Esprit's '01 Exige Over-winter refresh

[Esprit]

I could, but this way is easier and tidier... we'll also end up with an optimal signal for the ecu to process

[mixmasterlex]

Christ I hope you plan on thrashing this car hard once it's done. So much effort gone into it!

[Esprit]

Thrashing thy will be done!

[Esprit]

Tonight's efforts involved a bit of a departure from the norm.

Originally I was going to be logging temps of everything on a SPADesign dual digital gauge and using a switching relay to switch between the various sensors, meaning I could display multiple temps on one gauge. Now that I'm logging everything on the Motec, I'm not going to be using the SPADesign gauge any more.

I'll still use the SPADesign temperature sensors though because they're very high quality sensors giving a 0-5V stable output. They're also 1/8" NPT thread which fits in with my existing setup, so I was reluctant to change anything.

The problem arises though in that you need to know the sensor calibration table to be able to get very accurate readings with the Motec datalogging. Motec have a database of sensors but these aren't on them sadly. Thankfully Motec have the ability to make up your own calibration tables if you have the data..... so, I had to gather it.

Working on the assumption that the SPA gauge is calibrated accurately to the sensor, I decided to do a lab test with a high resolution multimeter logging the voltage between the sensor signal line and sensor ground. Then I could run the thermo-sensor through its range of measurement (-10 dec C to +150 deg C) and correlate the known temperature on the gauge with the measured voltage reading.

So, take one empty tin can, fill with nice new synthetic motor oil, and immerse sensor.... heat to 150 degrees C:

Feed the gauge with a nice regulated 12V supply and datalog the measured voltage values as the oil slowly cools back to ambient:

Then dump into Excel:

As you can see the result is a nice straight line (as a good quality sensor gives).

This means I can programme the Motec to give exact temperature given the voltage over the whole sensor range.

Kinda a different, yet enjoyable way to spend an evening... I'm such a geek

[lowlancer]

Jesus wept, this is amazing

[Vintage Grumble]

I love the smell of hot motor oil in the evenings/my house. Love your work BTW, true professionalism all round.

P.S. We have the same tea towles.

[Esprit]

Haha... well if a job's worth doing, it's worth doing right

[Dell'orto]

You must be single/live alone, no woman would allow you to boil oil on the stove

Fantastic though, glad to see someone running a Motec. Very keen to see the results of its tune.

[Esprit]

Haha yeah, I live in a flat... girlfriend did come around and laugh at me though for being such a geek Don't think there's any way she'd have let me run a similar experiment at her place though!

And yeah, not many people run Motecs because of the price... and thus far, I'd have to say there's not a lot that makes it worth the rather extortionate bill. It's certainly brilliant gear and it does solve a few issues for me in a rather cool way.... not sure whether it's worth the investment though.

Ask me again in a couple of months though... when the car's running (hopefully) sweetly and the ECU bill has been forgotten, I'm sure my take on it will be different.

[My name is Russell]

You must be single/live alone, no woman would allow you to boil oil on the stove

HAHAHAHA was thinking exactly the same thing, shit i would be in the poos

Looking good! impressive stuff. could become a calibrating specialist

[Simon]

Keen to buy a lotus and live in a flat tbh.

Mum looked at me sideways when cooking headlights in the oven.

This is awesome!

[Esprit]

Looking good! impressive stuff. could become a calibrating specialist

Haha well I used to work alongside guys that did high level calibration and I'm afraid that an old tin can on a stove wouldn't quite cut it for what they do

Keen to buy a lotus and live in a flat tbh.

Mum looked at me sideways when cooking headlights in the oven.

This is awesome!

Get used to eating 2-minute noodles, mince and baked beans.... frees up a lot more cash for automotive pursuits

[Mike-e]

grow some vegies

[Vintage Grumble]

I doubt you will need help, but my brother in law went to oz and did the motec training thingey, hes a pretty bloody switched on dude, so if you need any help, I can ask him about stuff? Hes making his own "stack dash" style dash at the mo, should be a heap better then the stack dash (they are pretty pointless TBH) and about a 1/4 the price.

[Esprit]

Will keep that in mind.

Only planning to run a Motec Mini dash at this stage though. Love the OEM dash too much to replace it and want to keep it looking original.

[Esprit]

Great Success!

A productive afternoon in the garage today for sure. Things have progressed slowly, carefully but very well.

Today's job was to get the camshaft sensor all mounted up, a risky job that involved drilling the camshaft while in-situ in the head.

As detailed in previous posts, I decided not to leave this to chance and designed up a drilling/tapping guide to make sure I drilled the hole to the right depth, at the right radius and perfectly parallel with the camshaft axis.

Here you can see the guide mounted in place before drilling:

Thanks to this, it was very easy to achieve a perfectly drilled and tapped hole in the end of the camshaft:

Into this, I inserted my specially-machined M4 trigger screw. This is basically an M4 hex-head screw but with a taller head with a crisp-edge on the hex to give a good trigger:

You'll see that the hex is oriented so that in this exact engine position, the leading edge of the hex (in this view the cam rotates anticlockwise) is perfectly aligned with the vertical in relation to the engine, and the black mark Glenn and I marked out last weekend:

With that done, the task was to test-fit the mounting I designed up. The boys at Allround Engineering in Hamilton did a lovely job of machining this up from billet for me, and turned it around inside a week:

A little bit of fettling was required on the slots as I'd not got the measurements quite right, but it was nothing that half an hour with the needle files weren't able to sort out.

This was then fitted to the head and the sensor added to check for fit. I'm so stoked with how it looks.... really tidy! I'm going to anodise it black during the week which will finish it off rather nicely. Even more tidy than a Lotus OEM part I reckon!

I also used some plasticine to check the clearance between the end of the sensor and the head of the trigger screw. It came out at about 1.35mm which is a little larger than the 1.2mm I aimed for. It turns out the sensor is a touch shorter than specified. However the recommended air gap is 1-2mm so I'm well within acceptable limits.

Job's a carrot!

[Dell'orto]

Your leads are filthy

[Esprit]

Haha every forum I post this blog on (about 5), SOMEONE has mentioned the leads..... they're the original ones that were on the car when I got it. I put them back on for length because I was thinking of moving the coil pack slightly..... fear not, brand new ones will be going on before it's due to make spark

[Esprit]

Well a fruitful Sunday working on the car.

I managed to get the gearbox filled with oil finally, which involved making a special filling device out of a funnel, some oil hose and some other bits and pieces.

I also had to make a small dipstick to check the level (out of a couple of cable ties) because Quaife had recommended to me that for high RPM applications the gearbox is best filled to about 20mm below the level plug. In the end the gearbox took just on 2L of oil.

I also primed the gearbox oil pump and cooler by jumping it with a battery. It seemed to work quite well, although I was just pulsing it as it's not designed to pump cold oil.

The other job I tackled was to replace the old slave cylinder. This was just one of those things that was cheap to do and the old one was just looking tired. I'll keep the old one as a spare and clean it up at some point:

I've a bunch of jobs lined up for the week including getting new proper brake fluid for the car (just some cheap stuff in at the moment to get the thing filled), getting some run-in oil into the engine and hopefully get the remaining fittings I need for the engine.

Will take the mount for the cam sensor off to anodising today and will also try to track down a way to mount the Motec on my existing ECU bracket I made up for the link.

Aiming to get the car out of here and off to GDS by next weekend... fingers crossed!

[Esprit]

Another successful Tuesday night in the garage.

Today my new bulkhead connector arrived. I took a gamble on this one being the right one, because the drawing supplied by the manufacturers had a few errors but it test-fitted just fine:

I'll pass this on to Glenn when he begins the wiring and he'll be able to run a new engine loom from here, meaning we'll be able to tidy up the engine bay wiring significantly without hacking into any of the OEM wiring.

I also picked up the cam sensor mount from the guys over at Anodising Industries who again did a faultless job. It turned out exactly how I wanted and I think it looks perfect on the car. Just hope it all works when hooked up now!

I also picked up a couple of fittings from Alert Motorsport to allow me to finish off my plumbing for the oil pressure sensors. I just need my new oil pressure sensor (solid state) to arrive from Merlin Motorsport in the UK. Hopefully this turns up before the weekend and I can get the engine filled and primed with oil,

I also modelled the Motec M800 up in SolidWorks to confirm it'd fit in the space I had allowed, which it did, like a glove

Rapidly running out of things to do on my list before it heads off to GDS for wiring, so we're getting mighty close! Things will move at a heady pace once it's up there as it'll be getting someone work on it full time as opposed to the couple of hours here and there I'm able to swing.

If I squint hard enough, I think I can see the finish line