Esprit Posted December 15, 2010 Author Share Posted December 15, 2010 Thanks And yeah I'm definitely a bit "proud dad" this morning! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vintage Grumble Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 WELL DONE THAT MAN! I can imagine how ecstatic you must be, looks and sounds amazing. In the first vid, I thought the timing light was exhaust flames, I was waiting for the bench to catch on fire. Once again, well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
My name is Russell Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 CONGRATULATIONS!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mixmasterlex Posted December 15, 2010 Share Posted December 15, 2010 Good efforts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 16, 2010 Author Share Posted December 16, 2010 Thanks guys, it's been a long road! There's still a way to go... some small electrical/engine management niggles to get on top of (nothing major) before we get it on the dyno next week. Hopefully I can have it back in my garage by Christmas. After I get back in early January, I'll be designing/making up some new heatshields for the rear, which has to happen before I bolt the rest of the bodyshell back on, and setting the suspension up. Once that's done, it's time to get a wof/reg and then off to do some run-in. Hoping to have it actually on the road towards the end of Jan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 16, 2010 Author Share Posted December 16, 2010 A small update today. In the process of getting things running last night we discovered a couple of small issues. First off, the small battery I've got in the car (the same one I used to great effect in my old Elise) isn't man enough for the job here. Even when fully charged, the voltage drop-off during cranking is too much for the ignition system. This was fine for whatever reason on the Elise, but the Exige is a bit more critical. The upshot is that I'm going to move to a nearly identical battery, but an Odyssey race battery. It's the same capacity but has a much better crank rating than the Synergy AGM battery I had before. Weight goes up from 5kg to just under 7kg, but at least it'll work and work well. The other pisser is that this'll need a new bracket since the bracket I designed for the Synergy AGM battery is specific to that battery. The bonus (for my father at least) is that I'll transplant the synergy battery and bracket into his car, replacing the behemoth 14kg battery that's in there currently. The new battery is on order and we'll have it in the car over the weekend. It'll just get wedged in for now and I'll design up the bracket and get that made in early January..... a real pain in the arse, but you get that on the big jobs. The other small issue that arose is we found that the IAT (intake air temperature) sensor on the VHPD is next to useless. It's located in the intake runner for #4 cylinder and it suffers from very bad heatsoak from the metal in the inlet manifold. It's reading intake temps of 60-70 degrees when in reality they're more like 25-30. We've disconnected it and we're running a second IAT sensor in the blanked hole that's already in the carbon intake box. This will give much better readings and allow much better trimming and air temp compensation... something that would have been near impossible with the stock sensor. Off home for an early night tonight... knackered after last night's efforts! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KKtrips Posted December 16, 2010 Share Posted December 16, 2010 I believe that the Odyssey race batteries can be ordered with the bracketry correct for the battery that would suit your car well.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 16, 2010 Author Share Posted December 16, 2010 Sadly none of the off the shelf brackets suit, unless I want to drill holes through the chassis... something I'll avoid. My existing design will work, just needs tweaking and remanufacture Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 20, 2010 Author Share Posted December 20, 2010 Another minor update. I've got the Odyssey battery and have redesigned the battery clamp. This has been sent off to manufacture and I'll have it mid-January after the Christmas shut-down. The IAT sensor has been moved to the back of the carbon airbox and gives sensible readings, which will help things immensely. She's been given her first oil change to ensure any assembly nasties aren't floating around in the oil. Glenn has been doing some work on getting the cold-start right on the engine and we've now got about 20-25 minutes time up on the engine. With the coolant system under pressure we've uncovered a couple of small leaks. Just hose clamps that weren't nipped up tight enough. It seems to be holding now, but we'll check again with the engine hot and under load. Tomorrow I head up to GDS with the new battery and we bolt the car to the dyno and spend the day running the engine and getting the mapping done below about 5000RPM. This is the state the car will be in for the run-in period of the first 800km or so... it should be just about coming up on cam at that point so it'll be interesting to drive with the fun police stepping in just as things begin to get interesting! Looking forward to having the car back in the garage and attacking the remaining jobs in the new year! Oh and in other news, I've been putting together a valuation for replacement costs for insurance purposes..... the replacement value for this car has now reached utterly comical proportions! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 21, 2010 Author Share Posted December 21, 2010 Merde! Well a good and bad day today.... I've just had a call from Glenn and the car's all on the dyno. Some preliminary mapping work has been done and it's looking all as it should... the engine is a cammy wee bastard and it just won't take any fuel up until about 3500RPM up until which point the thing just gulps it in.... it's definitely going to be a screamer! The bad news is that the car seems to be leaking oil out of the rear main crank seal. Nothing major but enough to mean that the gearbox has to come off to sort out. Because I'm running the 6-speed Quaife box, this means the whole engine needs to come out..... FUCK! Not really the news I'd been hoping for, but I guess in the end of it, if that's the worst to come from it, then it's not the end of the world. I know that others who have built VHPD engines lately (I'm thinking Clive AKA MrBean) have also had trouble with the rear mainseals as supplied in the Rover seal kits, which leads me to believe the seal design is flawed. I seem to remember someone mentioning that there was a better seal out there, so I'mma see if I can't find out more about that in the next day or two. Off to Glenn's in the morning and we should be in a position to tow the car away by lunchtime all going well *touches wood*. I'm going to talk to Ken in the morning and see if he's got a spot there to take my car as I don't really want to trailer it back to mine, only to trailer it back to KW at a later date. I'd rather Ken did it as I'm sure he could do it with his eyes closed, and I'm REALLY not in the mood to go pulling my own engine out in a cramped garage at this stage of the game. GRRRRR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
My name is Russell Posted December 21, 2010 Share Posted December 21, 2010 Bugger oh well atleast you know exactly what needs to be done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 21, 2010 Author Share Posted December 21, 2010 Yeah, I just hope it's not a sign of things to come. Apparently it's down to a faulty batch of crank seals... but instead of recalling them they just let customers install them and find out for themselves... no wonder the British motor industry doesn't exist any more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dell'orto Posted December 21, 2010 Share Posted December 21, 2010 A british motor that leaks oil??? Well I never Gutted I missed reading this when you first fired it up, have been following this thread intently. You must be so so stoked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 22, 2010 Author Share Posted December 22, 2010 Spent today on the dyno getting the engine initially broken in under load and base-mapped up to about 6500 RPM. Obviously things are still conservative and it's not been done with the intention of getting max power out of it, but the engine ran very sweetly and sounded nice and angry! It's producing almost 190bhp at the hubs at 7000 (as far as we went) which must be somewhere around 200bhp at the flywheel. The power curve is still very steep at this point and we've still got at least 1500RPM to go. Combine this with the fact that the engine is still tight and it was well over 30 degrees here today, we're looking well on target for my rough goal of 220+bhp I also drove it today for the first time since Easter '08... ok so it was only 30m down the road but even so it feels so responsive and sharp compared to dad's car. The car's now tucked up at KW until the new year as Ken is going to pull the engine and get to the bottom of the weeping crank seal for me. It's only a very small leak but better to get on top of it now before it buggers the clutch and makes too much of a mess. Dyno video to follow tomorrow when I've been home Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xsspeed Posted December 22, 2010 Share Posted December 22, 2010 I assume it was you I saw towing this over the bridge (southbound) this avo? rear clam off behind a 4wd? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 22, 2010 Author Share Posted December 22, 2010 Yeah that's me. I was following behind in a yellow Elise... Glenn was driving the tow vehicle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 22, 2010 Author Share Posted December 22, 2010 And as promised, here's some video of it on the dyno. These runs are through to only 6000RPM. The car sounds pretty tame with the exhaust ducted away like that.... suffice to say that it sounds a LOT more raucous with the exhaust sounding like it should! That's all for the car before Christmas. Hopefully we'll find out a bit more about the oil leak between Christmas and new year.... that's really the only fly in my ointment right now.... not happy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted December 23, 2010 Author Share Posted December 23, 2010 Nothing much new to report. The car will probably remain pretty-much as is for the next week or so until there's some time to pull the engine and replace the faulty oil seal. We'll just have to try again with it and hope that the next one isn't bung as well! As an aside, I was out that way today and am stuck driving my father's Elise at the moment (he's got my GTi6, and I've got his Elise up here having its windscreen replaced) and I figured that I've not yet taken a photo of the two of them together. I'm sure many many more photos will follow in the future, but for now, these are all I've got..... can't wait to get it finished now!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spanners Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 your one looks 100x more staunch love it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyteler Posted December 23, 2010 Share Posted December 23, 2010 That's more because it's an Exige and not an Elise. The name alone is more staunch, ahaha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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