....... cleaning my engine with a pot of petrol and a toothbrush !!!!!

Yes, that's right, toothbrush, the engine looks like it has had a rocker cover gasket leak (seems to be a recurring fault with this engine after the inlet manifold) and  there are areas (especially on the inlet side) that are covered in oil.  I tried Cilit Bang but didn't do much so resorted to petrol and a toothbrush. So, I got most of the engine clean but there is a layer of grime on the surface that will need wire brushing away. Got to leave some jobs for another day.

Also did a quick measure of the engine and I will have to do something about the rear of the engine. There is a casting that connects to the coolant system and acts as a mount for the coil pack which sticks out from the rear of the head. This will mean moving the engine forward 100+mm  which I do not want to do. I have seen slimline mods that move the radiator inlet to the inlet side but currently haven't found where to source them from.

Not much going on this weekend on the Anglia as Cam has exams next week so has his head in books (rightly so !!!) and I had family stuff/gardening to keep me occupied. I did however, get a couple of hours and cleaned up the throttle bodies so they are now all shiny and ready to fit once I have sorted out the adaptor. Next weekend is a bank holiday so a long list of stuff to do, first will probably be extracting the V6 from the Mazda followed by cleaning the engine. Also fortunate to source a pair of almost new Corbeau classic seats with headrests and white piping, should be collecting them this week all being well.

Today we went out and stripped down the engine to a point where all of the unwanted parts were removed and is now read for test fitting the gearbox when we have sourced a bell housing.
After posing a few thoughts on locostbuilders the consensus is that the engine should run on the standard ECU and this can be "taught" to accommodate the throttle bodies so I will look into getting the engine running on the standard electrics before deciding on which route to go down (if I can this will save £1k from the cost which is not a bad thing ! or it is the cost of a fitted LSD !!! choices ?)

The first observation was that it had been shipped with all fluids still in the engine and gearbox, both oil and water, and as you guessed, we found out when it started to spill out onto the floor, thanks goodness for drive oil stain remover !

The second observation was when we took off the inlet manifold we found lots of oil, very black inlet ports and a badly distorted inlet manifold gasket (see pictures). It looks like the oil is either from the rocker cover gasket or from the engine being transported and laying on it's side at some point. Nothing to alarming I hope. The inlet gasket seems to be a common fault which leads to rich running and the coked up ports.

The final observation, once we had all of the parts off was that the throttle bodies will fit very well with only a minor movement of the alternator that will need a couple of small brackets making.

So, action from this have been to re-contact Danst for confirmation of the throttle body adaptor plate manufacture, start to get quotes for the bell housing, do some homework on the clutch needed, start to get quotes for machining either the crank or the gearbox input shaft and finally start to get info on brake mounting.

Last of all, I measured the impedance of the bike TB Throttle Position Sensor and the Puma one and found that the readings were also most identical at closed and fully open throttle so this is one less think to have to sort out I hope.

The plan for next weekend (hopefully) is to do some detailed measurements of the gearbox/engine location in the chassis to look at sump position etc., offer up the brakes at the front and see if they will fit in the 6x13 wheel I have and have a look at dismantling one of the rear brakes to offer up that for size/fit (the hub may need machining ?).  I am edging towards 5.5x14 minilites in anthracite at the moment but that will probably change many time between now and the final purchase.