Roman

Yeah it will be a world of difference! Cant wait. It is incredibly frustrating how easy it spins up the front left when trying to get off the line.

Oh yeah and further to previous wheels chat. Rays wheels come in at 6.0kg per corner. But good enough, could realistically only get 1kg per corner less by spending $$$$$ Still ~12kg total less than ROH wheels. But getting a bit of a refurb as they were a bit fucked

So I put on my brave pants and took my brave pills and pulled my spare gearbox apart... Too easy! I think I've just managed to get some PTSD from the complexity of J160 boxes. But this was piece of cake. I toyodiy'd the gearbox parts to look for any differences, found that the bearings and shells have different part numbers. Some more digging and I found that they have a different size or taper on the bearing and shell, so you need to match them. Otherwise you get this situation where the shell doesnt sit flush to the bearing: So this week I'll pop over to my Dads place and use the gear puller and press to swap the bearings over, then its fairly easy looking to get it all back together. It turns out that some variants of the C series box have a 6 bolt crownwheel, luckily both the AE111 torsen center and the RS box have the 8 bolt pattern. Cant wait to get this new box in, will be awesome. I've also been thinking of some methods for half arsed launch control when I dont have a non driven wheel speed signal. I have setup a timer that resets to zero when TPS is over 80% and vehicle speed is zero. So when the vehicle speed goes over zero, the timer advances and the engine is allowed to accellerate at a specified rate over that time. Then once the timer reaches 4 seconds you get the normal rev limit from then onwards. The other axis will be an input that will come over canbus from my dash, so you can adjust how aggressive it is. I'm not quite sure what sort of time period will be needed yet for this to work nicely. Oh yeah and bodged together a little canbus dash to show some things that you dont get on the main screen. Graduated shift light is pretty sweet. But the main thing is to give some peace of mind about the electric waterpump, with some big flashing warnings if it fails.

Nah when it cures normally in a thin layer with fibreglass etc, it cant generate enough heat to get into the run away cycle of blowing itself to smithereens. The cure time of epoxy on a part is way way higher than when your pot of epoxy will go off. This time of year when it's cool you might not have too much trouble with either, anyway.

Also if its vacuum formed, then its designed to pull off a single piece solid mold without issues with draft angles etc. So should be pretty easy* *conditions apply

Yeah you can do it in bits that slot together. 240 and 110 deg will likely be fine. Main thing is stopping drafts. I've not tried printing the carbon nylon stuff because it's a real ball buster of admin work to keep the matieral ok for printing. You have to bake it before your print it to get the moisture out, then it reabsorbs moisture so quickly from the air, that you need to keep it in a dehumidifier box while it prints. A smaller printer is considerably considerably easier to work with with way less headaches. I'd say 70% or 80% of the prints I do are under 250x250

Yeah it's definitely a cool thing to have, I have tits for hands when it comes to fabricating things so it's really bridged that gap for me. And now I think it's got me thinking more about how I'd actually fabricate something, when it seems intimidating when you dont know how to start otherwise. I have a Creality CR10-S S5. So it's a 500x500x500 build size but otherwise a pretty cheap and basic printer. I wouldnt reccomend how it comes out of the box unless you wanted to print PLA only (material that isnt really usable in hot conditions or for things like manifolds) To get it to be able to print stuff like HIPS I needed: -Change to direct drive extruder -240v heated bed -build a shitty enclosure -new controller and firmware that is 32bit instead of 8 bit (It would choke up a bit when there were lots of commands to do quickly) -solid mount the bed instead of springs Probably about an extra $4-500 worth of stuff, and shitloads of time calibrating things. But now it's an invaluable tool for me.

So in echo related updates, Picking up the new wheels from swap meet this weekend, big thanks to @Goat who is bringing them along! I also picked up box full of C56 internals including a torsen LSD. Big thanks to my mate Ken for this. LSD will be glorious! But I have a decision to make. The "proper" way to install it is to sit the box on a bench with bellhousing facing down. Then disassemble the box from the far side and remove the gearsets and detents and everything to eventually get to the ring gear and diff center. But this is like, you've got some food stuck in your teeth but you can only reach it by sticking a broom up your arse. There's a bodgey way where you can remove the front cover only, looks fiddly as fuck but saves a big headache (maybe) So I'll give this method a try on my C152 box first to test the practicality of it. I hate working on gearboxes so I'm torn between taking the long/proper way, or the potentially short but fiddly way. Historically speaking, trying to take any shortcuts usually leads to misery and having to do things the proper way anyway. Also my alternator situation has been nothing short of a miserable headache that's stopping me from driving the car currently. It was fine when I first installed the bracket and tensioner, but it would squeak a little bit sometimes. Eventually my shitty tensioner broke, so I made a better one with the aim of eliminating the squeak. Didnt work, it still sqoke. Rechecked belt alignment, fine tuned it to be as exact as I could. Pinged belt up tighter. Squeals like a stuck pig. Eventually my alternator bracket broke. So I got the local workshop to jizz it back up with some welds. Then it was fine for a little bit, then started squealing in an incredibly annoying manner and hasnt stopped since. I found that the bracket had bent, for I think the same reason it broke initially. The alternator has a sliding sleeve of sorts that pulls inwards to tighten the alternator to the bracket, where the bolt threads in. If it's a bit rusty (they all are) it doesnt move too freely, so takes a lot of force to pull it back in. I CRCd it a bunch and hammered it in and out to free it up a bit. But when you crank the shit out of it to tighten it up, it's trying to crush my bracket before its trying to pull that end bit in. Also I think another potential problem is that the original motor has 3 accessories on it. Aircon pump, waterpump, then alternator. The belt path means theres maybe 190-200 deg worth of belt wrap on the alternator. But if you run just from the pulley to the alternator, there's only ~160ish degrees of belt wrap. So then you need to tighten the belt heaps to try make up for it - then you have issues with things bending or breaking especially when rpm is high and maybe some harmonics stuff coming into play. Then the short belt length probably doesnt help either. So at the moment I'm torn between trying again with another alternator bracket, or just calling it quits on this motor. Evenutally I need/want to get an NHW20 prius motor so I can run VVTI, bolts to gearbox properly, and then I can use the factory bracket to fit an alternator on. With extra belt wrap and belt length because it's back to a mechanical waterpump. But I'd like to compare notes to this existing engine first, hopefully get both on a dyno and see how much difference the compression ratio difference makes (or not) The NHW20 motor is funny because the only thing running off the accessory belt is the waterpump, which then runs on the non V side of the belt. So the only thing running on the Vs of the belt is an idler where the alternator usually goes... But it can definitely fit an alternator there, as the block is the same part number as a normal 1NZ motor. Pretty frustrated at the moment as it's a really unfun sort of problem to deal with, and I dont really have any tools or ability to fix it myself.

Do you mean for my manifold, or the other bits? I'm still using the same manifold from day 1, so I'll call that a win. Once I put the carbon on it, it's been fine since then. The only real reliability problem is that my throttles are held in my tapping into the plastic material. If printing another one I'd make the tapped area much longer so it spreads the load more, or design it so steel threaded inserts can be pressed in from behind. To print this material (HIPS) you need a printer that can get the nozzle to around 250 degrees, and a heated bed that can go 120ish. Then you need an enclosure to stop drafts (this is probably most important part) then it's still a bit of a bastard to print haha. Loves to warp. Most off the shelf printers cant go that high for nozzle or bed temp, but these are easy-ish upgrades you can buy for not much.

So I've just got my intake pipe with MAF in it, attached to throttle body, attached to intake manifold. Then everything on the manifold blocked off. Then printed an adapter so I can shove a vac hose into an intake runner. To test two, or more, I unblocked off the other runners and jammed more vacs in. But also tested them one by one in a single port. The worst had about half the flow capability of the industrial one. The other two somehwere in between. @h4nd do you have any good thoughts about wiring up 4x 240v motors? I've been looking at some 240v speed controllers, one I saw had 4000w capability. So could potentially run 2 motors full blast (or just on/off) then vary the other two at the same time to reach a goal flow amount 240v wiring makes me nervous!

This has been slow going, waiting for parts to turn up / other shit going on. But I managed to get my MAF in a pipe hooked up to my arduino nano. So I could quantify how good/shit each of my vac cleaners are as a vac source. I've already got a MAF scaling for this pipe size, from my engine tune. So I can just refer to this for voltage to airflow conversion: So with my big industrial shop vac, it reached 2.68 volts on the MAF. so this is about 40 grams/sec of airflow. Which is about 60hp worth of air. I tested the other vacs that I've got, and they were worse than this. Using the best two running at once, I could get the MAF up to 3.0 volts. So around 70 grams per sec / 84 horsepower worth of air. So is that enough to simulate a single runner? 84hp x 4 runners = 336hp Which sounds good but unless you have a 720 deg intake cam, this is not representing anything close to the peak or average airspeed at all. 268 deg cams out of a 720 deg stroke = 37% of the time it's breathing in air. And then much of this time is spent at less than full lift obviously. So to truly simulate the airfow through a single port on a 4 cyl 150hp motor I'm thinking I'll need at least 100-120 grams per second capability. So I will look at getting some vac motors all of the same and wiring them up. Maybe 4 to start with. It's a better situation if all of the motors are identical rather than mix and match. But I can rule out the idea of running just a single vac to get meaningful results anyway, even if its a grunty one. On my previous search I only found more expensive ones, but 2kw vac motors are $50ish each delivered from aliexpress so might start wth 4 of these, and hope that it's overkill! https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32966020456.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.7e675d6fuVKTf7&algo_pvid=8dca2d00-4acb-4a6d-b88a-a9401a618dcd&algo_exp_id=8dca2d00-4acb-4a6d-b88a-a9401a618dcd-3

You need to run any ECU controlled relays via ignition switched power. Or via some wizardry it ends up back feeding voltage into your ECU and it slowly drains your battery, or gives other weird symptoms. This might vary depending on ECU but it's probably best practice regardless.

It's still not 100% but I'm not gonna lie I'm stoked with how this is going to end up looking (Wont be white for final version)

It depends on the shape of your car, some cars dont actually have moving airflow at the base of the windscreen / most of the windscreen at high speed anyway. MR2s have a wind deflector thing on one of the wipers, because otherwise they start lifting up at speed.

I've been printing some proper trumpets from HIPS material but they take about a day each. Currently two done, two to go. So no more glow in the dark PLA... Since I'm definitely not ever going to use the standard ECU anymore I've also been tidying up the loom a bit on both sides of the firewall. Chopped out a whole bunch of crap that doesnt need to be there anymore. Also put in my EarthX battery so thats about 8kg lighter from memory. On the whole I think I'm gonna try make the engine bay look tidy as best I can, and hopefully the lessons from this will flow on to future projects. I bought some Rays Engineering GR-N wheels which look beaten up to shit. But should come up alright and were a good price. Theyre still cast wheels but even so, are a little over half the weight of the ROH wheels haha. Currently in Carterton so if anyone's down that way and coming up to Waikato, let me know if you are keen on some $$$ to deliver some wheels! I've decided that even if I try do a fancy loom it's still going to look very busy with shit draped everywhere. Because there's just a lot going on. So a much easier solution that suits my lack of wiring skills is to make some cable trays that hid everything. This way it's easy to modify later if I want to add extra wiring, and still gives some good mechanical protection etc. So starting on the injector area and will run the VVTI solenoid wires through here too. It will have a top cover piece. But you get the idea. Will do the same for the other main wiring paths along the engine. I want it to hug the contours of the head as best possible, and be as slim/short as possible so it's still a few iterations from finished. Also at some point I will print another manifold that flips the throttles the other way up, so it hides the throttle cable arrangement a bit better.

Oh yeah! I should chuck the EarthX battery in it.

I took it for a trundle this morning, nothing crazy on RPM because I didnt want to stuff another pulley straight away if it was going to. But I figure while the gas level was low I'd go weigh it again at the dump. I've taken a few extra bits out, but then also changed the wheels/tyres. I'd like to get a more accurate idea of current power figure as I've only been guessing what to input into virtual dyno, based on last time I weighed it. I figured it was probably around 830kg now. However without driver, low tank of gas it's 870. Which is about same as last time, even though I've taken more stuff out and there's less gas. So these wheels and tyres must have added a bunch of weight back. Maybe the 1500 motor is a smidge heavier too. I cant remember if I was still on the factory steel wheels when I took it there the first time. But the 13" steels are massively lighter. I will do some checks to see how heavy Reflexes are to the 14" china wheels. Definitely feel a lot heavier. But semi slicks are pretty heavy too compared to a normal tyre. So that's stink news because it means with 32 litres of gas to fill it back up, it's 894kg which is way over what I need/want it to be. However the good news is this means my actual engine power figures are better than expected. Updating the weight and virtual dyno figure now shows it is somewhere closer to 135-140hp at the wheels. Which I think makes sense given it's up to 66% duty cycle on 2ZZ injectors at 55psi. So good news in the motor department but bad news overall. Because it would have been easier to keep improving the motor than it is to lose the weight needed to get the power/weight to where I would like it to be. EDIT: 13x5.5" steel wheels with 155s are ~12kg each 14x6.5" china wheels with direzzas are ~15kg each 14x6.5" Reflex with R888R are ~17kg each R888R are 8.1kg each in that size. Direzza are 7.7kg each in same size. So this means China wheels are 7.3 kg each Reflex are 8.9kg each. So can potentially ditch 6.4kg worth of wheel weight for "free" by putting R888 on my other wheels. Neither of the sets of 14" wheels are particularly light.

So stoked to see this coming together!

Yes! That could be relevant. The power steer ran on its own belt, so removing it didnt make a difference. But this motor never had an alternator, or any other accessories. so its got a custom bracket for an alternator only. The non hybrid motors go crank > alternator > waterpump > aircon pump. So a lot more belt wrap and belt length. The alternator bracket that @Stu made for me is nice and sturdy (thanks again) however my tensioner arrangement is really crap currently. I've just fitted a fresh pulley and bolt, lots of loctite that I'll let sit for 24+ hours. Have also hopefully done up a bit tighter than last time, with an extension bar on. If this keeps happening it might be a reason why I need to consider going to the earlier motor sooner than later. (As it will need belt for waterpump > alternator > idler)

Possibly relevant

VVTI is technically working now, it was just a jammed locking pin in the pulley that was stopping it from working. But I'm leaving it disabled because otherwise I'll hit valves into pistons again... I will build a V2.0 motor on the side using the earlier engine that bolts to the gearbox correctly, and has the correct valve cutouts. Then swap it in with the LSD gearbox I'll put together on the side as well. I've still got the notchy gearbox in it, so I can work on my (hopefully) good one separately and get LSD fitted. If it was a RWD car I'd be more inclined to just lock it, but since you have to pull the whole box apart anyway, may as well jam an LSD in there. Yeah it's only at low speed where wheel spin is an issue, so really needs mechanical fixes not aero. There's not much weight that can be moved around. If I can fit some shims under/over the right rear spring, it will shift the weight forward onto the front left. Or maybe preload the front swaybar with some shims on one side.

I printed some prototype long trumpets that fit under the bonnet / dont hit anything. Because I'm lazy and I figured they might not work too well. They are currently made from glow in the dark PLA haha. However, they worked a treat! Fuel table now needed around 11% more fuel at 4000-6000ish range, and then about 5% more fuel towards redline. Nowhere did it need fuel taken out. cool. So I'll remake them out of something better, maybe try a little shorter and see if I can push that big bump of gains a little higher in the rpm range. The shape of the fuel table tells a bit of a story. about 4k onwards is where it starts ramping up This is with no VVTI so once that's going I'd expect to reclaim a bunch of midrange as well, maybe a little more up top. Current problem is that it keeps spitting the front engine pulley off. It unwinds the bolt any time I rev it to the moon a few times. So maybe there's some weird harmonics going on. Tried some loctite and tightening it as tight as I could, but still happens. So will try a fresh bolt and pulley, hopefully that fixes it somehow. Maybe this motor doesnt enjoy being revved to nearly twice its intended rpm. Who can say? Also, my plan to use good tyres as a poor mans LSD hasnt worked too well. There isnt much weight over the front left so it spins it up real easy which is annoying. So will have to make a start on getting that other box sorted.

Good stuff Sheepers, I fucking love scope creep

+1 to knock sensor overrated. One thing is that you can set it up perfectly on a dyno to detect knock in a really non noisy environment (car sitting on rollers) But then you go somewhere with real life vibrations (ripple strips, gravel, whatever) and you get lots of false triggers because the noise floor has raised. Then sometimes in real situations the signal/noise ratio of actual knock is really marginal. Personally I have it setup for observational purposes but could happily take it or leave it.

Yeah same as a BB. Dont get me wrong the supercharger is a good easy solution for these cars to get a bit more power out of them. Certainly better than a 6000rpm limited NA motor with factory ECU. The gains from water meth injection to cool the air charge are incredible! But then it's annoying to have to keep a tank topped up. @87creepin 205hp is a big number! Hopefully I can make 3/4 of that.