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[lozzzzzz]

A well overdue update with the project now that the photobucket account is unlocked.

To start with I thought I'd try my hand at boring the throttle body out, I thought I'd put it on the lathe to increase the bore then use a bit of bar with an angled top mounted in the lathe, with a sheet of brass screwed to it to make the new butterfly (see the pics). 

Stripped the throttle body down first (a spare one I bought incase it went wrong )


Then had a think about how best to mount it (turns out the best way would be on a milling machine but meh), I glued a couple of small strips of sheet steel to the bottom as the flat bas of the throttle body has one raised section.  This way the flat bottom will be parallel to the face of the four jaw chuck.



I really should have had a photo of it in the lathe, it took a while to get it central with the dial gauge and make more difficult with all the machined surfaces being against the face of the chuck, so I had to kind of guess and centralise it off the cast inner surface of the upstream side.  It came out well though, here you can see the right bore done and the left still to do



The slits in the spindle needed widening a little, this was a proper "farm engineering" job, I used a wood saw and it worked.


This was the relatively easy bit done, the butterflies were the tricky bit really.  With an increase from 54mm dia to 57mm the increase in CSA is 11% which should hopefully equate to an increase in power at the very top end of the revs. 

I "umm'd and ahh'd" for a while about how best to make the slanted top bar for making the butterflies.  Then gave in and used the workshop at work.  Unfortunately I can't say I made the parts in the next couple of photo's but Dave in the workshop took the helm and did a fantastic job.  First of all making surface grinding the bar to correct angle.



This was mounted in the lathe and the butterfly turned so that it would come out with slightly slanted side to seal in the body at 4 degrees.





The Spindle has also been countersunk and smaller machine screws bought


This is when I found that the way the body was clamped in the four jaw chuck (using only two jaws) had meant that the bore were 0.02mm oval but this was easy enough to fix by gently sanding the edges of the butterflies until the profile matched the bore.  And here's the finished item, its been tried and seals sufficiently well that the idle valve settings didn't need changing The rolling road tuning session will give the answer as to whether all this has been worth the effort. 




Next I had a go at the idler puller (was the PAS) I wasn’t too happy with the wobble it had, so I got a new bearing for it (was the timing belt idler bearing), but this didn’t cure it, the problem being that the PAS pulley is much bigger diameter than the timing belt idler would have been so any movement in the bearing is very amplified by the size of the pulley.  Long story short…  I put a second bearing in with the first, right next to it, so now there is no movement sideways at all, you can just about make out the extended hub of the pulley in these photos.



Another little project was to make a little section of electricery for the front of the car with some relays, a resistor and the slow start jobby for the interior blower.

[lozzzzzz]

Another little job was to fit an adapter thingy that means I can have the oil pressure gauge and the low oil pressure warning sender both attached to the oil system.  I’ve wired this up with the oil level warning sender and the coolant level warning sender into a circuit with a little relay so that if anything out of order a buzzer sounds (which can be silenced when starting the car with a push button)



The new oil lines go pretty close to the exhaust manifold, so I think I’m going to get them ceramic coated (as this will help with corrosion too), but in addition I’ve made a little heat shield mounted on the exhaust manifold that goes between the pipes and the… pipes







I had to have the manifold off again to further grind out the throttle body mounting point so there is no lip between the throttle  body and the manifold.


The MAP sensor was neatly mounted on the engine, tucked away, turns out they don’t like heat or vibration so that’s packed up already and I had to fit a new one on the side of the engine bay.




Got the axle off (again) and started to strip it in an attempt to change the diff to the quaiffe item.



Got the drive flanges off and put the sacrificial one on (the bent one) complete with half shaft puller (chain and jack)



And just three snags of the chain later…..


Took the diff out and took it to work  and took the accurate measurements, only to figure out that its really b***dy difficult to get the bearings off, and I’m still at it. 

In the mean time This rear disc conversion is available if anyone fancies it.  It includes the caliper mounts made by Sam Laurenzelly (I think that’s his surname) who was a scimitar man not so long ago and started the V8 Church website, the audi calipers will come with it and the spacers of different thicknesses to get the disc in the right place, the calipers have been modified to accept the scimitar hand brake cable.  So all that would need finding is new discs and flexi hoses (they’re not included). 


Bear in mind that these weren’t quite strong enough and put a little too much bias on the front brakes, so something would need doing about that.  This conversion would work really well with a front brake conversion (if smaller piston calipers were used up front). 

Over the last couple of days I’ve been busy getting all the wiring squared away, the LC-1 is is connected and giving a proper lambda ratio reading through the Canems ECU, the LPG ECU is fully connected to the Canems ECU and tank, but not yet the other LPG components, and the front end loom is back in the left wing.  The engine is running perfectly with the fault not having shown is face again, and the idle is much sweeter now its not 18 AFR. 
More to come

[henryd]

Nice work on the throttle body mate,looks good

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks henry

[Rods2]

Good to see it progressing after all of the ECU problems you had. 

Nice work on the throttle bodies,  it will be interesting to what difference it makes. Is your exhaust more free flowing than the standard Omega one?

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks rods2, i cant wait to get it on the rollers and see. It'll be hard to say what difference tje throttle body makes as there are a few othe alterations. As you mention, the exhaust it very different, the manifolds are home made tubular SS, 1.5" bore 27" primary pipes into a 2.5" straight through SS exhaust pipe system. I've also ported the heads a little and although the ram air system is excellent the diameter of the pipes nearing the air box is far too small so i binned that and the restrictive air mass meter, it works off a MAP sensor now.

 

[Dishevelled Den]

That's a great up-date Lozz - it's encouraging to see the progress made.

[lozzzzzz]

A little update.

I feel like I'm working fretty fast at the mo, but there isn't much to show for it, its the kind where you do loads and get nowhere, then it all comes together and there is lots to show, well I've not quite got there yet. 

I changed the hole in the passenger kick plate to suit the new fuse box, and it seems to work really well, its a snug fit and clips into the plate with no toehr parts being needed  




Filled the hole where the loom used to go to the screen wash bottle and used the other small hole that is now available (as I'm not using the rear screen washer any more, then mounted the screen wash in its new slightly different location



But I spent the largest part of today making the housing that will enclose all of the loom I have made above the passengers legs, its nearly there, photo's to follow.
More to come

[lozzzzzz]

I've finally got all the main section of loom tucket away in the passeneger side, and made this under tray for it.


This meant I had to finish all the wiring coming from that section, so the last of the LPG loom now goes through the bulkhead to connect to the rest of the LPG components, you can see the wiring going round the back of the engine.



Next I made a bracket to hold both ECUs, there are heat sink connections on the bottom of the Canems ECU, its meant to be connected to something that can disopate heat, so this 2mm ali sheet should do the trick, it certainly conducts heat well (as I found when grinding it). 



The bracket bolts in with the glove box lid, I've welded some nuts on the loom undertray as it would be a real pain trying to get the nut on past all the electrics in there, its literally full of loom. 


I'm now in the process of making a panel for the lower half of the central dash, this wil have all the fuel pump switches, and the very reduced heat controls.


I'm fitting a CB radio, as a few of my mates have them and they're pretty good fun, but can't seem to find a spare place for it, thinging about ontop of th dash, but its really not looking good.


And finally I'm nearly finished fitting the bike speedometer in the originals possition, just got to fix the bulb bracket on the back and check it illuminates the speedo ok.



More to come

[henryd]

I fitted a bike speedo to an Alfa romeo 90 years ago which had a knackered digital speedo,it worked ok up to around 70mph then would go blank,maybe they are better these days

[lozzzzzz]

This speedo is very optumistic as its displayed speeds above 90, I've yet to see what happens if it were to reach tripple figures.

Done a bit more work on it this morning, the reflective white inner surface wasn't taking any light forward to reflect back onto the screen so in the dark, it was beautifully back lit but the screen was completely unreadable. 

So, I sprayed the inside of the housing black and set about fitting a light to the dash moulding itself. 

This is the old cigarette lighter backlight and housing now mounted in the dial surround.  I've decided to bin all the switch illumination and the cig lighter socket illumination as it was all very fiddly and often stopped working, it means I can slightly reduce the loom in that area, I'll keep the switch gear and add new switches rather than replace the lot, and I'll keep the dials all illuminated.  Anyway, this means I had a load of bulb holders to play with.


Neatened up the wiring a bit (it was very bodged)


And the finished item.  The illumination took a while to get right but it now casts light pretty much only on the screen of the bike speedo.


More to come

[lozzzzzz]

Decision made, I'll not use the CB 99% of the time so roof mounted it is, its out of the way and easy to get to,

Started off with some SS strips, drilled some holes and cut them to shape.


Bent them to an L shape.


And bolted them to the sides of the radio.



Drilled the little mounting holes in the ceiling, then drilled a much bigger hole between them so that some screw clip fixing things could be used (I've found the GRP to be useless with screws). 


Da-da!!!!



There was still some evening left so I wired it in too and took the wires past the driver sun viser, you should be able to see in the photos.



I even tested it and heard someone somewhere talking

More to come

[dbug]

Looking good mate - more than interesting project.

Also much more sensible place for petrol filter

[lozzzzzz]

Thanks dbug

[lozzzzzz]

Made a little strengthening piece this morning as the column surround is falling ot bits.




And found some plugs to fill the holes left by the overdrive switch and an auxilary light of some sort.


Then mounted the aux light as a fan indicator, and the LPG switch on the left of the dash panel, then screwed it all together


I've yet to get the stalks past this modification, that'll be fun. I've never figured out how to get that assembly together without bending some bits and forcing it in there, wonder how they did it in the factory?

Thats all folks for a bit