Sparky's winter/spring/summer/autumn work

Its going to be interesting to see how the VE numbers in the fuel table change with the mods!

The fuel rail temp sensor just screws into the rail. The bung it goes into is blind, so it is not actually in contact with any fuel, and the sensor itself looks just like a water temp sensor one where it has a solid brass body.

I don't envy you with the cam break in, its very nerve wracking!
 
One job I was intending to do was to re-adjust the crank sensor. When I originally fitted it, I was also fitting a whole host of other stuff, so put up with the fact was it wasn't just so. The bolt head and washer on the sensor touches the power steering bracket and doesn't allow the sensor to point directly at the toothed wheel, it's a few degrees out

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Viewed from above the bracket sits between the toothed wheel and the fan belt pulley.

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Not ideal, but it works well and has done for five years now. I do think just trimming the bracket and filing a bit off the bolt head may just tidy it up though.

I cut the edge off the washer, then smoothed the bolt head so I had a slight gap between the head and steering bracket. Cut the ends off the sensor bracket so it gets nowhere near the front pulley, and ended up with this

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The gap should be between 0.5mm and 0.75mm, and now measures 0.65mm, so good to go :)

When the top of the plenum was off the car, I checked to see how close I get to WOT with my home made throttle stop. It was almost spot on, so with a bit of filing it now is dead right. Might as well get that little attention to detail when the opportunity arises.

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All water, vacuum and fuel hoses at the rear of the engine connected up, throttle linkage all set up, coil brackets refitted, trumpet base sealed and fitted.

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Then top of plenum on, coils fitted and wired up to the EDIS, throttle linkage completed, plenum heater hoses connected, all wiring tidied and in place.

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I just need to fit the radiator and front hoses, pop the plugs in and he should start :cool: - I have spun the engine on the starter but only a couple of turns to check it all spins ok. I have fuel and oil pressure, so getting quite exciting now. I must remember to drop into the petrol station and grab a couple of gallons on the way to work tomorrow.
 
Well that was fun :)

Rad is in, all hoses connected and the huge Revotec fan back in and wired.

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I pushed him over to a fire escape and rigged up a rudimentary extraction system for the exhaust as well as a large fan to keep him cooler during the 20 minute scary bit.

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I had picked up 10 Litres of Esso yum yum on the way to work, the super stuff without Ethanol so was ready to go. He fired up straight away but only for a second or two. Tried again with the same effect :(

After a few more tries, I realised there was something wrong, but what? I took the extraction off, no difference, dropped the fuel table a point at a time, no change, put the table up a few points, no change.

I checked all of the plugs in the EFI wiring loom and found the one on the crank sensor had pushed the connection out of the back when I pushed it onto the sensor. So, ten minutes later and rewired, back together, no difference whatsover, still fired up readily then died in a second.

The spark plugs were a little sooty, so I am thinking he may be running too rich but the engine starts, just not for more than a second or two?

Pushed him back into the garage bit and went home :hmm:

I'll get there :) he did sound nice when he did fire up.
 
Had a good look at Tunerstudio last night. This is the software on my laptop which tunes the Megasquirt ECU on the car.

I haven't touched the tuning since I last drove the car, so it should be as I left it, and although the tune will now change a bit because of the cam and ported heads, it should still have started and just needed to be tweaked a bit. Confusingly I found this. The box at the top is the required fuel calculator which you just fill in and then tunerstudio uses this information and a lot of other stuff, to work out how long to open the injector for. The injector flow on the last injectors were around 200 cc/min, so why is it set here at 160 lb/hour? This equates to 1680 cc/min, where the actual figure for the new injectors is 230 cc/min. Tunerstudio is therefore expecting more than seven times the amount of fuel than its getting from the injectors.

When I loaded tunerstudio last week, a little box popped up and asked if I wished to get a software update - it was free so would be rude not to ;), BUT! did it reset the injector flow to a default? No idea how it got changed, but good job I spotted it though, that could have kept me busy for weeks.

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I reset it to 230 cc/min, loaded it onto the ECU, and vroom, started up straight away :D

Twenty minutes later, scary bit over, and cam bedded in. I adjusted the fuel table manually just to get the AFR down a bit as it was up around 16 or so, and I didn't want a lean mixture in my new engine :). Three leaks detected, all from old jubilee clips not doing up properly, so changed them, then drove up and down the car park a few times.

Front wings back on, no leaks, everything looks good. Tickover is a bit lumpy at the moment, possibly due to being off tune, or maybe newness, or the high lift cam, who knows? - time for some tuning.

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All back together now, and have been out for a 25 mile cruise around.

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Still a bit lumpy on tickover and stalled a couple of times at junctions, so I need to go back to the beginning with the tuning, and set up the tickover first. Problem is, the manifold pressure at tickover is now between 55 and 60, where it used to be between 35 and 40, so engine vacuum has dropped ?

First job will be to check for any leaks, ensure the butterfly closes completely, test the PWM and hoses, block off the brake servo, and try to get the vacuum back up. V8D tell me the high lift cam shouldn't make that much difference, so a good check on other things first, then set up the tickover.

Engine is super smooth though :cool:, although I haven't been above 3,000rpm yet, got some running in to do first.
 
Sounds like good progress! EFI is wonderful in that it is so easy to tune, but that can also catch you out too with updates etc changing stuff. Well done on spotting that the req_fuel was off. Big relief when the cam is bedded in too.

Loss of vacuum at idle sounds strange - is it ticking over at a lower rpm than before?

*edit - could you have air leaks around the injector o-rings?
 
Tickover is between a 700 & 800 so about the same as before, so not that.

I won't have the time to look at it until at least Tuesday so not sure what's causing the low vacuum, but I will be checking all the usual suspects. I doubt if the lower injector seals would be the problem as they're all new, but I will check them to make sure.
 
Hi Rich, hope the car is going well ! I've just had my block back from a full rebuild & had both surfaces skimmed hence all four locating dowels were removed, I need to replace them, I see your new ones , where did you get them ? many thanks Damian.
 
DamianZ28 said:
Hi Rich, hope the car is going well ! I've just had my block back from a full rebuild & had both surfaces skimmed hence all four locating dowels were removed, I need to replace them, I see your new ones , where did you get them ? many thanks Damian.
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Mine were mangled in the removal process, so V8D provided me with some roll pins to suit. Apparently, they are easier to remove when you need to.
 
I’ve covered 750 miles now, oil changed from the thin watery running in stuff to some 20 50 valvoline at 600.

The engine is loosening up nicely and I’m slowly increasing the revs up to 5,000.

It’s not easy getting the auto tune working at higher revs though as you are moving rather quickly and the local plod wouldn’t be amused, so I talked a local chap with a rolling road into letting me sit in the passenger seat with a laptop while he stamped on the pedals.

5,000 revs in 4th is 125mph , which is a bit scary.

We ran a couple of WOT runs, kept the revs high under lower throttle settings, played around with different engine loads around the 4,000 to 4,500 band, and spent some time coming off of cruise which had been causing a slight hesitation.

I still have acceleration enrichment and cold start to fine tune, but most of it is now running nicely and so smooth

Although I really didn’t wish to take the motor above 5,000rpm, it would be rude not to have a bit of a power run as I was already on a rolling road.

He backed off the throttle at 4,923rpm and recorded 265.8bhp and 284lb/ft of torque. (edited for typo)

That was a bit of a shock as I was secretly hoping for 250

So, what’s he going to do at 5,500 when loosened up a bit more - time will tell, where’s my Santa pod season ticket
 
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Numbers to be proud of, especially that torque :thumb: you might want some more rubber on the rear with that and the Powerlok for Santa Pod :D
 
Richard
That torque figure would match the bhp figure of 265 bhp if it were 284 lb/ ft.
Typo maybe ?
You know I am genuinely interested and not poo pooing at all.
Having said that, if max torque was around 3650 rpm that would work out.
I hope it is right, that’s amazing.
Remind us what cam is in there.
 
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cobraboy said:
Richard
That torque figure would match the bhp figure of 265 bhp if it were 284 lb/ ft.
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D'oh! well spotted

I'll change that to 284 as it should be. My laptop battery was dead from the mapping so I had to post that on my phone :)

His printer had burned out so I had to take a pic of the screen with my phone.

They're Warrior heads and a Stealth cam

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Well that ties up with the figures I got from the old blue meanie. I can tell you, you wont be disappointed with that, and are going to have a lot of fun :thumb:
 
Ah the difference did seem unusual but thought you’d maybe found an unusually good combination of parts!
Great numbers nonetheless :cool:
 
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