Quite a lot done recently and nearly there now. I’ll detail what has gone on in order of it being done, so juicy bits at the end I’m afraid!

Accelerator cable
When I fitted the throttle bodies I didn’t cut the cable shorter and instead tucked the excess out of the way. This was for two reasons, which both boil down to knowing I might be refitting the standard throttle body at some point. One if I didn’t like the bike ITBs and the other when the turbo came along. I therefore only had to re-adjust the cable to make it fit. This time, I mounted it to the bottom of the accelerator pedal rather than the top to give me as much pedal travel as possible. I feel I may need the adjustability!

Heat shielding
I ordered some heat shielding materials from Thermal Velocity. This consisted of a sheet of material to stick to the bonnet and a tube to cover the wiring loom. I also stuck some of the material to the relay box, just in case.

Exhaust
After delaying a week because the date I originally picked clashed with a compulsory work meeting, the missing bit of exhaust has finally been created. I started the morning by picking up a trailer, then pushing the Westfield out of the drive and up to the trailer. This was the hottest day of the year and even in the morning it was 25 degrees so it became very hard work. For the mid part of the drive (steepest), gravity got the better of me so I attached a tow rope to the roll bar and the Land Rover and pulled it up the hill.

I arrived at Infinity Exhausts just off J18 M4 at about 10:45 and they got to work creating the pipe. It was decided to have the reducer inside the bodywork, with a 2″ bend coming out of the tub and to the existing link pipe. At about 1pm all was finished and I loaded it back onto the trailer for the return journey.

I’m quite happy with the exhaust, but my enthusiasm has been curbed slightly by the use of a crush bend. I didn’t notice at the time so couldn’t ask why it was done like this, but it just looks a bit off to me. Never mind, I’ll want to go to a 2.5″ diameter exhaust at some point anyway so this provides good motivation.

Intercooler
Ah now here’s the exciting part of the post. The nice man from UPS delivered me a parcel today!

I opened it up and was presented with this, so I had a nice game of pass the parcel all by myself:

And look what I ‘won’!

To recap, it’s the radiator/intercooler package from the Westfield Sport Turbo. It doesn’t normally come with a fan switch but I asked for one to be added. Handily, they also fitted a switch itself. It’s a 92/87 degree one which is what I need, so the old one can stay in the old radiator. Unlike the old radiator, the fan switch is now mounted on the outlet so shouldn’t come on too early anymore.

I popped some rubber bobbins on and hung it in place to check if it would fit in the FW nose. I thought it should, given the sport turbo is an FW kit but that might have had funky mounting brackets. No need to worry, it fits in nicely:

There’s a finger gap around the sides but hopefully not too much air will bleed round. Otherwise I’ll have to make some kind of shroud.

The pipes fit under the top of the bonnet ok:

I started off by plumbing in the coolant side of things. Not too tricky, all 32mm pipework and pretty much ending up in the same place as when the polo rad was fitted.

The only tricky bit was squeezing the overflow pipe onto the fitting, and rotating the fan 180 degrees to get the wiring on the left hand side.

Lady luck was also on my side today as the pipework I’d guess at for the charge pipework was sufficient to do the job. It’s basically 90 degrees off the turbo, then a 45 degree followed by another 45 degree to get up and over the chassis. Just a straight pipe for the cold side, though that may need to be flexible. Will have to see if I get away with it.

The injectors arrived today (RX8 injectors) so I’ve dropped them off at a local company for cleaning. Should be ready tomorrow. I’ll also pick up a fitting so that the intake temp sensor goes into the pipework… then a few other odd jobs and I may even start it up tomorrow.