SEAC Rescue

SEAC Rescue

Author
Discussion

Mr Tank

5,797 posts

274 months

Wednesday 5th April 2017
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Hi Martin

Nice to see it working and going back together.

Andy

Grady

1,221 posts

259 months

Wednesday 5th April 2017
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Great thread! Much to my wife's annoyance, I spent last night reading it. I remember some of the early "discovery" posts but never read the entire thread. Grady

adam quantrill

11,535 posts

241 months

Wednesday 5th April 2017
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Yeah it's a long one (and good) but pales into insignificance compared to a thread I found about Concorde (not on PH) which took me four whole winter evenings to read....

Grady

1,221 posts

259 months

Thursday 6th April 2017
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Concorde - A man... found one on a lonely airstrip... brought it home... and restored it to fire breathing life...it flew!!!

<grin> Well sort of wedgie wings. Loves those birds though!

There is a former US Air Force field (Ellington) near our house that used to have a an F-16 squadron. We loved the sound/sight of them taking off. Also random NASA flights: T-37s and their WB-57, etc; the noise volume depends on the wind direction.

Lately there is a plane that takes off occasionally that is insanely louder. While doing it research, it may be the only civilian F-4 flying. Taking off with afterburners??? Love it! (And WAY off topic!)


Transmitter Man

4,253 posts

223 months

Thursday 6th April 2017
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"There is a former US Air Force field (Ellington) near our house that used to have a an F-16 squadron."

I got one of them within sight of our apartment here in Cyprus only it belongs to Britain:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a...

Phil
420 SEAC

rev-erend

21,404 posts

283 months

Thursday 6th April 2017
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The sheer amount of movable flaps and variable jet thrust almost makes the pilot redundant
as he would probably black out if he even used a quarted of its flying capability.

The Hatter

Original Poster:

988 posts

169 months

Monday 17th April 2017
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Fuse box reattached to the back of the glove box, araldite did the trick with the lugs.

New Goodridge brake hoses... someone can't count:



Only three are required... so I have a surplus of rear hoses. I changed them because the pedal was a little soft, but it hasn't made a difference. I'm suspecting that the new aftermarket master cylinder that I've fitted is not much good, so I need to investigate getting a new old stock Girling part or maybe get the original resleeved; I'm suspicious of both old rubber seals and also new poor quality seals, so I'm not quite sure what to do.

I was also reminded of the somewhat bespoke wheel nuts; they are all drilled to different sizes. I guess it's to make the weight of each nut the same. Someone has lavished a lot of attention on this car!



Edited by The Hatter on Monday 17th April 22:46

billynobrakes

2,675 posts

264 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
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The Hatter said:
Fuse box reattached to the back of the glove box, araldite did the trick with the lugs.

New Goodridge brake hoses... someone can't count:



Only three are required... so I have a surplus of rear hoses. I changed them because the pedal was a little soft, but it hasn't made a difference. I'm suspecting that the new aftermarket master cylinder that I've fitted is not much good, so I need to investigate getting a new old stock Girling part or maybe get the original resleeved; I'm suspicious of both old rubber seals and also new poor quality seals, so I'm not quite sure what to do.

I was also reminded of the somewhat bespoke wheel nuts; they are all drilled to different sizes. I guess it's to make the weight of each nut the same. Someone has lavished a lot of attention on this car!



Edited by The Hatter on Monday 17th April 22:46
I had the same with Priscilla two for the rear as you say someone can't count might be worth letting them know as it should be cheaper



adam quantrill

11,535 posts

241 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
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Martin is the pedal a little soft on the first push, but if you push it a little to "prime" it, then use it again a few seconds later, then it's quite firm?

The Hatter

Original Poster:

988 posts

169 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
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Adam, not really, it just seems to have a lot of travel, at least compared to the 350i. It does have different front calipers to the 350i but still Ford ones so I wouldn't expect it to feel much different.

Pumping it does help a bit so I suspect there's still some air in the system somewhere. I'll try different methods of bleeding it to see if I can improve it before I do anything drastic.

The Hatter

Original Poster:

988 posts

169 months

Tuesday 26th September 2017
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Slow movement but moving forward -

I'm happy with the megasquirt conversion on the 350i but I'm not completely sold on it. It's very good (in fact stunningly good) when the engine is warm, but cold starting and particularly hot starting leaves a little to be desired; plus a stable idle is elusive. My conclusion is that it's well worth converting to megasquirt on an average car but the SEAC is somewhat special... so I thought I'd spend some time trying to fettle the original SEAC flapper system.

So... I was running Chris's 420 engine with (I think) standard 350i injectors, uncertain parentage ECU and 400SE flapper AFM; It ran OK in that state. I have recently been trying to run with the original SEAC ECU but it's been running badly; until I substituted a good Jaguar large bore AFM (very hard to find a good one, long story!!)...



So now it's running pretty well again, with the original SEAC ECU and a good Jaguar AFM (there's many different types, you have to get the right one!). At idle it reads very lean, but I think that's actually a rich misfire that shows lean due to poor combustion in some cylinders and therefore oxygen in the exhaust... this is the AFR at idle - and I don't believe it!



So now I'm on the verge of rebuilding and refitting the original engine in the knowledge that the ECU and fuel injection system is where I want it to be... winter project time.

TV8

3,118 posts

174 months

Tuesday 26th September 2017
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The Hatter said:
Slow movement but moving forward -

I'm happy with the megasquirt conversion on the 350i but I'm not completely sold on it. It's very good (in fact stunningly good) when the engine is warm, but cold starting and particularly hot starting leaves a little to be desired; plus a stable idle is elusive. My conclusion is that it's well worth converting to megasquirt on an average car but the SEAC is somewhat special... so I thought I'd spend some time trying to fettle the original SEAC flapper system.

So... I was running Chris's 420 engine with (I think) standard 350i injectors, uncertain parentage ECU and 400SE flapper AFM; It ran OK in that state. I have recently been trying to run with the original SEAC ECU but it's been running badly; until I substituted a good Jaguar large bore AFM (very hard to find a good one, long story!!)...



So now it's running pretty well again, with the original SEAC ECU and a good Jaguar AFM (there's many different types, you have to get the right one!). At idle it reads very lean, but I think that's actually a rich misfire that shows lean due to poor combustion in some cylinders and therefore oxygen in the exhaust... this is the AFR at idle - and I don't believe it!



So now I'm on the verge of rebuilding and refitting the original engine in the knowledge that the ECU and fuel injection system is where I want it to be... winter project time.
Hi Martin, did you have a chat with any of the Chimaera people with ms or the 14cux tuning people in the post in the Giff section? With so many people running non standard stuff, it must be a relatively simple thing to sort the cold start/running with other people's setups and experience?

mk1fan

10,507 posts

224 months

Tuesday 26th September 2017
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Excellent.

The Hatter

Original Poster:

988 posts

169 months

Thursday 28th September 2017
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Hi Graham,
I did look at the 14CUX stuff but it doesn't really carry over to megasquirt for all kinds of reasons, and all engines differ in detail anyway (compression, cams etc). My 350i does start and run well when cold, but on hot starts it doesn't run as well as I'd like it to. I think the problem is that the air temperature sensor in the inlet duct doesn't reflect the temperature of the air entering the cylinders when the engine is hot after a hot start.

I notice that the hotwire CUX system has a fuel temperature sensor on the fuel rail that the flapper CU system doesn't; that is probably something to do with hot starting - I don't think a typical MS system can use that sensor, although I suspect there will be experts out there who can program it to do so.

I also wonder if the CUX system has some kind of timed algorithm after a hot start that alters the air temp sensor output and therefore the fueling while the plenum is hot; as slowly the plenum will cool down with the engine running and pulling in cold air.

The Hatter

Original Poster:

988 posts

169 months

Sunday 12th November 2017
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Finally things are moving forward, in a two steps forward one step back kind of way...

I'm being indecisive about the ECU so I want to keep my options open for megasquirt or flapper, so I need a trigger wheel on the crankshaft. The original SEAC crank pulley had to be fitted to the surrogate engine due to tight clearances to the additional chassis strengthening braces, and I needed to take the pulley off to get the trigger wheel fitted. However those chassis braces mean you can't get the crank pulley off without unbolting the engine from the chassis and raising the engine... so that was the job for this weekend.

Engine lifted;



Pulley off;



There's just about enough room on the back of the pulley for a trigger wheel between the damper and the dry sump pump drive, but it's very tight!

StonetheCrows

769 posts

207 months

Sunday 12th November 2017
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Your doing better on the rebuild rather than the crossword

Ayahuasca

27,427 posts

278 months

Monday 13th November 2017
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How do you stop bits of fluff from the towel getting into the cylinders?

mk1fan

10,507 posts

224 months

Tuesday 14th November 2017
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?

The Hatter

Original Poster:

988 posts

169 months

Saturday 6th January 2018
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That's a codeword not a crossword, still not very good though! I'm very aware of the need for cleanliness, if it's something I will clean up at some point I'll use towels/sheets, otherwise it'll be newspaper or plastic sheets/bags.

The engine is now on a stand, you'd think that a Clarke engine crane would have it's legs positioned such that a Clarke engine stand would tesselate with it and allow you to use them both - but no. Blocks of wood and jacks needed!



The front cover is interesting, adapted to suit the dry sump system with welding and machining to remove the oil pump/filter features. Not very neat but it does the job.


The Hatter

Original Poster:

988 posts

169 months

Saturday 6th January 2018
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Cylinder head work...

The valve guides need replacing/sleeving, I was about to take them to be done when I realised that there were shims in the valve pockets - good practice on high performance engines with extreme cams. They were difficult to get out due to the capillary action of the oil behind them, I got a couple of strong magnets from an electric motor and managed to get them out:



Some of them had a curious radial groove pattern on them, I'm not sure what that's about!



There was quite a variation in the shim thicknesses:



I intend to put them back as they came out.