The new air filter is complete!

Andy and the guys at ITG have done a great job for me, he sent me the following pics earlier this morning. It's now winging it's way to me on an overnight delivery, in readiness for Monday.

The calculations that Andy made for this filter are that with this grade foam (their finer grade option), with the internal dimensions we've got, it will support 611bhp for a N/A engine. Andy then generally adds 10% for turbocharged applications, raising it to "a very conservative" 670hp. In reality, he anticipates that so long as the 3" pipework doesn't become the bottleneck, then it may well be able to flow well enough for an 800hp application (!!).

....hope I got my measurements correct!...


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Filter arrived this morning, and thankfully it fits like a glove!! Obviously, am hoping the fit is equally as good with the engine back in the car, but the positioning of the 76mm outlet is spot-on to my scruffy template, and it misses the BOV perfectly.

The aluminium plate halfway down the filter is only the same thickness as the foam depth, and is there to prevent any deformation under full "suck" (i.e., not to join together two chopped filters!)

It was just quickly pushed into place for these pics; it's since been straightened:

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I also collected the van this morning. I have to say, if I won the Euro Millions lottery, ahead of any classic or supercar buying, I'd be purchasing something like this...probably a Mercedes Sprinter LWB....just so damn useful!.....

....but I do feel like a complete pikey getting in and out of it....it just screams "we'll rip you off for a new driveway"...(the UK readers will know what I'm on about ;) )

The filter looks great!

Only thing I'd change are the clamps. That style does not look at home on your absolutely amazing build.

Agree Jesper, they've now been swapped to some 70-90 stainless hose clamps, and rotated 90º....they were just some half-decent ones I found in the garage before I remembered that I bought some new ones a few years ago, that were stashed in the box of new parts. There's no need for jumbo Mikalor clamps, the hose is under suction.

Evening guys,

Just a quick check-in this evening....

The engine was loaded onto the van yesterday afternoon, big thanks to my Dad, Brother and neighbour Ian for the required muscle to manoeuvre the car and keep an eye/hold stuff whilst getting it loaded.

I don't know how, but no matter how much planning and thinking ahead I do, be it packing to go on holiday or getting stuff ready for the dyno, it always goes down to the wire to get it all done in time....last night was no different....still doing some last minute checks and tightenings on the engine, whilst in the van.

Lashed-down and ready to go...

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Fully laden with everything that I may possibly have needed (I live about 100miles away, so not the work of 5 minutes to go and get something I forgot), a 6am departure was achieved. Sun was out, some good tunes on the radio, no snarled traffic around the M25/Dartford Crossing....good signs indeed.

Arrived at DTW around 8.15, quick drink then Dave and his son Alan arrived. No messing about, engine straight off and we're into making the parts needed to mount the engine onto the base "trolley". They had 4/5 different Porsche engine cradles for the front, and 2 for the rear, plus 9-10 different generic adapters for the dyno driveshaft. So, everything just bolted on, right? Not quite!

Some very nice setting up of the adapter plate onto a rotary table, got the 9x holes drilled perfectly first time around. Bravo Alan!

Then time to make some spacers for the bell housing studs; of course, these are very tight to the flywheel, so flats needed milling. Rear cradle then mounted.

The front cradle took more head scratching. The 4 of the ones they have were nowhere near for this particular application, but one was pretty close. Close but no cigar, as the turbo position and the wastegates prevented it sitting under the mounting bar....so, time to think creatively and adapt it with box section and spacers to mount onto the bar from above. All sounds remarkably easy now I type it, but it's taken all day to get everything done in a way thats's bloody rigid and dead parallel with the trolley.

The engine's so wide, it also required the door of the corridor linking the workshop to the dyno room to be removed. Anyway, it's now in the dyno room ready to have the oil and fuel lines plumbed in. These were prepared today in readiness for a fairly early start tomorrow. After that, a quick removal of the plugs to spin her over, build oil pressure, then look to do the initial fire-up. Steve (SBD) will be present tomorrow for mapping duties, so fingers crossed for another update in 24hrs time.

Unfortunately, we were so busy working, I forgot to take any pics; will do so tomorrow first thing....but here's the pub I've just mozied down to for a couple of pints and fish-n-chips. Quintessentially English and a lovely spring evening.

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Come on, come on http://forums.pelicanparts.com/suppo...s/boldblue.gif this is getting even better. By the way, pictures are no longer good enough. We now require video of the first start and some of the mapping phase. A power run is mandatory :D

Haha, ok ok....patience Grasshopper.... :)

I have 3 x HD cameras in the dyno room, all capturing the action. Or not. See below....

Day 2 & 3 update....

Yesterday was a day of 2 halves; the beginning half was to finish off mounting the dyno sled to the dyno itself, which meant a little re-jigging of the engine on the sled to the enable everything to marry-up. Then time to plumb in the wet stuff. Fuel pressure came up no problem, no leaks or even weeps on the whole circuit.

Oil pressure was then driven up on the starter - this also came up well. Phew! No leaks, just evidence of oil being pushed around.

However.....gremlin time, some electrical snags with the eGas setup, both the 997 Carrera throttle body and the potentiometer itself.

First issue was that the s/w we thought we be correct to drive the self-check sweep on the eGas wasn't quite right - resolved by using another version of the code. We also have Chris @ MBE at the end of the phone who's cutting us new code as-I-type to increase the power to the drive.

Second issue was that **somehow** I've ended up with the wrong potentiometer unit....despite buying what I thought was the right Bosch part number, I look to have been sent something different; same form factor, pulling mechanism, etc, etc...it looks identical....but it's acting as a switch, which leads us to believe its a kick-down unit rather than a throttle drive.

So, yesterday evening, a complete lap of the M25 was driven by me in the van, to go to the SBD workshops and collect a couple of known good pot's. While I was being white-van-man, Steve and best mate Matt were working frantically to sort the eGas issue, which they did successfully. Thanks guys!

Currently sitting in the dyno control room, seem to have another slight issue with crank position sensor not picking up teeth on the flywheel....will update later when we know what's going on.

Day 3 Update.

Well, lets start with the positives....IT LIVES!!....at 6.20 this evening, she burst into life, pretty much first time. After some idle checks for leaks or any evidence of anything not being right, we began the running-in procedure, taking the revs up to between 2500 and 4000, checking, dialling in more fuel when needed....all the time with Dave (Mr DTW) listening to the engine with his det headphones....listening to The Waltons on Radio 4

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Now, Dave is one of those guys who's forgotten more than most people know, been in this game for decades, seen most things, bought T-shirts every time. He's also ex Brain Hart, i.e., Hart F1, F2, etc, etc. So, how happy was I when he looked at me, gave me that smile and a nod of a job well-done. Of course, we've got a long way to go yet, but by the end of play this evening, we had just under 2 hours of running complete. Oil pressures looked spot-on, as did oil temps and head temps.

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Steve, proud member of the Ministry Of Funny Walks...

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Intercooler shroud in place, taped-up to force as much air through it as possible.

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Dave & Steve in the control room....

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And the first fire-up....forgot to turn cameras off after this mornings aborted start attempt, so had to make do with iPhone video....

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We have a couple of things to look at though; primarily, we need to get the Lambda sensor working for closed loop mapping. Up to this point, we swapped in one of Daves Lambdas that hooks up to his MoTeC monitor in the control room. This could be another electrical issue, which will be resolved first thing in the morning (we've checked another sensor hooked up to the MBE, and that gave the same result). Once fixed, mapping will be far quicker - doing it manually will be extremely labour intensive.

Up to this point, I was ready to sell the bloody lot. More gremlins today, which probably isn't something for me to detail here just yet, until we know more. Suffice to say that what we found was that we couldn't see a crank pulse at all. We switched sensors, inputs, buzzed things through, checked voltages, but it proved utterly baffling. In the end, for the sake of getting something done and burning as little dyno time as possible, I did another lap of the M25 this afternoon to go and collect more parts to test with. It paid off though, and for the time being we've switched the hall effect sensor for crank pickup to an inductive type. This also means that the ECU needed switching to one that is built for a mag crank sensors/HE cam phase sensor, not HE for both.

After some modifications to get the positioning of the crank sensor correct (it's directional, not a centre pip type), we then had a live engine.

The other thing which we need to possibly look at at some point is the fuel pressure regulator. At the moment, we're seeing upwards of 70psi. At 3000-3500rpm, the duty cycle of the injectors (690cc Siemens) is so low - approx 8-10% - that any adjustment to keep the AFR in check is very sensitive. The injectors not quite being in their sweet-spot, as they're flowing too well. May need to get an adjustable unit, don't know; we'll see how we get on tomorrow.

Simon is going to come up first thing to help assess what's going on with the Lambda system, again, to save time. We weren't initially planning on using a 4th day, but hey, these things are never as straightforward as you'd hoped. Thankfully the dyno is available, the B&B have a couple of spare rooms and Steve is already up here.

Now, who wants to buy a vital organ or limb? Do you a deal, one careful owner......promise...

Day 4 Update

This morning and early part of this afternoon was spent working on corrective activities with Simon; checking, double checking, re-working some connections and enabling others. Still some finishing work to be done once the engine is back home, but in the interests of getting stuff sorted ASAP, things have now been tidied up from initial diagnostic work over the last few days.

Wastegate springs reduced to 0.6 bar black springs; my bad, I misread which model Tial WG's I had (on first glance the MV-R and MV-S look very similar; stupidly a year or so ago, I fitted the correct springs for 0.7 bar if it were the other model, but in my model, the poundage was too high (1bar). So, heatproof gloves on, and time to swap them out while Steve was building some maps.

We've changed tactic and not gone with mapping for TPS (which is 99% of what Steve gets involved with) and instead gone for pressure based mapping. Now, initially we shied away from doing this, as it's potentially a longer job (apparently). But, pleasant surprise of the day was that the engine really is behaving itself nicely, holding true with any adjustments that are needed, rather than wavering all over the place. The latest MBE algorithms which control target boost control and the boost control valve duty cycling also look to be crazy efficient. No wavering about with small variations as it approaches target boost, it's there, bang-on, instantly. It goes straight to whatever we set it to, and is rock solid. This got Steve and Dave VERY excited, potentially making life so much easier as the boost mapping process moves on.

We've now got the cam phase sensor plugged back in and working. This means we've now switched across from wasted spark to sequential spark, giving the ignitors (and COP's) an easier time. A comment from Dave was that when listening on the headphones, the engine suddenly sounded a lot smoother once this switch was made. Interesting.

I then disappeared for 30mins to get some fresh air and do the chocolate run...when I came back, some very cursory low-rev boost runs had taken place, with one running it up to just under 1.2bar and 3k rpm.... Bear in mind that at this stage, the fuel and ignition wasn't dialled-in 100% - some refinement to be had, but at 3,000 rpm, we're making a conservative 249hp and 369lb/ft of torque.

To compare, the stock engine if you recall from the very beginning of the project, made 161hp and 262lb/ft at the same engine speed and at 11.23psi (0.77bar).

Back to back testing of the Track'n'Road rolling road (known to be realistic rather than "ambitious") versus the DTW dyno show that on ca.300hp 4-pot Duratec engines, the DTW dyno reads about 14hp less than the rolling road, so safe to say that this dyno rig isn't in the business of giving bull**** numbers.

So, we finally seem to be on the path to righteousness....however, we do need a fifth day to get a nice set of maps finished. Dammit. I'm so broke, it's seriously not funny...over double my generous estimation from a few weeks ago (3 x days @ approx £1,200/day). However, always keen to present both aspects, it should be remembered that without the magic pixie dust of mapping, the engine is just a lump of passive metal, worthless. This is the bit that can make or break an engine, no matter how good the build spec, so I do keep reminding myself of that (and secretly confess that when we get these eye-opening revelations, and when I do hear it run, it does help to make it worthwhile...but it's not for the faint hearted)

Tune-in tomorrow for another episode. Either way the engine will be coming off the dyno and I'll be driving back home. Hoping like crazy I'll have both peak numbers and full-bore run videos to share with you guys.

Hope everything goes smoothly today!

:)

Thanks Fred.....unfortunately, and despite best wishes and intentions, it didn't go smoothly at all!! :rolleyes:

Day 5 Update Part 1 - The Final Numbers
 

Hey guys,

Ok, this isn't going to be a full debrief writeup just yet, I'll sit down and do my usual chapter-and-verse brain dump later on when I've unwound and got some rest. Lots happened yesterday, but just to give you the headlines....

Peak HP @ 6,000rpm, 1.3bar boost = 544bhp

Peak Torque @ 5,000rpm, 1.2bar boost = 514b/ft

The majority of our running was at 1.2bar; we wanted to get a core set of maps created, safely, then see how that felt before reaching for 1.3bar.

Chris was absolutely spot-on (as usual) with his thoughts that there will be a point where just winding up the boost will yield very little extra power, and indeed, this is exactly what we saw, where the calculator says that 6,000 @ 1.3 bar should give around 590hp, it came in marginally over the peak HP for 1.2....so, we've found the engines natural limits...for the time being ;)

We only had time for the single run up to peak revs @1.3bar (see upcoming post, Part 2), so I haven't got the corresponding torque reading @ 5,000rpm

But, I have to say, I'm absolutely delighted; From the day that the final hardware build spec has been fixed, Chris and I always did predict a number in the mid 500's, and here it is. We did see a little more peak HP (I seem to remember seeing 548hp after one pull, at 1.2bar) but this was right on the edge of pre-det, so we did the right thing and dialled out some ignition advance and richened things a little; we're now very comfortably on the safe side of "bang".

Back later after sleep....

Day 5 Update - Part 2
 

So, lets get some thoughts down on paper....would like to have had more photos to show you, but for obvious reasons, we were under time pressure; getting in the way to take pictures wouldn't have gone down well.

The day started ok, fired up beautifully from cold, all pressures came up nicely, oil scavenging and oil control working well, things looking good so far.

A few gentle runs once warmed through, things still looking ok otherwise we would have stopped. The dyno has a parallel monitoring system which is plumbed-in so that it can provide an independent set of critical data to that of the ECU. There's also a load of safety systems in place, e.g., loss of oil pressure will automatically cut the engine.

Next job was the oil change; we debated whether to switch to an intermediate semi-synthetic or go straight to the Joe Gibbs oil. Alan was noting the blow-by numbers diligently, and they were looking very good indeed. Bear in mind also that we had done a decent amount of running on the Millers CRO Running-In Oil (mineral) up to this point, so we went with the Joe Gibbs 15w50. Oil filter was of course replaced at the same time.

We removed the top row of plugs from both banks, to enable the cranking starter to re-pressurise the system a little easier. Cylinders 1-5 all ok, nice shade of matt beige/grey. Not so with #6 however, it was wet - not oily, thankfully, but wet from fuel.

Time to get the borescope out, a very nice (and expensive) Olympus example, not a cheap-n-cheerful one with a rubber case and lo-res LCD screen (useful as they are in certain circumstances). First time I've used one of these, the head rotating 360º in X and Y planes, viewed from the end of the rod. Very impressive piece of kit, the clarity was superb. Again, if we weren't in such a hurry, I'd have taken some pics through the viewfinder with the iPhone.

Good news, the #6 cylinder and head looked fine, nothing particularly untoward. We compared to #5, very little difference, with #5 looking exactly as Dave would have expected.

Now, as a piece of background info - we had noticed a slight "ticking" noise from the area of #5 or #6, and determined that it was *probably* exhaust based; this corresponded with my experience of this set of headers - when I first bought the car we needed to remove the headers to extract a snapped stud, and found that the previous mech had installed a stack of 2 x gasket rings per port, clearly to get it sealing. I couldn't work out why when I built the engine; I checked and double-checked the length of protruding primary versus the counterbore depth in the cylinder heads, and deemed it necessary to only install a single gasket per port...but perhaps under heat, stuff expands differently, and it may need the double rings....who knows...

Back to the wet plug issue. My thoughts were perhaps that a valve clearance wasn't quite right; too tight and the valve *may* have been held open, with *perhaps* fuel then entering on engine shutdown and wetting the plug. Plausible, we thought. Sure enough, when I removed the valve cover for 4-5-6, #6 inlet was a little tighter than the rest. Bingo, maybe? I quickly reset it (not ideal on a hot engine, but little choice). Noise now gone. In actual fact, listening back to the above YouTube clip, you can just hear it; thankfully no full-bore runs up till this point.

Problem #2 was that Steve had been concerned about the fuel pressure regulator (I think I mentioned this in a previous update). It has a vacuum compensation port, it's a stock 964 Carrera item, but it wasn't reducing the pressure when the manifold was operating with a vacuum, only adjusting down to atmospheric pressure. The consequence of this, is that with 3.8bar fuel pressure, and the injectors we are using, the duty cycle is so small that accurate and smooth control is next to impossible. Dave had a spare Fuelabs 515, but only with -6AN fittings. So, another trip out to go and buy 3 x JIC>Metric adapters to enable them to plumb-in to the fuel system. I have no idea why, but when concentrating on the wet plug issue, and asked what thread the fittings were, I instinctively said M14; Dave contorted himself around the dyno to quickly measure the thread pitch (remember, these guys aren't Porsche guys, these kind of details aren’t thing that they’d know)...and of course they're not M14, they're M16. After my 1.5hr round trip to get 3 x M14 fittings, the workshop was not a comfortable place to be when the revelation of having the wrong bloody parts was made. Some scrambled drives around to buy tools and donor steel fittings, and an hour later, Dave and Alan had brazed together various fittings to enable the Fuelabs FPR to hook up to the engine.

Day 5 Update - Part 3
 

Bad news time.....

When I was out driving around picking up parts, some full bore runs had been made (the FPR vacuum issue obviously doesn’t matter for the high end mapping). The engine was only making 412hp with 1.2bar boost. I can’t tell you what a kick in the balls that was. Cue the head scratching and an emergency text to Chris for any thoughts on things to check that we may have missed (if I remember correctly, this was 3pm UK time, so pretty early Arizona time…sorry Chris!). A few moments later, a barrage of great ideas on things to check, but our thinking thus far was:

• Any choking on boost? No, absolutely plenty of boost pressure being made.
• Cam timing? No, it would have to be so far out to be about 120hp down, that we wouldn’t have got this far if this was the case
• Intake temps? Hell no, no higher than 33º being logged, post intercooler
• Compression ratio too high, preventing ignition advance from being added? Not directly, but….

…it had been noted by Dave that this engine was EXTREMELY sensitive to ignition advance, abnormally so in his experience, and every 1º was equating to >10hp loss. While we were brainstorming, this struck as strange to me; in all the thousands of threads, conversations, emails, etc, in my research, I’d never heard of an engine being this sensitive to ignition….of course it’s critical, but I’d not heard of one that’s so fussy and borderline on pre-det. I don’t know the full symptom, but it was also the case while I was out that we were experiencing Lambda issues, and for expedience, the ECU Lambda was switched again for the one which goes to the dyno’s MoTeC unit (it would’ve been good to have 2 x Lambda’s concurrently, but no space for two bosses in the exhaust system).

Problem #1 (again)...ok, so time to investigate ignition and we found we still had the wet plug issue. [This is all happening in parallel with the FPR fiasco]. So, it wasn't the valve gap setting, that was wishful thinking. Time to check the ignition system; the quickest way, rather than trying to suss which plug is fired from which ignitor, and from which coil drive in the ECU, we just removed all 12 plugs and coils, made sure each one had a ground, and cranked the hell out of it.

Oh crap.

No spark on the upper plug for #6. Nor any spark for the lower row of plugs for 4-5-6. After another hour or so with the multimeter to see where we had voltage, and where we had continuity (for the switching wires), from the COP plug > Ignitor > ECU, (by the way, it's now late afternoon, about 5 o’clock) and we’re coming to the conclusion that we were perhaps looking at a failed Bosch ignition amp. Time for a phone around to see if local parts stores had them in stock?….Nope.

In-between all the activity, Chris and I had a 15minute FaceTime conversation whilst he was driving into the TurboKraft "skunkwerks"...all hands free of course!....where he was kept appraised of our progress. Can't speak highly enough of Chris's level of service, really a class act. We had another 1hr FaceTime debrief once I arrived home in the evening, which was a great end to the day.

Some diagnostic work found the missing 12v on #6, and upon reconnecting all 4 x ignition amps, we then had all 12 sparks back again. Very strange, as no obvious fix identified; the 7-way junior mini timers are locking connectors, all 4 were definitely locked previously, so whether there’s an intermittent Bosch unit? Perhaps, and an item I’ll be buying a spare of and keeping in the frunk, just in case (DME relay style!).

I don't believe that we had a dead #6 all of the time, we would’ve picked-up on this a lot earlier and it would have looked vastly different to the other cylinders when inspected with the borescope. However, we did have a consistent dead upper plug with no 12v to the COP, possibly as a result of the reworks on Thursday, and understandably so, there was an absolute frenzy of activity with everyone poring over different parts of the engine. Any spark we did have, was being delivered from the lower plug. So, my (perhaps obvious) surmising is that the position on the top plug is far superior on these heads than that of the lower plug, where the level of “bang” from the lower plug on #6 alone was less than the rest of the cylinders.

At 6pm on Friday, we had a Lambda sensor that was now behaving itself (sorry I can’t explain further what this issue was, suffice to say it wasn’t a connection problem but more of a symptom of how the engine was having to be set up), we had an engine that has now lost its sensitivity to ignition advance, and therefore we had the green light to do some power mapping….which we were hoping to have done late on Tuesday or early on Wednesday.

You’ll have read the above Part 1 post by now, so you know how the day ended, but to fill the gap, the very first run with all 6 cylinders lit with both top and bottom spark plugs, and we’re making 483hp instead of 412….still with stupidly retarded ignition, don’t forget. Time to readjust all the maps again, and get as much done as possible. The MBE’s self learning makes life a lot easier, with just the briefest of holding at target RPM for it to readjust, then Steve to make it usable with some manual trimming and fine tuning of transitions, or more coarse tuning ready for the next 500rpm incremental run.

All base maps were done at 1.2bar; as described previously, this was about getting confidence just below the max boost which I wanted to explore, then seeing if we could squeeze bigger numbers with another 0.1bar (we could, but only a little).

Day 5 Update - Part 4
 

The next job is to get the work on the chassis finished:

• The fuse/relay board needs to be redesigned
• A cover for the new unit then needs to be made
• The AC lines need reworking (easier with no engine, but of course needs the engine in at some point, so that I can make sure it clears the air filter)
• Traction control…everything….the front hubs need to be removed so that timing wheels can be mounted, the “top hats” need to be drilled for the HE sensors. All parts need plating or anodising.
• Chassis harness needs to be re-installed...
• ….at the same time, plumb-in an extinguisher and run the lines through the cabin to the engine bay

The engine needs a few jobs as well

• The inlet tract needs coating
• The inlet tract bracket and the front IC bracket both need replating (or making in aluminium, depends how I feel on the day)
• A Fuelab 515 fuel pressure regulator needs to be bought, mounted and plumbed-in, then set to whatever pressure we used for the mapping.
• Check the head stud nuts
• Check/set the valve clearances
• Make "good" some of the harness reworking that was required; Simon was really working at a crazy rate on Thursday, so some finishing work to make the reworks as nicely finished as the rest of the loom just need to be done, now that we’re off the dyno.

Once the engine is in place and the car back to being roadworthy, I’ll be driving it up to Steves for a lot of drivability mapping work, the kind of stuff you simply cannot do on a dyno, it needs things like road junctions, stop/start throttle application, light throttle loads, etc to fine-tune the map. From what Steve was telling me, you can literally spend weeks at the low end of a map, refining it and messing about, but of course you need to draw the line somewhere and decide where you start to not notice the changes. Some very crude “how does it feel Dave?” blipping of the throttle pedal on the dyno showed an engine that picked up extremely well with no (discernible) hesitation. I guess the overall mapping and light 964RS flywheel are the contributing factors here, but again, it validates the eGas experiment, showing that the reworked code that MBE quickly sent us during the week (to increase the power levels to the throttle body) had delivered absolutely.

Once the car is drivable again, then we can start to look at building traction control maps. The latest version of the MBE 9A9 ECU has some hardware changes that enable even more advanced control algorithms in the TC code. Of course, I'll have this latest version of the 9A9, as I'm now going to continue to run with a magnetic/inductive crank sensor. This isn't something that can be configured in software, it's hard wired into the circuit board design.

We also need to extrapolate the core 1.2bar maps to create a 0.6bar, 1.0bar and 1.3bar settings.

Day 5 Update - Part 5 - Concluding Thoughts (for this phase, at least)
 

The day ended after Alan and I unhooked the engine from the dyno last night, still the work of a couple of hours, then carefully loading onto the van and tying it down for the drive home. It was a strange feeling on that drive home; (bear with me here) very similar to the day my daughter was born insomuch that the whole week was a massive emotional roller coaster, where on the day Lucy was born, I left the hospital in a state of disbelief and shock - delighted of course - but not quite able to take-in what had just happened. The same last night; elated that we’d got exactly the numbers out of the engine that TK Chris and I had planned for….but….I can’t honestly say that the preceding time up to the point of 6.00 on Friday was “fun". For sure, working with Alan and Dave was great; Alan and I (it turns out) had very similar apprentice training, and he’s the kind of guy where nothing is too much trouble, his diligence and ability is first grade. Dave’s experience and ability in the dyno room is exactly what I was hoping for; unflappable and completely in control - the hospital Matron that you first entrust to hold your new-born. Nice guy as well. Of course, I’ve known Steve for over 20 years, so I know his ability with the laptop!

Dave and I had a chat after we’d finished the runs, and I was kind of comparing the dyno event as my “olympics”….almost 4 years of giving the project everything I’ve got. Learning as much as I can, spending as much time as I can in the garage, every waking minute where I’m not with Lucy or working, I'm thinking about the project, planning, researching, driving about delivering and collecting parts or documenting everything here. Financially it’s also a massive investment, and ultimately it ends on the dyno, where your homework is well-and-truly marked.

By putting an engine on a dyno, the amount of instant validation of your work is incredible…all those pondered moments over the years about whether you’ve done something well enough, or made something strong enough, or timed the cams accurately enough, or used the right mixture of components, or, or, or… It’s almost impossible to list all of those “oh yeah, that worked” thoughts, I don’t think I’ve had them all yet, but one that I hadn’t even considered until the drive home was that there are no engine leaks - the “Engine Sealant” thread in this forum having proven invaluable with the list of various compounds to seal things correctly (thanks Henry, it was your recommendations I followed).

As I type this, I can’t quite believe that my engine, my spannering and countless hours taken to assemble the core engine, have proven absolutely, 100% robust. Nothing fell off, nothing let-go, nothing went bang, nothing leaked (boost, fuel, oil) despite Alans continuous scrutiny whilst running. It sounded so sweet on the dyno, so I couldn’t be happier. I’ve allowed myself a little self-congratulations, and am actually quite proud of myself (hope that doesn’t come across as arrogant or big headed).

I have a copy of all the data logs, although frankly, I’m not interested in loading them this weekend and diagnosing them…mentally I’m shot at the moment, happy just to watch the MotoGP, F1 and Superbikes, unpack the boxes, manoeuvre the engine back into the workshop and do not a lot else….maybe some gardening.

So, just to wrap up the week, Dave will be sending me the dyno graphs on Monday; I’ll post as soon I have them. I *think* I have a couple of the final power runs on video, which I’ll edit and upload to YouTube.

The plan to get a load of recording went south. With all the issues we were fixing, I overlooked things like switching off a couple of the cameras and flattening batteries, as well as forgetting to start/stop recordings and running out of memory card space. But I’ll see what I have.

Congrats man, I have been lurking and reading with great interest. My engine build is still ahead of me, but your work and happy conclusion really gives us duffers out here real encouragement.

I frequently think of not posting stuff on my 6 speed thread, but then I read threads like this, learn from it and like to think that by sharing we actually all get better at our perverse little hobby we have here.

Sincerely, fully and with great respect.....thank you.

Dennis

Arrogant? no this is awesome.

The skills and dedication you demonstrate are amazing. There is so much good in this thread; from your display on how to go about this to the support you receive from an expert like Chris, Turbokraft.

Congratulations!!!

Thanks Dennis, very kind words and you're welcome. I've said it previously, where I mentioned that I worked for an Open Source software company (not when I first started the project, and not at present) where one of their mottos was along the lines of "By sharing we become stronger"....of course, the comment is aimed at the industry big-boys with their proprietary solutions, but the comment did to some degree cement my thoughts; I've learned so much from the many threads in this and the 930 forums, from Rennlist (although don't spend much time over there, only so many hours in a day) and in particular, some of the professionals that also take the time to post advice, help and experiences on here....Chris Carroll, Steve Weiner, Henry Schmidt, Chris (chris_seven), and many more I'm sure I've overlooked.

I'd like to think that I've documented this project without a lot of the emotion - I know I'm demanding of people, but at the same time, I think its important to be brutally honest and document my mistakes - I'm not an engine pro, and if others can learn from my experiences, then absolutely great.

Of course, let's not forget it's because of Waynes generosity in providing us all the superb Pelican forums that I've been able to share all this in the first place, thanks Wayne.


You're too kind Jesper! Cheers mate, its the acknowledgement by guys like yourself that spur me on to keep-on keeping-on....

....and there's so much more to come yet, it's just an inert engine sitting back in the workshop at the moment!!! :D

Right, time to spend some quality time with the Exige today, new season service being todays mission.