ThePog Posted June 11, 2008 Author Share Posted June 11, 2008 Well it might have been in, but it is all out again Was all back together, but only got a whizz or a clunk when I tried to start up - turns out the new flywheel has the wrong ring gear on it. I thought I had checked that so my fault really.... So out came the engine, from my rough measurements it looked like the ring gear was wrong, confirmed this now it is apart again. O well put that one down to experience I guess, at least it was easy to get apart as there wasn't years of gunk on everything.... Will have to see about getting the ring gear swapped over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted June 22, 2008 Author Share Posted June 22, 2008 Fun fun fun.... Episode 1 Saturday So it was all back together and turns over (yay!) Unfortunately there was no actual starting action with the motor even though I tried a couple of times. In my prior experience it always turns out to be the timing, so I religiously checked this and tried starting again. Twice though I have been surprised by how badly wrong I had set it - like 120/180 degrees out wrong! Once maybe, but twice it happens and I am starting to think that it is not me who is at fault.... When I was putting the engine back together I couldn't quite torque up the aux shaft bolt to full whack because the wheel would jump a tooth even though I had adjusted the cambelt tension *correctly* - now I suspect this is what was happening when trying to start it.... I had the issues with the size of the tensioner bearing when assembling, and I thought that I am now hitting the end of the adjustment before the tension is fully on. The belt felt fairly tight tho. So I pulled of the tensioner assembly after checking that where it was, which was at the endstop of the adjustment, then spent an hour or so trawling the internet and mulling over the possibilities for improving the travel... Option 1; Source a bigger diameter Idler bearing. Option 2; Get a sleeve made up to fit over the existing bearing. Option 3; Machine the bore of the tensioner arm to increase the travel. After careful consideration I did what any right thinking engineer would do and dremelled the fuck out of the tensioner arm bore, which gave another 3mm or so of movement. I put it all back together and put a spanner on the aux shaft nut - this turned the engine not jumped the belt so I guess that is a good thing I was going to attempt another startup, however I could sense evil vibes from her indoors, so that is tomorrows job.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted June 22, 2008 Author Share Posted June 22, 2008 Fun fun fun.... Episode 2 Sunday Well now, it has been a very interesting and informative afternoon..... After a futile 1/4 hour trying to get it going again I took up an offer from good man Nick to tow the thing until it went. This basically had no effect whatsoever although it felt willing to go at least and would fire intermittently. We then set the timing again, turned it over - miles out as per previous. Anyway to cut out a couple of hours of going through the options and scratching our heads we had the idea to set the timing, push it while in gear and do two engine rotations and see where the rotor ended up - which to our surprise was not where it had started How this could possibly be came to light after a bit more head scratching when we counted the number of teeth on the X1/9 cam gears then compared this to the number on the Tipo round tooth type pulleys - the size ratio for the Cam wheel/aux shaft on the X1/9 gears was 1.4 and 1.5 for the Tipo WTF says we... Bloody Italians eh... This also means that the aux shaft to dizzy drive ratio is different, which means that the relative centres of those two shafts have to be different, which means I cannot just slip in the old X shaft and drive and have it sorted However a quick bit of back of the envelope calc showed us that replacing the aux shaft cog with a 28 tooth item instead of a 30 tooth would give the correct drive ratio of 1.5..... Does such a thing exist? if not I can get one made at the a place in town that I know... Or put in a distributerless ignition system - something I have been toying with anyway... Or replace all the cogs with the Tipo ones, which means I will need to drill another drive pin hole for the cam for the correct indexing (and get the crank pulley off - not sure this is possible with the engine still in the car - and I SO do not want to get the engine out again) Anyway I am pretty confident now because it starts and runs for all of 2 rotations before the timing gets too far out now - the towing did some good! While waiting for Nick to come around I took the opportunity for an open air photo shoot, what a beauty! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted June 23, 2008 Author Share Posted June 23, 2008 :D Spoke to Mal at Dino Enterprises today about finding an adjustable Tipo cam pulley in case I needed to swap the pulleys over, while discussing it he said that he was certain someone who had done the same conversion just used the X shaft and gear. He talked to the chap who had done it for me and he confirmed that this was the case. So I whipped the shaft out and dropped in the X1/9 one and lo it fits! problem solved. pretty happy about that as you can imagine..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted June 25, 2008 Author Share Posted June 25, 2008 It lives! A few niggles to sort out and a bit more bodywork reassembly to do, but it drives! It feel very lively too, although I am keeping the revs in check for at least another few kilometers It sounds very rorty - I will bravely attempt to do a video in the next few days so you'all can get a taste...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted June 27, 2008 Author Share Posted June 27, 2008 Some OS luvvies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted July 1, 2008 Author Share Posted July 1, 2008 Going for a warrant tomorrow, then have to wait till the 15th to register it as that is when it comes off hold... Gagging for that let me tell you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted July 2, 2008 Author Share Posted July 2, 2008 Fresh warrant = WIN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted July 12, 2008 Author Share Posted July 12, 2008 Idle - 1200 RPM minimum at the moment... a bit lumpy below that ; Bit of a caning... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted July 16, 2008 Author Share Posted July 16, 2008 Well the old dear is fully legal now as of 8.31am this morning (the post shop opened at 8.30 ) - I spent half the day driving around town, and it only broke down once! It is slightly hard to start when warm, and the battery didn't quite have enough juice to get things going, the battery looks pretty new but I guess sitting without charge for a year will have an effect... Have also discovered the joys of the secondary carburettor choke - I have been a bit careful up until now, but the effect of mashing the right foot to the floorboards is a real treat let me tell you, I didn't think it was going to be all that quick but I am surprised at how well it gets off it's arse Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted August 2, 2008 Author Share Posted August 2, 2008 A small update; Have now put an extra big power wire from the alternator to the big brown wire connector at the fusebox - the ignition light was showing faintly all the time - this is common on X1/9's apparently - should help the electrickery along a bit... Have got an Uno pointless distributor and coil pack + brand new sensor for the innards. The Uno dizzy is about 60mm longer than the X and would hit the bulkhead without mods - fortunately there is an inspection plate right there which got a wee mod; Not too shabby considering the welder only cost $400, it is running off a Sodastream gas bottle and the filled in sides are 0.9mm computer case - still with the paint on as I was too lazy to clean it off, burns off as you weld anyway... I can also recommend not wearing Kathmandu nylon pants for grinding and welding - unless you are happy with micro porous air conditioned bollocks. Haven't had the car out for a week or so while fiddling with all this stuff - the weather has been absolutely shocking here anyway - I have a hilux for those sort of days... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted August 3, 2008 Author Share Posted August 3, 2008 Finally mounted the new dizzy/coilpack today - rock solid spark at idle and it runs a lot smoother when it is cold + bonus lack of burning car to the weeds from my extra power wire mod. Rather pleased with the days outcomes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted October 4, 2008 Author Share Posted October 4, 2008 Finally got onto one of the bigger jobs left to do on the beastie.... rear suspension joints. The WOF man had pointed out that they were very nearly shagged, and gently suggested that I should do something about it before the next warrant ; Wheels off (see my nicely grooved discs ); Off comes the driveshaft and out comes the axle; And I am left with this - not too bad a job, thought I might have to take off the exhaust but managed to lever it out of the way to get access to the LH inner bolt; While under the car I also tried to fit a new gearshift lollipop that goes between the gearshift and the gearbox, but that was pretty obviously not a goer as the bit was way too long to fit. I guess this has the earlier solid(ish) mounted arrangement, so I made some minor modifications to the existing setup to remove a bit more slack and put it all back together - feels nice and tight now. I also discovered why I had lost 5th gear on the last drive - the nylock that I had used to provide a wee bit of slack on the mounting nut had worked itself loose and there was so much slack that the gearshift was simply not able to rotate the gearbox shaft enough to engage it... I will drop the arms into a place called HBI engineering here in Christchurch who will reseat the balls - they have apparently done quite a few X's in the past. Not cheap though, I think he quoted me $180 a side.... Still, I reckon it will be worth the effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted November 9, 2008 Author Share Posted November 9, 2008 So I have designed a set of downdraft manifolds to suit the Weber 40DCNF's I got off TM, I have had the pattern made and parts machined - and the first samples finally arrived I have made them to suit a Fiat 128 as well, they are the same engine as the X1/9, just set at a different angle.... Set up on a random Fiat 1300 head that I had lying around; So my wee man who does the machining made some (easily rectifiable in the future) mistakes; Extra random cut on the 128 version Blew the vacuum hole right through instead of making it blind and drilling a couple of wee holes through to the port on the 128; Personally I think this makes this set scrap, as this would do bad things for the flow - what do you think? I designed the raw casting so that there was plenty of meat for machining the X1/9 and 128 versions, and I set up the angle on the bottom of the two flanges to split the difference - this is so it doesn't look too out of place on either, however he has machined the head side flange parallel, leaving a fairly thick and angled flange on the top; There are a couple of other minor issues, but not too bad for a first cut.... I have also been thinking about how to set up the airbox etc - my current favourite is to have a big metal box bolted onto the carbs, a K/N type filter where the carb blower currently is, and a big pipe between the two......the X1/9's have a big air blower in the engine compartment to cool down the standard carby when it gets too hot, stops it from boiling the fuel - fucking italians Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted January 8, 2009 Author Share Posted January 8, 2009 Have now cut and shut the front shocks so the springs are actually captive (no photos cos I forgot to) using the top nuts off Fiat 128 shocks, and used replaceable inserts from a MkI Golf - nice handles even better now + bonus lack of clunking when driving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted January 18, 2009 Author Share Posted January 18, 2009 Exciting times in ladaspeedland - my 40 DCNF's are about to go on; Looking very awesome right there; The first hack at the linkage, which was actually pretty spot on - couple of minor tweaks and it will be sweet; I wasn't sure whether to set them up with the fuel inlets to the front or back, but having them around this way avoids a minor clashing of the fuel inlet with the cam belt cover sheetmetal and gives significantly more room for the throttle linkage - as you can see this is very direct... If I need to set up the choke then it is more convenient this way too as the linkages face the front. Can someone tell me the initial setup process for the carbs? I have got the jetting that I think I need + a few sizes up and down - I am more after the air adjustment setup process. I only need enough to be able to drive it into town.....and let someone who knows what they are doing sort it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted January 23, 2009 Author Share Posted January 23, 2009 Slowly going back together, I have modified a spare standard manifold I have to have a consistent mount flange thickness and fitted it all up to see if there are any clearance issues; Seems to fit up nicely The standard manifold is temporary just too make sure all is well with the setup - I am looking for a nice set of headers if anyone has something....? Have also sorted the fueling setup - I bought a holley regulator which is probably unsuitable as it has no return line - I thought it did but it just has two outlets..... but I set it up with a gauge to accurately adjust the pressure, only to find that the pump is putting out exactly 3psi..... So I am just going to hook this directly up to the carbs. If I can find a proper regulator I will use the bosch pump I have, although it should really be more than sufficient as it is, and much simpler. I believe the pump is a facet and has an internal pressure bypass. Next job is the airbox, I should be able to get onto that today Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted February 1, 2009 Author Share Posted February 1, 2009 A bit of airbox action for you'all Start with some 3" exhaust tubing and split it; A bit of top and bottom; ***insert time delay footage of much cutting/shutting/welding/grinding/dremmelling/fitting up/swearing/cursing/sleeping/recutting/rewelding/regrinding/hole welding/regrinding etc etc*** And the result; Probably going to weld a bit of 45 deg pipe onto the end of it and hang the pod filter right off that - was going to mess about with silicone joiners etc, but it would just mean more bracketry to hold the filter. Also had a fuel pressure integrity test which resulted in about half a cup of raw fuel going down cylinders 1 and 2 - stoked. Have blown it out the spark plugs and am just leaving it all to dry right now before I get too carried away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted February 1, 2009 Author Share Posted February 1, 2009 It fucking lives! (again) Started first pop, needs a tune, but it has a really sharp bark when you accelerate and has the awesomest burble on the overrun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePog Posted February 1, 2009 Author Share Posted February 1, 2009 wayhey 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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