Cross Border Raid

robin · Post by **robin** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 1:54 pm

Last night, Andy & I made a run across the border and picked up a spare engine for the ubershed - a spanking 8K miler, S2 135R engine, gearbox and all ancillaries, right back to the cat, from a genuine bloke that had bought it for a caterham project, but then managed to grab an R400 pre-built and so sidelined the old engine. The engine had originally been removed from a car that has had an engine conversion - obviously couldn't run it, but it turns over without valve/piston contact and compresses on all four cylinders, so there's hope is a goodun.

I won't tell you what Andy paid for it, but even including the petrol there and back it cost less than all of the engine-only deals being offered on piston heads. The words pikey and b*stard spring to mind!

Anyway, 650 miles and 10 hours later we're back home just in time for a kip before breakfast

My bus is still upset about the reek of petrol (Andy said he felt at home with the smell these days!) and the abuse it got whilst having the spare engine in the back

Cheers,
Robin

Rag_It · Post by **Rag_It** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 1:59 pm

Errrrrr nice! Soon the UberBarge is going to be worth a lot more, and you will have to drive it with a bit less rough love ma boy!

Dave

tut · Post by **tut** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 2:11 pm

Does that mean that he will have the wheels pointing in the same direction occasionally?

<BG>

tut

jamie · Post by **jamie** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 2:24 pm

Nice - if you look at how many ks have blown in the first 2 meets its prob a good idea

Andy G · Post by **Andy G** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 3:02 pm

Oh yes Tut, once i have tyres that grips and you can bet the power we will have will be suitable with the Chief Engineer on board.

Spoke to the guy after Shug had called him while i wa sin meetings, and tarted to think about how to get the engine up north. Was going to get it couriered until Cheif Race Engineer Robin came up withthe idea of a road trip in the mega bus to go and collect it instead.....to save us going to break his legs if its crap apparently

An almightly trip though, down the A68 in the Mega bus, with the occassional over take, to be just outside Stamford by 12.15. Did the deal and was back on the move by 12.45, and we bolted straight back.

I've found my racing partner if they ever introduce a Le Mans style race. robins 45 minute sleep and switch driving for the trip back North worked a treat

We got back to Edi for 5.30 this morning. Robin is a legend! We wrestled the engine out of the back of the bus and in to my garage.

I've been getting safety equipment sorted in the few minutes i've had today and have dropped a small fortune in the direction of Geary too.

Petrol tank fix is scheduled for Saturday afternoon now, so soon the beast will begin to take shape...tonights plan....to better the 2.5 hours sleep i got last night

The adventure continues..will cross post this to my uber barge thread too

Andy G · Post by **Andy G** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 3:04 pm

Oh and it does look like a belter.....the chap selling it was a catering van racer very enthusiastic, and with the tidiest garage i've seen (even had a tyre rack FFS!) , although not as cool and Lawrences

Very nice chap Bob (hopefully, if it works!)

Post by **campbell** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 3:35 pm

Flippin eck, it's all happening!

So...cue FBF tech dept...what needs set up to get an S2 engine and presumably also ECU to run successfully in an S1 shed?!?!

Andy G · Post by **Andy G** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 4:41 pm

Less of the shed remarks

You need a Robin basically - he did talk me through it last night but my explanation would not do it justice

tut · Post by **tut** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:00 pm

Yep, he's not a bad lad, and takes most things in his stride.

Only ever seen him upset once, on Stelvio, and of course that was down to me.

tut

robin · Post by **robin** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 11:16 pm

tut wrote:Yep, he's not a bad lad, and takes most things in his stride.

Only ever seen him upset once, on Stelvio, and of course that was down to me.

tut

Yeah, you total nutter. Mind you, I did owe you for bashing you over the head with a screw driver when it turned out it was a cat sniffing my backside not you

Anyway, not much needs to happen to the engine (apart from fitting some hairier cam shafts).

From a sensor point of view, we'll strip off the S2 engine harness and route in the old S1 harness, swap over the injectors and IACV (S1 injectors are bigger and pre-wired for batch injection, so will just work with the emerald and existing loom; emerald doesn't support S2-type IACV).

Am thinking we'll use the plug top coils (less likely to get water in them and splutter) and no distributor, so need to make up a wee lead to hook those up and reconfigure emerald to wasted spark - easy enough.

TPS is unchanged.

TMAP sensor is a curve ball, though, if we keep the alloy plenum. We'll probably blank off the TMAP sensor aperture (there's something on 5/9 kilometers site about that I think). For now we'll use the emerald in TPS mode, so we don't need to TMAP for the MAP part - will probably cut a hole into the top side of the air box and slap it in there; that way we have inlet air temp and external barometric pressure correction sensor all in one and it's near enough the M3DK position that we can use the old loom to make the right cable direct to the ECU plug.

Coolant and oil pressure sensors are all fitted same as standard S1.

The alternator is the same I think - if not we'll make it work or swap on the old alternator.

So not hard really; biggest hassle is getting the emerald mapped - I see that emerald offer an upgrade service to retrofit the K3 features to the older M3DKs - this includes a much better self mapping system (takes the wideband lamda sensor output and remaps automatically) as well as multiple map mode (so you can have a lean map for cruise and a rich map for power).

Am thinking that one of the TSE emeralds needs to go away to be reconfigured to K3 spec. Maybe we can ask Dan to ship the one he is holding off Shoomer's car down to emerald for the upgrade?

Cheers,
Robin

jamie · Post by **jamie** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:24 am

Post by **campbell** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:05 am

Well. Race Engineer Robin for sure

Top stuff, is this happening at the FBF Facility then? Must drop by to spectate periodically...Eilidh can hold the spanners for you I guess

robin · Post by **robin** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 9:08 am

My garage is so full of old bits of shed (and to be fair it's just a pig sty) that we're doing project uber shed at Andy's place (which is also near Hoymotorsport which might turn out to be handy if we need some emergency bodgery).

Actually, when I say we, I do mean just me, as like all good racing drivers, Andy is off to the pub for the whole weekend while the engine is being installed

So, if there's anyone looking for a job any time during the weekend May 4/5/6 then give me a shout - one or two pairs of capable hands will make a huge difference to how long this will take! Especially as most FBF projects are measured in months rather than hours ...

Thanks,
Robin

Post by **Shug** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 9:16 am

I can pop over on the Friday, but need to be in the shop Sat/Sun.

At least I have experience of hacking looms (although not always 100% successful...)

Rich H · Post by **Rich H** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 9:27 am

Surely you can get the weekend off.... ask the boss!