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Dec 15, 2014 19:02:54 GMT
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Could anyone who has done this in the past give a rough idea of how much they spent in total and roughly what they did (accommodation, laps of the ring, days driving and what car ect?)
I'm real interested, but also buying a house within the next 3 months!
James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Its alive mwuahahaha After re-routing the wiring for the crank position sensor, then moving it again so that there wasn't any electrical noise the car fired straight up If i wasn't bothered about upsetting the neighbours with the noise, i could have got it fired up last night! Hurrah, At least ill be able to make it down to the meet on Wednesday. Inside Out are filming an article on "Boy Racers" and want to have some young car enthusiasts down, so now there will be 1 more to add to the list. Look out for me on the telly James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Nov 30, 2014 21:02:52 GMT
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Cheers guys.
The picture on the recovery truck is by far my favourite picture of the hillman too Clement!
The new engine is fully installed now, just having some teething problems getting it running. I moved the crank position sensor ( and the trigger wheel) to make it neater and also give the return feed to the radiator a bit more clearance. Sadly though, its decided that it doesn't want to pick up the teeth so i cant get it started!
Might get it sorted tomorrow night. Another day driving the blue turd ( or the Gf's clio, but don't tell her i called it that! )
James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Nov 28, 2014 21:17:34 GMT
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I've been putting 200+ bhp through my hunter rear axle. Its got an MX5 engine in it along with a custom pro. I have 2 axles, one that wined since i got it so i welded the diff and currently have in the car. The other is a 4.1 ratio and an open diff. I used this for drag racing, after 18 runs it was fine! More info here : retrorides.proboards.com/thread/166310/1972-hillman-hunter-bangJames
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Nov 28, 2014 21:14:22 GMT
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Here's a picture showing the end of the shaft/ hub. You can see the keyway and lots of rust. (and a tin of the magical plus gas in the background) Remember to put the backing plates on that mount the drum brake mechanism..... not like someone writing this for got to..... then had to take it all back apart again...... James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Nov 28, 2014 21:10:36 GMT
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The hubs come off on some of the axles and are held on by the big nut and are driven via a key and keyway. I think there are some pictures in my build thread of my hunter. getting the shafts out is a proper pain in the but. The wheel bearings have an o-ring on them and if they are anything like mine, also have a tube of silicone holding them in along with lots of rust. To get mine out, i used the blow torch on the axle casing to get it to expand a bit, then stood it on end and poured a load of Plus-Gas penetrating fluid on it ( I highly recommend this stuff!!) I then let it sit for a bit, heated it up again and battered the hell out of the hub using a long bar and my lump hammer so that it would make the shaft come out ( not just randomly battering it ) . A Slide hammer would have been ideal for this. Its the shock loading it needs to break the rust that's holding it together. Think of it as you have entered bodge mode and have resorted to hitting a spanner thats on a rusty nut, its the shock that breaks it loose as the force you would put on it by just pushing would be more than you could hope for( you would probably snap the spanner)
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Nov 28, 2014 20:52:56 GMT
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I'll be fitting a new engine! More info here: Click! James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Nov 28, 2014 20:50:40 GMT
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Well then, time for an update! The car was working faultlessly up until about a week ago. It was happily running at around 12psi of boost, smoking boy racers left, right and centre, along with being a reliable daily driver to work. Fair enough there are no heaters and its noisy, but i like that Then it started to ping a bit when you went into boost as if the timing had crept forwards. I loaded up tuner studio, took alot of timing off and it stopped pinging. I thought there might have been some carbon deposits build up as it had been running very rich in the mornings when i was setting up the cold start stuff now there are some fairly cold mornings. However, it was now at a max of 4 degrees advance when in boost and tapered down to 0 degrees when the boost had fully built. It also developed an annoying lifter tick from the hydraulic tappets, this is a common issue with these engines, so it didn't worry me too much. With the annoying tappet noise and a bigger turbo sat on the side i decide that i would buy a later cylinder head. A 98-00 cylinder head to be exact. These heads came with solid lifters (no rattle once set properly) and a better flowing head due to a re-design of the inlet. I would also put on a 98-00 inlet manifold as the re-design meant that the inlet manifold i currently have would not fit, and build the manifold for the new turbo with the engine out of the car so it would be a bit easier. I searched around for a couple of hours and couldn't find one for less than the cost of a full new engine, so in the end i decided that i might as well chuck in a full 98-00 engine and just bolt all my stuff to it when i want. Luckily there was one for sale only 60 miles away, which has low mileage and also a 60 day warranty! (I wonder if it will be valid on my setup ) so yesterday i set off to get it. But I didn't get very far.... Before I had even made it out of sight of Carlisle I was laid up at the road side after having the con rod on No 1 cylinder let go! No boost, sat at 2500 rpm at 55/60 mph in a queue of traffic and then there was just a pop, the sound of lots of bits of metal bouncing along under the car and the back wheels locked up Ahh, clutch in, back rolling, roll into the nearest road end. Luckily it was a slight downhill so i had a bit of time to think! Once the car was in a reasonably safe place i had a look underneath to find this: After a call to the RAC, i was picked up by Macadams recovery and chauffeured home by a guy big into his turbo fords, score (i suppose given the circumstances!) Anyway, as soon as it was home, the Capri was pulled back outside, cars shuffled round and i started dismantling it in the garage. Once the head was off the story was told and is as follows. On the nose of the crankshaft the pulley that drives the cam belt, along with the pulleys that drive the auxiliary belts and the trigger wheel was able to spin freely. The Key had sheared, rather neatly infact. I always knew there was a little play ( which is also apparently a common issue on the older 1.8's) But never thought anything of it. I think that this has failed, causing the timing to go way out and destroy itself. It may have slipped the week before which would explain it suddenly pinging and the timing not being right! Anyway, once this went bang, the centre section of the rod must have shot out the bottom/sides of the block. The piston, loose, has hit the valves (but not damaged them, just marked them slightly). The piston has cracked along the casting by the little end pin, along with snapping the skirts off the part of the rod that was still attached to the crank has wedged up unto the block and has jammed the engine solid! I tried rocking it in gear, but it was like the brakes were on! Anyway, here's the bit you've been waiting for: Anyway, there wont be any more updates until i get the new engine in and running, maybe by Sunday evening if things go to plan. Wish me luck! James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Nov 28, 2014 19:59:42 GMT
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Sorry Luca24, but the car has now sold. It hadn't moved off my driveway since july either!
James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Still for sale, £600
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Nov 14, 2014 21:23:17 GMT
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Saturday: Ill be modifying the exhaust on the Hillman so that it doesn't drag on the ground then heading to Cruise West Cumbria 31 in town. Sunday: Fixing whatever goes wrong next, or sorting the house out for it impending sale.
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Oct 27, 2014 18:42:27 GMT
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The only things they kept on the MX5 lumps were the oil squirters under the pistons to keep the heat down really. Some of the older blocks have a bung in where the turbo oil feed was and i think that the newest blocks might not have had the under piston oil squirters (I'm probably wrong here) The ecu maps are different as said above, but with megasquirt and a turbo you'll have lots of fun When you are pricing up the megasquirt remember to factor in a wideband sensor if you want to programme it yourself (or dyno time if you don't) along with anything else you need, such as a boost guage, but you'll already have 90% of the gear as its already running on the stock ecu! a bot off topic, but another thing to bear in mind is where you buy it from. I bought all mine from DIY Autotune in the states as a kit and it worked out cheaper than buying it over here by about £50, even after taking into account the cost of import duty and shipping My build thread is here for my hunter which has a 1.8 mx5 engine and a turbo : retrorides.proboards.com/thread/166310/1972-hillman-hunter-turboJames
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Oct 11, 2014 12:11:25 GMT
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Once again its been quite a few weeks since the last update, but there has been plenty work going on. Following the installation of the new injectors i was having fuelling issues, which turned out to be a faulty transistor in the megasqasquirt. I sent it away to Jmscortina on the MSExtra forum ,who found and fixed this for me, seeing as i didn't have an osciliscope to test it. Once it was back in the car it was running better than ever For anyone that wants to turbo an MX5 engine and doesn't fancy spending a fortune on RX7 injectors, just use some Mitsubishi Evo injectors. They flow 560cc's and i got mine for only £90 off ebay (cleaned and tested!) Here's a picture i took showing the stock MX5 injector alongside the Evo injector (red) With those installed and some other bits and pieces tidied away i was left with this: The next few weeks saw me getting a puncture and running about with some steels on the back and scrap yard tyres, nothing exciting, but they only cost me £20 for the pair! Last weekend was where all the fun was though! It started on wednesday with a slipping (brand new) clutch and the hasty order to the USA for a "stage 3" racing clutch that will hold the power. Amazingly this turned up on the friday, leaving saturday to fit it. ta-da! On the Sunday I took her to her first drag race at Kirkbride for the straightliners 'Racewars' event. It was a great day out and only 15 mins drive from my house, the weather started off wet but dried up by about lunch time (resulting in lots of smokeless, wet wheelspin and a 17s quater mile burnout ) but by 2 is the start was getting better and i managed a 14.6 @98mph. Pretty good going seeing as its all been built for less then £2000 including the cost of the car! Here's some videos of me getting beat by Mally's Vauxhaul Monaro with 400+ bhp and proper sticky tyres (his fastest on the damp track was a 13.6 so i wasnt far behind) and a very nice cortina with a fully worked 2.1 pinto All in all it was a very good weekend and the car performed very well, even after 23 runs up the strip This weekend i have been tackling the leaky windscreen rubber. It started off with me picking out the silicone that had been pushed into it perviousely with the hope of drying it out and then putting some fresh stuff in. That plan soon went out of the window, leaving me with this: Nice. So out came the grinder and the welder and i set about putting it right. its now sitting under a nice coat of rex oxide primer, as is the rest of the windscreen surround which has been wirebrushed and cleaned up. Next on the list is getting the window fitted and some 15" steels all round with new tyres for winter. James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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If anyone has a dash going spare with round dials (doesnt need to have the dials) then let me know. If it is the same style as the one below that would be brilliant, or if its just the flat wooden one that would be just as good! Thanks James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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We are all spending the week making money to enjoy ourselfs and this weekend i'm doing just that.....Taking the Hillman to its first drag race at Kirkbride airfield. Providing all goes well there will be a few more in the future along with more upgrades.... But what is everyone else doing, anyone heading to kirkbride for a bit of drag action, a rally somewhere, a track day. Lets find out so we can say hello to each other! Much racecar... so retro James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Sept 17, 2014 19:29:22 GMT
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2 banks of bike bodies would be cool (which is a more than good enough reason to do it ) but would inherently have their own issues regarding balancing and initial setting up, but, once this has been sorted it would be a great sounding motor! Seeing as your main interest is fuel economy, drivability and being generally a nicer motor, i would go the route of using a single throttle body and an decent sized shared plenum similar to the TVR manifolds on the rover v8 engines that they used. These just had 8 runners into a single plenum, fed by a single throttle body, simple As you would also be using a standalone FI and ECU, you would not have the issues related to individual throttles such as getting a decent MAP source (MAF would be pointless), making sure they are balanced and the throttle position sensor works ok for all 8, along with the fact that tuning would be simpler with a single body. single throttle bodies also make it easier when your piping up a turbo and the associated pipework James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Sept 8, 2014 17:03:56 GMT
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I think you need to lower your number plate more first Code On a proper note though, my first hunter was a baby blue ish colour which looked awsome imho! James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Sept 7, 2014 15:44:27 GMT
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its quite a bit different because i keep putting my foot down! Now its running properly (ish) its not too bad I need to get the megasquirt sorted out fully before i know what it'll be like for certain though. James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Sept 7, 2014 13:08:19 GMT
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after looking into the problem its not down to the injectors but one of the injector driver circuits in the megasquirt which is playing up. I previously had it set up with bank 1 driving injectors 1 and 4, with bank 2 driving injectors 2 and 3. The plugs in cyl 1 and 4 looked lean where as cyl 2 and 3 looked rich. swapping the plugs round moved the problem around so it wasn't the injectors fault, but rather the megasquirts . Wiring all 4 injectors onto the good circuit (bank1) gives ma s buttery smooth idle at about 14.7 to 15 afr and smoother driving up through the revs, but if i switch to the other channel (bank2) it all goes bad! More info is here if anyone is interested: www.msextra.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=134&t=55789Once its sorted ill get some proper tuning done ! James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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Sept 6, 2014 13:14:11 GMT
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Glad you all like it! Better brakes will be needed at some point, but for now they are OK, lock up the wheels no problem and only over heat if you really push them! The video will have to be put on hold abit as i am behind schedule (if i had one!) Last nights job was the simple task of fitting some bigger injectors from a Mitsubishi Evo 7 which flow 560cc compares to the MX5's 254cc. The mx5 injectors were running at 100% duty cycle ie never closing at full boost and 6000rpm which is why i set my limit to 6000 and never took it above that. The new injectors at at about 40% duty cycle at 6000 rpm But its not all smiley faces, its taken me about 6 hours to get it idling. the evo injectors are low impedance and the MX5 is made for high impedance. after spending all of yesterday evening fiddling with PWM settings in the megasquirt i couldn't get it to fire on both banks, so this morning i wired in some in-line ballast resistors and it fired straight up. The idle is still curse word, but over 1300rpm it is alot smoother than the old injectors. Time to pull the plugs again and give them a good clean and a re-gap to see if that helps! James
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Too many projects, not enough time.
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