520R SV build has commenced

[yellowss7]

Congrats John. Good luck.  

[JohnCh]

I realized when I started the engine this afternoon, I still had the fuel pump relay bypassed that is normally controlled by the ECU.  Therefore, not a good test of the system and another attempt was warranted.  This time, I also hooked up the laptop to check out what the ECU was seeing while the engine idled.  The car still fired up perfectly with the relay in place, and while the AiM still showed the tach pegged at 10k rpm, Easimap showed it was 850 rpm, and apparently reading correctly.  Easimap also showed the reason for the CEL: Rad Fan 1 Relay Fault.  Not sure if there is actually an issue or the ECU is looking for something that isn't there, but it is a question for SBD.

 

Next, I plugged the AiM into the laptop to check a few things. I didn't see anything configured differently than the instructions and the live screen showed that other data from the ECU sent over the CAN Bus was reading correctly.  That's good news.  I have a feeling I either missed something obvious, or the MBE had a change that moved the RPM output to a different channel than indicated in the instructions.  I've sent a mail to AiM support to see what they suggest.

 

With that out of the way, I decided to finish the fuse box install.  That required cutting a hole in the firewall.  It's the kind of job I always approach with trepidation because it's an opportunity to showcase my spastic tendencies.  Fortunately, it come out great.  Very pleased with this and it will make changing fuses and relays a lot easier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-John

[11Budlite]

John - Your build is looking good, I really like what you did with the fuse box! 

 

One of the things that I'd like to see Caterham improve on is the wiring under the scuttle, and the hose layout and wiring in the engine compartment. Maybe the RHD versions are better but what a mess on the LHD versions. I'm hoping to retire (again!) in the next couple months and hopefully I can do some improvements on my car then.

[JohnCh]

Thanks Bruce, I'm pleased with how it came out.  I agree about the harness.  It's a mess.  To be fair to Caterham, it appears they have a single loom made for all cars and all markets.  I'm sure that helps with the cost, reduces risk for a specific loom being out of stock, and eliminates another opportunity for them to install the wrong part in the wrong car   Of course it also means there are a lot of unused wires and connectors for a given car.  At some point in the very distant future, my plan is to rip out the harness and replace with a PDM.  

 

-John

[Bartman]

Hi John,

 

Looks and sounds great. I will be interested to hear how your session goes with SBD, I am hoping to fire mine up next week for the first time also and because I am a long way from the original spec I am a little nervous that the base map provided by SBD will need a lot of work. Good luck!

 

Jon 

[JohnCh]

I was very surprised at how easily it started and how well it ran.  Hopefully that means the rest is reasonably close.  I supplied them with the ignition map for my current engine which has the same compression ratio and a little less cam overlap and does well on local fuel, but they did the fuel based on their engines.  @Bartman, are you having SBD do any remote tuning?  I'm curious how well the logging and self-mapping work compared to the Emerald which makes that process pretty easy.  

 

The tach issue is resolved.  There is AiM documentation from 2018 that discusses wiring CAN for the Caterham 420R.  It indicates to select "Caterham 420R" from the ECU drop down list.  It turns out that the MBE must have had some minor tweaks since then, and for current cars, MBE 9A4 should be selected instead.  

 

BTW had a bit of a scare when I tested this.  The engine wouldn't start.  A quick glance at the fuel pressure gauge showed zero pressure.  It looks like the vibration from the air saw when cutting the opening for the fuse box had tripped the fuel cutoff switch.  Another simple fix.

 

-John

[Bartman]

Hi John,

 

Yes the plan is to have SBD remote in to a rolling road session once I have it all in and running on the base map they provided using 93POM gas. The biggest issue I am expecting other than just tuning the map to be a good tractable engine is getting the shift points and settings correct for the paddle shift to operate the gearbox and throttle blipper smoothly up and down.  The main reason I chose the MBE9A9 ECU was its ability to manage a fully closed loop clutch-less gearchange in both directions, I had toyed with a geartronix set up but decided to opt for a fully integrated system as opposed to a piggy back system as it seemed less complex at the outset, but actually ended up being more complex in a number of ways - Ahh the law of unintended consequences bites again.

 

I have the easymap software on my PC that SDB uses, it seems pretty good and quite self explanatory but have only played with it till now, it will be interesting to see it live.

 

I'll report back how my session with SBD goes, hopefully its only a few weeks away.

 

Jon.

 

 

[JohnCh]

7 minutes ago, Bartman said:

Ahh the law of unintended consequences bites again

.  

I am all too familiar with this   

 

The 9A9 is a lot more sophisticated than the 9A4.  My challenge with Easimap is I'm used to the Emerald software which complicates my learning curve.  It's not just learning how to use it but unlearning how I expect things to work given that prior experience.  Please let me know how the mapping session goes with Steve.

[Bartman]

Ha, I had the same problem when learning Excel after Lotus 123  

[Croc]

1 hour ago, Bartman said:

The main reason I chose the MBE9A9 ECU was its ability to manage a fully closed loop clutch-less gearchange in both directions, I had toyed with a geartronix set up but decided to opt for a fully integrated system as opposed to a piggy back system as it seemed less complex at the outset, but actually ended up being more complex in a number of ways - Ahh the law of unintended consequences bites again.

 

Oh how I can relate to this!!!!    

 

Great minds make the same mistake.  

[JohnCh]

Cam break in happened at the end of last week; 20 minutes at >2000rpm.  Prior to starting that procedure, I lowered the radiator fan switch-on speed in Easimap from 90F to below ambient to confirm it was working.  I returned it to 90F, but that seems a little low for a Duratec.  Is that the factory setting?

 

The Check engine light came on again, but this time there was no information about the cause in Easimap.  One possible reason was the air temperature.  The display for that reading turned red at anything above 40C. Red seems bad, but 40C intake temps don't seem that extreme.  That reading was also inaccurate.  It was 80F outside, the bonnet was off and the sensor was sitting on the shelf in front of the scuttle.  I can’t see the localized air temp more than 85-90F (29-32C).  This will be another question to add to my list for SBD.

 

 

The front wings are on and repeaters installed.  I opted to use 3M Epoxy and followed Pokey's excellent writeup here.  Of course, it they fly off at speed, that credit turns to liability  

 

 

 

When attempting to attach the repeater ground to the underside of the stay tube, it was a little bit of a struggle.  Very tight and the screwdriver was beginning to slip.  Not wanting to take a chance on stripping the head, I replaced them with hex head sheet metal screws that were shortened on the grinding wheel to avoid damaging the 12v+ wire that runs in the tube.  It seemed a better approach and allowed me to safely torque the screw.

 

 

I also discovered why the side light bulb in the driver's side headlight never worked.  It arrived in the socket looking like this.  Easy fix.

 

 

My original plan was to hang the glove box above the tunnel cover from an under-scuttle shelf, but given all the wiring, I wasn't able to find a good location so I've decided to attach it directly to the tunnel cover.  Aesthetically, I still want it to appear as if it's floating about 1/2" above the tunnel.  Short legs through which the screws pass should do the trick and wont' be visible.  Here are a couple of pictures of the first attempt.  The whole thing will be covered by black leather that matches the tunnel cover and will hopefully blend in.  I need to alter the dimensions just a bit for the final version but it's close.

 

 

 

The air filter is still a week or two (or three?) away from arriving, but I hope to have the rest of the car ready for its maiden drive by the end of the weekend.  

 

-John

[JohnCh]

The car drove and stopped under its own power on Saturday.  However, with no air filter, it was only a 200' round trip drive up part of the driveway.  The special order, no-logo ITG air filter ordered in mid-March was supposed to arrive in April or May.  It arrived at Pegasus last week, but apparently it was the wrong filter.  I'm waiting to hear back from them on next steps, but unless ITG can turn things around this week, it looks like I'll have Pegasus send the logo filter tomorrow or Wed.  In the interim, I need to spend some time learning Easimap.
 

 

 

 

As I've written before, this color is really hard to capture in photos, but this one is pretty close.  You can really see the yellow highlights on curved surfaces:

 

When preparing to lower the car from the stands, I found this under the driver's side front tire.  I suspect it fell out of the rim while the wheel was tilted during the removal/installation process when attaching the front wings.  

 

Putting the weight back in place (the rectangular shaped area with no dust) there was clearance to the caliper.  It was tight, and might not be sufficient for driving, but certainly not an issue for pushing it around.  When the car arrived, there were weights on the bottom of the crate, so at least one wheel was affected, leading me to pay to have them all rebalanced.  Given this happened again, there might be some coating on that wheel that interferers with strong adhesion.  It's been suggested that I knocked it off when mounting the wheel, but I just don't see how I could have been that ham-fisted with such a light wheel and not notice it.  Particularly given I've been removing 13" wheels with tight clearances to 4-pot calipers on the Westfield for many years without issue.  Looking at the weights, I also don't see evidence that occurred. 

 

 

After 5 weeks, FedEx has finally determined my passenger side seat rails, and aeroscreen/windscreen quick-change retaining brackets are lost.  I'm not sure when Caterham will send replacements.  For now, the passenger seat will be fixed.  Once the car has covered some miles, I'll pull the scuttle to finalize the wiring, affix the knee panels, make a panel to cover the back of the relocated fuse box, swap in those quick change retaining brackets, and fix the various issues that will inevitably arise as the shake down miles pile on.  Other than those known items, the only things left are cutting a hole in the bonnet for the missing air filter (yes, scary), swapping over the adjustable runners on the passenger seat, installing the wipers (blades were missing from my kit) and pulling the tunnel cover to attach the glove box.  None of those things will stop me from putting miles on the car. 

 

Now that the car is nearly done, I started to go through the leftover parts and throw away some boxes and packaging.  The photo below shows what I found.  Missing are the oil pressure gauge and ECU, both of which are with local USA7s members for troubleshooting purposes.  At some point, most of this goes up for sale.  
 

 

-John

[panamericano]

If you end up having the wheels rebalanced, if you can still make out the color dots on the tires, insist that they use them properly.  Bridgestone has a good article on that.  It can really make a substantial difference in weights required to balance, but few tire techs will bother.

[JohnCh]

Thanks, the tires arrive from Caterham mounted to the wheels, so this person only balanced them.  Interestingly, although none of the tires follow the convention (yellow dot near the valve stem) and were clearly mounted randomly, the wheel with the missing weights was closest to correct.  

 

-John

[S1Steve]

Congratulations John, all your skills and determination paid off well. Your dash is something that keeps drawing my attention. So clean and uncluttered. Nice job, Enjoy it…🍻

[windsurfer]

When I got the wheels and tires mounted from Caterham, the same thing happed. Aka the weights felt. The position inside the wheel was obvious so I've glue them and but some thin foil aluminum tape over them. (Painted black) clean and "permanent" :-)

[Rosteri]

John, at least with my 13” wheels none of the adhesive wheel weights that I had curved enough when attached like in your picture - they all fell off. One has to cut the weights into individual piece before sticking them on. Congrats on the first drive! 

[JohnCh]

I just took a look at the Westfield's 13" wheels -- also Caterham wheels BTW -- and it looks like the weights are slightly different than what either Caterham or Beachman's shop used.  It could very easily be an optical illusion, but the both the weights and the foam appear to be a little thinner and you can see a comfortable triangular gap between each weight indicating they are conforming to the circumference.  

 

I just checked the other wheels on the Caterham.  The rears both look fine, but the other front wheel...not so much.  I'm no expert, but that doesn't look right to me.  

 

 

Looking at the weights from above, it appears the foam is stretched between the weights due to the tight circumference and potentially from forcing the weights into position, and that tension popped the middle section away from the rim.

 

 

 

-John

[MV8]

The wheel was not clean and/or the weight installer was in a hurry.

You can mark the center of the weight strip on the wheel, remove the strip, scrub (fingernail, plastic scraper, sharpened tooth brush "shank") and wd-40 to soften the residual tape (safe for the rim paint), cut a strip or replacements with the same total, clean the wd40 off with a good cleaner that won't remove paint, and align the center to the strip. You could completely clean the existing weights then apply to a strip of 3m body molding doublesided tape to reinstall. No rebalance needed if it was right to begin with. You will likely do a better job than to take it back.

 

I change and balance my own tires at home. 

 

Not plum crazy purple with a 340 six pack sticking out but the car looks great.

Edited May 30, 2023 by MV8

[Rosteri]

13 hours ago, JohnCh said:

Looking at the weights from above, it appears the foam is stretched between the weights due to the tight circumference and potentially from forcing the weights into position, and that tension popped the middle section away from the rim.

This is exactly what I tried to write - when reapplying, just attach the strip back in place as individual pieces and there will be no tension. The weights are not designed to have the needed spacing for 13” wheels.