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

[djivesp]

Welcome to my new project thread lovely migweb people !!

All started off with me falling in luuurf with the shape and coolness of the Kadett C's, i had to have one . So, got lucky enough to win this on ebay, and after arranging some finances plans for a road thip to scotland were underway.
300 miles to get it was going to be a bit of a ball ache, these are the pics :
Pics of the ebay listing:









...

Dutchy duck taping his wingmirror (thanks to chav scum). Dolly the sheep with a golden thong is coming with us


2 toolboxes and 2 sets of jump leads


tesco loot




me paying for mates petrol. Not too bad a price really




....
lots of hours later and photos on other peoples cameras that i forgot to take off them
....


beast!


5 minutes to the house and i get a call from the owner saying the batterys flat, so no worries we have plenty of jump-leadage. Then the thing floods, and as we arrive, i get to drive the guys rav4 towing it, he gets it started and i nearly **** myself with excitement when i hear the turbo spool from inside the tow car

The Stuart takes me for a spin and the thing is mental !! Back end stepping out into 2nd, felt veery healty.

So after a bit of mincing and getting some well deserved food:


we press on with regular fuel stops .
This thing is rough as a badgers ass, getting about 20 mpg and uber-rich everywhere apart from WOT at boost .

Funnily enough, the noise, smell and buckets werent enough to stop the girlfriend nodding off


..
And we made it back!!

Needs quite a bit of work to make it a fast road car that i want. It's raw in every sense and it doesn't **** about . Tried to warm it up at the back of our house this morning to take my mate out in it (it doesnt idle cold ), and had a neighbour come out from about 8 houses down the road telling me to calm it (it was sitting at 1000rpm wtf!) ..

So - plan of action and things to come:

- Break the tigra and sell engine, wheels and most bits
- Fit some carpets into the kadett from the tig. I dont want to add much weight but quite fancy a bit more confort tbh.
- Tigerseal many of the aluminium panels inside, as there are lots of rattles!
- Stereo, a couple of light speakers in footwells.
- New live cable from battery in boot to distribution block in the dash somewhere
- Fit wideband gear.
- Fit megasquirt, lappy and screen from the tig to the kadett (screamer i may need some maps :P specially ignition ). Will have it all on a panel for easy access this time round.
- Get cambelt cover
- Oil change
- New brake pads on the front (these are toast, guessing after Knockhill by previous owner)
- Check over and clean up underside.
- Spray and wrap exhaust so it doesnt rust
- Later on (next year maybe) carbon front end, rear wings and bootlid.

So thanks to all who helped me with parts for the Tigra build, i'm hoping this will be even better

[djivesp]

spec list - so i dont forget:

sri 130 2L 8valve engine (20seh?)
cosworth turbo (garrett t3?)
cossie injectors,
cossie fmic,
cossie weber FPR
cone filter,
lightened flywheel,
four paddle clutch plate
Ford type 9 gearbox with bell housing conversion,
shortened manta axle for ford gearbox,
welded manta diff ()
cosworth rear springs,
front leda fully adjustable coilovers,
perspex windows,
bucket seats,
four point harnesses,
boost gauge,
solex locks,
battery in boot

estimated 200ish bhp at 0.5 bar

almost there already

[vxlgsi]

i had my eye on that.. superb buy look forward to seeing what you do with it.

[donvaux]

nice one mate i bet you was loving the drive back

[gsi.turbo]

looks stunning mate you gonna keep it a 8v turbo?

[CraigGreen]

Engine sounds purposefull. Any close up pics of the manifold etc?

Videos please!

[djivesp]

Thanks everyone!
Yeah, i loved the drive back, the gearbox is sex, and i couldnt believe how little lag there is before it's kicking!
A lot of noise from the back when you power though, and generally squeeks and rattles everywhere .. Wondering whether it's worth investigating. Thinking either welded prop vibrating, the welded diff making the case vibrate on the mounts, or the half-shaft CV's are stressed.. hmm, will have to spend a bit of time on it soon!

Defo keeping it an 8 valve though . After so much mincing about with the xe/let, it just seems so much simpler to work on, fewer things to go wrong, lighter top half, inlet manifold better suited.. When the boost comes, he could have convinced me it was a let to be honest, it's an animal! and they cheeeep
As Jay (screamer) found out, a stock seh takes up to a bar of boost happily. Obviously mapping has to be good, and thats why im gonna put megasquirt on it

It's the way forward

I'll get some better pics when i get my camera back soon (&some videos ).

Thanks for feedback everyone

[escort1989uk]

more torque than a xe so the bloke at work says

[djivesp]

yeah, supposedly more torque though i was never convinced

Gave it an oil change, then drove 160 miles today, all fine no casualties lol, though it did start to run very strange in the last 20 miles or so. Just started to judder/spit/cough at light throttle, very weird. Suspecting the plugs are fouled by the amount of fuel, even though i've been leaning it off a bit (quarter of a turn on the FPR at a time), didnt have the right size socket for the spark plugs to have a look .

Hope i havent melted anything, didnt feel any lean surges

It's desparate for megasquirt lol, getting an o2 sensor bung put in and it's all going on next week some time hooray

[djivesp]

Hi all!
Small update, done a few little things that have needed doing, and ordered goodies

Noticed the cambelt was very loose when it was idling the other day, wobbled about like mad then checked it - eeek!!


Lucky it hasn't skipped!! There's quite a lot to be said about the 'early' round tooth cambelt set-up right here

So, bought this:


And undid 2 of the 3 water pump bolts, 3rd was rounded inside someone probably tried to use an allen key instead of a torx bit . But 2 bolts were enough to rotate the water pump housing with a few taps of an extension bar onto a tab on the water pump. Don't have photos as water was leaking out as i was doing it, didnt have time to **** about
..
Cleaned about the head and washer on the bolts with a wire brush, plastered loooads of loctite thread sealer on and under the washer, that should stop the pump rotating if it has been.

Then found out that what a chap off ebay told me about the Cossie FPR adjustment was wrong! So when i thought i was leaning it, i was actually making it richer!... The plugs confirmed this - they were black and coated like the inside of a chimney!! . So then actually leaned it off a bit, took it for a drive and it felt soooo much better! Though still no idea on AFR, just will have to take it easy untill i get the wideband plumbed in.
The FPR adjustment seemed to have very little effect on the fuel smoke coming out of the exhaust though, probably due to the cossie injectors and the fact that the AFM cover was just resting on top of the AFM, someone's blatantly played about with the spring tension!..

Then wanted to tidy up the top boost pipe a bit, ended off whipping the throttle body after i saw this


Looks like it's been snorting mud


cleaned it up, knife edged the blade, oiled up the mechanism:

...

Then blumbed the boost gauge to the right side of the throttle (it was put in before the TB, therefore not reading vacuum ). With help of a £1 tee piece from a motorfactors.

And these arrived :

- A couple of 30A automotive relays (one for new switched live, one spare).
- Cable clip tidies.
- Distribution blocks - ill have these under the dash, one connected to perm live, one to switched live. Will make it very easy to add devices such as gauges etc.. (learning from my mistakes with the tigra ).
- Yellow insulated female spade connectors.
- Blue male spade connectors.
- Red piggyback male/female connectors.

These should mean a tidy and easy installation for the screen/lappy/megasquirt/gauges. .

Also won this on gaybay:

&no, it's not for one of the windows

And this:

Which has a metal T piece with a blanking screw, so when youre finished with the gauge, you can unscrew it from the T piece and put the blanker in, for easy checking the next time round .. I thought it will be handy to know my fuel pressure.

Aaaand lots of aerosol for the wheels will do a photochop soon!!..

Still need:
C spanners for coilies - the front can come down a bit still! How do i measure what size i need ???

Thanks all for looking!

[William]

epic as always, really looking forward to your progress mate

[philip2]

we gona see it at PVS next year? can have a play with darcys kadett once we've finished it

[donvaux]

good bit of progress there mate, nice work on the throttle body , glad you found a gauge after seems a tidy one

[djivesp]

wow, thanks for the positive feedback everyone phil, yeah i reckon i have to pop my shows cherry next year, will hopefully have it to more of a show standard, it still needs a lot of tidying!! Darcy's is mad, it'd leave me for dust ! Bring on the weight-saving

Decided to go for the gauge, **** it it seems a very nice bit of kit for the money!!

Drove it to work today- 60 miles round trip, and all seems goood! Belts are still nice and tight, still uber-rich though, ah well - soon oh soon indeed she will be purring like a kitten

Had a bit of fun on the way home, we have a twisty drive leading to the back of our estate, rammed the loud pedal a few times on the twistys to check errrm, my rear tyre traction, yessss . Good fun the welded diff - the controllability and launch more than makes up for the trouble you get into trying to park the thing, or do small roundabouts haha!!

anyway.. bought a compression tester gauge the other night (been meaning to get one for years lol), so i thought itll reveal all! The owner was telling me that the engine only has about 75k on it, i didnt believe it but it seems he might have been on the right lines, it made some decent results.

Got the engine to normal temp, pulled the plugs out:
lol

cylinders 4, 3, 2, 1 from left to right. At least i know it's evenly rich

all ready to go!



OH MY GOD i love how much space there is in the bay, what a nice change from the cramped tigra bay!

Anyways:
All plugs out, engine warm, ECU&fuel pump off, WOT, crank for 2 seconds each run - this was the average when 'dry'


sweet!

add some oil before each repeat:



average 'wet' result:


not bad eh!

and the chart (lol):


i could only screw the gauge in about 1 and a half full turns into cylinder 2 before it wouldnt go any more and my hand started slipping, thread must have been dirty or something, and you cant use a wrench with it . So i'll put the anomaly down to that.

That's left me chuffed to bits

And another bit turned up today, looks very well built, and has all the connectors you need and more!! That's going in tomorrow when i get some petrol hose ..


I'm toying with the idea of putting the LET pistons and rods in it that i got from you don, i really want to, but kinda fancy keeping it high-comp. Let pistons drop it down to about 8.5:1 iirc, which would mean the t3 will be working hard. Whereas at 10:1 i'd be making more power at given psi, but with weaker pistons/rods. Hmmm decisions !!!

Thanks for looking everyone!!

[djivesp]

Fitted the fuel pressure gauge a couple of days ago was a pretty easy job, though i did have problems with fuel leaking from the t piece, the gauge just needed tightening up (FT ).
So, begin with some fuel hose:


Then use the correct size barbs for the T piece:


Plumb it in after the fuel rail but before the FPR


Then supported the fuel pipe a little, so it doesn't wobble about under the weight of the gauge:


And there we go!:


Scwing!


Turned down the FPR to the lowest pressure (about 2ish bar), still blue smoke at idle, so guess the injectors are too big to be able to compensate for them .

Next on the list - wideband and megasquirt !

[DaveB]

Err, unless you're getting THAT much fuel that you're getting bore wash, blue smoke is oil - therefore = turbo oil seals, valve stem seals or piston rings.

[djivesp]

When i had oil smoke, it was kind of thick dark gray, and smells like oil. Almost like water steam but doesn't clear quickly in the air.
This is dark blue stuff that smells like petrol, particularly bad when the engine's cold, clears up when up to temp.
Definately petrol

My analysis is that with the injectors being 330cc (from stock 200ish), cold enrichment by the ecu works out a LOT richer than needed to run the cold engine. Most of this is unburnt and chucked out the exhaust. When it's up to temp it's almost ok It's all unmatched and none of it works together. So when i lean it off for better idle - WOT suffers, bad bad set-up

The reason for the compression test was to determine whether the bore-wash has had any detrimental effects - it hasn't by the looks of things

[Rick Draper]

I agree with Dave. Blue smoke is not fuel.

[rc]

good thread this, only just spotted it, will be keeping eye on progress!~

[djivesp]

Thanks all!
We'll see about the smoke hopefully. Anyone know where to get gaskets/bolts for the seh? Used to just get stuff off ebay for the xe. Looks like seh stuff isn't as popular

[peester]

saw this on sunday; at work (halfords, stafford) it got all the lads talkin bout it,.. did think ide seen it somewhere, i take it you bought the fuel pipe..? lol
good project, i was jumping up n down telling the lads it was turbo'd..

must add, im no mechanic but ive ever seen 'blue' smoke: that was it.. hope u manage to sort it ok. :-)

[djivesp]

ahh no way, awesome! I'm in there all the time buying bits lol, so no doubt will see you again, whats your name ?! I returned the smaller fuel pipe, didnt know what size i needed so bought 2 different ones
yeah, hopefully sorting it soon, its borderlining undriveable at the moment, pretty bad when cars behind you are dropping back because of the smell

[peester]

cool, no worries..
im dave. Catch ya soon then.

[Add_Gee]

Awesome project! That is some proper old school cool. love it

[LETSTICK]

cool beans , nice to see a boosted 8v , not to many around ,will feel totally different on aftermarket manegment , loving the welded diff ,

keep up the good work! .