Winter Strip Down and Rebuild (Done and Dusted)

[Victor Meldrew]

Had an interesting chat with Dan about "downsizing". 200 bhp out of a 1600K series.. Just need to wait to see what the class structures turn out like in 2010.

1.4 Turbo ?

Is the 1600 a bored or stroked 1400 ? and is the 1800 bored and stroked again ?

what would you get by keeping the 1400's stroke but 1800's bore ? or is that the 1600 and I am talking p1sh ?

Think its just different liners and pistons. The head is the "low" head, so my Sabre head would fit right on apparently. Omega pistons and everything balanced up, race cams, direct to head throttle and an emerald.. looking for about 200 bhp. Dan says this isn't too far fetched an idea, would maybe put the car down into a more competitive class. (regulation dependant)

[Esprit]

Thanks for that Mike.

As for the balancing, and tungsten insertion, it's VERY expensive. The balancing and insertion bill for mine is likely to be nearing 1600 pounds (the insertion is 85% of this) Add to that you'll need a new stock crank, chosen for its lack of factory balancing holes, so that's another 500 or so.... so it's very much not a cheap exercise. The reason I went down this road though it I believe (and this is another "ten blokes, ten opinions thing) that most of the K-s problems stems from poor single cylinder balance. Given that the engine started life as a 1.1 and 1.4L, was stretched to 1.6 and again to 1.8 makes it extremely marginal at revs. The imbalances are fine on stock applications limited to 6500-7,000 RPM, but push beyond that and cranks start to whirl in the block, which not only causes extra wear, ovalled liners etc but also head-shuffle and HGF. The figure I've heard is that it'll cause a 2-tonne bending moment betweeen the mains at 8200RPM!!!! The crankcase just isn't big enough to get enough weight in the crank, hence the insertion process is required to get the mass in the crank where it's needed.

Hence why I've invested in going down this route, which actually makes it not a LOT cheaper than going the Honda route (especially here in NZ where Honda engines grow on trees for pence). My next car will be an SC Honda, but this Exige is getting built as a keeper, something that'll always be in my garage and something that's close enough to "original" to be worth something someday (my car will never be for sale).

Thanks for the tip on the oil stat, I'll have a hunt locally and see if I can find one, else I'll look at importing.

Cheers,

George.

[robin]

The 1.4 and 1.6 share stroke.
The 1.6 and 1.8 share bore.

So you can put 1.8 head on 1.6 and vice versa.

Old style 1.4 engine blocks are totally different to the 1.6/1.8K blocks, so not much use for anything anymore.

Cheers,
Robin

[Victor Meldrew]

The 1.4 and 1.6 share stroke.
The 1.6 and 1.8 share bore.

So you can put 1.8 head on 1.6 and vice versa.

Old style 1.4 engine blocks are totally different to the 1.6/1.8K blocks, so not much use for anything anymore.

Cheers,
Robin

So the 1600 is a short stroke 1800. Must be better package at higher revs then. Anyway.. thread drift.. my bad.

[Mikie711]

Anyway.. thread drift.. my bad.

Not really it's all relevant.

Lot of caterhams are heavily tuned 1600 K series see DVA's home page most are 16's that he is talking about. The engine would have advantages as it has a shorter stroke there for less piston velocity per rev which is one of the problems with the K from what I can gather, so yes 200BHP from a 1600 is reasonably easy to achieve.
Turbo 1400 has been done, once by turbo technics who would happily relieve you of £40k to recreate the engine, won it's class in the British sprint championship I believe. The other I found us here. Looks fun but expensive, the guy would take £2000 as it is now or 1750 without the induction or turbo.

[Mikie711]

Busy day

it lives

[BiggestNizzy]

Busy day

it lives

video is private

[Mikie711]

oops...............sorted

[tut]

Worked for me.

Well done Mike, when do you give it a longer run and get upto temp?

tut

[Mikie711]

emm, when i've got four wheels on my wagon and some body work..............seriously, once I get the geo sorted and stick the clams back on. Heading up to Ricky's next week to run it in on the rollers, will put some road miles on it before then just to make sure it all stays together.

Next job...setting up the geometry.

BTW anybody know the weight of a front and rear clam?

[mwmackenzie]

Well done!! Top job mate

I look forward to being lapped many times by you at KH

Mark

[Mikie711]

First off, apologies for not keeping this up to date but time has been against me. Have made a bit of progress since I got home. First off as you can gather from the video I got the engine re-built and fired up. Used farndon rods, tf160 bearings throughout, MLS head gasket (more to protect the head than for any other reason) and also got a new throttle linkage from Jenvey.



This time it started no problem, but more significantly re-started . Good 75-80 psi oil pressure and, so far, no problems. As for making everything fit that turned out to be quite easy. First off was cutting the boot box for the air box and locating somewhere to fit an oil catch tank.



You can see the catch tank in the top left corner of the engine bay. The cut out for the airbox isn't the neatest but I will tidy that up when I get more time. Trying to get it finished and up to Ricky's for Monday, so time is getting tight. Also moved the Emerald from inside the engine bay to inside the boot.



Better picture of the oil catch tank.

One remaining job was to cut a slot in the front under tray for the oil cooler, out cane the jig saw and

[Mikie711]

With all that out of the way, next up was setting the preload on the pedal box push rods, installing a PLX devices DM-5 AFR gauge and bleeding the brake and clutch. If like me you ever change/disconnect your front calipers bleed them upside down before putting them on the car otherwise you will end up using sh!t loads of brake fluid trying to get the air out of them.

After all that it was outside to get the ride height, steering and corner weights sorted out. First off is ballasting up the car to account for the lack of driver and in this case front clam as it's a lot easier to make changes without it on.



Always new those weights would come in useful for something !!. 76kg in the drivers seat and the strap to lock the steering. Next I cut some wooden blocks to use as gauges for ride height. One at 100mm and one at 110mm, makes checking the height a simple matter of seeing if the block will slide under the chassis rail. Much easier than using a tape or ruler. Just a case of adjusting the spring platforms till your happy each corner is a the desired height. And remembering that changing one corner will affect the diagonally opposite corner in reverse. I.E. raise the left rear will lower the front right. Takes a while !!!.




2m of B&Q's finest wardrobe pole, bolted through the front towing eye mount and some duct tape lines it up at wheel center pretty good at the front. Weights are to account for the lack of clam and inner arches. Not sure how kosher this is but don't suppose it will make that much difference.




Back end is taken care of with some duct tape. This is just for setting the toe on the front and if needed the rear wheels. I have a digital inclinometer for setting camber so don't need to hang lines down to read that. Next up is to check that the string is parallel by taking measurements from the rear and front wheels, i.e. get the same distance from each rear wheel centers and the same distance from the front wheel centers but the front and back will be different IYSWIM.





All that's left is to measure from the back and front of the wheel to get how much toe out you are. I was looking for 0.5mm toe out which is 0.25mm a side. By using a digital vernier I can get fairly close, but even tightening the TCA lock nuts can change things quite a lot. Little tip is to have your front wheels on some sand as this allows them to turn easier, unless you have turning plates. Takes time and patients and can be quite frustrating to do.



Once I was happy next job was to corner weight the car. As I can't afford £1100 for electronic scales I used a corner weight gauge. Seems quite accurate as you do get repeatable readings.
Now, I have never done this but after a fair amount of reading thought I would give it a go. First off, any changes need to be small. It is surprising how much of a shift in weight a small change in ride height will cause. Second, disconnect the front ARB or you end up with all sorts of weird readings.
After tweeking and twiddling all afternoon I settled on the following for the time being.



This makes my car with 1/3 of a tank of fuel and driver 761kg. Front to rear split is 43%/57% and diagonal is 50.7%/49.3% which for a first effort I am quite happy with. Will have to see how it drives now and hopefully I will get the boot covers on and inner arches in tomorrow. Front clam is on as I type so after 5 months the end is neigh .

Mike

[ABZ-Elise]

Nice work Mike. Good to see it all coming together, you must be itching to take it out for a burn.

[robin]

Mike, I thought you had to do the corner weights before the geo - altering the ride heights to adjust corner weights means that you'll have changed the toe, no?

Good effort though - I hadn't seen the corner weight gauge thingmy before - I take it that's a sort of lever that you use to lift one corner off the ground and measure the amount of force required?

Cheers,
Robin