"Winter" tires

For some time now I wanted to switch to 13" tires. My favourite rims are the KN Jupiter, quite an old design but looking good. When I bought them, I didn't pay attention to the bolt scheme and couldn't mount them. I keep them stocked, maybe one day they will end as decoration for a new garage...

My second choice is the classic Minilite style. A good friend sold me a set with Federal tires and I really like the look it gives to my car.
But it is not all about looks! This car type is all about weight to power ratio. Since I don't have a lot of power, weight savings are very welcome. Here we go, let's talk about figures:
What I had on the car until now at the front 195mm 15" Revolution rim 16.9kg
What I had on the car until now at the rear  225mm 15" Revolution rim 18.0kg
What I have now on the car at the front       175mm 13"     Minilite rim 12.2kg
What I have now on the car at the rear        205mm 13"     Minilite rim 14.2kg
Ok, the front tires are quite small and I may opt for 185 or 195 when I switch to semi-slicks, but at least I want to drive the car for test with the Federal tires for some time. Net weight savings:
front 4.7kg per side = 9.4kg
rear  3.8kg per side = 7.6kg
for a total of 17kg
Impressive!
Cheers.

Brake liquid level

Lights set, CO was ok right from the beginning (lambda control seems to work fine), bushing was a tight fit... but it was supposed to be, there was something left called BRAKE FLUID RESERVOIR LIQUID LEVEL INDICATOR CONTROL LIGHT ! To cut a long story short, if they want to check for the level at tech control, the reservoir normally has to be transparent. Since my car has solid aluminium reservoirs, I added a control light for the level indicators. The test button serves to check wether the bulb works or not. Fingers crossed for tech control on Friday!
Cheers.

Tech control prep

Technical control booked for next Friday and still some work to do.
List:
- driving light setting and control of all the bulbs
- control of CO and maybe some mapping to be on the safe side
- cabling of brake reservoir level sensor
- diff mounting bushes ...
... one being worn out beyond repair, I turned a new bushing on the lathe using Nylon. I will fit it this weekend to check and then renew all the other bushings as well.
Cheers.

... and talking about vibrations, AGAIN!

Maybe one of the last indian summer days to drive my Seven was yesterday, but when I started the engine, the needle of my Stack rev counter just broke :-( One more on the list of winter projects.
Cheers.

Rust + vibrations = fracture

Only a frew droplets of coolant on the garage floor and a loose waterpump mounting bolt... but when I wanted to tighten it, it showed that the bolt had broken. Since it is the same bolt used to tense the belt, vibrations may have killed it together with some rust inside the block. I had to use an 'easyout', a conical left drill bit, to get the remainings of the bolt out of the block. An M8 Helicoil repair kit did the rest. Always thrilling to bore into the block. Remount with new gasket and stainless bolt.
Cheers.

Cosmetics

While experimenting with the lambda sensor, I had more or less tinkered an adaptor to the old exhaust. Not beautiful, but functional. With a used exhaust offered from a friend, I took the opportunity to change for a permanent installation. It's an original Westfield can, but I had to weld a lambda boss to it and made a few other mods prior to mounting.
The pic shows the close to finished work in comparison with the old exhaust tube. I have to weld the rear support for the can but haven't started the engine yet. Curious to know how it sounds with the new can.
Funny enough, there is a part numbers match between the can and the manifold I purchased four years ago from another seven driver (16521 to be found both on the can and the manifold).
Cheers.

Daytrip

 

Short trip to Lorraine/France, a mere 50km from home but already some vacation feeling.
Cheers.

Feet position

Conversion to floor mounted pedals generated an unwanted drawback: the feet position was not ideal. To hit the pedal as supposed to, I had to heel off. Now I added a small pedestal to allow the ball of the foot to push the pedal at the right height.
Cheers.

Exhaust manifold heat management

The big exhaust manifold produces a lot of heat. Most of it finds its way to the driver's feet and legs. With the narrow body and the gearbox sitting midship, summer drives closely resemble a sauna trip. Adding this panel helps to derive hot air from the engine compartment to the outside. The opening is there since the rebuild and is not original (like so many things on my car). Test drives show improvement, but I'm also tempted to add more heat insulation.
Cheers.

Icecream rest

Shady spot for my old lady while resting with some icecream. Will definitively have to do something about heat management and those 'original' but ugly doors.
Cheers.

Luggage rack

This is the quick 'n dirty rainy Saturday after-noon stick together what remains in your bin. Two pieces of wood (28x4cm), four aluminium rods (48cm) and a little paint... TADA... The old suitcase comes from a flea market in France and will only be strapped on for longer trips.
Cheers.

SSF-Meeting in Luxembourg

A bunch of Simply Seven Forum members met in Luxembourg last weekend. Although the weather was awful with heavy rain during the Saturday ride, the mood was excellent. An expert photographer took pictures and I only slightly blurred the background in above photo taken by Lupo.
Cheers.

Stoned

Roadworks in my area give for a nice backdrop.
Cheers.

Temp sensor - error solved

Still learning ...

Last time I fiddled with the ECU, I was very satisfied with the settings I found. My disappointment was even greater when the engine didn't start last Saturday. Although the engine was cold, the fan ran immediately. I connected the tablet only to read 80°C coolant temp. Out came the multimeter to check the sensor, but it was ok. What else could it be? *scratching head* ...

The Emerald ECU has some features to prevent engine damage. One is to monitor the coolant sensor and switch the fan on regardless of a short or a loose connector. Therefore you can set the above/below thresholds in the coolant sensor calibration menu. A loose connector gives 5.0V, a short will give 0.0V, the settings should then cover everything in between -30°C and +120°C (see graph). My settings were a touch too optimistic with 0.9 and 3.9. The default settings from Emerald are as above, but you still can enter user defined values.

With the adapted values, the error disappeared and the car started. Happy again!

Cheers.

Map switch & Lambda gauge

This little electronics project became bigger than planned, so here is the result: technical layout of gauge, map switch and its display LEDs, plus the housing cut to length.

Followed by assembly and function test for lean and rich...

...and normal on map 1 and map 2...

...and map 3 and rear view.

And a shot from in between.
Next: install it in the car!
Cheers.

Map switch

The map switch will be composed of a 2pole 3position rotary switch and a triple LED status display. I am tempted to put it together with the lambda gauge into a bespoke enclosure. My mechanical skills will decide whether I do so or not.
Cheers.

Lambda practical (epilogue)

With the Emerald rolling road being too far away, I had to learn about mapping and read the manuals, surf the web and ask lots of questions. Especially Karl from Emerald was very helpful and his quick replies prevented me from depression more than once. Mapping an engine on the road is not ideal and I think I only exploit maybe 10% of what the software is able to do. But I'm quite happy with the outcome and will keep the map from last week as a base map for further tweaking. It may be smart to use the map switch for further "upgrades". You can upload up to three different maps and add a rotary switch to choose between them. Above pic shows the needed switch and software configuration.
The plan is to have
- one map to drive around peacefully and do a lot of mpg (l/km)
- one map for fast fun on the road
- one map for MoT
... and find a suitable place for that rotary switch on the dash.
Cheers.

Lambda practical (8)

Sunny weather and some days off meant I had time to spend on more mapping. I was happy with the mpg during the last run, but had some issues when accelerating from lower RPM. A dedicated additional map allows to add fuel during acceleration. Since the whole injection map was a little low, I also trimmed it as shown in above pic (keys 2 and/or 3 to add or retrieve fuel, then hit enter) and added some fuel. I'm quite satisfied with the result and will keep this map for the upcoming blats.
Cheers.

Kent Cams 234 - new old stock

One side project is to assemble a replacement engine. Bought so far:
- cylinder head (used)
- double valve springs (new)
- adjustable duplex camshaft pulley (used)
- duplex timing chain (used)
... and today, a new old stock Kent Cams 234.
Cheers.

Lambda practical (7)

Lousy weather ... still.
The MTX-L lambda controller with integrated gauge now works and is connected to the Emerald ECU. I searched the web for an alternative gauge, but no find. But I found a circuit to build one, so out I went to buy the parts. Compared with the original circuit, I only left out the two supplementary diodes on top. I replaced the individual diodes with arrays to simplify. Now I have to find a suitable enclosure and a place to mount it somewhere in my car.
Cheers.

Lambda practical (6)

Still waiting for the weekend to come, I surf the web and learn how to map. Some people recommend to extend the number of speed sites to get a more accurate and continious control. A right-click on the column cell allows to enter a different value. You have to do this for the whole range i.e. add as much columns as you want to until you reach the system limit. Now comes the great feature: you have to do it only once and all the other tables are updated. The values are interpolated automatically.
In above example I altered the table from 500RPM to 250RPM steps.
Cheers.

Lambda practical (5)

Good weather, cabling all done, timing checked ... here we go !

The AFR target map, as the name suggests, is needed to define which level is expected relative to load (throttle position) and engine speed (RPM). The control mode is set by selecting the cells, the + and - keys are needed to switch between open/closed loop and adaptive. Save this map on your desktop and then transfer it to the ECU.

Requirements to be met are set in the closed loop dialogue. While driving, the live adjustments screen displays all the data on one screen. You see in which mode the ECU operates and can compare the AFR target with the real AFR actually measured by the lambda sensor.
A short drive proved that the ECU now controls the injection timing relative to the AFR target. Next time I want to check whether the fuel consumption is better now.
Cheers.

Washer

The yearly technical vehicle control gets trickier from year to year. Fella drivers report that you have to prove the screen washer is operational. Well ... I didn't have one. My car has no roof and I rarely drive with diving goggles. But the car got to have one so I bought one during the Techno-Classica in Essen (Germany). It is a repro from Lucas and has a big advantage: the pump is mounted on top of the receptacle and the whole thing can be removed with the bespoke bracket staying in the car. This means I can drive around without it all year and only mount it for the tech test. Just a little electrics to be done and a small water hose from the pump to the jet.
Cheers.

Techno-Classica Essen (Germany)

As every year, I'll be at the Techno-Classica in Essen (Germany) tomorrow. The german forum Seven-IG will have a stand in hall 1A (place 130) and display several cars. See you there.
Cheers.

Fusebox inlay

While working on the car, I became aware that I didn't tag the fuses. The relays are large enough to put a sticker on, but how to do with the small blades? I made this simple inlay with Microsoft Paint to cut out and next time I will put it inside the fusebox.
Cheers.

Lambda practical (4)

As Karl from Emerald predicted, the settings were all over the place ... for whatever reason. To exclude one possible troublemaker, I inserted a 100 Ohm resistor in line with the lambda signal from the Innovate controller. The Hella timing light didn't work anymore, after a quick jump to one of my favourite tool providers I came back with this Gunson Xenon Timing Light. Works!

Then I started to reconfigure all the settings. Some of them are easily made, others have to be calculated, like the distance in degrees between crank position sensor, missing tooth and 0° timing mark.

This value is then entered into the 'crank sensor options' menu. Once the engine was running with the correct data, I checked the timing with the timing light. The 80° setting gave 0° on tickover.

To do the settings, I use a Terra Windows tablet with a Keysonic keyboard. This gives me the flexibility to display the live readings when I drive around combined with a keyboard to enter data comfortably. One of the disadvantages of the Emerald is that values have to be altered in different ways (arrows, keys or directly through a keyboard). This makes a keyboard almost essential. The 9pin connector now feeds data to the tablet through an angled metal housing.
Lambda reading works, but I have to wait for better weather to drive around and do some more settings.
Cheers.