Kevin Abbott

It’s back. After 6 years of Kyle owning it, at weekend he gave me first refusal on it. So I bought it back. A quick trip up to Barrow in Furness and a quicker trip back it’s now back with the gang. Dan would of loved that.

Just a bump to this project as a homage to my best mate Daniel Ormerod who helped me on it and helped me in the build as he always said I’ll never have another Manta. Car now owned by a mate Kyle Patterson. RIP Dan. Miss you mate. It’s shit he’s gone.

Baffle plate for the sump from Doug at G19 engineering.

Hello. It’s been a while since I updated. yep. I’m still doing the axle. It’s painted. Rose jointed. In place. I’ve designed some brackets that’s been milled from aluminium to fit the cosworth 4x4 caliper over the evo 300 mm disc. the machinist didn’t do it correctly first time so I have to take it all apart and make it again. It all fits now and I’ve taken out another mortgage to pay for the torques uk an-4 lines and connections. Not sure on the angle of the hand brake cable yet. May have to reverse the calipers. So it’s now nearly done. I’ve made a rose jointed adjustable pan hard rod for it. the issue I see now is room over the axle. It looks really tight and I need a 3” exhaust on it. I’ve had the machinist make an aluminium set of brackets copying the steel ones for the from brembos. also the tarmac bilstiens have been stripped, painted and new stickers applied. Gearbox. I’m using a getrag 265 mated to a Ford T5 bellhousing. I’ve found a local bloke who’s mega into drifting and he was brave enough to TIG the spacer onto the bellhousing and also TIG lumps of aluminium into the bellhousing so I can tap that and use m12 bolts. So the bellhousing is removable. He’s done a great job. Now I can fit that and have a prop made. Then it’s off to zaustworks who have offered to make a full system for the car. Moving to the front. Pedal box. It’s an escort one. Overhung master cylinders. Position is awkward. I’ve removed the original pedal box mount and strengthened part. Bolted the escort one into place. Not sure the position is ok.

Just come back to this topic to update. The last post was from my best mate Dan. God I miss him so much. He always took the piss and said it would never be done. Well Dan. It’s gonna be done. I’ll never get to take you out in it but I’ll always remember you saying it was too complicated 🤪 So. Let’s see the complicated work then. The axle has been a bastard to do. Loads and loads of measurements. Bracket making. Now the brackets are done. The next bit is to send the axle to have the xjs v12 power lock installed into the 4HA. the builder is simply performance. A jag axle specialist. They are taking parts of 3 axles I’m sending and when it comes back it will be a v12 jag power lock in a 4HA live axle. I have a few ratios to choose from 2.88 to 4.2 but I’m going for a 3.54. The upper and lower arms are going for power coat this week. moving onto the shell. Weld seams lightly covered in bikt Hamber seam sealer and a few litres of upol gravitex sprayed on to protect the underneath. Gravitex seems to get a better review than raptor I was going to use. picture dump now as I can’t seem to stager them.

Genius way of marketing a manta and making money. Well done. I’ve bought tickets. The kit fits better than mine. The next manta I sell it’s going to be a raffle like this

Let’s try again 😀 Couple more?

There is a detent ball that is a PITA to get correct. When I took the front off an 1800 box to make an adapter for a 265 there was a spring ball. I have no idea how I would of got that back into place.

So our NW pub meet was on Friday. Big Cliff brought over a 14” 5 stud ronal for me to try my 17” OZ split rim outer hoop onto. you know what? It fitted a treat ! Saturday was more work on the 4HA axle. I have previously made the upper and lower arms. Half shafts needed fitting. Monza studs pressed into the temporary hubs ( i have proper 5x120 hubs from a mk2 jag that are heavily modified ) shafts in. Car turned over. Time to pop the axle into the car. OH MY GOD!!! It’s mega heavy. 3 of us struggled to place it. then we started to bolt it on. hmmmmmm. It’s upside down 🤣 so we flip it ( Dan had gone home by then so it’s just me and Andy ) just about managed to get it over and springs into place. Now we need to work out the angle of the dangle of the shocks and pan hard rod mount. Andrew found a new pan hard rod mount kit so he’s ordered that. Picture dump now 😀 As usual. The website has issues. Maybe it’s me ? No pics will upload

He says it is a full car with all the parts, a good spares car or cheap build

Hi mate. I will get some measurements done this week. I tried in the 11" in the 400 arch and i think it's too wide. Big Cliff did ask what tyres I was going to use and I have no idea 😆 10 inch rear and 8 inch front was the correct factory ronal 5 stud

More work on the rear arches. Honestly it’s been the hardest part of the build to date. I wanted the rear arches to be removable. No idea why. But let’s crack on. Setting the position of the rear arch was made by the front wing and side skirt that’s as straight as a dogs back leg. Arch screwed in place using self drilling deck screws. the drivers side is a brand new rear 1/4. Currently worth a grand. So let’s cut it up. Previously I’ve added big head fasteners to the reverse flange. A complete arse as every single one needs cutting to shape and a slot made to place it. Arch into place and I made a scribe tool to mark the slots / holes onto the car. The other side I did similar but didn’t open up the body holes enough and the kit was absolutely stuck. It was a complete bastard to remove!!! The arch extension template from one side was transferred to the other. Once the holes are drilled into the rear 1/4s ( bigger than I want but due to bolt orientation that’s what I have to live with the big head fasteners are glassed into place. Today I have been looking at the split rims. I wanted to build some split rims Ronals. But now not sure it’s achievable. so I’ve dug out all my OZ barrels to see if I can build some split rim 5x120 hartges. I snapped 2 crappy Chinese laser sockets just buzzing the bolts off. FFS. Chinese shite. The rears I’m looking at should be 10”. I built these quick from the barrels and fronts I had at 11”. I should be able to build a proper set of 10” back and 8 or 9” fronts from want I have.

When I went to see Ray many years ago with an engine build he told me he still had the manta, I wonder if he still has it? I've never seen soooooo much 400 engine stuff squirreled away under benches in my life

Yep the brakes are done. 305 m3 discs, 4 pot brembo calipers. If you can dig out the model of that titan centric release clutch bearing I'd appreciate it too😀

I've never noticed that before? Possibly just on 400s?