Tigra c20xe to turbo on Megasquirt wip - lots of pics!

[djivesp]

update time !
got the fans on - i had to thin down the edges of the housings slightly to get them to fit, but now they fit and look neat !! Stuck them on a relay - so the original fan plug powers the relay - and this relay powers the fans straight from the battery.
So now there's 2 relays doing the job of one, but it's a neat installation and puts less strain on the wiring. Also made a takeoff for a switch in the dash for ON or AUTO, which ill fit later on.


I cable tied these through the rad. There's plenty of clearance gearbox-side, but could only get about 5mm between the wastegate bracket and the cambelt-side fan rocked the engine and it cleared fine so not going to bother any further.

Also you can see the exhaust mani shield Aint exactly pretty but it will help !..




here's said relay:


And battery connectors:


It works a treat !! Both of them come on, and don't seem to affect the voltage like the old fan used to. With the old fan, the lights used to dip every time it comes on, with the new ones you cant even tell they're on, only by the warm breeze coming from the engine bay lol!.

For the **** news - my bottom end has had enough. When it's warm it sounds fine like it always did, but when its started from cold you can hear it pretty clearly. ****. I guess the oil-less few seconds bashed a few more nails in it's coffin lol.

Any ideas how long i have till it goes ?! Will it give me plenty of warning or should i just rip it out and stick the spare in ?? I really cant be arsed with it tbh.

[eggman]

dont rip it out just drop the sump and take off the head and fit your let pistons and get the boost cranked up man u know u want to

[eggman]

ps nice fans and heat sheald like that

[djivesp]

haha, stop tempting me Mr Eggman
i dont know yet. The knocking seems to dissapear when it's up to temp - suggesting piston rattle. It it was big ends it would knock more when hot wouldn't it ?? It's weird, as it never did this before the turbo build
Also there's another sound - sounds like a cam rattle, at about 2k, but definately not cams. Maybe penny valve rattling (as it's open at the mo). Comes on randomly and dissapears - very strange!..
I think what i'm gonna do is get it to uni, potter about for a couple of months while i check over the spare, reface oil pump etc.. and hope it lasts and doesnt spin a shell lmao. In that time i should get the maps dialled in. I kinda want to keep it high comp, to see the difference! Then i'll get some head studs and bash the let pistons in ..

Learning the magic of MegaLogViewer at the moment - it's working beautifully - honing my maps in after a datalog session .. A few more sessions and i should have the main part of the VE table done, then educatedly guess the rest lol !..

More updates soon!

[eggman]

**** hot man megalog is great not ever used it but seen it used and liked it
did u bye your ecu as a kit and build it up? if so what was the cost as i am about to turbo my b irds cav 2l 8 valve as she has a new runabout for 3 month and my projects are all on hold as short of cash cant seem to save 2k for a box for my bm but i have to keep active in the tuning world or i fear i will grow old and lose the touch if u know what i mean (9 month old child about to be 1 then xmas)

[damo1]

just realised your cars left hand drive where abouts are you from?

[djivesp]

**** hot man megalog is great not ever used it but seen it used and liked it
did u bye your ecu as a kit and build it up? if so what was the cost as i am about to turbo my b irds cav 2l 8 valve as she has a new runabout for 3 month and my projects are all on hold as short of cash cant seem to save 2k for a box for my bm but i have to keep active in the tuning world or i fear i will grow old and lose the touch if u know what i mean (9 month old child about to be 1 then xmas)

Yeah - its an awesome bit of software! I thought Autotune was going to do the job, but it's fiddly and i have too much lag from my wideband to make it reliable ..
I bought the ECU pre-built from diyautotune.com over ebay, i think the total cost with shipping from the US and import tax etc was £280, which isnt bad! Though i did have to modify it quite a bit to get it to work with the coilpack - so further £20 or so and a lot of time&fiddling!
2k for a box !! jeez! guessing it's a newish bm then .. It's definately a learning experience though - and the only downside is how time consuming megasquirt is . I hear the 2l 8v engines are very turbo-able though

just realised your cars left hand drive where abouts are you from?

Yeah lol! It's errr, a bit special lmao. Im originally from lithuania, but in the uk since little, living in east anglia, uni in staffs ..
Im toying with the idea of ditching the shell in the future, and sticking the engine&megasquirt in a kadett C, i loove the old school .. I doubt anyone will want to buy a LHD car in the uk lol!

[nick]

i'm glad the megalog viewer is working well for you! i've done a bit of basic low boost tuning with a narrowband sensor but my innovate lc1 turned up earlier this week so once i've welded in a new bung to my exhaust i'll be able to turn up the boost!

[djivesp]

oooh nice you're a brave man, tuning with narrowband ..
i've been for a few more logs today, must say it's getting there ! Getting the idle dialled at the moment. It's bloody annoying - one minute it's purring away at 1k, then blip the throttle and the thing starts bouncing from 900 to 1200, so trying to get a nice solid idle. Any tips anyone?
Megalogviewer does alter some of the idle sites but seems to make it worse. The higher load/RPM areas are getting nicely toned though .
I'm guessing the reason behing the 'hunting' is too much % difference in the VE sites, so as revs dip for example - it's given more fuel then it revs up, when it arrives at the next VE site its given less, bouncing between those. Just when i think i got it - something else messes up lol!!

I think my warm-up enrichment settings are pretty much right - from cold it fires up quick and sits at about 1200 all the way till warm

Anyway, more tinkering to be done!

OMG i'm hating how crippled it feels in higher gears! True it's uber-rich everywhere specially the WOT areas at the mo, but my god after 2/3 throttle there's just nothing lmao.. Cant wait to get tuning my piddly boost ..

[joe joe]

awesome dude, just plain awesome good work

[djivesp]

awesome dude, just plain awesome good work

thanks bud, muchly appreciated .

OMG - i have BOOOST ..
After the loud pedal didnt seem right, i kept pressing it and it turns out i've not actually even been anywhere near wot lmao as it's just a bit stiff at the end of the pedal travel that's all lmao

here's proof (MAP value above 100kpa)


needless to say when there was a nice rush of power and some funky whoosh sounds coming from the MS unit's vacuum hose, i wasnt actually checking my gauges - praise allah for megalogviewer - it logged EVERYTHING!! the AFR dropped, timing pulled and i can see how the boost kept building even after i stepped off . And the coolest thing - the Manifold Absolute Temp was 32*C even after i left it stand for 10 minutes to get the coolant up to temp (and get rid of the "klink klink klink" lol) which means the chargecooler is doing the biz

heatsoak is pretty bad though - i left it stand for about 20 minutes and MAT got to about 60*C. Drops quickly though when you switch the pump on&get moving

im so excited wooo

It's ACTUALLY working lmao

*runs off to analyze map* lmao

[Gaz86]

that bottom boost pipe wont be doing you any favours running so close to the exhaust.

[djivesp]

that bottom boost pipe wont be doing you any favours running so close to the exhaust.

yeah mate, i know - it's that and the upper boost pipe that's touching the coolant bottle that i want to sort out.. There is the shield now between the lower pipe and the exhaust, but when i have some spare time ill whip it out and polish it back to shiny to hopefully reflect some heat off!.

Any ideas what coolant bottle i could use? I want a taller but thinner one ?!

[Jack]

Awesome work.

[LeHICK]

Wow mate, your takin this serioys for a LHD! Fair one, thats an amazing amount of work! It'll be a while before i'm conquering anything like this.

Just a thought about your big end rattle, does your car run rich?
Unburnt fuel can get into the oil and dilute it, ruining it, fairly quickly!
I have to change the oil in my Escort RS every 2K because the base CO2 is set to 3% at idle but rises to nearly 9% on boost!! Its bloody good fun though, 200whp in a 900kg car!

[djivesp]

cheers mate

**** - i totally didnt realise that - thats a bloody good point, it's uber-rich everywhere at the moment!! Though since the rattling stops when it's hot - does that still suggest big ends ?! i dont know maybe i'll give it an oil change and see what happens!
i was thinking maybe the unburnt juice has loosened up the piston rings so they're rattling a bit.
It's only driven about 10 miles since last change, but has been idling and free-revving quite a bit.
Though it's a nice clean knock sound, suggesting only 1 part wobbling, with loose pistons it would be a chorus!
i dont know

the RS sounds like wicked fun

[LeHICK]

Hmmm, could be a ring, the pistons expand very slightly when the engine is up to temp, this could be taking up the slop in the offending ring lol.

Any knock is a bad knock though, i hate it when theres something wrong, problem with something like that is, you could strip down the bottom end, fit new rings, start it up and its still there! Good luck!

[djivesp]

lol i know !! it's a pain in the ass !! thankfully i have a spare XE bottom end on the stand, so i'll get the map a little better then stick the spare in when it's properly knocking it's tats off. Figured i don't really want the good spare to get ruined if it is the fuel.
lol i don't really care about the bottom end at the mo, still too pleased the rest of it works lmao..
I guess that's the benefit of having an xe bottom end - they're almost disposable. Just dont want it chucking a rod through the sump - it's my good sump lol!

[djivesp]

Had another little run to the tip today (i'm having a garage clearout as off to uni lol - my dad hates my 'projects' lol).
Wound the wastegate shut a tiiiny bit more, and wow - definately feels like it's getting there! Boost builds 2k onwards and quick !! Also you can tell by the sound coming from the ECU's vacuum takeoff, its awesome
Getting the map leaner is also helping power, though still running 10's/11's on load lol, better safe than sorry!
Quite hard to drive it at the mo lol, quite a bit of kangarooing on very light throttle. More logging and it should sort itself!

Also, any ideas how to stop the popping on overrun? it's RIDICULOUS!! Sounds like a machinegun going off lmao.. Is it telling me there's unburnt fuel igniting in the exhaust pipe?

[djivesp]

Hi all !
it's been a while since i last posted anything up, been driving the bitch and mapping it bit by bit, it's getting there

Got new shells and bolts coming from various people, so will be stripping the spare this week and sticking that in, but before that, more ragging is on the cards for the current bottom end lol!

Managed to reduce the popping around overrun - in and out of overrun so to speak, which is basically due to a large difference of VE values between overrun (anything less than 30ish kpa say), and idle sites (about 40kpa on mine).
Been leaning the map progressively too, and now it cruises at about 13/14 afr on the motorway and 11ish on WOT. Also i had issues with kangarooing on the motorway as it bounces between VE sites. Overcoming this slowly by smoothing out the cruise sites so the value doesn't change so drastically.
Also ignition advance will need a bit of tuning soon.

Power-wise it's as quick as it was as NA now - peaking at about 2 PSI. The power is very different though, there is more torque in lower revs even before boost, guessing due to smaller diameter intake piping, and it really does boost with boost lol Also, i reckon you only use about 1/5th of the loud pedal normal driving lol, it's very 'snatchy' and 'impatient' on the motorway, i reckon i need to slow down megasquirt somehow, it's crazy lmao

Anyway. Some photos soon

[djivesp]

Howdy migweb peeps !!

Went home this week to swap the bottom end over for my spare, but right as i was about to torque up the mains caps i realised that i left my torque wrench at uni (160 miles away lol) doh !! So not much progress, but i have some nice piccies

Goodies !! (thanks Jav and SBD)


then took apart the oil pump - not very sexy! Gears were fine however.


couldnt resist


piece of flat thick glass, lots of water, a few sheets of wet&dry and lots of patience. The trick to this is to make sure you put pressure on evenly across the piece.


result!:


pump gears. Does anyone know what the mark means on the bigger gear??


Checked over the bores and cleaned up pistons (with lots of mr muscle&petrol). Cleaned bores with teatowels like it was an OCD lmao


cleaning up sump flange


crank out


mains


they looked mint!! not a score in sight. All even colour, no patches, awesome


then went about installing the new shells. Don't know why i didnt take pics of old&new .. Old crank shells were perfectly worn, no funny business. The big ends also had no scoring, but were worn a little more on one side than the other. Being pedantic to be honest Looked very nice!

and how i left it!


now back at uni, contemplating whether to buy new rod bolts or re-use current ones Regal man said its ok to re-use them - obviously they have a lot of confidence in them. I think i'll end up getting paranoid over it hmmm.. decisions decisions!

made a nice mount for the chargecooler res very solid:


Anyway, big work next week! Thanks for looking

[Jack]

You back in Staffs?

[djivesp]

hello mr jack yees im back in sunny stafford !!.. I dont suppose you know of a 'friendly' mot garage lol

[Jack]

lmao A few, but they're a few miles away from Stafford. I only ever take mine for proper, full-on pedantic MOTs anyway.

[djivesp]

hehe, me too, but it really sucks failing on little wanky things that they fail because they've never seen an engine conversion before ..