Sparky's winter/spring/summer/autumn work

Richard, I wonder how you are arriving at your 111 degrees ?

Hi Mark, I have marked out 80, 90 and 100 degrees with a pen on the degree wheel, then turned the engine clockwise until it gets to 80. Set the dial gauge to zero, then slowly turn the engine clockwise and watch as the dial rises and returns to zero. If I went past zero, I turned it back 10 degrees or so to enable me to come up to zero again. Note the angle on the degree wheel, add it to 80 and divide by two. The last ones I checked, it came to rest at 142, so 142+80/2 = 111. I also marked out 142 and wrote "80" under it, "90" under 132 etc.

I then check it at 90, hoping to come to rest at 132, and again at 100 looking for 122.

I am convinced it isn't my maths, it was the difficulty in locating the dial gauge and making it secure during the test. I couldn't even sit it on the baffle plate and use the dial on the end of the rocker, as there was no oil in the follower.

Last time I checked the cam timing was when I fitted the EFI 5 years ago, and I just sat the gauge on the rocker.

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Hi Richard
I just wanted to make you aware of MOP if you didn't know. If you don't have a very 'pointy' camshaft then the DTI can stay still for quite a while as you go over full lift. The cam timing specified by the manufacturer will usually be based on MOP unless stated otherwise.
It is a pain having the gauge so far away, but you can buy extension spindles.
 
I'm not measuring it again :p

I was not aware of MOP to be honest, but talking to V8D after I had done it, they said they usually turn the motor to 100, then set the dial gauge and watch it go up and down again, then the angle is between the two points, so exactly as I did but only from 100. I measured from 100, then 90, then 80 as well to be sure.

I am happy it's correct now with the glued together adapter, I just to get the bits apart now :)
 
It'll go well enough, you would have to be Lewis Hamilton to notice 1 or 2 degrees either way.

Now you've got your eye in I have a Lotus Twincam here you can time up, I'll book you a therapy session for after you're done !
 
Head gasket turned up so head back on, rocker gear including a 15 thou shim under each pedestal. I marked up the valves so I didn't have to keep working out which was which.

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I then turned the engine until a follower hit its full height and adjusted the opposite valve, e.g. if exh 1 was open I adjusted 6 exh. some of them were just right with the pushrod fully closed,

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but I did ensure that I could get the 43 thou wire in without any free play, and also checked with the 60 thou wire and this was just far too thick on any of them

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After adjusting I just ticked it so I wouldn't miss any, then went onto the next one

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I did occur to me, too late as usual, that if I just lifted the pedestals and slipped a 1mm spacer (40 thou) under then set all preloads to zero, when the 40 thou spacer was replaced by the 15 thou one, I would have 25 thou x 1.6 i.e 40 thou preload on all of them. Never mind, I haven't actually done this before so a good experience and I have to say that I found adjustable pushrods a whole lot easier than shims.

Now the sump, I placed the sump on a flat table with a torch inside and found that it wasn't quite flat.

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After a severe beating it did get quite a bit better, but still not quite 100% so I ended up lying the new cork gasket on the table, then applying some RTV silicone to the sump sat the sump on the gasket and left it for a few days. Now I have a perfect fitting sump bonded firmly to a table :confused:

After some careful prising I did manage to get it off, and was left with a completely flat gasket on the top, and the RTV filling any minor imperfections below, perfect :)

I carefully trimmed up the ends of the timing gear gasket and T rubbers at the back to get a fully flat surface, then just ran a fine bead of RTV along the joints. Then with a fine smear of Stag Wellseal, sump on and start fitting the bolts.

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For the longer ones at the back, and others across the front. I used some of the purple threadlock (Screwlock) to ensure they don't wiggle loose. If you look down into the threads of the three on each side however, you can see the crossbolt, and it's been known that oil can seep through into this space and then drip out of the sump bolt, so for these I used a liberal coating of the Stag Wellseal as apparently it does make an excellent thread sealer.

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That bit finished :) it is so much easier to turn the motor upside down to do these bits :cool:
 
Inlet mani on, I have taped up the holes now to stop anything falling in there.

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I could actually drop the motor back in now, but there's a problem. When I stripped it down I noticed the exhaust gaskets has a lot of black on them, showing they were covering the ports by quite a large amount.

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A couple of them were actually blowing in the corners

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So, as the engine is out and easy to get to, let's see what they are actually covering. I turned the engine over 45 degrees and then using the piece of card the head gaskets came in, I punched out some holes and fitted it over exhaust ports.

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Now it's just a matter of cutting out the holes with a craft knife, using the edges of the port as a guide.

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Just ease it off, put the new gaskets on and ease it back on so I can see what, and how big the problem is.

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Oh dear :oops: I don't know how much difference this would make, but it seems a bit daft to have the heads ported, have a set of tubular manifolds and cover up some of the port.

Difficult to work out how much they are covering the holes in the exhaust manifold as they aren't the best fit. The studs aren't in any way central and the manifold has to be forced on to fit, so it won't work just placing them on the manifold

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So, I thought I would just spray some glue onto the card, and fit the manifold to the head, let the glue set and pull the lot off which will show exactly where they fit - easy peasy :)

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Thankfully they were very close - this shows where they sit as opposed to the head, and apart from an overlap of around 2mm on one of them,(which was attacked by a passing Dremel :) ) none of them are a problem at all.

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The head therefore matched the mani very well, lucky considering the lack of centralisation of the studs, but the gaskets are terrible. I know the P6 didn't use gaskets but these are after market manifolds so after some thought, I did decide on using them but they needed to be modified.

I had marked them with a permanent marker when behind the cardboard, and then clamped them between a couple of bits of angle iron to stop them ripping apart when altered with a dremel, just leaving the marked bit sticking out.

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Surprisingly easy to trim them up, but it did take a while as there are four of them and three sides had to be done on most of them.

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They fit a whole lot better, I have numbered them in case I take them off and get them mixed up, although I doubt it, they can stay there now. I will be looking very carefully at the corners when fitting the manifolds, don't want them blowing again. If they do, I may try it without them or maybe get some material and make a set to fit. Hopefully I won't have to do that.

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Right, what's next, oh yes there's two of these so us lucky V8 owners get to do the whole job again on the other side :rolleyes:
 
Something you could do.
In many readings on exhaust tuning, I came across this .....
To promote cylinder scavenging and limit the amount of inlet charge being forced out of the cylinder by a returning exhaust pulse a cunning step is required....
A returning exhaust pulse travels back up the header toward the head, when it gets to the curve of the header near the head the pulse is forced to the outside of the curve - the top of the exhaust port. In order to stop it heading straight into the head there should be a small step at the manifold / head join. The exhaust pipe needs to be larger than the head by a small amount JUST at the top of the pipe flange only.
The returning pulse hits the step and is stopped from going back to the valve.
I would do this when my manifolds come off next.
 
Something you could do.

That sounds a little involved for the moment TBH :), very interesting though. I don't too much about exhaust tuning, but I did know that Sparky's original set up wasn't very good, with the tubular 4 into 1 headers running through a home made y piece and into the original back end. I took it into town to an exhaust guru and he did a few calculations and designed and built a stainless steel system for a fair bit less than I could get an original system for, and it did make a difference in the feel of the car.
 
Yes, I thought interesting too.
Now you have pipe matched all you would need to do would be to draw across the top of your exhaust flange with a sharpie and cut across with a die grinder.
I would be good to see you put Sparky on the rollers after all these works.
 
Off the stand now, ready to go back in

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During the stripdown I manage to get oil on the clutch plate, so gave it a good clean with some brake cleaner, a thorough drying with a cloth, then brake cleaner again. Then thought better of it and bought a new one.

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The clutch cover and flywheel were both balanced so had to be fitted matching up the paint marks.

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The gearbox hasn't been touched so I just checked the oil level which was spot on, and still nice and red, which I'm very happy about :) as I rebuilt it about 10 years ago.

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Bolted it back onto the engine, positioned the crane in front of the car, exciting times :) but then this

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The wire had come away from the reversing light switch, so that had to come off, good clean up and soldered back on. Ready again then, and as I am doing this on my own I have one of these balancing bar thingies to tilt the motor when I want to.

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Two problems with this thingy though, when you need it to tilt the handle hits the jib of the crane, so I had to stop with the engine hanging over the car and remove the handle, find a nut of the right size and use a socket instead.

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It did work well though when I lowered it into the engine bay - although because of the custom propshaft I had to stop at this point and place a jack under the rear of the gearbox, to lift the remote above it. It's a one piece prop so won't drop down when disconnected.

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Second problem with the balance bar, was that using it caused a large amount of the paint to come off, luckily I had covered the intake manifold :)

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So, engine in, exhaust manifolds on, speedo cable attached, reversing lights connected, earth wire on, power steering pump in correct position with drive belt on, oil filter on, oil pump wires on, oil in sump, clutch slave refitted and working, lower flywheel cover plate fitted with new bolts as they were mismatched and two of them were missing.

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Just need to finish fitting the rear mount, connect the prop and exhaust then the underside is finished :)
 
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Almost there! Looking very clean and tidy as always, can't wait to hear what it feels like from the driver's seat :thumb:
 
Something you could do.
In many readings on exhaust tuning, I came across this .....
To promote cylinder scavenging and limit the amount of inlet charge being forced out of the cylinder by a returning exhaust pulse a cunning step is required....
A returning exhaust pulse travels back up the header toward the head, when it gets to the curve of the header near the head the pulse is forced to the outside of the curve - the top of the exhaust port. In order to stop it heading straight into the head there should be a small step at the manifold / head join. The exhaust pipe needs to be larger than the head by a small amount JUST at the top of the pipe flange only.
The returning pulse hits the step and is stopped from going back to the valve.
I would do this when my manifolds come off next.
Mmmmm, I'd heard of anti reversion steps before, but not that they are only at the top of the manifold(ie. the outboard radius)...
Learned something new today.
Winner!!
 
Gearbox mount back together and bolted up into place, prop on, starter motor on and wired, exhaust on and angle correctly, so all done under there :)

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Spent too much time getting the crank sensor lined up, I need an angle grinder to make that easier, but then found I couldn't get the fan belt on anyway, so it had to come off again :(. The next job had to be refitting the alternator bracket, the alternator itself, and fan pulley and belt. Luckily prior to fitting that lot, I was bright enough to refit the power steering pump. The hoses were still on as I didn't remove them.

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Sparky doesn't have a conventional dizzy, he has one of these known as a dinky dizzy. It's basically the bottom end of a distributor used solely to drive the oil pump. Trouble is, that it fits under the bracketry for the coil packs so has to go in prior to fitting them.

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I made up a pump spinner by tapping a 3/8" drive into a short piece of pipe and popping it in the drill. I really want to be doing this later on, but I have no choice but to do it now.

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It span up immediately pushing oil out of the rocker shafts in a few seconds, so happy with that. I will be spinning the motor without spark plugs prior to start the engine, to make sure I have oil pressure built up, but I can't see any problem with that.

Off the ramps and back on the floor for the first time in a while - don't run off Sparky, you're not all there yet :cool: - I pushed him back and forth a few times to get the wheels sitting correctly

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Gear stick and interior all refitted - could do with a bit of a clean in there

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In the engine bay, I have managed to get the fuel rail on, with the new two hole injectors.

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Rocker covers now on properly, they are just placed there to stop anything falling in there in earlier posts, and I have now started to thread the EFI wiring loom and heater hoses on to the top of the motor.

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Nearly there :)
 
The engine is cleaner than the interior:thumb::D Those rocker covers look lovely.

I notice you have the fuel rail temp sensor in place, do you have that connected to the MS at all? I have never bothered, but thought it might be interesting to log fuel rail temps.
 
Cheers Jamie, took a while to get the covers right, but luckily I had plenty of time so could let the paint dry thoroughly before sanding the top off.

The fuel temp isn't connected, it was on there when I got the system and I'm not quite sure how to remove it.

Not sure quite how much difference the modifications are going to make the the fuel map, but it should be interesting to watch and adjust it during the 20 minute scary bit :)
 
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