My Mars Red Mk1 - Thread REBOOT- P82

I'm still inclined to stay NA but with more suitable engine characteristics.

Diesel? I own a 1.4tdi already and I can tell you it's fine for going to work in. ;0)

Hello Dex! :0)

Gurds

 

Dex is alive....

 

He's still Rocking N' Rolling !!

diesel an option, but it's a heavy lump and for every expensive when things go pop!!

on a stock map, smooth power delivery !!

I don't think it's what Gurds likes

 

Any update's on what the problem was?
Have you decided on the replacement?

 

So with my engine dead and the car SORN'd, I thought that was the end of track time for the year. At least that's what I thought. With Curby looming and no car I got a phone call from the Lads, Namely Taks, who said that I WILL have my car ready for Curby. . How? Well Taks had a spare ABF to donate and Toyotecwerke, Chris E and Rambow all offered to help get the engine back in and sort out all the other worn components too. Really sounded like I didn't have an option.

Saturday 25th August - So Taks turns up with a van and unloads this into my garage 2 weeks before Curby:





Guess it was game on!

Old engine out and swapping over hardware like the sump, clutch, trigger wheel, sensors, etc etc.





There were bearing material particles in the oil from the broken engine.

Meanwhile, I popped to the post office and picked up some more tax:



Anyway, with a lot of hard work from Taks, Chris E and Rambow, we got the replacement back in and started!



The brakes still also needed sorting and after some investigation, it turned out that the 1970's Mini brake bias valve had split its seal internally. Lucky for me, Chris E had a spare that he kindly loaned as finding one online was almost impossible! Might have to rethink that one. Brakes were now golden.

So for the weekend:
- Engine was back in
- Brakes had been repaired and bled
- Tax had been purchased

Now for the curve ball. Eddie had kindly loaned a set of Toyotecwerke TB's to give the engine some help to breathe. This meant the rad needed to be moved forward. Chris and I carefully cut and deburred the front panel and tilted the rad forward up to the grill.





While Eddie modified my wiring loom to become plug 'n' play for the TBs.



This also meant a new top hose so I bought some silicon bends and straight connectors from Think Automotive and made this:





Cleared the TB's nicely.

Saturday 1st September - So on the 2nd weekend, suspension was also swapped back to the OE KW spec as the harder springs seemed to be overworking the front tyres and with little time to adjust the setup, I just went for refitting a known good setup. Tracking was in order then:



With the Plenum still fitted, I went out for a long drive to make sure everything was working fine and that the engine had a healthy torque curve. It felt fine but had been a while since I'd driven it. A G pull was taken with my phone:



Looked a little down on the previous engine. Could just be that it needed a little running as it had sat for about 4 years.

Here are the G-plots from 2nd & 3rd gear as captured by Eddie's G-Tech Pro.



With the baseline set, we fitted the TB's and planned to go out calibrating on Tuesday night.



Mapping was coming along at a steady pace:



And then disaster struck again! I went for a hard acceleration test changing from 1st to 2nd and BANG! Clank clank clank clank! This didn't sound good. Ended up with some transmission failure AGAIN! With no will to drive it home and cause more damage, breakdown recovery were called upon for a tow home:





Got home at 2am in the morning and woke at 5.30am to go back to work! Ouch!

Wednesday 5th September 6pm - Well not to be beaten down by another setback, we decided to remove the gearbox and check what had failed. Chris E came over in the eve and helped remove and strip down the transmission for inspection. Turns out the 2nd gear ratio had decided to loose its dentures!



A full strip down and inspection revealed some play in the pinion shaft bearing too so the box was cleaned out thoroughly with the intention of reassembly on the following night.



Luckily there was no other damage and the magnet caught all the debris.



11.30pm, time for some sleep.

Thursday 6th September 6pm - Rambow popped over to help put the transmission back together. Reassembly of the gearbox commenced with a spare gearbox strip down required to recover a spare 2nd gear. The pinion bearings were replaced and the box assembled. Thanks to DaljSD, I didn't have to wait for parts as he donated a spare rebuild kit. With the box done, it was bolted into place with the aim to bolt up the last few brackets and mounts on Friday. It was midnight, off to bed.

Friday 7th September 6pm - Rambow and I finished fitting the driveshafts, brackets, mounts etc etc and got ready to start the car. Cranked it over and........ no start. In fact the fuel pump didn't prime either! Then some smoke poured out from the wiring loom in the engine bay! WTF!!!!!!! After much poking about it turned out that I had snagged the loom between the gearbox and engine when bolting it all back up! We loosened off the box and free'd the trapped cables. 2x wires needed repair but I was more worried about the possibility of burning out the ECU! Very late again with a wedding to attend on Saturday, off to bed.

Saturday 8th September 7.30pm - Need to find this electrical fault! Eddie came over hoping to map the car but instead we spent a few hours diagnosing the fault.

Not the easiest places to find faults:



Checks revealed KL15 (Klemme = Terminal/Branch/Current Track) was not active at jack D2. The fuse was checked and found to be good, so the jack A8 was checked KOEO there was still found ignition source. This left the ignition barrel. When tested there was voltage at KL15. It was concluded the wire in the loom toward the fusebox was open circuited.

Bypass time:





Another circuit was created and entered at A8. Job done car fired to life. So on we went into the night with more mapping. But all was not well. There was a terrible flat spot at high rpm, an occasional missfire and the car was feeling lazy to say the least. It was 2am so we called it a night and got some sleep.

Sunday 9th September D-Day - This was the day we had all been working so hard towards. 5am start and loaded up the car. I met with Eddie and we headed off towards Litchfield for the CGTi Curby Sprint Day.



All was well until Junc 6 on the M40 where Eddie reported greasy raindrops on his windscreen. Also my missfire issues started getting worse. By the time we got to Litchfield, my brakes had started pulling to one side again and I could not rev over 4kRPM. Oh crap! So at 8.15am we pulled into an industrial estate to investigate.

Well the braking issue was clear:





Gearbox oil all down the passenger side of the car! Turns out I hadn't tightened the speed cable in properly. DOH! With only petrol to hand, we washed the brakes down and wiped off excess.

Now to the missfire. With the car at idle, it was evident that the crank pulley was wobbling like a bowl of jelly! Not good. Right there in the car park, we removed the trigger wheel, crank pulley and crank sprocket.



The crank sprocket key was fubared. The pulley had become out of round and started wobbling. When fitting the engine, the crank bolt was found to be loose but I just torqued it up without any thought.





So with no alternative we refitted the parts in the hope it would sit square. We also found the sprocket to be out of timing too! This meant all the mapping work was done in vain! This will all need to be revisited after repairs. With the brakes washed down, I took a short drive round the local lanes to burn off excess residue and found that the engine was pulling a bit better but would still missfire about 6kRPM.

And that's when we pulled into Curby! At Curby, lots of people offered parts and help in true CGTi spirit but nothing that could have easily or quickly resolved the problem. RobT even offered a spare crank pulley but that would have meant a 2 hour round trip. After 3x runs I retired the car and without being able to resolve sensor alternatives, we decided that driving the car home in one piece was more important.

An absolute MASSIVE thank you to Taks, Chris E, Rambow and Toyotecwerke for all the pictures, time and effort you all put in to get my car done so quickly and thank you to Dil & DaljSD for supplying the engine and spares. I really wouldn't have got it done or even bothered without all your encouragement and support. Also Thanks to Smudge for the wiring crimps and Mike_H for the axle stands. Sorry if I missed anyone out.

She shall rise again! Oh yes!



Gurds

 

If that had been at Bedford, I`d have given you my spare crank pulley and you`d have been away again. Exactly the same happened to me to other year, keyway on pulley sheared.

Shame the mapping was in vain, although I`m surprised you don`t have ANY sort of air filter fitted !?!?!

I know its parked up for the winter now, I`m dissapointed, I bet yours would be great at Brands in December...

 

Cheers mate. Good to know there are some really great guys out there willing to help.

Filter? That would have required even more work! lol But yes there will be one in place eventually.

Brands? December? I have to give my family time to recover from this onslaught 1st! Lol.

Gurds

 

Pity about everything going against you, but big well done to all involved, great to hear about lads pitching in together like that!

 

Shame it didn't work out for you on Sunday, but I'm sure the 'spin' in Ben's mk2 made up for it a little.

I'm sure it will be back better than ever very soon.

 

As I am more rested...

The 'wobble' looks to have come from the impression on the crank nose highlighted by the arrows.



Side to side concerns, with reference to trigger sensor clearance, would have been caused by worn out cog that became elliptical.

Oh well...The team never gives up though.

 

Nige,

I was getting concerned with the tricks that had to be pulled out to deliver the calibration, in an attempt overcome unknown dynamic hardware concerns at the time.

So in a way I am glad, in hindsight, these concerns proved I am not going mad!

But "Shixxxt happens" as they say...

New cal should not be too hard to recut and hopefully get a true back to back G trace to compare with data we have from with the old engine.

 

You should have seen my face when you appeared in the queue to go on track! I thought I'd had too much red wine the night before and was imagining things.....



(Thinking about it, I did have too much red wine the night before)



Great work by Taks, Chris E, Rambow, Eddie and all the guys in pitching in and deciding you weren't gonna miss out

 

Hi Gurds

An epic effort.

Sorry it didnt work out for you.

I`m sure it will all come good over the winter.

 

Fairplay.....hats off to you good sir for sticking at it. I'd have found the nearest tree branch and battered ten bells of sh it into it!!!hahaha

 

Good work team, unlucky it wasn't meant to be.
Looking forward to next year.

 

Good work team, unlucky it wasn't meant to be.
Looking forward to next year.

 

Hi Gurds, I have just finished rebuilding my engine, exhaust system and brakes on my Mk 1 after big end went at Lydden ( oil pump failure) and my efforts seem minor compared to you epic story! ( Although my wife has not seen me for 6 weeks!) After reading your post , I shall remember to double check everything before I set off for Brands Hatch GP on Sunday! Hope that you get your car sorted soon and get some track time before the winter! regards Rob

 

Cheers lads! Thought it would be surprising to see. Saturday night, I still wasn't sure what car I'd be in!

A new sprocket and bolt cost just over 30 from VW so hopefully the crank is still usable.

Gurds

 

We exorcised many of the demons already...