Chronicles of a Lemons Daytona (Page 4 of 9)

Part 13 - Turbo Puzzles

So in my continuing push to get ready for monticello, we decided to put in one of the 2.2 engines we've never run. I opened the bottom end of the 2.5, and it's just on the edge of needing the crank turned. Since I had a rebuilt/refreshed 2.2 sitting under the work bench, it made more sense to just throw that in, and rebuild the 2.5 as the monticello spare. This however presented some problems. Mainly with the turbo, since we broke the Mitsubishi that had been on the 2.5. My reserves now consist of 2 TII garrets that are shot (but could be built into one good one if i could get them apart), and 2 TI garrets that came with the charger. Well, how hard can it be to convert a TI to a TII setup?

The answer is not hard at all, if you bother to read all the instructions before you dive in like a lunatic. (reference to the first page, this is one of those times it makes sense to be an engineer, and not go all redneck swap happy). Here's a list of what you have to do when adapting a TI to a TII. Below is a picture of a TI turbo. It has an EGR system that needs to be removed, it has a 90 degree neck on the intake that has to be changed, the mounting flange needs to be trimmed to clear the TII style intake, and the outlet of the compressor side is pointed up (when mounted) that needs to be rotated to point forward.

So, how you're supposed to address these and how I addressed them. The EGR is easy. On the compressor side you're just removing the valve assembly when you remove the 90 degree inlet. On the hot side you remove the tube, then have to plug the hole. Again, easy, I just ordered a cap to plug the hole.

The 90 degree inlet is also easy, just 3 bolts and off it comes. Online finds me a $20 adapter that will bolt on and allow for the TII airbox hose to attach.

The mounting flange is easily trimmed with a dremel and some time. It just has to be notched as shown below.

Now the clocking of the compressor housing. I read a forum post that said to just re-clock it. Now, one of the differences between TI and TII, as illustrated below, is that the TI uses the wastegate can as one of the plates holding the compressor housing on. The TII does not. Obviously the answer is to just rotate one hole worth so the wastegate can just bolts up like normal. So that's what we did. Looked right on the engine, and we moved on. Bolt on some TI oil and water lines and go install an engine.

I should have known when the engine went in easier than it's ever gone in before that something was bound to go wrong....
Sure enough, we get the engine in, and then notice just where the compressor outlet is pointed...

Brilliant. Go search the internet and you'll find that you're really supposed to rotate the housing about half as far as i did, and then drill a new hole in the wastgate can and mount it that way. Great. With my help for the day gone, i wasn't about to pull the engine again just for that. So I set about re-clocking the housing with the engine in the car. This is a terrible job, but amazingly possible. You're able to reach half the bolts from under the car, and half from above if you somehow snake your hands down behind the intake manifold. This is what the view of the turbo looks like with everything installed.

I ended my work yesterday around 3 after getting the turbo compressor housing pointed in the right direction and bolted back down.

With most of my upcoming weekends booked up, my list to complete for Monticello looks like this:

- replace fuel lines
- finish buttoning up engine
- install oil cooler
- install switch plate with basic functionality
- finish addressing rear brakes
- relocate battery
- clean up the inside of the car

Got a bunch done this weekend, but the only really exciting one was finally mounting the switch panel. Just have to wire it all up now.

AN fittings and line arrive tuesday and I can start installing the oil cooler.

reverse lock out. When we bought the car the stock shift knob was long gone, and along with it whatever lift ring was originally attached to the lock out. So we threw a brake lever and cable on it and now you pull the lever to get into reverse.

here's a full view from when i first installed it back before even the interior was stripped.

Part 14 - Electrical woes in the land of Monticello

Monticello was probably my least prepped race to date. Maybe second to stafford. The car didn't start until wednesday just before the race. It had been a mad scramble to get all the new things added to the car. The oil cooler, the new water temp gauge, the switch panel, new oil pressure sender, the new boost controller, and just general engine assembly. Thursday morning I still wasn't packed, but too late. Dad showed up with the trailer, we loaded everything up, and off we went.

We got to Monticello NY around 5:30pm and checked into the spectacular Super 8 hotel. The parking lot was long and skinny, and no way to go around the building. So a many point turn later the trailer was on the grass on the edge of the parking lot and we settled in making the last few wires for the car.

6am Friday morning we got up, ate a pitiful breakfast in the lobby, and headed to the track entrance. After a short wait to check in, we were on our way to our assigned slot in the lot near the club house. Parked between the J-team and the Roto-racers with their merkur xr4ti (fantastic neighbors by the way). We wasted the day installing last minute gauges, installing radios, taking 3 times to get through tech because our battery wasn't fastened down as tight as they wanted. Fixed that with some bent sheet metal.

Saturday brought the same early morning, crappy breakfast, and track arrival time. Last minute tweaks to the car and before i realized it the driver's meeting was done and I was being strapped into the car and waiting to head towards the track entrance. I rolled onto the track, accelerated out of the cold pits and listened to the turbo spool and scream. That sound never gets old. The boost was hitting just over 10psi, so a few adjustments were made as I followed the car ahead of me onto and down the back straight. Down to 9psi, perfect. I knew 6psi to be safe from Loudon in October, but it's also slow. A little more power felt good. Coming through the kink the first time was terrifying. You cannot see the track from inside the daytona all the way through turn 15. You just point and pray you got it right.

the pace car

Cresting the hill coming to turn 17 the car died. Great. I assumed it had just had a minor hickup and tried cranking it as I rolled down the hill. Nothing. Crap. Key off, kill switch off, try and reset everything. No good. I pulled onto the grass and kept trying to get the car started again. no good. Further up the track a BMW pulled onto the grass, apparently also dead. Eventually a truck showed up to tow me off the track. At Lemons HQ Jay greeted me with a "what happened?!" "no idea, it just died."

Back at the pits I got my helmet off, jumped back in the car, turned the key to depressing silence. The normal sound of a loud fuel pump was nonexistent. And so began the day long search for what went wrong. We've never had electrical problems, everything has always been mechanical. But now we were faced with something brand new. First step, prove the pump was really dead, or just not getting power. So we traced the wires coming off it, found power, cut it and ran a new line off the switch panel to give manual control of the pump. Flip the switch, and the glorious sound of a working pump was our reward.

But cranking the car proved that we had not found the real problem. The car had no spark, and no injector pulse. The computer was throwing a code 11 (no signal form distributor). Some digging and two distributor swaps led us to the ASD relay, which controls power to all fuel and ignition systems. And down the rabbit hole we went. The whole day was spend chasing wires and  shorts. It's a long story, but the summary is this. When I connected the O2 sensor, I didn't make sure all the slack in the harness was tied up. So as I was lapping the opening lap the wire bundle melted against the turbo outlet. That shorted out the power circuit out of the ASD relay and make sure the fuel and ignition systems went down.

But we screwed ourselves and added to the problem while trying to trouble shoot the fuel pump. We tried a few things direct jumping the ASD relay and other tricks suggested from google searches to get the pump to run. One of them managed to blow out a fuselink. So, 8 hours of tracing and wire loom disassembly later we had found both problems finally, and figured out how to fix them. Around 6pm, to cheers from neighboring teams, the car fired up. Some celebretory beers later and we were cleaned up and went to find some dinner.

I wish I could say that was the end of our troubles. We took the green on Sunday  but only two laps in the car started in on even new problems. It started randomly stuttering, hesitating, and even stalling on gear changes. It would buck like it was trying to die and was constantly being roll started. You'd throw the clutch in, floor it, and suddenly it would come back. It was clearly wrong. Bringing the car in we once again started troubleshooting. We found that the car wasn't reading throttle position quite right. WOT was fine, but somewhere in the middle it would just stumble and refuse to rev. We ended up replacing the throttle body, and that seemed to fix it. So we sent the next driver out.

Everything seemed good from there. The car was running the best we've ever seen it. It would stumble once and a while, but 95% of the time it was perfect. The increased boost was awesome, and the car would actually pull down the straights. We were walking fox bodies on straights, and generally holding our own in the middle of the pack. The car was generally hilarious to drive. Wallowing around the corners, picking up the inside rear tire, dancing through the fast corners, and finally rewarding on the straights.

I came in after my stint with a low front left tire. We filled it, but the next driver change it was low again, so we changed to the backup tires. Everything seemed to be finally going our way. we were climbing the bottom of the standings, and holding consistent lap times. Then, at 4:10 my driver called in "temps spiked, i'm coming in." In the course of a lap the temps went from the ~190* they had been at all day to 240*. Something failed. we let it cool a little, made sure the cooling system was full, and tried to crank it over to let it cool further, only to see the upper radiator hose sucking itself flat. on top of that there was a knock from the engine. We called it a day and packed up.

A long ride home and a couple days rest later I can say this was one of the more frustrating but fun races I've done thus far. Saturday was infuriating dealing with electrical issues, and then realizing just what the failure was. But getting to run on sunday was just the most fun i've had in a long time. The car is truly hilarious to drive. And now we start the process all over again. One month to go till Loudon Annoying.

It was nice chatting with you while I was visiting the Mekur team.  (I had the old yellow Schwinn bike)

I hope you get it to come together for a full race.  You've certainly worked your ass off for it!

I was watching the video of Glickenhaus leading what I think was the first parade lap at the beginning of the race and IIRC at some point he passes your car with 4 wheels off.  Did I imagine this, and if not how did it happen?

Now I can find oil leaks faster! 

hooray for added features!

You might as well carry that paint scheme over to everything on the car.

This is one of the most brilliant threads I have ever read on any board ever.  You, sir, are some sort of idiot savant and I applaud your ridiculousness.

That would be cool. For extra nerd points, you could turn it into a 3D representation of the four-color map theorem.