Bit of a lack of progess over the last couple of days as eldest boy had his birthday so we all went bowling, which was a bit of a laugh, and I've been had by a bug that seems to have laid up quite a few people over the festive period. Quite amusing that I caught a bug shortly after seeing I Am Legend (which I'd recommend to everyone).
I've nearly finished rewiring the loom and have just received an email from Emerald explaining to a simple sole like me how the trigger wheel is fitted.
The throttle potentiometer is nearly attached - just need to replace a bolt that got lost, and I managed to fit the MAP sensor to the bulkhead. The connection to the plenum will be sorted out in the next day or so hopefully. This connection will be shared with the fuel pressure regulator.
I'm hoping I have a spare crank pulley lying around somewhere. If so it'll mean I can look at fitting the trigger wheel to that; making that part of the build a simple replacement, rather than remove, markup, modify and reattach.
Anyway, there you go, first post of 2008. May it bring health, wealth and happiness to us all.
Monday 31 December 2007
Saturday 29 December 2007
One of the jobs I'm not really looking forward to is modyfing the Rover injection loom. For starters, half the wires are not required, most will have the wrong "ends" on the them, then there is the resistor pack for the injectors. Being an old type injection set up, the injectors are low resistance (meaning about 2.5 Ohms, compared to around 15 Ohms). This in itself is not a problem, until (if like me and are fairly clueless as to how injection works) you try and figure out how they work. One Rover loom:
From what I can make out the injectors are (when ignition is on) always live, but only when the ECU earth the circuit do they actually do anything, rather than current being supplied by the ecu, and earthing elsewhere on the other side of the injector circuit.
Anyway, this afternoon, I've mostly been trying to mount the air temperature sender. This needs to be in the plenum to give a true reading. Don't forget turbos can heat the compressed air considerably, so sender has to be engine side of intercoolers. Also managed to sort out the throttle position switch, which involved making a piece up connect switch with throttle butterfly.
I didn't really want to take the plenum and all the gubbins that goes with it off; so on the offside the are several screw in parts that were originally used for brake servo vacuum etc. I took one of the hollow bolts out, drilled and tapped, then shortened both threaded part and bolt head so my sender pokes through into clear air. It looks as if a certain Heath Robinson Esq was involved, but I'm sure it'll be fine.
This is all that's left of the Rover loom - the resistor pack and injector wires. I also need to include the air temp sendor, map sensor, water temp (will use Rover jobby), throttle position sensor (potentiometer).
That big black thing on top of the engine is the intercooler - don't worry, it'll be fully ducted.
This here is a pic (centre fitting) of the air temp fitting crafted earlier today. It's airtight so we should be ok!Here's a couple of pics of the layout - this one is obvioulsy from the front of the car and you can see that the plenum is now rear entry rather than the previous efforts. The intercooler is connected to the back, with air entry to each side:
This is the offside turbo - you can see how tight it is - I've had to run of of turbo air pipes round a chassis diagonal. This may require additional engine bracing if air pipe keeps getting knocked off. The steering column will have heat protection - the exhaust will be wrapped, and there may be a heat shield with dedicated cold air feed. Not sure yet.
I've had to do some fairly drastic mods to the bodywork to cover the above, and as there will be a lot of heat, had to be creative in methods of dissipation. The whole panel has been moved out at rear by about 3". The front side scoop has one of the air filters under it - same for other panel. This pretty much guarantees cold air for engine.
Anyway, got to go!
Had to call Emerald a day or so back as I decided that the throttle position sensor I was going to use (of the original Land Rover or SD1) , was a going to be inconvenient to use as I'd have inconsitent wiring colours. I also needed an air temperature sensor, which I'd omitted in my original order.
Turns out ordering the TPS was the right thing to do, as no sooner had I started comparing the two potentiometers, two of the wires in the old unit came adrift where they enter the unit rendering it useless. It's also now one less thing to cause concern for possible breakdowns in the future:)
Anyway, here's a pic of the dual entry manifold I made. You can see the throttle linkage on the far side. I would have needed to make another for top left of pic which need to be liked. Nightmare!
This is what the general layout was going to look like:
I didn't use the Rover manifolds either - they were from a P6, but turbos were too low - hitting the lower chassis rails and not enough drop from the the turbo oil drains to the sump.
Turns out ordering the TPS was the right thing to do, as no sooner had I started comparing the two potentiometers, two of the wires in the old unit came adrift where they enter the unit rendering it useless. It's also now one less thing to cause concern for possible breakdowns in the future:)
Anyway, here's a pic of the dual entry manifold I made. You can see the throttle linkage on the far side. I would have needed to make another for top left of pic which need to be liked. Nightmare!
This is what the general layout was going to look like:
I didn't use the Rover manifolds either - they were from a P6, but turbos were too low - hitting the lower chassis rails and not enough drop from the the turbo oil drains to the sump.
Ended up making some from Schedule 40 butt weld tube. It's about 4mm thick 316 stainless, so should be more than up to the job.
I add a few more pics over the next couple of instments, just to bring you up to date. Gotta go now, need some heatshrink, and swimbo's just got back from shopping.
Wednesday 26 December 2007
Deimos Evolution
Hi,
A quick intro, then more about what this blog is all about!
My name is Simon and I live in the South East of England with the wife, two sons and a couple of cats.
This blog is all about the evolution of Deimos, my toy car (if you're wondering where the name came from, it's the name of one of Mars' moons, and it means "panic", appropriate I thought). Deimos was started on the 6th July 2002 based on the plans and ideas set out in Ron Champion's book "Build Your Own Sportscar for £250". Ok, so the budget didn't quite work out, but the car did.
If you're unfamiliar with the book, I'll tell you it's about building a Lotus 7 style car without the Caterham type budget. The book has drawings, pictures and suggestions (based on several cars built by the author) for getting your own car on the road.
Now, there is no way I could afford to justify another expense to the wife of say a new Caterham, Westfield or Dax Rush, much as I'd like one sitting in my garage. However, the cost of building a car over three years with the annual price of a golf club membership might be possible.
Anyway, to move things on a bit quicker, I bought the book, got a donor and stripped it over a weekend. Bought 40+ metres of 16swg steel tube, an 8' x 4' sheet of mdf for building on, and on 2/7/02 starting cutting and welding. I had a rolling chassis in a fortnight, and on 3rd January 2006the car was registered and legal. It had cost slightly over £3,000 and that included all the legal costs (ie the SVA test and retest, insurance and a year road tax) and a couple of things I bought that were wrong or rubbish!.
Now, in the best traditions of people who like nothing more than to get something that works perfectly fine, working finer(!), I decided that the car needed more power (it has a 3.5l Rover V8 engine, LT77 gearbox and Sierra based (3.92:1 diff/driveshafts; homemade 'bones and uprights).
So in the April of 2006, I acquired a pair of KKK 03 turbos (from an Audi S4, the owner had upgraded to KKK 04, a popular mod I gather), a pair of Renault 5 GT Turbo interccolers, an injection plenum, manifold, fuel rails, injectors, loom, ECU, some stainless steel for new exhuast system etc etc.
On the 16th October 2006, I made a start by cutting a bllody great hole in the bonnet as somehow, I'd need to replace the SU carbs with the injection hardware.
After the hole was cut, all the non injection bits and pieces were removed and replaced for trial fitting. Bear in mind the Rover plenum and manifold is actually quite tall, and I didn't want too much sticking throught the bonnet.
After much umm ing and rrr ing, I decided it was way too tall and with the help of a friend machined about 1/2" from manifold, same from plenum base and 1/4" from plenum.
Those in the know also know that the plenum is side entry and I decided was also unacceptable, so acquired a second plenum. During a moment of madness, I made a dual entry manifold - one each side, but decided a) it was massive, b) didn't allow room for intercoolers, c) found out someone else had done the same thing, and was having trouble getting it runniing right abd finally d), decided that the throttle linkage would be an absolute nightmare.
In the end I made up a rear entry unit.
I then took the two intercoolers apart and joined them together to make a large dual entry, single exit intercooler. This is mounted to the rear of the plenum, with both inlets slightly downturned toward the turbos.
The turbos themselves are attached to homemade stainless manifolds and are connected to the rest of the exhaust. The oil and water feeds/returns are in and connected up, though I have a slight leak on one of the oil feeds, so I'll have to replace the pipe before I run it properly.
That's as far as I've got so far suffice to say that the next few instalments will be about me trying to wire up the new Emerald ECU and finally getting it running again. The six week project is now into its 14th month:)
A quick intro, then more about what this blog is all about!
My name is Simon and I live in the South East of England with the wife, two sons and a couple of cats.
This blog is all about the evolution of Deimos, my toy car (if you're wondering where the name came from, it's the name of one of Mars' moons, and it means "panic", appropriate I thought). Deimos was started on the 6th July 2002 based on the plans and ideas set out in Ron Champion's book "Build Your Own Sportscar for £250". Ok, so the budget didn't quite work out, but the car did.
If you're unfamiliar with the book, I'll tell you it's about building a Lotus 7 style car without the Caterham type budget. The book has drawings, pictures and suggestions (based on several cars built by the author) for getting your own car on the road.
Now, there is no way I could afford to justify another expense to the wife of say a new Caterham, Westfield or Dax Rush, much as I'd like one sitting in my garage. However, the cost of building a car over three years with the annual price of a golf club membership might be possible.
Anyway, to move things on a bit quicker, I bought the book, got a donor and stripped it over a weekend. Bought 40+ metres of 16swg steel tube, an 8' x 4' sheet of mdf for building on, and on 2/7/02 starting cutting and welding. I had a rolling chassis in a fortnight, and on 3rd January 2006the car was registered and legal. It had cost slightly over £3,000 and that included all the legal costs (ie the SVA test and retest, insurance and a year road tax) and a couple of things I bought that were wrong or rubbish!.
Now, in the best traditions of people who like nothing more than to get something that works perfectly fine, working finer(!), I decided that the car needed more power (it has a 3.5l Rover V8 engine, LT77 gearbox and Sierra based (3.92:1 diff/driveshafts; homemade 'bones and uprights).
So in the April of 2006, I acquired a pair of KKK 03 turbos (from an Audi S4, the owner had upgraded to KKK 04, a popular mod I gather), a pair of Renault 5 GT Turbo interccolers, an injection plenum, manifold, fuel rails, injectors, loom, ECU, some stainless steel for new exhuast system etc etc.
On the 16th October 2006, I made a start by cutting a bllody great hole in the bonnet as somehow, I'd need to replace the SU carbs with the injection hardware.
After the hole was cut, all the non injection bits and pieces were removed and replaced for trial fitting. Bear in mind the Rover plenum and manifold is actually quite tall, and I didn't want too much sticking throught the bonnet.
After much umm ing and rrr ing, I decided it was way too tall and with the help of a friend machined about 1/2" from manifold, same from plenum base and 1/4" from plenum.
Those in the know also know that the plenum is side entry and I decided was also unacceptable, so acquired a second plenum. During a moment of madness, I made a dual entry manifold - one each side, but decided a) it was massive, b) didn't allow room for intercoolers, c) found out someone else had done the same thing, and was having trouble getting it runniing right abd finally d), decided that the throttle linkage would be an absolute nightmare.
In the end I made up a rear entry unit.
I then took the two intercoolers apart and joined them together to make a large dual entry, single exit intercooler. This is mounted to the rear of the plenum, with both inlets slightly downturned toward the turbos.
The turbos themselves are attached to homemade stainless manifolds and are connected to the rest of the exhaust. The oil and water feeds/returns are in and connected up, though I have a slight leak on one of the oil feeds, so I'll have to replace the pipe before I run it properly.
That's as far as I've got so far suffice to say that the next few instalments will be about me trying to wire up the new Emerald ECU and finally getting it running again. The six week project is now into its 14th month:)
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