Das Beast: My E30 track / street build

[dvallis]

Now I know why I went with that boost gauge. VDO doesn't have a -10 to 20 psi, or even a 0 - 20 psi. We might run more than 15 psi boost, so I didn't want to peg a 15 psi gauge. In fact, I couldn't find a -10 to 20 psi gauge by anyone. There are -30 to 30s, but you end up using a very small percentage of the dial sweep.

[dvallis]

Boosted!

Working on verifying the electronic boost control today. Here's the initial setup for open loop boost control. Overboost control is set to cut spark at 10 psi. (14.5 psi + 10 psi = 24.5 psi = 169 KPa) Waste gate has a 6 psi spring. Wow. that's a horrible picture. :-)



Boost control table is set to open the boost solenoid 100%, sending max pressure to keep the waste gate closed. Just to see some boost.



Did a roll on in 3rd gear. You can see me hesitating at partial throttle a couple of times, then finally going WOT. Would something break? Didn't know. RPMs got to 3900 and the engine cut out. What? Only I only saw a few psi on the boost gauge, verified by the log. 4.4 psi is still less than the waste gate spring.



Then I remembered we had set spark cut to 4000 RPM a while back. Fixed that, and changed the boost control table. Set it up to spool the turbo fast at low RPMs, then back off boost pwm at higher revs. We're not tuning, just checking for good boost control.



You can see the boost control PWM doing what the new table says it should. 100% for fast spool then down to ~30%, rising with RPM. This time we got to 4600 RPM at WOT, but as boost was coming on I heard a "pop!" and got out of the throttle. Uh oh. We hit 5.5 psi. Was that the waste gate spring opening?



Nope. It was the unintentional "blow off valve". LoL. We forgot to tighten a boost hose clamp.



Fixed that, did another pull. MUCH better. You can see the engine at WOT with RPMs ramping nicely. AFR is pig rich, but I want it that way for testing to avoid detonation. Boost solenoid pwm drops from 100% spool-up to 30-ish as set in the table. Boost psi starts to ramp, going non-linear as we pass 4K RPM and hits 10 psi. At this point overboost control kicks in and cuts spark. Perfect. 10 psi boost means we are exceeding the waste gate spring 6 psi static pressure and electronic boost control is working. Almost ready for dyno tune.



Back to some fabrication. Sealing up the rear wheel wells to keep exhaust gasses out of the cockpit.



Love aluminum. It's so easy to work.



That will do. It fits better than it looks. Just placed in there for now.



And finally, decided to change this boost gauge. Would rather know how much vacuum we're pulling at idle, and I'm never going to run 30 psi boost. Will get a -10 to 20 VDO boost gauge. Easy swap.



Overall a really good day.

[Digitalwave]

Getting closer.... much closer!

[berndt]

I’m just a lurker, but I’ve been following this from the start. I love waking up Monday morning to new updates. Huge congratulations! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dvallis]

Hot Rod

We're finally getting to the point that "working on the car" means hot rodding around the block, not fixing things.

We'll except for this.Replaced the surge tank fuel pressure sensor so that dash light would turn off.

Soldering in place. My least favorite thing.


But the sensor works now. Surge tank low pressure light is off (one on the bottom, right of fuel pressure gauge). Top light is low pressure warning for main fuel circuit. Note the the fuel pressure is 60 psi without the car running. It drops to 50 for normal operation. There are programmable circuit boards controlling the low fuel warning level, low oil pressure and high water temperature. We have to tweak them at some point. Hasn't been done yet.


Passenger seat in, belts installed. Looking very sporty


Added a Longacre parabolic racing mirror. Why is it in front of the driver, not middle of the car? We found it gives GREAT visibility at this location, without obstructing forward view. You can literally see out both rear side windows, all the way to the back of the car. Rob said "Wow. I can see the drill press and metal bender at the same time" Makes a good sun visor too.


Finally on the road. We have a license plate, insurance, turn signals horn etc, just not an inspection sticker. Good enough for laps of the neighborhood. Got lots of waves and thumbs up.


I was the co-pilot, running Tuner Studio while Rob drove. This is VE Autotune showing history of where we are in the table. Just wanted to get a feel for it first.


Then we turned on autotune. This adjusts delivered fuel to meet the AFR target for each cell in real-time while you drive.


You can see what the changes were before applying them permanently. Red for more fuel, blue for less. Works pretty good. Note this is not a substitute for dyno tuning. We're just getting it bulletproof and "good enough" before going back to the dyno.


We never felt any boost, so went back and checked some things. Verified the boost control solenoid worked with test mode. (See all the previous posts on that adventure) Turns out the boost control table was set to 0% for all ranges, meaning the valve was continually closed. Remember that more solenoid PWM = more valve open = more PSI keeping waste gate closed = more boost. (Go back and look, we have diagrams) We adjusted the boost control table to give us 50% boost at WOT, depending on RPM and 25% boost at 1/2 throttle. Goal is to see just a bit of boost, confirm that's working.

Next time we'll do some data logging to verify key parameters: RPM, fuel load, throttle position, water temp, boost PWM duty cycle, boost PSI and AFR. We have these on a gauge cluster as well.

Finally, we're going to take the car to a small local track "Harris Hill" for some test and tune. Will let us get better data than around the neighborhood.

Pretty damn satisfying to have it running. Thanks to everyone who has chimed in with helpful tips.

[dvallis]

#determined LoL

[Nader393]

...When I tried to take the belt off the crank gear it wasn't cooperating. Took a closer look. THIS was jammed in there. WTF?!...

Your perseverance is admirable. I'd have thrown in the towel and sold the heap after the second tear-down.

[dvallis]

Timing Belt Extravaganza

Finally have a free day to fix this timing belt. Here's the M20 with rad and hoses out, covers off, pulleys and timing wheel removed.

Nothing out of the ordinary so far.



When I tried to take the belt off the crank gear it wasn't cooperating. Took a closer look. THIS was jammed in there. WTF?!



A frigging washer. Yeah. THAT could be shaving blue fuzzies off the Kevlar belt.



Once I had the belt off, checked the Nuke wheel. It's fine.



The Conti belt seems a bit longer than the blue Kevlar.



It went on much easier. Used Digger's method. Tensioner is moving like it should now.



Timing marks look good. Ran the crank through two rotations clockwise. Still aligned.





Put everything back together. And fired it up.



Perfect. Engine settled down 1100 RPM, 180F after I burped the cooling system. 50 PSI on oil and fuel pressure. No smoke at the tail pipe.



Calling this one a victory. We'll put the right seat in and right door on next time, cruise it around the neighborhood, break in the rings and look for any oil, water or fuel leaks.

[Digitalwave]

Blue belts worth it or not, I’ve never heard of fitment issues with them.

[dvallis]

I bought a conti belt. Will report this weekend

[ForcedFirebird]

was the issue obvious during the belt install with those crap gears? Belt covers about 75% of the gear at all times so it's gotta be obvious, no?

Just a little paranoid about my Nuke gear now since I never just wrapped the belt around it like whodwho did.

Fairly obvious. Just wrap a belt around it, and you can clearly see the tooth count go off like bad blinker rhythm. Much like trying to thread a 3/8 bolt in a 10mm nut ...

[zaq123]

I believe I posted about those Nuke and Chinese cam gears many years ago on e30tech, very similar pic to Kieth's.
.

was the issue obvious during the belt install with those crap gears? Belt covers about 75% of the gear at all times so it's gotta be obvious, no?

Just a little paranoid about my Nuke gear now since I never just wrapped the belt around it like whodwho did.

[ForcedFirebird]

I also use Digger's method for threading the belt, except I turn the crank a couple degrees counterclockwise so that it's easy to slip the belt on the cam gear, then as I move the crank back up to TDC, I slip the belt on the tensioner. This keeps the tension on the right side of the engine (when looking at it from the front).

I believe I posted about those Nuke and Chinese cam gears many years ago on e30tech, very similar pic to Kieth's.

TBH, I don't buy into the kevlar belts anyways. We have built many m20's from stock to 500+whp and have always used stock Contitech replacements, never had an issue in the past, didn't see a need for a "fix" for a belt that had proven true for me for at least 1/4 of my lifetime, and hundreds of builds.

[digger]

there's a bad batch floating around

[Digitalwave]

Those Nuke gears seem to have all sorts of issues.