JohnK

Back when I started reading the UK Se7ens list I couldn't help but see that the Rover was a very attractive unit. Very light, loves to rev, sounds great, lots of uprating parts, and very much in the spirit of the Se7en. I envy you having that setup. I took the conservative/sensible (read,cowardly) route with the S2000 engine. I was in a position to build up a Zetec (which is more like the Rover than the Honda) and tune it properly; had access to a machine shop with machinist I could work with, a dyno and over a year's very successful experience working with electronic engine management systems. Then I saw a car with the S2000 engine - 240 HP and a 6-speed that the Honda engineers had matched to the power curve of the engine. I realized it could take me a huge amount of time as well as money to get that much power and anywhere near the drivability, and then I had to guess at matching the ratios of a pretty expensive transmission to what I would build - and decided I probably didn't have enough time left to accomplish all that and get it all right. The downside, beyond this engine's being heavy is that it's tall - it's ideal if you put it behind you, but then it wouldn't be a Se7en. I'm thinking of converting to Hinduism so that I can come back (reincarnate) and get started on my Se7en sooner in my next lifetime ;-) . Congrats on your choice and acquisition of the Rover and the Caterham trans. Cheers,

My 2 cents worth - 2004 S2000 engine and trans, both dry, no manifold 405lbs on 3 bathroom scales ( not accuracy certified !) While I'm pretty fond of Honda engineering that Caterham ( which Ford ?) and 6-speed of yellowss7's is pretty attractive, not to mention LIGHT. Cheers,

Brian, What you are going through is exactly what a bunch of Superformance S1 owners experienced. These cars came with a Webcon system (Weber throttle bodies and Alpha (Magnetti Marelli) computer) They came from the UK with the calibration specific for these engines (the Mondeo in England / the US Focus). They had stock and an uprated calibrations for two different engine configurations. Both calibrations ran AWFUL. However, because most of them were stock level configurations, they weren't so touchy - as you seem to understand, the more highly tuned the engine, the touchier it will be and the more extreme any problems will be; i.e., terrible drivability. I had the problem of tuning cars with this system dropped in my lap - figuring out the software, how to use the dyno, what to change in the calibration, how to develop a test protocol . . . I happened to have the right collection of skills and a great deal of luck and I got it to work before I was thrown out of the shop for making too much noise and taking too long. It was really challenging Most relavant to your situation is that the calibration that I came up with was very very different than what the car was delivered with. I even spoke with the Webcon people (talk about an expensive phone call, at 3AM no less). They expressed considerable disbelief that their calibration was so far off. From what I learned, the tuning shops in England (unlike what I've seen in the US) are set up to do this kind of tuning and the tuners there really do understand the problem of howto get great drivability using an elextronic EMS- everything I learned convinced me that they know their business. So then, why doesn't their calibration work here? No one ever came up with an adequate explanation. But the fact was that the calibration they developed in England did not run here. The Webcon system was capable of delivering pretty remarkable performance from a stock engine when a good calibration had been developed - ask S1Steve about his experience at Pocono. The person I spoke of in my earlier post drove down from Philly to have me tune his car as a result of driving his hotted-up S1 on the track with S1Steve and seeing how S1Steve's car ran compared to his. He had the uprated engine and was amazed to see how far off his fuel was when we put it on the dyno - and he had built racing engines. If you're running the Ford ECU, it expects all the pieces to be of a particular set: the injectors, the MAF, the idle air control, the ignition control unit, ... IDENTICAL for the ECU's hardware and firmware. The Ford system calculates, based on how many pounds of air are coming into the engine at the relavant instant, what the RPM is, what the trottle position is, what the throttle's angular velocity is, what the coolant temerature is, what the incoming air temperature is - and uses that information to calculate on a per-cylinder basis, how much fuel to deliver into the cylinder that's next to fire and at what degree BTDC to fire the spark. This happens for each cylinder all the while the engine is running. If any one of the components is not part of the correct set, the calculation will be wrong. I said this system, unlike any other, is adaptable. Since it is a real time system, since it is using the pounds of air entering the engine instant by instant, and since it uses an alorithm, it doesn't care about whether there's an air filter in the induction or not, just how much air is available at the instant. I may not even care what the cam profile is if it's not too extreme. Within the limits imposed by the size of the injectors, you can get more power out of the system by improving things such as induction flow. But, this whole thing depends on all the parts of the Engine Managment System being a matched set. A first guess is that getting the system to run well may be best done by making sure that the complete EMS has all correct and orignial spec components. This could be difficult but offers the greatest payoff - you should get really excelle

Brad, I've worked with a number of Zetec engines and several different engine management systems. I used a (self) modified Dynojet for the work. The first rule is to toss any considerations of max HP and torque out the window. If all you're after is top end power, take up drag racing, and use a carburettor and distributor. The only reason to use a computer controlled engine management system is to give you great drivability - which is mid range torgue. While Dynojet has an attachment that allows tuning in this realm to be done, I've never run across a shop using one. A good start would be to find a shop that uses a Mustang or similar "load bearing" dyno. Then ask them if they can do mid-range tuning. If they say something like "Well, we do full-throttle pulls", look for another shop. I could not follow what your engine management setup is. Basically there are two kinds Table driven (speed density or alpa) and Ford. Table driven systems work only for a given engine configuration - if you take a brand new Camero or Honda or whatever, and put on a K&N air filter, it will run worse because the Table was not programmed for that air flow. Ford systems are adaptive and will actually adjust to changes in the engine configuration as long as you don't touch the set of sensors that came with the stock engine and you don't change the configuration too much. All of the after-market EMSs that I know of are Table driven (Pectel, Webcon, Edelbrock, ...) Some outfits sell chips that plug into the diagnostic port on the back of the Ford ECM and alter the behaviour of the ECM. These work (I have heard) pretty well, IF you've got EXACTLY the engine configuration that the add-on chip was programmed for If you can find someone that understands how to tune an electronic ECM such as a Pectel and has the dyno to do it, you can get superb performance. I'll guess that, if you drove S1Steve's ho-hum stock Zetec you'd be sick to your stomach at how well it performs. I, personally, have seen no examples of shops so far that I think know how to tune an engine - they are out there. Rousch(?sp) knows how, Calloway knows how, ... but none of us can afford these shops. The reason for this is that it takes a ton time, a bunch of equipment, a well-developed protocol and a pretty enormous foundation of knowledge and understanding to develop a calibration (a tune) for an engine. The last Zetec I did, and I've developed tunes for three Zetec engine configurations where I had to start from scratch, turned out pretty well. It took me over 30 hours just getting things "in range." I stopped because the weekend was over and I lost access to the shop. The owner was an old guy with years of dirt-track racing and engine building experience. He took the car out for a bit in the area's twisties and came back with a big smile on his face. He paid me and left, and never even mentioned the dyno sheet or asked about how much power his engine was making. I consider myself a real light-weight in the tuning area, but because I'm a scientist, I understand the fundamentals and the tuning process, and have been able to develop some pretty reasonable calibrations. However, from what I've seen and IMHO, other than the big guys, there don't seem to be any shops out there with dynos that know what they're doing when it comes to electronic EMSs. If the shop is doing runs and looking at the dyno sheets to see what's happening, they don't know what they're doing. If they're looking at fuel curves and completely ignoring the torque curves, and keeping an eye on the knock sensor, then they know what they're doing. If you don't have detailed access to adjusting fuel delivery, you can't develop a tune. Spark is where you get your power, but that's more difficult and more complicated. Well, I did it again. Every time I read something like this or that someone's bought a wide-band A/F sensor and is planning on getting a few more HP out of their car by fiddling with the fuel using their laptop while they're driving around on the street,

Hey, thanks James. I've used Puhn's Brake Handbook to help me design a well-balanced brake system for my car and was very impressed with how compete his work was. I didn't know he'd written one on suspension and will have to add it to my set of references. Cheers,

Suspension tuning is nearly timeless, except when you get into aerodynamics, and I don't know anyone who can afford to do anything significant aerodynamic-wise. All of Carroll Smith's books are gold mines - but don't expect an easy read. Most if his stuff takes much thought and lots of practice in order to get the benefit. Allan Staniforth wrote COMPETITION CAR SUSPENSION. The first time you go through it you think "this is great". After doing suspension tuning for 10 years you re-read it and think "Oh, THATS what he was telling me!" The Milliken and Milliken book available from SAE is an encyclopedia and stuffed with great information (cosmic truths like "slip angle"). It requires some very heavy lifting: you'll need to have the rigor of an engineer to handle the maths as well as the perspective of a scientist to understand what the maths mean. My experience - It was easier getting a masters degree than it was getting to the point where I (think I) understand the basics. The only thing I need now is a race track for development and the reflexes of a 19 year-old so I can get the car to do what it's capable of doing in order to test things like changes in rebound settings. Cheers,

I expect to be here for a while while I finish building my second choice Se7en. Look forward to hearing from you. Cheers,

Sorry for late reply - been away. $1500 would be reasonable given that it is a complete system. For example, I got a call from someone doing a GT40 kit - this would be perfect for such an app, since the harness would fit this rear and crosswise installation. Also, IF you want the stock engine management system, this is worthwhile since it's a turnkey in that regard and will be very well behaved. If you just need an engine, I've seen bare Zetec's for $400, but they were pretty rough. Cheers, John K

I have a complete engine and fuel system from a 2000 Ford Focus ZX3 M/T (the 2.0l DOHC 4-valve engine) that I would like to sell. I got this system to put into a Superformance S1 and to be able to experiment to see how much power I could get from it using an EEC Tuner. I wound up with a different Seven and engine system and would like to sell the engine system. I got a complete car from a local 'yard and dissected out everything that had to do with the engine and fuel systems. For example, I have the components for the PATS including the ignition key, the ECU, the complete (and undamaged) wiring harness and all the bits that went with it like clutch pedal switch and brake pedal switch, the MAF, air box and filter, i.e., the works. The engine includes the exh manifold, catalytic converter and flexible connector to the rest of the exhaust, the clutch and F/W and starter, and the water pump. The fuel tank was removed with pump intact along with the fuel pump controller (returnless fuel system) and all the plumbing connections. The fuel supply and evap lines were cut for removal. All other evap pieces included. Other than the fuel and evap lines and the connection from the wiring harness to the air bag controller, nothing else that was removed was cut. Because Ford connectors can be really difficult to get and can change in mid-model year, I went through all this trouble to ensure that everything needed by the engine and fuel systems with respect to engine management control was correct and intact. The work took 5 days. The car was a daily driver for some salesman making his rounds. Oil change record shows that the car was maintained. Mileage is 50,000. It looked like the owner stuffed the car under something tall, like the rear of a semi. There appeared relatively minor front end damage when I got the car, but its forehead was wrinkled. I was very happy with it's condition happy 'cause none of the mechanicals or electrics were damaged. I finished dissecting the car in March of 2002, squirted oil in each of the cylinders and turned the engine over once. Since then it and its several boxes of components have been covered up and tucked away in the corner of a dry but un-heated garage. I have a bunch of supporting stuff (documentation, diagrams and tuning information) for anyone interested in installing and playing with this system. Cheers, John K Cincinnati, Ohio

A related area - once you've decided on tire size(s) what latitude do you have re rim width? I recall someone noting that a particular tire size he was running could be used with several different rim widths. Is there a standard rule for this or do you trust what the vendor you buy the tire from tells you. And, of course are there difference in behaviour when you run a particular tire size on different rim widths. Cheers, John K Cincinnati PS - Does anyone else find all the the clutter of the "Add Smiley" box annoying when you're trying to compose a msg?

Working . . .

Al, HooRah - another wise soul who avoids Micro$oft - unfortunately one does work at the mercy of the software developers. You don't have to be any kind of a wizard (my training is as a Biologist) to understand how to make your car run well, but it does take a bit of thought and some patience. The computer gives you so much control and makes it so easy to make and observe change, it's actually easier than in the 'good old days'. Me looking back 40 years trying to get my Ducati running and still mystified as to how that old DelOrto worked. Pushed that @#$% motorcycle all over the neighbourhood. I will make a pretty confident guess that all you need to do is find the table that says that it's what the engine reads when the engine's below running temp and bump up the amount of fuel that it delivers in that state. Spitting back out the carbs is typically a sign the engine's not getting enough fuel. The worst you can do here is foul a set of plugs, and from what I've seen, that's not all that likely. Best of luck - at least your Se7en's running - I've got another year or so before mine will be ready to go. Enjoy the Spring and its weather. Cheers, John K >>John K - I am 100% mac-based, so doing my own ECU tuning isn't as easy as it is for some of your PC-based folks. However, I will try and borrow a laptop sometime this year to sit down and do exactly as you say.

Al, Learn your ECU, and what your engine expects. There should be a setup instruction for your throttle bodies from the mfg. This part of tuning is mechanical and, within limits, affects mostly low RPM takeoff. Things have to be really awry here to cause significant problems. The Bosch Automotive Handbook, 5th ed or so, provides a wealth of information in areas areas of ECUs and how engines work. I don't know how many models Pectel makes, but the one I've worked with has a cursor that shows you where you are in any map (spark, fuel, start fuel enrichment, . . .) real time, so you can see and try some things to experiments with what's happening re fuel. If you're not making black smoke when the engine's cold, you're probably pretty lean. You can't hurt your engine by running too rich, although it may cost you a few sets of spark plugs. (the tuner's golden rule: start out rich, plugs are cheaper than pistons) With the flash memory that the Pectel has, you update your calibration as you make changes (read the screen on the laptop and the instruction manual - online help may be sufficient). The work req'd to learn about this is well worth the effort. Without pulling teeth, I got a big lug of a 427 aluminum engine to start cold (40 F) with very little throttle and it would tick over at low RPM - and settle down to a nice idle once warm. It's not rocket science or brain surgery but takes a bit of study. For getting power, THAT is a lot of work and needs a dyno. Cheers, John K

I've read in a number of texts that the procedure that Koni publishes on their website is the approach to sorting out shocks. And it is an approach, not a formula - and probably takes no small amount of practice before you figure out how to tell what's going on. Cheers, John K Cincinnati

It's been a year or so since I"ve been there. Performance may be doing installs of the Nobel. Performance's main expertise has been building V8s from scratch for Cobra replicas (Superformance, same factory that brought you the S1 Se7en clone). The also do installs of the powertrain and deliver a car with a dyno tested engine and as a turnkey driveaway. This is all done for customers from Dynamic Motorsports (also 1G), which sells the rollers (assembled kit less engine and trans). It is a no-no for a kit car seller to deliver a completed car, so Dynamic sells the roller and walks across the yard with the customer to Performance, and Performance works with the customer to spec out an engine and do the install. Performance is pretty accomplished at doing this but Dynamic has used other people as fits their mood. Performance's stock and trade is big V8s. They are pretty competent at doing engine work and putting things together that make sense as a balanced package. I THINK that the Ford V6s that the Nobels run are delivered to Dynamic as finished units and installed only by someone, perhaps Performance. But with respect to engine building or even tuning, I don't think Performance is into that kind of engine. It's a different beast and they don't (since I left) do electronic management systems. Last I heard the Service Manager at Dynamic was a Mike Evangelo who is, in my opinion, very competent. If you're interested in technical issues surrounding the Noble, he's a very good resource. Dynamic as a company is very good at selling, they aren't much into technology.

My experience would point to Crane as the best source. A machinist whome I think is competent had problems fitting Piper cams in the Zetec head due to the base circle being too big. Crane cams seem to go in OK with no problems and they run well. I know of one instance first hand where Esslinger delivered a Zetec with, let's say, "a problem". That instance was bad enough that I would not ever consider them. I have heard that their experience is mostly with the Pinto engine. The Ford ECU is an amazing piece of work and is unique in the industry, but requires a real wizard to modify (the Mustang crowd does it well with an item called the EEC-Tuner). If you don't wind up geting more HP out of the engine than the injectors can support (1HP per hour requires 0.5 lbs of fuel per hour) the ECU should adjust darn near perfectly. If you change ANYTHING that the ECU listens to or talks to, it will not work right. Period. You can fit an aftermarket Engine Management System (Webcon, Emerald, ...) but my experience is that IF you can find a shop with a dyno that knows what they're doing, you can easily spend $1000 getting a reasonable tune. I did this for several Zetecs in three different states of tune. The last one took over 20 hours of dyno time just to get it "OK" (however the owner was amazed at the difference, especially when he had a calibration(tuen) from the factory that was supposed to be spot on). Proceed very cautiously here.

Mike, If you haven't had any luck finding someone to develop your engine, you might try a place called Performance Engineering near Cincinnati. The owner mostly builds Ford v8s for Cobras from scratch. He has a lot of experience in this, spent years doing porting work, has a broad knowledge base, and typically does excellent work. His shop is well equiped (has both an engine and a chasis dyno), and he has a couple of good machinists working for him. He's done a number of Zetecs and the results were good. Now, that said, I would be extremely careful when dealing with ANYONE in this regard. I spent a year and a half tuning Zetecs and a few other cars/engines with aftermarket electronic engine management systems on them at this shop and saw things go south for a number of reasons, and not only where I was working. Much of it was miscommunication and expectations. I would start out by mistrusting anyone I talked with about developing an engine. The people who really know what they're doing are generally overbooked and busy with big ticket clients. Be careful. Performance Engineering 2681 Morgan Lane, S.R. 128 Ross, Ohio 45013 513-738-5001