Build Blog

29/11/2018

Hi All!

So after a drunken night on Gran Turismo a couple of months ago, My self and 2 friends (all landrover employees) decided it would be a good idea to try and convert an old range rover into a track car! And from what we have found so far, no one has done it! (how hard can it be?)

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks and none of us had managed to talk each other out of it, so we have a car! A 2005 L322 Range Rover Vouge 4.2L V8 Supercharged.

Anyway, we thought we would create somewhere where people can follow our rather stupid encounter, enjoy!

Charlie, Ryan & Simone

31/11/2018

Our logic....

Are we mad? Certainly! but maybe not completely.....

Ok maybe we are just trying to justify our mistake here but here goes. It seems that the formula for a good track car is well practised, start with something light and nimble then add some sticky tyres, big brakes, stiffer anti roll bars and some more power and hey presto! you have some thing fast an fun.

BUT what if you had the opposite approach? start with something like a range rover...

- Mac strut front suspension (like a 911)

- Double wishbone rear (like a F1 Car)

- Huge 4pot brakes from standard

- Huge Anti roll bars from standard

- 400HP!

Just the ridiculously high centre of gravity and the 2640kg (yes, we had it weighed) to fix then! Easy right?.....

09/12/2018

So our plan...

After we got the car we went back to the pub to discuss what the hell to do, this is our rough plan!

- Oil Change

- Benchmarking track day (in completely standard form)

- Lowering (likely by tricking the air suspension for now)

- New wheels and tyres, smaller in OD and with a little less sidewall.

- Some SERIOUS Weight stripping along with some bucket seats.

After this point i think we will have a fairly good idea of the scale of the mistake we have made....

Longer term & bigger budget goals...

- Conversion to manual and likely rear wheel drive (mainly for weight reasons)

- Coil suspension conversion

- Cage

- Power upgrades, supercharger pully etc

- Quicker steering rack of possible.

Also forgot to mention, we completed out first mod! some minor badge changes!!

26/12/2018

We have new wheels and tyres!

HUGEEEE BMW X5 Wheels and tyres are perfect for what we need. 315/35 R 20 11J rears and 275/40 R20s 10J fronts. 60mm a side wider on the rear!

Lots of benefits for us:

Match Land Rover stud paten

Fit fine within axles & body etc (lucky we work in the right place to check all these things before buying)

Smaller OD lowers our gearing by 4.6% which should help loads with acceleration

Smaller OD also lowers the car by 17mm

Smaller side walls should help with roll

Much more tyre choice available on these sizes. (can even get R888R’s, all be it at a slightly smaller OD.)

A bargain at £400 a set with loads of tyre left.

While changing them, we have found some sort of jacking mode where the car lowers itself well below access height, gives us a good idea of what it will look like once finished!

Impressions so far are good, the faster acceleration is noticeable, its quite childishly funny how fast this boat picks up speed. Yet to test it with any anger though any corners, need to fix that roll first!

06/01/2019

Lowering...

Had a successful day today, and achieved all the lowering we could dream of.

In standard form the car has 4 height heights

Access = -40mm = Lifts to standard above 30mph

Speed lowered = -20 (i think) = only happens after going over 60mph for a set amount of time

Standard

off road = +60mm = lowers to standard over 30mph

We found some adjustable height sensor links online that trick the car into thinking its higher than it is.

Adjusted these to 5mm shorter which results in aprox 35mm drop in all ride height conditions...result!

So are new heights are (deltas from standard height out of the factory)

Access = -75mm

Standard = -35mm

Off road = +5mm

Now just the problem of stoping the car lifting and lowering by itself when going over speed thresholds! Tried disconnecting the fuse but it didnt stop it, but the relay in the book worked a treat! We can now set the height we want, pull the relay, and hey presto! It stays how it is! My intent is to link this relay to a switch on the dash soon so we can do it quickly whenever required!

So we can now simply drive to the track in off road mode with the relay disconnected (in ultimate comfort), then switch the relay back on, drop the car to access then switch it back off again, and we are track ready! (a little like a budget ford GT40)

So whats it like in this new -75mm access mode?

COMPLETELY different! Well its now sitting on its spring aids so its super stiff compared to what it was before. Roll has almost completely disappeared (due to the stiffness and lower CoG) but its clearly now massively under damped, very bouncy over bumps. And the understeer is much more obvious now! Likely just because its a lot more confidence inspiring into corners.

Anyway, all in all im really happy with how it is, didn't expect the amount of roll reduction its given!

Its also worth noting that i really wouldn't recommend this amount of ride height reduction! We have lost half the suspension travel in bump, if you were driving like this all the time you will brake something. We have convinced ourselves its "OK" because we can still drive around at a normal height height on the roads, and we shouldn't be hitting too many speed bumps or pot holes on track when its in access mode!

12/01/2019

WOW, piston heads readers car of the week! we didn't see that coming. Thanks for the interest all.

A mini update, new stickers!

We have tracked down some bucket seat mounts for the range (thanks to pistonheads forums) so we should have them soon. Currently working hard on tracking down some seats so we can star stripping down the rest of the inside.

We have also had a little more luck this week, turns out the steering wheel spline is the same as an e46 BMW! WIN WIN, this should make it much easier to get something more track suited as there really is nothing for L322's.

Ryan is going to take a look at the charge cooler pump tomorrow to see if it is wired the wrong way round, this may be our first step towards more reliable power.

And here is a reminder of just how low this thing is now! + one of where we have got to with the inside. It’s just entertaining to look at!

13/01/2019

Hi all!

Ryan has been busy today looking into our supercharger cooling issues!

First check was to see if our charge cooler pump was wired the wrong way round. (pins in the connecter plug the wrong way round)

Turns out it is! This car has done 170k miles with the charge cooling pump flowing in the wrong direction. Anyway, thats now rewired so we are hoping it can handle a little more abuse next time she on track!

While he was under there he has also cleaned out the intake and reset the throttle body. Also removed a big heavy engine NVH cover.

Already feels faster with a shaper throttle, Result!

We also got our new wheel today so hopefully we can get this fitted at the same time as the front interior strip (after we finally track down some cheap bucket seats). Hoping to get some time to work on it this week and then Ryan and Simone are planning on getting some more interesting video footage next weekend, lots to come!

We promise we will look into side exhausts! The public has spoken.

21/01/2019

Hey all!

We have been too quiet for a little while now. While I've been off skiing Ryan and Simone have been doing some great work!

We have managed to track down some HUGE 6 pot brembos from the later range rover, looking forward to fitting these and seeing much more stopping power we have.

They chaps have also been very busy stripping the rest of the cabin, headlining, dash, centre console it's all gone! Also have our new wheel in, e46 bmw wheel boss fits like a dream! (Yet another benefit of our car being developed under BMW ownership).

The gents even had time to cut off the tow bar and surrounding steel work.

Our bucket seat mounts should arrive this week, as soon as we get them in we will go get the "lighter" beast weighed in post fat camp.

27/01/2019

Here is some more (and better) photos of the bucket seats & dash. We are really happy with them.

The smaller steering wheel really transforms diving the car, one tiny step towards nimble.....

30/01/2019

Hey All!

We haven't had much chance to work on the car this week.

The only thing we have managed to do is to wire up our switch to the air suspension relay. What this now allows us to do, is to kill power to the air suspension system with a simple switch on the dash. This means we can now drive around in access height all day without fear of the car raising as soon as we go over 30mph.

We have also planned a couple of outings with the beast. We are going to take the car to "caffeine and machine" this Friday afternoon, its a really cool place and really recommend a visit if your in the midlands.

Hoping to also take it out on our next track day to mallory park on the 24th on march (not booked yet but we are very likely to go)

02/03/2019

We are back! Sorry it's been so long since the last update, we haven't had the time we would like to spend on it recently, hoping for that to change now.

We managed to get a few things done last weekend.

First thing was to plan some intake modifications, currently the intake comes in though a winding path though the wing, then over the top of the hot engine before dropping down the back into the super charger. Our plan is to have some sort or scoop into the back of the engine bay where we will have a filter, ruling out the need for the over the engine route! To make some space we will also need to move the battery to the boot which is probably a good idea anyway.

To plan for space we had to take off the HVAC filter and tray. My gosh this is soooo heavy so that's going to go too!

We also managed to take off the front door cards, side rails and also put the old dash frame back in to give us something to mount switches etc too, it's only plastic so it doesn't weight too much.

We then took the beast for a spin (videos will be on YouTube), tried to turn off the traction control by disconnecting the ABS module, it works........but then wont allow you to get out of first gear.....back to the drawing board.

We have also been having a think about tuning out our understeer......this will follow in a post soon once I've worked out how to properly explain it!

07/04/2019

Hey all, its been a little while, but we have been a little busy with non range racer things.

We managed to get cracking on a few little jobs over the last couple of weekends.

We have taken off the front end in the hunt for more weight to stripp! Found a few more kgs for sure, the car is currently looking a little sorry for itself, dont worry we will put the bumpers and grill back on!

Brakes, a while ago we got some HUGE 6 pots from the later 5L L322 range rover, we finally got round to fitting them. They have slightly different mounting points to the knuckles but luckily ours came complete with knuckles and half shafts.

Getting the old ones off proved interesting…….every fixing is a fight, Man Vs Rust!! One of the damper to knuckle bolts needed a good 30 mins of heat followed by a sledge hammer!

Anyway eventually they all came off, and we are finally starting to put the car back together. We now have the left side back together and will hopefully get the other side done in the week! |They are bigger than axle stands!

14/04/2019

Intake, the L322s intake is great for wading but rather floored for a performance car…..

In standard form, the intake comes in somewhere in the wheel arch, though the front wing, though into the air box. We believe this is to allow any water in the air (from wading) to condense before hitting the air box, but does give a rather restricted path.

Then, from the air box, it air then goes over the top of the engine before dropping into the supercharger at the back of the engine. (getting unnecessarily hot on the way!)

Our plan is to make this far more simple. Have a large cone filter in the rear of the engine bay. In the battery box location, and then a simple pipe running across the back of the engine bay straight into the supercharger.

We will have to move the battery into the back for this but that's a good idea for weight distribution anyway.

Step 2 will likely come in the way of a bonnet scoop to try to force more fresh cool air into the back of the engine bay area.

Fear not, filter for mock up purposes only! It would struggle to filter a coffee without being a bottleneck, so not best suited to a charged 4.2L V8! Bigger one on the way!

18/06/2019

Hey all we are back!

Lots of distractions and lots of slow progress evenings but we have finally got some stuff done, expect a few updates over the next couple of weeks.

While taking off the wheels off for painting. we noticed something strange about the rear anti roll bar drop link.....

The rear ARB had pulled the ball joint out of the drop link! Meaning the rear ARB had not been doing anything.

How many of the cars 170k miles had been without a rear ARB is unknown, but that goes some way to explaining why it has been rolling and under steering so much!

Anyway, new drop link ordered and fitted and we are all good, ish..

In true project car fashion, we fixed one thing and broke another. I somehow managed to damage the rear brake hose during the ARB drop link replacement.

So new rear brake jump hoses were in order too, by the look of the fluid, it was about time the whole system was bled anyway.

10/07/2019

Paddles

So a long time ago we got some puddles finally time to get them on the car.

Mechanical engineers playing with electronics is never a good idea (especially electronics as fragile as a range rovers!) But we got there in the end.

A little playing around with a voltmeter, trying every wire near the gear selector coupled with the wiring diagrams, we eventually found the wires in question, quite simple from the car side.

When in manual mode there is 2 contacts in front and behind the gear selector that sit at 12V, when the selector is moved forward or back it hits the corresponding contact and earths it, when then tells the gearbox to change up or down.

So simply cut the wires going to gear selector and link them though our new paddles to an earth and hey presto! We have some paddles.

Sadly the paddles from a jaguar XF are not as simple as just a push to make switch, so we ended up taking them apart and wiring directly to the switch within the paddle and bypassing the rest of the paddle circuit board.

We then bolted the paddles to the wheel (some finishing here required) and then used a telephone cable between the wheel and the steering column to allow the wires to stretch as we rotate the steering wheel.

The verdict, fantastic. So much more intuitive to change with the paddles rather than a backwards sequential box and the change speed isnt too bad (for an auto), it also pops and bangs when you change down early!!!