Roman

There's a few different aftermarket supercharger kits! Since you need to replace the rods at around 160hp on the standard motor, a supercharger can nicely reach that for a minimal effort bolt on kit. So it's a cheap kit compared to a turbo swap or whatever else. But they run like a god damn furnace as they're non intercooled, so often make crappy power unless you add water/meth injection. In other news, I've got my motor all back together and have fired it up. Unfortunately though my car's trapped in the garage for a few more days as there's freshly laid concrete at the entrance. Have swapped the china recycled beer can wheels for some Australian recycled beer can wheels. Classy. Hopefully gets off the line a little better with R888R though. We've had some decently cold weather here lately, dipping below freezing at night. So I've spent some time dialing in the cold start settings. It runs surprisingly decent while cold, considering it's Alpha N with no IACV. I've also been playing with waterpump speed a bit as it heats up, but I'm not yet convinced there's much benefit to slowing the pump speed. I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes on some better tyres.

What's funny about all this is that people will instantly go "yeeeee" at one motor and "pffffft" at the other, yet you could have a redtop smallport with absolute garbage hanging off it, or a perfectly sorted bigtop and they would be completely different engines in the opposite way of what people expect.

I've been thinking about this, and yeah servos could be a really good option. Only thought about not running a valve spring is that at low lift there can be a fairly grunty pressure differential on either side of the valve, trying to pull them open. So having a valve spring seems useful to make sure there arent tiny oscillations or whatever.

I've written some stuff before, for logging to my digidash. But it depends on what board you're using. If using Teensy 3 or 4 then its easy as you've got onboard eeprom or flash memory. But if using an arduino mega or something, need to write to SD. Which isnt too hard there's code for it. It becomes harder when you want to transfer the data to anything else though.

Haha, that would be a laugh. Nah ive actually got 4-5 1500w vacuum cleaners here so theres room to upgrade if needed. Thanks for your feedback @Stroker thats all very good to know. its handy to know right from the start that I will need multiple motors. Ive been having some thoughts about just getting my ECU to log the data, and use megalog viewer to interpret and compare results. As I can send all of the flowbench data from the arduino to ecu over canbus. I just have to park the car near it and plug a cable in haha. So the arduino would still control valve distance etc but just saves reinventing the wheel a bit with logging etc. It also means I will have before/after engine logs in a compatible format with the bench data. So I can directly see how its changed things in real life (if at all)

Good point. This vac has quite a large internal chamber and a big grunty motor so I'm hoping it'll be fairly steady in that regard. Hopefully I will be able to pick that up with sensors if it's happening.

Airflow The next issue is being able to pull enough air through a system in order to create a big enough pressure drop that it actually simulates the properties of a port/valve. What I mean by this is that if you are at max valve lift but you are only flowing a tiny trickle of air through, it's not going to illustrate differences in flow because nothing's a bottleneck. Generally flow benches that use manometers (water tubes) for measuring inches of water as a pressure drop, run at 28 inches of water which is something like 7kpa below atmospheric pressure. Any less than this, and it's not really going to be illustrative of the shape of a port etc. I think basically it's a case of higher vac the better, but it just becomes impractical. So 28" has become the happy medium that's adopted as industry standard. Another reason for standardizing the vacuum level is that it makes the maths much easier to work out CFM from manual calculations. As flow benches have existed long before computers have. So the less restrictive your head is, the more air you need to flow in order to make 7kpa of pressure drop. What I'm wanting to test for starters is a garbage spec 1NZFE head so I'm hoping I might get away with a single motor setup. However some use multiple vacuum motors in order to get enough flow. In this case I've got a fairly decent sized motor in a commercial vacuum cleaner that I'm hoping will do the trick. Since its not 1947 and I am not planning on doing any manual calculations for airflow. I have no intentions of sticking to a fixed pressure drop for sake of easy maths. I am thinking that if the valves are only partially open, and this creates a higher pressure drop than when they are fully open, this is fine! It will be a closer approximation to real life situation inside the engine at low valve lift. I will still have an accurate mass airflow number, and the higher vac level should show any changes with better "resolution". My thoughts on this may change once I get it working though. The sensors I am going to use for airflow are... -Normal Toyota 1 bar map sensor -Diesel particulate filter sensor (which is a cheap differential pressure sensor) -Toyota MAF sensor (For mass airflow results, and temp sensor) I'm thinking that the MAF sensor will do most of the work, but I'm not betting the house on it. Since a normal map sensor reads 0-5v from say 0kpa to 150kpa, it doesnt have a huge resolution in the relevant range if we're only going to something like 7kpa below atmospheric pressure. So a differential pressure sensor can be useful for measuring vac chamber vs atmospheric with good resolution, as they are 0-5v output but over something like +- 10kpa range. However before you turn on the vac source, the regular MAP sensor can also earn its keep as a barometric pressure sensor. Also, I think its incredibly important to have as fewer variables as possible away from your actual motor as it sits in the car. One of the "gotchas" of porting a bare head, is that your car never drives with a bare head. So it's kinda pointless knowing how a bare head flows. The sharp corners at the entrance of the port can bias the flow away from areas which are more important in real life when the flow into it has been straightened by an intake runner. So what is common is to build up a bellmouth entrance onto the head using putty or something, like this Which I think is a bit silly, because with a normal manifold on you're likely gettting a much straighter shot of air into the port than an aggressive turn in, right at the head. You could be introducing weird swirling or turbulence or whatever else that isnt accurate to normal operation. Also, the repeatability of making a shitty bellmouth entry like this is debatable. You might see changes simply from how much you've smooshed it in place, or how tall it is each time. So I'm planning to run it with a complete intake manifold on, as it would run in the car. Because ultimately that's what is going to be correct. If your test shows that the head flows way better than your manifold does. Then there's hardly any point being a fuss pot over the state of the head.

For ages I've wanted to dip a toe into the world of porting heads, which of course means you need some way to measure results. So a flowbench is needed. There are lots of plans online, however most of them use water filled tubes and other completely valid forms of measurement which arent any good for drawing graphs on the internet with. I've now got an okay handle on programming arduinos and touchscreens and understand sensors well enough that I'm gonna try put something together that's fairly well automated. It will probably start out simple and then I will get bored and not finish it I will add more bits to it So the first part of the problem. Valve actuation The results of a flowbench usually show a graph that demonstrates airflow from the valves being mostly closed, through to right open. Something like this: So you can see that this particular test opens the valves and tests in 0.05" increments. I thought it would be nice to be able to both measure how far the valve has gone down, and also have a mechanism for pushing the valve down, automatically so it can just take measurements at set intervals. So this way there's good repeatability without human error but also it helps automate the testing to be less laborious. Even with soft-ish valve springs fitted it's still a reasonably strong force to push the valves down. Speed isnt important but high torque and being able to hold in place is. So a stepdown geared worm drive motor should be good for this. Not a stepper motor, just DC but doesnt matter as the worm drive gearing holds everything in place (hopefully) For measuring how far the valves are depressed, I found out that some dial indicators have a data port on them, so they can spit out measurements over serial. sweet. In order to get the USB connection into an arduino, need a USB to serial converter like so. So the idea is that the dial gauge will sit on one of the valve buckets, then the stepper motor will be a fork shape that can push down on both of the buckets separately. So you can find "zero" position by reversing the motor until the value on the dial indicator stops changing. Then you know you're at home position. So I'm going to try make an assembly that holds all of the above that can easily be moved from cyl to cyl. So it will likely attach to something that can bolt in place of the regular cams, or use the cam cap bolts. It's important to note at this point that I've ordered all of the parts, but not actually done any of the work apart from percolate ideas in my head for a long time.

I managed to find out a while back, that the drivetrain is the same as the 4wd starlet of the previous model. Which isnt exactly common either, but at least if you blew up a transfer case or something, there's some chance of finding another one. Not sure on the rear diff. could probably find out on toyodiy.com or similar though.

Bit steeply priced, but there's one on TM at the moment https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/toyota/vitz/listing/3135567620?bof=wRVSXaqQ 4 door though, boooooo

Yeah how cool was that 4WD one! I've thought about getting one, they pop up from time to time. However I think the FWD car would be better at these power levels for most things. As in, It's hard to justify the extra weight when there's not much going on in the power department haha. With LSD and good tyres for whatever you're up to, FWD isnt a huggggeee limitation on tarmac. With a turbo setup though, 4wd probably worth its weight in gold. Yeah regarding piston situation, I think I'm just going to migrate this head across to one of the earlier blocks. Easiest way to get the correct pistons, and actually bolt up the bloody gearbox properly!

I voted equal length however... High rise headers dont really have any point apart from cars where theres very limited space. IE. Left hand drive cars and getting spaghetti past a steering column. So make it look good and evenly spaced if its a piece of shed art. Equal length if its an engineering exercise to test your skills. Both if you have an exceptional level of patience... Interesting thought - you can have equal length but not equal volume. As a straight pipe with the same centreline length as a 90 deg bend has a different internal volume. Fussing over +- mm or 5 of length might be a moot point if you have different volumes in each. Subscribed to post, looking forward to updates

Also

Time to work on car stuff has been stretched a little thin, but have made some slow progress. Took the head off, and found yep, valves bent. But no other damage. Valve seats looked fine and so did pistons. Cool! So for now I'll just fix it up and drive without VVTI. I pulled the valves out of my 2NZ motor (same part number) and sent the head off down the road to the engine place to lap the valves in and refit the valve springs. Hopefully get it back by the weekend maybe. There was another Vitz RS at Zebra so I went and pinched another C56, hopefully this one is a little more enthusiastic about going into gear. I'm getting pretty good at pulling motor/box out of these things. It's much easier once you know the order of things. I will keep current box in for now, and fit LSD into this spare one and check all of the synchros in it while it's apart. If they're bad, I will pinch the ones from my standard Echo gearbox as that thing shifts gear wonderfully. Assuming they're the same. Also just before my valves went asplode, I bought these for some lols / traction. Two of the tyres are a bit chooched but will hopefully do a trackday or three with them on the rear. (that does hardly any work anyway) Havent tried them yet but should be a laugh.

Link g4+ stolen from Carina. It already had 1nz triggers/vvti setup correctly in it as a selectable option. Too easy!

Basically, because it was a motor released in America it's got a big aftermarket compared to something like beams 3SGE which was only released in Japan. Like on Aliexpress you can buy anything up to and including a whole engine brand new. On Ebay there are cheap rods, pistons, turbo manifolds, etc. Cams and springs were expensive-ish but plenty of people have made big hp on factory cams with forced induction. Seriously just have a browse on Ebay under 1NZFE. There's so much stuff. At least compared to what I'm used to!

Nah I CBF with E85. Especially now that gull pulled out of having it at the pump. My thinking was that if new pistons are cheap enough its a lot easier to swap them than machine them. Especially if putting some other rods in. Especially if they have better piston rings. Either way, will figure it out! It will be interesting to see what the piston tops and combustion chambers look like after some high rpm carbon removal haha. And sensibe AFR with no EGR. Im just having shed wiring and some new concrete done this coming week, some time after that I'll whip the head back off and see whats going on.

This is shaping up nicely! Nice work on that console, looks great!

I've had a look through another person's build who managed to use Prius pistons okay with same cams, and apparently VVTI working without any trouble. It looks like the important difference is that they used the earlier version of the engine with the 13:1 piston, not 13.4:1 So I tried to find some pictures of an early 1NZFXE piston. Aqua motor on the left, early prius motor on the right. Top of the picture is intake valve cutouts, tells the story! Can see that its definitely got much bigger valve cutouts and pretty much the whole piston shape is a bit different. It almost looks like the shape near the intake valve would give better flow around the valve perhaps at low lift near TDC? Although it would be a bit of a bummer to have to use 13:1 pistons instead of 13.4:1, (Even though both of these numbers are ridiculous) I guess if I machine the valve recesses on current pistons it might end up at that anyway. But with all of the hassle of getting that done. One additional benefit would be that I dont think the earlier motors used the troublesome low tension piston rings. If that's the case then it also solves a bunch of other potential long term issues. So, if starting this over. An earlier prius motor really would be the better option in every way. Dont need to drill the block and swap the sump to match up to the manual box. The engine mount bracket fits properly. The normal engine accessories can fit in their normal spots. Valves do not hit pistons. Mechanical water pump, so blowing a fuse doesnt blow your motor! So there's no real advantage to the 2012 motor at all. Apart from that I found one for cheap with exceptionally low km on it.

Haha, that's excellent! Still blows my mind how plentiful and cheap aftermarket parts are for this motor. Definitely not something I've been used to.

No idea yet. Just hopefully whatever requires the smallest amount of notching out of the block.

This chapter is called: I blew up my motor but shit that was good . So the VVTI issue. I realized that I would be able to get the front plate off the VVTI pulley, and then hopefully wiggle free the spring and the locking pin without removing anything else. Thankfully it worked! Then put that front plate on, and done. Then fire the motor up, advance the cam 5 degrees - success! The cam is moving, finally. Excellent. However - with more advance I ended up hitting valves into pistons - at around 20 degrees advance. Bummer! This motor must have smaller valve cutouts than the non hybrid engines I guess. I should have checked this, rookie mistake. So in some ways it was good that the locking pin was stuck, otherwise I probably would have done this on day one instead of lots of fun doorting around. It doesnt sound catastrophic, I dont think any valves have broken off. But the motor turns over like it's got no compression now. So probably tweaked the valve heads. But it's not crunchy sounding and it turns over freely. If anything I'm a little dissapointed that it's come to a fairly inglorious end, rather than sent to valhalla at 8800rpm blaze of glory. The options from here once the head is fixed or replaced: -Keep as is, run with no VVTI (boooo) -Cut bigger reliefs into the pistons so full VVTI can be used (hooray) but slightly less compression thanks to cutouts (boo) This all sounds like a bit of a downer, but my general mood right now is I'm fizzing about what an awesome success this all was. As a proof of concept, and a reasonably cheap project to keep me entertained this has been completely excellent. What I've learned is that there's no way I'm going to have the discipline to keep the revs on this motor below 8k when it loves to still rev up past that. So it would have been a matter of time until rods exited block. Also since I now know that I will have to remove pistons for machining some cutouts, I can replace rods at the same time with cheap stronger ones. This gearbox is a bit clunky and it could really do with an LSD. So while it's all apart for LSD install I can see if the shifter forks are a bit beaten up or something, and replace with parts from my old box which is buttery smooth to shift. So I've learned some stuff that would necessitate engine/box removal regardless. There will probably some slow progress for a while, but I'm super happy with how it's all come along. My goal is to get the car awesomely sorted for a December trackday and OS drags if they'll let me pest peoples eyes and ears with an Echo again. A++ would do hybrid motor doorts again

He must be pretty bloody cross eyed if they do

Hah! That's an awesome idea with the laser.

Could be it. https://www.motor.com/magazinepdfs/062010_04.pdf I'm not sure if I can troubleshoot this particularly well without taking the cams back out though. If I could manage to hold the chain in the right place I might be able to get the intake cam in/out without taking the front cover off. EDIT: Yeah could definitely be the issue Different engine but same thing https://www.allhead.com.au/technical/toyota-2az-fe-unlocking-vvt-phaser-hubs/