Corvette powered Defender

[davew]

Finished off the main vehicle electrics today and put the dashboard and main fuse box back together, Adapted the existing main loom by adding the TD5 wing connectors to match the TD5 wing looms I'll fit to the wings when I put them back on. An old TD5 main loom provided the connectors for that job.

Made up a new loom for the gearshift with the wiring for the reversing light, start inhibit back light, low box indicator and so on in it, then remembered I need to add a wire for the diff lock indicator so decided to call it a day !

Sorted the electric feeds for the ECU and cooling fans so they are ready to connect as soon as I get the ECU and it's relays mounted. That'll have to wait until next weekend though.

[nicks90]

ready for weardale

[davew]

ready for weardale

It'll be a close run thing I expect but unless I can get some time off work before Weardale it's unlikely as there's only 1 weekend left before then. The radiator and oil cooler should be ready this week and I'd love to be able to fire it up at the weekend but even if it runs there's a few days work adjusting the fuelling and ignition maps and finishing all the little jobs.

[davew]

Had a productive day today, spent the first part of the morning working on the other LS1 Defender (extending the loom) and making sure it still runs while Patrick rearranged the power steering pipes on my motor.

Lots of little jobs were finished off today, got myself a nice dual digital gauge from SPA that shows oil pressure and water temp, Patrick managed to modify 2 blanking plugs in the cylinder head to take the sender units, an oil pressure light/gauge being a priority in preparation for the first start.

Ran the last few wires to the ECU while Patrick put the old radiator in (new radiator not quite finished) and cobbled together some coolant pipes, filled the gearbox and engine with oil. Found out the engine was already full of oil (never thought to check as they are supposed to be shipped fully drained !) so then had to drain the excess oil back out of the engine.

By the end of the day we had an engine that was ready to crank over with power steering, coolant, oil and all electrics sorted apart from the ECU which I'd left at home... Cranking the engine over on the starter confirmed that the oil pressure is good and everything is good to go. The throttle pedal needs some modification as we only get enough throw for 90% throttle but that's fine for the moment.

We checked and set the fuel pressure (it uses an adjustable regulator) which revealed a few fuel leaks from some of the blanking plugs on the regulator which were soon sorted with the use of some ptfe tape on the threads.

In theory at least, I should be able to plug the ECU in tomorrow and fire it up for the first time... fingers crossed ! Discussions with a number of other Megasquirt enthusiasts and work I've done so far suggests that I should be able to get the thing fired up without resorting to bolting a toothed wheel on the crank pulley like we did on the other Defender. Still running at the "bleeding edge" of the software though so am expecting some teething problems.

[TwoSheds]

Had a productive day today

Reading the rest of the post it certainly sounds like it

the ECU which I'd left at home

Good! That means that when you do start it you may remember to have the video camera on! If you are selling tickets for the first firing - I'll have one

we only get enough throw for 90% throttle

Most people would give their right arm for 90% of the power that thing has! Ne'mind, it will help with the running in, although I am sure that it won't stay that way for long...

Good luck for the big event

Roger

[davew]

Spent the whole of today trying to get the ECU to run the ignition system correctly. Managed to narrow the problems down a bit but need to have another chat with the software developers to see if they can figure out what's happening.

If nothing else we managed to convince ourselves that the "hardware" is all OK. Determined to get it running this week if I can so I can see me spending a few evenings over there trying out new software.

[davew]

Just an update on this before I head off to Weardale for the weekend...

Made some modifications to the ECU this morning in line with some discussions I'd been having on the megasquirt forums, added some capacitors to the crank and cam signal inputs and took the ECU over to Maddisons to see what effect it had... problem solved

Reconnected the fuel pump and she fired up, albeit reluctantly at first. Need to adjust the fuelling but with a couple of minutes we had it running smoothly and on all 8 cylinders. Need to connect the lambda sensor in now so I can see and adjust the mixture but the important bit is she runs !

I'll post some video of the first starts after Weardale, I may have stopped grinning by then !

[davew]

Not done the video yet... must get around to that !

Took part of yesterday and all today off work. Yesterday afternoon was spent making up exhaust heat shields to protect the gear change cable from radiated heat and re-routing some of the cables/wires to make sure they are well out of the way of anything moving or that gets very hot.

Today I spent most of the day finishing off the gear change mounting bracketry so the lever is OK to use one handed rather than having one hand holding it down while changing gear with the other ! Need to add some stiffening to the seatbox to stiffen it further but it works now. Wired up the reverse and start inhibit circuits so I no longer have to hold a wire to earth to start it !

Installed and connected the gearbox wiring then calibrated and installed/connected up the wide band lambda sensor. I can see me spending another day at some point trying to tidy and secure all the wiring for the engine, gearbox, lambda etc....

Started the engine up and did a bit of tuning and it's now ticking over and revving much better than the initial starts. Don't want to spend too much time doing static tuning until I get the new radiator and fans on though - had to rob the fans off the old radiator when Pam's 90 fan seized at Weardale. J tells me that when it's running the crockery in the workshop kitchen starts rattling and he can feel the floor vibrate, so the exhaust must be about right....

She moved under her own power this afternoon too, just a foot or so backwards and forwards as I have no brakes atm so relying on the hand brake and a suitably positioned winch in case it all goes wrong !

Started stripping the lights out of the old wings as I'm replacing them all with TD5 items, also took the opportunity to remove the huge steel plates that the military put in the wings to support the aerials. They're a LOT lighter now

Plan for tomorrow is to try and get the wings back on with the lights and inner wings complete. While both wings are off again I'll bleed the brakes and put the gaskets on the exhaust manifold on the drivers side (did the passengers side a while ago). If I get all that done I'll modify the rear cross member to take the bigger exhaust so I can finish the tail section of the exhaust off.

[TwoSheds]

Coming along Dave Hugely looking forward to seeing it out and working... But for now a video would be nice although I completely understand that you would rather spend that few minutes that it would take on more important things...
For comparison with your list of yesterday's work: I managed to weld in my fabricated rear fuel tank mount (the original was rusted away) and.... well that's it really mind you I only had an hour including getting everything out and putting it all away again. How I long for a workshop! I did manage to get myself a tank-suit this week though so working in the coming Winter cold will be less... Well, will be less cold really
Roger
p.s. SWMBO just could not understand my excitement when the tank-suit arrived... Is it me? Am I strange?

[davew]

These are the movies from the first start attempt, it';s running a lot better now I've spent some more time adjusting the mixture.

[davew]

Spent today sorting the wings out, cutting the holes out to suit the TD5 lights, installing the washer bottle and fitting the new lights. By the end of the day both wings were back on with the passenger side fully bolted on and the driver's side needing a few more bolts adding.

Got the remaining manifold gasket fitted too but didn't have time to bleed the brakes.

Tomorrow I'll finish off the driver's side wing, bleed the brakes and then see how far I can get with the exhaust tail section. Will try and get some pictures tomorrow and see if I can get some video that does justice to the sound of the engine

[davew]

Sunday didn't seem to last very long this week ! As usual didn't get everything done I wanted but did get some extra bits and pieces done. Finished bolting the Driver's side wing on first thing then set about bleeding the brakes,

One of the bleed nipples on the OSF caliper was seized and my attempts to shift it simply helped to round off what little it had left of it's corners. After much swearing and pratting about I managed to persuade a 10mm socket to fit over it with some help from a lump hammer and it finally gave in. Luckily it actually unscrewed rather than simply shearing off at this point and was soon replaced with a new one. I used my pressure bleeding setup and soon had both circuits bled and a nice solid pedal.

At this point I got distracted from the schedule when Patrick turned up and suggested we carry out the basic timing test on the engine (one of the jobs that needed doing before we start tuning properly). There are no timing marks on the pulley as it's not keyed anyway so TDC had to be found with a spark plug removed and a small screwdriver. We then marked the pulley to show TDC and checked the timing with the ECU set to use a static 10 degrees BTDC. This revealed that at 10 degrees BTDC in the software we were actually firing at around 15 degreed after TDC ! A quick adjustment to the settings in the software and it was soon firing at 10 degrees BTDC, you could hear the change in the engine note immediately.

We played around with it for a while, keeping an eye on the temperature gauges (still no fans) and soon realised we had an airlock somewhere, a problem that was soon sorted via the radiator plug and header tank. There are also 2 blanking plugs at the back of the heads that we removed ro ensure the coolant was getting to the heads.

The end result of our tuning session can be seen in the attached video... sounds a lot sweeter now and it moves too ! The power steering needs bleeding, it's making a bit of a racket that the video camera seems to exaggerate as you can barely hear it over the exhaust note "live". Planned the last part of thee exhaust but our impromptu tuning session has meant the will have to wait. If I can get 3 days off work this week I'm hoping to have it on the road by the weekend... assuming it gets through it's MOT on Friday !

[pamw]

What, a whole day passed and no comments ? !

[nicks90]

i adore the bling red LEDs on the spark plugs - really sets the engine bay off
when are you getting the engine bay chromed?



seriously though, sounds lovely and i cant wait to hear it given some 'beanz' in the flesh.
where are you going to mount the air filter? Doesnt look like there's much room in the engine bay and with the front facing throttle body it looks a bit tight up to the radiator and (eventual) fan assembly for pipework.

[davew]

There's loads of room between the back of the engine and the bulkhead so for the moment the air filter will go in there. I'm fitting a wider tunnel in so the snorkel can be taken to the rear of the cab, at which point the air filter will be on top of the snorkel.

The intake pipe can either go over the top of the engine or down one side or the other - not sure which yet.