S1 Elise 2.0 Duratec Conversion
Discussion
Did a little more work last night and pulled the lower wishbone.  With the wishbone out of the way the engine sat down on its mounts and the crank pulley cleared the chassis.  It's a little hard to see in the pictures but the clearance is there.
The engine now sits correctly on its original unmodified gearbox mount.
I've got some threaded bar to temporarily brace the wishbone during welding and I've located a place that can Zinc coat the wishbone once it is finished.
The engine now sits correctly on its original unmodified gearbox mount.
I've got some threaded bar to temporarily brace the wishbone during welding and I've located a place that can Zinc coat the wishbone once it is finished.
I had a few laps in one with just north of 200bhp - I thought it was silly fast all things considered.
Loud though, and quite lumpy on idle.
I really liked it. If I was going to go down the engine conversion route, it'd be the one I'd go for. Lightweight, engine in the right place, lots of original parts, there's a lot to like.
Sure you'll love it.
Loud though, and quite lumpy on idle.
I really liked it. If I was going to go down the engine conversion route, it'd be the one I'd go for. Lightweight, engine in the right place, lots of original parts, there's a lot to like.
Sure you'll love it.
pthelazyjourno said:
I had a few laps in one with just north of 200bhp - I thought it was silly fast all things considered.
Loud though, and quite lumpy on idle.
I really liked it. If I was going to go down the engine conversion route, it'd be the one I'd go for. Lightweight, engine in the right place, lots of original parts, there's a lot to like.
Sure you'll love it.
With north of 200bhp it would have been running uprated cams, probably accounts for the lumpy idle.Loud though, and quite lumpy on idle.
I really liked it. If I was going to go down the engine conversion route, it'd be the one I'd go for. Lightweight, engine in the right place, lots of original parts, there's a lot to like.
Sure you'll love it.
GregorFuk said:
Ford engine was chosen as with the help of a simple adapter plate it can be mated to the original Elise gear box. If you go honda then you fit both the Honda engine & gearbox. This can lead to drive shaft issues, something I don't wish to entertain. This particular engine was chosen as it has later high flow head which means it gives better bhp straight out the box.
Looks like an interesting project.How does it stack up cost wise vs running ITB's and some cam/head work on the K-Series?
Also will it alter the centre of gravity or the weight distribution at all?
300bhp/ton said:
Looks like an interesting project.
How does it stack up cost wise vs running ITB's and some cam/head work on the K-Series?
Also will it alter the centre of gravity or the weight distribution at all?
It's probably comparable in cost but you end up with a relatively unstressed and reliable 180bhp. Cams and head work will push you north of 200bhp. You can get the same power (though not torque) from a K but it's pretty highly strung at those levels and will need treating as such.How does it stack up cost wise vs running ITB's and some cam/head work on the K-Series?
Also will it alter the centre of gravity or the weight distribution at all?
ianstewartshouse said:
Hi Gregor, looking good. When is the build plan ed to complete?
Hi Iain, I think we can have the engine running relativly soon but I have some tidying up in the engine bay to do. I'm not trying to make the car a concourse winner but there are some parts that could abviously do with a rub down and lick of paint whilst the rear clam is off.All going well I think we could have it all back together before Christmas but there may be unforeseen hurdles.
Looks like I've hot my Photobucket bandwidth limit for the month. It will reset tomorrow and the pics will return.
Okay a bit of an update.
Quite a bit of progress made but it is harder see now that the engine is in place. Our newly fabricated bracket was bolted back in place under the gearbox and the shift cables attached. It works a treat and the gears shift as before. I know somebody will ask why we painted the bracket green. Answer: Because that’s what we had sitting on the shelf.
We did a bit of fabric maintenance, though this time I invested in some black hammerite, and painted the steel supports that bolt onto the lonerons. You can see in some of the previous pics that they were looking pretty grotty and you can just make out the fresh coat of paint below.
The exhaust manifold was then temporarily fitted.
Which allowed us to temporarily fit the exhaust link pipe. We did this because I need to get a Lambda bung welded into the link pipe and we wanted to identify the best position. Lambda thread is M18 x 1.5 by the way. You can see below where the sensor is going to go (Photo sponsored by Sharpie)
The throttle cable was then installed. The will need some adjustment as I’m not sure I was getting 100% throttle opening with the throttle pedal on the floor. There may be some adjustment needed at the pedal end. I’ll know more when I can hook up to the ECU and get readings from the Throttle Position Sensor.
In addition to the throttle cable the custom loom was installed. Everything went together well though I am a little concerned about the 3rd engine harness connector.
You can see that the custom loom has four wires at its end of the plug the original Elise end has three and even then only two of the pins actually meet up. This could be a problem but I could also be worrying about nothing, I shall have to wait and see.
Another pic of the manifold. I have a special gasket form SB Dev which has the EGR port blocked off, I’ll be using it for final installation.
There will be no progress next week as I am away but in the meantime I have left my exhaust and wishbone with Wallace Performance. They will relocate the brace and weld in the lambda bung. Once these things are back we will be pretty close to first startup.
Quite a bit of progress made but it is harder see now that the engine is in place. Our newly fabricated bracket was bolted back in place under the gearbox and the shift cables attached. It works a treat and the gears shift as before. I know somebody will ask why we painted the bracket green. Answer: Because that’s what we had sitting on the shelf.
We did a bit of fabric maintenance, though this time I invested in some black hammerite, and painted the steel supports that bolt onto the lonerons. You can see in some of the previous pics that they were looking pretty grotty and you can just make out the fresh coat of paint below.
The exhaust manifold was then temporarily fitted.
Which allowed us to temporarily fit the exhaust link pipe. We did this because I need to get a Lambda bung welded into the link pipe and we wanted to identify the best position. Lambda thread is M18 x 1.5 by the way. You can see below where the sensor is going to go (Photo sponsored by Sharpie)
The throttle cable was then installed. The will need some adjustment as I’m not sure I was getting 100% throttle opening with the throttle pedal on the floor. There may be some adjustment needed at the pedal end. I’ll know more when I can hook up to the ECU and get readings from the Throttle Position Sensor.
In addition to the throttle cable the custom loom was installed. Everything went together well though I am a little concerned about the 3rd engine harness connector.
You can see that the custom loom has four wires at its end of the plug the original Elise end has three and even then only two of the pins actually meet up. This could be a problem but I could also be worrying about nothing, I shall have to wait and see.
Another pic of the manifold. I have a special gasket form SB Dev which has the EGR port blocked off, I’ll be using it for final installation.
There will be no progress next week as I am away but in the meantime I have left my exhaust and wishbone with Wallace Performance. They will relocate the brace and weld in the lambda bung. Once these things are back we will be pretty close to first startup.
Edited by GregorFuk on Friday 4th November 13:40
A little bit more progress today. I picked up my modified wishbone on Friday and spent Saturday applying a few coats of Hammerite; this afternoon it was time for fitting.
As you can see there is now plenty of room between the wishbone brace and the Duratec sump. Mission accomplished!
Unfortunately it wasn't all success today. One of my other jobs was to fit a new fuel filter and it didn't go to plan at all. The union on the feed side of the filter was super tight, too tight in fact. I ended up with a rounded bolt and no way to get the filter off other than resorting to the hacksaw. I'm not happy about this and now need to find a way to get a union back onto the end of the metal pipe that terminates the fuel line. The line is 8mm in diameter and has a wall thickness of 0.9mm.
If anybody has any ideas on how I get myself back on track with this answers on a post card please!
As you can see there is now plenty of room between the wishbone brace and the Duratec sump. Mission accomplished!
Unfortunately it wasn't all success today. One of my other jobs was to fit a new fuel filter and it didn't go to plan at all. The union on the feed side of the filter was super tight, too tight in fact. I ended up with a rounded bolt and no way to get the filter off other than resorting to the hacksaw. I'm not happy about this and now need to find a way to get a union back onto the end of the metal pipe that terminates the fuel line. The line is 8mm in diameter and has a wall thickness of 0.9mm.
If anybody has any ideas on how I get myself back on track with this answers on a post card please!
Eeeeep!
Watch what your doing sawing fuel pipes!!! That heat has to go somewhere. Fuel vapour is rather flammable.
The other end of it looks to be heat shrunk into the pipe.
You could get another banjo fitting, cut it off at the rubber on that and the rubber on the current hose and then use an insert tube and 2 fuel hose clips to join them. Not jubies, proper fuel hose clips. About £3 from a motor factors.
Watch what your doing sawing fuel pipes!!! That heat has to go somewhere. Fuel vapour is rather flammable.
The other end of it looks to be heat shrunk into the pipe.
You could get another banjo fitting, cut it off at the rubber on that and the rubber on the current hose and then use an insert tube and 2 fuel hose clips to join them. Not jubies, proper fuel hose clips. About £3 from a motor factors.
Time for a bit of an update.
My Walterscheild fitting arrived a few days ago and worked a treat. I now have a new fitting on the end of my fuel supply line on which to screw on my fuel filter. As you can see from the picture it has worked perfectly, I'm very pleased. I'd recommend the solution to all Elise owners who hit a similar problem, I gather that it's not that uncommon.
With the fuel feed problem now resolved the rest of the fuel piping was fitted. A 3bar fuel pressure regulator has been mounted.
And the rest of the fuel piping ran to the fuel rail and back to the tank return. It was the first time I'd put together hoses of this type so I am quite chuffed with the results. All piping is a work in progress and will be tidied before the clam goes back on.
The final coolant pipework has been fitted and the header tank bracket removed from the bulkhead. We'll use the bracket to relocate the header tank but we're not quite sure to exactly where at the moment. We'll wait to see what sort of room we have once the clam is back on. For now we've 'secured' it to the chassis brace, being careful not to damage the fresh paintwork.
We also temporarily mounted the exhaust silencer so we could test fire the engine without waking the dead.
So with all of that done, and the ECU hooked up it was time to go for a test fire!
The result.....a smoothly running Duratec....I wish. What we actually got was a lot of popping and banging coupled with the odd eyebrow removing burst of flame from the intake trumpets. The throttle bodies need setting up for sure. I've been reading how to do it and have spoke with EA amongst others on the process. It seems like methodical process of trial and error is required to get things running right. The ECU is mapped and ready to go so I have no worries there I just need to get the engine idling and the throttles balanced.
This project has always been a learning experience but the learning curve has taken a sharp up-tick!
The first evening of attempting to get things running smoothly was a bit of a disaster but after the fact I identified that I'd missed an important step and not de-linked the bodies for the balancing process so I was on a loser from the start.
The second evening started poorly but slowly toward the end of the evening results started to come. Unfortunately just at the point I managed to get the engine sitting at a 2000rpm 'fast idle' the car battery ran out of puff preventing that car from being started.
Other commitments mean that it will be next week before another attempt can be made to get things running smoothly but I am confident that we are almost there. In the mean time the battery will be stuck on charge and I'll concentrate on re-growing my eyebrows.
My Walterscheild fitting arrived a few days ago and worked a treat. I now have a new fitting on the end of my fuel supply line on which to screw on my fuel filter. As you can see from the picture it has worked perfectly, I'm very pleased. I'd recommend the solution to all Elise owners who hit a similar problem, I gather that it's not that uncommon.
With the fuel feed problem now resolved the rest of the fuel piping was fitted. A 3bar fuel pressure regulator has been mounted.
And the rest of the fuel piping ran to the fuel rail and back to the tank return. It was the first time I'd put together hoses of this type so I am quite chuffed with the results. All piping is a work in progress and will be tidied before the clam goes back on.
The final coolant pipework has been fitted and the header tank bracket removed from the bulkhead. We'll use the bracket to relocate the header tank but we're not quite sure to exactly where at the moment. We'll wait to see what sort of room we have once the clam is back on. For now we've 'secured' it to the chassis brace, being careful not to damage the fresh paintwork.
We also temporarily mounted the exhaust silencer so we could test fire the engine without waking the dead.
So with all of that done, and the ECU hooked up it was time to go for a test fire!
The result.....a smoothly running Duratec....I wish. What we actually got was a lot of popping and banging coupled with the odd eyebrow removing burst of flame from the intake trumpets. The throttle bodies need setting up for sure. I've been reading how to do it and have spoke with EA amongst others on the process. It seems like methodical process of trial and error is required to get things running right. The ECU is mapped and ready to go so I have no worries there I just need to get the engine idling and the throttles balanced.
This project has always been a learning experience but the learning curve has taken a sharp up-tick!
The first evening of attempting to get things running smoothly was a bit of a disaster but after the fact I identified that I'd missed an important step and not de-linked the bodies for the balancing process so I was on a loser from the start.
The second evening started poorly but slowly toward the end of the evening results started to come. Unfortunately just at the point I managed to get the engine sitting at a 2000rpm 'fast idle' the car battery ran out of puff preventing that car from being started.
Other commitments mean that it will be next week before another attempt can be made to get things running smoothly but I am confident that we are almost there. In the mean time the battery will be stuck on charge and I'll concentrate on re-growing my eyebrows.
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