1st October 2006

STARTING THE NEW ENGINE

Good News!

This is just a quick update to let you know the engine is now running. I will do a full update soon. In the pic below you can see that it is all back together now and this photo was taken just after I shut the engine off. The air filter was just connected like that to get the engine running, normally it would be down inside the side pod.

Full update coming soon!

I'm mad busy getting the car ready for its first MOT which is due this month. I want to get some miles on the engine before then.

9th October 2006 

A SMALL SET-BACK

After starting the engine for the first time last Sunday I ran it again on Tuesday to bring it up to full temperature and then let it cool down to check over everything. Just before I shut it down I could hear a small missfire from the engine and I could also hear it through the air filter. I shut the engine down to investigate. There was a small pool of oil under the engine which upon further investigation was found to be coming from the right hand cylinder head gasket. I had no choice but to remove the head to investigate the cause of the problem.

The problem was that the head gasket had not sealed completely around the valve relief area of the head. It was missing the small compression area of the copper head gaskets.

New head gaskets have since been fitted and I am awaiting the arrival of new inlet and exhaust gaskets.

In the pic below you can see that one of the heads have been removed.

2nd Problem

Apart from the head gasket problem I had another small problem with the ECU software. I spoke to the guys at Holley and they say that downloading the latest software off the Holley website should sort out the problem. The problem was that whilst the engine was running with both the fuel map and spark map open, the highlighted cell that shows you what figures the engine is using was leaving a trail of highlighted cells behind it so in the end you could not see which cell was in use.

Apart from these two problems the engine seemed to be running OK. Oil pressure was good and ignition was fine. Both the O2 sensors were working fine and gave the same air to fuel ratios.

Prior to starting the engine the it was primed using the tool below which is put in place of the distributor and then driven by a drill. The end of the tool engages into the oil pump drive which is normally driven by the distributor. The blue ally part on the right allows the lifter gallery to be primed as well as the main oil gallery.

One of the last jobs to be done before the engine start was to fit the blow off valve or dump valve. In the pic below I am ready to weld the blow off valve adapter into one of the induction tubes. Both were polished before welding.

In the pic below the two have been welded together and the blow off valve fitted.

So while I'm waiting for the new gaskets I will finished other jobs on the car. Next is to fit a new pair of headlamp covers. One of the original ones was cracked and the other had come loose, so I decided to fit a new pair. I will try and fit those on Friday. I will  also fit the aeroscreen and side screens back on the car before the MOT. The air filter also needs some work to fix it in place.

As soon as the car is running I will be taking it to the local rolling road to do some mapping before the MOT. After that I will put some miles on the egine and then do some more mapping further up th rev range.

More updates coming soon!