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

[djivesp]

Hello miggers!!

After some thought and a severe need for motivation, i decided to make a project thread on here as a way to log everything i've done to the tig, all the megasquirt stuff (as i've noticed there are more and more people interested, but not much info specifically on this) and hopefully get some help from you knowledgeable peeps if/when i get stuck ..

I did have a blog for this but it was too hard to update, so it's all going on here!

A little bit of history..
After seeing the car parked up at the back of my (parents) house for a couple of years with a knackered x14xe, i decided to make something of it and save it from the inevitable death by crushing. It was originally my mums (d'oh), having been imported from ze germany as she wanted a lhd car (d'oh). After a cambelt snappage (recovery pickup #1), it got repaired, soon after which the water pump packed in and another valve-piston mishmash being imminent she decided to get a new car (women ).

Sooo, being 18 and optimistic i decided to take it on as a project! I knew how these things worked but it seemed to be an exciting learning opportunity!! More of a test-bed for some engine fettling.
Since then, i got a 100k mile early c20xe which i inspected measured and refreshed all by the book, stuck it in and enjoyed the ride . It had a hone, new rings, new water pump, cambelt&idlers, shells, sbd's own uprated mains and flywheel bolts, regal's rod bolts, 're-freshed' oil pump, new seals, gaskets, some mild head porting, ran in properly with all the oil changes etc..

Since then, i've had some problems - lost oil pressure due to airlock in the oil cooler - fixed that, porous head fix went a bit sour - some swarf managed to avoid the air hose and block one of the oil galleries in one of the cams, a few oil changes it was all good again and no damage done (thankfully). Fitted an oil pressure gauge - well recommended tbh.

Since then, the head's been off a few times, to check the hone, new valve stem seals, cam cover breather modified (holes drilled in the plate), the throttle wedge came out.
It was quick and taught me a lot, specially after my 1st car - a 1.2 clio .
Recovery pickup #2 and #3 later, it got a late-style alternator bracket (ffs what a **** oe design on the early models!?).. and all was good.

Then a EHPS pump and res went in from a MR2 with a switch in the fag tray (after an epic failure of the original pump's piping ), general improvements like that...

Since then, i got the bug for power, researched the matter and made a clear plan of the things to come.

Being a student, money's a bit of a sore subject, so i gathered bits over the last year part by part, and now undertaking the biggest work since getting a summer job.

So, the plan is - a high comp c20xe turbo with megasquirt and car lappy, touchscreen in the dash for on-the-fly tuning/gauges. Aiming for around 200hp/200lbft untill i can afford a f28 or think of something else (f23 maybe, don't know yet).

some of the pics
JAW wideband assembled calibrated and working ...



... In a box under the dash, mounted to the frame that the pedals are on. Also Knocksense velcro'd to the JAW box.



.. some more pics coming up in a moment

[djivesp]

Needed an oil return for the turbo - sooo, firstly i thought the most non-destructive thing to do would be to get a pipe into the plate which holds the oil level sensor, as this is not needed. So sump ...



And some drilling/bashing/gluing later this was the result:


Some of you will already be alerted about the position - it IS a little too low tbh, but having done a bit of measuring of the dipstick etc, i calculated that it would only be a problem if the oil level was above the max mark on the dipstick (and maybe when cornering)..

After putting the sump in place i found that the downpipe was waay too close for comfort, the oil return hose would have melted in no time i reckon. Soo out comes the drill again (handy i have a few sumps lmao)

And the new location: not too close to the 'flange' - was worried about cracking it when tightened up, still higher than previous and more central - out of 'danger' zone.




Also seems that the sump was welded previously for some reason, even better for me
..

[djivesp]

After finding out that my throttle body had a Throttle Position Switch as opposed to a Throttle Position Sensor (which megasquirt needs), i got hold of a LET body from SeanR (cheers again dude)

Whilst it was out i did a little bit of fiddling:


Cleaned up and 'knife edged' the butterfly:


lubed up the springs and 'flushed' the ends of the screws.


Onto the next problem:



So made use of a spare brake pipe fitting and some pipe for a reducer (did flare the end btw):



and the result:

schwing!

You may be wandering why i made the reducer, well i'm going to need 1 vacuum takeoff for MS, one for the FPR and the other for the manual boost controller. Going to block off the little pipe on the rocker cover and just run the large one out the back of the engine (maybe a filter on the end or something)..

[donvaux]

looking good mate loving the amount of piccies

[Gaz86]

sweet, about time you started documenting this, need any little hints check my thread, ive converted XE to LET, BTW i forgot to measure the hall sensor sorry.

[djivesp]

this had no cap: lol:


...

Fitted the turbo oil feed pipe thinger:





And the pipe:

[djivesp]

looking good mate loving the amount of piccies

Cheers dude, i got ****loads more to come lmao if i worked for as long as i spend tryin to take a good pic it'd be done by now

sweet, about time you started documenting this, need any little hints check my thread, ive converted XE to LET, BTW i forgot to measure the hall sensor sorry.

Cheers mate, your thread has been very helpful its cool, i decided to give the VR sensor a shot again after finding out that i missed a step when configuring the megasquirt board, and it works now for the RPM pickup .. Would still be handy to know for future's reference, but don't put yourself out

[djivesp]

The cometic mls gasket (1.7mm iirc - could have got a 1.9mm now thinking hey we'll see how it goes!)

Drilled out the rivets that hold the layers together, and cleaned it like i've never cleaned anything before lmao tbh i'm petrified about whether it's gonna seal or not, after reading some horror stories.


Cleaned the block face with a stanley blade then acetone then more blade:



I don't have any pics of the head i don't think right now (ill find them), but it was corroded to feck .. (maybe time to start using antifreeze ) There was a notch that had corroded out which was dangerously close to the sealing ring, so i scratched it out, acetone'd it then used some hi temp 2 part glue (i think its basically chemical metal) glued it and flattened it again. It was a tiny notch - it was me being pedantic really but i do want it to seal good. Figured i have to totally wreck this head first before i put my 'good' one on which i have spare..

Oh, and used a little trick - not sure if anyone knows about it or if i have just invented something (lmao), but if you get a large-ish piece of VERY flat glass - it has to be mirror like, and wet it, stick a sheet of wet&dry on it, fold the edges over and carefully run up&down the head face, it comes up shiny&flat, well, relatively flat - obviously not as flat as a skim, but probably flatter than it was with all the ****e stuck to it..

[djivesp]

.. then did the same with the turbo manifold flange:


Head back on!:



my porous head fix still 'fixed' from 2 years ago (it's nice when diy fixes last lmao)



here's an interesting one - LET and XE exhaust cams respectively. You can actually see the XE cam having more lift:



The oil feed back in place, and studs in!:



The next step, well it was a complete bitch. The turbo mani won't go it top or bottom, and when i got very close, the actuator fouled the rad...

So, not in a messing around mood, i chopped out the slam panel, cut the dowels of the bottom or the rad that locate it into the rubber 'mounts', and moved it like 2 inches (iirc) forward - extending the coolant pipes, making up little brackets which mounted to the front crossmember to stop the rad from moving forward, and it fitted perfectly under the slam panel

My pics got all muddled up so i'll find one for this part later !!

[Gaz86]

make sure you use antifreez or your turbo will boil the water in it dry and thats not good.

i take it your doing this on standard 10:5 CR

[djivesp]

The next 'complete bitch' was fitting the let intercooler and pipes. Since i'm still using the rad from the 1.4 engine, it's a lot wider than the calibra let rad, so i had to get inventive. The ONLY way the IC would fit, was if you looked down at the bay, where it would be in a calibra next to the rad - rotate it counter-clockwise 90* and kinda 'lay it down' a bit lmao..

It's not ideal - far from it, but untill i get an FMIC i'm going to leave it like this. Going to make a 'duct' to pull cool air from under the bay and push it upwards toward the ic. I have some ally 'exhaust shield' so something will be made with this to isolate it more from the rad. It's on a slant, but nothing fouls now that i cut the fan blades a little:



a 'bit' of a mess: lmao


...

Moving on - cambelt !!
#1 TDC:



My ghetto-spec diy cambelt tentioner "do up idlers whilst belt is tensed" jobbie:



All done up with some threadlock on the idler bolts:
As read on max-boost and after some advice from peeps on here (i think it was you GBE who helped me on this ) XE inlet cam retarded by 1 tooth, and LET cam in normal place. This should reduce overlap alot and drop my dynamic CR abit too



FFS


Thankfully the bolt came out with some pliers !! ....

[djivesp]

make sure you use antifreez or your turbo will boil the water in it dry and thats not good.

i take it your doing this on standard 10:5 CR

It's down to 10:1 with the cometic according to my cc'ing, and the inlet cam should hopefully have the effect of dropping it a bit more . To be honest when you get a mint XE bottom end with pistons for £40 then i'd rather mess around with it, melt it and stick the spare in lmao. Used let pistons are like, £120ish right?! Yes my squish ain't as good as a let and i wont be able to run anywhere near the boost i could with low CR pistons, but it's gonna be a good learning experience! Thinking of water/meth injection later on with megasquirt controlling it, should be good

Lol - i did use it in the winter, but im thinking the damage was done before that already

[djivesp]

Ahh - found a pic of the intercooler as it is right now - not 'ideal'


This is how the oil return is now


Made a sweet little ally extension for the, errrrm is that the coolant return?!:



I forgot that the tophat i bought had a hole in it for a nitrous jet so a nicely flattened bolt&some trusty metally glue. Shouldn't blow out at 6psi right ?! lmao



'Tidied' my alternator bracket:


Made a little bracket for the turbo water return pipe so it doesn't float around getting burnt.



And this is how it looks right now (ignore the slam panel, it's wip lmao):


...

[Gaz86]

id advance the cam a bit, the article it total vaux came out with big results but the EVO 5 motronic cut the ignition due to det.
youll need a vernier to bring it to around 6 deg retard.

[djivesp]

Sorting out the mbc:



Made a neat little bracket, with some wetsuit stuff so it doesn't scratch/fall out:



Schwiiing!! (+ check out my slam panel weldage, all arc baby lmao)




I'm soooooo locking that at 'no boost' ^ lmaolmao and hiding the key. It should have "explosion imminent" written on it.

[djivesp]

id advance the cam a bit, the article it total vaux came out with big results but the EVO 5 motronic cut the ignition due to det.
youll need a vernier to bring it to around 6 deg retard.

Really ? Gash.
Hmm i'll need some saving up to do then, verniers don't come cheap do they?!
I'll get my det-cans sorted and we'll see how it goes when it's running. Will it be a problem at the kind of hp and boost levels i'll be at ?!

I'll get an fmic next so charge temps will drop abit, helping things..

[djivesp]

More tidying up - strapped the accelerator cable down with a bit of bling:



Hahah - if you don't know what this bolt is then you shouldn't be here lmao


And how things look prior to all the wiring:


...

[donvaux]

lmao loving the crank bolt mate

[djivesp]

The cc'ing i did previously on my 'good' head:



Yumyum:



Doing the biz


Chamber full



And the result:


Chose washing up liquid as it's higher viscosity so less likely to leak past the valves - more accurate!

[djivesp]

lmao loving the crank bolt mate

Haha lmaolmao Im actually gonna leave it there for giggles lmao it was a shame to cut one as i'm sure i'm gonna need it at some point but what the hell lmao

[donvaux]

i got some let pistons if you want them cheap cheap

[djivesp]

oooooh tell tell!! Ill pm you a bit later about that, i'm tempted

[donvaux]

ok no probs come on more pics

[djivesp]

sweet .. thats's it for the mekanikalz for now, going back in time a bit - the JAW wideband controller. Comes highly recommended by yours truly - for the price its awesome value !!, there has been some interest on here about it so i'll post my findings !!

Pretty much what you get! (i had taken the bits out of the antistatic bags and started assembly)



All soldered up in like, 15 mins, it's piss easy! sensor nice and hot !!



Reverse mounted the screen cable connector so you can reverse mount it on the screen PCB itself, makes a neat installation:



Cobbled together a box (had to draw the net out on paper and everything, felt like i was back at school lmao). Used an old CD-ROM drive btw:


Sprayed it black and cut a 'bed' out of PU foam for it, we don't want it touching the sides


All in !! The serial connector is on a skew but wtf:



Onto the screen:


Cobbled together another box and sprayed it black, hot glue gunned the screen into place:


Box of goodies :


One red LCD filter later:




SCHWING !!



i realise i've posted this already, but they're only little pics


I glued a phone-holder magnet onto the dash so the screen magnets into place, and is fully removable from view , as well as being adjustable left&right. Ok it's not really of much value to teef but hey it's neat.

.. more to come !!

[LongLiveTheNova]

Thats give me a few ideas for the box on my JAW controller.
Ive got it built up, just nothing to put it in lmao


Nice work btw, but 10.5Cr is pretty high.