The Purple Peril

[CharlesM]

Sorry all - my internet went down (and is still not up - Talk Talk more talking the talk than walking the walk at present) so I've been lent a login by a neighbour on his wifi.  I also have flu so I'm completely out of action.  The cone (with part number) is pretty inaccessible Ahsy and given how fragile the remaining trim clips are I'm not going to be pulling the trim out again until I have some replacements.  AEM say that the filters come in two colours so I really wouldn't worry.  The thing is big.

[AhsyV6]

3 hours ago, CharlesM said:

Sorry all - my internet went down (and is still not up - Talk Talk more talking the talk than walking the walk at present) so I've been lent a login by a neighbour on his wifi.  I also have flu so I'm completely out of action.  The cone (with part number) is pretty inaccessible Ahsy and given how fragile the remaining trim clips are I'm not going to be pulling the trim out again until I have some replacements.  AEM say that the filters come in two colours so I really wouldn't worry.  The thing is big.

Talk talk were the vain of my life for a few years.....the word "useless" comes to mind......ended with a CEO complaint to resolve the issues. Now with Virgin.....gotta say.....SHAAAAMAAAAZING! 

I thought I'd just mention the filter just in case.

Hope you feel better soon and look forward to the sound clip

[CharlesM]

My iphone clips are rubbish.

This you tube clip is pretty close to what it sounds like in real life.

 

[AhsyV6]

5 hours ago, CharlesM said:

My iphone clips are rubbish.

This you tube clip is pretty close to what it sounds like in real life.

 

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! 

[CharlesM]

That's why he's done about 51 miles on 3/4s of a tank...It's great fun revving the car, I now refer to it as my pocket NSX.

[Mazda Man]

That's exactly what my car - aka Purple Pimpernel - sounds like when I give it some beans.  Acceleration is epic and noise....well....the noise from my wife is usually "slow down".  I agree too regarding fuel, I'm sure the needle drops by a few mm afterwards.  All good though....isn't that one of the pleasures of owning a coupe....pipe and slippers, a glass of Harveys Bristol Cream standing by the fireplace in your dressing gown and slippers one minute.....THEN howling banshee from hell with Megadeth on number 11 the next.  Beep Beep. 

[CharlesM]

I'm more of a Manzanilla man myself!

I took the peril out for a very long run after a good 10 days of being under the weather.  I'd used the Volvo for a lot of load lugging plus the better view while ill, and swapping back to the coupe highlighted more than one contrast.  The Volvo has a biturbo 4 that, while not charismatic, has waves of torque from 1500 revs, and which munches miles in total silence.  I really noticed that torque absence at lower revs with the 4 speed auto in the coupe, it needs an extra cog or two (plus the engine mount fixing - the double kickdown jolts the car too much) but you soon habituate to it.  The noise suppression in the Volvo is on another planet though and I really do need to get more soundproofing into the Coupe, wet roads mean excessive high frequency noise.  Otherwise it performed flawlessly, and revving it for country road over-taking is now blissful (good thing I had the sat nav on speed camera duty - it gains pace in lower gears very fast!)

 

[CharlesM]

Quick update, I found there was a mild but sonorous knocking coming from the engine bay when the gearbox would kickdown hard, which I figured was the induction kit getting loose in some way.   Checking the nut holding it on, that was pretty loose, so this time I loctited the thing when I tightened it right up.  Checking further though I found the rubber pipe into the throttle body allowed enough movement for the induction pipe to hit some engine bay metal.  As this is not going to change, I did a temporary fix of a sandwich of dynamat (cocktail size) thick enough to prevent any movement back.  Problem cured, sounds fantastic.

 

 

[Laird_Scooby]

Hmmm, alternative use of sound-deadening material - i like it!

[CharlesM]

Stu has kindly sent me an engine mount, which if the weather doesn't dump 8 inches of snow on me this weekend, I might see about fitting.  The template for the car mats also arrived in the US this week so hopefully I'll be getting a set sent over soon.

Very little to report otherwise, I have got so stuck in to my Mercedes coupe restoration that all my car conscious hours are taken up with that.  I am having a Megasquirt ECU fitted and modern fuel injection, and I'm doing all the legwork on the thought process and how it all works.   This bear of little brain is finding it all rather tough, today's challenge was working out how to fit the wideband lambda sensor.   

[Laird_Scooby]

Crikey Charles - you're going the whole hog with a wideband Lambda sensor!

You can buy Lambda sensor bosses to weld onto the front pipe - drill a hole, pop the boss in and weld it up. Alternatively i believe that some places offer sections of pipe with the bosses already welded in and you cut a section out of you pipe then sleeve it with the sensor/pipe assembly. This is the sort of thing i mean, saves a lot of work and the hot-spanners going anywhere near your nice, new paintowrk :

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/45-mm-1-75-Exhaust-Pipe-Lambda-Repair-Kit-Boss-Oxygen-Probe-CLAMP-ON-NEW-/181085976792?hash=item2a2990b8d8:g:IigAAOxyyF5RJgit

Not sure if that's the right size in terms of diameter but if you copy and paste the title from the listing then delete the size and hit search it should come up with all the sizes.

Something that i recall (albeit vaguely) from the Volvo forum where someone fitted a T-5 engine into a 1988 240 GLT estate and used an aftermarket engine management system (can't remember if it was Omex or Megasquit) he had it set up by Northampton Motorsport as they were apparently specialists in that sort of thing. He seemed to think the time spent on the rolling road getting it fine-tuned was worth every penny of what they charged as it ironed out the bugs he couldn't get the system to do by itself. Obviously his was set up for optimum power being a 2.5, 5-pot turbo with a few other tricks up its sleeve but they can set up for optimum power, economy, driveability etc.

May or may not be helpful for you but at least you'll now know of somewhere that does these kind of things.

[CharlesM]

Thanks Dave.  We (well, John, the tech doing the work) are going to weld in a bung.  The sensor is a bugger to locate - it has to be at least 2 feet from the exhaust outlet which, typically, is where the downpipe is passing right under the front suspension, and of course it has some wiring to fit.  The downpipe has been flattened at that point too, so putting in a section requires yet more work.  Of course, if we get the location wrong and the sensor gets either too hot or too cold we'll have to move it...

Of course, the lovely thing about the wideband lambda and Megasquirt (no doubt applies to other ecus too) is that it will self tune the map to stoichiometric (AFR of 14.7) leaving the rolling road work to concentrate on the idle and full throttle fuelling (oh and as I'm a glutton for punishment, the ignition settings too - I've replace the old distributor with a Ford EDIS coilpack system).  I've had about three sessions on a rolling road before, which is lots of fun, and I always go for low down torque and economy.  The map on my Citroen SM (which I didn't do) is absolutely stunning - real low down torque and fuel economy improved from about 15mpg to 30!

It's all great fun, but boy, is it eating up the hours and my bank balance.  Keeping the original Bosch D Jetronic was just not an option though.

 

[CharlesM]

One thing that tickled me yesterday.  I am machine polishing a friend's BMW E30 325i Mtech in Dolphin Grey, and my Jamaican postie, a lovely young guy, stopped for a chat about it.  He loves German cars, had a Mercedes 190E with Cosworth body kit etc, wants a Golf VR6 or Corrado, but is worried about parts costs.  So I pointed at the Peril and said that's what you really want - 3litre Vtec V6, reliable, goes like stink, sounds incredible, you can bodykit it, lower it etc.  It must be said the Peril, being rather dirty, didn't immediately get the juices running for him, but if I get him out in it and let loose the induction kit, he might just see the point.  While on the subject of induction kits the BMW 325i has one fitted.  Let's just say that compared to mine, which is positively Banzai hooligan, that is a very polite and well bred one.  His exhaust though is much more fun...

[Laird_Scooby]

Just a thought Charles - if you have to repair the exhaust where it's been flattened and that's the "ideal" point for the Lambda, one of the repair sections/sleeves i linked to would probably be the quickest and easiest.

Had a feeling that was why you were going for the wideband Lambda, it gives you more options in that respect. I've only ever used a rolling road once before and sadly it wasn't good. They completely screwed it up and tried telling me it was now spot-on. In reality all they had done was set the ignition timing back almost to standard, totally ignoring what i told them about it being a modified engine that needed more basic advance. They didn't even get that right though, it was retarded at least 1-2 deg over standard, leaving the car gutless, noisy, thirsty, a pig to start and generally running like a bag of poo.

In the end i put the dizzy back where i'd had it before taking it in to prove the point, had a fiddle up and down a degree or two from that point to see if it could be improved but i'd found the optimum position for it. Never went near the rolling road place again.

Sounds like you really need to get your postie in the jump seat of your coupé and give it the beans

[CharlesM]

The flattening is part of the design of the exhaust Dave, it's the only way it will fit around the suspension.  Typically!

I have come across numerous moronic and incompetent tuners in my time.  Some just seem to think that clients only want top end gains, with all that means for compromised low down tractability (a friend who sold me his Benz W210 320 cdi estate said he had a fantastic tuner who reckoned he could get another 20 bhp out at the top, to which I replied he must be an idiot, as the top speed in the UK is 70mph, which means in all bar 2nd gear it is a total waste of time and fuel).    I did have a superb tuner in Essex who remapped my BMW 2002 tii into a dream car to drive, but as the CPS bracket kept breaking, it was all a bit moot.

 

 

[Laird_Scooby]

That did cross my mind, typical!

I have to agree on the tuning front, unless you're on a race track then top end power doesn't mean much here. That was why i pointed out the one i mentioned in the post further up can tune for what you want/need, rather than just balls-out power. It's one of the reasons why i'm not worried about using a mixer system when i convert to LPG - although the mixer causes a restriction in the air intake, in reality it isn't that great and it will after all help improve low down torque. Even when i hoof it, i rarely get the rev counter much above 4500rpm so if i lose a little on the top end, it might only worry me once in a blue moon. Eventually i plan to convert to SGi (Sequential Gas injection) and as such the mixer will be redundant so the restriction will be gone - until that time i'll enjoy the low end torque

[CharlesM]

Engine mount now changed, not without difficulty.  Old one was in far worse condition than the photo earlier showed, now replaced and the heavy clunk on kickdown gone.  Still a slight lumpiness changing down, but about 75% better.

 

[Laird_Scooby]

I think even with new engine mounts you'll get a slight lumpiness when downshifting, especially on kickdown Charles. There's a lot of factors to take into account, not just mechanical. Not sure if the J30 engine has the steady bar at the top of the engine like the C27 engines do but those can wear as well causing lumpy downshifts. It's a "dog bone" shaped thing, about 6-8 inches long between the bulkhead and the cylinder head/block area. Strangely enough there should be a little bit of play in these items and the bush inside is sort of "crinkled" to give a variable cushion effect. Because of the shape it's often difficult to tell when one of these is worn or not.

Might be worth double checking though, just in case that's causign a problem and possible checking any other engine mounts as well.

[CharlesM]

When warm and with savage use of right foot to get double kickdown to high revs the problem has completely gone.  Two more ATF changes and this will be completely smooth.

I wonder how many people have written off cars on the back of this for transmission issues that are nothing of the sort?

 

[hughezee]

Great to hear things are improving on the motor Charles and just a tip the quality of the engine oil does effect shift quality on our Honda's, so when your on your second part change of ATF and if it still feels a little lumpy I would give it some consideration as far-fetched as it sounds

[Mazda Man]

Good news Charles, I agree, how many coupes have met their maker due to a simple fluid change. 

[CharlesM]

Here's the old engine mount.  It's hardly surprising everything was jolting.  

 

[Laird_Scooby]

Bit of superglue and it'll be good as new!

That's pretty much only fit for the bin unless you polish it up and keep it on your mantlepiece as a unique ornament.

[CharlesM]

Bugger, no mantelpiece.

Never mind, I'll take it to a taxidermist and get it stuffed.

 

[CharlesM]

9 hours ago, hughezee said:

Great to hear things are improving on the motor Charles and just a tip the quality of the engine oil does effect shift quality on our Honda's, so when your on your second part change of ATF and if it still feels a little lumpy I would give it some consideration as far-fetched as it sounds

Makes perfect sense to me.  A service is on the cards some time soon (when I get my life back from my car restoration) and I had already clocked the oil spec required.  All systems in a car work together, get the correct spec and it should run like a literal well oiled machine.