Austin David

the magnets are a genius idea. You may never get away from the rocks in your seat. I have mudflaps and I believe they help, but I still get a lot of rocks and debris.

there's story about ducati not providing torque specs, and when asked they finally said "the spec is in the hand of the mechanic" (with appropriate translation from italian). I assume same/same. it's literally a hand-crafted car. part of the adventure is figuring it out. I went back and compared my instructions and my build with some of the much cleaner build photos in other blogs, and I'm pretty sure the instructions (which I followed diligently) are incorrect.

3M 5200. Comes in white or black, I used white + sprayed black undercoat over top. 2 years and counting, but no track time. West Marine carries this, also carries the other stuff (I cannot recall the name). Home Depot or other big-box store may also carry one or both. For 5200 you'll need a tube for each day you want to work... once you break it open, it'll cure in place in about a day.

cooling hoses get 100c, wires can get hotter than that. the electrical tops out around 16v, which will not penetrate the insulation. You mostly want to be sure things look good, are not rubbing in a way that would wear open the insulation or cut into a hose, and looks good. There are a few moving parts under there, like belts and the steering column, and you may not want to put weight on the hard brake line. I got a tip to drill out a rivet under the exhaust stack to mount a zip tie, to neaten up the O2 sensor line. I added zip ties in a few strategic places in the existing riveted-in mounts, including right over the bell housing for that fat loom connector. I've seen pics of a few pretty amazing tuck jobs, but mine is a lot more practical

ITB update: heat soak in the injectors. Symptom is a rising AFR (lean) at idle or after resting when hot. Does not correspond to IAT, and drops with a few minutes running. These are different injectors + fuel rail, positioned in the TBs, further out from the stock locations. Heat is most likely conducting through the ITBs and into the injectors, and they're warming enough that they open slower than expected... less fuel -> higher AFR, enough that the ECU cannot compensate (it's limited to 20% correction). When the throttle picks up and more fuel flows, the injectors cool off and the effect goes away (but returns with a few minutes idling at temp). This appears to be due to the "dead head" fuel rail, which doesn't move any fuel (or soaked heat) at low duty. I assume the stock rail also has this problem, and is somehow managed by the stock ECU. The simplest solution is to bump VE around idle, which gives the ECU a little more room to compensate for the changing flow rate when hot or cold. +20% VE and -20% startup tuning leaves the cold starts still correct, and the ECU then has plenty of room to trim out any changes with injector behavior. A conventional return-style fuel rail would mostly hide this problem, as the fuel gets a chance to cool off on the way to/from the tank. I'll put this near the bottom of my list for next time I get bored, below "rewire the whole engine".

Great writeup, thanks! There's definitely a lot more auditory feedback with so little between the intake valves.

The older of my 2 actually helped mount the engine, which was nerve-wracking and weird. The younger definitely held some flashlights and fetched sockets, but not as much heavy lifting. Both will say they helped, tho, which is good enough for me.

Analyzing some data, the trumpet lengths appear to make a difference but it's subtle, and really only relevant at WOT. I assume this would be a lot more effective when paired with cam changes, which I'm avoiding. White = RPM Yellow = "airflow est" from the ECU Red, Green are AFR & AFR err. Hypothesis is that length changes would shift the shape of the airflow graph. I've reviewed about a half-dozen pulls from each and these are representative. normal 100mm extension: +20mm inside the filter: +35mm total, with 15mm outside + 20mm inside the air filter: note that the extensions are cylinders so I expect they would have a small net dampening of total airflow at WOT, so the before/after aren't perfect comparisons, but I do expect the 20 vs 35mm measures to be really good internal comparisons. net/net: I think the graphs DO show a subtle lowering of the airflow / torque curve. Butt dyno confirms, but the effect is SUBTLE. Mostly at WOT I can feel it tapering off around 7k RPM, where the standard pulls smooth to the soft cut. In midrange it still feels great both ways. The airflow is also 35mm further out from the bonnet and the bonnet-hole would need to get a lot bigger.

Some investigation about the size of the bonnet cut, which led to some investigation about heat and airflow tl;dr: the intake hole may let hot air out of the engine bay, which will increase IAT 15-25C above ambient. the air filter is sized for 300+ HP, and can be blocked off to prevent heat intrusion, without significant impact to intake performance. the actual bonnet penetration can be fairly small, provided excess heat from the cooling system has somewhere to go Some offline investigation into runner length. This ITB kit offers 70mm, 100mm, and 130mm intake runners, I currently have 100mm. The manufacturer (or their associated engineering company) won't offer CAD, but do offer 30mm machined extension "tuning rings", with 50mm ID and M59 x 1.5 threads. The process appears to be something like "add 30mm, see if that's what you want, repeat as necessary", then get custom runners and/or screw-on trumpets to match the required length. Literature is thin; I THINK the math is linear with distance to the valve top, but the path is not straight and the tube is not a cylinder so changes may not be PERFECTLY linear, but I expect it to be close. Experimentation underway with printed rings. Peak VE is about 120% at 6500 RPM, with soft cut around 7400. Shorter = peak at higher RPM, longer = peak at lower RPM. The literal "tuning" here is setting the length from valve -> trumpet such that a standing wave bounces closed valve -> trumpet -> open valve, and forces its way in... hence the > 100% efficiency in a specific range. Butt Dyno indicates very linear performance to soft cut, but I'd like to see if I can shift the curve down a little. The attached model fits snug without trashing threads on my intake runner, and 20mm fits inside the air filter so I can run with the bonnet in place. I also added +15mm outside the filter, which is about the minimum extension because of the thread pattern, and happens to just barely fit under my bonnet. tuning ring 15mm.stl

I had to go back and read my post to remember...

Also this is your best chance to undercoat that wood panel, it is exposed underneath. May also want to varnish the top and ends...

I just let mine lay over into the boot. Once the cover is back in place you can't see it

If you're going to turn the key without fuel, you'll want to disable the pump. Otherwise you'll spin a dry fuel pump, and they don't love that. I believe you can just unplug the immobilizer over by your brake fluid reservoir, which will disable the FP relay, but leave everything else intact for pressurizing the oil system.

and before that, disable the fuel pump (it's in the book) and make sure you're getting oil pressure. You can hear the fuel pump kick in about 1s after turning the key. It's behind the driver's seat, LHS in the fuel tank. Fairly distinctive whir for a second or so, then it cuts off with no RPM.

Nah, this one's a sleeper