Flipping Brilliant
February 2010
Stuttgart Surprise January 2010
An Era Ends and a Search Begins November 2009
Version 4 STi Type RA For Sale Take II October 2009
February 2010
As promised in Novembers diary entry i have continued to develop an alternator bracket to suit both lightweight and standard alternators.
The new bracket is basically a copy of the billet aluminium bracket i had fitted to my STi RA, shown here. Manufacturing costs prohibited the large scale production of this design of bracket so i have focused on simplifying this process. I decided to break the bracket down into multiple parts and employ several different manufacturing techniques. The 'knuckle' (the part that holds the alternator) is still cut using conventional CNC methods. However, the bracket base and knuckle retaining plate are cut on a waterjet machine. The remaining spacers, bushes and turnbuckle body are turned manually, by yours truly!
The advantage of making the bracket from component parts rather than billet is that it has allowed me to build in some functionality. The alternator knuckle and retaining plate can move independantly (in a longitudal direction) of the base plate, meaning that fine adjustment of the alternator alignment can be achieved. Once the alternator alignment has been set the bolts securing the knuckle to the retaining plate can be tightened ensuring a perfect belt-run.
A further advantage of manufacturing the bracket on a component basis is that i can change the design of the knuckle to suit differing alternators. In November i had a knuckle to suit the lightweight Denso alternator. I now have a knuckle which suits the OEM Subaru alternator.
All the parts were tested this month thanks to Duncan MacLean, who donated his MY99 UK Turbo for an afternoon to help out. This testing uncovered a few niggles, not least a bizarre 1/4" stub on a water pipe that warranted taking a notch out of the baseplate. This notch will be incorporated into the final baseplate design and will be cut using the waterjet rather than a drill and saw! Beyond that there are only a few very minor parts that need to be included in the kit to ensure full functionality.
I hope to have complete anodised kits available towards the end of March / beginning of April. Watch this space!
The new bracket is basically a copy of the billet aluminium bracket i had fitted to my STi RA, shown here. Manufacturing costs prohibited the large scale production of this design of bracket so i have focused on simplifying this process. I decided to break the bracket down into multiple parts and employ several different manufacturing techniques. The 'knuckle' (the part that holds the alternator) is still cut using conventional CNC methods. However, the bracket base and knuckle retaining plate are cut on a waterjet machine. The remaining spacers, bushes and turnbuckle body are turned manually, by yours truly!
The advantage of making the bracket from component parts rather than billet is that it has allowed me to build in some functionality. The alternator knuckle and retaining plate can move independantly (in a longitudal direction) of the base plate, meaning that fine adjustment of the alternator alignment can be achieved. Once the alternator alignment has been set the bolts securing the knuckle to the retaining plate can be tightened ensuring a perfect belt-run.
A further advantage of manufacturing the bracket on a component basis is that i can change the design of the knuckle to suit differing alternators. In November i had a knuckle to suit the lightweight Denso alternator. I now have a knuckle which suits the OEM Subaru alternator.
All the parts were tested this month thanks to Duncan MacLean, who donated his MY99 UK Turbo for an afternoon to help out. This testing uncovered a few niggles, not least a bizarre 1/4" stub on a water pipe that warranted taking a notch out of the baseplate. This notch will be incorporated into the final baseplate design and will be cut using the waterjet rather than a drill and saw! Beyond that there are only a few very minor parts that need to be included in the kit to ensure full functionality.
I hope to have complete anodised kits available towards the end of March / beginning of April. Watch this space!
Previous Entries
Stuttgart Surprise January 2010WIth no sign of a Litchfield Mk2 Type-25 Spec C becoming available in the near future i decided to look at alternative cars with similar performance. I consdered the E46 M3 CSL, No...
An Era Ends and a Search Begins November 2009The first job to get on with after getting home from offshore was to see that the R888 tyres were whipped off the car and swapped for some more sensible Goodyear F1's. With the wea...
Version 4 STi Type RA For Sale Take II October 2009Unfortunately i had no luck selling the car in full specification. Being a tight jock i couldn't bring myself to give the car away so instead decided to return it to near-standard ...
Reverse Alternator Bracket
Restored PAS Reservoir
