July 21, 2005
'twas the night'was before thugjam...
when all through the house,
not a sound could be heard,
not even me out in the yard at midnight swapping over the wheels on the panel van in the dark....
:)
well, here we are again... night before bugjam and getting ready for racing...
...the panel van is kinda ready, in that it's settled and seems consistent... it still only makes about 7 or 8 pounds of boost but it's kinda sparky with it.. I took ollie out for a little blat round town in it earlier and he was very quite for the first few minutes and had a worried look on his face then he started giggling... so not too bad by all accounts...
sadly dude's kindly donated Nitrous kit has not had it's install finished. everything was there bar a fogger
and here's a fogger !
there just wasn't time to get the install in and test it and do everything else that there was to do.
as it was I louie and I were at raceshack untile late yesterday. The turbo was running fine but making no boost, i checked for leaks and then shelled out on a new forge motorsport dumpvalve (very nice people!, very helpful and great products, made in gloucester and really well engineered,)
one of these. the chap at forge even fitted an uprated spring and threw in the other one too.. and it's very shiny...
- on the way back from gloucester, looking at this shiny piece of engineering in it's white cardboard box, i did muse on the strange state of affairs that the dump valve cost me exactly the same amount of money as the whole bus did originally.
funny that...
anyhow. back at raceshack. no boost... no boost. started working on the otehr turbo i had as a spare getting ready to swap them incase there's a problem when we start into the timing. too much advance... retard further . make boost ! how good is that. after several power pulls we started to see seven or eight pounds of boost. no great shakes but a good start in the right direction. running out of time we locked it all off. happy that it was running consistent and that we'd found nearly 45 extra horsepower with the turbo setup and there was a mile more tuning to go.
i was quitely relieved in some ways. conor had promised that he could get the bus to 140bhp at the rear wheels. i agreed that if he did i'd let him shave my head.
in the pits at bugjam.
close one that...
so, we're getting ready. there's loads more power to be had from the bus and i might even get the nitrous sorted out in the next week or two...
:)
BRING IT ON!
oh btw marco, i did make a turbo, injection wasserboxer racebus for under a grand ! :D
July 19, 2005
baby wants a bottle....
i picked this up from rod912's place in Cardiff last night. Along with all the solenoids etc from Dude. It's the biggest bottle i've ever seen. Ordinally a large bottle holds 11lb of Nitrous Oxide but this one holds something like 28lbs of gas...
:D
I'm not sure whether there's actually time to get it all installed and sorted before bugjam, in fact I know there's not but that's not going to stop me trying!
July 17, 2005
July 15, 2005
passed and off to the beach !
oops. realised that i have to get road tax for the hightop soon... though i ought to check the MOT as that must be due soon...
was due last week !!!! eek...
so off to roundway garage this morning. fingeres crossed as I'm supposed to be off to beachiddento at croyde bay in devon tonight... a gathering of the clans away from the dirt and gravel of racetracks...
dave from roundway just phoned. it failed.....
but if i want him to put some tape over the Left hand drive headlights i can pick ity up in an hour with a new ticket :)
how good is that.??
also had a call from Conor at raceshackabout getting onto the dyno with the racebus next week. all looks good :)
more later!
July 09, 2005
home!
i'm home, it's home...
it runs, it leaks but is happy. seal it and make more boost...
swannee whistle in dump valve veryy funny/.
exhausted.
muppet like flu receding...
mussssttttt sleeeepppp
[b]thankyou raceshack ! thankyou conor! thankyou kevo![/b]
pictrres nund e video got them, willll
post
m nsoon.....
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, [i]bleh[/i]
July 08, 2005
relief...
all back together and running now..
chemsealed the head and it doesn't seem to leak anymore ! even the fuel pump doesn't appear to be leaking and the breather hoses aren't spewing oil everywhere !
had a wierd one with the rocker gear. after worrying that i'd bent a valve
and having no compression on the side i'd lifted the head I discovered
that the pushrods don't seat properly on their own.
they are happy to locate on (what i assume) is the lip of the hydraulic lifter but if you give them a wiggle and a push they drop in 3-5mm further. if you let go of them before you bolt up the rockers they drop back and it all goes a bit pete...
and it took about an hour and a half to discover that...
I also attached a 1m hose to the end of the dump valve and poked it up into the airway down the c pillar, removed the outside grille and secured a shiny new swannee whistle (courtesy of jimby and nicole) into the end.
the noise when you change gear can be heard from nearly half mile and can reduce grown men to fits of giggle and tears in seconds!
July 07, 2005
good and bad
today was all good and bad news...
good news, got to raceshack and remembered croissants and video tape for the camcorder. bad news, got there late.
good news, fixed all the fuel pipes and clips and stuff.
bad news, the fuel pump weeps fuel (fairly obvious i know but just wanted to clarify that it wasn't weeping custard or crocodile tears or some other such surreal substance)
good news dropped the engine out without any hassle
bad news smacked my head on 3 tonnes of four post lift.
good news, lifted the head on the engine without snapping any studs
bad news, the barrel sleeves in the case were coming with the head and wouldn't separate
good news, decided to bodge it and fitted and new waterjacket gasket and used chemseal to fix it all in
bad news, bust on of the exhaust studs on number 3 port
good news, there's enough stud left that i can lock two nuts on t he stud and wind it out.
bad news, as i tighten up the two nuts to wind out the syud shears off flush with the port flange
good news, conor has a brain wave and tackwelds a nut onto the end of the broken stud
bad news, it doesn't work
good news, i drill out the old stud without ruining the case
bad news, kevo keeps making fun of me while i've got the drill in my hand...
good news, the case saver and new exhaust stud wind in with no hassle
good news, the stage 2 clutch i shipped from KEP in california fits fine and goes in, along with a new clutch disk with no hassle.
good news, the engine is all back together ready to slot back into the bus tomorrow morning
good news !!!!!
:)
got loads of pictures but am exhausted so probably won't post any today.
sorry
turbo snaggings
an earlyish start put me heading north on the m5 with a freshly burned copy of daft punk's 'discovery' in the cd player.
rolled into raceshack (via herberts bakery for the best almond croissant and pain au chocolat to be had in bristol) and got on with it.
attacking the bus i started with the wiring and ran armoured cable through the conduits under the bus for the tach sender, oil pressure, oil temp, 5th injector for cold start enrichment on the k-jetronic, power etc etc. then got it onto the ranp and ran in fresh hoses for the chargecooler radiator. The radiator now sits in the space vacated by the spare wheel carrier just behind and slightly lower than the main radiator with teh pump next to it. i got this all plumbed in and did the electrics for the pump and the fan on the radiator.
then onto other things. I got the gauges all wired up and working, then ran a vacuum hose the full length of the underside of the bus and fixed up the boost gauge prop[erly. added in the wiring for the 5th injector. this sits at the base of the the throittle body and adds extra fuel for cold start. it needs to be switched and conor kindly donated the old fuel pump switch from his racing trekker. The switch originally came from a lynx helicopter so I am very honoured !
then on with more twiddling. when we fitted up the fuel pipes last friday one on the tank return side split and was leaking so...
....drain the tank (which took hours...) and strip and replace. it turns out that we got some of the pipes on the pump-filter-accumulator round the wrong way so they need to be done and it seems that the pump is weeping fuel out of the side.
i haven't investigated the pump leak yet but i'm hoping that it's a simple gasket fix as i don't have a replacement pump available...
as the evening wore on i got into an extended cleaqning and tidying session and even cleaned the wheels and got the hole saw out and cut a hole in the
and then i came home and had a bath...
and i've still got flu.
but i didn't do the two important jobs
drop the engine and
-put in the new stage2 KEP clutch
-lift the head on number 1&2 cylinders and clean and replace the gaskets & seals
I'm dreading these two tomorrow. well actually i'm dreading lifting the head. wasserboxer engines have a reputation for having head corrosion problems and head stud corrosion problems...
...it could all go very wrong tomorrow... infact the engine could turn into scrap before my very eyes. the head studs corrode inside the case and snap easily. if they snap the engine needs to be completely torn down to get them out. given that its over £100 just for a gasket kit it could blow the budegt completely and i don't reall;y have time to find another second hand 2.1DJ engine...
doh. watch this space.
