ThePog

Same same

The bits I need for that Wof have arrived, the wheel bearing might be a mission, but we will see. In the meantime I have been hoovering/relearning what I need to know about DCNF carbs and have had some useful and enlightening conversations, some of which can be found in my DCNF thread.. I also decided to replace the expensive oil in the tranny with fresh expensive oil. Mostly cos I drained it all out to put a bit of sealant on the drain plug as it was dripping a tad. When it came out it was kindof murky which I guess is the new oil washing out and interacting with the old. So I did that and it resulted in a pretty significant drip from the drain plug regardless of my sealing efforts. I did a wee bit of investigation, which has had this slightly annoying result; I have a spare box which I stripped enough to get that housing off, pretty much for practice but to see if I could just use that. But unfortunately they are different. This might mean enlisting @yoeddynz in some dirty welding duties if I cant find someone slightly closer. If it welds ok I will tap it out with a parallel thread rather than taper and machine a flat face so it can use a washer for sealing.

So anyway I did a bit of testing. At idle I have tweaked the mixes to give about 13:1. The idle circuit (which controls things up to about 3000rpm) is basically running at 12:1. So could probably do with a lean out. Running at higher revs is a bit leaner, it moves around a bit but is basically sitting at 13-14. Any acceleration at all gives a little bit of hesitation and when it picks up it leans it out to 15.5 or 16. I have not checked the float levels, but I found some info on the right height, so I'll probably dick with this a little bit to make sure there is enough fuel to feed the accelerator pump etc.. Slowly getting my head into it properly now

Depends what the issue is, I had to submit a couple of reports for the truck, basically to prove my solution for the pitman arm was stronger than the oem, and a pretty serious bump steer check. I tried to be as logical and clear as possible and it was no problem...

Oh man I have some embarrassing shit to divulge. I talked to Palmside today about getting some jets and during the conversation I mentioned that it was running rich and that it was weird cos making the air corrector bigger would make them much bigger than most of the setups specs I had collected. The dude asked me what I had seen on the AFR so far and I said like 16 or so. He said that that is lean..... And of course I actually thought about that for more than two seconds which is longer than I ever had, and fucking of course that is lean... What a cunt I am, I obviously had some preconceived notions and hadn't actually thought about what that reading meant. Oh man I can never talk to Palmside again, the dude clearly and rightly thought I was a fucking idiot. So having gone through that self slapdown I will probably put some smaller air correction jets in, and maybe some bigger idle jets.

I have had a look to see what I have; Idle jet = 45 Air Corrector = 180 but measures 200 (I know I drilled something out previously, this must be it) Emulsion tube = F30 Main Jet =125 I will have to do some testing, the idle jet controls things up to about 3000 revs, after that the mains. This makes sense as there is a transition about then that is pretty noticeable. Ill tootle around below 3k and see what the AFR's are like, then up high. It seems pretty rich up there so maybe taking out the airs to 220? I found all the info I had gathered when i set the carbs up including as many setups as i could find, and interestingly a 125/130 mains seems to be the go along with a 200 air corrector, so i am not sure why mine would be so rich. Would the emulsion tube affect this? Most setups tend to an F24 emulsion vs my F30. So many questions.

Took it for a WOF, WOF not achieved. However there was nothing show stoppy in there. A wheel bearing with too much play, a steering tie rod end, and the right rear brake had a lot of fluid around. This one was a little weird when we first bled it, it wasnt passing fluid initially but then it came free. It might be the handbrake adjustment playing up. It might just be all the fluid used during bleeding, anyway I'll have a looksee. And the low beams were not working, but I am pretty sure its the switch playing up. So overall nothing bad or even unexpected. And just look at that awesome wedgyness;

Yea the brakes. I ordered the whole shebang, good old Brian at The Italian Job hasnt invoiced me yet so no idea what the damage is, but fuck it it needed to happen really. I pulled all the calipers and gave them a cursory clean up; The rears had a bit of pitting but not so much that I thought it worth replacing, I may order some pistons anyway for just in case. This is the worst of it; Then the bits didnt arrive til Saturday morning, but it was exciting when they did; I had already decided to spend some time giving the truck some new oil and filters, so I cracked on with that. After I drained the oil I did get distracted by that Honda S800, which ended up being a bad plan as when I got back I missed the quite important service stage where you put the sump plug back in before washing out the engine with 10 liters of pristine Delo 400MGX and dumping it onto the garage floor Fuckety fuck fuck. And fuck. Anyway after I had flagellated myself for a while I cleaned things up then went back to the X, at each corner replacing the seals and discs etc and bolting it all back together; Then today I enlisted the wife to help bleed the brakes, which I had to do many times as a lot of quite ugly fluid kept coming out. After that I took it for a gentle test drive which was pretty meh, then I bled them again and they came up mint. So hopefully a wof this week maybe....

I am pretty sure I drilled the ones that are in there and still have the drills and chuck somewhere. i kindof need to find out what is in there first anyway, then make a call on the sizes I will go for...

Yea I had a look on AliX, might take a punt.

Now I have a real wideband in the wee Fiat and it is telling me that the old girl is running pretty rich I probably want to give the tuning a tweak. Does anyone have a solid supplier at reasonable prices for jets etc? I recall I bought a few from overseas somewhere when I first tuned it up and they were pretty reasonable. Any leads or websites?

Not at all, it was just a timely reminder for me not to make assumptions about shit that I have only the flakiest knowledge of and that I should actually pay attention to the details

The wof this week is off the cards. I thought I had better check why the handbrake was so pathetic and discovered that both rear calipers were basically seized. I thought the brakes were not as good, now I know why. I may as well rebuild all the calipers and if my visa can take the punishment I might get new discs and pads as well, I might have to sell some shit So I to feel like I had achieved something I messed with wiring of the fuel sensing relay to try to make it work. @h4nd had given me a dose of RTFM so I reworked the wiring to suit, but now it doesn't work at all. I checked many things but no go. There is a good chance I toasted it when I wired it up wrong. I might just wire a normal relay up to and use the alternator as the signal wire. I also poo'd up the washer tank some more as it was still leaking, tomorrow morning may tell me some things; Then I decided to move the afr meter to somewhere where I could actually see it when driving. Basically lots of tinkering with shit and avoiding jobs around the house that I should be doing. Oh and yesterday I tuned/balanced the carbs a bit, hopefully it will run a little better. And also I noticed the gearbox drain plug was leaking.... Cool cool

Well I wired it properly and it doesnt work, I am guessing i may have toasted by using it with the wrong connections?

Hmm, I may have missed that and made some assumptions about it being essentially a relay with extra. Maybe I will revisit my wiring.... thanks.

Well the other terminal is just a switched +12v..

I have this fuel cutoff relay wired into the wee Fiat, but does not appear to be functioning correctly. https://themetricnut.co.nz/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=204&product_id=1724 It has the 4x normal terminals plus an additional wee one which theoretically is the go signal input. If the engine isnt running it should prime the carbs then cut off, but it runs continuously. I have wired the signal terminal to the coil pack output, the coil looks like this and serves all 4 cylinders; Any ideas what I am doing wrong?

Yea so today I fixed a couple of issues with the windscreen washer, firstly trying to get the aftermarket nozzles to actually fire at the screen, then fixing the washer tank which for some reason is about 8 litres, most of which got dumped into the frunk overnight due to a crack. This I filled up with poo and hoped for the best. Then I addressed the extreme force needed to make the washer run, which meant pulling the stalks off and doing an excellent bodge which you dont need to know about in case my good name as an engineer is ruined, suffice to say they work perfectly now. Then with the few hours still left in the day I made a rear valance thing, although the mesh looks pretty sparse irl so I might smash something slightly denser on there; And I think thats pretty much it, I'll book a wof for next and see how that goes....

Fixed the rust hole, no pics cos boring. Made a heatshield for the alternator, first drilling and tapping some brass hex to stand it off, then some CAD, then some shiny so it reflects heat; Then I grabbed the pretty non functional catch can that I made for the truck, modified it so the wire wool was less in quantity and right before the outlet rather than at the inlet, which is why I suspected it didnt work well, then gave it some chode so it would fit in the engine bay; Went and filled it with some 95 as it was pretty low and it definitely needs some time spent on tuning, the low throttle popping and banging sounds good but the afr tells me its not right. Man it feels good to drive tho, the combo of the gogo and the noise is pretty great. If anything it sounds better now the air filter is on, a really purposeful growl.

I spent some time dicking round with the airbox as I didn't like the long studs coming up off the carbs, plus the carbs themselves seem to be mounted in a slightly different position and the airbox really didnt like sitting down in place. So I made a new baseplate that fitted nice and put some 16mm tube in there so the screws could clamp it directly through the baseplate. Its a bit cleaner looking too... Then I glued the windshield trim on with some extra and probably non standard fixing methodologies; I am missing the joiner bits but I might just poo the gap up for now once its cured in place. A new and marginally sexier fuel pump arrived and got placed; Ooh and here is my sexy top link what I made in place; So just the rear valance to make, plus probably a heat shield for the alternator as its still close regardless of the wrap. And the alternator light doesnt work for some reason. And I found another sneaky little rust hole in the drivers floor. I should have noticed it as there was a 20mm stalactite of bog hanging down underneath, but obviously I didnt up til now. There is an argument for step drilling it out to 25mm and calling it a drain hole, but I will make a closer investigation. Oh and I bolted most of the rest of the bits back on;

Yea it has that hard coming on cam sound that is pretty great irl. Gagging to get it legal and find some twisties....

Well I did sortof ease it in there, the header wrap had obviously never been run and started smoking like anything when I first got it running, then the idle kept creeping up when it got warm so I did a rough carb balance. Then I did a gentle(ish) run to see how it felt. Then I thought fuck it, I cant see why it wouldn't take it like it always had.... and it did.

Then I remembered the shitty fuel pump that I hacked into my ride-on a couple of years ago cos it was way too much money to buy OEM; Then naturally this; Dunno what the crackly business is, nevertheless it sounds glorious.

Driveshafts in Oil in Coolant in Popping and banging when I try to start it Realising the plug leads are 180deg out Boom Then realising the fuel pump is leaking like a sieve and it is a $14 AliX special so not unexpected. Then finding the original Facet pump and checking it works, it does Then realising you have no fittings to make it work so no driving

Bright and early this morning, firstly time to pour some liquid money into the box once the engine is kindof level. 3.2 liters of Redline MTL which all the cool kids say is the only shit to use in an X1/9 box. At $200 for 4x bottles it fucking better be. Then on to the main event; Then after half an hour of wiggling and jiggling, angling and dangling etc Then the rest of the day bolting shit back on; Just the driveshafts and some oil and it might be time for a skid. But thats tomorrow's effort.