[car_overhaul] Zx 16V Project Pt2, Re-Shell And Power Upgrades....

[welshpug 1,621]

I did finish off the airbox, not 100%^ happy with it, I haven't much experience of welding tin and I put a bit too much heat into some parts so its not as flat or pretty as I;d like it to be.

 

20140823_084153 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

20140823_121759 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

You'll notice it now has more black panels on it now, I am thinking of making the whole car black as with the old shell.

 

20140823_134811 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

Found a few of my trim clip bags though I still need a few more, some parts will need sticking on with some structural automotive adhesive.

 

20140909_183209 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

moved the radiator fan across to the left side and fitted an Alloy Ordonez radiator I'd got hold of, then had a fiddle about with an oil cooler to see if I could make it fit without spending loads on new pipes, gentle persuasion of the steel hard pipe and shifting some brackets on it means that no longer fouls, but the low pressure feed from the reservoir needs re-routing a little so its not rubbing on them constantly (I plan to retain the standard heat exchanger as it aids warmup, and using the thermostatic control on the oil cooler to stop it over cooling at the same time as adding extra cooling capacity)

 

20140903_190109 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

20140903_194332 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

 

rear seats and cards fitted.

 

20140905_163733 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

Edited September 10, 2014 by welshpug

[welshpug 1,621]

got hold of some Clio 182 Weber Pico IWP 042 injectors, flow 250cc/min @ 3bar, decent spray pattern I hear, and most importantly shorter than the IW204 gti6 units.

 

20140905_171609 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

which means this fits

 

20140905_171915 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

20140905_171931 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

though with the trumpets I have the filter doesn't fit, so I still need a stepped backplate, or if possible some Satchell trumpets with the backplate bolted to the back of the radius of the trumpets.

 

20140905_173035 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

then I took the inlet and loom off, made up an extra bit of loom for the other injectors, seeing as the ecu and the bodies have capacity for twin injector's why not?

 

 

20140907_150538 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

 

Stuck the standard loom ecu and inlet back on for now, as I want to get it MOT'd, looks a bit like this.

 

20140907_170047 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

 

and to bring us right up to date, got my set of part worn Michelin PE2's and C5 wheels fitted up with new valves and balanced.

 

20140910_113539 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

[Supersport2 12 1 Cars]

Cracking job.

[welshpug 1,621]

thanks, the only progress since the last post has been that I fitted a standard 24mm rear arb, and stuck on the drivers side front arch trim, also got hold of an 075 battery off a mate scrapping a mk4 golf in exchange for one of my dead batteries.

 

and the V5 finally turned up, so its off for an MOT on wednesday

[welshpug 1,621]

Erm, so yeah this happened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20141001_131837 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

 

[Henry Yorke 269 3 Cars]

Erm, so yeah this happened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20141001_131837 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

 

Someone stole all the vowels from your MOT sheet?

 

Congratulations!

[welshpug 1,621]

600 miles down in two weeks, no issues at all other than central locking playing up.

 

got hold of some kw springs from a 306 coilover kit courtesy of AdamB, to replace the 30nm 250mm lomg ast springs, awkward sods are metric.

 

kw's are 170mm and I believe 50nm, so gone from 180 to 285 ish lbs, wound the spring pans up so there was no flapping about, hopefully they dont go coilbound before the bumpstop as its low enough already, might need to try a 200mm spring.

[welshpug 1,621]

AdamB corrected me on the spring rate, its 315 lb/in, not got round to winding up the damping yet, can't remember where the adjuster knobs are!

 

drove it to west Wales to give Dan a hand with his 205, few issues with the clutch cable coming out of the clip on the pedal but managed to drive it without a pedal to the end of the journey fine, gave the clip a squeeze and re-fitted the cable and its been fine all day.

 

went to a RR meet at Saxon Motorsport in Hereford today Dan was taking his 8v, Matt taking a V6 205 and his brother bringing matt's Ibiza Cupra TDI 130.

 

got myself some curves which I'm happy with.

 

img015 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

img014 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

[welshpug 1,621]

no updates of late, didn't use it at all in January but I bought a massive air filter from Tom so I don't need to get an expensive backplate, I've got shorter Pico injectors in the bodies now so clearance there isn't a problem.

 

I've got a few lengths of -6 Teflon Braided hose, probably enough to do the engine bay but I haven't got any fittings, I need about £80 or so of them and get two adapters welded to the fuel rail.

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

Looking at your bodies and injectors. Are you sure you want the injectors to spray upwards into the inlet channel like that?

 

Mounting the bodies the other way with injectors spraying down onto the back of the valves would possibly be a much better solution I would think, both for performance and for fuel economy?

 

Regarding the back-plate, didn't see your attempt until now. Not too bad, but if you had made the parts from two parts of steel you could have had it curved on the edges instead of straight cut.

Can bbe a bit hard to weld without warping indeed

[welshpug 1,621]

I have both sets of injectors still, as for the position they should work as the manifold is longer and the outer set only used at higher inlet speeds, even if they were on the top they would not be aimed anywhere near the valves

 

ive decided to leave sheet steel work to those with the skills a massive filter will suffice

[welshpug 1,621]

Friday after work I decided to faff about with the throttle bodies instead of watching youtube videos and drinking beer all night.

 

inlet off.

 

20150213_190052 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

gti6 wiring loom off.

 

20150213_193103 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

got a bit dark by then even with the awesome £9 LED floodlamp from Screwfix, and it started raining.

 

 

Saturday morning I got the loom laid out, inlet and filter fitted, decided to just run the standard fuel rail till I get the AN fittings.

 

20150214_110517 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

Got the Tablet hooked up after feeding the wideband wires through a handy grommet behind the glovebox and the sensor fitted into the downpipe.

 

20150214_175928 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

Today I made a bracket for the coil, need to find some bolts and get some Vauxhall plug leads.

 

20150215_140756 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

 

Then went for a quick spin up the road.

 

https://flic.kr/p/rcr5Pf

 

 

OHMYGODTHENOISE!!!!

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

Ok, then no problems regarding injectors I guess

 

Always a good feeling the first startup and drive after such an upgrade!

[welshpug 1,621]

Brief update from last weeks faffing, bought a jiffy bag full of bits from Alex at Torques (on here as Powers) thanks very much to them for the quick postage and decent prices, I'd already been donated and picked up a few lengths of AN -6 teflon hose already.

 

quickly boshed the ends on as practice.

 

20150219_215233 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

Then on Friday after work set about taking the rubber stuff on ready to fit the shiny stuff, chopped the flare off the original steel return pipe and found it was not 8mm as I was expecting, but 8.4mm, checked the feed and that was 10.2mm FRENCH BASTARDS!!!

Annoyed and starting to get rained on I gave up at that point.

Saturday morning, went on a mission to find some 8mm o.d tubing, ended up at Screwfix in Newport buying their only 25metre roll, B&Q's website showed stock but had none on the shelf, not a bad thing as it was about a third more expensive, though came in a shorter reel, so I have lots spare!

see, fits!

20150221_110343 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

I've used one of those compression fittings before on a 205's steel tubing and it fitted fine, so it made sense to use them again here.

and here's the nearly finished setup, the two short lengths of rubber will be replaced by welded or brazed fittings as soon as I find someone to do that for me.

20150221_162151 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr


And for some as yet unknown reason, it wont bloody start! Fuel pump is ireggularly priming all the time, which it should only do once when the ignition is turned on, however I can connect to the ecu just fine, so I think I have a noise or damaged wiring issue in my home made loom

[welshpug 1,621]

update:

 

made up another loom, I had already made one up with an ecunplug, just needed the relays addimg, a few more termonals and some wire lengths adjusting, and the plugs for the second set of injectors.

 

gave it another try but found a flat battery, and really black plugs so packed up for the night, fresh charge on the battery and new plugs, and still nothing, ecu talking fine to laptop and no noise on the crank sensor, however did have pops and flames!

 

popped a short vid up on Facebook and a friend suggested incorrect firing order, so swapped the pairs on the coil and bingo, splutters farts then barks into life

 

need to tidy the loom up then head for mapping I think!

[welshpug 1,621]

mapping booked, need to find my passport, heading across rwo borders, over the severn to england and down to Cornwall

 

will be borrowing a trailer from my friend Anton, not the same one that I cooked a brake shoe on though, as that has a flat, but another slightly bigger tiltbed brian james.

[rallyeash 155]

Great, when's the mapping?

[welshpug 1,621]

Tuesday TBC

[welshpug 1,621]

This weeks update, 7 day week at work, plus spending time with a friend and some yukky evenings, means I only got the timing belt kit water pump and an ally crank pulley changed.

 

Genuine kit and pump and a RichW crank pulley.

 

20150303_173642 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

dropping the engine down off the arm and supporting it on a jack under the sump makes getting at some of the bolts easier.

 

20150303_181849_LLS by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

got a small oil leak somewhere on the back of the engine, probably rear cam cover or cam ladder as the area behind the covers is dry.

 

 

 

 

using a square drive sump plug key to tension the belt and a 13mm combination spanner to nip the bolt up, home made timing pins, old valve stems and a bolt with the threaded portion cut off

 

20150303_194818 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

20150303_194826 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

new standard plugs, plus set of cooler 7's just in case they were needed, only single electrode, though there are two types of 7's with twins listed my local place didnt have them on the shelf, not sure if it'll make that much difference or that I'll need them at all yet.

 

20150227_095458 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

£9.50 LED floodlamps are great.

 

20150303_202306_LLS by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

Day off tomorrow, going to change the oil and see if I can check the cam timing as theyre just on the standard pinned position at the moment.

[welshpug 1,621]

it has a bark, a hell of a bark for a standard engine with bodies and mild cams!!!

[Reebmit 51 4 Cars]

Bet it sounds great Mei, liking this a lot :-)

[welshpug 1,621]

Right then!

 

Yesterday was quite an epic for me, first time I've done this kind of stuff on my own car and none of my friends were about to come along for the experience and help out if needed, even though a few would have loved to come along!

 

Started off on Monday afternoon, first day off work in 7 days, changed the engine oil, fitted a heatshield to the fuel tank and adjusted the exhaust clamps, then headed off to pick up the trailer from Antons near Monmouth.

 

 

Strapped the ZX down and headed for bed early, 5.30 alarm clock, make coffee and leave at 6.

 

 

Sunrise over the Severn Bridge.

 

 

 

Made really good time and was barely slowed down by any traffic at all, managed to hold a good 60 mph all the way, saw this sign through a bit of mist before 9.

 

20150310_085535 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

Pulled into the industrial estate in Launceston in lovely sunshine just after 9.

 

20150310_100053 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

Was booked in for 10.30 so I tried to get hold of Tigger Dave as Satchell engineering weren't too far away, I had been there before but some 5 years ago so wanted a postcode to punch into google maps just to make sure of the route, had a kip in the car whilst waiting for the info and for Sandy to arrive, he was unfortunately delayed in traffic, I didn't mind much as I slept for 45 minutes!

 

As I already had my Wideband Lambda fitted and connected to the ECU that was a fair chunk of Sandy's time saved, so it was cam timing check and adjustment firstly, bit of faffing with dropped allen keys into the abyss that is the subframe hiding under an XU10J4RS! timing set to 1.4mm inlet and 1.3mm exhaust (valve lift at TDC) this engine ha had the piston valve reliefs machined an extra 1mm deeper by Bridgecraft engineering so 1.4mm is quite safe as I know only 9 thou has been skimmed off the head and its on a standard 1.2mm MLS o.e gasket.

 

Check the throttle stops and sensor settings then get it fired up and a quick trim of the fuel and ignition settings, then onto balancing the bodies,took a little while and we ended up swapping to the 7 rated plugs as it looked like the new 6's I had were quite sooted up already from a small imbalance and a loose fitting plug lead, also transpired upon starting a few low range load sites that one of my outer injectors was duff, causing a misfire so we decided to crack on the full mapping only on the inner set, the Weber IW204's even at the standard 3 bar have plenty of flow and a very decent spray pattern.

 

 

Working through the load sites getting further and further up the revs and throttle openings it became quite apparent that this engine has quite a clear loud bark, was also struggling for grip in 3rd gear!

 

I did capture quite a few of these short blips through various load sites with my new go-pro, here's one of them at around the 4.5k mark.

 

https://youtu.be/iTSfn-9Ai2g

 

Big thanks to Neil, the few times I've been down there to see Sandy work his magic he's provided quite a few cups of tea (Neil works with Mark Shillaber, as far as I know he assembles most of Marks Stock car and rally Pinto engines, I think mark does most of the machining and porting work and cam choosing (Sandy can clarify that I guess, I forgot to ask!)

 

20150310_142332 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

Got to the point where noise and grip was an issue so I think Sandy was doing most of the fine tuning on acceleration runs rather than holding certain loads, this still didn't take too long and by around 4.30 we got to capture a run through a few gears, no specific power figure due to the issues but suffice to say it revs quite nicely and is very easy to drive, also with the wideband lambda being wired up to the ecu I can run a closed loop[ which is very useful as it will keep the cat alive for MOT purposes.

 

https://youtu.be/VJ_X4A8Ez3o

 

At this point I got hold of Tigger Dave to see how long they'd be about over at Colins some 11 miles of Cornish A & B road away, so I suggested to Sandy we could head in that direction for the final fine tune and check of how its running on the road.

 

Got to Colins workshop and had a snoop about looking at the cool goings on, Dave showed me Colins car and where its being improved and refreshed after 2.5 years of being used pretty hard, had a look at a few other projects an ideas they're working on, really interesting stuff, and picked up one of the first 306/xsara/zx Satchshifts

 

Unfortuantely half a mile after leaving heading back for Launceston we lost fuel, managed to figure out all fuses were ok, ecu switching the relay fine and power even getting to the pump using a 3rd high level brake lamp that I had in the boot Law of sod, but I guess the pump is 23 years old and I am asking more of it than it has ever needed to, though when working properly they are more than enough.

 

Lucky Sandy was with me, as I had no reception whatsoever outside of Launceston! Colin kindly towed the ZX back to the safety of the lane by his Farm then dropped Sandy and myself back to Launceston, as Sandy was due home by this time and I could take my BMW and trailer up to Week St Mary to get the ZX and head home, bit of a push and a hand reversing the BMW and trailer from Colin and I hit the road heading back to England and Wales, hitting the main road outside Launceston at 8pm.

 

A few diversions from road closures and a fuel and food up stop art Taunton Dene services I made it back to Wales, crossing the bridge at 11pm.

 

20150310_224911_LLS by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

 

Home at 11.30, upload a few videos and a few posts to those asking how it went on Facebook then bed aiming to get up early to pull the ZX off the trailer and take the trailer back to Anton, running a bit late for work I thought I might as well see if the spare pump I had would fix it.

 

Looks like this;

20150311_090633 by WELSHPUG, on Flickr

 

Which sits in a bowl in the tank, so had a fair resistance to surge, it hides under here.

 

 

Its a Bosch pump unit that sits on its side with an elbow on the end and a filter which sits under it (IIRC, one of the two I have is a Walbro as well)

 

 

This one showed more signs of life than the old one but seemingly not enough, as it still didn't want to fire up, so I have a replacement ordered from Torques.co.uk fingers crossed that's it!

Edited March 11, 2015 by welshpug

[rallyeash 155]

Sounds great. These things never ever go without there problems though do they.

[dobboy 231 2 Cars]

Sounds great!

[welshpug 1,621]

pump was ordered last night and dispatched this morning, so hopefully that fixes it after work tomorrow and I can hear that bark again