Other Projects:
Vortex 3-wheel Vehicle
17' Wind Turbine
Bradly GT II Kit Car
1966 Ford Fairlane GT
Spinning Wheels

Engine Compartment

This page will show detailed information concerning the engine and how I fabricated the engine mounts, reverse operation, wiring layout, oil and water cooling for the engine.

Engine Selection
I initially had a Yahama 600cc engine from my old FJ-600 that I was going to use for this project, but half way through the construction I decided that I did not want an in-line 4 cylinder engine. Instead I decided on using a V-4 style engine. Honda is one of the few bike manufacturers that make one I, and include 600cc, 700cc, 750cc, 800cc and 1000cc. It would appear that the engines made in 1994 and afterwards have a lot of improvements from the earlier versions

I purchased a Honda VFR750 motorcycle engine complete with cooler, radiator, carbs, airbox, all wiring, exhaust headers and instrument cluster.

Recently I found this engine for sale @ VFRWorld website in their classified section. After researching these 90 degree V-4 style engines I was pretty impressed, and they are a bit more compact than the inline side to side 4 cylinder style engines. In 1998 they added fuel injection and also came out with an 800cc version and I believe that around 2001 they put out a 1000cc version of this engine.

As luck would have it the engine utilizes an electronic speedometer and is coupled to the drive sprocket on the engine and not the front-fork of the bike. There is a ood chance that I can take advantage of this, might need to change the ratio - but it is a good start! (Pertaining to the above discussion about gearing/tire size I have no idea how this will affect me at this time.)

Here are the engine specs courtesy of VFRWorld:

Here is chart that shows torque and horsepower for a number of years courtesy of Texas VFR Garage:

And here are some pictures of it

It's pretty compact here is a shot of the radiator.	Also the electronic speedometer

Engine Location & Mounts
Once that I got the chassis to a point that it could roll independently by itself, I turned the Vortex around in the shop with the rear pointing towards the garage door and put the engine on a hoist to see how it might go into the engine compartment. It is a lot tighter than I had thought that it would be and basically spent the day moving it around, raising and lowering it to attempt to figure out exactly where it should be placed.

There are a lot of things to consider when positioning the engine:
1) air flow to engine
2) air flow to radiator
3) clearance for exhaust
4) proper alignment of chain to clear the drive belt pulley on intermediate shaft

The VFR750 V-4 engine also poised some interesting problems, the exhaust for the rear 2 cylinders extended almost 7" from the engine (see picture farther below), probably to clear swing arm on the motorcycle. Not to mention that when the headers went from 4 into 1, that the exit pipe pointed directly into the engine subframe, so I cut part of it off and will modify it when complete. I also tried to see if I could 'wrap' the tubes around the engine subframe, but then they contacted with the intermediate shaft...

In some ways fitting an inline 4 cylinder engine and the exhaust system probably would be easier! I had not initially considered this in my engine choices!

In order to use the relatively stock exhaust I would have to position the engine farther forward than I might have wanted to. It all boils down to a couple of decisions, modify the exhaust or modify the radiator position. I had hoped for some sort of compromise that with some tweaks to the exhaust (rather than total custom rebuild) that I could reposition the radiator so that it was directly in front of one of the air inlets.

Another consideration to using this style V-4 engine is that on the motorcycle they use a highly unconventional frame style, and attempt to use the engine/transmission as frame components. On this transmission there is a single back mount that uses a single 8" bolt, and 2 separate mounts on the front side. There are also mounting points on the cylinders as well as the heads!

Here is the completed rear engine mount:

When computing the width of the tubing you have to remember to figure in the thickness of the metal for the mounts on the ends (3/16") plus a little extra for clearance. My engine subframe measured 18-5/16" on the inside of the tubing. Here is a diagram that shows how I made it:

The engine needed to be shifted pretty far to the right so that the chain can clear the pulley on the intermediate shaft, the right side of the transmission case is about 1/4" from the engine subframe. Here is a shot showing the engine bolted to the mount with the stock exhaust on as well, it fits pretty well and adjusted all the way back the pipes clear the engine subframe by about 1/2":

Building the front engine mount, it is a bit more involved than making the rear mount. The first order of business is to ensure that the engine is level, this will depend on the motor that you are using. If possible seeing the motor in the original bike chassis is preferred as inline 4 cylinder engines typically want the cylinders at a predetermined angle. One thing that may help out is that the oil pan is typically level with the ground, worse case is to remove it and level the engine off in the engine subframe.

In my case since I am using a V-4 engine I had no room to put a crossmember behind the headers and instead had to make a front engine mount that more resembles a trailer hitch that would go onto a car. I cut 2 pieces of 3" x 3/16" plate about 8" long and drilled a 1/2" hole where they would bolt onto the engine. Next I tapered and radiused the ends a bit, but on the drivers side I had to remove a bit of material to clear some oil lines. I then bolted these plates onto the motor and leveled them off.

Here are some shots of the completed front engine mount.

Here is a rough idea of dimensions:

Here are some shots to show you how it fits onto the front of the engine.

Next the entire exhaust system had to be completely redone, for my application the collector was not only on the 'wrong' side, but it extended almost 3" below the bottom of the vehicle. Which taking into consideration the fact that the Vortex has less than 6" of ground clearance caused a major problem for me.

I ended up completely revamping the exhaust. Luckily with a little fore-sight I had acquired 2 complete stock exhaust systems so that I was able to mix and match multiple components to get the desired results as shown below. I was able to get the entire exhaust tucked neatly under the body without having anything protruding below to give me maximum ground clearance.

Here is a shot of the original exhaust system (left side) and completely revamped (on right):

Here is a picture of the rear canopy that encloses the engine compartment area as seen directly from the back of the vehicle, I completed the exterior fiberglassing using one layer of 1-1/2oz mat and one layer of 5oz cloth.

Today I received the Datsun/Nissan aluminum window louvers that I previously won on eBay.

Here is a picture comparing the two, on the top is one from a 280ZX, and the one on the bottom is from a 300ZX. You can see that the 280ZX is basically triangular while the one from the 300ZX has a curved section which probably conforms to the different window style, and it is also larger.

Here are individual shots with each louver on the drivers side of the vehicle. The visual impression is that the one from the 300ZX is too large for the area and the curved section does not fit the rest of the contours. I was not sure which way the curved section on the 300Zx louvers went but believe that it goes towards the roofline, I tried both of them and basically came to the same conclusion that for my particular application they would have to be mounted too close to the rear deck lid cut line to fit properly. The louvers from the 280ZX fits the space that I have better, I can move them towards the rear further and the overall shape appears to follow the lines of my vehicle better as well.

So I have decided that I will be using the ones from the 280ZX on my vehicle. Anyone want to buy a louver set from a 300ZX?? I currently have $35.00 into them plus shipping costs to you (I was charged $17.50 shipping) if so Contact me!!!

I put some expanded steel into the areas below the louvers and glassed in and painted flat black. I ended up using 1-1/2" wide strips of mat on each side edge with three layers below and three layers on top as well. I also cut out some small areas around where the front mounting bolts protrude so that in the future I could easily access this area (without cutting up my hands).

Made up the delrin 'buttons' that I will be using for the front locator pins, still have to put in groove for C-clip to retain them, and make up the mounting plates: here is a picture of them:

I made the inside diameter of the buttons 1/16" larger than the pin diameter, my thoughts were to not make them too tight. Since the canopy is hinged the pins may need a little room as the entry angle changes slightly due to the rotation around the hinges. These buttons will be put into the holes on the locating plates and a C-clip will retain them. You probably do not really need them but I wanted to reduce noise from any potential vibration. Here are the basic dimensions for the buttons:

Here are pictures of the completed front locator pins and buttons:

Along with mounting brackets for the rear canopy locator pins. I used some 1/8" thick 2" angle iron, cut the exposed edge so that it matches the curvature of the plate that holds the locator buttons, put in the hole for the pin as well as a bunch of holes in the base used for fiberglassing. I sand blasted and painted the entire surface but prior to glassing in I will use masking tape on the mounting area and sandblast the paint off from the base in order to remove the paint. I like to glass directly onto bare metal with no paint on it. This way the metal will not get any surface rust while it waits:

And here is shot showing installed pins:

I also fabricated the top and bottom strut supports for the rear canopy. Since I used some rounded maple strips along the top of the lid I had to make the top supports so that they would fit and look proper so I took some 1" black pipe and split it along it's length and welded on some 1/8" x 1" wide steel to form the sides. Finally I used some 1/8" rounded tabs to form the mounting point for the struts:

I had been contemplating putting the cylinders in with a forward rake, the reason for this is that when the deck closed the cylinders would actually help hold it closed, and after much deliberation decided to proceed with this. It took a number of hours to figure out exactly where I wanted to place the cylinder mounts to obtain the desired opening height of the deck, while still allowing the deck to close all of the way. Once finalized I installed the upper and lower mounts that I previously made, I ended up offsetting the top mount about 9" horizontally from the lower mount so they are pretty much pointed directly at the hinges.

These cylinders work out well as I can open the deck 1/2 of the way and it will stay open. They have enought pressure so that if it is opened outside I don't have to worry about the wind accidentially closing the deck. The only negative thing would be that when shutting the deck the last foot of the way the cylinders kick in to assist in closing it, so you can't just let it go!

FYI: if you want to have the rear canopy open as much as possible you need to move the top mounting point as far forward as possible.

IMPORTANT: mounting the cylinders as I did will NOT work with pneumatic cylinders! In using pneumatic cylinders you would have to mount them with a rearward rake, as once you charge the cylinders they will push in the direction that they are pointed, with the forward rake it will attempt to push the lower part of the deck towards the hinges and probably crush the deck if enough pressure were applied!!! There is the possibility that you could mount them horizontally although which would make for a very neat installation.

Previous research and testing helped me determine that I needed a total of about 200lbs to lift the rear canopy, this is due to mounting them far forward with leverage and all. Here are some pictures showing the result as you can see in the left photo that with the rear canopy closed the springs are very near their maximum compression:

IMPORTANT NOTE: I have been told by the manufacturers that nitrogen gas springs should be installed with the rod portion downwards. This provides the best sealing and lubrication of the cylinder.

With the rear canopy finally operational I decided to work on the latches. So I modified the strikers that came with them by welding them onto some 1/8" angle, located them and bolted them to the deck.

Located and installed the latch mounting plates with about a 30 degree rake to them. This time with perfect results and now the rear canopy opens and closes/latches correctly:

Got the rear deck plates installed, I had to increase the size of the hole slightly so that they could be installed. I put down masking tape around the holes (so not to scratch paint) marked out the circle and used a jig saw to cut it out. Then I put a bead of caulk around bottom edge of access plate to seal up the hole and then used some 3/4" screws to hold in place.

I had to get the engine back into the vehicle. Rather than removing the rear canopy I decided to unbolt the gas struts and 'flip' the canopy back over the top of the vehicle, seemed like it would save me some hasstle of removing it, and it actually worked pretty well! I had a shovel that was just the right height and padded where the handle contacted against the canopy.

Well installing the engine went pretty well, except for one scratch on the paint. The rest of the day was spent installing the intermediate 'jack' shaft as well as the custom pulley/sprocket that I made up to convert from the chain to a flat belt. I had to shim out the middle pillow blocks that mount the shaft a bit to acheive proper alignment.
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Update 05/19/2007: I replaced the 30T pulley on the intermediate shaft with a 26T pulley (from Turbotec) and the engine sprocket from a 15T sprocket to a 16T one. According to Turbotec the hub adapter that I have will need to be machined down in size slightly to 3.745" OD. This brought my final gearing ratio up to about 3.03:1, and is a good compromise between initial launching of the vehicle and cruising speed.

I also got the drive belt mounted and the rear fender, I measured out and cut the old chain that I had so that I could figure out how many links that I needed the new chain and it was about 28 links. Next week I will go to the bike shop and get a new chain and master link. The remainder of the day was spent trying to find mounting points for some of the engine hardware as well as fooling with the spark arrester that I have. I need to get the exhaust pipe reduced a bit so that it goes into the spark arrester. Here are a couple of other shots of the installed engine:

I brought the short exhaust pipe that I had and the muffler to my local exhaust shop and they made me up an adapter so that the muffler would fit properly. Once home I welded it on the pipe and connected up the muffler. I will be putting in a bracket from the swing arm mount to help support the weight of the muffler, but here is how it currently looks:

When I made up the engine subframe I put in a couple of holes/plugs to bolt the bellcrank onto - foresight is a good thing! So I had some attachment points already for me. Doing some quick measuring I determined that there was about a 7" offset from the center of the vehicle to the shifting arm on the engine, so I made the width of the mount 9". I also needed to have a little less than about 1-1/2" of throw to be able to up/down shift.

There are three parts to this: 1) mounting bracket with offset holes 2) bellcrank 3) shifting linkage from bellcrank to engine. Later when I make the shifter there will be another linkage between it and the bellcrank.

Here are some pictures so that you can see how it looks:

Here is the entire mechanism bolted onto the engine subframe, After Note: I ended up shortening down the one arm which eventially connects to the shifter linkage (shown by the red arrow) about 1/2" to enable the shifter have a shorter throw, with the longer arm the shifter throw is too much! In addition I installed cotter pins into the 1/2" retaining bolts as well to ensure they do not come loose.

I made up the adjustable ends for the linkage using some 1/8" steel, drilled a 1/4" hole, welded a 1/4"-20 bolt (with head cut off), formed the 'U' shape and drilled the ends to accept a 1/4" pin. Note that the threaded ends use a nut to lock them in place once any final length adjustment is done. The shift lever that connects to the engine is splined so you can do some adjustment by rotating it a bit as well:

I had to make a mounting bracket for the fuel line and the hydraulic clutch line and decided to use some 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" aluminum angle, cut a piece about 2-1/2" long. I drilled a hole to mount the clutch flair fitting and a simple 1/4" hole to put the fuel line through. Later on I will make some sort of collar to hold the fuel line in place. The lines are located next to the shifting linkage, but there is plenty of clearance between them. I still need to extend the rear brake line will do it when I get the flexible hose for the swing arm. Here is a picture showing the location right next to the shift linkage:

I started with making the hydraulic clutch slave line using some 3/16" braided stainless line with a straight banjo connection on one end and a 3/16" brake line fitting at the other end. I had previously ran a 1/4" line from the hydraulic brake master cylinder so I had to use a 1/4" to 3/16" adapter. Left some slack in the line to handle engine vibration.

Next I moved onto the fuel line, again I had a 1/4" hard line from the front fuel pump to the engine. The fuel filter I had was 5/16" and I was able to heat up a 1/4" rubber line so that it would expand enough to fit the filter, and used simple hose clamps to hold in place. Here is a picture of the two completed lines, the arrow points to the hydraulic clutch line:

I used some 1/8" steel to make some backing plates, put holes in it for #8 x 1-1/2" long screws as well as holes for #12 mounting screws. I also got the wiring to them all completed. As it turns out one solenoid pushes the latch mechanism and the other pulls it, I will have to fiddle with the push one as it jambs every once in a while, probably a geometry thing but will work out the details later.

Received the 5-LED lights last night and did some quick testing and two of them will illuminate the engine compartment just fine (tested in the dark). I decided that rather than use some sort of mercury switch to turn them on when the rear canopy opened that I would install a manual switch so that I could turn them on only when needed.

As the LED lights needed to be installed parallel to the deck I decided to use some 1-1/2" aluminum angle to form as a light bracket. This bracket is installed along the width of the rear canopy deck with each LED light mounted on each side about 27" from the front of the deck lid.

Here is a picture of the installed push button switch on the drivers side:

Here is a picture of the installed light bar and one with the LED lights on:

Ok so why 27" you ask? This is the dimension from the front of the trunk area to the area just before the intermediate shaft. I figure that if I need to put up some sort of 'curtain' to keep splash from the rear tire into the engine area that I could hang it from this aluminum bar as well. So this bar is positioned for this possibility as well.

There is far more detail on the electrical box that I put into the engine compartment, go to the electrical page to view. I decided to relocate the ignition control module as I'm pretty sure that the radiator mount would conflict with where it currently was. I made up a simple mount for it out of some sheet metal bent to the shape of the module, I then welded on the ends of a circular hose clamp to pull the open ends together to clamp the module. Got it installed and it works great, nice and simple!

I decided to mount the oil cooler mounted onto the radiator structure. I had to make up a couple of pieces of aluminum for supporting the top and bottom of the oil cooler and TIG welded them on, note that the lower mount has clearances for the hoses. Here are a couple of pictures with the cooler in and out:

Put a 2-prong connector onto the radiator fan wires and routing them from the electrical box. I cut the wires on the radiator a little shorter than I would have liked to so be careful not to repeat but they are still workable.

Consider this a lesson learned and leave extra length on wires, they can always be cut again...

I got the radiator mounted into position as well as finishing up the electrical connections to it. I had to offset the radiator all the way to the right as the filler cap would have hit the chassis, an unforseen item however there was just enough room to compensate. As it is the bottom of the radiator clears the head of the engine by about 3/4" and the bottom of the fans by 1/4". It also had to be mounted low enough so that I could remove the radiator cap without removing the mounting bolts. Note routed wires across top of radiator and used a couple of wire ties to hold in place:

finished up connecting the oil lines to the oil cooler, had to cut the rubber lines shorter than I wanted to but did it so that the bends would not put a lot of pressure on the fittings. The fittings used were AN 8 to barbed nipple and hose clamps to complete them, a little tight space to work in but got it all connected. Again some slack in the lines to help deal with vibration:

I needed to make a bracket to help support the muffler, I had some aluminum angle that I decided to use for the job. I put the new Grizzly mill to work and made a cut-out that would go around the swing arm pivot washer and fit nice and tidy on the side of the bracket, and 1/4" mounting holes.

Next I cut the angle, removed one leg of it, bent it and TIG welded it, finally put in the muffler mounting hole, below is a picture:

I used 1/4" bolts all around, here is it installed:

Update 07/30/2007: After driving the vehicle for almost 500 miles it was easy to realize that the spark arrester put out way too much volume, after driving it for an hour my ears were ringing from all the noise! After researching low restrictive (and short) mufflers I cam across one - FMF Megamax. At long last I think that I finally have the exhaust noise solution. The muffler comes with an internal baffle as well as some external discs/cover plate. You can run the muffler open, with the internal baffle, with the external discs or any combination of them (I used ALL of them). In looking at the muffler they really do a nice job and it is great quality. One of the external discs even has a shield to direct the hot gasses away from a fender/tire so I used that to keep any tire spray from the rear tire from getting into the inside of the muffler or blocking the discs.

I was able to shorten up the connecting exhaust pipe by almost 3" to help bring the new muffler farther towards the engine so that it would protrude out the back as little as possible. The new muffler is about 13" long and fits real nicely, I was able to make up an additional aluminum connecting bracket to connect it to the original bracket near the swing arm and tuck it in to give me enough ground clearance and to clear the swing arm and the rear fender.

Here are a couple of pictures showing the new muffler installed:

I angled it slightly to compromise on ground clearance and swing arm clearance, here is another shot looking from the rear forward showing how tight the fit is,. you also have to watch out that it does not hit the rear fender:

Finally installed the throttle cable, got the casing routed from front into the steering rack tunnel, back into the passenger compartment and out to the engine compartment. Glad that I measured closely as it was a very good fit lengthwise.

It was pretty easy to connect to the throttle pedal, however I found that it installed easier if I removed the pedal, connected the cable and reinstalled the pedal. I had to make a bracket to mount the throttle cable near the carbs, this took a number of times to make it and finally got it right on the 4th attempt.

Once in place I wrapped the cable around the circular throttle on the carb and used a magic marker to locate where I had to position the 1/4" barrel. I got out my silver solder, some flux and my small propane torch (used for soldering copper plumbing), practiced on a piece of copper wire, and then silver soldered the throttle cable.

Pretty happy with the results, the barrel end should *not* ever come off now! Took a file and cleaned up any extra solder on the perimeter of the barrel and filed down the protruding wires on the opposite side and got the throttle cable completely installed:

Finally did some testing and the throttle pedal opens up the carbs 100% full open, did some final adjustment to remove all slack and called it a day. Later on I will tweak the bracket so that the cable points toward the rotary throttle a little bit better so that the liner of the casing does not wear on the one side.

A torque strut for this vehicle is *not* optional! There is so much torque requirement in getting the vehicle launched from a stop that you have to have this in place or the engine will move! First thing that I did was to loosen the engine mount bolts and move the engine slightly forward to remove the extra slack in the chain. Then I used my plasma cutter and cut out some mounting plates out of 1/8" thick steel for attaching onto the engine subframe, and drilled them out for a 1/2" retaining bolt. You will note that the front of the plates are welded onto the front side of the subframe as well as 'wrapped' around and welded onto the top-side of the subframe in the picture below. This is done so that the plate has maximum surface area to weld onto the subframe.

Next made up a 'Tee' out of 3/4" bar stock and drilled the center out so that a 1/2" bolt could pass through. Thehe other part of the tee I made from some thickwall tubing that I had laying around and I drilled and tapped it out with a 1/2-13NC tap. I did this so that I could have some minor adjustment for the torque strap so that I could get the length right on. Next on the engine side I made up a mounting plate using 3/16" thick steel to connect to the engine, slotted some thickwall tubing inserted the plate and welded it on the end of the tubing. Then I welded on a short length of 1/2-13 thread to connect to the other end.

Finally I made up another chain grease guard and welded it onto the torque strut. Since the strut was higher than it was before I had to bend the sheet metal so that it extend closer to the chain, I also made it as long as I could for better chain coverage.

Got it all assembled and here is the final results:

Post Note: After driving my vehicle for about 2500mi, I am finally convinced that the standard pillow blocks are not the way to go for supporting the jack shaft! The last set that I put on and greased started making noise at less than 500 miles, and it has become enough of a problem that it is limiting the amount of time that I drive my vehicle.

After comparing the other sets of pillow blocks that I had removed I noticed a pattern. The outer portion of the spherical bearing that allow for ms-alignment were *extremely* loose, and the grease was spewing from this area as well.

I suspect that with the load that they were supporting along with the rotating speed (about 1500rpm highway) that the outer portions of the spherical bearings were rotating (and they should NOT be) only the inner race should be rotating! At least three pillow blocks had the identical problems. You might get by longer with them doing city driving, but once you hit the open road they can't take the load and will always eventually fail!!

Recently I did a lot of searching and research on motorcycles/trikes that use jack shafts and was not surprised to see that most of the applications did not use pillow block bearings. In fact most of them which did have a jack-shaft, configured it so that the jack-shaft did not actually rotate. I also researched to see if there existed a bolt-in replacement that did not use spherical bearings - after a week of looking I could not find one.

No problem - necessity is the mother of invention.  I designed up a suitable bolt-in replacement that instead uses tapered roller bearings! This design also uses two seals on each housing, and a grease zerk fitting on the top side for easy access. You do not have to use spacers to hold the combination pulley in place, but my history has shown that using them is cheap insurance. The nice thing about this design is that if you initially don't use spacers they can always be added later on and all you have to do is change the inside seals!

Here they are after a couple of hours of sanding and polishing:

Finally I had to make up some new spacers for the combination pulley. I had to machine these from some 1" black pipe, the OD of them had to be turned as they will also act as grease seal surfaces. It took about a day or so to get everything to the correct dimensions and allow a little bit of room for slight movement (.020" or so).

It is necessary for these spacers to rotate with the jack-shaft, so I had to mill down some key stock and welded them to the inside of the spacers.

Finally pack the bearings with grease (as well as extra into the bearing housings) and pressed the inside grease seals on.

After a bit of fine tuning I got the jack-shaft reinstalled with the new bearing blocks. I have to say that the jack shaft rotates *extremely* smoothly and quiet as well! Assembly went well, and they are a direct bolt-in replacement for the pillow blocks!

Here are some pictures from various angles showing them installed into the vehicle:

Engine Compartment compartment - Done!

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