Selene - Nev's NB SE

[Nevyn72]

I assume you knew immediately it was broken?

Errrr, yes, the way the foot was flopping about was a bit of a give-away...... oh and the PAIN!!

Was a bit of a shock at the time, was basically caught up in a dumper, landed hard on the submerged sand bar, was exceptionally lucky it was the leg and not the spine as it is in most cases of this type.......

The metal 'rod' is referred to as an "IM Nail" and if you don't particularly want to keep your dinner you can read up on how they go about installing one of these beasties.
At least it's a Titanium Alloy rod so won't have too much of a weight penalty.....

[16bit]

are you going to go through the removal surgery or keep it in?

did they advise if the cold would be an issue?

[Nevyn72]

No real advice so far on much of anything, will probably hear more about the options in 2 weeks when the cast is removed.
After 6-8 weeks, depending how the healing process goes, the rehab & physio begins. This will determine what the long term prognosis will be.....

[Okibi]

YOWCH!!!

Savage break, get well soon!

[Nevyn72]

So after 6 weeks of doing basically nothing but sitting around with the leg elevated the cast was finally removed yesterday.

Now I can basically still do very little but as the rehab process begins and progresses over coming weeks I should be able to start do more as the strength and mobility increases. This is very good thing because having very little to do to amuse myself lately I got a bit carried away ordering bits for the car and they're, well, ummmm..... piling up around the place.
Unfortunately it'll be a couple of weeks yet before I"m able to drive.

At least this will give me something to do in between rehab & recovery sessions until I'm ready to head back to work. So you'll start to see a bit of activity hear-abouts soon with quite a few interior and engine bay mods to be done, just need to get the rego inspection done before I start to pull things apart and have the beastie off the road for a bit.

[ManiacLachy]

Glad to hear the leg is free again! Looking forward to reading about these mods

That first drive is going to be pretty sweet!

[Nevyn72]

Turned a wheel for the first time in nearly 8 weeks today!

Only a short run to get the rego inspection done as the leg really isn't up to much yet however I added a few more Km that I should have because it's so nice out there at the moment.

Before heading out I swapped the factory BOV for the replacement Turbosmart Kompact I've had sitting in the cupboard for a few months now.
No perceived change in performance but I can't hear the BOV opperate anymore which surprised me a little as none of the plumbing has changed otherwise.....

Anyway the '5' is now tucked back into the garage and probably won't be coming out again for a while as I start to install some of the bits I've been buying while incapacitated.

[Nevyn72]

So now that I have a little more mobility I've finally started to install some of the huge pile of bits I've been accumulating over the last couple of months.

Needless to say trying to work in and around the engine bay while on crutches isn't exactly, errrrrr..... efficient, especially when you realise the next tool need is the one you just put down, over there....

So in this burst of tinkering I've installed a few bits and pieces, firstly there was the Turbosmart Kompact BOV to replace the factory unit which is notorious for leaking and struggles when you start increasing boost levels. I also took the opportunity to clean up some of the pipework around thermostat housing and am very pleased with how it's come together.

And of course, here's a picture!



Next up was to replace the horrid strut tower brace / catch-can contraption they installed in the factory. When removing it I was astonished at just how much the whole unit weighed, it must be in the region of 7 or 8 kilos!

This was replaced by a nice, shiny Alloy Carbing unit with brake cylinder stopper, much neater!



Now with the removal of the factory oil catch-can I needed a replacement. I had been helping NitroDann with the development of his custom one and sorting out the fitting bugs for NB bodyshells but decided not to go that way as it is incompatible with the washer bottle and factory intake. The washer bottle wasn't a problem as I already have the Nopro relocation kit but wanted to keep the factory intake for the moment until I can decide exactly what I will do there.....

So the problem was not only what type of can to go for but also where to put it in the very crowded SE engine bay?
I then noticed that the space where the washer bottle used to be was a reasonable size and, after checking, that Dann's catch-can would fit very neatly there once the washer bottle's mounting bracket was removed.

So a long story short, I purchased the pre-production version of the can from Dann, fabricated a bracket and mounted the can between the factory airbox and the ABS control unit.
It looks like this fitted.....



I will go into more detail of how I achieved this in my next post.

I have plumbed both sides of the cam-cover to the catch-can which means the barb on the plenum chamber which used to connect to the driver's side via the PCV is no longer required. Rather than just plug this off like most people do I decided to use it as a vacuum source for the soon to be installed boost gauge. This caused all sorts of problems with trying to work out how to mount/support the sender unit for the boost gauge until I glanced over at one of the plastic hose mounting clips that were removed from the area of the thermostat..... surely not....

Success! It turned out to be exactly the right size so that one end clamped the sender and the other side clamped on the factory wiring loom, looks almost OEM.

Here's how it worked out.....



Finally I installed something that I've been wanting to do for ages, some gas strut bonnet lifters.
I ended up choosing the the chrome ones from IL Motorsport as they are, well, ummm.... Shiny!

These work really well and lift the bonnet up higher than the prop does. They also have the added advantage, by being so far back, of giving you unrestricted access to any part of the engine bay. I really wish I'd put these in before I did all that work around the intake.....



The hardest thing now is to try and work out which parts to install next.....

[Okibi]

Great monster update! Looking forward to seeing what you do next.

[Nevyn72]

So now for a bit more detail on how I fitted the Catch-can....

I was going to install one of NitroDann's catch-cans (I keep wanting to call it a Dann-can ) but decided against this option as I want to retain the factory intake for the moment. I already had a pre-production version of this can on hand as I was helping him iron out the bugs for fitting it to an NB which is slightly different in the mounting area to a NA.

So after re-installing the airbox I was looking for somewhere to install a catch-can, either Dann's or another brand, to replace the factory one that was removed with the strut tower brace when I noticed the space previously occupied by the washer bottle might be ok.

Here's what the space looked like.



So after removing the airbox again (you need to remove the airbox to undo one of the bolts for the washer bracket) taking out the bracket and refitting the airbox again I was able to do a proper test fit of the can to see how it would sit in the space, this is how it worked out with some cardboard and stuff packed underneath....



After thinking the can was almost made for that space I now had to work out how to make a bracket to support the can securely.

I started to use the washer bottle bracket to get a starting position of the holes so I could re-use the factory mounting points when I realised that the bracket would not be able to be mounted permenantly to the can as it needed to be installed before the airbox. This was a problem as one of the airbox mounting bolts would be directly below the can, bugger!

After scratching my head for a bit I realised I could make the bracket in two halves, one half bolted to the bodywork, the other half permenantly attached to the can. Furthermore, by using most of the old washer bracket as the bottom (fixed) half I would get a bonus heat-shield that used to protect the plastic of the washer bottle, yeah!

So the first step was to remove the unwanted portion of the old bracket, this was the sticky-up bit (technical term) that extended above the upper bolt eyelet.
Here's a before and after shot to show what was removed....

Before;



After;



Next was to clamp this lower portion securely and see what bits of metal I had lying around that I could fabricate an angled base plate for the can to rest on.

These bits of metal would eventually form a bracket to be permenantly attached to the base of the can. This bracket would be secured by sharing one (accessible) bolt with the lower half of the bracket assembly and a bolt located at the lower edge of the heat shield. This would allow the can and upper bracket to be removed from the car by simply undoing the hoses and two bolts without disturbing anything else....

Here's a picture of the process of creating this upper half of the bracket, you can see how the can stands just clear of the heat shield;



More to come shortly.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a slow typer......

[Nevyn72]

.... Part 2

So after a whole lot of trail and error this is the top half of the bracket that I came up with.



To the top surface of this bracket I added a layer of rubber (made from old tyre tube) to partly pad and partly seal the base of the catch-can when attached.



This top half of the bracket was then permenantly attached to the base of the catch-can with a healthy dose of RTV as the mounting bolts for the can pass through the base of the can itself.
The advantage of doing it this way is that there are no visible mounting attachments to the can itself which makes for a nice clean fitting.



After letting the whole lot cure overnight the next step was to assemble the rest of the can fit it all back into the car.
This is how it looked fitted without the hoses attached.



And finally once the hoses were installed.
You can see that the two inlet hoses pass nicely either side of the AC's receiver/dryer on their way back to the firewall and the return line heads forward to the barb on the inlet duct.....



I hope there's enough information here that should someone want to duplicate what I have done and use Dann's catch-can while retaining their factory airbox they can have a go at doing it themselves.

[Lokiel]

I don't envy you having to do all this on crutches.

The gas strut bonnet lifters ARE great - I wish I'd done mine earlier too, working in the engine bay seems much easier without the bonnet prop in the way. Don't forget to remove the bonnet prop too - now it's just dead weight that's "mussying up" your engine bay.

Next project should be the intake - removing the factory setup really cleans up the engine bay cluster-fuck. When I did mine and the washer bottle relocation I couldn't believe how much space was suddenly available.

[Lokiel]

I was going to install one of NitroDann's catch-cans (I keep wanting to call it a Dann-can )

What about calling it "The Danny Can"?

[Nevyn72]

So this is how the engine bay looks at the moment....



The goal is to try and clean up the engine bay while still having it look as OEM as possible.
From the image above it still appears to be quite a mess but in person it's a lot neater and more open than it was...... Honestly

Until I do something with the intake the great mess of pipework over there is going make it look cluttered. I just need to decide how to go about altering it in such a way I get a freer airflow while still looking (relatively) unmodifed as what I had previously planned isn't viable.
Emily_MX5 has come up with a great idea on that front and I may end up adapting that for my uses but that's a job for anther time, I've more than enough other things to fit and do first.

So what's next?

I'll probably have a go at making up a bracket to mount the oil filter relocation kit in the empty space behind the driver's side headlight.
Or I might start on the interior mods..... Hmmmmm

[Nevyn72]

......removing the factory setup really cleans up the engine bay cluster-fuck. When I did mine and the washer bottle relocation I couldn't believe how much space was suddenly available.

And then you promptly filled up all that free space with a whacking great big aftermarket turbo!

Seriously though, I actually want to find some way of keeping the factory airbox in place in my final solution..... I've got an idea of how to do that thanks to Emily but it's a job for down the track. I'll have to be satisfied with just deleting the airbox inlet snorkel for now.....