yoeddynz Posted March 20, 2017 Author Share Posted March 20, 2017 Hi.. its been a while. I blame a rusty old Hb wagon and a needy cat taking all my attention. So i had been discussing some fuel issues with this car in the DIY fuel injection thread. I'd found the main problem but Ive continued on with some other work so an update was possible. (Please ignore the next wall of text if you'd already read the stuff id written in the above mentioned thread over the last two days.) Well then..back to this old thing. Here comes lots of words... For ages, actually since I put the V6 in, my current fuel pump arrangement has been like this... But for quite some time it has been a bit noisy especially when its hot outside. One time when arriving at my parents place in Blenheim on a stinking hot day (maybe 35 degrees..not Aussie hot but hot enough! ) and moving the car about on their hot asphalt the engine started idling lean. I felt the surge tank and it was really bloody hot. What I figured back then was that the hot fuel returning from the fuel rails was going back into the surge tank and the engine was not drawing enough at idle to bring in fresh cold fuel from the tank. This is possibly compounded by the fact that the surge tank is filled by a low pressure high volume Carter pump I had been using when the car had the Rotary. So on that day I ended up making the fuel table richer at idle to compensate and that worked fine for when the day was hot as but usually it just means the idle is too rich. I finally had got around to putting the Viva up on the hoist and having a look at things. I decided to add a tee to the return line went from the regulator on the rail to the surge tank. I then ran a line direct to the the return on the main tank and connected the overflow from the surge into the spare input on the tee. This did not work. In fact the pump was way noisier and engine ran lean. So I tried running the return straight back into the main tank and blocked off the overflow. I figured the surge tank would still fill up as any air would get drawn through. But no.. air does not sink... So that didn't work either. I've connected it back the way it was as I was in dire need to go for a strop over the hill to show off the car to my cousin. I took a photo and this what its currently like- you can see the brass tee I'd added when mucking about... After doing more research (that would be looking at stuff on google..) I have noted that almost all surge setups are like mine. So they all have the same potential issue of rising fuel temps within the surge tank. To me it makes more sense to have the return to the main tank.. so long as you have a lift pump that will always keep up with demand and keep the surge tank full. But the surge will still require a overflow to purge air out and that needs to go to the same return pipe on the main tank. I don't think I can run the return from the rail into a tee on the overflow line that goes from the surge to the tank because the higher pressure would override the lift pump pressure and prevent it filling the surge. Man that's a tricky one to type..or picture. I figured I could add a second return into the main tank and run the rail return into that? All I know is that I need to stop the hot fuel going back into the surge. I don't really require a huge surge tank as the car does not see any D1 hardcore action. But if the main tank is low its nice to know I wont get any starvation out of a tight set corner heading up Takaka hill for example. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted March 20, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 20, 2017 Ok.. so after having typed all that the night before and having had some good replies in the tech thread I decided I needed to bench test it and do some chin scratching. I'm glad I did. I found the main problem. out from car and jury rigged up on bench... I discovered that the lift pump was hardly dribbling anything out. Hmmmm. Whats that pre filter like then??... oh.. I removed the filter and wow- proper flow again. I'm amazed the engine was able to run at all!!! So Hannah was heading to town (the big smoke) and would pick me up a new filter. I then decided that while the pumps were out I might as well pull the tank out and add a second return so I have options. First thing was to make things safe before I touch the tank with items of spark or flame. I taped the tank filler onto the trusty old Hiace exhaust and ran it until the tank was purged out of traces of fuel or vapours.. I machined up a little fitting with a nice flat thin section that would provide a good surface area for solder.. I soldered that in place and sat the tank aside. Now since the tank was out I thought it might be a good time to get rid of the horrible large ugly plastic battery box taking up space in the boot and do a similar recessed box like I did on the wagon. I measured the battery and made a box.. Then I cut a big hole out of the boot floor. I did it in that order because my Co2 bottle is about empty. I did not want a large hole that I could not fill. The box is in place now and just needs some paint. I'll continue this very exciting update tomorrow with a photo of some paint drying 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted March 22, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 22, 2017 As promised... look at that paint dry.... Battery box is all done. Forgot to take photo of wooden lid and a strap to hold it down, made from the nylon belt from some old endura bike shorts. I knew it would come in handy one day.. I couldn't resist..I had to cut open the filter for a look. Wow.. Ok.. so yeah.. that'll be a bit blocked then... I refitted the tank, added a new line so now the fuel rail return runs straight to the main tank and the overflow from the surge tank runs into the other new tank fitting. I ran the system through to clean it before connecting to main rail feed. Started car.. ooohhh. Much quieter and seems a bit smoother. Popped the car outside and plugged the laptop in. Watched it warm up and waited till it was off the warm up enrichment. Idle was tad out so a tweek here and there. Its better but more importantly it should remain consistant. I still have the lean out idle surge in the first half minute after starting the hot engine when its been sat a while. I have suspected for a while that this might be due to heatsoak from the hot bay/radiator area into the inlet pipe where the inlet temp sensor sits. Maybe it sees a much higher temp and alters the mixture? I dont know? The temp sensor is plastic bodied and insulated from the alloy by some foam. Hmmm. I need to work this out as its annoying. Some one suggested ages ago to turn off the 'use inlet temp at startup' feature.. but that would only affect the fist startup and few seconds after? Its starts fine as is, hot or cold, but just starts to stumble up and down for a half minute. Any ideas? You can tell me here... Anyway.. I decided that the car was a bit dirty and was due a wash. The evening was warm so Kevin the cat and I gave it a clean. Kevin actually only played in his bowl of water, chasing sticks. I cleaned the car. I might even apply some wax on it in the morning since its so clean... 20 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted August 23, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 23, 2017 Update time. Vivadom daily driving has been pretty damn good. Especially when 2 months ago I finally got around to changing the voltage settings for the wideband O2 sensor on the ECU so that the ECU would get the same reading as what the Innovate gauge shows. It’s a common setting fault and took all of 5 mins to get them to read almost the same. What does this mean though? Well for ages the ECU and hence the tuning program, Tunerstudio, have been receiving a ‘leaner’ voltage than what the engine was really at. This meant that in tuning the final outcome was always a bit too rich. When the ECU was in closed loop ego control it would take my preferred AFR table settings and adjust to what it thought was correct.. which was not. With the ECU now getting the proper signal we re-tuned the car on the way back from Blenheim to Motueka. It was too rich everywhere and after not long was leaned right back. Driveability remained the same, but tail pipe smells improved J I have not gone super lean, sticking to around 15~15.5 on cruise. We filled the tank back up in Motueka and the cars economy had improved returning 32 mpg (8.8l/100km). There is still room to improve but happy with that. So this was all good and everything was fine and dandy for the last month or two. Then the other day while leaving town I started to hear a teeny whistle sound. I just put it down to the throttle body making the sound because sometimes it does just this. The other thing I thought it might be was the idle control valve. I didn’t look into it any further. However, over the next few drives I noticed it was hunting a little at really light throttle openings, like slowly accelerating away from standstill. Hmmmm?... Then that whistle again, this time when I got home one evening. I popped the bonnet and listened around. I couldn’t pinpoint it but when I ran my fingers around the back underside of the plenum box where one of the runners joins I heard the note change. An air leak. Bugger. I looked with a torch and could just make out a little crack on one of the welds I had machined down…hmmmm. Bugger. Oh well.. I was planning on doing a modification to the throttle body pulley so why not sort it out now. I drove the car into the Viva hospital and started surgery. It didn’t take long to pop the bonnet off, unplug all the bits needed and start removing the inlet manifold. The trickiest bit was the return fuel line which was stuck to the pipe and hard to get too. One hour after having parked the car in the surgery and picking up the scalpels I had the manifold on the bench. I worked out pretty quickly why the manifold had cracked where it had. To explain how we need to pop into the police box and go back in time…. Maybe not that far though. Lets try again… Nup.. still too far. This time… Errrgggg. Again… Oh dear lordy..one more time… Ahh… that’s better! Righto..now remember this original plenum chamber? Made from some bent up 2.5mm alloy sheet. It had buckled diagonally when welded and I had then set up the runner heights to suit when I tacked them in place. I had to try and straighten it so it sealed correctly (using our house as a press).. It all worked out OK at the time because it flexed enough to seal when bolted down to the runner flanges. However a few years later I had that backfire and blew the lid off. I then fabricated a new plenum from 5mm alloy sheet and its was nice and straight.. It did not flex. This is how I think the crack happened. I decided I was not going to try to weld up this little crack because I knew the heat would warp the runner flange and nothing will seal. So I bought some posh looking South African epoxy putty, a bit like minute mend or quicksteel. It requires a lot more mixing than the others but sticks really well and smoothed off nicely. Kevin kept guard while it set. While the inlet was off I did some measuring and worked out the dimensions for a new offset/eccentric throttle body pulley. Then I machined down a lump of alloy bar and ended up with a new pulley. I got to use our new mill with a 2mm slot drill ( I could have used a hacksaw and file but this was more fun..) The new pulley effectively gears down the cable pull at the start of the throttle pedal travel and speeds up at the end making for a much easier off idle transition. You can see the difference between old and new here.. No more kangarooing down the road for people not used to this engine with its lightweight flywheel etc. I refitted the inlet manifold, plugged everything in and tried it out. WAY BETTER!!! Went for a drive and its so much easier to ease the throttle on out of corners or from standstill. Much more user friendly and I now wish I’d done this mod ages ago! 35 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted November 15, 2017 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 15, 2017 Today was a day of emotions. Sad, happy, relieved, excited, tired. Today I passed the baton to the Vivas new custodian. It begins a life in Wanganui in new hands. Good safe hands I believe too. Top fella. That was the relief- finding a good home for my long term project and darling little car. Sad to see it drive away up our drive after all the years. Sad that I cant just pop out for a awesome little drive behind that lovely V6. Excited that I can now concentrate on the ongoing wagon project. I now have some pingas to rub together, pingas I can spend on parts needed. Still not sure on what engine I'll end up fitting but that's another story in its own thread anyway. Back to Viva one for now. Hannah and I took it out for one last blast on Tuesday afternoon. Fun times were had on some favourite roads. God damn its fast when you wind it out. Giggles all round. Took some photos. Then on Wednesday I drove to Nelson and picked up its new owner. He was one of the first of several people to enquire about purchasing the car after I listed it on Trademe. After dealing with a few plonkers I went back to this guy and sort of did a Shallow grave interview, checking out if he'd be the right sort of home. He passed. The deal was done. Meet Charlie @Guzzi Rat. All round good fella. Into racing sidecars, cycling, tramping, hunting and old cars. His first car was a Viva. Just seemed right. Here he is swapping in a new steering wheel (I was always going to keep my wheel, made by my uncle when he did prototype work at Motolita)... After Charlie drove us back home I went through all the ins and outs of Vivadom, especially the ECU stuff. I then showed him some of the good threads on Oldschool. Then we had a bbq and talked bikes. This morning we handed over the keys... and Charlie drove away and headed back north... So I hand the baton over to Charlie. Have fun ! Please do continue this thread for all. Post updates, photos, general tinkering, economy figures etc etc No crash photos though! 17 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Guzzi Rat Posted November 16, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted November 16, 2017 22 hours ago, yoeddynz said: Today was a day of emotions. Sad, happy, relieved, excited, tired. Today I passed the baton to the Vivas new custodian. It begins a life in Wanganui in new hands. Good safe hands I believe too. Top fella. That was the relief- finding a good home for my long term project and darling little car. Sad to see it drive away up our drive after all the years. Sad that I cant just pop out for a awesome little drive behind that lovely V6. Excited that I can now concentrate on the ongoing wagon project. I now have some pingas to rub together, pingas I can spend on parts needed. Still not sure on what engine I'll end up fitting but that's another story in its own thread anyway. Back to Viva one for now. Hannah and I took it out for one last blast on Tuesday afternoon. Fun times were had on some favourite roads. God damn its fast when you wind it out. Giggles all round. Took some photos. Then on Wednesday I drove to Nelson and picked up its new owner. He was one of the first of several people to enquire about purchasing the car after I listed it on Trademe. After dealing with a few plonkers I went back to this guy and sort of did a Shallow grave interview, checking out if he'd be the right sort of home. He passed. The deal was done. Meet Charlie @Guzzi Rat. All round good fella. Into racing sidecars, cycling, tramping, hunting and old cars. His first car was a Viva. Just seemed right. Here he is swapping in a new steering wheel (I was always going to keep my wheel, made by my uncle when he did prototype work at Motolita)... After Charlie drove us back home I went through all the ins and outs of Vivadom, especially the ECU stuff. I then showed him some of the good threads on Oldschool. Then we had a bbq and talked bikes. This morning we handed over the keys... and Charlie drove away and headed back north... So I hand the baton over to Charlie. Have fun ! Please do continue this thread for all. Post updates, photos, general tinkering, economy figures etc etc No crash photos though! Thanks Alex and Hannah for the great hospitality, and taking the time to go over everything in detail. And I'm sure you are just a phone call or messenger click away when I forget something. So the drive home was to quote "Spirited" loved every minute of it, the calls of "Viva"!! from the old guys on the ferry was telling me yup this was the right car for me. A young chap in a Golf GTI was shown that this car was something else as I left him in my wake at a set of lights, and when he did catch up a big grin and thumbs up was received. Yes I will continue the thread with what I do and places I go so the followers can keep the connection with the car, after all I am but just the custodian and minder of this amazing little car For quite some time I might add. Thanks again Charlie aka Guzzi Rat 31 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Guzzi Rat Posted December 6, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted December 6, 2017 My first bit of fettling with the HB. Hopefully the colour will age with a bit of sunlight and settle to better match the rest of the interior. Anyone pick the change straight off? 12 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guzzi Rat Posted December 7, 2017 Share Posted December 7, 2017 Pinch weld or weather seal been replaced, not the cloth type but with a period matching new one for a Torana. A little more pink than expected but should fade well to match. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guzzi Rat Posted January 25, 2019 Share Posted January 25, 2019 New seatbelts for the Viva. Made in the states and imported by Normanby Upholstery. Great to deal with and you can match colour and type that you need and have them made to order, all with the correct safety standard required for WOF requirements. No hassels. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Guzzi Rat Posted January 25, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted January 25, 2019 will try to find some photos of the recent rally we went in, had a guy ask to buy the Viva off me, he would not take no for an answer, he could not understand that something just was not for sale 9 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Guzzi Rat Posted September 2, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted September 2, 2020 Latest repairs for last WOF. New set of tyres. New tie rod ends. New steering boots. Shimmed rack and pinion to take the slack out of the steering. Wheel alignment. Also replaced the fuel pump last year due to it leaking, (aftermarket external). Still humming along (sorry team, not much for threads on the interweb) Cheers Charlie. 17 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Guzzi Rat Posted August 21, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted August 21, 2022 Today's daffodil rally in Wanganui. The mighty Viva got second place and won best special built prize. Great day out, thanks to the local vintage car club for a great event 34 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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