Moby Dick coming together

[kismetcapitan]

car's back on the road, and it's running much, much better. I suspect something was a bit rattly or loose, but it is extremely, beautifully, smooth. Not a trace of knock - as far as my knock sensors are concerned, the engine is practically dead - the graph flatlines no matter how much welly I'm giving it. Nice clean ticks on the det cans, ran perfectly cool. Pics to come.

I did get stuck in a traffic jam and got idle leanout and hunt (idle mix leans out and you get an annoying 200rpm up and down surge), but after getting into clear air, that went away.

I love my car.

[kismetcapitan]

I'm also switching to Bosch 044 pumps, and planning to mount the pumps under the car, tucked up next to the fuel tank (I have two fat Z32 fuel filters there at the moment, so there's definitely some room there). Would a single Apexi pump placed to feed these twin 044s help, or be a restriction? I'm not keen on installing a trunk-mount surge tank; I'd like to retain as much of my existing hoses as possible - I've spent a small fortune on all those Aeroquip lines.

Also, in such a setup, if the Apexi (placed inline and before the Bosch pumps) fails, wouldn't it take out the entire system? If one of the Bosch pumps fails I'm ok as my checkvalves will save things.

Oh! An unexpected and great disappointment! Installing the Trust sump extension meant that my Cusco front tension rod brace no longer fit. That brace had done wonders to making the steering response to my car crisp and precise. Front handling doesn't suck without it by any means (I've got pillowball tension rods as well), but I could feel it missing.

I was also horrified to find that they had, from the beginning, NOT used crap engine oil! Instead, the car had been running Motul 4100 semi-synthetic! Shouldn't a run-in oil be purely non-synthetic? The crappiest cheapest engine oil possible? I also feel jinxed by Motul - every time my car has broken down, Motul oil was in the engine. Granted, I use it 50% of the time, so it's a 50/50 shot, but nevertheless Motul spooks me.

Also installed in the car were prayer papers from a monk; I brought one in to perform an exorcism on the car. He replied that he didn't sense any spirits inhabiting my car, but it could be a magnet for them. I paid him £40 to do his thing, and install these things to ward off evil spirits. I'm a Zen buddhist, so I don't believe in such hocus-pocus, but it can't hurt, and furthermore, the car came from Japan and the land of Shinto, who knows what kind of spirits might have tagged along with my car?? The car had been exorcised once before. Can't hurt

[Asim R32GTR]

Are you still on about those bloody bosch pumps?

Put them both in the tank. They work just fine as in-tank pumps also.

Here is the oil you should have used when breaking in your engine.

Product Quickorder - Joe Gibbs Racing Oil

Excellent GOOD quality break in oil. All the us-car people here in Norway use this.

Personally id use a cheap non / semi synthetic oil.

Asim

[kismetcapitan]

true, perhaps I should take that route. But I've been hearing its a fooking pain in the arse to get twin 044s into the tank, requires fabricating custom brackets and because of their longer length, have to sit nearly horizontal. All hearsay though.

[kismetcapitan]

twin 044s ordered, I'll be mounting them in-tank with a bespoke bracket.

some pics:


new home for the HKS DLI, space made available by throwing out the recirc crap:


relocated boost solenoid, hoses to wastegates are exactly the same length - dunno how much that helps, but my car has no shuffle now (had a teeny bit before)


overall engine:


Accusump valve handle - I went to manual. The electronic version sucks.


serpentine Accusump plumbing into the oil filter remote:


rolled fenders and 5mm spacers front and rear - very subtle, but the look of the car sits with me better:


another dyno day tomorrow. Map's fine on the road, need to lean out my AFRs a bit (10.9 at boost, I want to be at 11.5), and I've got a coolant leak from the rear of the engine. Just little dribbles, but I want a completely tight engine.

Still wish I could find some way to have my tension rod brace installed.

The Apexi ATS does a fine job of silencing the car - so much so that I took it out and will likely never use it unless I'm forced to. I like the loud drone the open exhaust now has.

The injectors clicking seems to be getting louder and louder. I hope it's not something else, like a problem in the head!

had my A/C system overhauled; new hoses, o-rings, and the shop (not my engine builder) thought that the A/C fan wasn't working (for those who don't know, it only goes on when the A/C is on and water temps hit 90)....so he puzzled out the Aussie trick of wiring the fan to the A/C relay so the electric fan goes on anytime the A/C is on. I like it, it makes the A/C a lot colder!!

Just a few more little nitpicky things and I'll be all done for now. I want two years of trouble-free motoring out of this build - the turbos are the weak point if I run 1.95 bars again. New power steering boots have been ordered. My ATTESA problem when parking is still there, but I've now traced it to intermittent wheel speed sensors.

And my stereo has a loose connection somewhere; it doesn't always turn on!! I need to find a new ground or ground it off the battery.

I should then have perfection

[freakazoid3]

The original engine bay is cramped, but yours is even worse
Love you're car though, nice and clean and inconspicuous like the underdog should be
Is the red cagiva yours also?
Or is it a gilera 50 cc? I hope not if it's yours...

[Piggaz]

Back already!!! Did you end up sticking with the 231 km "old" rings or purchase new ones?

Will you be putting your pumps in yourself or will someone else do it?

[kismetcapitan]

yep, both bikes are mine. The little one has an 80cc kit and 26mm carb on it and has been stripped of a LOT of weight to make it track-worthy. The BMW F800S there is also a nimble bike, but I'd like to start racing bikes....and I don't fancy going more than 120kph on a track with a pack of other bikes!

I kept my rings - HKS Titan rings don't come cheap!

The car goes back to the shop via flatbed once more on Tuesday. The car is perfectly drivable - I've been finding reasons to take it out every day. I've gotten a lot of mapping done and am still amazed at how much faster my turbos spool....when you don't choke them with overfueling at 3500rpm! I don't think I've been risking anything - with a leaner top-end AFR, I logged a knock value of 8 (EIGHT!) at load 18 and 7800rpm.

it's just teething issues now:

1) I need a custom bracket made to put my 044s in-tank. The shop does a lot of bespoke fabrication so they'll be taking care of it. My single Apexi (the other one's dead but my fuel system still works because of checkvalves) can't support more than 1.3 bar before losing pressure (I might get 1.4~1.5 without running lean, but I don't want to find out!) That's good enough for some, but I need full boost mates.

2) my heater hoses have an intermittent leak.

4) head noise - that's my biggest concern. Something ticking under the intake cam. I want it sorted - with a lot of time and money invested, I'm not settling for anything less than perfect.

5) remove the rest of the power steering system down to the bare minimum. This is mostly prompted by a slow leak where they capped off the HICAS lines on the driver's side. Without high-pressure HICAS we can toss the PS fluid cooler as well. I like ripping out pipes and binning them!

6) my water injection pump won't prime. maybe it's dead, £50 for a new one, but I'd like to try and get mine working. No sense throwing away money if there's a cheap fix.

7) the steering rack gets new boots.

8) now that my oil system is fully upgraded, I'm going to increase the flow on the Tomei oil pump. Just can't decide if I should add one or two discs. I'm still wet sump but I've got ten liters of oil all told in the whole works - I think it can handle more extreme flow!

With my fueling system back up to spec, I can then finish off mapping high boost, then go hunting with a car rated at 666bhp

[freakazoid3]

Originally Posted by kismetcapitan

yep, both bikes are mine. The little one has an 80cc kit and 26mm carb on it and has been stripped of a LOT of weight to make it track-worthy.

That reminds me off the good old days on my aprilia rs 50 extrema. Had done some cylinderwork, skimmed the head an opened up the combustionchamber en redesigned it to fit my 80cc polini, V force reedvalves, carenzi crank, 28 dellortho carb, moded ninja exhaust, done work on the crankcases too...Ah I loved that bike. It did run very well and got it's 130 kph so easily (real measured speed not speedo bullcr*ap)
Did the fairings over again also, she was a looker
But then sold her for my husqvarna 610 supermotard
Well upgrading is never a bad thing
As long as you don't buy a mito 125, they're crap. Had 2 off them, they go fast as hell, got 43 hp out off my 160cc polini conversion. But they don't last long... 996km to be exact
Oh memories...
I'll post some pics as teasers
Sorry for the hijacking

Aprilia RS50 (80cc)

Cagiva mito 125 (160cc)

Husqvarna 610 supermotard

[kismetcapitan]

2-strokes are a lot of fun; I had thought of upgrading up the 2-stroke route but went with the BMW. I still think owning a bike with a 500cc V4 2-stroke engine would be loads of fun

[kismetcapitan]

044 fuel pumps installed today. No more fuel pressure loss, although the pumps need about 20 hours of run time to fully break in.

god almighty, it is SO SATISFYING to have full power back. I ran medium boost of 1.6 bar and the map is good. I think I want to check my ignition map on a dyno though before I run high boost. What's clean at 1.6 bar could be det at 1.9.

Even at that boost though, my baby's got her groove back. Very, very quick down the road!

My replacement Apexi ATS arrived and I plugged that in. Turns out the bolts for my last one was...just a bolt. The Apexi supplied version has a locking nut plus a cotter pin - to keep from spitting the thing out on the highway....just as I had done.

I think I'll keep it more or less permanently installed. It makes the car extremely stealthy...and then the exhaust opens wide at 5000rpm and its screaming like an F-15 It does have a slight effect between 4000-5000rpm where when bigger boost is building, the tension of the spring has to be overcome. A weaker spring would be preferable I think, one that opens wide at 4000.

I feel such a sense of completeness, of inner peace now!

[plumwerks]

Completeness,never gonna happen,you own a skyline,you'll want something more in about an hour

[roadie]

The "idle hunt" could be overfueling too...Pull a few degrees out of your idle ign and a bit of fuel out too....

[R.I.P.S NZ]

Kismet, why does the electric accusump valve "suck" ?? What did you find?

Rob

[kismetcapitan]

idle has settled in, I just had to run the 30 minute idle self-learning thing again.

The EPC valve for the Accusump automates everything, and so I never knew when it was working or not. I think it also had "slow fill" or "slow discharge" modes, and I prefer to have the thing wide open all the time.