683 replies to this topic

[rodomo]

As of yesterday there were 11 days to go until the Winton fun day. The race is on to go to Mathoura (just over the border from Echuca), get the car and assemble it in 11 days. It may not happen but in the words of P.Brock:
"we're gonna give it a red hot go!"
The car is VC SL/E 310 pack. It has 4 wheel discs and LSD.



It was 308 auto and due to my budget (none) we are using bits and pieces I have laying around and can beg borrow or steal.
So it will have 3.3 black/blue (unsure as the motor I have is painted red ) and manual, this swap has issues within its self as the pedals have to be changed and the tailshaft might have to be altered.
The dash cluster has also been removed and the loom chopped. I have another SL/E tacho dash and have to wire it in.
The project offically started last night and in absence of the car the engine preparation began. "Grasshopper" (Heath) came over and pulled the A/C bracket, air pump, thermostat outlet and manifolds off.



I started adapting a WW2 stromberg to the Varijet manifold and here is the 1st budget (theres that word again) tech tip.

I have read a couple of posts over time about 253's using too much fuel, as well as the usual suspects, float level, needle and seat, timing etc, these carbies can have an inbuilt fault that is hard to detect.



The bit with the spring on it in the middle of this pic. (red arrow) is the power valve plunger. This plunger opens the power valve when you put your foot down and relies on vacuum to stay up and keep the power valve closed at cruise. The groove around the back of the airhorn (blue arrow) is the channel that supplies manifold vacuum to the plunger to keep it up. If there is warpage in the airhorn and/or the carby body, this channel can leak vacuum and the power valve may be always open. The slotted port at the bottom of the pic (yellow arrow) is the port where engine vacuum gets to the top of the piston to hold it up. You can test the plunger operation by applying vacuum via a hose from a running engine if you dont have a vacuum pump.



This is the plunger removed from the air horn. Arrowed is a tiny "welch plug" in the end of the plunger piston. This "welch plug" can be known to fall out and the result is the power valve is always open. If by using the test mentioned above, your plunger doesn't rise with vacuum applied, chances are this plug has fallen out. The 6 cyl carbies have a similar plunger though I have never seen a 6cyl one fail.

Also last night began adapting the manifold. I don't thing anyone makes an adapter for this carby swap so I am making one fron 12mm alum. flat. More pics to come.



I am off to Mathoura tomorrow to pick up the car and returning Sat.
Later will doing a budget distibutor "tweak" with pics.

Edited by rodomo, 07 December 2006 - 07:33 PM.

[MRLXSS]

Great Project! Cant wait to learn more budget Tweaks!

Also keep up the pics of heath! The more retarded look on his face the better! hehehehe

[Heath]

Also keep up the pics of heath! The more retarded look on his face the better!

[makka]

good work Rob, is the SL/E currently a roller or are you pulling out the 308 to put the 202 in?

[rodomo]

good work Rob, is the SL/E currently a roller or are you pulling out the 308 to put the 202 in?

I got the car with no motor or g/box, they are now in a Ford Transit van.
The car was supposed to be ready for Winton last Sunday the 17th. The next Winton fun day is 28th Jan and this is now the target. All of the above info is from the 2 weeks prior to the 17th. Sat the 16th 4pm we had to throw an exhaust at it (weld it where it touched was the plan and fix up later), run 6 or 7 wires to make it run, reassemble brakes and fit tailshaft. It all came unstuck with "fit the tailshaft". The tailshaft I have is commodore as it has a centre bearing but it was 2 1/2" too long. (wagon?) So I cut off the yolk, shortened it, just to find the centre bearing mount didn't line up. So that was "game over" for me.
I will still use the shaft but have to fabricate a new mount.

[rodomo]

More info on carby and manifold mods.

While Grasshopper was pulling bits off the engine, I was modifing the carby and manifold and making the adapter.



Everything that wasn't needed was removed, holes taped and plugged. Choke butterfly, choke spring chamber, and all other vacuum ports not needed for this application.



The air horn was also "attacked" with the $15 burrs from Bunnings. Basically, sharp corners/turns were smoothed out.
You might notice the "relieving" around the top where the aircleaner sits on compared the the earlier pic. I will try to explain the reasoning for this when I "attack" the aircleaner and have pics.

The adapter was made from 12 x 100mm flat alum. plate.



A 3mm (1/8th) drill was used to mark out the blank and a thin blade on the angle grinder to cut the straights.
A jigsaw with a relieved blade was then used to cut out the blank and the hole was finished with the "Bunnings" burrs and a "Flapper" emery wheel.



The arrowed section was retained as without this, there is a chance one of the carby base plate screws could fall out and enter the manifold.





Before and after.



We also did this, it was more of a tidy up of an "ordinary" casting than match porting.
The red lines show (roughly) the internal walls in the manifold, something I hadn't paid much attention to until now. The blue lines represent the "flow" as I see it and would provide superior distributon of the charge compared to a stock or aftermarket red manifold.

[rodomo]

Here is the "budget" dissy tweaks.
This could be a bit of a "suck it and see" tweak for some as there are variables e.g. compression and has the dissy been tweaked before?
What we are aiming for is more overall advance by increasing the advance at idle without "pinging".
Extra advance at idle will make it idle smoother as it lifts vacuum and will give better pick up off the line.
The best way to test an unknown dissy to see if it is "tweaked" is to fit it and see where you can set the timing without it pinging compared to your old dissy.
On a standard motor we are looking for about 10-12 advance at idle compared to "stock" 6 or so.
An example as far as compression being a variable is my old Rangie.
With the old motor (8:1 comp) I used to run 10 deg advance, this motor was tired. With the new engine (10:1 comp) I now run 4 deg advance with the same dissy. The Rangie book specifys a ATDC timing figure, 3 deg. from memory.

This is the dissy from the commodore. It is electronic but the mechanical advance is almost identical to a points dissy. These "tweaks" should also work for holden V8 dissys.



The top and lower sections of the shaft should be able to move independently of each other. To test this, hold the gear at the bottom, with the rotor button fitted turn the rotor button, it should be able to be moved about 20 degrees and spring back. If it doesn't do this freely, the 2 shafts are siezing and you would be having trouble getting the timing to stay adjusted. To dismantle the 2 shafts there is a circlip under a felt wad (red arrow) that needs to be removed to get them apart. The felt is there to absorb oil. 1 or 2 drops of oil on the felt at tune time will keep the 2 shafts lubricated.
The blue arrow points to the primary advance spring, this is the spring that governs how quick the dissy advances off idle and because it does the most work, is the one that looses tension most. If you have a standard motor, standard dissy, set the timing to standard and it "pings" chances are this spring has lost tension. The orange arrow points to the secondary spring. This spring doesn't start working until the engine is revving, maybe 1500-2000rpm? but I'm not sure of the exact figure.
Obviously you would check the condition of the springs, spring posts, weights and pivots at this point.



Here is my rule of thumb, somewhere in the ball park, she'll be right mate budget tweak.
On the primary spring measure the distance between the spring posts with the spring fitted and the weight closed. Bend the outer post (right in pic) outwards approx .5 - .75mm. This will, A. Compensate for wear and loss of tension and B. Retard the point that the primary weight starts to advance, in other words the dissy will start to advance later and allow more idle advance.
With the secondary spring, bend the post outwards about.2mm to compensate for wear.



Here is the pain in the arse tear your hair out bit made easy. The manual says about getting the airgap right and can be a bit confusing. I use 3 pieces of folded paper. This paper was from a standard envelope folded in 3. It will set the gap evenly for you and hold the shaft in place as you evenly tighten the allen screws.
The vacuum advance on my application is only there to hold the "breaker" plate in place and the vacuum line wont be connected as there isn't much vacuum when your foots flat.



The red arrow points to the thrust adjusting shims. There are also shims at the top end of the lower shaft. Its important that the shaft doesn't have too much thrust (see manual for specs) as your timing will be erratic, the shaft will "hammer" up and down and parts will wear prematurely.

I am using a steel gear and have read arguments against this.
My theory is the dissy runs off the same gear on the camshaft as the oil pump. The oil pump runs a steel gear and exerts more load on the cam gear than the dissy should providing the dissy is in good order and that includes the thrust.

These "tweaks" were taught to me when I was a "Grasshopper" by my "Master". I was about 20 and had my Monaro dyno tuned. They adjusted the jets in the Holley but said the dissy was spot on. I have done these "tweaks" including the steel gear to every holden 6 I have owned and never had a problem.

I usually end up with about 10 - 12 degrees idle advance on a standard motor with no "pinging" but remember compression ratio will be a factor when finding your new idle timing.

Oh yeah, make sure your balancer hasn't slipped.

Edited by rodomo, 24 December 2006 - 02:09 AM.

[rodomo]

These pics were taken in the week before the 17th Dec.



The heater and A/C had to be removed and the firewall patched before the engine was fitted.



The firewall had to be patched on the inside where the previous owner had chopped out the firewall to use the acc. pedal pivot. Leith's bonnet is still coming in handy. The manual pedals were also fitted and alum. checker plate pedal pads riveted to the original pedals. The entire dash was stripped out.

Works in progress:
I have been a little slack since the 17th past. I am a little buggered from the Rangie rebuild and trying to get this done as well. I have been gathering brake bits but have been doing an hour or so here and there as well. Tonight I was out there for a few hours and the enthusiasm is back.



"Keyhole surgery" on a broken bonnet hinge bolt.



90mm stormwater PVC pipe from Bunnings available in 1 metre lengths for $9.00.
Heat gun $20.00 from Bunnings.
It will have cold air ram induction if all goes to plan.

Budget brake mods soon.

[rodomo]

Update:
This week I have been playing around with the ride height. The springs are being "adjusted" under controlled "don't try this at home kids" "remember this is a track car only" "not recommended or condoned for road cars" conditions.

I have removed the "power" steering rack and am "maualising" it. This means removing all internal seals for less internal friction. Gear oil will then be used for lubrication. Apparently the "power" racks have a different ratio (I am not sure though, I wish I had a manual) and are faster lock to lock which will be good for this application.

New camber and caster angles are being "dialled" in.



This "was" the setting, you can see the centre of the top pivot is to the rear (for caster) pretty much central (left to right of the car) which adjusts camber.

By un-doing the 3 nuts I have rotated the top pivot in the "tower" to give maximum negative camber at the expense of caster.



I just hope it still wants to steer straight it still measures positive caster so it should.

[micklx]

I like the idea of the ratio of the power steer rack but without having to have power steering.
From memory a P/S rack is 2.6 turns lock to lock versus about 3.5 for a manual rack.
My VH has a manual rack and its fine at Phillip Island but at my local hillclimb track that has a couple of really sharp turns, its a handfull.
Let me know if it works.

[rodomo]

I like the idea of the ratio of the power steer rack but without having to have power steering.
From memory a P/S rack is 2.6 turns lock to lock versus about 3.5 for a manual rack.
My VH has a manual rack and its fine at Phillip Island but at my local hillclimb track that has a couple of really sharp turns, its a handfull.
Let me know if it works.

I hope you would find this mod. benificial at P.I. too, a lot of high speed corners there and less arm movement. I'm hoping that this mod. (which will make the steering heavier) will be offset by the reduction in caster (which will make the steering lighter).
Here's what I did and comes with the bit: This mod. was performed under controlled "don't try this at home kids" "remember this is a track car only" "not recommended or condoned for road cars" conditions.



The pinion on a power rack is in 2 parts. The top part drives the lower part via a torsional rod down the middle (represented by the black dotted line) until the torsion rod twists enough to engage the "dogs" (yellow arrow) at which point power assistance starts. This is so power assist. is not always happening until the wheel is moved and enough resistance is present to engage the "dogs". It also allows for "feedback" from the road wheels without engaging power assistance. To separate the 2 parts the pin at the top has to be removed (blue arrow). I made up 2 "angle iron" shaped pieces from panel steel and fitted them to the gaps at the dog. I used this method rather than welding as I don't think its good practice to weld steering parts and there are 3 bearings on this shaft when assembled and would be difficult to align if the 2 parts were welded.
When I refitted the top part it was an "interference" fit and had to be "tapped" on with fair effort. This then made the unit "solid". The torsional rod was also retained. I then trimmed the 2 pieces of angle so the "valve body" could be refitted.



This will also hold my "angle iron" bits in place as this part covers the "dogs". There are 4 seals on this valve body, I removed the 2 middle ones (white arrows) but left the top and bottom ones there for their "bearing" value at the whole assy. rotates in the housing.
Just above the "spiral" of the pinion in this pic is a high pressure seal (located in the rack body) this seal was removed but the one at the top of the pinion where the steering shaft fits on was retained.



The high pressure piston on the rack was removed, this is retained to the rack by a circlip on one side but is "knurled" into a groove on the shaft on the other side (green arrow). I cut it with the angle grinder (thin blade) either side of the shaft and one hit with a chisel and it fell off. The high pressure seal and "O" ring were removed from the L/H bearing housing (red arrow).



The pain in the butt part of the mod. was removing the R/H high pressure seal from inside the body represented by the red line. A "special tool" was fabricated from a piece of dowel and a Landrover Freelander head bolt (I dont throw anything out )(these bolts are bloody long as they engage the main bearing caps on a Freelander). Once the back of the seal was found from one end, the dowel was hammered from the other end to force the tool behind the seal so it could be hit out.
The rack was then assembled as per manual rack specs. The bearings, needle rollers and bushes were all assembled with hi-temp wheel bearing grease and 200mls of diff oil will be tipped in to the rack body before the rack boots are fitted.

Mick, if you decide to do this mod P.M. me your address and I'll send you the "special tool." I have 7 or 8 more Freelander head bolts so no loss here.

Edited by rodomo, 02 January 2007 - 11:43 PM.

[tinkers]

what the hell is heath doing coming around to work on a motor in a WHITE SHIRT???

Coming from someone who often works on the car in white, you soon learn that nappy san (the pink one is better) or bleach become your best friend when washing whites.

Interesting thread rodomo

[Heath]

lol Bomber that's one of the shirts I use for airbrushing and anything mechanical. It wasn't grease-free when I arrived and I didn't expect it to be grease-free when I left.

Now I know I'm a sexy bastard, but this thread isn't about me, so start talking cars!

Edited by Heath, 03 January 2007 - 01:40 PM.

[rodomo]

Interesting thread rodomo

Maybe the bits about the dissy and carby can be copied? And stickied in their appropriate topics? As they relate to Toranas?

Edited by rodomo, 03 January 2007 - 11:39 PM.

[rodomo]

Just for you.
WARNING! MUST BE 18yrs or over to view!
MA18+

Edited by rodomo, 04 January 2007 - 03:48 PM.

[RIM-010]

RIM

[tinkers]

His boobs err sorry "bust" are uneven