Roman

Does a flat six actually have any reason to sound different than a straight six? As in, arent they both even firing order? Wonder if the "flat six sound" is more "air cooled sound"

Hello darkness my old friend (entropy)

I think black holes form in the universe, when someone figures out you can connect an alternator up to the wheel, that then feeds its power back to an electric motor that spins the wheel

Your car has a way bigger engine and an equally big turbo hanging off it. I think the only way you'll be seeing my tail lights, is if you're parked behind me when it's blown to smithereens. I'll be absolutely over the moon to just get the car down the end of the strip to be honest. I'm not sure if I'll be able to fit the big cams in by December as there's possibly still a few curveballs to contend with. I think drag racing is one of the few things where sometimes it feels like you're missing out when you're participating. Because when you're lining up you dont get to watch all of the other cars run. Super keen to see yours there! God I cant wait to get to the point where I can hoon nightspeed events and do some track days again. I'm only about 35 minutes away from Hampton Downs now, and about 40 to Meremere.

This month's car budget activities: -Ordered extra pipe for manifold as I've run out of long enough straights. -Ordered wideband bungs. -2nd wideband controller ordered so I can monitor each bank. -2nd Collector is still being manufactured, hopefully here soonish. My weekends and evenings have been busy making stuff for goats over the last few weeks, but I think I'm still on a good timeline to get to drags. I've been going back and forth between dreading moving the alternator, and dreading making an equalish length manifold where I cant have U bends in it. However I had a bit of a breakthrough. I realized that my 90 degree bends are a much tighter turn than the 180s that I was using on the other side. This means all of the pipes can still go as far forward as they like under the alternator, and there's still plenty of room. So I've copied the dimensions of the bends and length of stuff back into the computer to get an idea of what to do with the 2nd and 3rd runner to get them fitting okay and about equal. Once again with a 180 degree bend in the shape makes it a piece of cake compared to having to rejig the angle of every single part to adjust it. It looks like this should all fit up and as it sits those are within 5mm length of each other. If some pipes turn up tomorrow (probably not) will hopefully make some progress over the weekend. But it feels good to have a workable plan now. Might cause some other issues but these are future Dave's problem

New exhaust sounds legit! Excited to see this back up and running again, so much cool South Island stuff to do. Reckon you'll run it up Coronet Peak?

Must feel nice to ask someone else that for a change

Will require some sort of positioning signal, as otherwise it doenst know the frequency of firing injectors. However are you wanting to use one for something else? You could probably put it into a test mode or generate a fake signal easy enough.

For now I think I'll just leave the alternator where it is and work around it. Relocating alternator can maybe be a future-Dave scope creep activity. Once I've got a 2nd engine and some garage space I'll do some scheming. Looking at my manifold on the drivers side, I keep wondering if it's long enough... seems short. Think it's something like 980mm per runner, give or take. But then looking at how far back I'd have to run the manifold on this side if they go straight back, it's huge haha. What I'm currently thinking is that I'll try take up as much space as possible still in the engine bay by running the first pipe as far foward and down as I can. Then the second pipe can sit on top, so the third pipe can extend out further so it can run past the other two to make up the length. But I've run out of straight sections so will need to order some more. Bend #2 might need to get a bit wiggly to get enough length in it.

@h4nd Seems like a belt slip nightmare. Same belt has to run the waterpump, so not keen on any risks. Will just make the manifold work around it. As per the Echo having your day ended because of alternator or waterpump problems is a whole bunch of no fun.

Sorry for bit a of a punishing non-update, been a bit spammy lately and no cool stuff happening. However it's exciting to feel like I'm close to getting the motor going again. I got all of the timing cover and sump back on, which honestly takes hours to do. So much gasket goo to scrape off and reapply! And find all of the right bolts gain, ha. Then I managed to get my drivers side manifold all welded up properly. Some pooey welds but seems strong and doesnt leak so calling it a win. I ended up completely redoing the 2nd runner, as I burned a hole that I ended up chasing around the place. Just seemed to get worse and worse! So restarted with fresh bits and it went together a lot easier. Maybe there was still some oil on the inside of the pipe or something. But the 3d printed part welded up fine, it was easier than welding the pipes. Super happy with the decision to print the collector. I might add some extra bracing to hold the three pipes together before they start diverging. The flange is welded on from the back, so it should be really strong. As it's not hanging the pipes just from the weld. The tight fit of the flange can hang the weight no problem. My scheme of welding a little triangle bit on the inside between the pipes, then just welding full around the outside looks to have worked well. Hopefully no leaks and no breakages! Should look good once it starts getting some colour into it once it's heated up. However I will likely heat wrap them anyway once I've confirmed there's no leaks. I've been thinking about moving the alternator somewhere else, so I could have the same design manifold on both sides. But there really is nowhere else to put it, even if I flip it around so it's mounted backwards somehow. Not quite sure how that side is going to work yet. But here's an artist's concept drawing of how my manifolds might end up looking:

Ahh yeah! HKS does quite a few with that design: Something else interesting that HKS does, is they make 4-1 manifold for the Altezza that links the pipes together into pairs. Not sure if this is some sort of tuned length thing, perhaps it makes it behave more like a 4-2-1. But interestingly it's linking the cylinders which are not 360 degree separated. (should be 1&4 and 2&3 if evenly spaced) Then even further off topic, but the S1000RR bike has exhaust valves that open or close based on rpm, that link pairs of cyls together. It seems that HKS is the biggest mainstream sort of company that has experimented with this kind of stuff. Might be interesting to have a dig through their back catalogue. Seems the "HKS hi power" ones usually have that design.

Those pistons turned out so cool. Cant wait to see how this goes!

VVT pulleys So the titanium cover plate things turned up, and they looked really good. @flyingbrick helped me drill and tap some holes in the cam pulley bolts so they could fit on. While we were there, he was talking about how you can change colour of titanium just by applying voltage through it. Different voltage ends up a different colour which is cool. So we gave it a go. Initially it didnt work too well. possibly because the part was bead blasted or something. But quick acid dip then it coloured up good. Then everything's fitting up good, so motor is ready to go back together. Cant do much at the moment though, as it's too windy and rainy. But next block of good weather and I'll hopefully have the timing done and maybe the sump back on. I've also fitted grade 12 cap screws into all of the pulleys, with the strongest possible loctite. Hopefully that's the last of my VVT troubles.

Yeah agree. Im sure there is many an engine that has gone boom when the water ran out. Just another cause of engine anxiety!