yoeddynz

On 09/10/2023 at 14:45, Roman said:

Yeah im starting to see a clearer picture about how people notice the handling difference with engine weight. In a small car at least.

I'm a self proclaimed expert in this field. If Monsieur Chapman was still about he'd be popping round mine for regular cups of tea over discussions about weight bias and its effects on handling. I'm not normally the sort of bloke who likes to boast about my talents but I am quite proud about my very scientific approach to modifying a small cars weight balance for testing purposes. I'll be more than happy to give you some sage advice on the subject when you need it...

 

 

Continuing on with cleaning bits and fitting them. I gave the inlet runners a tidy up with a wire wheel. I was tempted to paint them but decided I like the raw alloy look and they should be easy enough to keep free of any oxidation.

Bolted together and fitted..

Happy with them. Next up was to finish off the filler tube. I had five of these arrive from the land of Ali.

I took one apart and studied it and after a stiff coffee eventually came up with a plan on how to cobble it into a unit that would fit the cap, be easy to remove if needed and really easy to change the batteries. Split apart all the bits look like this..

The light unit together..

machined a recessed hole in the cap. No going back now..

Switch in place..

Switch pushed down...

light does its thing...

Well. That's that done. It'll no doubt get stolen by some little light fingered shit at the first car show the engine cover is up at..

Now back to the topside. The Honda civic throttle body needed some modifications and add ons to suit its new application. The first thing was to sort out a inlet stub to suit the vacuum line that will run to the ECUs map sensor. The Honda had originally been fitted with an external map sensor that goes here...

I machined up a plate, machined a little pipe with a flange, bent pipe in vise with a bit of old air rifle barrel, recessed plate to suit flange, epoxied it in place and bolted the assembly on.

In pictures...

I also needed to make a fitting for the idle control valve hose. The area under the throttle body where it fits is very tight so I had to really whittle down a lump of alloy until it fitted and press a custom pipe in place. Again in pics..

Not a lot of room..

Now a cable pulley to suit the imp throttle pedal. I measured the pulley I'd previously made to suit the Hitachi carb that's fitted to the Datsun A12 currently in the imp. Double checked the cable pull offered by the throttle pedal. Drew up a sketch and started machining.

I offset the centre just like I had done on my second iteration for the V6 Viva, so gearing down the first bit of cable pull and making for a nicer smoother throttle opening.

Fitted in place. Had to add a stainless stop to the pulley so I can manually adjust the initial opening as per the original pulley fitted. Luckily this throttle body has 2 return springs (another large one is hidden behind the TPS sensor. I need two springs to satisfy the certification process later on.

Now I needed to make a bracket to suit the throttle outer cable. More alloy swarf was pinged about the mill...

resulting in this...

Mounted in place. Note the slotted mount holes so I could fine tune the cable exit to suit the offset pulley.

I made a gasket to suit the TB and with that I am pretty much finished with the fabrication of the engine parts.. (exhaust system beyond the headers is still to be made but I consider that's kind of separate to the engine)

EFI wiring next. I did a quick measure up of things. I needed to know the length of loom I'd require to suit my ecu location which will be under the front of the rear seat. I also wanted to get some sort of idea as to where best to run the loom so its hidden from view but still easy enough to remove.

I cleared the big mobile table and started sussing out the loom requirements...

I have a DIY autotune megasquirt ms1 loom to use but since I'm using a ms3x I'll need a few extra wires not offered on the loom. Luckily I have my collection of Mazda and Nissan wires...

I've also had this turn up yesterday.  Its a 14pointseven Spartan 3 canbus wideband,  along with a very nifty looking digital gauge, from the very friendly and helpful team at Justraceparts.com in Oz.

So that's where I'm at now. I'll be playing about with lots of wires, sensors, crimp fittings, heat shrink etc etc I'm in no rush to get through this stage either because I enjoy wiring and its at its most fun when I can take my time in order to do a neat job.

Found the ideal transport for my bike..