Roman's 4GR V6 Toyota Carina

[Roman]

Good news is that the head looks okay, valve guides look okay, exhaust valves look untouched.

Just intake valves got pretty tweaked! 



There's a few tiny marks on the pistons but nothing to worry about. 

Because I have stiff valve springs, and the valves were held about half way down because of the bends. It was an interesting experience banging the collets out. I may have fired a few into orbit. 
So need to get some of those when I go to pickapart to get new valves etc.

I was also cursing at the fact that I need to take the sump off, in order to get the front cover off to reset the timing. If I need to take the upper sump pan off, it's an engine out job which I dont really have any space to do. 
I managed to get the cover mostly off by only removing the lower bowl, and undoing the cover bolts from underneath - but then it seemed stuck so I resigned to the fact that I'd have to take the sump fully off. 
Then I remembered that the oil pickup tube is attached to the oil pump, which is on the front cover - Which was what was jamming it. Ha. So when I undo that, hopefully the cover comes off no problem.


In other news, I saw a video from Papadakis racing where they fully made a turbo manifold from 3d printed inconel. 
It looked absolutely friggen amazing.
So I thought for interests sake, I wonder if there's anywhere that 3d prints metal that could give me a price online by just uploading an STL file. 
So I drew a collector with no particular science to it, just to get a shape to get a ballpark figure. Expecting zillions. 
Much to my surprise, one of the places could do it for $250NZD from 316L stainless. Which seems absolutely incredible!
The prices for getting aluminium printed seemed completely sane as well.
For some smaller or more complex objects, this might be a no brainer.

So at some point I think I will get one made and see how it looks. Then order a 2nd one for the other side if it's any good. 
But I'll do some more investigation on what makes a good collector shape first.
This will be by far the cheapest and easiest option, and potentially the best shape too.
I'm excited about it. It will be cool to be able to make some organic shapes without being constrained by working just with a constant pipe diameter. 
Might be a month or three down the track though. But thats what I'm fizzing over a the moment.

[Roman]

Pulley carnage 

Made some progress getting the old stuff apart. 
The old intake pulley has a few interesting things which suck about it. 
So firstly the 3 bolts holding the pulley together have threads going nearly all of the way up to the head:



So when the bolt passes through this front section, if there is any shearing load then it's happening threads against pulley.
Rather than acting like a dowel pin.
There isnt anything that locates the front part of the pulley to the rear half, apart from those 3 bolts.



So once they started coming loose, we get this sort of thing going on:




So what I'm thinking is to replace with a bolt that has a longer shank that fits tight to the hole instead. 
Not on that pulley obviously though.
Although, I'm also thinking to just replace all of the pulleys with the newer versions. Check that the locking pins are functioning. 
Then just get on with it.

Which brings us to the next part... 

The suffering and joy (and suffering) of having a common engine 

I've bleated on many times now, about how I'm glad to have a common engine so it's easy to get parts etc. 
But I now realize this is a double edged sword. If this was an uncommon engine and I had no choice to just pay for brand new parts.
Then I'd just do that. Sure it would set me back $1500 or something.
But making myself suffer at pickapart wouldn't be an option. 
When it is an option though, I'll always consider it.
Ha. So that's what I've been doing.

I found the Mark X in the Mangere yard that was the 2009+ model with the later pulleys. 
I turned up and it's looking like this:



Awkward to work on as the motor has already been dropped down.
The radiator was stoved into the front of the motor as well. 
Not deal breakers, just make it more annoying to do remove stuff.
After considerable aggravation I managed to get the cams out from one bank. 
However the intake manifold is held on by several regular bolts, but also ONE fucking cap screw. Which I didnt have anything to undo it with.
Then I had also forgotten to bring my hex head bit for undoing the head bolts to try get some valves out.
So called it a day. Came back another time.
It was easier getting the other bank's cams out once the intake manifold was off, because the chain was already loose.
Then to get the head off, lots of stuff needs to come off from the front and back.
I finally got a head ready to come off. 
Except for that I forgot how stupidly tight these bolts are, and that I usually have a long extension on the end of my breaker bar.
However I wasnt ready to give up, so had a wander around and found a piece of exhaust pipe that did the trick.



Then the valves banged out easy enough. Sure enough they are all caked in shit though from not having port injection.
Job done. I forgot how much garbage is all over these engines in factory configuration.
Definitely zero percent interested to ever diagnose or fix any issues on a Mark X. ha.



So I'll get the valves cleaned up, fit them up and get the head back on. 

So the one good thing about all this, is that it didnt cost too much. 
4x VVTI pulleys @ $15 each 
6x intake valves @ $7 each 

So $102 + some gas money (and some hours...)

The best prices I could find brand new parts were around $350-$400 per pulley. 
Then $35 each per valve. 
So that would have been more like $1800 if that was my only option. 
Which would set me back a few months worth of car budget, meaning no progress on other things. 

Having the pulley blow up didnt bother me too much at first.
But after a while it was a bit of a downer thinking about how much work I've got to do, just to get back to the starting point I was already at. 
But at least now it feels like I'm on the path to putting things back together, rather than pulling it all apart. 


Exhaust stuff 

Having the pulley blow up also made me realize that although it was a good milestone to have the motor fired up.
There were really just a lot of things not anywhere close to being ready. Needs exhaust, needs more wiring sorted, needs a radiator fan, needs a firewall, and so on.
So I'm focused back on progressing on these things rather than melting my ear drums.
Generally doing any exhaust stuff has been a fairly stressful experience while I've tried haphazardly put stuff together without much of a plan. 
So I'm trying to do things differently this time.

Firstly came up with a simple sketch of how things are going to be laid out. 
Then added some angles and dimensions to this from measuring the car to revise this sketch.
So then I can always refer back to this if I get myself in a fluster, and feel like I've got a plan.
Also have a decently educated guess about making a few sections off-car without scrounging around on the ground a lot.
So it's mostly going to be 3" pipe.


I tallied up all of the bends and lengths, then ordered a bunch more than needed.
Rather than, buying as many as I think I will need then stressing because I'm trying to ration them.

I will get the Y section all tacked together and put some flanges on it. 
Then I will bolt this solidly to the underside of the car, offset from the body with some printed fixtures.
Then I can work on everything forward and back from this pieces without jiggling it all around like when it's hung from rubber mounts.
Then hang it from rubber mounts all at once, rather than trying to second guess the addition of extra weight as you add bits on.
Hopefully I'll be able to fit two decently big mufflers under the car, one mid and one at the back.
The bends turned up a few days ago, and the straight sections in the post just today. 

So hopefully it wont be too much of a drama to repair this head and get it back in place. 
Then make a decent start on the exhaust. 
I think working from the exhaust backwards towards the manifolds will make the manifolds a bit easier as well.

So no shortage of thing to be doing right now. Having a very limited amount of garage space and limited daylight hours is definitely making things difficult right now. 
But will keep chipping away at it.
 

[Roman]

I havent had any time or space to get any welding done on the exhaust, but I've nearly finished putting the rest of the motor all together.
But once thats finished I can push the car back outside for a few days and have some space for doing stuff again.
Having a V6 with 3x timing chains really makes me appreciate how much simpler life is when you use a belt, and can just take the timing covers off without 3 litres of RTV to deal with.

Exhaust collector side quest

I've been doing some more reading and mulling over collector shapes/options, drew up shape that I'm happy with and have put through an order. 
Just one for now, in case it's crap.
Estimated 7-10 days arrival,  $263 delivered. Seems insane! 
Hopefully it works out good. 




I've opted for having quite a tight choke point and quite a short merge. Which makes for a fairly steep angle. 
But when you arent fabricating it out of just straight sections of pipe, I think the shape should still flow pretty good. 
I think some of the general rules around collector design are based around 4-1 construction and only having straight pipes to fabricate things with.
When you have a 3-1 without the symmetry of a 4-1 or 2-1, it seems like making the merge section longer doesnt affect the shape of the center part by much. So I'd rather just get the change in cross sectional area over and done with, then start tapering back out which I think is probably the more important bit.

This is using 3x 38mm OD pipes for the runners, 1.75" choke point and is a 2.5" exit. So can taper this out further to 3" or maybe keep the 2-1 section as 2.5". 
Not sure yet.




While looking at different cars collector designs it was really interesting to see that F1 cars seem to have some fairly gross looking merge designs, like this weird 3:1




Or the crazily steep merge angle on half of a V8




Some of it looks like packaging determines the shape more than anything, so I'm not too concerned about the (hand waving gestures) manner in which I've made the shape of these ones.

While I'm drunk on the idea of metal 3d printing

Aluminium is even cheaper than stainless to 3d print, so decided to price up making some better throttle pulleys.
As they ended up being surprisingly heavy with the stacks of 2.5mm stainless, and they look a bit shoddy.
It would also be nice to have more of an internal radius for how the cable sits.
So now the design is much, much lighter.
To print from aluminium the single row pulley cost $32 NZD, and the double row pulley cost $40 NZD.
But then shipping was $50, this seemed to be the same price regardless of whether it was 1 or 2 pulleys. 
So next time if I've got a bunch of small brackets etc to do I'll make sure to put all the files together at once.
Hopefully they turn out good. I dont know how much detail the metal printing is actually capable of.

A week or 3 ago I also ordered 2x 500mm lengths of 10mm OD carbon fibre rod, which is something else that is surprisingly cheap. 
So I'll use this instead of the stainless steel rods to link the throttles, as these are also surprisingly heavy. 

The weight difference is pretty incredible, will be going from ~1.1kg down to ~140 grams.

[Roman]

Alright alright alright! 
I'm all fizzed up at the moment about making some good progress again.

The motor's all back together and ready to fire up, apart from exhaust.
I've nearly finished making a 3" exhaust for it, apart from extractors. 
Just need to hang it and finish off some of the welds. 
Had a few blow throughs on a few areas, some of the bends were a bit shit, think they are thinner than advertised.
It's not pretty, but, it'll do the job.

Radiator fan has turned up, so will get that mounted and wired in.

I found some 90 degree boots for the injector plugs so my loom is a bit tidier. As currently they want to sprawl out across the top covers.



Carbon rods turned up, but yeah they are nowhere near 10mm. More like 10.5 maybe. Too big to work as the throttle rod things.
I sanded one down heaps, but still super tight. Might be able to use a lathe or something to try get it nice and even and 10mm. 
However CBF with that for now, it's a bit of a sidetrack so I have just put the steel ones back in. 

Annnnnddddd

The 3d printed collector turned up.
I am absolutely blown away by the level of detail and how good it is! 
Unless there's some sort of major disaster with the welding of it, at this price it's an absolute no brainer to keep doing things this way.
So now I'll be putting my spare time into getting one bank's exhaust finished. 
I only ordered one, as I was skeptical about how good the quality might be. But its amazing. 





By some miracle the dimensions of my model were also good enough that the pipes slot straight in. 
This has turned the hardest part that I've been dreading into the easiest and most exciting part of making the exhaust. 
Max fizz! 
Cant wait to get it all finished. 

[Roman]

Alright so my welding is definitely improving, but, still sucks a bit. 
I've blurred this image so you can get the gist of what's going on, without causing too many eye bleeds to people who can weld good. 



My tig skills have been slowly improving a bit throughout the process so far. I've also learned some better techniques for making a manifold.
So here are some lessons for next time.

Wrong flange material
I had the flanges cut out of mild steel, no idea why, think I was just trying to save money vs stainless. 
I should have just made them stainless as they are already rusty. Maybe because I left them outside for a few months? who can say.

Tig torch angle is crucial 
The big "aha" moment that I reached part way through this, was just how well it pulls the weld pool along when your torch angle is just right. 
And, recognizing the symptoms of if it's too steep or shallow. 
A lot of my welds previously had to run really hot because it was hard to try get the pool to move. 
So end up with big brown heat bands around the weld. Where on a few where I've been able to keep the torch moving fast, ends up with the nice rainbow sort of finish from a much smaller heat affected zone. Cool.
I've had a few blowouts which has been annoying, but they are decreasing in frequency with practice, and there are a few welds there that I'm happy with how they look.
If someone reading this hasnt tried tig welding before, basically getting the tig torch on the right angle is like when you get "scissor glide" through paper by having the blades in just the right place.
Aahhhh. Satisfying. haha.

Slot the pipes right through the flange
On the flange, I had some holes cut that are the shape of the port, rather than shape of the pipe.
So the pipe has to sit on the top face of the flange, it's only held on by a fillet weld around the outside.
So this makes positioning the pipe tricky, and it's probably more likely to break off or crack later on. 
It means that the tack weld has to be fairly grunty to hold it in place, as there's a lot of weight hanging from it.
It would be super easy if the pipes just slotted into the flange instead.
So this way if It's all tacked together and I just need to extend or shorten the runner by a smidge, I can move the pipe in or out of the flange.
Only small tacks are needed as it's supporting much less.
Then once it's all welded together, you can just cut the excess pipe lengths off at the back. 
Might save me needing to do some tricky welds on the front face of the flange as well, if it's hard to reach.
As I can just fully weld the pipe from the back side of the flange.

Collector doesnt allow for welds between pipes
For the collector, I've had fairly tight clearances for the 3 pipes to go together parallel. 
This has become a pain because there's no allowance for the thickness of a weld where the pipes touch each other.
So the pipes want to splay out unless you grind the inside welds flush.
It would make life waaayyyyy easier if I put something like an extra 10mm or 15mm on the outside part that the three pipes slot into. 
This will add some strength but also make it a lot easier to hold the pipes straight when trying to reposition them.

U bends for easy length adjustment
For getting pipes equal(ish) length it's awesome having a 180 degree bend in the runner - Because if you need to add 300mm, you can just cut 2x 150mm extensions and add them to either side of the 180.
So far my first two pipes look to be within 20-30mm of each other with a goal of 860mm total length. (for the arbitrary reason of, the first one was 860mm)

Hard part first
Making the first pipe fit was the biggest headache, because once it was in place and cleared the crossmember and steering column. It was easy to put the others into the available space.
It was good to start on the most difficult side, As this sets what the overall runner length can be, under the most difficult circumstances.
So its al lot easier to try match it up on the other side that has more room, than come up with a length that is a nightmare to fit.

Hopefully I'll have this side all finished this week. 
I only ordered 1 collector, so I'll add some revisions before sending off for the 2nd one to be made.
I'm going to order a crapload more bends, as I might actually run out before finishing the 3rd runner. Despite thinking I'd have plenty.





 

[Roman]

Standard exhaust manifolds and some coby hotdogs on it because I just wanted to see if it fired up okay. 

But... shit yes 
 

 

[Roman]

Everything was going so well! Until it wasnt again. 

So I had the motor warmed up a bit and was getting sensors checked and all that. 

Gave the motor a few big revs, because, reasons. 

Was fine after that but then started clattering while the motor was just idling again a bit later. 

So by coincidence I bought a USB borescope camera and it turned up today, an absolutely excellent tool and it was only 20 bucks or so. 

So I look down the intake ports and as luck would have it there was a little piece of something jamming one of the valves on cyl 1. 



So that explains that! 
So although its starting to rain and the car's outside, it was going to bug me if I dont try get this knocked back out and see what it is/was. 
I knocked it out of place with a screw driver, however this didnt really unlock any secrets because now it's just the same looking thing but sitting on the piston. Ha.
However it doesnt look like part of a screw or anything, so I guess that says something in itself.




Since last time stuff happened, it knocked some of the rockers out of the head I thought I'd better take the cover off for a look.

And there was a bit of something in there as well? What the hell? 
Looked like metal and plastic. Hmmmmmmm chain guide? 
So I have a look at the chain guide between the intake and exhaust cam, and it's broken off the bottom guide part.
So that's probably something that I should have just replaced after last time. 
Because the chain guide on the other bank was broken, but I kept this one in place. Damnit. 

So I'm not sure what is cause or effect here but the exhaust side VVT pulley looks like it's on the verge of prolapsing as well. 
Some of the parts of the tensioner have fallen down the timing cover so it's all got to come back off.




So yeah that all sucks. But how good did it sound! For a bit! haha. 

I've got plenty to carry on with that doesnt need the motor going, so this doesnt really set back my timeline by a considerable amount. 
I'm still on course to have this all going and hopefully at some events for summer time. 

If it turns out that these VVT pulleys are just going to keep shitting themselves, there is a non VVT version of this motor. So hopefully the pulleys are interchangable. 
I'd not lose too much sleep about removing the exhaust side VVT, and apparently these are the most likely ones to cause issues. 

[Roman]

The car is still sitting outside while I've needed the garage space for other stuff.
So I've not made any further progress on pulling the engine back apart. 
However, seeing how well the metal 3d printing went, how expensive it wasnt, and how strong the parts are. 
I've decided it's time to make some ITB adapters that are a little less delicate than printed nylon.
Printing manifolds from nylon is awesome, and I'm amazed this is a possibility to get usable parts this way.
However it takes a lot of care. It feels like I'm one poorly timed fart away from over tightening a bolt and stripping threads.
Since everything can be super thin if it's printed from metal, I've started my model again from scratch.  
About 3 billion hours later: 



This version now has balance tubes between the throttles. As eventually I will need to connect up PCV / brake booster and maybe an IACV if needed.
Also improves behavior at part throttle a bit.
I've tried to make the tubes structural-ish to help support the top flange.
 


Then the underside of the flanges have as much material scooped out as I think I can get away with.


Then same goes for the main flanges.
I have added some cross bracing that I hope will add a little strength, and a raised perimeter.
I'm really just guessing on what will add strength, as I dont have any of the stress analysis tools available. 
I could get these with the paid version of F360, but there's no point spending $200 a month (or whatever) on software that is going to save me $30 on a one off print. ha.




I'm tempted to just pull the trigger and get these orders underway. 
However I know I should really print some plastic ones from PLA just to test fit everything and be 100% sure. 
So will make a start on that tomorrow and maybe a bit of progress on getting the motor apart.

 

[Roman]

3d print all of the things!
Fuel rails, at the best of times, are about as interesting looking as soviet era apartment blocks.
If you're lucky theyre tucked away down low somewhere mostly out of sight. 
However mine are right in your face up top and currently they're pretty ugly. 
Despite me using the smallest fuel rail extrusion I could find, they ended up huge and surprisingly heavy.
Not the end of the world to have ugly fuel rails, and hardly a top priority to remedy the issue.
However its the first thing you see in the engine bay.
So it mildly annoys me that they suck.

Back to the drawing board for a new version.
I wanted to tuck these in a bit closer to the throttles and have a bit more of an organic shape.
Fingers crossed they work out good!
Hopefully this stuff turns up in a week or two, and I can sit it all on top of my broken engine. 

[Roman]

Back to actual problems instead of scope creep.
I pulled the cover off the other bank, and found that the exhaust side VVT pulley on that side has done poos as well. 
So definitely need those cover plates made up.
I will draw them up once I've got the car back in the garage and can take the sump and front timing cover back off.
There are some steel slivers poking out so I think these pulleys will need to go in the bin. 
Although, if I do end up completely ditching the exhaust side VVT. Which is looking possible. I'll keep these set aside so I can weld them up into fixed position pulleys and get rid of all the crap off the front.

[Roman]

Fixing pulleys 

I've been pulling the whole friggen motor apart just to get the front timing cover off, and pulleys out.
Easy work, but not much fun. I count my blessings that it's a carina and not an MR2 or whatever.
The oil pan had a bunch of chain tensioner debris in it. No glitter in the oil so hopefully we're good.



New exhaust pulleys have turned up, so will need to spin up some covers for them on a lathe and thread into the bolts. 
Should be fairly straight forward.

Damaged valve seat / head 

So that little piece of debris that jammed into a valve seat? Maybe not such an issue after I knocked it out of place.
Since each valve has its own port, I figure it should be easy to see if a valve is leaking by pouring some petrol down each runner. 
So I did that, and the level on both stayed exactly equal for about half an hour with no sign of leaks. 
So hopefully we've got a good seal that'll not cause any problems, even if not ideal. 
Should I pull the head off? probably. 
But if I pull the head off and there's some major problem, the head is toast anyway. 
So I may as well just see how it goes.

engine tidy up stuff / more metal printing

Mega excited when this stuff turned up! 



There are a few rough patches from where they had to remove supports, but not much of it is really visible. 
I'm amazed at how flat the flanges on the manifolds are. The manifolds are 100% usable parts as soon as I've finished tapping threads for the throttles.
The fuel rails need to have the injector holes and end holes 1mm undersized, so these will need to be finished on CNC.

But honestly this is just incredible. Now with the carbon rails and the printed pulleys/manifold/fuel rails. 
The total assembly is around 2.3kg per bank. Not too sure what it was before, but it's a fair chunk lighter.

This month's car budget was money well spent I reckon.
I cant find one of the throttles which has the tab to bolt the fuel rail onto it which is annoying. So I cant put the second bank together.
Ahh it will turn up somewhere.
I might get the trumpets printed from thin alloy as well so it all looks similar. I'm not so keen to keep the black print on the trumpets as it de-features them a bit too much.
When it should be the main eye catching feature. I might paint the rails more of a gun metal sort of colour, and paint the tabs matte black.
But this will tidy up the top of the motor by a huge amount. 

[Roman]

Alright so a few things learned from the printed manifolds. 
The throttles are held on with M6 bolts, and an M6 metric thread needs a 5mm hole to tap the thread into.
So I made these holes 5mm diameter in the model, and had it printed that way.

Unfortunately though I ended up fully stripping one of the threads out while being a noob tapping it.
Thanks @flyingbrick for helping to do the rest, after I lost my tap before getting to the 2nd manifold...
I've been a bit concerned that given the way these are printed. Any outside surface of the part is right on on the border of "stuck together" or not.
Any surface layer might be a little weaker than the inside of the print that is fully printed on all sides of that material. 
So when I have a 5mm hole printed, 5.25mm or 5.5mm might be "weak" material because it's close to the edge/surface. 
(Not actually sure if this is true, speculating) But if that is the case, it's horrible news for tapping into a hole that's already the right size.
So next time I will print the holes at only say 2.5mm or 3mm. Then drill to tap size, then tap. 

Also, although my flange is fairly thick at the point where the throttles bolt on.
Which is good for overall strength. 
Since there are recess needed for the dowels in the throttles, the actual threaded portion is only about 5mm thick / half way down.
Which I dont think is enough for aluminium that is going to have bolts winding in and out of it, on a semi regular basis. 



For the sake of a few extra bucks, next time I will run any threaded sections for as long as possible, ideally right through the model.

To put my mind at ease for these existing manifolds, I've loctited in some threaded rod, and have added a nut to the underside to add a little more stability to the thread.
Yes I will tidy up the cut ends...




I still need to get the fuel rails machined. We can use the same programming that was loaded onto Dad's CNC for the previous rails we drilled. 
However the CNC is out of action at the moment, some sort of power supply problem which is a pain. 
I also almost forgot that I had printed a little throttle cable bracket as well. I nearly threw out the box while it was still in it. 

With everything all together, I think its looking a bit better. that before.
Definitely need to swap out the black trumpets though.




Oldschool drag day is 144 days away, and I'm determined to make it this time. 
Need to get some of the critical remaining parts (like the firewall) started/finished before then! 
And hopefully no more engine blow ups...

Will most likely be taking it to get tech inspected, it's unlikely I'll have a wof/reg/cert by then.
 

 

[Roman]

So back to fixing this problem:




The simple thing to do, is use a lathe, make up a small round disc, drill the bolt, fit a cap screw and job done.
I measured it up, and there's about 6mm clearance from the front cover to the face of the pulley.

I definitely do not need to do any metal 3d printing to fix this basic problem

So I drew these up, since they are quite tiny parts it's affordable to get them printed from titanium.
3d printed titanium seriously! What a time to be alive. This shit is crazy.
Be cool to see how they turn out.



 Exhaust VVT pulleys are 1.2kg each which is stupidly heavy.
So unless they're giving some exceptionally good power or economy gains, they'll likely go in the bin for some lighter fixed pulleys at some point.
Definitely do everything possible to keep the intake side VVTI though, which has been well proven to earn it's keep.

[Roman]

 More VVT side quests 

I've just found out that the hybrid 3.5 litre motor uses fixed timing on the exhaust pulleys, like so:



These pulleys are only $50ish each on Amiyama so I've ordered a pair. 
Hopefully the pulley offset works out nicely when fitting it to a VVT cam.
I'm still a little on the fence about keeping exhaust side VVT but I am rapidly approaching the conclusion that it can all go in the bin.

I also pulled one of the intake pulley bolts out, and took down to the bolt shop. 
Ordered some grade 12.9 cap screws, some nordlock washers, and a bottle of the most "you're not going fucken anywhere" loctite available. 
So will replace all of the intake pulley bolts and hopefully that's the end of my VVT woes. 

E-throttle stuff

While on an unrelated pickapart quest, I stumbled across what looked like a cable pull ethrottle motor from a Kia something something:



Doing some more research though and it's a fairly self contained cruise control unit. 
So it takes an input of a speed signal, brake pedal, activation trigger, and a few other things. 
So when it's turned on, it'll just hold the speed you're at by modulating the throttle using its own internal brains.

So that's pretty cool in itself, but not useful for what I need.
However it's cool because you could fit cruise control fairly easily to a car even if it had a carb or whatever. So long as you could get some sort of wheel speed signal to it.
It's not quite what I need, but it got me curious as to whether there were any cars that had a half arsed ethrottle implementation that used a cable.

Cars? No. Bulldozers? Yes.

Even better than something that just pulls a single cable - This is a dual cable throttle actuator from a Caterpillar bulldozer. Perfect! Ha!




This runs from a single motor and pulls both cables by the same amount. 
So if it works out well I can hopefully link these directly to each bank and ditch the crossover cable.
Perhaps it'll have room to put the pulleys down the back of the motor, now that fuel rails are higher up. Will have a look. 

Have also ordered another exhaust collector so I can do the other side, and a shitload of bends for it.
I'm super keen to get the exhaust finished with some long & equal length manifolds on it.

Stuff like adding bulldozer e-throttle might seem like a sidetrack but it doenst hold me up at all - I've currently got a good functioning cable pull throttle setup. 
So it's mainly the VVT pulley situation and getting the exhaust finished that are bottlenecks at the moment. 
So will be getting stuck into these as soon as parts turn up.

[Roman]

Bulldozer ethrottle 

Okay so this is one of those things, where the scale of parts isnt always evident when you order them. Haha. 
The cables on this are so long, I could probably leave the e-throttle at home and drive the car like one of those cable guided missiles. 

Another issue is that it doesnt quite work how I'd hoped - Instead of pulling two cables "open" it pulls one side open, and the other side shut.
So not very useful in its standard state. However pulling the guts out of it reveals It has a neat little planetary gear stack and a big DC motor that still might work.
So with a new housing it might be able to sit in the vee and pull both cables.




Exhaust manifold stuff

My new style flanges arrived, which allow the pipes to slot all of the way through. 
This, in conjunction with buying bends that have straight sections attached. 
HOLY SHIT YES. This has been about 3000x times easier to try and make a manifold. 
I still dont have much garage space so I've been tacking the bits together on the driveway. 
But it's turned out great so far. 



Having a big U bend on the runners has made it incredibly easy to get all 3 runners about the same length. 
I just measure how far overlength they are, then cut off half that distance either side of the U, then it all still goes together fine.
So they're all within about 20mm length / about 920mm overall length of each runner.
So I could fiddle with it more to get them more exact, but I'm going to call that good enough! 

It was so hard last time, trying to set the angle of the pipe. While also trying to sit it on the front face of the flange in the correct position. 
Feels like you need 6 hands at once to hold stuff.
This was a breeze by comparison.
It's a real pity that  I cant just copy the design to the other side though - I thought the steering column was going to be the hardest bit. 
But the alternator in the way means I cant run the pipes forward at all. So it might take a bit more trickery to get the other side working. 
But super happy with progress so far. I'm really glad I decided to restart this with the new flanges and pipes. 

Cant wait to get these finished, exhaust finished, and fire it up again. 

[Roman]

VVT pulleys 

So the titanium cover plate things turned up, and they looked really good.
@flyingbrick helped me drill and tap some holes in the cam pulley bolts so they could fit on.
While we were there, he was talking about how you can change colour of titanium just by applying voltage through it. 
Different voltage ends up a different colour which is cool. So we gave it a go.



Initially it didnt work too well. possibly because the part was bead blasted or something. 
But quick acid dip then it coloured up good. 



Then everything's fitting up good, so motor is ready to go back together. 



Cant do much at the moment though, as it's too windy and rainy. But next block of good weather and I'll hopefully have the timing done and maybe the sump back on.
I've also fitted grade 12 cap screws into all of the pulleys, with the strongest possible loctite.
Hopefully that's the last of my VVT troubles.

[Roman]

Sorry for bit a of a punishing non-update, been a bit spammy lately and no cool stuff happening.
However it's exciting to feel like I'm close to getting the motor going again. 

I got all of the timing cover and sump back on, which honestly takes hours to do. So much gasket goo to scrape off and reapply! And find all of the right bolts gain, ha.



Then I managed to get my drivers side manifold all welded up properly.
Some pooey welds but seems strong and doesnt leak so calling it a win.
I ended up completely redoing the 2nd runner, as I burned a hole that I ended up chasing around the place. Just seemed to get worse and worse! 
So restarted with fresh bits and it went together a lot easier. Maybe there was still some oil on the inside of the pipe or something. 
But the 3d printed part welded up fine, it was easier than welding the pipes. Super happy with the decision to print the collector.
I might add some extra bracing to hold the three pipes together before they start diverging.
The flange is welded on from the back, so it should be really strong.
As it's not hanging the pipes just from the weld. The tight fit of the flange can hang the weight no problem.
My scheme of welding a little triangle bit on the inside between the pipes, then just welding full around the outside looks to have worked well. 
Hopefully no leaks and no breakages! Should look good once it starts getting some colour into it once it's heated up.
However I will likely heat wrap them anyway once I've confirmed there's no leaks.



I've been thinking about moving the alternator somewhere else, so I could have the same design manifold on both sides.
But there really is nowhere else to put it, even if I flip it around so it's mounted backwards somehow.
Not quite sure how that side is going to work yet.

But here's an artist's concept drawing of how my manifolds might end up looking:



 

[Roman]

This month's car budget activities: 
-Ordered extra pipe for manifold as I've run out of long enough straights.
-Ordered wideband bungs.
-2nd wideband controller ordered so I can monitor each bank. 
-2nd Collector is still being manufactured, hopefully here soonish.

My weekends and evenings have been busy making stuff for goats over the last few weeks, but I think I'm still on a good timeline to get to drags.

I've been going back and forth between dreading moving the alternator, and dreading making an equalish length manifold where I cant have U bends in it.
However I had a bit of a breakthrough.
I realized that my 90 degree bends are a much tighter turn than the 180s that I was using on the other side. 
This means all of the pipes can still go as far forward as they like under the alternator, and there's still plenty of room.



So I've copied the dimensions of the bends and length of stuff back into the computer to get an idea of what to do with the 2nd and 3rd runner to get them fitting okay and about equal. 
Once again with a 180 degree bend in the shape makes it a piece of cake compared to having to rejig the angle of every single part to adjust it.
It looks like this should all fit up and as it sits those are within 5mm length of each other.
If some pipes turn up tomorrow (probably not) will hopefully make some progress over the weekend.
But it feels good to have a workable plan now.




Might cause some other issues but these are future Dave's problem 

[Roman]

OS 2024 DRAG DAY QUEST! 

I am running behind schedule of where I'd have hoped to be by now.
The last month has flown by without much progress. Due to concentrating on getting my new garage up and being away from home a lot for work.

Some other people have helped me though which I am very grateful for!

 @flyingbrick helped me with getting the radiator patched up properly, many thanks! Now it will fit between the rails and hold water.



I'm not sure if he is a member on OS but Dan from Taupo helped me to machine the fuel rails. 
Although I thought it was a cool idea at the time to make these a derpy shape since they are printed.
I guess I kinda forgot that it would be a total prick to hold them in place later on for machining. 
Dan desinged some soft jaws which I printed. Then he drilled injector holes to correct size, and tapped the threads for the end fittings. 
Thanks Dan! Much appreciated. 

Hindsight: I should have added a hex shape or some flats onto the very end of the rail, so there's something to hold onto with a spanner when tightening the end fittings.

I've sourced one of the tiny dual diaphragm KE70 brake boosters and master cyls, this will give me a heap more clearance to the drivers side bank. 
I wont fit this till later though.

As per usual my scheme for the extractors on passenger side didnt quite go to plan.
There just wasnt enough room for the 3rd runner to work nicely. without hitting the chassis rail. 
So I have a bit of a dorky shape on 3rd runner but if it gets me going then thats cool. They're all fairly even lengths.





What's left to do, to get to the drags? 

-Finish building garage
-Finish extractors
-make rest of exhaust fit
-fit mufflers
-hang exhaust
-make battery box / battery wiring
-wire up radiator fan
-redo fuel lines at back of the head
-add charcoal can and extend the line from under the car
-Make top and bottom radiator mounts
-Test start up?
-Test drive? 
-Pull motor and box back out, crossmember out
-properly weld engine mounts and repaint crossmember
-Remake firewall
-Swap to KE70 booster and MC
-redo brake lines

I've got 8 1/2 weeks to get all of the above finished, put some miles on it, shake out any unforseen issues, and get a tech inspection. 

So I'm kind of at the point where it's doable, but I need absolutely nothing to sideswipe me between now and then. 
Which is highly possible. Kind of exciting. See how it goes!

[Roman]

What's been happening with the carina in the 5 weeks since last update? 

Absolutely fuck all

I've been busy putting the garage up, and have been away on some work trips. But then have also been off/on sick for nearly this whole time. 
However I've finally reached a turning point.
The shed is up! and weather tight, or, close enough. 
Still work left to do, but good enough to biff the carina in there. So now I can at least work on it at night time and on rainy days.

I've decided not to fire the motor up yet, because its fairly distracting from getting any other work done.
Instead I will work on all of the peripheral issues that prevent me from driving it.
So I took the front guards off, and all of the interior out so I've got a clear working space for a few things that need doing.



The people who replaced the roof on our house were kind enough to leave a pair of tin snips out somewhere. The guy didnt want them back, as they'd started to rust.
Some CRC later and they're pretty good again. It turns out these are pretty good at cutting firewall metal without any of the aggro that a grinder causes spraying metal and dust everywhere.
So I trimmed the firewall hole a bit bigger so it's a little more all on the same plane, and back far enough that there's still an okay amount of room behind the motor. 



The main thing here, is that there is a rear water outlet on the motor that connects both of the heads to a coolant return pipe that runs back up the vee to the front.
It needs to slide backwards a fair bit, to remove it. If you cant remove it, then you cant get the heads off.
So I've been thinking about whether or not I care about this.
Since so much of the motor has to come apart to remove the heads anyway (sump off, front cover off) 
I'd rather do that out of the car anyway. It's not much work to remove the motor, and I'll always opt for that over trying to work on something in a confined space.
It's not like I'll ever be in a situation at a track day, where pulling the heads off is a solution to a problem that can be fixed same day.
So I think I'll just make sure I can do all of the nuts and bolts up, reach the coolant hoses but not worry about being able to get that coolant outlet off.

I got the fuel rails all connected up, and tested them with some fuel pressure.
The rear fittings were hosing some fuel out, and needed to have the faces sanded flat. After that they sealed fine.
Everything is now holding pressure with no leaks.

Main things to do at the moment are try sort the firewall, and swap over the brake MC and booster to the smaller KE70 units.
Realistically I'm at the point of pushing shit uphill to try get everything sorted by drag day.
As I need a few more trips out of town for work between now and then. 
But I will do my best.