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Mike K's '79 242 Barn Car Revival

Well for better or worse I've spent way more time the past several weeks driving than in the garage! That means no big "wow" progress to show, but I've made some incremental steps that have really seen the 2.0 revision of the car coming together.

The microsquirt and crank sensor deal has been a complete non-issue since I last posted. I haven't had any problems starting the car, and I have not had a single sync loss event driving. I'm not sure why the cranking cleaned up, but I've started it dozens and dozens of times without a problem. I've also bumped off of my 6850 rev limiter with no problems.

The way I have the thing wired seems to be unique to my setup at this point - the couple other guys doing this have the +/- flipped from what I have, and have needed shunt resistors to get a full rev range. For posterity, my Volvo CPS connector is wired to a DIY autotune microsquirt harness as follows;

VR1+ to pin 1
VR1- to pin 2
Shield to pin 3

NO resistors in play anywhere. Seems to be the ticket for me. I wonder if the other guys flipped theirs if they'd still find the need for resistors?

At any rate, that issue is sorted and allowed me to move on to the tune. I've still got Kenny engaged helping me out with maps, and we went back and forth a lot on this trying to get the thing pulled in line. I was having a lot of trouble getting the car to run smoothly, all of my low throttle cruising driving was in the 11-12:1 AFR range, really really rich. Then under load it'd bog down rich, then spike up lean. It was basically wrong in every condition, but the car was still drivable at least. We went back and forth until the lean spike was more under control and I tried to add a few pounds of boost in. At 15psi it was detonating like crazy... ugh! At this point I was getting pretty frustrated, as I really wanted to be moving on to other things with the car. I sent another log off to Kenny and kind of threw my hands up in the air. He wrote back and said "hey it's only making like 11psi, do you live at high altitude?". That was the tip I needed!

I had been looking at logs and gauges but I was too hung up on AFRs and didn't PAY ATTENTION to my MAP line. Thanks to Kenny's kick in the pants I looked at what the kPa value really meant and yeah... donde esta mi boosto?? As soon as I saw it I knew that was going to be some kind of answer. I put my Motiv Powerbleeder on the MAP sensor and put a steady 15psi into it... wouldn't ya know Tuner Studio was showing about 11psi. I opened up the MAP/BARO cal menu and DURRR the settings were wrong. They were set to 'Custom' values which I assume are from my ms2 setup which had a 2.5 bar sensor. I selected the GM 3-Bar sensor from the drop down and the readings fell into place. I drove it around for 15 minutes, ran the VE Analyzer and the clouds parted, birds sang, and all was better in the world. Lesson learned: pay attention, and tuning is much better done when the ECU knows how much air is actually entering the engine.

I beat myself up over it a bit, but really this is all great learning experience stuff. The hassle getting the crank sensor and AFR's in line has forced me to get more into the megasquirt stuff and now I can actually look at Kenny's changes and understand what he's doing. If anyone is going MS or struggling to get their car dialed I can't say enough about how helpful he's been and what a difference it has made for me with this project. I've got the boost up around 17psi now and we're just getting the final smoothing touches on it. The nice part is that after a few hundred miles on the new setup, I'm finally actually feeling the changes. I think the intake manifold really makes itself evident over 4k rpm, the car just seems to have a lot more pull at high revs with the same boost levels over last year with the stock manifold. No clue what it's making for power, but it really rips. People weren't lieing when they said Holsets come on really hard. Lot like riding a two stroke dirt bike which I love!

Otherwise I've picked away at the interior a little bit. I have all the dash plastics back in place. Everything I do on the interior takes forever because it has been literally years since I took the inside of the cars apart. So I'm going through my piles of plastic, picking pieces, washing them, lookin at em for a while, then sifting through bolt buckets going "hmm this one? nope. Maybe one like that? close needs to be longer.". Majorly time consuming but labeling every single thing that came off the car wasn't that practical either. I have two main things left to accomplish on the inside: wire up and put in the aux gauges, and finish the doors. My redone door panels look great but the clips no longer line up. I need to spend a day fiddling with the key-holes to try and get the pins in line so I can get it mounted and put door pulls on, window switches etc. Also thinking more about a shift boot since I'm cutting noise out of the cabin elsewhere, and it's shooting superheated tunnel air into my face on 85 degree days.

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Engine bay has been pretty static lately. I still need to build a new harness for the H4 lights, and add some clamps to some lines. I had a bunch of left over DEI heat shield so I covered a chunk of the hood because the turbo is bubbling up all of my paint on the underside. The heat the thing generates is just crazy. I'm not sure how long plug wires or coils are going to last with how close it all is. I may have to break down and buy a turbo blanket but A) they are butt ugly B) ugly AND expensive. Other things I'm considering are re-drilling my coil bracket to shift the coils towards the intake a bit, as well as maybe some kind of heat shield between the downpipe and the head (saw Homer do one I really like). My new favorite idea is that if I ever paint the whole car, I'm going to graft a SAAB 900 hood vent into the flathood over the hot side of the turbo.

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But really what I'm thinking of now is the other engine. Since the tune is there, there's nothing stopping me from putting the built motor in. I brought the RSI head to the machine shop and they cc'd the chambers at 60.5cc. With the block I have and a stock gasket I end up right around 8.2:1 SCR. Lowish, but should be good for smacking a lot of boost on it with pump gas. With a nice light rotating assembly, good gearing, and a lot of airflow I'm really not worried about off-boost performance.

So, besides driving it every time the sun shines, plans are:

- Decide on a headgasket (see discussion here on gaskets with my o-ringed block: http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=309656)
- Assemble the long block and start getting it dressed for action
- Work out fan control with the microsquirt and swap in the Nissens rad and fan that's sitting in the shed
- wire headlights
- door panels
- aux gauges
- I might end up relocating the oil filter
- want to clean up my wheels and put a set of tires on it
- would like to add an idle control valve
- knock sensing!

Plenty to do. I'd like to have the built motor in this summer so it's broken in and making real power this Fall. I really want to dyno it this year. It's all doable stuff, but summer is a lot busier so I've been getting less days to work. (also Dad runs off to his lake house instead of helping me with my old Volvo :lol:)

~~ Random thoughts on the car
- It's really fun. I have a goal to go to at least one auto-x with it this year so I can learn it better. It's very stiff and the power comes on in such a way that I really need to know how to control the car.
- It gets way more attention than I expected.
- The Aeromotive 340 fuel pump is loud. I wouldn't DD a car with it. It's loud enough that a guy walking 30 feet behind the car on his cell phone stopped and looked over surprised when it primed before starting the car yesterday. Ok for what the car is because it kind of sounds badass but it's definitely noisy.
- I need to watch where I'm pointing when I start it! The car "marks it's territory" everywhere. Uncatted car and rich mixture I guess. :lol:

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OrodAGY.jpg
 
It will be much more street/driver friendly if you can bring that up a bit.
I know you are still trying to figure out the best route with the o-ringed block.
Have you checked to see how much the head has been shaved yet?

What would you consider a better target? I have not checked yet but it's worth looking into. If it's as easy as knocking the head down a bit more I'm open to it.
 
What would you consider a better target? I have not checked yet but it's worth looking into. If it's as easy as knocking the head down a bit more I'm open to it.
I prefer around 9:1 for a street car that will see some auto-x or track days with the parts you have in your build if building from scratch and I get to pick the CR. Anything from 8.5 to 9.5 can make a really good all around motor. 8.5 being on the low side for a more heavily boosted set up and 9.5 on the high side for lower pressure set up.

I guess the easiest way to explain it is the 9.5:1 will act more like a V8 and the 8.5:1 will act more like a 2 stroke.

In reality, 8.2:1 isn't terrible at all, but if you could bump it up a little more, it would be that little bit more drivable with a broader torque curve.
 
Thanks for the input. I've been starting at the head for a while I'm looking forward to running it.

Block is 158mm rods with RSI Wiseco's. Sheet says -14 dome volume. 441-443 grams.
 
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I thought something happened to you Mike. Haven't seen any updates. Funny, my car shoots the black streak too but I'm thinking it's just too rich.
Keep it up I enjoi your updates!
 
Thanks for the input. I've been starting at the head for a while I'm looking forward to running it.

Block is 158mm rods with RSI Wiseco's. Sheet says -14 dome volume. 441-443 grams.
Peter just made around 640hp/600tq at the wheels with one of those Stage 2 heads. So they definitely work pretty well.

Basic specs:
94 squirter block
RSI/Wiseco pistons (10:1)
RSI rods
Lightened knife edged Penta crank
RSI stage 2 head
Enem C2 cam
Custom one off header
Custom one off intake manifold
Precision 5858 turbo
Dry Sumped
 
Is there a rule of thumb for amount removed from the head to cc change?

~~~

I haven't had a tach signal since I stopped using the stock ignition. I was reading about people using a relay to adapt the MS signal, then saw an old post on here with this circuit http://imgur.com/um6DXuu. I showed that to a friend of mine who does EE work on flying cars (seriously!) and he offered to help. Ended up running a few of these SMD boards for a slick solution. He made it with an MS proto area in mind, for the micro I think I'll put it in a little plastic case and stick it up in the dash. He assembled the boards on the back of a tomato can with my $15 pen, I was impressed. Whole thing cost me $8 and a sixer of woodchuck.

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Small victories: car is no longer a reverse vampire. Finally built a new harness for the H4 lights. I cut another section of GTO relay panel (the gift that keeps on giving) and mounted it off the battery tray. I set it up for three relays so I could wire it up for the e-fan next.

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Lights pull a lot of juice, makes the car stumble when I flick the brights on at idle. Can also hear the fuel pump tone change (told ya it's loud) so need to watch voltage. I do want to swap the 100a Bosch for a Denso anyway.

Dragging my feet a bit doing anything with the other block. Having a good time abusing this stocker, though. 18psi no complaints, zero blow by. Smokes a bit on the rundown from 6,900rpm. Not bad for 225,000+ miles!
 

OK this circuit did not work at all. Trying to understand why, since it "should" work. So much for my super slick boards :lol:. Talking to the guy who made them to try and see what we can do. Maybe see what we can do with this circuit, but part of the original idea was to eliminate the relay coil in favor of a fixed inductor, maybe something isn't sized right?

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On other fronts I've gotten some great input on my RSI head (thanks Tuff240) which has helped me get a game plan together for getting it ready. I was advised to check that the valve spring seat pressure was set up correctly and double check the clearances on the shim-under-bucket setup. Need to work out my target values and get it to the machine shop this week. I also need to get a reliable measurement on head height, and try to determine how much I need to cut it to bump the SCR up. I need ~4cc's out of the chamber to hit ~8.5:1.

Car is running really well (thanks Kenny!!), still room for some tweaking improvements but have had my head elsewhere lately. The idle is the only thorn with this stuff, it seems like every time I set a base idle with the throttle screw it's gone some time later. I had it nailed at a perfect 1k rpm idle, even idled cold, then I drove it really hard for 10 minutes one day and the idle was completely gone - instantly wants to die. Either my stop is physically moving or something else funky. But every time I re-adjust it there's no sign the thing moved? I followed my Dad home while he was driving it the other day - car sits WAY lower than I realized. Actually really surprised how little clearance I'm running in the middle of the car, it would be practical to raise it but it looks sooo good. Also I could hear the turbo spool from some car lengths back, even over the ls7 I was sitting behind... cool. Narrow car on the road.

Oh I did have fun with diagnostics last week - I went to drive the car to work and it was bucking like crazy and I could hear the MS relays resetting. I didn't have a laptop on it so I thought it was some wiring/relay issue forcing it to reset or something. I got pretty wound up over my main relay being a problem, or some short somewhere blah blah, much hand wringing was done from the desk at work. As is often the case, I should have stopped thinking about it until I actually LOOKED at something. I pulled the car out and had it idling in the driveway just going missmissmissmiss. I got TS open and saw right away it was #2 sync loss. Dang! Not this problem again. Thought maybe I had a bad CPS even though it's brand new, but couldn't think of a good reason to suddenly start losing sync like this. With the car running I grabbed the CPS connector and hummmmm car starts idling perfectly. Okaaay found something. I pulled the boot off the back of the CPS connector (ecu side) and wiggled things around, no change. Dropped it and walked back to the computer and sync loss is back. Nothing seemed loose, didn't make sense. My Dad gets credit for figuring it out, an interesting combination of circumstances - when I was monkeying with the sensor trying to get it nailed I was playing with resistors, in out back forth etc. So for "easy testing" i had a resistor shoved in the back of the + and - pins. I pulled one leg off the - pin a while back and solved my sync issue. I kind of forgot about it and left the resistor sitting in the boot, with one leg still in the + pin. No problem on it's own, BUT the shield wire had a strand break loose. Over time driving, the stray strand managed to work it's way around the boot and right next to the resistor. So, the stars aligned and the strand managed to tap the leg of the resistor going into the + pin, ground it, kill my signal and boom sync loss. So this strand was bouncing off the resistor leg and intermittantly killing my crank signal. Yanked that pesky resistor out and it's clean driving ever since. Enjoyed some relief that my wiring harness was good, and reminded myself again to check first, worry after.
 
I tried that same tach circuit and it caught fire in the car when I turned the output on (the first one). Reckon I'll try the relay one next.
 
I tried that same tach circuit and it caught fire in the car when I turned the output on (the first one). Reckon I'll try the relay one next.

:lol: I'm glad my results weren't so dramatic. The guy who made the boards for me suggested I try pulling the C1 cap off as something to try, but there's not much to do besides start playing with component sizing or putting a scope on it to see what the output looks like (which I don't have easy access to). I bought a cheap breadboard so I can experiment a little easier. Gonna shoot you some logs later today, the cruise in to work this morning was really smooth with the most recent changes :nod:

Actually have a Word doc open right now making a To-Do list for the car. Shouldn't these be getting shorter by now?!

Heads been at the machine shop, just waiting to hear what he finds for the valve spring pressure. At this point I'm thinking my first plan is going to be to assemble it with the block o-rings in place with a stock headgasket.
 
Still waiting for the machine shop to do something with my RSI head, which is starting to go a little long for my liking. I still feel like I have a lot to do to get that block assembled and in the car, so getting the head squared away would help get progress moving.

Been driving the car regularly (4th tank of gas this year!) and the time in the seat has helped highlight some things that need addressing in terms of "real world" stuff, not just making it look cool on paper. I decided I'd like a longer shift lever with a little kickback to it, need a shift boot to try and help shut up the rattly t5 shifter, could stand to tweak the seating position a bit, and I need to get the door panels figured out - after the fiberglass job I can't get the factory clips to really line up, so I need to come up with an alternative. Shout out to Mr. Brown for hooking me up with hardware needed to get the door pulls on! I also keep chasing the idle around, I set it at 1100 rpm and it's solid, but after a day of driving it seems to find it's way back to ~850. The jam nut on the stop screw is always tight, but recently I found that i wasn't opening the throttle plate fully with WOT, so I need to check that something isn't going on with the TB/spool/cable stuff.

Mostly it has paid off in terms of the tune, every log I kick over to Kenny comes back improved. Recently turned on o2 feedback and made some changes which significantly changed the cruising/low throttle driving for the better. It's running the best it has by miles, and it feels noticeably quicker than it did last year at the same boost levels. BUT, as I was creeping the boost up I noticed that the injector duty cycle was a lot higher than last year - I was seeing 82% DC @ 220kPa, this is ~20% higher than last year with the same MAP. The car is not going lean or anything, but with 1,000cc injectors there's no reason I should be running that high.

I put a remote fuel pressure gauge back on it (zip-ty to the windshield wiper TB style) and was pretty disapointed with the results. Pressure moves during normal driving, and rises slightly as rpm builds; however, when I really start building positive pressure the pressure is pushed back down to around base pressure. So, something is up. I increased base pressure and the duty cycle dropped to ~70% a the same MAP. The regulator is essentially brand new, dedicated line to the intake manifold, plumbed properly etc. I will put the brake bleeder on it to see if the reg itself is functioning, but it just seems like a long shot that a brand new regulator is bad. My other thought is that maybe my new wiring and fuel pump setup is dropping voltage at the pump somehow. I'll have to run a wire up into the car and watch the multi-meter once I'm back from the July 4th weekend.

I'm also really fighting to get it into 1st or reverse at a stop, so I need to check the clutch adjustment. Maybe the heavy pull on the pressure plate is stretching the cable?

Hmm what else, Oh - I seem to be forcing PS fluid out from under the cap, just enough to make the reservoir and around it a bit messy. I also have evidence of small amounts of coolant blowing out of the overflow bottle (black cap on a 740 bottle). I hit 6,800rpm just about every time I drive the car, so I'm wondering if the high rpm lifestyle is not agreeing with the accessories. This has me thinking about an underdrive pulley for the new motor - but I haven't really seen people complain about pushing fluids out the way I seem to be. Taking pounds of spinning weight off the front of the crank has appeal as well.

So project car living up to it's name, but it's all normal stuff in the scope of getting the car sorted out. The fuel stuff is getting really frustrating though, ready to be done with that.
 
That's a lot of injector. Fuel line sized to small and maybe you're just running out of flow?

It is, I wanted to spend the money up front for "the best" and so I'd never end up wishing I had more. Right now I'm -6 AN from the sending unit to the regulator, then stock return lines. The 340lph should be plenty to feed them, given it's operating as it should. I would think that if the return was too small I'd be having the opposite problem, too much pressure, right?

Back from vacation now so I can check the basics this week, hopefully I can find something.
 
-6 is fine for the power level, that's not it. I wouldn't get too wrapped around the axle about it unless it actually starts to run out of fuel (as long as things remain consistent)
 
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