Operation TLC

[ndragun]

The wrapping continues! The carbon fibre wrap was 3M 1080, but for the rest of the car I've chosen Avery Dennison brushed metal black.



Turns out the brushed metal textures are possibly the hardest to work with because there is a very well defined 'grain' in the texture that catches the light. So if you over-stretch it in places and disturb that grain, or have to pull it back up again which causes the grain to change direction, the end result looks like a dented panel when its actually just ripples in the texture. So its actually quite tricky to get right and nigh on impossible to do it without a second pair of hands.
Cutting in under the rubber seal around the base of the soft top is also reasonably tricky.



I'm also going to have to wrap in under some of the panel gaps...



But the end result is quite nice.

Anyway - cams have also arrived, so head comes back off this week for machining and fitment.
And ITBs arrive Wednesday!!

[ndragun]

Happy ITB day. One quick pic;



Basically just spent the evening bolting up, test fitting, etc. It all comes back off when the head gets modified again for cams, so still just tinkering for now.

To answer some earlier questions regarding kit parts (Magpie) - the kit comes with everything except the idle air valve and injector blanking plugs.
I will be using an idle air control valve as I'm keeping A/C.

The 4 port "air control valve kit" to be honest seems a little dinky to me and I'm not keen on using it (http://www.jenvey.co.uk/home/accessories/idle-air/jenvey-dynamics/air-control-valve-kit-4-ports-avk2t2), but I'm at the moment uncertain about plumbing vacuum lines. If anyone has some advice I'd love to hear it.

We need vacuum for the ECU, fuel regulator and the brake booster (at the moment... i'll worry about brake hydraulics and whatnot later). I did also consider still using vacuum for crank case ventilation, but seeming like we'll do away with that. I'm using a zeromotive vacuum block;



I'm not entirely sure about where to plumb in the idle air though. Do I;

a) Pair off each of the vacuum points on the TBs, with 4 lines to vacuum block which then distributes to those needing vacuum and 4 lines going to the jenvey air control valve kit...

or do I;

b) Plumb each of the vacuum points exclusively to the vacuum block, the other two small diameter points to ECU and fuel reg, the one large to brake booster and other large to idle air valve??

I'm not clear on how this all affects vacuum readings by the ECU etc...
Thoughts greatly appreciated!

[meanmx]

It all looks fantastic and I can't wait to see the finished product

[gslender]

Happy ITB day. One quick pic;

The 4 port "air control valve kit" to be honest seems a little dinky to me and I'm not keen on using it (http://www.jenvey.co.uk/home/accessories/idle-air/jenvey-dynamics/air-control-valve-kit-4-ports-avk2t2), but I'm at the moment uncertain about plumbing vacuum lines. If anyone has some advice I'd love to hear it.

I'm using that kit and agree it seems odd, but works fine when you get it all connected up - not all that attractive or neat, but it is functional.

I don't believe order of connection will greatly have an effect as long as you keep the overall diameter of tubes the same. eg if the combined ITB air bleeds are 4mm diam then you have a maximum airflow pipe of 8mm in diameter - why, well it works out liek this 4mmxPI = 12mm2 x 4 ITBs = 50mm2, which is close to an 8mm ID pipe in terms of the area.

If your idle valve or brake lines is greater than 8mm then you'll have an vacuum leak and the map sensor and other feeds will be impacted by that instead of from the vacuum in the ITBs.

Hope that helps.
G

[ndragun]

Thanks mate. I did see you'd used it in some of your pics (I was trawling through them trying to see where you'd routed all your vac lines!) At the very least, I doubt I'll be using the crappy plastic hose they supplied.

Talking to the guys machining the head today - they concur that it should be fine to plumb the idle control valve straight into one of the small vac block ports, so that should help simplify things a bit.

[gslender]

At the very least, I doubt I'll be using the crappy plastic hose they supplied.

Yeah, the pipe is fairly poor, but wasn't sure on what else would mate up to the barrel 4-port adapter - so I'm using the crappy plastic hose they supplied.

I'm thinking I'll swap to a better vacuum manifold block and silicon vacuum hose once I'm certain of the configuration and layout.

Would be keen to see what you decide on doing and where you got it all from... not like SuperCheap sells the stuff for all this !!

[Old Dude]

You could always make up your own with brass pipe fittings

Cheers
Dale

[ndragun]

I'm going to have a poke around here on the weekend and see what I can find;
http://www.racecarengineering.com.au/

I also need to start thinking about the dreaded wiring now that I have the ECU as well... PITA for the colour-blind...

[ndragun]

The slow progress goes on... Been having a bit of bad luck with ordering bits and pieces lately. Ordered some stuff from Fab9 Tuning in the states that took some 2 months to arrive. Part of which was a set of Energy Suspension bushes - and evidently there is one single bush missing from the set. Missing part second from the right - half a front control arm bush missing. To be fair its probably not Fab9 at fault here with the missing bit, but... blah... long story...



Aaaaaand visited RCE Performance the other week... placed orders for vacuum line parts and whatnot but looks like the order was forgotten or misplaced. SO will see if they come through for this weekend. Otherwise... I guess I'll be making vacuum lines out of drinking straws or something.

At the complete opposite end of the spectrum though is Glenn at Torque Team Mansfield http://www.thetorqueteam.com/. When he's not selling me into the Aussie race car series (which he just about has to be fair), he's doing an awesome job with the stuff I can't do on my own.

He's popped out the old suspension bushes, fitted some up-rated valve springs to the head and machined out the lifter housings for cam clearance.

In side;



Ex side;



Without a rocker cover gasket, the cylinder 3 intake cam lobes actually hit the underside of the rocker cover, so WITH a gasket I'd expect the clearance to still be pretty tight. It actually hits the plate that bolts on to the underside of the rocker cover and forms one of the PCV chambers, so really you could just give it a few clouts with a ball peen hammer Jeremy Clarkson style to give it a bit more clearance. But really with the gasket in place, it should be fine without any whacking.


The workhorse, ancilliaries bolted on and ready for test fitting and wiring;



And of course, priority number one is test fitting the awesome sunnies for the top-down cruising to the track;

[gslender]

Errrrr, looks like someone left an AC on your motor?

[zossy1]

Some big cams also require machining of the rocker cover for clearance -

[Magpie]

Also base circle reduced for more lift and ramp angles softened. However 235 is not what I would call 'big', 288/304 is.

Do you have any data on the head flow improvement over stock?

If doing the bushes have you considered replacing the alignment bolts as well?

[ndragun]

Yeeesss the car is keeping AC - that is - IF all the pipe work clears the throttle bodies, which I'm quietly dubious about to be honest. My problem is I still have to use this car to take me to the airport in my penguin suit for work, so I can't stomach the thought of doing that on a blazing hot mid summer morning and turning up to work smelling like a truck driver.

With the cams, they should clear. They've been adjusted to still use HLAs which makes them a bit shorter. Test fitting with a gasket and bolts torqued down and they're spinning freely.

And yep - replacing alignment bolts as well.
Contacted Energy Suspension directly overnight and they're winging the missing part to me now. Saves me having to pull more teeth dealing with Fab9.

[sailaholic]

You might be getting caught between advertised and actual there mark. The cams are 280 advertised with a 10.2 lift on the intake. Pretty big for a HLA.




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[Magpie]

Thanks sailaholic. I agree they are BIG cams I agree the lift will be an issue for HLA's.

Will be interesting to see the torque curve when tuned. On that question when/who will be tuning the motor?

Will be a great day when we can get all the ITB MX5's located in the SE corner of QLD in one place for a photo and compare builds.