A Berkeley with Bite! (ccrunner)

[ccrunner]

July 2018..

With the bottom of the hood clearanced, time to bolt on the airbox base and see how tight it will be.. I trimmed a bit more of the hood away to better see what I'm dealing with.. At this point, the airbox base is hitting the trimmed down hood in 2 places (arrows).. The airbox base must be channeled by at least 1/2".. this was somewhat expected, and now it's confirmed..

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Just for grins, I thought I'd take a few pics of the unmodified airbox lid in place just to illustrate how much this needs to change in order to fit under the Berkeley hood.. An inch is a mile on a microcar, and in this case, that stock Honda lid wants to stick up through the hood by a lot.. I refuse to put some monster bulge/scoop in this slick, low hood, so I'll have to reshape the airbox lid to fit..

The plan is to cut off the stock Honda airbox lid flange (bottom pic), and make a fiberglass airbox lid that anchors into that plastic flange, and contours to my available underhood space... I figure the Honda engineers are much more smarter than I am , so it is my goal to get the airbox volume back up to about where they had it... again, it will be close..

--ccrunner

[MangPong]

I'm glad you're aiming to lower the moat, rather than raise the drawbridge - that airbox really is ugly.
This is a great series of pics, especially for those who don't believe it if there are no photos... and I love the way you've wheeled it all outside to take the sun...
Do you think the poor state of the paintwork is the result of a bad re-spray?

[davew]

[my goal to get the airbox volume back up to about where they had it... ] If you are concerned about the Helmholtz plenum volume, it is not effected by the volume above your air filter. The top half of the air filter case is not seeing a strong induction pulse because the filter element is damping the pulse. Option No. 378, extend the filter case up to the hood, and add a small flange to seal the forward edges and draw in cold air from the back. DaveW

[kreb]

Quite enjoying the log. Not just because my first name is Berkeley! Is there a national database for wrecked motorcycles? I ask because I'm thinking of using a relatively rare motor - A VFR1200 or an Aprilia V4 on a build, and bits seem scarce.

[Reddragon]

CCrunner

Have you thought about doing a scoop some what was like on a 69 Z-28 Camaro?

https://www.google.com/search?q=69+cama ... Q&sa=X&ved

If you kept it as low as possible you could blend it in to the hood you have. Jegs lists one if you are interested.

Red

[ccrunner]

@ManPong.. a bad respray(?)... This body/paint is in VERY bad shape , and I don't know what to attribute it to other than neglect.. She has at least 4(!) layers of paint on her, so surely one or more of them likely started to fail/break down over the years.. Unfortunately, this body sat in the Phoenix Arizona sun from 1967 until just a few months ago, which did this fiberglass no favors.. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do about the body;
-Leave it as-is and join the "patina" movement?
-Strip it and do a proper (albeit difficult) restoration to it?
-Straighten this body and either cover it with a wrap, OR use the straight body to pull molds to make a 'new' body
-Simply use this very, very fragile little body for fabrication, and toss it once done (and replace it with a better body)
...As of today I don't know which direction this will go.. I do know I'm building 2 of these (one for resale), so that may factor in later somehow..

@davew.. Thanks for the info on the Helmholtz issue . I didn't know that the volume pre-filter doesn't matter, which in my specific case will really simplify the work ahead of me as I design and fab a new lid..

@kreb.. maybe one of the guys here can chime in on a source for a bike breaker.. I've tried going on Copart.com, but I've never economically found what I was looking for.. The few times I've sourced a bike, I've just ended up finding what I needed regionally on Craigslist.. About that VFR1200 you seek.. A few years ago I REALLY wanted one of those for a BEC project (a tremendous amount of technology in that bike/dual clutch setup).. anyway, I looked high and low and couldn't find one, so I gave up.. It's odd, because that particular bike tends to be very polarizing- which has no bearing on why aren't they being wrecked/stripped?? Ultimately, it's a BEC motor that deserves serious consideration if you can find one.. If you do get one, I'd recommend you buy the whole bike... would be a bit tough to get to run stand alone if you don't get all of the electronics/sensors in one grab.. To date, I've never seen a VFR1200 in a BEC..

@Reddragon.. You read my mind . My inspiration for what will end up being my Berkeley's cowl induction setup was in fact from the early Camaro shape that you linked.. I drew this into the plan a few pages ago on this build log (pic below).. In my case it's pretty much needed so that I can fit a lid of any shape onto the VFR airbox base, plus I'll get the added bonus of having it be a true cold-air cowl induction functional design that will help this motor breath fresh air.. Berkeley really had it in their hood bulge already, I'm just going to carry it all the way to the rear edge of the hood as Chevy did..

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

A quick addition to the whole hood thing... while getting ready to post an update here, I tripped on this pic simulating the needed hood mod with strategically placed paint stir sticks

Sometimes I think I'm taking too many pics, only to later wish I had a pic of so-and-so.. anyway, another update soon..

-ccrunner

[ccrunner]

July 2018

Next step to squeezing this motor under the hood has me sectioning the front edge of the airbox base by a half an inch (the part of the box that now faces toward the grill of the car).. I left the 'back' of the box (facing the firewall) alone as it did not need to be lowered.. The 'sides' of the box had a shallow "V" shaped section removed to allow the front of the box to drop.. This gave me the precious space needed to clear under the hood.. it is of course tight, and if I need more I can just cheat the motor down a bit, but this should be enough..

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Ok, it fits up top, now time to cut into the firewall a bit and shove it as far back as possible to make room for the Miata steering rack to have room to live on the 'front' of the engine..

The pic of the aluminum just shows that for this design to work, I had to trim Berkeley's design back a bit to allow the engine to nestle as close as possible to the firewall; this bit of trimmed aluminum will be more for aesthetics than strength in this case..

--ccrunner

[ccrunner]

Summer 2018

The next many pics just show the motor being slowly fitted/trimmed into the firewall-- it's a bit of a battle as I need all of the room available inside the car so that I can fit, but the geometry on that steering rack out in front of the engine won't tolerate any fudging.. there will have to end up being a happy medium so that all parties can live with the result

..A few shots include the OEM pedals, which I may (or may not?!) end up using.. shown just for location purposes as they're positioned where Berkeley intended.. Not sure if I'll be able to keep them, as I'm tall and don't know how this is all going to end up once I get a bit farther along in the build..

--ccrunner

[Long John]

I love your builds! Wish I could hang out with you. Lol

[horchoha]

Wow, great progress, wish I could fab (refab) that fast on my current build.

[davew]

Amazing
You are a master of packaging 10lbs into a 5 lbs bag!
DaveW

[Lonnie-S]

Ditto the several comments above. You're really doing a genuine restoration except for the modern engine. It's looking good and very interesting.

Cheers,