1978 Kadett C 2l 8v Turbo Adventures...

[LeNnOxLeWiS]

[screamer69]

opps .....
ives you say your running 10 deg @ 18 psi what c/r you running ( i carnt be arsed reading the thread again to find out ) we are only just touching that @30+ even with high comp and water injection you shouldnt be @10

what a/f you at @18

also the knock sensor you have if its the one im thinking off is **** !! carnt beat the old stethoscope
bolted to the block

jay

[djivesp]

Hey people!!
Lol, I didnt even know there were more posts on here, bloody new mig is so confusing!!!

I BROKE IT! lol, thought it was head gasket but it isn't - I'll explain.
Went for a early morning tescos run and thought I'll give it a bit of stick round the back roads.
So, I thought I'll give flatshift a go, up to 5k in 2nd, flat out about 20 psi boost, clutch in - bangbangbang...BANG clangclangclang lol.
thought it chucked a rod at first as it ran like a dog, knock light was flashing it's tits off but oil pressure was fine, temps were fine just ran rough.
It drove me home and I left it.

Started it up this morning and the top end sounded like a cold redtop (:P) so all became clear and behold:


2 broken rocker arms.

I cba to get the datalog up but it over-revved between gears because flat shift couldn't hold the revs down Ill check to see what it hit later today.
Quite good that this happened tbh as if it probably saved my bottom end!

Will be getting the head off and putting the dished pistons in at the same time in the next 3 weeks (ultra busy atm - so there won't be any updates for a while gareth :P)

Jay - i know yours did this at pod ages ago I saw the vid, this proves again that those chunky rocker arms are ****, but if they wouldn't have let go then i'd probably only have 3 rods left lol!.

****ing balls that my spare head is 3 hours drive away from here Does anyone has a set of them forged ones?

It also proves that they are non-interference engines lol lmao.

Jay cheers for that, I've not really had the opportunity to go out and properly map the ignition (i've even got a ghetto detcan rig lol), I've just been creeping it up slowly before each errand run lol so I'm sure it's got a lot more to give - but it's proven itself this far being a daily so all is good. It's stock 10:1 at about 12 afr at the top of the table.

[screamer69]

just bung another 2 on and she will be ok lol im still doing them

1st round of esc started up and reved the **** out of it and bang 2 rockers so we raided my brothers towing car ( cav 8v ) and run the rest of the day with his ones lol

to much boost or to much retard will cause that with flat shift if its popping and banging it will snap the rockers !!!

and it also depends how you have the cuts working ill have to check mine but we have no problem as a rule now my last miss hap was down to it being on warm up and a nice lean spot ( one day ill sort warm up out lol )

you dont need to take the head off to replace them but you will need an extra pair of hands and bung the lifters in a vice to remove the oil and it will take 5-10 mins to replace them it wont have smacked the piston unless your springs have popped off


just read the last bit of your post 12 dead and flat shift @20 lol i though it was mad lol richen it up a bit and 50/50 meth mix in the water injection

[screamer69]

mine were the chunky ones they were the forged one i keep snapping if you carnt get your limitor to hold DONT use flat shift if its a 16v then it will pop and bang its tits off allday with no damage but any sort of poping and banging results in the above

[djivesp]

Cheers jay, so are the skinny ones or chunky ones stronger? That's confused me I thought you said the chunky ones were cast and therefore ****e?
It's strange though isn't it!
I'll get the head off anyway to swap the pistons over

[screamer69]

thinner ones are forged so they say but ive broken both sets so they arent any stonger but some vaux ones come with the thick ones and some with the thinner ones how no`s lol

[djivesp]

Bah, who knows!
So do you think it breaks because as you're flatshifting the combustion happens when the fuel hits the turbine blades and the peak cylinder pressure must be happening just as the inlet valve is wanting to open for the intake cycle. But then why does the exhaust one break too?

[screamer69]

we found this out :

nearly 2 years ago i was breaking them every time we took it out and finally sorted the problem by 1. sorting the limiter out fuel cut we use now i think . 2. upgraded to a bigger turbo

apart from that we havent had to much trouble with it till the fast show but that was down to a few things 1. i was on a cast manifold and that was due to 4 days before i was supposed to be there i was checking things over and blew my manifold and made a right mess of it and i was still waiting for another one to be made up by someone but i keep getting fooked about so the only option was the cast one and the sort of boost we put through them it didnt like it but it worked to get me some points for the 1st round of esc lol 2. it was on warm up and its a bit lean on warm up and dont like it much lol

when i was running gas and lots of boost we had the same problem more so on project shiiter all day long it would take the boost but a little bit of gas and bang went the rockers ( as per vid you have seen ) simple fix bigger turbo well more so zorst side anyways and better limiter

and the stuff we run now we have had 35 psi through one of the cars and 50 shot of gas and no snapped rockers lmao lmao lmao

i havent run gas since may-june last year as i dont need to yet but im haveing another manifold built in the next month and getting rid of the interwarmer and running full progressive methonal injection so it looks like i might smash a few more rockers yet lol but in all fairness it was down to the limiter doing most damage fuel cut on a 8v is a no no

just check one of my maps i carnt be arsed to change any of the above so here goes
rev limiter = spark cut
flat shift/ lauch = fuel and spark
base number of sparks = 6 and both types are 7 (flat and rev ) works a treat on ours i dont use flat shift as i use variable launch 18psi and let it rip = bloody close to the wall lol but these setting work a treat and we havent had the problems with the rockers since and we have a 8k plus limiter even at 9k they work with out problems

[screamer69]

comps haveing a spaz double post lol

[Steve!]

lol

[Jack]

Have I read somewhere that the 1.7 TD rocker arms are the thickest rocker arms on the planet, and work in 8v engines?

[djivesp]

Cheers jay that's good gen - perhaps i need a bigger turbo then haha

Jack - scored a whole NE head/inlet/TB/cam/carrier/ etc etc for 20 squids lol, so i'll just use whichever ones are in that head .
I found a ebay listing for those diesel ones at 6 quid a pop, and they look like the standard forged ones.

Jay is right though, it's not the parts or the engine's fault it's in the set-up. Just a bummer there's no other way of finding out if it works other than just having a go

[screamer69]

1.7td ones are the same as so are most of the vaux rockers for the 8v`s

yes m8 basicly it they way the limiter is kicking in weather its flat shift launchcontrol or basic limiter if it was a 16v it would take a lot more abuse on that score but our little 8v`s dont like it try the above settings on yours and see what happens theres no problems with ours so it should be ok on yours we spent a lot of time testing these last year as i got really fed up with replacing the bloody things even @ 9k + we didnt snap them and ive ways been told i need solds to rev it to that but things need to be tested i run a 8200 limiter now but i tend to not hit it much since we upped it but saying that i would be happy at removing it altogether now

just bung in 2 new rockers and give it a try its not worth stipping the head off just to replace 2 bloody rockers and it saves a few dollas as you havent got to replace the head gasket and bolts etc

best way of trying the limter drop it to say 4k then try it if theres no pops and bangs up it a bit more then just keep upping it till your happy with it and always space the soft and hard limiter by at lest 300 rpm closer together they are the more hassle it will cause more so with flat/launch

also what you retarding it to when its flat shifting ??

[garethbowers]

any news Ives? 2 more sleeps till my little beast is running.

[Jack]

New head on the way AFAIK.

[djivesp]

9k awesome, so it's definately not the rockers that are at fault, it'll be down to the bang bang ..
Ill check the spark retardation, it could be that i'm running too retarded in the higher revs in general, but as the spark cut comes in that won't make any difference on the hard limiter.

Yep new head is on it's way, will be good to have a spare anyhow.

Gareth, sounds awesome let me know how it goes!

[djivesp]

Hey peeps!

Only a tiny update lol, my head bits arrived and the thing was in such a state when it got here - one of the valves was loose, collets lost, one rocker missing FFS!
so now i have 6 thick ones and 7 thin ones lol. Seller refunded me a fiver to get another rocker so suppose everything isn't that bad eh..

Does anyone have any spares lying about?
I dont know whether to buy the ones on ebay as they dont list the 2l motors as being compatible :/ hmmm
Suppose i could just mix&match lol.

Cheers people

[eggman]

the diesel motor eats them i have been lookin for some trick ones i seen ages ago thay looked like billit or something but i havent seen them since wish i could remember the name of the guy who had the car ????

[Jack]

Dude, there's a scrapyard not ten minutes from you. Failing that, I will nip to ours today and see if they're open.

[djivesp]

Hey people!

Loooong time without an update so I got my arse in gear and sorted some pics ..

I havent really had much time lately to update the thread yadda yadda - finishing uni, moving, looking for work etc but the rustbucket has had a couple of things:

Rockers fixed:


whipped the head off to change them and check up on everything (had bolts and gasket so thought why not :P)..


Everything was good, no det marks or any other funky business. Interestingly - ever since i've been running water injection the carbon buildups have been kind of soft and flakey, whereas before the carbon would just coke everything up. This soft shizz just comes off with a light scratch, and weeks later i never had a flash from the knock light so ignition got advanced . Shows that the steam is doing something towards cleaning the cylinders, and once the carbon was removed there was better combustion.

Then started getting a blow from the exhaust after i scraped a speedbump FFS! Exhaust pipe was cracked just where it comes out of the silencer, so welded that back up. Assembled everything. Still blowing! Took the manifold off, gasket was toast, and you can see how much of it protrudes into the direct flow of gas, which is probably what destroyed it in the first place. Shonky cheap gaskets FTL!.


Needed to start it up for a few seconds just to heat the gum up so conducted an interesting experiment with the turbo oil feed.
This filled up in about 4 seconds! :O. So the turbo feed probably needs a restrictor, but meh, i'd rather have an over-lubed turbo shaft tbh.


So I flattened the head flanges (by the most difficult method known to man - sanding the whole manifold along a flat surface lol). Used a tiny bit of firegum instead of a gasket this time, just like on the turbo flange which has been perfect so far.

STILL BLOWING FFS!. And can't figure out where it's blowing from. The turbo to downpipe flange has seen better days, so perhaps it's that.

Also tested compression to rule out the head gasket - 13 to 14 bar dry compression from all cylinders, so not gasket - also it's not burning any oil or water.

So, leaving it sounding like a tractor for now who gives a flying turd it still goes like **** off a shovel xD.

Finally decided to sort the engine mounts good and proper, which i hope will fix all the vibrations. The plan is to delete the prop spacer and move the whole engine and everything back by 2 inches or thereabouts, fabbing a new gearbox mount and using new engine mount rubbers. The whole engine/prop/diff angle needs to be sorted and stiffened the gearbox floats about when going over rough road.
So ordered some of these land rover v8 mounts which should be perfect and are cheap and awesome. The rover v8's are pretty light motors, with mine being about 40kg's lighter still it should work out at about the right amount of up-rated-ness in terms of stiffness. Don't know what to use for the gearbox mount yet as there's very little space.


And to bring it all up to date, my fibreglass bootlid is almost done .
Stock bootlid - just under 10kg's. Mine - just under 3kg's. WIN!

Laying up the weave into the mold:


Webbing (used folded strips of that clear polycarb roofing panels):


And it's done. Just needs trimming up and a bit of filler here&there:


The sandwich goes like this:
gelcoat/weaved glass/webbing/chopped strand mat.

The webbing worked ace, it's a little flimsy by the edges but is structurally sound.

So far, it should be about 50kg's lighter than factory. Lightweight battery next - another 10kg saving

Other stuff that's been done recently:
> New polycarb window to replace an acrylic one that was going yellow.
> Diff mount lowered slightly to angle the diff straighter in relation to the prop (trying to reduce vibrations).
> Freed up the rear calipers that have been dragging the pads forever since i fitted them, making a lot of high pitched noise on the motorway.

Plans:

> Pull engine out, sort out engine bay, weld strengthening from chassis rails to turret tops to allow ditching front springs and running coilovers only with softer springs.
> Change shocker oil. Motorbike fork oil should do.
> Weld plates to link chassis rails to subframe (where engine mounts sit at the mo.) new mount rubbers will sit on these.
> Tidy up bulkhead and cabin fan cover and make as much space as possible for engine moving back.
> Ditch dizzy cap, chop plastic rotor to retain cam seal bolts. (doesn't need the cam blocked like redtops.)
> New rear shocks with coilover conversion tubes welded on (will fit inside existing turrets).

Long term plans:
New engine build with the dished xe rods&pistons, arp's, xe bottom end;
Head port, polish, AST52 cam;
New exhaust manifold with smaller diameter runners and twinscroll t3 flange;
Holset HX35 .
New bigger diameter silencer in the same place (diy build).
Possibly r25-28 box, or a mt75 with my bellhousing welded onto it.

But first, need to get a job lol.

[screamer69]

about bloody time m8

im suppised you havent got a head stud kit on it

i think you should come down and make me a compleat front end for my astray !! whats it cost you so far for front end and boot ???


looking good as usall

just bung in a set of let pistons man !!!!!! and stop fooking about !!

[screamer69]

loving the new inlet lol

[djivesp]

Lol, my WD40 inlet - all it needs is a TB and some runners FTW.
I'm thinking of knocking one up out of steel, but it would be heavy .

Pistons wise - i've not hit the advance wall yet so still has a bit to go, just that at 20psi ish now and there's no point putting any more boost in, the turbo's reaching it's max :/.

And fibreglass, **** man it's such a nasty job I don't know if i'll ever do it again tbh, for how much it costs in materials alone it's not really worth it :/. I think it's cost me about 230 quid for all the materials for the front and boot, and i still have loads of mat and weave left and just ran out of resin. And it still looks like **** after like 2 weeks of filler on, sand off, filler on, sand off lol.

Oh you know your 10 second run - was that on an f20? If it is then what are you feeding it some sort of special popeye spinach lol?!

[screamer69]

nop lol smashed to many f20`s lol