ThePog

Yea but how does that happen? The problem is that I don't know what fuckery went on in the intervening years...

I haven't had a real good look at the pistons but everything looks basically brand new, irl it has probably only done 15k or so since I put the engine together and it is clean as inside. When I bought the engine back in the day he had assembled the bottom end already, I took the mans word that he had rebuilt it properly so didnt bother to check anything, just finished assembling it. He was an aircraft engineer at AirNZ and told me he had lightened, balanced and weight matched everything, and I can see now that he definitely had done this. I just wish I could definitively find something causing the vibration....

Bottom end is mint, bearings are perfect still and without the pistons in the crank spins freely. Ill take the head to Mean Machine tomorrow to get it looked over, see what they have to say.

Legend I was going to model them up for printing, which leaves room for shenanigans...

Opened things up a bit more, tbh it looks pretty good. Altho number 2 is slightly browner than the rest in the head. The cam spins nice and free so its not that, but the with the head off rotating the crank is still ever so slight weirdly variable in turning force. The bores look basically perfect so maybe that means the crank might be bent? Rings broken?Time will tell I guess.

Pulled the drivetrain out tonight and pulled the sump off to take a look. I hope my engine stand won't buckle under the strain lols I can't see any wrong in there, the sump is 100% perfectly clear of debris. And everything looks great, no missing chunks of piston or the like. There is however a noticable variation in turning resistance with the plugs out, I am suspecting a slightly bent valve or broken valve spring. I am waiting for a new head gasket and bolts before I get too carried away. Also: so many gearboxes, this isnt even all of them, I have 2 more.

Ill need to check with a bit more weight on there, but 4x actuators were pulling about 8 amps total. I have already made/tried something that was linked chain driven sprockets with acme thread and lift nuts with 3d printed drive mounts, but the compounding frictions made it unworkable. So now I have a shitload of acme thread and chain lying around waiting for the project that might need them...

I considered many methods including air and hydraulics, but the simplicity of electric and having lots of 12v capacity on board won the day. I know there would be some racking but it is way worse that I imagined, probably due tobthe weight imbalance ..

Ah that software thing was the bit scaring me off...

Sorry I was paying attention but then the enthusiasm to take the engine out of the Fiat took over. The bed lifts up 950mm so it is out of the way during the day. Just the extended portion of the actuators are visible hence difficulty getting power/sensors up into the bed area. Yea I have thought about something like that, but it would be nice to have a directish comparator. The bought ones have hall sensors that count the revolutions and adjust accordingly.

Another issue up for solvage... In the caravan I am building I have 4x linear actuators that lift the bed. The problem is that they are not synchronised and uneven loading means they are racking quite badly. The synchronised versions are $$$. So I want to solve it with smarts rather than money. They do not need to lift perfectly synchronised, just good enough. My current ideas are; - 4x mercury switches that check which corner is high/low and start or stop that motor (or the other motors) till back level. The problem is getting the wiring up into the lifted bit. It can be done but isnt tidy. - laser or ultrasonic rangefinders (mega cheap on AliX) running through an arduino. This is a pretty technical solution tho. Any other suggestions or comments?

I probably forgot to say I am doing this because the idle circuit (that controls up to about 3000rpm) is running pretty rich, ie about 10 or 11 to 1. I spoke to Murray...? at Weber Specialties who was prepared to talk about Fiats in general and X1/9's in particular for a looong time. I wanted to source some smaller idle jets but he said that the 45's in it were as low as I should go and that the 5psi the pump was putting out should really be cut down to 2.5psi for the DCNF's. The return line wasnt connected so I reasoned that a restricted return should lower the pressure appropriately. I guess we will see.

You might be right ..

Had a spare minute so I thought I would have a hack at a fuel return/restrictor. Found some brass hex, put some detail into it including a 1.5mm hole and some probably correctly tapped holes, surely BSP and NPT are the same? I checked the resulting pressure but the needle wobbles all over the place from the pulsing of the pump, averaged out it looks like 3.5 or 4 psi, vs 4.5 to 5psi previously. Ill take it for a spin later and see what the AFR's are doing, then maybe start opening up that hole. I kindof need a way to damp the pressure fluctuations first to get an accurate reading.

That first box looked pretty good. But I ended up breaking a bit of the casing in my efforts to get the seriously rusty bit of clutch shaft out. You can probably spot the bit in this pic, it probably would be ok but still. So I decided to use the other casing which was a lot cleaner anyway, but this meant dismantling the second box. This was kindof good as it gave me context to decide that the first box was indeed a goodun. The second one was still pretty good, but it had the keyed shaft that was broken on the one in the car (altho not broken) but the nice box is obviously a later revision as it had a spline rather than a keyway. So I dragged my parts washer out from the depths of the container and cleaned/dried off/inspected everything. Now I just need to find some axle seals and it can go back together. Oh and sort the diff as well, but if I use the good box diff I will need to fix the endfloat situation, probably.

Picked up these boys today And tonights entertainment; Nothing of concern so far apart from a very bent and rusted in clutch fork rod.

Cheers, I will contact the boys.

You can gtf out

I have a wideband in it so not too worried about that. I might graft the gauge into the setup as well so i can see what the running pressure is.

Actually i just had a think about it. There is a return to the tank but i am not using it, so maybe i should set it up with a return and a restrictor, which will probably reduce the pressure to more reasonable levels.

Thats the one I just enquired about ta

Yea If I can set it to the right(ish) pressure i don't care about the regulator.

Can anyone recommend a low pressure regulated fuel pump? I am getting low end overfuelling issues, I talked to Weber Specialists and he reckoned it had to be coming from high fuel pressure. He said DCNF's like 2.5psi. So I bought a cheapy gauge and a shithouse reg off AliX, and all I could get was 4.5 to 5psi out of the facet type pump installed. I am guessing the reg needs a higher input pressure to work effectively, but it is kindof terrible so I thought it might be better to get something proper. Any suggestions? Can you mod the facet for lower pressure by messing with the springs?

Just as well it was cheap... /Goes go scour marketplace.

Yea that runtime is stink. I wonder if the control board can be replaced with a manual switch.