Project Scimitar MV6
Discussion
I did anther bucket load of wiring today, having the omega as a supply of wires has been awesome. The cars loom is nearly done now, all the new relays are in for the ECU the fuse box finished (I put some extras in today before neatening it up a bit. All thats left in terms of wiring is redo the central consol panal with some extra switches for fuel pumps and connect them all up 
I got the "engine to ecu to car" section of loom in this afternoon
Made a little back plate with welded nuts to hold the terminal in sercurely, and burnt my little finger
And this is how it looks all finished
Exciting new, I connected the ECU up and the laptop and it all works its not running or anything but all the sensor inputs come up on the laptop screen. Never have I been so excited to push a pedal and see a bar move on a laptop screen.
More to come
I got the "engine to ecu to car" section of loom in this afternoon
Made a little back plate with welded nuts to hold the terminal in sercurely, and burnt my little finger
And this is how it looks all finished
Exciting new, I connected the ECU up and the laptop and it all works
its not running or anything but all the sensor inputs come up on the laptop screen. Never have I been so excited to push a pedal and see a bar move on a laptop screen. More to come
Edited by lozzzzzz on Friday 2nd September 21:53
The whole thing is sealed and the terminal is sealed to the bulkhead it should be alright.
ITS RUNNING
it took a while to figure out that the crank sensor wire were the wrong way round but as soon as that was sorted, and the ECU gave the green light, I connected the pumps and it lived, I'm over the moon.
Its been such an awesome summer, but hte updates won't be this frequent for a couple of months now
Thanks for all those following.
ITS RUNNING
it took a while to figure out that the crank sensor wire were the wrong way round but as soon as that was sorted, and the ECU gave the green light, I connected the pumps and it lived, I'm over the moon.
Its been such an awesome summer, but hte updates won't be this frequent for a couple of months now
Thanks for all those following.
Hello again, this weekend I finished my work miday saturday and had time to work on the car a bit Its been 6 weeks since I've spent more than about half an hour on it. It literally felt like a relief.
I welded the pulley on, but its not on straight, so I'll have to redo that, hopefully no biggy.
I've ordered all the SS pipe and silencers in so when I get a week off (in a weeks time) I'll hopefully be able to put the whole exhasut system together (there should be loads more progress then).
These two pipes sat in the car at the mo will for the ends of the tubular manifolds.
They're 2.5" and this gives an idea how they might look on the back of the car
The bends on the second maniold are nearly done now, I'm really looking forward to having the manifolds finished, I wasn't really looking forward to doing the second one, its sucha pain in the arse.
More to come next week.
Its been 6 weeks since I've spent more than about half an hour on it. It literally felt like a relief. I welded the pulley on, but its not on straight, so I'll have to redo that, hopefully no biggy.
I've ordered all the SS pipe and silencers in so when I get a week off (in a weeks time) I'll hopefully be able to put the whole exhasut system together (there should be loads more progress then).
These two pipes sat in the car at the mo will for the ends of the tubular manifolds.
They're 2.5" and this gives an idea how they might look on the back of the car
The bends on the second maniold are nearly done now, I'm really looking forward to having the manifolds finished, I wasn't really looking forward to doing the second one, its sucha pain in the arse.
More to come next week.
Right finally some progress, far from the week of car work I was looking forward to its been two days and that'll be it for a bit again things just come up don't they!
But its been productive. I feel like I've finally broken the back the exhaust manifolds, this second manifold has been looming for ages, and its fair to say It's not been the most enjoyable of things to make, and I knew exactly how hard it would be as its the second of two. Having said that I'm well happy to have been working on the car again and although I'm not going to get the exhausts finished like I'd hoped, the rest isn't that hard a job so it won't be long.
So the pipes for the second manifold are all cut and shut to shape
You can see here before welding that the shape of the pipes isn't that bad (it just looks bad when they're welded )
This took a very long time each of the 27 cuts took time and thought then lots of angle grinding, then some more angle grinding to make sure it shut neatly then tacking shut
Then they were all welded up
And finally ground down in the high places and wire wheeled for good measure and now they're tacked in place ready to be welded to the header plate.
Hopefully next time I get some time I'll get these pipes welded up the header plate and start making the collector.
Got a few more parts in the post, wheel boxes for the wipers and a cruise control system to add to the mix
More to come
things just come up don't they!But its been productive. I feel like I've finally broken the back the exhaust manifolds, this second manifold has been looming for ages, and its fair to say It's not been the most enjoyable of things to make, and I knew exactly how hard it would be as its the second of two. Having said that I'm well happy to have been working on the car again and although I'm not going to get the exhausts finished like I'd hoped, the rest isn't that hard a job so it won't be long.
So the pipes for the second manifold are all cut and shut to shape
You can see here before welding that the shape of the pipes isn't that bad (it just looks bad when they're welded
)This took a very long time each of the 27 cuts took time and thought then lots of angle grinding, then some more angle grinding to make sure it shut neatly then tacking shut
Then they were all welded up
And finally ground down in the high places and wire wheeled for good measure and now they're tacked in place ready to be welded to the header plate.
Hopefully next time I get some time I'll get these pipes welded up the header plate and start making the collector.
Got a few more parts in the post, wheel boxes for the wipers and a cruise control system to add to the mix
More to come
YEAH!!! Got over a day to work on the car this weekend.
So I tried to get the exhausts finished, didn't quite get them done, but not far off.
Firstly got the exhausts in the right place (shortening them and angling the back silencers up will be one of the last jobs)
This meant I could see how well the pipes lined up with the manifolds and what shape the collectors need to be.
The rest of the exhaust system is all slide joint.
Now making the collector, after it lined up beautifully with the exhaust pipe.
Then welding and shaping the final piece of the puzzle (I'd forgotten how to use the flash)
And the finished, fully de-burred item.
And on the car
Now just got to make the other, but this one won't take long.
More to come, as soon as I can (might not be for a while).
Got over a day to work on the car this weekend. So I tried to get the exhausts finished, didn't quite get them done, but not far off.
Firstly got the exhausts in the right place (shortening them and angling the back silencers up will be one of the last jobs)
This meant I could see how well the pipes lined up with the manifolds and what shape the collectors need to be.
The rest of the exhaust system is all slide joint.
Now making the collector, after it lined up beautifully with the exhaust pipe.
Then welding and shaping the final piece of the puzzle (I'd forgotten how to use the flash)
And the finished, fully de-burred item.
And on the car
Now just got to make the other, but this one won't take long.
More to come, as soon as I can (might not be for a while).
Edited by lozzzzzz on Sunday 6th November 21:02
Finished the Exhaust Manifolds this afternoon
The rest of the system is loosly slid on and it sounds great one Very happy customer. Here's some piccies on the pair.
All the ports inside the manifold are now smoothed out with no rough bits to help things out further.
I took a video of the sound, but the b***dy thing is taking forever to upload, left it overnight and the battery ran out before it uploaded
I'll try again later
The rest of the system is loosly slid on and it sounds great one Very happy customer. Here's some piccies on the pair.
All the ports inside the manifold are now smoothed out with no rough bits to help things out further.
I took a video of the sound, but the b***dy thing is taking forever to upload, left it overnight and the battery ran out before it uploaded
I'll try again later
Finally the video has worked, the picture is a bit dark, but the sound is quite resonable really, it sounds pretty close, just the volume that you can't really get an idea about (its pretty loud though, perhaps a little louder than I'd hoped).
Still, I'm really pleased, it sounds lovely, way nicer than open cylinder heads This is the first time I've been able to rev it right up, I can't believe how quickly it gets up to the limiter, that flywheel is ace!
Video here (click the image):
More to come
Still, I'm really pleased, it sounds lovely, way nicer than open cylinder heads
This is the first time I've been able to rev it right up, I can't believe how quickly it gets up to the limiter, that flywheel is ace!Video here (click the image):
More to come
The exhausts are all done. The angle gridner gave up on me today, so that took a chunk out of the day. Its lasted 5 and its really done well, so I went and bought exactly the same one again (well the new version).
So here are the pipes now conplete with bends in them
Here is how they look on the car
And the whole system layed out. Actually its not quite finished, I still need to just weld the Lambda bosses in, but I'm still waiting for suitable SS versions to turn up.
More to come tomorrow, not sure what yet, but something.
So here are the pipes now conplete with bends in them
Here is how they look on the car
And the whole system layed out. Actually its not quite finished, I still need to just weld the Lambda bosses in, but I'm still waiting for suitable SS versions to turn up.
More to come tomorrow, not sure what yet, but something.
Done some more today, spent a long time tidying up all the welding mess from the exhausts. Its nice to be back onto a list of smaller jobs that needn't take 3 week. After tidying I thought long and hard about how to get the wipers how I wnat them.
The problem is they're slow and the wiper motor is ugly in the engine bay. The two birds one stone answer is to move it into the cab. I bought some more wiper wheel boxes a while ago so these are now fitted, but I've binned the long outer that goes into the engine bay and fitted a smaller section from what was the rear wiper mechanism (now redundent). The idea is that without the bend the wiper motor will not have to overcome the friction in the bend, and will be closer. Ontop of this its all tighter, regreased and the motor has been stripped and cleaned too. It all works a treat.
Here's the new shorter mechanism.
Looking up at the motor in its new home.
The old hole is now filled, but still needs painting.
And the results. In the past if I accidently hit the wipers on a dry day, I'd have to get out and help them accross the windscreen. But now, with dry windscreen and on a pretty flat battery (engine not running too) they're happy to go for it at a resonable pace
More to come, soon hopefully.
The problem is they're slow and the wiper motor is ugly in the engine bay. The two birds one stone answer is to move it into the cab. I bought some more wiper wheel boxes a while ago so these are now fitted, but I've binned the long outer that goes into the engine bay and fitted a smaller section from what was the rear wiper mechanism (now redundent). The idea is that without the bend the wiper motor will not have to overcome the friction in the bend, and will be closer. Ontop of this its all tighter, regreased and the motor has been stripped and cleaned too. It all works a treat.
Here's the new shorter mechanism.
Looking up at the motor in its new home.
The old hole is now filled, but still needs painting.
And the results. In the past if I accidently hit the wipers on a dry day, I'd have to get out and help them accross the windscreen. But now, with dry windscreen and on a pretty flat battery (engine not running too) they're happy to go for it at a resonable pace
More to come, soon hopefully.
Its a car day today
All work is done till tomorrow, so I've spent this morning doing lots of research and deciding exactly what brake set up I need for the car. I remember that the upgrade set up I had before was a little weak on the rear. So the fronts would lock up a long before the rears. Now this means that the full baking potential wasn't reached, although they were amazing at not fading. If the rears could have done more work then fronts would have had more grip available so could apply a great slowing force before locking up. Brake ballance is really important so I've done a kind of case study of a selection of cars comparing their weight distribution with their brake power distribution.
Some of the cars on the list are ones I've owned and driven them, and some were picked because they are known to be awesome driving machines, oh and my bro's capri is on there too to check the new set up he's making.
There are a lot of columns for breaking down the calculations, but the first and last two columns are the important ones. You can see that the old Scim set up has a very front strong system at 65:35, and this is why the brakes might not have performed well when really applying the load.
The new system will use the Cosworth RS 4x4 273mm rear discs with their original calipers, the front will use the Focus ST 170 300mm discs and Omega Calipers. This combination comes out at a 59:41 front rear bias, which is really close the that of the E36 M3. The other obvious importnat facter is the weight distribution of the car, with the lighter engine up front and the added weight of the LPG tank, battery, Fuel pumps, heavy diff (very heavy), and larger brakes, I would imagine the car is approaching 50:50 weight distribution as with the M3, I'll be checking this asap.
If anyone is interested in doing something like this for an ugrade the info on piston size and everything else was from this website:
http://www.brakepartssuperstore.org.uk/contents/en...
So the necessary parts will be in their way soon
Now to the garage to do some real work.
All work is done till tomorrow, so I've spent this morning doing lots of research and deciding exactly what brake set up I need for the car. I remember that the upgrade set up I had before was a little weak on the rear. So the fronts would lock up a long before the rears. Now this means that the full baking potential wasn't reached, although they were amazing at not fading. If the rears could have done more work then fronts would have had more grip available so could apply a great slowing force before locking up. Brake ballance is really important so I've done a kind of case study of a selection of cars comparing their weight distribution with their brake power distribution.
Some of the cars on the list are ones I've owned and driven them, and some were picked because they are known to be awesome driving machines, oh and my bro's capri is on there too to check the new set up he's making.
There are a lot of columns for breaking down the calculations, but the first and last two columns are the important ones. You can see that the old Scim set up has a very front strong system at 65:35, and this is why the brakes might not have performed well when really applying the load.
The new system will use the Cosworth RS 4x4 273mm rear discs with their original calipers, the front will use the Focus ST 170 300mm discs and Omega Calipers. This combination comes out at a 59:41 front rear bias, which is really close the that of the E36 M3. The other obvious importnat facter is the weight distribution of the car, with the lighter engine up front and the added weight of the LPG tank, battery, Fuel pumps, heavy diff (very heavy), and larger brakes, I would imagine the car is approaching 50:50 weight distribution as with the M3, I'll be checking this asap.
If anyone is interested in doing something like this for an ugrade the info on piston size and everything else was from this website:
http://www.brakepartssuperstore.org.uk/contents/en...
So the necessary parts will be in their way soon
Now to the garage to do some real work.
The original pipe work is very restrictive so I'll be doing away with all of it. There will just be two pips going straight forward from the throttle bodies into the cawling above the radiator, and there will be two cone filters in there for a nice free cold air feed.
Wow, might have made a school boy error with the calcs, its a function of piston area not diamter. So the new calcs look like this (pretty different in fact)
The new set up puts quite far from that of the M3 now, but there is a bias valve in the line to the rear so the rear brakes can be turned down a bit. Or if I was to buy the 324 mm front discs fromt eh Focus RS, then it would be back to being the same as the M3. I think i'll stick with the 300mm and turn the valve in a bit.
Wow, might have made a school boy error with the calcs, its a function of piston area not diamter. So the new calcs look like this (pretty different in fact)
The new set up puts quite far from that of the M3 now, but there is a bias valve in the line to the rear so the rear brakes can be turned down a bit. Or if I was to buy the 324 mm front discs fromt eh Focus RS, then it would be back to being the same as the M3. I think i'll stick with the 300mm and turn the valve in a bit.
Had a day ont he car yesterday
I've started making what I feel is the best solution to the problem of the front indicators. I can't seem to find a solution which doesn't look daft. So I'm hollowing out the main beam lamps and putting hte indicators in them.
I started grinding the original sealed beam jobbies, I was very surprised this worked at all, but then the heat got the better of them and the glass cracked.
So I moved onto the capri lights from ebay, these have metal backs so were much easier to work on.
Cut the back out.
And glued the mini style indicator lenses in. Its hard to photograph, it doesn't look wuite that orange when using your own eyes, but I'm already thinking I should have gone with clear lenses and orange bulbs, we'll see how they look on the car.
I spent a long time trying to trace an intermittent fault with the crank position sensor and got nowhere yet. I think I'm going to reroute the wire away from any other electrics incase its just picking up too much noise.
More to come.
I've started making what I feel is the best solution to the problem of the front indicators. I can't seem to find a solution which doesn't look daft. So I'm hollowing out the main beam lamps and putting hte indicators in them.
I started grinding the original sealed beam jobbies, I was very surprised this worked at all, but then the heat got the better of them and the glass cracked.
So I moved onto the capri lights from ebay, these have metal backs so were much easier to work on.
Cut the back out.
And glued the mini style indicator lenses in. Its hard to photograph, it doesn't look wuite that orange when using your own eyes, but I'm already thinking I should have gone with clear lenses and orange bulbs, we'll see how they look on the car.
I spent a long time trying to trace an intermittent fault with the crank position sensor and got nowhere yet. I think I'm going to reroute the wire away from any other electrics incase its just picking up too much noise.
More to come.
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