Project Scimitar MV6

[ridds]

Ah fair enough. Wasn't 100% on the location in the original installation either. I'd be interested to know what GM did with the signals.

[lozzzzzz]

well it only had the one air mass sensor, upstream of the divide, but it did have a lambda sensor in each exhaust so I guess it could make corrections that way?

[lozzzzzz]

A little update.

I started fitting the Gaz dampers last night only to find the spring seats are too big, and the 2.25 springs won't fit over them. I considered ringing Gaz, but these took 6 weeks to make, so my thinking was, that I can't use the 2.5 inch spring seats so I might as well turn them down on the lathe. The tops I could nab from the old AVO dampers but the bottoms have a different thread (the gaz dampers have a much more course thread), so this evening I did the lathing and fitted it all.


I got the front on axle stands so the front of the car was perfectly level and lifted the rear end from the centre of the axle a number of times to watch the wheels leave the ground, this meant by adjusting the rear ride height on each side I could get the back end level.

This also meant that when the front was put back on the ground any diffences in ride height left to right would be due to the fronts, so I could adjust until the car sat level and at the right height. This isn't quite corner weighting and makes the assumption that the weight balance is perfect left to right etc etc.... but its a start, it'll all be apart again when I start the calculations to figure out the correct spring rates.

Oh and I also put sealer around the damper adjustment nob, its easy enough to cut it off and I don't want these corroding like the AVO's did.

I'll mess about with it again tomorrow, but its ready now, it could be driven to the MOT station tomorrow (or a week saturday as the case may be )

[Cerbieherts]

Good luck with the MOT, it's looking really good!

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks Cerbie Not long now




I appologise if these updates are dragging on little, it feels like the car has been "nearly ready" for ages. I'ts a shame it didn't quite make it a week or so back, but I have still been doing plenty with it. Tonight I faffed on with the ride height some more and really got it right where I want it. The camber looks ok at zero on the passenger side and about 10 mins negative on the drivers side (the book recommends 0-1 degree negative). This little tool has proved very good and very repeatable:


Then it was time to fine tune the tracking. Instead of borrowing the dunlop gauges from work again, I decided to bite the bullet and buy the kit pictured below. I can't speak highly enough of this kit, it was just £70 delivered (delivered really fast in fact). It takes about twice as long as dunlop gauges to set up (but we're still talking about less than a minute till you get the reading), but it seem really repeatable and precise. I measured the car three times and got:
13 mins toe out
11mins toe out
and 13mins toe out
So plenty repeatable enough, the scale is really precise and it feels well constructed and solid even if it is plastic. Very Pleased

The car is now set at about 6 mins toe in (book recommends zero, so its close)



More to come

[lozzzzzz]

IT PASSED

Its fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It passed the MOT this morning, with no probs at all I nursed it over there having found it very difficult to map while driving. It was very lean to and from the MOT, so I messed about some more, then it was too rich, but at least I could safely put my foot down. Its awesome, Its really really dam fast. We did a cheaky little 0-60 run and it came out at 5.4s, but I'm allowing for some error here, I'll do a more accurate one later. It reaches 62 in second though, so only needs the one gear change, giving it an illusively quick 0-60.

I found my ear ringing after about an hour of driving it round, it really is very loud in there too much really, it'll be ace fun on a track day, but it really is crazy loud for a commuter.

Anyway, that won'y stop me driving it work and showing off

FUN FUN FUN

[lozzzzzz]

Right I've covered a few miles now the list goes a bit like this:

Connect Power steering pump (that didn't take long )
Sound deadening in the car, on the big flat panels and around the fuel pumps
Maybe a quieter middle box (see how it is after the above)
and I need a new fuel filler gasket.

Every time I floor it (which seems to happen lots) the fuel pushes up against the fuel filler cap and leaks out I've seen flames from the exhausts so this needs sorting really.

Let the project continue

More to come

[itsrodders]

Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant!!!

Many congrats, Loz

[Cerbieherts]

Congrats Loz! I'll bet that's a whole heap of fun!

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks guys, it is awesome fun


Thanks folks

I had a little look over the car last night after its first 150 miles, Everything seems good on the suspension front, but the gearbox seems to have sprung a leak at the rear seal, so I've got the parts coming, and I'll try and change the seal without anything drastic like taking the back cone of the gearbox off (fingers crossed the flange comes off).

There is a bit of vibration over 90mph, the prop shaft looks god with all the balance weights still in place, I think this might be the re-drilled hubs coming back to haunt me, I'll see what the vibration is like on the rolling road when the time comes. Hopefully that be at the end of this month some time.

It turns out my exhaust pipes are noisy in more ways than one, they like to hit the road and make a loud noise as they do. I've never been completely happy with how low they were at the back of the car, just the look of them really, but thought there was little I could do about it. After having another look, there was room to raise them up by nearly 2cm, heling the look and hopefully the clearance too.

Before and after:



And lastly I'll be reconnecting the PAS pump to the engine and rack shortly, and am now in need of a full set of pipes as I cut mine to bits

More to come

[itsrodders]

I shudder to think how much I've spent on replacing ripped off SE5 back boxes over the years. Loz, yours look good and tight. Sections of old cambelt make excellent flexible but durable mounts, btw.

[lozzzzzz]

Got it back on its wheel last night after changing the gearbox rear seal, changing the diff oil and checking it all over.

I found quite a bit of metal in the diff oi, well you know some fine stuff stuck to the magnet, not exactly loads, but I'm not sure if this was from the dust in the garage or from the Quaife diff wearing in, I'm not sure if I've done it too early but I guess I'm happy that that metal is out.

Did some more mapping on the way to work this morning, if you're not too interested stop reading here.

I had tried changing the load sites so there were some really low values of MAP, then I set the fueling to zero, so that it would not fuel on the overrun. I had a suspicion that this was making the car really loud at traffic speeds, so I changed it this morning so it fueled everywhere in the map and now it seems a lot quieter. Result.

I've found with the BMW LPG system, in its history of playing up, it mostly does so just after the overrun (i.e. after zero fueling), so perhaps having the scimitar not do 'overrun fuel cut off' right help the LPG to run better when I get that set up.

I really must upload a video soon, perhaps I'll take one tomorrow morning, or this evening after work if its still light.

More to come.

[wedgemaniac456]

Really enjoyed this thread well done,one cracking scimitar

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks Wedge

I like the look of those shiny engine bits you have, I need to do some bling work next, its let down by some shabby bits.

[lozzzzzz]

I took the car to Stamford this weekend and covered quite a few miles. It performed excellently, I'm so dam pleased with it. Its such a great all rounder, or will be when I've fitted the PAS pump and some sound deadening.

I'm really sorry having made the promise, that I still haven't got any videos of it, but it was wet on the way home when I had thought of doing a vid or two, I will soon.

On the subject of sound deadening I've got two plans, and need help with one of them, firstly I'm going to run some of that pond hose down the rear quarters of the car for all the cables and stuff then foam fill around them. Then I want to fit sound deadening mat to all the larger pannels and under the LPG tank, and the rear floors, and even the door skins, but......

Which product to buy????? There are a lot, Silent coat seems to be one of the expensive ones, does this mean it's any good? Should I be looking for something specific as its GRP pannels?

Any help on this would be greatly appriciated, ideally I'd like to be able to order it real soon and have it in there in time for the Rolling road session on friday (as its a long way away).

Thanks for any advice

[lozzzzzz]

An overdue update.

I've found a micro usb cable and got the videos off the phone. We tried a 0-60 on video but it became obvious that my brother was more interested in spinning the wheels and laughing about it and its really hard to find a perfectly level bit of road here, but it looks like being somewhere between 5.5 and 6 seconds.

Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZeZcZZHifc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq5YiYwJQ5c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba3ZPV6I4KA

On another note, I visited Maynards last night for a rolling road session. Martin (I think was his name) has masses of experience with ECU mapping and seemingly carbs too. I told him I was nervous, and he said we'd not hold the engine on massive load for long

Then we got to mapping the top end and it was seriously nerve racking, I felt like having a breakdown The floor was getting hot from the long manifolds below, the strong smell of hot paint was making my eyes water, the coolant temp was rising, but it held together, no a drop of oil or water below. I was so proud, he seemed pretty pleased with the result and went off to show his collegue the flat torque curve. I was pretty releaved by the end of it, and the power run seemed tame compared to the torture of earlier. Here are the results, ignore the low spike at the start, that was a gearchange.



There is lots of discussion about rolling road opporators adding a little for happy customers, I had considered asking about this, but I don't think he was really concerned, he described it as a tool for getting the fueling right, and made very little of the end result. You make up your mind about the result.

250ft/lb @ 4725rpm (as you can see)
262bhp @ not sure actually, forgot to ask

I'm really pleased with the improvment in drivability, power, the smoother delivery, and the noise. I think it was well worth it

[E36GUY]

I have not posted in this topic before but I just have to say, I absolutely fking love this project! I've been considering something similar for a while but my problem is that I would have to pay someone to do the work for me as I have nothing in the way of your epic engineering skills.

Very well done and I hope you get a huge amount of enjoyment out of it!

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks E36GUY

I'm glad you've enjoyed reading it, there is still plenty to come.

Get one man! get your hands dirty and find what works, I've found plenty that doesn't work

[E36GUY]

I would love to get my hands dirty but I have a fundamental lack of space to work on anything beyond replacing brakes etc which I can do on the drive.

one day....

[lozzzzzz]

Its been dark times for the Scimitar recently, it looks like turd!

I polished the car for eight hours a couple of months back and you can see the results a few pages back, it looked pretty good, but there were a few blemishes I wanted to sort. So the plan was to brush paint over a few chips in the paint and do the whole process again. The blobs of paint went on fine, then I sanded them flat, and this is where it all started going wrong!, I sanded through the paint in a number of places, but the Donnington historic was drawing near so I soldered on and polished it up anyway. But it didn't polish up like before, It wouldn't come up as nice as... tried lots of things.... long story short it looks awful at the moment. And this was the state it was in when I took it to the Donnington historic. While it was nice meeting a load of Scim enthusiasts, it was rather depressing having the only s**t looking scimitar there, it was in no way representative of all the money and effort that had gone into it.

I'm in a better frame of mind now and hoping I can get it shiny again, I've done it twice and its worked once, so I guess I've got a 50% chance right! If it still looks crappo after this attempt then I will be throwing in the towel and paying someone to make my car look nice.

Last night I masked up all the rough areas and sprayed them, I've got some paint left over from when I sprayed the car a few years back.

Tonight I shall pull the masking off and maybe tackle some other jobs then tomorrow start the polishing.



I've not left it quite as late this time, with the next show being PPC In The Park at Mallory Park on the 18th

More to come