Racing Puma rebuild for the track!
 

Since I sold on my Puma Cossie I'd decided I would be sensible and wouldn't buy any more crazy projects for a while.

That didn't last long!

A racing puma rolling shell came up for sale at a bargain price so I simply had to have it. The engine had been sold on earlier but other than that the car was pretty much intact, albeit it had been sat for a few years so was in need of some tidying up and restoration.

Had been used for rallying, sprints and trackdays in the past so was already modified.

This is how it began:

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Did the deal and my mate helped me bring it back with our trailer:

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Just started off with the basics of working out whats what. The car already had a fair few bits on it, some I will be selling off to either replace with better or different spec for my plans.

The main bits it has that im keeping are:
Custom cages weld in cage,
Seam welded
Stripped out interior, including sound deadening.
Custom valved and specced Gaz dampers and springs
Solid top mounts
Stainless manifold and exhaust with added silencer to meet noise regs on track
Original FRP numbered inlet manifold
Flocked Dash
Lowered steering column
welded in seat bars
adjustable pedal box
stripped out doors

My main aim is to get it running again but im not in a major rush. I could just get another engine, bolt it in and get it running but I am going to sort out as much as i can first rather than getting it running to then have to spend ages fixing all the bodges.

First thing was to give it a bit of a clean and peel off some of the stickers I don't want to keep:

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I then managed to get somewhere I can work on in the dry So the big strip down began so I can see how bad things are and start to attack the rust!

The loom looks a bit wrecked:
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So thats coming all out to be replaced.

Also stripped out the seats to leave an empty interior so I could see the amount of work needed:
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Good old fords like to rust!! Plenty of rust to be sorted and cut out there. Got my mate Lee at SSG to do all the welding on the shell. At the same time I decided to ditch the floor crossbeam to save weight. With the cage and seat bars, theres plenty enough shell stiffness and side impact protection so any dead weight out the better.

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Yes there was a lot of welding to be done, probably easier to cut out the whole floor pans and replace with new metal but i wanted to keep some of the original shape where possible.

Also decided to strip the heater out. Will be refitting a mini heater for screen demisting. Much lighter and more compact than the heavy ford unit. Looks a lot better now its welded up and some paint has been splashed on:

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Also tidied up the door cards which were hanging off as the door handles wouldnt work. Replaced the looks, fixed the handles and refitted it all. Not ideal in alloy but will do for a while as they are supporting the window winder motor. I've got carbon for the new door cards and plastic windows to go on eventually at a later date.

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Then I moved onto refurbishing the running gear. Got my mate Jacko to refurbish the Alcon calipers as he is an expert in them. Replaced with a mix of stainless and titanium fittings including all new pistons machined so I can fit standard sized porsche/ferrari pads rather than the overpriced racing puma ones which are machined down. Its as if ford racing deliberately machined down the caliper size so you are tied to buying pads off them. Makes no sense other than marketing as there was plenty of room for the standard alcon caliper under the wheels.

Decided to paint them a fancy colour and also fitted my comps at the same time.
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Also made up some flexible carbon mudflaps:
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Decided to fit an overkill washer system with 2 pumps and spray bars as well as jets for the screen. Mounted the washer bottle in the middle of the car as its quite big.
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Got myself a battery box and some cable so I can locate the battery box and also work out where the cable and FIA cut off will go. Also painted the exhaust a bright red.

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Made up the cable and a nice carbon box to fit the cut off into to raise it to a nice height. Modified the handbrake slightly so it doesn't get in the way of the switch. It sits a bit lower now the floor beam is removed.

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Stripped out the engine bay to give it a good degrease and clean then to repaint the bad bits and to fit some heat shielding. Also fitted a dual remote servo with adjustable assistance as I plan to use the car on the road as well as track and I want to keep the pedal box but still have it usable in traffic if needs be.

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Then stripped apart the front subframe to derust and repaint, replacing anything knackered. Went for bright colours! You could see how wrecked one of the ball joints was!
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I then assembled the subframe with new ball joints, track rod ends, bolts etc as well as adding a fiesta ZetecS ARB which is stiffer than the racing puma one. Paint marked all the key bolts once torqued up to see if any movement occurs!
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Also knocked up my new braided rear brake lines and hydraulic handbrake to be fitted eventually:
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Started on the new loom. Stripping out all the unused wiring and wrapping in neat yellow tape. The engine bay loom is almost finished:
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Have also picked up a nicely lightened flywheel for the new engine:
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My new turbo and manifold have arrived:
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Initially Im fitting a NA puma lump with some mild mods then going to bolt on a simple supercharger I already have for a low boost conversion while I build seperately a highly specced turbo puma engine. The turbo lump will have uprated rods, pistons, liners as well as headwork. It will be running on the GT2871rs turbo on Emerald K6 management.

also trial fitted some Sparco recliners for now. I don't need FIA bucket seats for the series Im planning on competing in next year, so the sparco seats are a bit more practical in the mean time. Eventually as I improve my racing and uprate my engine, I will likely be class bumped into a class that needs buckets so will fit them then.

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Plenty more to come over the next few weeks as I refit most the stuff I took out and get it ready for engine fitting!

Lifes too short to be sensible.
Cracking puma,is it staying the same colour??
Didn"t take long for some carbon parts to creep on to it!!!!!!

Same colour for next couple of years. I want to eventually replace the panels in carbon so once I've done that, It will be resprayed.

What heater are you planning on running for demisting the windscreen? I'm thinking of ditching all the huge ford crap in my rally car as it's just unneccesary weight and crap to lug about

keeping an eye on this Warren! Looking good so far!

What happend to the carbon one you were going to build ?

mini heater. just the matrix, with fan directly attached, and a duct to the dash.

Looking goooooood!!! What is it you're gonna be racing/rallying in?? Is it just a rover mini heater you're talking about? Thought about doing a similar thing myself

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Suppose that'd be a good one

I like this warren good on you

Massively overpriced for what it is. I looked at a lot of the kit car ones and they have a matrix conveniently very similar size to the rover mini one just with tubes in different place.

I always liked this car.

Crying out for a 1600 SE screamer, or even a 2.0 Duratec for that matter. Then an MSA logbook and use it properly ;)

Was that Harry, Volcomstones old car?

i tracked my std puma at combe RS day back in 2011, moved out the way as it looked like it had 300bhp, then sat on its arse for the session lol

glad to see its going to get a propper engine in it!

Yes fudgey it was.

Think he had loads of bother with the engine as he rebuilt it because it was knackered end of 2011, fitted throttle bodies etc then decided to break it and sold the engine off.

Must have been something wrong with it if a standard puma kept up easily :cry:

Well, it was a good deal heavier i suspect with the cage etc and he said something about the engine map iirc.

oh mine had mk3 mondeo callipers and st170 discs up front, other than that it was std lol

The stripped out interior should offset the added cage easily.

The FRP was 1174 versus 1040kg for a normal puma but had the extra power to weight making it quicker throughout the performance range so something clearly was wrong with his car or his driving :cry:

Once its running I will be taking a lot more weight out especially when i remake panels in due course. Want it well below a ton once I'm all done.

Good project Warren. I love my Pooma even though its a rusty donkey. Mine was rotton too on the floor. It took me about 12 hours in total to weld mine.

Im after a 4 branch manifold for mine next.

Didn't realise you'd got rid of the Cospum, this looks a decent bit of kit though!

To make it a quality track car would have cost me 15-20k due to cossie tax. It would have needed uprated box diffs shafts etc just to handle the power i had being nailed hard on track.

This owes me about 3k once running. With turbo lump that will jump to 7 or 8k.

That looks really good, always been a fan of the Racing Puma :D

I am on the right, moved over to let the big boys through then sat on the back of it.

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Lovely just lovely :)

Hideous body roll for an FRP.

I kept finding that the plastic wiper scuttle panel was going brittle cracking and breaking where i had drilled through it, and new ones arent available so I decided to make a new one out of carbon. Used a foam cored carbon panel which should be relatively self supporting so I can cut off more metal.
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You can see I have cut away as much of the scuttle as possible dragging out another 1.5kg.
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Put the scuttle loosely into place for now as i need some more washers to use to bolt it down:
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Been working on my new heater. It is basically a mini heater matrix:
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I have then sealed it up with PU where they tend to eventually leak, and attached a nice and powerful Delta computer fan as the new blower.
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One of my birthday presents was a nice oil cooler and filter relocation kit which i will be fitting eventually.
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Finally got my seats mounted although it has raised a big problem. With the original seats, they were quite high and with that the pedal box was perfectly located. I deliberately lowered the seat as low as i could get it. However now with sitting lower, your leg is straighter so i have more "reach" with my leg and as a result the pedal box is too close. Even with the seat against the roll cage, it is still a good 5 inches too close so not really drivable like that. Unfortunately as its a "universal" pedal box with cylinders towards the front of the car, I can only move it forward an inch. So its going to have to be junked and replaced with another one. I can get a Puma specific pedal box from the same manufacturer (i dont know why that wasnt originally used???) which will put the pedals pretty much back in the OEM position which is ideal. However, I will need to cut out all the old false floor that was originally added for the old pedal box and perhaps any welding to fix any damage I do underneath. Not ideal at all but needs must but it puts me back a few weeks.

So as a result of that, I've decided that I will just go straight onto fitting the supercharger. I was going to go NA for a while idea being it would be engine in within a couple of weeks. However in terms of parts, I need to get the S/c mounts fabbed up, fit the decomp plate I already have, and plumb in the chargecooler. Not too bad as I've already got most of the bits. I have a chargecooler set up to fit already and just need a pair of new headgaskets to do the head. The only thing i need to buy is a map sensor, some silicone tubing and some dyno time to map it.

So this is the supercharger:
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Its an Eaton M62 gen 2 supercharger off a big yank buick v6 from the mid 90's. It was recently refurbished as well so should be good for a while! Using a spare engine, a mount has started to be fabricated using a big flat plate of steel to make sure the base of it is nice and solid:
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Brackets will be welded to it to support the S/C itself as well as additional bracing at the gearbox end of the engine. The unit has a built in bypass valve system which being based on early 90's technology is relatively simple and uses a actuator to open a bypass plate for low load situations. The vacuum feed for it has also been fitted with an electronic solenoid. It is a fail safe system, with no power, the vac on one side of the actuator means the bypass opens regardless of actual engine conditions.
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When actuated, the bypass will stay shut. I can program the ECU to open the bypass whenever i want in theory but I will likely have it based on throttle position and also a high boost cut/over temp cut. I might even put a switch in the car so i can open the bypass manually. These engines and boxes mean quite high revs on motorway cruising, so im thinking a cruising map with no boost. I have switchable maps on the ecu just for that purpose.

Like the carbon scuttle. Do you do all the lay-up yourself Warren?

Will be cool with the blower fitted.

Great price and nice job, well done

I dont know :cry: we make them at work and it was from an offcut so it could have been mine or someone elses :cry:

Another update, first thing was to fit my rear antirollbar up and paint it and the rear beam a nice bright colour as you can see here:
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Also made some headway into securing all the cabling and brake lines in the car: Attachment 30433

Addes some new stickers to the quarter windows:
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Getting ready for the new engine, I have tidied up the 2 engine sub looms as well as making up new alternator and starter cabling.
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Then onto the outside, I fitted by new wheels in 16".
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Finished off cutting out the excess metal on the scuttle and fully bolted down the new panel.
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The good thing is it sits lower than original leaving a nice gap to allow air out the bonnet:
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And then onto the engine. After the intial fabrication of the supercharger mount, more trial fitting and finalisation has gone on.
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and now fully mounted.
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Once happy it was onto stripping the top end of the engine down to fit the decompression plate. Stripped the cams out and head off:
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On with the decomp plate and new head gaskets.
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Then it was reassembly, new cambelt, water pump, tensioner and plugs and engine into the boot ready to take it to the car.

Got the engine on its stand in the garage so i can do the final prep for fitting.
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was getting late so my mate turned on the disco lights!!! LOL.
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Painted up the mounts and the bypass valve to brighten things up a bit.
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Then fitted the supercharger ready for belt measuring and check fitting of componants.
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Finished the day by giving the supercharger a nice new colour.
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The final stage was fabrication of the air outlet for the supercharger. Started with a flat plate with suitable holes for charger outlet and bypass, then using a piece of flattened at one end tube, fabricated an outlet and it was all welded into place.

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Just needs grinding back and painting then a nice gasket making up with cork.

Also got my new pedal box this weekend and assembled it all ready to go:

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And my paddle clutch arrived:
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Ordered a load of bolts and bits and bobs ready to get the engine fitted soon!

Big thanks goes out to Stuart who has done all the mount fabrication and welding as well as the engine build.

Top work Warren. Do you know what belt your gonna use or will it be just trial and error?

6pk1980 already measured it up.

Looks good mate looks like lee's been playing with his disco lights again :)

I like it! What's the plan, time attack? Or a race series, or just track day stuff? Will keep an eye on it whatever you choose.

Orange wheels look good!

might have a go at time attack. Definitely track days and lots of fun!

I love the orange wheels Kev! :cry:

Looks very good. Wanted to do something similar but it always looked an expensive way to go. We are part way through a build using a Volvo t4 engine and box. hopefully compare the two on track one day. Good luck

Another update...

Finally ripped out the old pedal box floor to reveal a nice mess!!
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Luckily once cleaned up only a few patches need welding so could have been a lot worse.

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Almost finished welding in new metal now.
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Also trial fitting the pedal box to get the position i want. Seems to be fine in pretty much the same location as the OEM pedals would be.
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In this picture the crowbar is where the old pedal box was so you can see how far rearward the original pedals were.
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Also been tidying up a few bits and painting bits needing painting. Sorted the cam cover in a "bright" colour!
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Im going for as many random and bright colours as i can as you might have noticed by now!!

Also epoxied and painted the supercharger outlet to match the charger itself.
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Also painted the mondeo throttle body to match. This is being fitted onto the charger.
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Also cleaned up my cat and painted with with super high temp red. Might stave off some rust for a bit! Will do the rest of the exhaust in the same red.
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To solve clearance between the oil sandwich plate and the supercharger, I ordered some banjos to fit in place of the original fittings. Now have plenty of clearance plus i can rotate the oil pipework to where ever i fancy for clearance.
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Also fitted the new large racing rear view mirror. Its so big you can see stuff almost right up the side of the car.
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Decided to get a few more stickers to cover scratches and brigten things up.
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Also my latest batch of parts has arrived including some nice forged rods for my engine:
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Looking good Warren. The floor looked a bit of a mess.

They do like to rust glenn! probably would be easier to have cut the floors out and gone for carbon floors and big box section sills and cross bracing but i cant do that for the kind of classes i want to race in. Well not at the lower levels. I can go into crazy pro or sports libre or unlimited classes but that would be stupid with my current planned power levels.

Defo matey. My pumas floor was fooked. I had to weld it up. Ive sold it now though but i miss it cause it was a fun car.