Thanks again - can't wait till spring to take it out again! no doubt this little fella will get taken for a few runs... meet the new arrival - Lewis! Im glad the car was finished before he arrived as i haven't even got the garage door open since he came home lol!!
Just got the car taxed there last week but with work etc I havent been able to get much work done on it. With baby and all never got looking at it much since I tucked it up for winter but the sun has returned so better get it ready again for the road! I got a Zeitronix system for it from the wife for Christmas which was great :drool: so I have been fitting it when I get the chance almost finished. This is the system measures all sorts from EGT - AFR to air temp/oil temp / revs etc even has alarm for which can be used to alert to low oil pressure or exhaust gasses going too high and it can also trigger a relay to either switch something on or off! Quare and nifty! It also plots all this information on the laptop and records hours of information will be great for checking fuelling across the rev range I opted for Lamda/AFR fuel pressure air temperature and exhaust gas temperature and the alarm/trigger box and bought it through Chris at EFI parts in England. First job was removing exhaust system to get lambda probe boss welded in note mahoosive drill bit da had this one hiding away Then four branch needed drilled and welded on no.1 primary for the Exhuast Temp probe boss which was also tigged by big Glen in GM Tyres hes a useful character He even made it look nice. Then exhaust back in place with probes installed and I figured rather than have that mass of cable running under the car I could coil it up under the centre console and it would be away from heat etc so just made a small cut in the gear stick plate to allow cable to lay flat on top of the tunnel. Then everyones favourite the wiring! Made a loom up to go in the engine bay to feed the air temp sensor which will be mounted in the air box and the fuel pressure sender EGT wire is kept separate to avoid any interference. Routed all this out of site and through a bung in the bulkhead then under carpet to center console And you know me if it can be polished it will be polished so buffed up the wee adapter for the fuel pressure sensor its basically a 3.5 bar boost sensor which you can programme the zeitronix to read psi and therefore read fluid pressures too and installed it just after the Filter King regulator. In place Then soldered on plugs to the ends of each wire feeding the zeitronix unit so that it could be removed if necessary without any hassle and got my switched live and system earth sorted and gave it a try! Woopee it worked first time that was a pic before connecting the lamda and switching on fuel pump but everything is working!!! Great having real time fuel pressure read outs etc finally will be able to see if the pump struggles on WOT. So now just tidying the wiring under the centre console and will get a wee place for the usb connecter to attach for handy plotting on the lap top also think I will not mount the lcd screen and will keep it free on the lead so it can sit anywhere when driving.
Got system fully installed and running yesterday! Mounted the controller on the back of the centre console to keep it out of the way Then everything else put back in place and got the thing running on the computer – rpm is a bit spikey (see blue line on screen below) so needs calibrating – also need to get the boost sensor (which is reading fuel pressure) properly calibrated on the software – but other than that a grand invention! Not gonna mount the lcd read out screen as such - just keep it free on the lead for handiness - sits fine in the wee pocket in the console Thanks for looking!
Just thought I would keep the thread updated as I go! Attended my first show with the mk1 on Saturday in Lisburn – ‘Harmony Hill 4’ – great selection of cars from a 1000bhp evo (which had turbo the size of a dinner plate) to a V8 Model T hot rod – and of course a great selection of Volkswagens in between! Went along with my local club www.clubgti.net and we had 15 cars out in total – which must have impressed the judges as we got ‘Club of the Show’ award!!! And to top it off – I was seriously delighted when they read out my reg for ‘Best Engine Bay’!!! On the club stand Bonnet up! Best Bay trophy!!! I’m still smiling!
Had the car at our main VW event here at Castlewellan in Nireland for the first time and got a couple of prizes! Best Bay and Best Mk1! Which was nice! And a few photographer guys took a few shots of it nice to have proper pics of it rather than just my old camera phone ones.... Anyhow heres a few :
Had noticed a problem with Mk1 under heavy braking – was pulling to the right and wondered what could be up as alignment had been set. Had a look at the wishbones and noticed that the drivers side seemed to have pushed forward out of the rubber mount – was a bigger gap compared to pass side. So thought it was just a dodgy mount and ordered a couple of superflex bushes to replace the rubber items (had poly bushed the rear wishbone mounts but hadn’t did the fronts at the time) So took the wishbones out and discovered another problem the mount hadn’t been made correctly and under normal driving had obviously been under stress due to the unevenness of the wheels – drivers side wheel obviously sitting further forward. One effectively longer than the other! Not good! You can clearly see the difference here So I ordered a replacement wishbone but found that it was a different make and the two skins weren’t even level nor was the leg at the back welded in far enough so it went back and got refund. Nothing else for it but to cut and re-weld rear leg to match the pass side. First up old bush out and new poly bush in – quick guide method without the blow torch! Big socket and small socket – big one goes on flared end and little socket on the other end pushing on the sleeve not the rubber obviously! Wind up the vice till the sleeve hits the base of the big socket and stops moving leaving this: Then cut this excess off with hacksaw – easy enough as the sleeve is hollow tube Then back in the vice and squeeze the remainder out – then just squeeze new poly bush in small end of bush into flared end first! Then had to make up jig to ensure that both wishbones were the same! So out came the big steel plate as a bench and put the good wish bone on and tacked on some angle as the jig points. The cut the existing welds on the other wishbones to free up the rear leg and allow it to move into the right position. Then put into the jig and tacked into position before transfer to the vice for a proper run of welds – see below: Hard to beat the big oil cooled stick welder for laying it on! Then all cleaned up and a coat of Zinga (the best primer ever say bye bye to rust!) Then top coat of black and couple of clear coats and reassembled with the ball joint. If you have noticed with the ball joint kits the bolts are pitifully weak (threads strip with no effort at all) and very small so I went to a bigger bolt (stainless) which only required really a slight ream out of wishbone and ball joint holes to fit a much better bolt. And of course rude not to polish the bolt head! Then a quick couple of pics to show how things line up – That’s how it should be! That should improve the handling and with MOT next week it was a job that needed sorted!
Phew.... Just sat and read the lot. Absolutely brilliant! Inspirational! Hope you get more trophies, you deserve them
Finally got round to fitting the proper filters on the car. K&N box filters – much better design and air flow than the foam variants which have large chunks of foam as separators and jam against the trumpet mouths – I didn’t like them anyway – but they kept the dirt out I suppose! I suppose why they were on the long finger was because the backing plate wouldn’t fit without modifying the alternator top bracket mount. It was fouling on this so whipped off the alternator and removed about 10mm off the thickness of the top bracket mount – also spilt the alternator and removed the old paint and re painted as I wasn’t happy with original paint job on it – it wasn’t lacquered and had suffered. Any way as you can see the back plate fits perfectly now. Then on with the filter element and front plate Then to the other one – no problems here And there you go all done! Went for a drive and it is definately an improvement! Nicer induction note and also better at cruising – due to eliminating the ram air effect with the filter front plates. All in all money well spent and they don’t move up and down and get out of position like the foam ones did!
