Going under the knife

[Max Welton]

Something like that for sure. Seemed to be a lot of air going into the intake when I put my hand over it. IAC valve is my guess as well.

I have a contractor coming out to look at a wood floor in just a bit. When he's gone I'll take the TB off and have a look.

Max

[Max Welton]

After many setbacks, the car finally moves under it's own power.

https://youtu.be/ihQ31OTB_U4

Some of the problems I found:

I don't think I had the engine grounded very well. The subframe was powder-coated. I think that was messing with the ignition. Sorted.

Speaking of the ignition, one of my two timing-lights is dead. And one of the NGKs I had refused to spark. I've never had that happen.

Somehow I got the right side injector hold-down cocked. That'll make a leak. The manifold gaskets were fine, but I replaced them with thicker ones while I was there.

20220317_111943.jpg

The new-to-me TB works a lot better than the old one. Even the IAD works and should be good enough for measuring IAT for the megasquirt.

Max

[Max Welton]

Good news - bad news day.

First, the valve train was pretty noisy yesterday. So I went through the rockers and reset the valve lash. HD aluminum pushrods and solid shaft rockers.

Yesterdays crappy running turned out in part to be a disconnected MAP hose. I'm running closed loop for the mixture and my WB said I was idling at 13.5. But when I looked at the plugs today they were black and sooty. So I don't quite trust the WB yet. It's still an untried exhaust for me. Suppose there's a leak?

And of course the engine had no idea what to do when the throttle opened with no change in MAP registering.

So I fixed that and set up to do a test run. It fired right up and settled into a 1000 rpm idle. Pretty quiet too. As I started fiddling with the idle AFR I looked back and saw this.

20220324_163749.jpg

Yesterday I had a small leak from one of the oil filter fittings so today I took a shot at fixing that. You can see the filter to the left in the following picture. All that oil came from about one minute of idling. It was literally pumping all its oil out.

As accessible as the filter seems it's really hard to get a good angle on a wrench down there. It's actually better from underneath.

Anyways, I'll source a new filter adapter and some fittings and take another shot at this. Probably easiest to just drop the engine so I have unfettered access.

Gonna need some more kitty litter too. And oil.

20220324_162648.jpg

Max

[GS guy]

That sucks Max! Uncontained oil is always a messy mess!
I highly recommend the Canton filter adapter. Expensive - you get what you pay for though.
Jeff

[Max Welton]

Unlike, say, this?

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/ ... oteoil.php

The exhaust system really limits options as far as filter placement.

Anyways, I'm on my way out to asses the damage.

Max

[Max Welton]

Found the oil leak. Apparently I cross-threaded one of the aluminum an8 extensions. I could just fix it but I don't really like the position of the filter right behind the left rear tire. Bringing the filter up higher will involve turning it so it's mounted horizontally. But for today I've just looped the output back to the input so I could do some idle tuning.

Based on how the plugs looked after the last attempt (very sooty) at an indicated 13.5:1, I tried pulling fuel until it smoothed out. The engine seems to like 15:1.

In honor of the Oscars, here's a little video. More work to do on the idle but I think startup parameters are next.

https://youtu.be/OjDiN_cQSOQ

Max

[Max Welton]

This is probably as good at the idle will get. Still working on the cold-start parms.

https://youtu.be/wqvKbl8qZJs

Max

[Chip Birks]

This is probably as good at the idle will get. Still working on the cold-start parms.

https://youtu.be/wqvKbl8qZJs

Max

Sounds nice, any reason for the 1000 rpm idle target? That seems a little high to me.

[Max Welton]

It just seemed a little more stable than 950.

Max

[Chip Birks]

It just seemed a little more stable than 950.

Max

Did you try giving it a little more timing at the lower idle? Maybe a little more fuel too.

[Max Welton]

I started with 13.5:1 and it was unhappy. Less fuel and then less timing seems to be what it wants.

I got bigger problems now though. When I shut it down the oil light was on. Confirmed with a mechanical gauge on the cooler. No pressure. Looks like the engine is coming out tomorrow.

Max

[Max Welton]

Well ... crap. Looks like I'll be ordering some bearings. Rod big-ends and mains. The cam, lifters and crank journals look fine.

20220401_182311.jpg

20220401_194002.jpg

Max

[Ol'fogasaurus]

Max, were the bearings in the rods and the crank mike'd for fit?

Lee

[GS guy]

Wow. So what was the cause of the oil pressure loss? Did it just run out of oil - even with a deep sump? That amount is more than a "minor" leak, I'd think some leakage would have been spotted in the earlier runs?
Agree with Lee - If you've got to pull it all the way down time to re-check/verify all bearing clearances, crank journals and bearing ID clamped in the case. Rods too. A good assembly lube when it goes back together.
Jeff

[Max Welton]

Yes the bearings were fit up properly when assembled.

The pressure loss was caused by crossed oil lines to the filter when I "fixed" the filter fittings. During my last tuning session I was using a remote starter at the back of the car so I didn't see the light until I went up to shut it off. I was working on cold-start parms and then the idle. RPMs never exceeded 1200. I expected to find a broken pump drive or cam slot but apparently the Berg pressure relief cover was just turning the oil around.

My engine guy tells me getting good bearings has been a huge problem for a while now. So I need to get that process started pronto.

Max