First run of 2018

Finally

    Snow x2 in Feb - check
    Week of stair-rods rain - check
    Re-assembled the car after modifications - check
    Even gave it a wash - check

16 mile round the block test - Yes - back in the groove!
A few waves from families out for their Easter Sunday walks - you don't have to be driving these cars to enjoy them.

All running fine when moving.

ECU

Adjusted various ECU settings (to follow) on cold start, and had to reset the area around idle which seemed to have leaned itself off too much. I still suspect the improvement in running voltage - a nominal 14.5 volts now has shifted to a different area on the battery compensation table and thrown things off.

Still a hunting slow idle to sort, but everything is basically working.

Cake Day pictures!

My birthday rather than GN13's. 

This picture was commissioned and printed as a present from my wife.

Love it!

It even has my bonnet badges, vents and wind deflector details.

Perfect spot for it in the hall.

No kick-backs to me, but if you want a copy of the above or to contact the artist - all the information can be found on RedBubble - 3pedaldriving.

Luggage space

Vienna run pending and potentially I have a passenger so creating some options for 2x kit bags. The second sitting on top of the full boot.

2x seat belt bolts replaced with eyelets behind the seats and a stainless bar across the roll brace diagonals. This should provide plenty of bungee hook on places as well as a physical stop/barrier stopping anything sliding off the back,

Longer bolts to secure extra eye-nuts on the inside.

The rear bar brackets real use is for 25mm tube retail display setup - they seem to be die cast then chromed. The bar between a separately sourced polished stainless tube. The arrangement does compromise boot access somewhat - but all the changes are fully reversible.

Replace front indicators

This one was on the cards for a while, a breakage on the Ireland trip just forced the issue. No idea where the lens went, didn't even notice it was gone until one of the campsite owners told me.

So looked for some options, this one only £3 from china - nice shape - but a little too extreme on size - perhaps more suited to being a repeater.

After browsing Ebay for 'motorcycle fairing indicator' settled on this. It would be no good for IVA - no 45º visibility from the front let alone minimum distance to the side, but MOT just checks number and functionality on indicator lights so I should be fine.

The car is on stands so no way to stand back and double check I got them exactly level - all functional though, nice new clean look.

Couple of longer shots in the drive - looks fine to me, they are even reasonably level!

Good news and bad news - lights and leaks

New Headlamps

I fitted small 4" dominator headlamps which looked great - but 2 years down the line they have to go, just not large enough reflectors to generate good lighting even with higher power bulbs.

I didn't go back to full 7" lamps - but instead 5 3/4" with a full UK pattern lens. Picked them up  from CBS who are just down the road. Hopefully a good compromise between looks and function; certainly massively brighter even in daylight than the dominators.

Modified them to use the drilled mounting bolts from the old 7" lights means I can hide the wiring inside the mounting bracket. 

(Picture angle is deceptive - they are pointing straight ahead)

Leaks

Call it good luck that I decided to replace the lights and found the problem, or bad luck that I now have something else to fix :). The radiator looked a little beaten up, full of bugs, a few dints in the cooling fins etc.

The nose cone gave it away - why was it damp inside? and the gutter/bottom area of the rad fins full of coolant..

Started the engine up and when warm a little puff of steam from a hole... Its not a huge leak - the coolant height hasn't noticeably dropped since I was out a 2-3 weeks back.

Somehow a stone has gone in the back, unless this is the exit wound?

Looking more closely at the pic, very possibly damage from when the fan was originally mounted through the matrix. The picture shows bent fins, which are no problem but it appears the area they tore away from on the vertical matrix pipe has the pinhole leak. So that will be learning the hard way again.

It leaks hardly at all when cold, needs some investigation - repair or replace?  

Certainly needs fixing before Austria and I don't fancy bodging it this end of the season with radweld.

Wing mirror refurb.

My wing mirrors were getting a little worse for wear, paint bubbling off and making the car look scruffy. The paint seemed to have never been applied properly from new & only took a little sanding to take it completely back to bare metal.

The mounting arms were fine - just the mirror units themselves with the problem.

Resprayed 3-4 coats of satin black 'direct to rust' hammerite, we'll see if that wears any better:

Update - It lasted until summer 2017 so much better than the original paint, and even then only breaking down in small areas from stone chips. +1 for Hammerite direct to rust spray.

Sunny Day - Gallery

Sunny day - shiny motor @ Dad's house:

Perfect opportunity to use a picture of my own car for the blog header.

A good run out, 88 miles round trip (its 70 miles by the map, the other 18 were a scenic route to enjoy the car), I got some practice in negotiating speed bumps & made a note to adjust the rear ride height - its a little low right now meaning the seat bolts ground on speed bumps & smaller road bumps & the offside rear tyre touches its wheel arch.

I think she is doing something like 20mpg - keep in mind I wasn't holding back with acceleration, so thats not too bad either for the stock Powermap, certainly no rush yet to get the ECU tuned.

ECU Injection corrections

A little reasonable weather so time to make inroads on the ECU settings.

The engine has been running fine, but starting is poor and tick-over once up to temperature poor.

I went through the IACV setup one more time as per Emerald documentation 

Then adjusted the Injection corrections - the key table which helped was changing the Coolant temp correction.

Originally to get the engine started (without accelerator) I increased the initial injection prime - what I hadn't touched yet was the coolant temp adjustment - this increases injection by a percentage amount depending on coolant temp - by manually adjusting injection to get a clean run/idle you can then calculate the percentage increase needed at various temperature points;

So far I have one data point:  +11% @ 92º    

Even using just this single data point and calculating a straight line across the others makes a huge difference - waiting for the engine to cool now so I can get a few more data points. Needing an overall increase at this coolant temp may well be an indication the whole map needs revising - possibly my OEM fuel pressure gauge delivers slightly less juice than the engine GBS had mapped.

Update - I'm going to have another play with ECU settings - probably shift this +11% to the main map rather than on the temperature ajustment map since at 70º+ there shouldn't really be an across the board (all sites) increase.

The challenge for the novice (me) is fuel & air have to be in balance to get a smooth run & its difficult to tell which variable to change - i.e. more injection works up to a point then you need to balance with more air or it just richens the mixture and goes lumpy; similarly - more air generally increases revs until you go past that sweet spot and its over lean.

I will update the ECU page as I settle on particular settings.

Wing mirrors and all up shots

Wing mirrors in place; Marked up so (I hope) the holes will be under the windscreen mounting locations. I've also inserted various grommets in the pre-drilled holes for wipers, washer & windscreen brackets & at last started to remove the plastic panel coverings to see the car in its final state:

The Aux panel is roughly in place - but it will have to come out again for some minor adjustments.

Water temp gauge is a little erratic too - I need to check its connector, it used to be fine so I wonder if I did something while fixing the fuel gauge.

ECU

I also spent a lot of time today playing with the ECU settings, especially the injection corrections initial prime settings so I can start reliably, and tinkering with the narrow band lambda closed loop settings.

I have a basic understanding of whats going on - its just air / fuel mixture based on ambient air/water conditions - but no real experience so leaving the core values alone and just adjusting startup parameters and air intake/idling parameters.

I'm keeping a log of changes on the ECU page

Empty

No progress on the car over the Xmas break; The garage needs some work so initially everything is cleared out ready to have the ceiling at the rear removed. Turns out its asbestos insulation board so I'm having to pay a small fortune to get some expert removal, on the flip side I can re-insulate the ceiling properly when it goes back together and improve the warmth of the room above.

...and an excuse for a few more shots of the car in daylight:

First 'all up' configuration

A few general shots of the car with all its major components in place, looking really good.

This is just so I can move it around easily, i.e. the seats, bonnet etc still need final fitting & the dashboard is not fully bolted in - I haven't finished with the heating & wiring in the dash area yet.

Now I need to completely clear out the garage to take down the ceiling!