Other Bits

My parents kindly got me a fuel filler for my birthday, so I ordered up the windscreen wiper assembly, windscreen washer, headlights, and front indicators. I'm still undecided about how I want the rear to look like so I'm avoiding ordering anything for the rear just now.



An IVA requirement is that the fuel cap must either lock in such a way that it is not possible to remove the key with the cap off the vehicle, or be physically tethered to the car. My cap locks but you can remove the key when it is unlocked, so I have secured mine using a small chain designed for holding a plug to a sink.

Bling Interior

I had a chat with MSAR safety about seats and other safety bits. I ordered two Tillet B4 seats in carbon fiber, a gas based fire extinguisher, a steering wheel, and Scroth Profi 6-II 6 point seat belts.

I chose the latter because its tried and tested in the fury, and it has adjusters which can be tightened by pulling towards or away from the body. In the seven the lap belts are very awkward to tighten because you have to pull down into the seat, whereas it would be much easier to pull upwards.

I went for the gas extinguisher because it was light, and does not leave any residue or mess to clean up should I have to pull the cord.

Prop Shafts

Should arrive early next week, Dunning and Fairbank shipped on friday, these were a few weeks late, it is holiday season, and they did say when I put the order through that it might take up to two weeks. Something that does bug me though is that I always feel like I'm the one that has to do all the chasing. If they had just phoned me up after a week or 10 days and said it was going to be another 2 weeks I'd have been absolutely fine with it. Instead I had to phone up every few days asking if it was done, and then another few times to confirm it was ready for shipping.

To be fair, Michael always answered the phone and was very polite and helpful, and did seem to pick up the pace a bit once it was ready, but it would have been nice to have a phone call to say it was going to be longer earlier rather than once it was overdue.

They eventually arrived and are just the right size, and look well made.

Electrical Wiring

I fitted the ECU, i opted to put it behind the scuttle as this is just the right distance to allow me to leave the shielded cables untouched as they are just the right length. I've trimmed the remaining wires down to size. I connected up the battery to it temporarily, the engine spins over but I get no fault code on the display, so I think i've really broken the wiring. At best it might be i've missed a wire to the ECU that the display needs, but knowing my luck, its more likely to be something more complex.

On further investigation there is now power to the power commander so I suspect I've made a dogs breakfast out of the various live circuits somewhere.

Oiling

Got the new gaskets installed and the sump torqued up, my oil sender take off arrived but it doesnt fit as its too wide and fouls the pipes on the engine, instead I'll use the oil pressure test hole at the end of the block, but i need to work out the thread and get an adaptor made up.

I've put off filling it with oil for now in case I need to drain it to fit the adaptor, but will probably cave in the end when I get the wiring sorted out.

Cooling System

Finished off the cooling system, managed to find the bleed T eventually, and filled with cooling fluid. About bottle in I started to get wet feet, literally. I then remembered that there was an air bleed pipe coming off the block near the sprocket. Its a pain in the ass to get to which is why I hadn't put a pipe on it earlier. I mopped up and put the pipe on - Its blocked off on my installation as there is a more convenient place to fit the air bleed.

The next day i noticed some water on the floor, but i couldn't find where it came from, i topped it up and pressurized the system with an air line. I found the leak was coming from the solenoid on the heater valve. Its a brand new part apparently, oh well. The pipes are *tight* because they are 13mm so I took out the solenoid and had a look, it has an O-ring and this is no doubt not sealing properly. I decided that the only likely cure would be over liberal use of silicon sealant so got completely covered in goo. Sadly it made no difference so it could be a crack, or not enough goo. I gave up and ordered another one.

The reason I'm using this heater valve is that it is electric and doesn't disturb the flow when its switched off, this is ideal as any valve type controls are going to look out of place in the car. I will have a switch to turn on the hot air, in the seven I'm either roasting because its hot outside and the engine is acting as a giant space heater by heating up all the metal around me. Alternatively its a nice day but freezing cold in which case a heater would be nice, I suspect the fury will be the same therefore I'm not too worried about climate control I expect when i want to use the heater, I'll want all the hot air I can get.

Fuel Injection

I've never been completely happy with the Weber setup I have, its been very hard to get it properly tuned here in the Netherlands, there are not a lot of rolling roads available, and prices are expensive, also each change requires new jets, and associated fittings, the cost of this adds up very quickly.

When I first fitted the carbs, I let Speed On fit the jets and adjust the pressure, this resulted in an idle of 2000rpm, air leaks, and fuel pouring out of the rubbers. I then fixed the mess and fitted smaller idle jets which made it more drivable. From there I went to Hot Rod who spent a few hours balancing the carbs and adjusting the jets, however its still not quite on.

1) At idle, the fueling is very rich, this results not only in a bad smell
2) At sustained high RPM (IE Vmax) I get fuel starvation at around 200kph, this is very inconvenient, although more related to the fueling setup than the carbs.
3) There are a few flat spots and it does bog down quite a bit accelerating from low RPMs at medium to high engine loads.
4) Fuel economy, now whilst I didn't buy a car like this for its fuel economy, I'm getting somewhere between 11l/100km cruising to 17l/100km at higher speeds (above 110kmh) and when driving briskly. What I'm really expecting, is somewhere in the region of 8-10l/100 when cruising and 10-13l/100km when driving briskly. Its a light car, albeit not a very aerodynamic one, but should be capable of good fuel economy. This is also represented in the performance. David Ashurst is getting 150bhp at the wheels from his cross flow, he has a much more larey camshaft, but similar sized cylinder head. My setup should be capable of around 130hp with proper fueling, so I'd like to get this sorted out.

Subsequently it is time to go fuel injection, whilst in theory there should be no difference between carbs and fuel injection as far as peak power is concerned. FI has significant advantages over traditional carburation.

1) Air/Fuel ratio can be altered electronically, this makes tuning much simpler, rather than have to order jets, fit them, test them, and order more new jets, I can simply adjust a setting in software.
2) There are a plethora of settings on a DCOE all slightly related to each other, and all with a profound effect on fueling and performance, however ultimately a carb is a huge compromise. There are three main ranges of adjustment, Idle, Progression, and WOT, at the ends of each phase AFR tends to be far from perfect. FI will provide much more fine tuning.
3) Fuel economy can be improved in a few ways with fuel injection, for example by cutting the fuel on over run.

There are a couple of logical routes to fuel injection. The two logical ones being expensive and easy, or cheap and complicated. I've veered somewhat towards the expensive and easy option.

Looking at a thread on the megasquirt forums, http://www.msefi.com/viewtopic.php?t=6627 detailing the various sizes of motorcycle throttle bodies, I proceeded to order a set of GSXR 600 throttle bodies, these seem to be fairly well matched, with a 45mm internal ID. I also ordered a set of mounting rubbers, these have a rubber clamp on one side and a mounting flange on the other. I'm hoping that I can mount the flanges directly to the existing manifold, in doing so I can then respace the throttle bodies out to suit.

The fuel rail is cast aluminum, so I shall cut it where required, enlarge the hole in the casting to accept a pipe, and use duraweld aluminum brazing rods to seal it up.

I will install a swirl pot on the engine bay in place of the current fuel pressure regulator, the output from which shall go to a high pressure pump, and then to the fuel rail. The return from the pressure regulator will go to the swirl pot.

I'm most likely going to use megasquirt to control the fuel system, using the existing EDIS installation that has proven to work well for ignition. The functionality provided by the megajolt will be provided instead by the megasquirt unit. I will use a throttle position sensor (TPS) rather than the Manifold Absolute Pressure (MAP) sensor I currently use.

I will also permanently fit the LC-1. I had originally planned to keep this as a hand held device, but this is needed with the mega squirt both for initial tuning, and for ongoing adjustment of the Air/Fuel Ration (AFR) as I drive.

In order to make the installation nicer, I shall cut down the wiring for the LC1 so that it is a more manageable length, however I shall leave a longish tail for the gauge so that I may connect it up to provide a visual indication of AFR as required.

Prop Shafts

Phoned Dunning and Fairbank about the prop shafts, latest estimate is early next week.  This reminded me I need to order some high grade bolts to install them with, so will put an order in at Namrick later.

Fuel Injection

Decided to go for Megasquirt and bike throttle bodies on the seven.  Whilst fitting this I will solve the oil leak.  This is a nice project, and saves faffing around with new engines.  Should increase fuel economy.

I've had some issues with the seven over the last few hundred miles, they are:

• Grinding noise I can't place that I'm sure never used to happen, possibly from rear wheel, bearing perhaps.
  
• Starter motor failing - it grinds now as well as jams, so need a replacement or recondition this one.
  
• Oil leaking out of oil pump - seems to have a crack somewhere, very annoying as its new.
  
• Oil leaking out of sump - noticed some spots on the ground before i'd actually started the engine so can only assume its leaking out the sump somewhere.
  
• Oil possibly leaking out of main seal - need to confirm this.
  

I want to get the car ship shape for a road trip this year, planning on using bike throttle bodies and megasquirt. For the conversion I will need:

• Fuel Pump - generic injection pump, 8mm push on tails if possible.
• Pre-pump filter - sytec generic one
• Swirl Pot - low pressure feed in, no return (will get one blanked off in case it causes problems.) return from regulator, feed to high pressure pump.
• Throttle bodies - not sure which ones yet, preferably individual units with 38mm bore and largish injectors, single butterflies and a sensible looking airbox.
• Manifold - I will hopefully use my existing one if I can.

The existing DCOE manifold will be cut down, I will then make the ends match the diameter of the hose required to connect the two, if needed I will make some ali inserts that are completely round if I can't get a seal.  I will use alutight or other ali weld to seal the joint. 

I want to use a throttle body with built in regulator, vacuum take off, and TPS.

Needs to be done in the next 6 weeks or so.

Body arrived

Collected the bodywork, tank, driveshafts and the orders I put in at Demon-Tweeks and Rally Design, the immobilizer from Ebay arrived too, however the elbows from SFS Performance are another story, I phoned on Thursday and they had been shipped, however what they didnt tell me at the time is that they shipped to the invoice address which is in Scotland. Oh well, Dad is going to send them out to me.

In the mean time I've got the tank in, but I can't find the manual for the fuel sender which gets shortened and adjusted, but I can't remember which way around it needs to be assembled.

Driveshafts are in, but I didnt have a suitably large socket, so I've ordered a 40mm one from ebay which should fit the nuts.  These need to be tightened to 220Nm or in other words Really Really F. Tight. (RFT.) 

I put in the tubing for the electrical cables, i ran a spur to each side which meets in the gap in front of the tank.  I then bonded in the boot floor.

Plumbing for the fuel lines is completed at the rear, the tank has a breather and return at the top, the breather goes up a little to the one way valve, and then down again, exiting at floor level - I will install a grommit or something in the floor for this when I panel it.

The return goes up from the copper pipe and straight in.  The feed goes along under the diff and round 180 degrees into the filter which is mounted in the diff housing where I can get it out the side.  It then goes under the tank and into the fuel pump, and out the pump up and into the copper pipe to the front.

Things to do right now are:

• Torque up the rear hub nuts
  
• Get the rear tub on properly, it needs trimming and fitting.
  
• Remove the exhaust and fit the side-pods
  
• Check and adjust the engine position as required.
  
• Refit the exhaust, check that its not fouling anything, fit the bracket properly.
  
• Cover the exhaust and side-pod with heat insulation stuff
  
• Phone Dunning and Fairbanks and find out what has happened to my prop shafts, fit them.
  
• Fit the heater matrix
  
• Plumb the cooling system with the elbows, 
  
• Sort out the clutch now I have the bolt
  
• Fit the replacement oil pipe
  
• Connect up the wiring, add a little fuel and see if I can start the beast, and have the first drive out the garage.
  

That should keep me going for a while