2.0L Duratec Rebuild

[JohnCh]

Met up with Pokey today for a short blat. The rolling pylons were particularly bad, although strangely only of the motorized variety. Typically this route is full of bio-powered pylons whose idea of sharing the road is to ride 3-abreast in the lane and force you to either risk a fairly blind pass, or settle in for a 25mph drive. As we approached the base of a particularly fun uphill section before the turnaround point, the Blat gods smiled upon us and the traffic finally parted. Woo hoo! With over 400 miles on the engine, I'm starting to use a little more throttle and revs.

 

 

 

-John

[xcarguy]

Met up with Pokey today for a short blat. The rolling pylons were particularly bad, although strangely only of the motorized variety. Typically this route is full of bio-powered pylons whose idea of sharing the road is to ride 3-abreast in the lane and force you to either risk a fairly blind pass, or settle in for a 25mph drive. As we approached the base of a particularly fun uphill section before the turnaround point, the Blat gods smiled upon us and the traffic finally parted. Woo hoo! With over 400 miles on the engine, I'm starting to use a little more throttle and revs.

 

 

 

-John

 

Has a nice, throaty sound....I like it.

[JohnCh]

To celebrate the engine breaking the 500 mile barrier today, the break-in oil was swapped for 5w-40 synthetic per SBD's recommendation. This appears to have solved my low oil pressure issue at hot idle. During the subsequent test drive, I made a brief foray into higher rpm, hitting 6500 rpm in second, and using *maybe* 3/4 throttle. The engine feels like it's getting into its zone over 5000 rpm, which is what I was after. Although the plan is to leave the safe, starter ignition map alone until the car gets on the dyno in a couple of weeks, I may do a little data logging in the morning and make inroads on the fueling map at heavier throttle.

 

-John

[JohnCh]

I finally had time to do a little data logging and tuning this morning. On the way home from the baseline run to establish how far off the current injection map is from target, I caught up to a beautiful Miura S that had turned down my street. It's one of my favorite cars, so I carried on past my driveway and followed him for 5 miles until he turned into the local supermarket. We had a short chat after which the phone came out and pictures were taken. (cue Mike or Sean to make the obligatory Stalker joke )

 

 

Had a bit of a concern though when leaving the lot. I nailed it down the access road that leads to the main road, but as I approached the stop sign and threw in the clutch, the engine switched off. It fired back up immediately and continued to run flawlessly, but that's a potential concern.

 

The map was unsurprisingly lean, so after looking through the logs I made some changes and headed back out. Much better, and according to the subsequent logs, much closer to target. Taking the car up to 7500rpm revealed it has exactly the character I was after. It reminds me of an old 911, just a hell of a lot faster. No sudden feeling that the engine has come on the cam, rather a relentless increase in power the higher up the tach it goes. Can't wait to get this thing on the dyno to dial in the timing and optimize the injection map.

 

-John

[Anaximander]

John, In 1968 while going to school in Santa Barbara, CA, a kid that lived in the private dorms (Francisco Torres) we lived in Isla Vista, was loaned a Lamborghini Miura S as his "school" car for a short while. The rich little so and so was clocked at some incredibly high speed on the road leading into UC Santa Barbara and a California Highway patrolman gave chase only to lose the kid in our small town. The story goes that the driver and his companion drove into the first open garage in IV, closed the garage door in an attempt to evade the Highway Patrol. Someone called the cops and you guessed it, that same HP officer responded to the call and arrested the two kids.

 

They both went to court for something like reckless endangerment or some such thing and the judge sentenced the two students to something like 2 months of weekend lockup so they could continue to matriculate in school. The passenger reportedly complained to the sentencing judge that he had not been driving and reportedly the judge had admonished him that he could have turned off the engine and thrown the keys out the window to stop the recklessness so was guilty by association and inaction. I fawned over that Lamborghini as I only had a lowly red 1964 Triumph TR4. Long story short, I think that the family took back the Lambo and that was my first close up regular contact in the parking lot, on a regular basis for a brief period of time, with what turned out to be one of the first supercars ever put into "production". 12 cylinders of handmade beauty was that engine (3.9L V12).

 

Of course, growing up in Southern California, if there were 7 examples of any truly exotic car in the USA, usually 4 or 5 of those examples would be in Southern Cal. It was an amazing time in the burgeoning era of supercars. I was lucky enough to run a Country Club parking lot and the nightmarish stories about lot workers going on joy rides was not completely a myth:driving: The only thing is that I didn't realize that some of the original Cobras and other exotics I was parking would become multi-million dollar pieces of rolling history.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Astro Bob

[JohnCh]

Bob, I used to live in SB. By any chance are you referring to Ward Memorial Blvd? For the rest of you, it's effectively a freeway with no onramps for quite a stretch. Perfect for high speed testing. Not that I ever did that...

 

I was taken for a spirited ride in '67 Miura back in the mid 80's. I still remember the howl of the engine as the car approached redline in third gear, and the sight of the triple choke Webers filling up half the view out the rear window. Good stuff!

 

-John

[Kitcat]

For a rare exotic car, it's amazing how many of us have some story connecting us, if briefly, and tenuously, to the Miura. I was a senior in college spending my last quarter of college "studying" abroad, in Italy in 1968. I came around a corner in, I think, Florence and there was a Miura parked between all of the plebeian Fiats and 3 wheeled Piagio "trucks". Time stood still. It was about as low as a Caterham and as wide as the Ohio river, or so it seemed. And the presence and stance and electric neon green color made it such an indelible memory that here I am, 52years later, remembering it like it was yesterday.

[panamericano]

Remember indeed. At the Mexican Gran Prix, 1968 ? The "official car" was TWO white Miuras. I suspect they belonged to the Abed brothers, but who knows. Every time they went around, it was like a low altitude pass by an F-1 car. Wow!

[Anaximander]

John, It was likely Ward Memorial Blvd. I never talked with the driver of the car that got caught so my understanding of the story came from hearsay of some of the other IV residents at the twin towers of Francisco Torres that UCSB subsequently purchased and expanded into a 19 acre site. I do know that some of my friends at the time devised a scheme to turn on and off the lights of one of the buildings so that the letters spelled "F*CK" about 7 stories high. It stopped traffic for hours around the building as word got out of our prank. I learned to pick a simple lock during that time but was not much of a participant in the final act. An old high school chum that became an attorney was part of the cadre that pulled off that very funny stunt. IV was a hotbed of learning and excitement along with antiwar protests. Famous folks like Andy Warhol hung out in IV reportedly in about 1969. I was getting so off track and flunking out of school that I returned to LA to get my head right to continue on with college. They were certainly fun times playing in the sand dunes of Devereau School on the Pacific Ocean. Some of my group would get pretty stoned at the time. Thankfully, like Bill Clinton, I never inhaled.

 

Kitkat, many of us have only had 1 or 2 degrees of separation from many really cool events and people. I suspect that many of us that have been drawn to seven cars have lots of stories of the very interesting people and events we have experienced along the way. It is that sort of yearning for adventures that lead us to sevens and other fun machines and people.

[JohnCh]

It looks like COVID is impacting my ability to run the new engine on a dyno. This is less of a concern for the injection map, which I can get pretty close through data logging, and more a concern with the ignition map. Given timing was intentionally set conservatively to account for the increase in compression ratio, I know there is room for improvement in that map, but my ECU's inability to natively work with a knock sensor means I don't have a safe way to experiment on the street.

 

Does anyone know of a standalone knock sensor that does logging I could investigate? Alternatively any experience with the standalone units that simply flash a light as detonation is sensed? At this point I'm less concerned with establishing a final full throttle, high rpm ignition map, and more concerned with optimizing light to medium throttle below 5000 rpm, so I suspect that type of simpler system could suffice. Although as this thread proves, I've been wrong before.

 

BTW drivability is great. If someone were to tell me that the injection and ignition map were already optimized, I'd have no reason to disbelieve them, but since I know that's not the case, I'd love to see if timing changes could bump up the low end or improve part throttle acceleration.

 

Thanks,

John

[JohnCh]

Went on another blat today with Pokey. Roads were great, traffic wasn't too bad, but the car was not running well. Drivability at very light throttle openings wasn't great and was punctuated by frequent pops from the exhaust. Going up hills that required larger throttle openings seemed better, but part throttle acceleration felt a little blunted. I leaned on it a bit a couple of times to about 5k rpm and that felt closer to normal, but given the issues, I was afraid to really push the engine and experiment further.

 

Unfortunately I broke the cardinal rule of blatting on a new engine and failed to bring my laptop, so couldn't diagnose any theories on the drive. After arriving home, however, the laptop revealed the problem: either the WBO2 sensor or controller had failed. The ECU was running in closed loop mode, meaning it was continually, and unsuccessfully, trying to lean AFR from the erroneous 9.0-9.2 readings to something more acceptable. Fortunately the closed loop mode prevents massive automatic fueling adjustments to avoid meltdown from just this scenario, so no harm. Flipping the ECU to open loop mode while I sort out the AEM has restored drivability.

 

-John

[JohnCh]

Revisiting this thread after nearly 10 months because the car finally made it to the dyno today!  The shop, Vintage Racing Motors, focuses on building, restoring, and maintaining vintage race cars, including some very, very high dollar stuff.  As a result of this work, they frequently put the same engine on both the engine and chassis dynos so have a pretty good feel about parasitic losses with their specific Dynojet.   Byron felt 18% was correct for my car.  It may be right, it may be wrong, but interestingly, using that number results in nearly the same output I expected to hit given my exhaust, which is sized for my older 210hp engine.  That system should cap out at about 225hp.  Peak number at the wheels today was 184hp which converts to 224hp using an 18% loss. 

 

More importantly, the curve looked great.  Yes, there is some torque to pick up below 3500rpm by richening the mixture, but it's minor.  The power curve is billiard flat from 7000-8000rpm, showing there is still some upside at the top.  Might be the exhaust, might also be the 45mm TBs are a little small.  Cam timing could also help in that range, but would come at the expense of the bottom end. Regardless there is some headroom available for future upgrades that don't involve opening the engine.  I'm happy and finally feel confident to really drive the snot out it.  

 

 

 

The red line is where we started, the blue is where we finished.  It's hard to read the rpm scale at the bottom, but the run spanned 2000-8000rpm.

 

 

On the way home I was behind a Tesla 3 Dual Motor whose driver decided to show off shortly after the light turned green.  He then tried it again as we merged onto the freeway.  I don't think the result of either event was what he expected while driving his invincible Tesla   

 

-John

 

[Croc]

 

That smoothed things out nicely.  Intersection of power and torque curves is at a good point for being usable on the road without stressing the engine.  

[fastg]

Strange statement, hp and torque always cross at 5252 rpm. If not you have a bugus dyno run.

 

Graham

1 hour ago, Croc said:

 

That smoothed things out nicely.  Intersection of power and torque curves is at a good point for being usable on the road without stressing the engine.  

 

[Croc]

10 minutes ago, fastg said:

Strange statement, hp and torque always cross at 5252 rpm. If not you have a bugus dyno run.

 

Graham

 

 

@fastg Stop it Graham, I was trying to wind up John! 

[JohnCh]

@Crocyou can -- and likely will -- try harder than that!

 

Yesterday when looking at the map, I discovered the lean condition down low was user error.  Somehow when building out the map last year, I accidentally left the cells in that rpm range at load site 15 (full throttle) untouched from my previous map.  Adjusting to a tiny bit richer than the corresponding cells at load site 14 as with the rest of the rpm range should sort that out.  

 

-John

 

[JohnCh]

I took advantage of some downtime and booked a session at another dyno facility to compare their numbers to those achieved a couple of weeks ago at VRM.  My assumption was this other facility, with a much newer Dynojet would produce higher numbers, but I was only partially right.  Peak power was up to a bit over 189 vs. 184, but the entire torque curve was shifted downward except for the top end where it increased.  In fact peak torque was fully 12 ft-lb lower today, but the torque falloff over 6700rpm was less severe, resulting in power increasing all the way to 8200rpm vs. flat from 6700-8000rpm in the original dyno session.  Weather was nearly identical both days, the only differences were the Dynojet versions and the fact today's run was done in third gear vs. fourth at VRM.  VRM tried third, but there was a lot of wheelspin.  We tried fourth today, but the pull was taking too long and resulting in a really, really wavy trace that looked like a sine wave.  Third gear today seemed wheelspin free.

 

 

-John

 

[Kitcat]

Any theories on the relatively low torque # and the big drop off? My two stock Zetec SVT’s managed low to mid 140’s in torque, on a supposedly conservative Dyno.  We each have 2 liter engines. On the positive side, your torque number is a nice fat/flat shape, all thru the RPm range.

[JohnCh]

No idea.  The torque doesn't feel less than the old engine with milder cams and lower compression ratio.  That engine on a Mustang dyno registered 145 ft-lb, so consistent with the readings from VRM's dyno.  Perhaps doing it in third gear lead to more parasitic losses than fourth gear which is 1:1, but that wouldn't explain the differences over 6700rpm.  To me this simply shows that comparing dyno numbers gathered from different dynos is inconclusive.  

 

-John

[JohnCh]

Looking more closely at the two dyno graphs as well as previous ones from a Mustang dyno with stock pistons and Kent DTEC10 cams vs. the new DTEC20 cams, I think I may know what's going on.  The CarbConn graph is much flatter between 4300rpm and 7000rpm than the other graphs, and it doesn't peak until about 7000rpm vs. 5500rpm.  Although I said there was no wheelspin during the third gear run, I'm wondering if there was a little?  That would explain why the numbers on both graphs only differed by a couple of lb-ft at 4300rpm and 7000rpm, but the rise that happened between those two numbers in the other graphs were absent from the CarbConn results. Perhaps  I was simply hitting the limit of torque the tires could transfer to the rollers during that range?

 

The dyno operator at VRM could feel the wheelspin in third and I could see it while standing behind the car.  At CarbConn, I was driving -- and have no experience doing dyno runs so easy for me to miss that slight sensation -- and no one was looking at the tires to confirm no slip.  Judging by the seat of pants, the shape of the VRM torque curve also feels more accurate.  There is a DynaPak hub dyno about an hour away.  I may book time there to see what they show given their system eliminates the possibility of tire slip.

 

-John