outside Stockholm kindly welded up the plenum. I was away on business so it didn't matter that it took a couple of weeks. They did a great job and it cost about a quarter of what TDI charged me.
They first cleaned away the TDI old weld, then welded and filed it down flat before adding a reinforcing L-shape piece of aluminium along the edge.
I got it all back together Sunday afternoon and was down at Rosenhill 30 minutes later. She has a hell of an acceleration, up to around 7200 rpm so it's well tuned now. It gets to 60mph (100kph) in second no problem. Still not sure about the time it takes but it's quick and fast enough for me!
I'm sill a little concerned about the plenum cracking again. If it does it's obviously under dimensioned and needs modifying or replaced by 3mm aluminium.
I'm now considering what needs doing over the winter. There were too many jobs last year so I'll take it easy this time. There are a few paint jobs that need doing, a couple of rusty spots and perhaps fix the rev counter and fuel usage gauge wiring problems. The gauges I bought from Prosportgauges are pretty bad. All of them are showing signs of wear; it's almost too difficult to read the gauges through the scratched plastic lenses. It's not as though I have misused them. Maybe they can be buffed and polished but I expected more for the money.
Anyway there will be a few trips before the car is stored away for the winter. Until then I'll be enjoying the sun and fresh air.
Hello there! Hope you had a great summer. Here in Sweden August has been very much better than July, problem was that most people took their holidays in July! The car has been running pretty well since the tune up. I had to swap back to the original crankshaft sensor as the cheap replacement I bought from ebay wasn't functioning properly and was confusing the ECU. Talking of the ECU, that was also faulty, a dry joint somewhere was making it cut out which made it impossible to start the car. Long story short, that has now been replaced so generally the car has been flying although fuel consumption has been quite bad. At least until this morning! There have been a few occasions when the turning the engine over it has coughed and spluttered and backfired before starting but today it backfired and then when I tried to turn the engine over again it revved to 5000 rpm and stayed there. This is what happened outside my mothers house in July so I knew exactly what the problem was - a cracked plenum!
It's cracked along the same weld line as before and I was charged a lot to fix it that time by TDI. I'll try and get it welded again but I think the aluminium is too thin. Maybe it can be reinforced somehow.
I need to check out the super charger too, there seems to be a bit of an oil leak coming from somewhere. Gasket leaking perhaps?
Inside the blades look in extremely good condition.
It's a pity it has happened now with so many months of driving left. Hopefully though I can get it welded soon. I'll try my favorite company in Huddinge
Well Neil and I finally did the trip to England. Neil on his Suzuki Bandit and me in the little car. Left home almost midnight on a Sunday and drove through the night down through southern Sweden, across Øresund bridge to Denmark and on to the Rødby to Puttgarden ferry.
Breakfast! - First McDonalds into Germany at Fehmarn-Burg.
Grabbed 20 minutes sleep on the ferry and continued down through Germany along autobahn 1 which I must say is a pretty boring motorway but if one wants to get some miles out of the way it's probably the only way to go. Once down at Osnabrück we turned right and headed into Holland. Eventually arriving at our first stop at Manfred and Villeca's holiday home in Rijssen about 5 in the afternoon. A little worse for wear but a few chilled beers solved that - thanks Manfred!
Nice new tents and award winning camping stools!
Next day we said goodbye and headed for The Hook (of Holland), first time ended up on the wrong side of the estuary so initiated a "quick" correction to get us back to where the Stina line ferry would take us to Harwich. Then I was on to my mums in Kent and Neil to Liverpool.
Peter changing out the plenum for a much better version. A few small mods before taking her to TDI for a well deserved tuneup.
Accelerator snapped yet again and we realised it was most likely because I hadn't added a throttle stop. Thanks for the help to drag me back out of the car Andy, oh and the B&B.
The dyno was invented by a guy at Scania and he created his own company out of his idea. It's a much safer and more accurate way to set up the vehicle as well as test it as there is no risk the car will fly off the rollers.
During the tuning process, many parameters were tweaked and tweaked again.
Nice to have it professionally setup.
Almost there.
At the same time I took the opportunity to have the geometry setup up, which I have only ever done myself. It feels and drives so much better now.
Then it was touring around, visiting friends and family and time also to take in a trip to Silverstone for the Formula Student event. Unlucky for Charmers university from Gothenburg their electric car had problems after the mandatory water test which is part of the scrutiny process. Unfortunately it couldn't compete in the full competition.
Fantastic how the electric cars out performed the petrol engines on acceleration and cornering.
There was chaos in Calias with operation stack so we decided to take the Harwich to the Hook again with a stop with Manfred and Villeca's new site at Harderwijk in Holland. Then it was time for the long drive home (1500km), up through Holland, skipped through Germany and into Denmark. Instead of taking the Puttgarden to Rødby ferry we drove up through Denmark to Fredrikshaven and took the ferry to Gothenburg.
Nearly home. 3 hour ferry to Gothenburg and then home by 10am.
Hi, I hope you are enjoying the weather wherever you are. Here in Sweden it's been very much up and down from dull, drizzly days to fantastic warm days, warmer than Malaga on some occasions. I've been out to a couple of car meets, the first one Sundbygård that meet every Wednesday over the summer months: http://www.sundby-gard.se
Sundbygård
The last one being Nyköping car meet also Wednesdays approximately 100km south of Stockholm.
Nyköping 2013
Everything went well on the way down but on the way out of the meet it started coughing and spluttering and finally smoke poured out of the engine compartment and there was a very strong smell of petrol. To cut a long story short the fuel pipe into the inlet manifold had come off and was spraying fuel over the underside of the bonnet and therefore over the whole engine. Taking the bonnet off the engine was wet with fuel. Why it didn't just burst into flames was probably because the engine was warm from travelling only a kilometer or so. Any hotter and it could have ended in disaster. Easy to tighten up the clamp on the pipe but unfortunately the banjo connector moved and began to leak. Found some new washers at Kaarlo's mums house so the day and the car were saved.
All fixed but a close shave!
Getting ready for the trip to UK so it was good the fuel pipe came off now and not on the way. I have booked Peter at GKD to do a few engine mods, remove MAF, Begi and change injectors, so tuning will be much easier. Also booked TDI tuning to do both tuning and suspension geometry. Decided not to do a drifting course. If there is time for a track day that will be enough.
Two new Yokohama Advan Sport V105 ready to go on, now I'll have them all round.
Neil, Kevin and I will be at Silverstone the weekend of 12th July as there is the Formula Student 2015 which Neils son Magnus and Lund University will be participating in. See you at the camp site or in the bar!
Just a small update on the soft top. I didn't like the soft top supports sitting on the rear of the boot when not in use so solved it with boat supports, shrink wrap and aluminium pipe.
These are chrome boat supports that fit a 12mm internal diameter pipe. The one to the right has an internal diameter of 18mm so I added an extra layer of shrink wrap under it to fill the space. Quite expensive but look good.
I used the old bracket I made out of stainless steel.
Instead of painting them black I did what Peter at GKD suggested, I covered them in black shrink wrap!
The small support fits nicely together with the help of the chrome support.
Top up, where is it all going to go?
First stage, unclip the windscreen and then the rear poppers.
Fold up the soft top
Anette made me some nice black nylon bands.
Supports folded down and then ...
Split in two! I bought 12mm aluminium bar, one end is fixed in one pipe and the other slides into the other to join them. When the soft top is on it naturally holds everything together.
Bars and soft top folded away
Boot cover in place and everything hidden away!
I'm very pleased with the result. I just need a solution for the doors when they are not in use. Maybe they could be folded in two as well!
Hi there! thanks for dropping in again, you're probably wondering when the last post will be! Sorry but every dark, cold winter has to be endured and that means I'll find something that needs to be fixed or improved whether it needs doing or not :-) I must admit though my reserves of patience were nearing their end this year after my long list of "things 2 do" finally came to an end. However, after a few drives out under the wonderful clear blue sky and a coffee's or two at my favorite café it's all been worth it - now it's time to enjoy! I drilled the bonnet and used a jig saw to cut out a hole slightly smaller than the air intake box.
Time for the nail biting, can I cut without destroying the paintwork?
Holes drilled and hole cut, will the scoop fit?
Inlet box ready with a rubber edge to fit up against the bonnet. Air filter goes through a hole in the side of the box to the MAF and intake manifold.
Battery strap in place and wires cleaned up. Windscreen washer bag has space too!
I'm happy that everything has fitted. I'm also very glad I used a normal car battery and not the Red Top.
I added a rubber U trim around the scoop to give it a nicer finish. The bolts worked well so I don't think the scoop will fly off at high speed, touch wood :-)
I was expecting it to look too mean but it actually looks quite cool and matches very well.
A small job was to replace the BMW wheel centers, So far I found a set of black carbon fiber finish but after seeing what Taffy has done with his I'll see if I can get some custom ones done (HERE)
Also changed out the steering wheel to a slightly smaller 320mm MPH Toretto grey, no traces of BMW left, only the engine!
How does it perform now? After the initial fears that something was drastically wrong as it was running very rough, Taffy was right, after a few test drives the engine seemed to bed itself in and now it has a good source of cold air it goes amazingly well. There is no lag and even accelerating from low revs in 3rd or 4th it's very responsive. Starting in late autumn with the clutch upgrade and other improvements has definitely made it less stressful to get things finished.
One last job (for the time being!) is to fix the soft top supports. The aluminium pipes look really bad when I don't have the soft top up, they lay on the rear boot cover scratched and sorry looking.
I considered stainless steel but instead I'll clean then up, paint them black and attach them using chrome boat tonneau fittings. The idea is I can easily slip them on and off as well as split them in the middle so they pack away easily along with the soft top under the boot cover.
Beside the soft top, it's ready now to take full advantage of the spring and summer with a UK trip planned for July. Hope to see you for a track day!
Have a great summer and let's see what will be on the list of improvements for winter 2015!
The scoop that GKD offer doesn't have any fixings so I'm really playing this one by ear. Started the journey without any firm plans and adjusting as I go. Basically I wanted to bolt the scoop on as metal and fiberglass have different flexing properties and having them permanently attached to each other would have eventually ended in cracks.
Basically this is where it will be placed.
Bought some 1mm sheet aluminium and marked out the shape of the scoop.
The sheet will be used to hold the bonnet retaining bolts in place.
Cut a few wooden blocks to get the retaining ring in the right place. All the M8 bolts in place.
Perhaps not a good idea but I used expanding foam which I then trimmed with a knife.
Covered in filler and gelcoat. I'm not really happy with the results but in some ways it will be out of sight so doesn't really matter.
While that was drying I shortened the dash cables which I made way too long last year. They go to the lights, fog, heater and hazard switches. Much easier to remove the dash when the cables to the switches can be unplugged.
Not sure if I have already mentioned this but I found some great little connectors on Ebay. 50 MIXED HEAT SHRINK SOLDER BUTT TERMINALS.Just strip the two wires, poke them into the connectors so they both cross the solder ring and then heat with a heat gun. Four different sizes - brilliant!
Another job finished was removing rust from the foot well. Stripped the paint, converted the rust and then sprayed Hammerite. Will try and do a better job of sealing all the bolts and rivets that go through the floor this time.
