Steve Arndt baja build project

[Steve Arndt]

u guys don't even know. all that has been done already.

[perrib]

Nice job. Did you upgrade the clutch and pressure plate?

[Steve Arndt]

Nice job. Did you upgrade the clutch and pressure plate?

Yes. New copperhead and Stage 2 Kennedy from aircooled.net. I also reinstalled the 100mm clutch arm (stock was 70mm). The clutch is still super stiff but is is holding the power I'm making finally. This car is scary fast.

[Steve Arndt]

Minor update.

I bought some type k thermocouple connectors to make things easier during engine removal.




I finished the door rubber on one door. One door to go and all the rubber is finished! Well, besides fender beading and a few minor things. I have more electronics in this car than a Best Buy store, so I can't park it anywhere without windows to at least slow down would be thieves.




I have had a persistent pulley area oil leak when I turn high RPMs. I have tried a bunch of schemes for venting. I'm installing a sand seal to see if that helps. I used the Berg cutter tool that aircooled.net rents out. I bought the double lip oil seal locally. Have to narrow the seal per Bergs GB709A directions. I still have to machine my pulleys down to 1.77" then it goes back together. You can also see the VR sensor for the crank trigger setup.




I tested my sensor and trigger wheel with the Redline ECU. It was having problems with locking on the tooth count. I was moving the shielded pickup wire around and trying all sorts of things. Then I noticed that my trigger wheel was loose on the pulley. That will do it! Since I had to take the pulley off to re-attach the TW to the pulley I decided to do the sand seal install at the same time.

s

[Devastator]

I still have to machine my pulleys down to 1.77" then it goes back together.

If this is the area that rides on the seal, you will have a SERIOUS failure if your pulley is aluminum. Not a big deal if it's steel though.

[Steve Arndt]

Steel hub. It is a Fisher damper pulley. I mounted a 36-1 trigger wheel to the aluminum portion on the back. This came partially loose and led to my triggering problems. I had the wheel indexed and locked down with 3 roll pins and epoxy. One pin and half the glue came loose. I'm going to tap the holes that currently have roll pins and attached with machine screws. I wanted to avoid drilling further in the harmonic balance / clutch location that is why I tried the shallow pins initially.





http://myweb.cableone.net/stevearndt/ba ... igger3.JPG

It isn't loading the third pic, so that is a direct link

As a backup I also have a Redline 60-2 pulley.
s

[Steve Arndt]

Pacific Customs had this pulley on sale for a great price so picked it up. It is smaller diameter, kind of in between a power pulley and stock. I will need to a different sensor bracket to use it.



http://www.034motorsport.com/034efi-eng ... p-523.html

[Steve Arndt]

Since Karl is allowed to cross post in the off road forum and the turbo forum, I will cross post my EFI info here too.


Time to install the 882C ECU!
I made my own crank trigger setup using a Volvo VR sensor, a 5” 3601 trigger wheel (TW), and a Fisher crank damper pulley. The pulley has a clutch pack inside. Initially I used roll pins and epoxy to attach the TW to the pulley. This didn’t hold. I was forced to drill and tap it for machine screws. I used the original three pin holes, and drilled another three for six equal spaced holes. I used counter sunk #8-32 cap screws. I was only able to tap three threads into the pulley before hitting the clutch disc lining. I went a bit deep on one hole to find the limit. Here is the finished product.






I was unsure how the VR sensor would work pointing the sensor at the edge of the tooth on an angle. I chamfered the tooth edge as shown in the picture above to provide more metal to sense. I bench tested the ECU with just the VR sensor hooked up. The ECU has a monitor screen that shows tooth count, and RPM. I was still running the car on the old haltech and distributor. I tested the reading and it was all over the place and unstable. I ended up having to bend my (very) rigid VR mount and bring the sensor very close to the teeth. With correct polarity on the sensor and a very close air gap it was reading a solid 35 all the time (That is 36 minus one). Good deal.

Now that I was confident I would have a working crank trigger I proceeded to remove the Gene Berg Haltech F9A wiring loom which was on the baja to start with. Here it is spread out on the garage floor.



Here are the two main flying lead harnesses from Redline. They offer fully terminated ready to use wiring harnesses but I am going to roll my own. The Stage 2 Redline ECU has AMP connectors. The sensor and inputs have one connector, and the high current drivers for injectors, coils, and GPOs are on the opposite end of the ECU. I checked all the pin numbers compared to the wiring diagrams and verified everything was ready to go.


These are the flying lead wiring bundles. The output harness on the left, and the input harness on the right. I have separated and tagged each run here.



Tech Flex expandable braided sleeve loom material and some wiring tools:







The ECU is mounted to the bottom of the aluminum plate, and my fuse blocks and relays are on top for easy access.


Here is the harness with the wire runs cut to the correct lengths and routed out to reach their respective sensors. It is important to install the outer sleeve material progressively from large diameter end and work down in size. The same with the heatshrink tubing.
http://myweb.cableone.net/stevearndt/efi/efi106.JPG

Label detailing.


Finished input/sensor harness:



-----


I made one wire harness for all the sensors as shown in the previous post. The injectors and ignition coils also both have their own modular runs. I used a 5-pin round weather pack connector as shown. This makes future modifications easier.





The loom for the ignition coils is pretty much just like the injector loom. I reversed the genders for the 5 pin connectors between the two harnesses to prevent any mixups. Shown are four Redline IGN1 coils, and also a set of GSXR600 COPs.



Cylinders #1 and #2 coils:



And #3 and $4.



I’m using CB Performance 8.2mm magna spark wires for their distributor setup until I build a set of custom wires.

I have just started the tuning process. The first order of business was verifying the output from my Techedge wide band. A trick I read on another forum is to program the WB linear output to have equal voltage for rich and lean as a test. I’m using a 0-1 volt linear out, and set both ends of the lamda vs voltage curve to be 0.5. Then I used my volt meter to measure the actual voltage output of the WBO2 linear out. It was spot on 0.50 volts. The WB output was then checked as an input in the Redline GUI of the ECU to confirm is was reading the same value. Okay to go.

The Tech edge analog display I have is over 1 full AFR number off from what the linear output reads. I am glad I checked this, I know to ignore the gauge and go by what the ECU logs. I then set the WB output back to the factory lamda vs voltage curve, and entered these same values into the ECU O2/AFR setup. It is now ready to go now with all sensors reporting for duty and time to test fire it. Redline provides the ECU with most basic settings entered but these all need to be checked. I am starting off with fuel only control and retaining the distributor. When the fuel is dialed in okay, then I will switch to the ignition control.

It fired up first time I hit the key!

[Steve Arndt]

I had to remove my pulley to reseal my crank seal so I took a pic of the trigger wheel.




I bought a set of 45mm Redline IDF ITBs. I was running CB 48s. The redline have better machining and tolerances. There were a few things to deal with making the swap more trouble than I initially thought. The Redline fuel rails have ORB o-ring faced boss straight pipe fittings, not tapered like EVERYONE else. Major hassle living in a town with no AN plumbing parts. I have an ugly mess of brass at the moment but it works. The Redline supplied TPS sensor doesn't work without changes. It physically maxes out in travel at 60% opening due to the bolt hole positioning. I had a bmw TPS that dropped on and matched the weber one perfectly, same problem with the positioning. I had to build a little bracket and rotate the TPS for full travel. Also the supplied connector didn't fit the TPS physically, and came with two not three terminals that also didn't match. I had a 944 harness that I robbed the 3 pin connector off of. The pic shows the little bracket I made that spans the tps and holds it on at the proper angle for full rotation.










I was hoping for a stronger map signal with 45s instead of 48s. It is the same as before. I was also hoping for a smoother and more constant idle map with four individual ports providing a signal rather than the Siamesed twin ports of the CBs. The map fluctuates the same as before. For example: with 95 kpa barometric P, I idle at around 62 and it varies +/- 5 kpa. That is with a .035” restrictor before the map sensor (It varies around 7 kpa +/1 without the restrictor).

The tighter machining of the throttle blade fit makes my idle much smoother and I can adjust it lower than before. I also switched from CB linkage to CSP linkage and I like it a lot more. The pedal is more progressive feeling and not so much like a switch as before.


Here we go, some video action. The video is before I switched to CSP linkage and Redline TBs.



Steve

[supaninja]

I'm liking the progress! One thing about the redline rails is the ORB fittings are the standard in the aftermarket automotive industry, the npt ones are just cheesy half-ass rails...cough, cough, cb, cough. Summit Racing has ever single AN fitting you can imagine and super fast shipping, that's who I usually buy my fittings from, I don't mess around with the local stuff.

Those IGN1 coils might be the ticket for me too, I might try full sequential first before I go through my ignition again, but you got the wheels turning in my head.

[Steve Arndt]

I am hardly working the coils at all, major headroom. From what I've read the IGN1 coils can cope with loads of over 200 horsepower per cylinder when the dwell is cranked to 8ms under full load conditions. Major spark. I'm only running 2.5 ms dwell at 100kpa, and pulling out some dwell under high vacuum. When I was bench testing these coils you could hear them snapping at the opposite end of our 9 bay shop.

[supaninja]

That is pretty sweet that haltec lets you map the dwell. MS1 extra only lets me set a cranking dwell (I got 5.0ms), and running dwell (I'm at 4.0ms, but I'm also wasted spark). I was reading on DIYautotune there is a mustang making 250hp per cylinder running those coils, friggin badass.

[Steve Arndt]

I'm running the Redline 2C ECU. Not Haltech.

[supaninja]

my bad, that's a really cool feature.

[Steve Arndt]

I just lost my cylinder #2/4 intake cam lobe. Depressed. Cam was a custom Webcam 86B ground on 114 LC. Lifting 0.583" at the valve, 150 base pressure, 370 pounds over the nose as I recall. It lasted almost 1000 miles, and years of driving my turd around the block tuning. Not sure where to go now. I just had the car running nearly perfect after 10 years of work.