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Fisher Fury - From Mazda to Mazda
Andy S - 6/8/14 at 02:12 PM

Last month we took a trip over to Liecestershire and bought Clairetoo's old Fury as it had been languishing unused for longer than any Fury really should and needed to be resuscitated via a heart transplant and a general clean-up as cars like this do not take kindly to exterior storage for any length of time.

We decided that as there was already an MX5 prop and coupling sitting in the tunnel, the car having been run with the V6 and the stock box, and the MX5 engines and boxes being relatively cheap and easy to come by, it would easiest to source a good 1800 engine and box with loom and ECU and attempt a factory equipment only based transplant.

For the gearbox, remove that stupid lump of drive train mounting bracket from the side - lots of chain drilling and a bit of grinding flush. Cut the clutch lever down ½” and radius off the end of the lever to give clearance against the pedal box. The other alternative is to do a bit of cut and shut on the chassis itself. The increase in leverage can be compensated for with selection of the master cylinder bore and pedal leverages.









We dropped the engine and box in, set the sump height via a couple of blocks of wood and a level, drilled a couple of plates up and with a bit of cardboard engineering established the angles for the mounts.











As the car already had an accommodating if somewhat ugly bonnet bulge the standard sump was just set at 38mm below the chassis rail to give us 90/95 mm clearance to the road when at a nominal ride height.

The engine is mounted off centre to the N/S to give clearance on the clutch and this also offers a bit of counter weight to the driver.

The engine could be mounted further back in the chassis but would mean cutting the chassis about in the area of the foot boxes but its quite a bit of pain for not a lot of gain.

Mounts are 3mm plate and 38mm CDS that I had from some offcuts from a race cage.









Using the 4 pot and getting plenty of room in the engine bay means that the two engine bay diagonals that had been cut out to get the V6 in could be reinstated providing much needed triangulation to the upper chassis rails.


TBC


jeffw - 6/8/14 at 02:24 PM

Good start....


Andy S - 6/8/14 at 03:09 PM

We have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of weight that you shed off of these engines without much effort - the stock engine mounts are hefty affairs that just get in the way. There is a large aluminium plenum support bracket that again just gets in the way of the alternator and the oil filter and is just overkill. The starter motor has about 4 brackets and shields plastered all over it and the exhaust is similarly clad in various shields and trays all of which are superfluous.

Quite a bit of time has also been spent ripping out carpet and interior trimming boards and polystyrene insulation as well as the side pods so that

A. The offside exhaust can be removed completely and the insulation /weight from the side pod removed and new lightweight fixings employed.

B. The nearside exhaust can be accessed to allow us to repair the sheared exhaust mounting and redesign the fixing to have the bobbin mount in tension rather than shear.

The nearside side pod may also get some ventilation to offset the weight bias of carrying a silencer.

Further weight reduction was achieved with the removal of the oil cooler and its angle iron brackets and will be furthered by replacement of many oversized items with sizes more befitting the vehicle - such as the washer bottle - battery - and various steel brackets.

Removing all the chippings from the side pods has probably saved 2kg

Whilst waiting to be dropped in the bay the engine got a good clean and new set of belts and seals so should be good to go when John gets around to doing the wiring.


TBC


garage19 - 6/8/14 at 03:36 PM

If you want to go faster i make a lot of bits to turbo these.

Can sell you a complete kit with a rising rate fuel pressure reg that will see you 200 bhp.

www.g19engineering.com


Andy S - 6/8/14 at 04:10 PM

Thanks for the offer - but as stated above the build is about getting it all together using all stock Mazda components out of the donor MX5

If we can find most of the original 140BHP that the engine should have came with we will be more than happy - car should manage under 650kgs so - over 215BHP/ton will be enough to make it fun whilst having good economy and Mazda OEM reliability.

The bigger tank that Clairetoo fitted for an increased touring range for the V6 should see it passing most things on the road including petrol stations.


quote:
Originally posted by garage19
If you want to go faster i make a lot of bits to turbo these.

Can sell you a complete kit with a rising rate fuel pressure reg that will see you 200 bhp.

www.g19engineering.com


clairetoo - 6/8/14 at 10:43 PM

I'm liking this a lot - one idea I did have for getting it back on the road was to find a stock Mx5 lump , and get it back to what a Fury really should be - light and simple
I'll continue the search for the missing steering wheel........its here somewhere

As for release arm clearance - the concentric slave setup I ran with the V6 would probably work with the Mx5 clutch , and mean no change needed to the master cylinder ?

[Edited on 6/8/14 by clairetoo]


Andy S - 6/8/14 at 11:25 PM

Hi Claire,

We are going to try and keep it mostly from the donor absolutely stock and following the old mantra "Simplicate and add lightness" - Whatever gets taken off gets lightened before being put back on. Using donor MX5 kit as much as we can because.

A. We have all the parts
B. Easy for anyone wanting to trace our footsteps and drop an MX drivetrain into a Fury in place of an Xflow
C. Rule that extra parts are only to be bought as a last resort.

We are keeping it simple using the donor slave and adding lightness by shortening the fork arm 12mm and shaving the 5mm tab off the end - should not increase clutch pedal weight significantly to warrant a swap of the M/C but could be done if limp ankled. Or we can add more lightness by drilling another hole in the pedal for a new m/c fulcrum point.

Don't sweat the wheel we have already fitted a spare Mountney we had laying about - and removing the release block has saved weight -

Many a slip tween cup and lip - but up to this points its all going pretty well.



quote:
Originally posted by clairetoo
I'm liking this a lot - one idea I did have for getting it back on the road was to find a stock Mx5 lump , and get it back to what a Fury really should be - light and simple
I'll continue the search for the missing steering wheel........its here somewhere

As for release arm clearance - the concentric slave setup I ran with the V6 would probably work with the Mx5 clutch , and mean no change needed to the master cylinder ?

[Edited on 6/8/14 by clairetoo]


Andy S - 8/8/14 at 08:06 PM

Decided to get a few hours on the car after work so carried on with the removals to clean the car up - sills are off and out the way. and the wiring has been untied and dropped through the scuttle out of the way.

I removed all the untidy brackets off the exhaust and next was to set about the cut off tube replacement.








Interestingly the manufacturer dropped one on this the triangulation tube was welded to the plate on foot well and not to the chassis - basically meaning the thing may as well not be there...

I will chop it back so that the tube can be welded fully onto the actual chassis tube







At least the other side was actually part of the chassis - we will not be able to connect to the actual tube but will reinstate as close as possible. will be good enough.





John has work cut out

Promise is to have the engine running tomorrow - we will see LOL






Other job in the morning is to establish what axle ratio we have.


TBC

[Edited on 8/8/14 by Andy S]


clairetoo - 8/8/14 at 08:17 PM

The diff is a 3.89 - I have a 4.11 here if you need it.........


Andy S - 8/8/14 at 08:43 PM

quote:
Originally posted by clairetoo
The diff is a 3.89 - I have a 4.11 here if you need it.........



Job off the list I was hoping for 3.89 as it will suit the nature of the car perfectly.

ratio mph @7200 rpm
1st 3.163 39.3
2nd 1.888 65.8
3rd 1.333 93.2
4th 1.000 124.3
5th .814 152.7

Not bad at all - figures not 100% accurate but close enough and looks like it should be a real hoot with the first four and fifth being a real nice cruising gear.


Andy S - 9/8/14 at 09:34 PM

Blooming cream crackered today - no engine running as we decided to lighten the wiring loom and strip it all down to the bare essentials before adding in the Mazda loom parts and then sleeving it all for the reinstallation. What with that and the engine being in and out for the diagonals and relieving the scuttle so that we can install a pair of screen stiffeners and a pair of scuttle supports to assist in improving the door gaps.

Pictures instead of words - crappy phone pictures unfortunately

Whilst John got stuck into the wiring






I got stuck into welding ion the diagonals

As to can see welding of the old diagonal onto the foot well plate just means it gets attached to fresh air



All ground out and now welded to the chassis



And then onto the other end



And over to the other side



And the other end



And all done looking a lot better and torsionally stronger






We also spent some time on the clutch slave ensuring the the angle of actuation was correct to the short clutch arm - this was done but trimming the mounting bosses down about 8mm so that the slave is almost flush fitting rather than out on blocks.

Happy with the works and although not to the stage of running we have the plan in place. and compromised by just connecting the engine up and turning it over.


TBC


coozer - 9/8/14 at 10:17 PM

Cracking thread, keep up the good work.


Dopdog - 10/8/14 at 12:24 PM

quote:
Originally posted by coozer
Cracking thread, keep up the good work.


You beat me too it great write up very interesting, we like pictures and well done again on the progress already made.


Andy S - 10/8/14 at 04:44 PM

Thanks for the feedback, always welcomed.

quote:
Originally posted by Dopdog
quote:
Originally posted by coozer
Cracking thread, keep up the good work.


You beat me too it great write up very interesting, we like pictures and well done again on the progress already made.


Andy S - 16/8/14 at 09:00 PM

Weekly update on progress

Well not too much to report as we have decided to completely redo the wiring and are waiting for a few parts to arrive - Fuse boxes etc. We have stripped out the MX5 loom and started on the task of reducing it to the minimum.

I did mange to complete the final welding task in making up the gearbox mounting. This consists of a couple of 40mm diam polymer bobbins - these were standard M10 thread that required the tapping out of the chose two fixing to accomodate them and then a simple mounting bracket to locate and align it all.





That is all of the stripping down works has now been completed and the welding fabrications works near done - there maybe a few little brackets for the rad and fan and smaller parts required but only simple stuff so its now just re-assembly works now which we will whip through quick enough.


Andy S - 2/9/14 at 09:48 PM

All this talk of single donor MX5 versions of the resuscitated Sylva Stylus and MX5 Fury combinations has reminded me that I have not provided any updates recently on the progress being made with the Fury project.

We sorry to have to advise that no pictures this time round but we have been doing the odd job here and there.

It took a little while to sit down with the ECU and do a full pinout and decide what is necessary and was surplus. Well whilst on the third up of tea and a packet of fig rolls we decided that it would be good to see if we could use the full MX5 instrument binnacle integrated into the existing dash. As the inputs to the dash are from the ECU it made sense to give it a go even if it has increased the workload a little.

We want the car to be very clean under the bonnet without wires running all over the place and the stock Mazda and arrangement has made that reasonably straight forward.

The use of the full factory ECU allows the diagnostic port to be retained as well - giving easy access to the running status and use of the many APS that can be used with simple OBD interfaces. Perhaps even a HUD There is a use for a screen after all


Apart from working on the wiring its only been small jobs like a new design bracket for the exhaust and new rad mounts bonnet positioning and marking up the bonnet for a nose job.

Once the next package of parts arrive we will post up some more pictures.


MX5 single donor Fury or Stylus - it's a no-brainer as far as we are concerned.