1992 Peugeot 106 XSi - Strip, Respray, Rebuild OEM+
Discussion
So I got to meet Dom the other day, what a gent, he drove an hour to look over the xsi he mentions half way down page 9 of this thread. It’s taken me a year to the day and 41 emails to buy it off a petrol head who likes his cars. He’d owned it for 3 years, done 600 dry miles, kept it garaged, seat covers etc, prior to that it did 3k miles over 5 years whilst it was being refurbished. I bought it with an overheating issue, either fan switch, faulty thermostat or head gasket. Dom looked over it and apart from bits of the respray which aren’t perfect the car is vgc, mint wheels, interior, 75k miles. Turned out just to be the fan switch, I’m ecstatic about it as I had one 15 years ago. I’ll post some picks (Dom requested) to give Dom and this thread a bit of a boost. His will be amazing when finished and it takes a certain kind of person to put that much into a refurb of a non iconic car (not yet) and keep it standard. Good on you Dom, now sort your house out, have a word with the Mrs and get cracking!
Edited by ollymonkeynuts on Saturday 24th November 22:34
When I said it will be summer, of course I meant summer 2020!
Lockdown has finally given me the time, energy and sobriety to get this moving again! Shame it has taken CV-19 to get me there
One (non-XSi) cylinder head off, aluminium block + flat top pistons discovered (late 206?), spare XSi/Rallye head on and buttoned up!
So, it will be a bit low compression for a while but I have the XSi crank, rods and pistons (hopefully) inside another spare engine, which I will use when I rebuild one of the spares.
Will get a proper update on here in the coming days to document it all... I have a report to finish for work today.
Something to prove I really did get under the bonnet:
It also took a garage reorganisation to enthuse me... this is after ~£230 of racking was delivered and a weekend of construction and unboxing parts.
New fuel filter, oil filter, plugs, leads, cambelt, tensioner, water pump, engine mount, blah, blah, blah out on the bench for this week!
The one thing that may prevent me from getting it to MOT (well, couldn't anyway at the moment) is still the rats nest of (headlight at least) wiring.
Might need someone who understands electrics better than me to take a look... also need front brake pipes too actually...
I'll get there... slowly!
Lockdown has finally given me the time, energy and sobriety to get this moving again! Shame it has taken CV-19 to get me there
One (non-XSi) cylinder head off, aluminium block + flat top pistons discovered (late 206?), spare XSi/Rallye head on and buttoned up!
So, it will be a bit low compression for a while but I have the XSi crank, rods and pistons (hopefully) inside another spare engine, which I will use when I rebuild one of the spares.
Will get a proper update on here in the coming days to document it all... I have a report to finish for work today.
Something to prove I really did get under the bonnet:
It also took a garage reorganisation to enthuse me... this is after ~£230 of racking was delivered and a weekend of construction and unboxing parts.
New fuel filter, oil filter, plugs, leads, cambelt, tensioner, water pump, engine mount, blah, blah, blah out on the bench for this week!
The one thing that may prevent me from getting it to MOT (well, couldn't anyway at the moment) is still the rats nest of (headlight at least) wiring.
Might need someone who understands electrics better than me to take a look... also need front brake pipes too actually...
I'll get there... slowly!
Give us more, said no one! So pics below... [spoiler] it is running. Just.
Wouldn't idle but revved quickly and seemingly cleanly. Plumbed an old radiator in and found the vacuum line from the FPR unconnected.
Reconnected it, threw some water in and it just about idles but not won't rev and dies... hmmm...
No leaks, neither oil nor water, which is nice but I suspect the rad will have to come back out to attack the wiring.
Anyway, some pics, which may be of interest:
The old oil... didn't tell Mrs9 I needed a cooking pot!
Old heading coming off... not a Rallye/XSi.
Head off... oh, it's an alloy block with flat top pistons! Late 206? Think it might have overheated!
More skank left behind when the head came off.
Thermostat housing wasn't pretty... just used one from another Rallye engine I had.
I am guessing the roller head that came off "Z04" is the one that came with the engine. 75bhp? Pitting was bad.
Dropped that on my "Cup" engine and nicked the head off that. Building back up shot.
New head buttoned back up. Timing seems fine. Wiring loom a bit of a mess so wonder if there's an issue there.
What is this yellow wire hiding back behind the TPS??
Oh, and here is a ZERO mile drop link I swapped on back when it was painted... weird! Don't buy cheap! A lot of rubber parts have perished, actually, even the refurbished brake calliper dust seals and steering rod ends. Annoying.
More wiring mess... most headlights and rad.
So... next thing to find out is why it wouldn't idle but revved pretty nicely and then would idle (badly) but wouldn't rev.
I have a new FPR in a box in a tool drawer so might strip the inlet and injection back off to look over and check.
Gives me access to the steering rack as well to do the quick rack and change all of the rubber boots, which are dead!
Lots of wires looking pretty sorry for themselves at the plugs (or the plugs themselves). Could probably do with another loom.
I think we all knew this wasn't going to be a quick project... But 4yrs later - it runs! Sort of at least!
Wouldn't idle but revved quickly and seemingly cleanly. Plumbed an old radiator in and found the vacuum line from the FPR unconnected.
Reconnected it, threw some water in and it just about idles but not won't rev and dies... hmmm...
No leaks, neither oil nor water, which is nice but I suspect the rad will have to come back out to attack the wiring.
Anyway, some pics, which may be of interest:
The old oil... didn't tell Mrs9 I needed a cooking pot!
Old heading coming off... not a Rallye/XSi.
Head off... oh, it's an alloy block with flat top pistons! Late 206? Think it might have overheated!
More skank left behind when the head came off.
Thermostat housing wasn't pretty... just used one from another Rallye engine I had.
I am guessing the roller head that came off "Z04" is the one that came with the engine. 75bhp? Pitting was bad.
Dropped that on my "Cup" engine and nicked the head off that. Building back up shot.
New head buttoned back up. Timing seems fine. Wiring loom a bit of a mess so wonder if there's an issue there.
What is this yellow wire hiding back behind the TPS??
Oh, and here is a ZERO mile drop link I swapped on back when it was painted... weird! Don't buy cheap! A lot of rubber parts have perished, actually, even the refurbished brake calliper dust seals and steering rod ends. Annoying.
More wiring mess... most headlights and rad.
So... next thing to find out is why it wouldn't idle but revved pretty nicely and then would idle (badly) but wouldn't rev.
I have a new FPR in a box in a tool drawer so might strip the inlet and injection back off to look over and check.
Gives me access to the steering rack as well to do the quick rack and change all of the rubber boots, which are dead!
Lots of wires looking pretty sorry for themselves at the plugs (or the plugs themselves). Could probably do with another loom.
I think we all knew this wasn't going to be a quick project... But 4yrs later - it runs! Sort of at least!
I'll plead some mitigating circumstances for my slowness... 2 oil price crashes have meant that I've had to be a bit more careful with money, though we've survived so far... for now.
We're also on our 3rd house since I bought it, albeit this one we own, so went through the buying process etc between crashes, so the car wasn't a priority.
And this:
[url
|https://thumbsnap.com/LGuQU4DW[/url]
Makes it a bit difficult to do a lot of the heavy stuff on my own and I reckon after 6/7hrs straight getting it running yesterday, I'm out 'til next weekend now
Hopefully having set up the work benches and racking in the garage I can do more 'desk based' work!
So, back to the car... think I will strip back off the inlet, which might allow me to access the loom. Will swap out the strange ICV the XSi has and the FPR and maybe see if I can run through the loom looking for breaks.
Weird that it revved smoothly and cleanly without the FPR fully hooked up and the rad in. Could plugging in the rad temp sensor have done something? Why did the FPR make things worse (albeit it would just about idle)?
Could simply be low on fuel but I chucked a couple of litres of fresh V-Power in and if there were any blockages (new fuel filter to go on) then would it have run initially? Could the fuel pump be on its way out? Couldn't hear it running at all but then it was getting some fuel at least...
Can you send looms anywhere for repair?
We're also on our 3rd house since I bought it, albeit this one we own, so went through the buying process etc between crashes, so the car wasn't a priority.
And this:
[url
|https://thumbsnap.com/LGuQU4DW[/url]Makes it a bit difficult to do a lot of the heavy stuff on my own and I reckon after 6/7hrs straight getting it running yesterday, I'm out 'til next weekend now
Hopefully having set up the work benches and racking in the garage I can do more 'desk based' work!
So, back to the car... think I will strip back off the inlet, which might allow me to access the loom. Will swap out the strange ICV the XSi has and the FPR and maybe see if I can run through the loom looking for breaks.
Weird that it revved smoothly and cleanly without the FPR fully hooked up and the rad in. Could plugging in the rad temp sensor have done something? Why did the FPR make things worse (albeit it would just about idle)?
Could simply be low on fuel but I chucked a couple of litres of fresh V-Power in and if there were any blockages (new fuel filter to go on) then would it have run initially? Could the fuel pump be on its way out? Couldn't hear it running at all but then it was getting some fuel at least...
Can you send looms anywhere for repair?
Really hard to find a running XSi, especially one in good condition. I wanted 'a spare' for donor parts but even solid non-runners go for a couple of grand now and I probably see <5 a year.
Part of me still thinks I should have found a low mile, flat arch, S1 and dropped a Honda K20 in it... probably would have cost less and been a cracking sleeper
Could do with some help on this one to be honest but I shall persevere, at least until lockdown is over and then see what is left! At that point, may see who is about to help. Maybe 2021 might be a better deadline.
Just reading up on looms etc. Doesn't seem toooooo hard (he says)!
Part of me still thinks I should have found a low mile, flat arch, S1 and dropped a Honda K20 in it... probably would have cost less and been a cracking sleeper
Could do with some help on this one to be honest but I shall persevere, at least until lockdown is over and then see what is left! At that point, may see who is about to help. Maybe 2021 might be a better deadline.
Just reading up on looms etc. Doesn't seem toooooo hard (he says)!
Some more progress today. Decided to strip the inlet back off. Gives me access to the loom and the steering rack.
A bit up and down today. On the positive - the wiring loom doesn't look too daunting and there aren't too many broken plugs.
Downsides are multiple...
Decided to have a look under the cam cover after it first ran last week. There seemed to be some water and mayo around but the 'standing liquid' you see is (at least mostly) clean oil from when it was filled:
Mayo on head bolt:
Cam cover appears to have already developed some rust inside and there was condensation:
So, is that 4yrs of being outside, condensation, etc boiling off or is the engine hiding something else? Are the liners not seated correctly, could the block be cracked somewhere or the head? Or perhaps it's nothing. Cleaned it up a bit and put the cam cover back on. The sooner it is running, the sooner I can work all this stuff out.
Manifold on the bench (as well as the radiator fan mount for refurb):
Annoyingly - the stripping of the manifold for cleaning etc was going well and then one of the throttle body bolts and one of the accelerator cable mount bolts started spinning their rivnuts in the plastic manifold - grrrrrrr.
Decided to take a spare manifold of yet another spare XSi engine I have. Found a very odd throttle plate on it's TB:
Is that off another model where they tried to limit the power, something like a Quickie?
The TB on that manifold is also damaged... at this point I realised that if I can't get the TB and accelerator cable mount off the original manifold then I wasn't going to be able to build this one up. Groan.
So, moved onto some other things like taking a look at the idle air valve, which looked grotty. Thankfully I bought a new one, all those years back:
Also decided to pull the blue/green XSi injectors for refurb and also a set of brown Rallye injectors that came on the "Cup" engine. That was easy enough but it then got a bit weird when I took a look at the FPRs in each fuel rail.
According to a thread on the 106 Rallye Forum:
XSi Injectors - Bosch 703 (blue/green) 149.2cc at 3bar
Rallye Injectors - Weber iw 052 (brown) 140cc at 3bar
However, the 1.4 xsi apparently uses a 2.5bar FPR, which gives approximately 124.3cc. So, less flowrate (despite the bigger injector) than the slightly more powerful Rallye. Makes sense.
Now, I have a new 2.5bar FPR in a box, which is good... But on the XSi fuel rail there was a 3bar FPR and on the "Cup" (Rallye head) fuel rail, there was a 2.5bar FPR. So, is the poor running, or some of it, the fact that the engine was probably over-fueling the old, small valve roller head? Could it be over-fueling the new head?
Either way - the brand new 2.5bar FPR will go back in with the refurbed XSi injectors and the refurbed Rallye injectors and spare 3bar FPR will be kept in drawer for if/when we look at more power with the high lift cam... also in that drawer.
Another reason for poor running could be the wiring. Perhaps not as bad as I thought. The ambient air temp sensor plug is hanging on for dear life:
The crank sensor plug has certainly seen better days:
the engine bay fuse wiring looks interesting. A spaded red wire of about 1in long slipped over a terminal and the heavy gauge yellow wire going somewhere on its own:
I can also now try and trace this mystery yellow wire (what is it with these yellow wires?) that was hanging to the back in the engine bay, kind of tied-up to the TPV.
The only thing I can think of, without doing the tracing, is something to do with the oil temp sensor that should be in the XSi sump, which I don't have on this engine.
The rest of the wiring looks pretty good to be fair. Even the crank sensor looks like it would do the job. Could that ambient air temp sensor be shorting and causing poor running? Maybe I will try and de/re-pin that one.
All thoughts/ideas welcome!
A bit up and down today. On the positive - the wiring loom doesn't look too daunting and there aren't too many broken plugs.
Downsides are multiple...
Decided to have a look under the cam cover after it first ran last week. There seemed to be some water and mayo around but the 'standing liquid' you see is (at least mostly) clean oil from when it was filled:
Mayo on head bolt:
Cam cover appears to have already developed some rust inside and there was condensation:
So, is that 4yrs of being outside, condensation, etc boiling off or is the engine hiding something else? Are the liners not seated correctly, could the block be cracked somewhere or the head? Or perhaps it's nothing. Cleaned it up a bit and put the cam cover back on. The sooner it is running, the sooner I can work all this stuff out.
Manifold on the bench (as well as the radiator fan mount for refurb):
Annoyingly - the stripping of the manifold for cleaning etc was going well and then one of the throttle body bolts and one of the accelerator cable mount bolts started spinning their rivnuts in the plastic manifold - grrrrrrr.
Decided to take a spare manifold of yet another spare XSi engine I have. Found a very odd throttle plate on it's TB:
Is that off another model where they tried to limit the power, something like a Quickie?
The TB on that manifold is also damaged... at this point I realised that if I can't get the TB and accelerator cable mount off the original manifold then I wasn't going to be able to build this one up. Groan.
So, moved onto some other things like taking a look at the idle air valve, which looked grotty. Thankfully I bought a new one, all those years back:
Also decided to pull the blue/green XSi injectors for refurb and also a set of brown Rallye injectors that came on the "Cup" engine. That was easy enough but it then got a bit weird when I took a look at the FPRs in each fuel rail.
According to a thread on the 106 Rallye Forum:
XSi Injectors - Bosch 703 (blue/green) 149.2cc at 3bar
Rallye Injectors - Weber iw 052 (brown) 140cc at 3bar
However, the 1.4 xsi apparently uses a 2.5bar FPR, which gives approximately 124.3cc. So, less flowrate (despite the bigger injector) than the slightly more powerful Rallye. Makes sense.
Now, I have a new 2.5bar FPR in a box, which is good... But on the XSi fuel rail there was a 3bar FPR and on the "Cup" (Rallye head) fuel rail, there was a 2.5bar FPR. So, is the poor running, or some of it, the fact that the engine was probably over-fueling the old, small valve roller head? Could it be over-fueling the new head?
Either way - the brand new 2.5bar FPR will go back in with the refurbed XSi injectors and the refurbed Rallye injectors and spare 3bar FPR will be kept in drawer for if/when we look at more power with the high lift cam... also in that drawer.
Another reason for poor running could be the wiring. Perhaps not as bad as I thought. The ambient air temp sensor plug is hanging on for dear life:
The crank sensor plug has certainly seen better days:
the engine bay fuse wiring looks interesting. A spaded red wire of about 1in long slipped over a terminal and the heavy gauge yellow wire going somewhere on its own:
I can also now try and trace this mystery yellow wire (what is it with these yellow wires?) that was hanging to the back in the engine bay, kind of tied-up to the TPV.
The only thing I can think of, without doing the tracing, is something to do with the oil temp sensor that should be in the XSi sump, which I don't have on this engine.
The rest of the wiring looks pretty good to be fair. Even the crank sensor looks like it would do the job. Could that ambient air temp sensor be shorting and causing poor running? Maybe I will try and de/re-pin that one.
All thoughts/ideas welcome!
Edited by dom9 on Saturday 2nd May 18:24
Only just found this thread, looking forward to seeing it up and running! I’ve had two rallye’s, the Rallye Register forum is an absolute font of knowledge if you haven’t been on there already. Every combination of block, head, inlets, exhausts, gearboxes etc has been tried and tested on there, but that was maybe 7-8 years ago, so not sure who’s still on the site, definitely worth a dig around on there.
Ltjonmclane said:
Only just found this thread, looking forward to seeing it up and running! I’ve had two rallye’s, the Rallye Register forum is an absolute font of knowledge if you haven’t been on there already. Every combination of block, head, inlets, exhausts, gearboxes etc has been tried and tested on there, but that was maybe 7-8 years ago, so not sure who’s still on the site, definitely worth a dig around on there.
Thank you 
I've spent a fair amount of time searching the Rallye forum. It's where I found the spare engines (I think - so long ago now). I do find it good for engine stuff but it is very quiet these days. The site seemed to be down yesterday so need to check today.So, pic heavy progress for Friday and Saturday...
Thought I would start putting the inlet manifold back together, after our fight last time, with the new idle air valve and some new sensors like the ambient air temp and rad fan switch. Also added some new fuel lines, FPR, etc and gave things a bit of a clean while I wait for the refurbished fuel injectors to return:
Also decided to tackle that ambient air temp. sensor plug. Picked it apart using a rusty Stanley knife and went at it with shaky hangover hands and a soldering iron (online wine tasting last night - weird).
It'll do for now (hopefully) but a new Bosch JPT mini timer plug in grey has been ordered with the crimp connections etc to do it 'properly'. But if that doesn't turn up before the injectors - I needed to do 'something' to satisfy me it wasn't that plug causing running issues, for the next fire up:
I then decided to have a go at some aesthetics. Was tired of the red cam cover. Don't think it fitted in really. So, attacked another red spare with some paint stripper and grey high temp. paint - quite happy with the results really. Excuse oily hand prints when it's on the car:
So, a box turned up from Germany (I think). Some of you may remember I just couldn't get the steering rod end off the pass. side and the new drivers side had died in the last 4 years so I decided that, since I have the new fast rack to fit, I might as well just pull the whole steering rack off.
It wasn't too bad a job. The column pinch connection fought me a bit but the 3 torx bolts holding the rack to the shell came out surprisingly easily. Not relishing getting it back in on my own but I'll worry about that once it has been rebuilt:
So far, so good... I don't want to tempt fate but things do seem to be going a bit smoother now but we shall see... usually something decides to bite me when I think I am making progress.
Might attack the fuel filter tomorrow and maybe even the exhaust as I have the Pugsport on the shelf and have the outrageous hope that the engine will fire and run nicely with the new sensor plug, FPR and injectors!
If not... the inlet is coming off again and I really, really will pull the wiring loom off this time and run through it. Loom tape is in the ether somewhere along with a few other bits and bobs.
Edited by dom9 on Saturday 9th May 16:43
-01SQ- said:
This is great,
My first car was a 1.1 N reg Escapade ( even had the 5 speed box ) No rev counter but a big clock on the dash. absolutely loved it ! then came the MR2 so got rid of it... wish i never had though to be honest.
Great build and thread!
My first car was a 1.1 N reg Escapade ( even had the 5 speed box ) No rev counter but a big clock on the dash. absolutely loved it ! then came the MR2 so got rid of it... wish i never had though to be honest.
Great build and thread!
Ltjonmclane said:
Some great progress there, keep it up!
Thanks guys! No progress today as I just didn't fancy crawling under the car in the slightly strange weather we have this afternoon.Still waiting on some odds and sods to turn up. Feels strangely close to being MOT-able... well, brakes and lighting to sort first... and that's if the engine runs ok. So, maybe not then
Ltjonmclane said:
Have you managed to change the fuel filter yet? That caused a few weird running issues on mine when it was parked in the garage for a while.
No but that's next on the list and is one of my suspects... that and the fuel pump. The weird thing was that it revved so well without the vacuum attached to the FPR. I think idle could be accounted for with some of those sensors but when it stopped revving up, it felt like a fuel delivery issue. Looks like the weather is improving so this weekend will be the fuel filter, bolt the inlet back on, some more fresh fuel and test fire again. If that goes well, will re-tape the loom and get on with the steering rack. I need to lower the rear beam... may just be easier to buy a refurbished one already set up as they're pretty cheap (<£200) really.
If/when we ever go back to work - there shouldn't be too much to do for MOT so I may just drop it at a garage to ensure it gets done. I don't have Brake pipe flaring tools for example.
[spoiler] It runs!! Once fuel had circulated; it idled and loved to rev!! [spoiler]
So, bit of a quiet week while I waited on the injectors to return, which they did. Good service by EFI Parts during COVID.
All injectors look well matched for flowrate and functioning nicely. The Rallye ones needed the service, by the looks of things. Wonder if that's why the supposedly new liners in the spare 'Cup' engine look so black and sooty and the engine wasn't in a car? The injectors weren't fueling correctly and were stuck open, perhaps. Or closed but soot suggests too much fuel.
Rallye - Weber iw 052 (brown) 140cc at 3bar:
XSi - Bosch 703 (blue/green) 149.2cc at 3bar (the ones in the car):
All injectors tend to be a couple of cc/min over book spec (~+2%) but that's no issue at all and probably within the flowrate measurement error.
Fuel rail going back together:
So, how we started the day:
Progress:
Buttoned back up:
Now, that should have probably been 30-60mins work but... something always has to go wrong!
The old fuel filter hose ('top'/out end) really, really didn't want to be parted from the fuel filter. Destroyed about 10mm of the hose to get it off but there was just about enough left with enough access to get the new filter tightened onto a 'good bit'. I'd obviously replace that section of hose in it's entirety but laying on the floor, with the car on jacks - I just didn't have the access or visibility. No leaks though and clearly the V-Power is flowing nicely.
New battery has still not arrived so some jump leads were thrown over to the Q3 and the engine spun over a few times without the ECU connected to make sure everything was behaving as it should. No issues there at all so I decided to throw the ECU on and see what happened...
Considering the fuel system had been depressurised for a week and the system was 'empty', it actually started pretty quickly and idled quite nicely. A little low but that can be easily sorted I suspect. Now, we had an ok idle last time out so the big test was whether it would idle AND rev.
It revs like a beast! Loves to rev! Whips round to the rev limiter much quicker than expected. I did wonder if this engine might be a bit low compression as it has flat top pistons and I should have measured the head height (got too excited and forgot, will get the compression measured/right for engine 2) before it went back on... but then the 'Cup' engine had flat top pistons so perhaps this head had a heavy skim to get the CR up?
At least the timing seems good or not obviously wrong. I have a vernier pulley but, again, maybe that will be saved for engine 2 and my lumpy cam.
Now, it did cut out after a few trips up the rev counter as it seemed to want to go back to an even lower idle but the radiator wasn't in (no cooling beyond oil - wasn't run long) so who knows what the temp sensors etc thought and it was idling low when cold anyway (maybe not a surprise if it was set up for the old roller head).
So, what was the problem last week? I am not sure we will find out as I swapped so much out but I did find another loom plug (green oil temp sensor, side of the head, but could be water) that was a bit worn and may have been shorting, so applied some loom tape.
Still tempted to pull the whole engine loom off and go through it wire-by-wire but with no obvious issues today I doubt there is a major electrical issue hiding.
Parts fixed/changed since last fire up:
Next job is to get a radiator in and see if it continues running nicely or even better. I might actually circulate some water without the top hose connected to make sure all that white 'stuff' from when the HG went has been flushed out. I don't want to block a new radiator or leave it in there to sit in the thermostat or elsewhere.
After that... The inlet comes back off yet again! Need to get the access to the steering rack back.
In the meantime, I'll see if I can find some complete headlight looms etc to try and sort those rat's nests out. I'll then rebuild the rack with the Quaife quick rack kit and get it all back together.
Once that is done... we're 'close' to final touches and getting it on the road. At that point it will be a rolling restoration, I think. I have learned from this that unless a project has a good size garage - you have to keep 'em moving and running and do updates/repairs when the weather is good!
So, bit of a quiet week while I waited on the injectors to return, which they did. Good service by EFI Parts during COVID.
All injectors look well matched for flowrate and functioning nicely. The Rallye ones needed the service, by the looks of things. Wonder if that's why the supposedly new liners in the spare 'Cup' engine look so black and sooty and the engine wasn't in a car? The injectors weren't fueling correctly and were stuck open, perhaps. Or closed but soot suggests too much fuel.
Rallye - Weber iw 052 (brown) 140cc at 3bar:
XSi - Bosch 703 (blue/green) 149.2cc at 3bar (the ones in the car):
All injectors tend to be a couple of cc/min over book spec (~+2%) but that's no issue at all and probably within the flowrate measurement error.
Fuel rail going back together:
So, how we started the day:
Progress:
Buttoned back up:
Now, that should have probably been 30-60mins work but... something always has to go wrong!
The old fuel filter hose ('top'/out end) really, really didn't want to be parted from the fuel filter. Destroyed about 10mm of the hose to get it off but there was just about enough left with enough access to get the new filter tightened onto a 'good bit'. I'd obviously replace that section of hose in it's entirety but laying on the floor, with the car on jacks - I just didn't have the access or visibility. No leaks though and clearly the V-Power is flowing nicely.
New battery has still not arrived so some jump leads were thrown over to the Q3 and the engine spun over a few times without the ECU connected to make sure everything was behaving as it should. No issues there at all so I decided to throw the ECU on and see what happened...
Considering the fuel system had been depressurised for a week and the system was 'empty', it actually started pretty quickly and idled quite nicely. A little low but that can be easily sorted I suspect. Now, we had an ok idle last time out so the big test was whether it would idle AND rev.
It revs like a beast! Loves to rev! Whips round to the rev limiter much quicker than expected. I did wonder if this engine might be a bit low compression as it has flat top pistons and I should have measured the head height (got too excited and forgot, will get the compression measured/right for engine 2) before it went back on... but then the 'Cup' engine had flat top pistons so perhaps this head had a heavy skim to get the CR up?
At least the timing seems good or not obviously wrong. I have a vernier pulley but, again, maybe that will be saved for engine 2 and my lumpy cam.
Now, it did cut out after a few trips up the rev counter as it seemed to want to go back to an even lower idle but the radiator wasn't in (no cooling beyond oil - wasn't run long) so who knows what the temp sensors etc thought and it was idling low when cold anyway (maybe not a surprise if it was set up for the old roller head).
So, what was the problem last week? I am not sure we will find out as I swapped so much out but I did find another loom plug (green oil temp sensor, side of the head, but could be water) that was a bit worn and may have been shorting, so applied some loom tape.
Still tempted to pull the whole engine loom off and go through it wire-by-wire but with no obvious issues today I doubt there is a major electrical issue hiding.
Parts fixed/changed since last fire up:
- New fuel filter - old one looked nasty and the car seemed to be struggling to get fuel
- New 2.5bar fuel pressure regulator (FPR) - old one was found to be 3bar
- New sections of fuel hose - they were ugly
- 4 x refurbished fuel injectors - also looked a bit ugly and may have been a fueling problem
- 2 x fixed engine loom sensor plugs - worn through, possibly shorting or not reading correctly
- New ambient air temp sensor - looked old, might as well for <£10
- New idle control valve - looked minging, found one years ago for a reasonable price (they're not cheap)
- Spare airbox with a standard filter in it - the old one didn't have the airbox and the top section clips were broken with a Piper-X zip-tied in
- Cleaned breather hoses - they were a bit skanky
Next job is to get a radiator in and see if it continues running nicely or even better. I might actually circulate some water without the top hose connected to make sure all that white 'stuff' from when the HG went has been flushed out. I don't want to block a new radiator or leave it in there to sit in the thermostat or elsewhere.
After that... The inlet comes back off yet again! Need to get the access to the steering rack back.
In the meantime, I'll see if I can find some complete headlight looms etc to try and sort those rat's nests out. I'll then rebuild the rack with the Quaife quick rack kit and get it all back together.
Once that is done... we're 'close' to final touches and getting it on the road. At that point it will be a rolling restoration, I think. I have learned from this that unless a project has a good size garage - you have to keep 'em moving and running and do updates/repairs when the weather is good!
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