damn it Jules, my eyes hurt so bad now.. Good progress though! 
General Not giving up.
- Thread starter Pirus
- Start date
Currently reading:
General Not giving up.
Another Good update from you mate ,, think ill will have to step my game up with my next update (Y)
OP
OP
Hello my Fiat friends, a quick update for you all. Not as big an update as I'd like but hopefully some good bits and just to show you guys that progress is being made.
Decided to paint my ARB but thought I'd see which one was in better condition and if there was any damage to the one from the Shoebox.
As you can see from the picture below - Shoebox ARB on left, Paws on the right. Shoebox's ARB, though in a better condition was twisted in the crash and I'm not going to try and reuse it. I could get it reshaped at the local blacksmith's (yes I have one in a village nearby) but what's the point when I have a spare that just needs cleaning up.
I rubbed it down, went up to P1000 and few layers of primer. Usual colour choice as well. I know it will probably be chipped off within a few miles but I wanted it a little different, even if no one will see it.
I damaged the fuel pipe from the hardline that connects to the fuel rail on the inlet manifold of the Shoebox. I couldn't remove the pipe from the fuel rail and ended up breaking the plastic clips. I cut the pipe off and Todger helped me lever it off the fuel rail with a pair of screwdrivers. The plastic end of the fuel rail as you can see in the picture below (though this is a spare fuel rail and not broken)
I ended up cutting the pipe off on Paws as well and wanted to replace it with something better. I took a spare fuel rail to a local fittings place and they gave me some nice anodized adapters to fit with cotton overbraid fuel hose.
However there was just one problem, though the push fit barb was 5/16, the beveled edge that locks it to the fuel rail was too wide a diameter.
I put the adapter pieces on my variable fixed speed drill and put in my vice, to gently file it down.
Filed off just enough so that it would provide a good seal, also rounding the edges.
Next job was to clean up the brake servo. I decided to use the servo off of the Shoebox, though it was slightly dented in the crash but in better condition than the one off of Paws. I did like the look of Todger's polished one but apparently it's a pig to keep in good condition.
Instead I decided give it a coat of colour and for once not bright green. Even I thought there would be a little too much green in the engine bay and would rather it blend in with the car. Masked off and began cleaning it up, sanding up through the grits and started to get a lovely polished shine
I had some rattle cans made up in the car's original colour and again began painting.
Looking nice in the engine bay but shows how badly the rest of the bay needs to be washed and cleaned up (which is one of my next jobs to do)
I wasn't happy with the old breather system, well lack of breather system and am installing an oil catch can.
I have also bought all the piping, silicone hoses and know how im going to mount it. For those that don't know the benefits of oil catch cans, check out this Mighty Car Mods video:
The catch can was a brushed aluminium but once again a little bit of paint was needed. Sorry I know this post is a lot of pictures of painting various bits and bobs
I was painting various bits at the same time, so underneath this cardboard divider is the brake servo being painted.
What colour choice did people expect?
Catch can will be mounted above N/S strut, I will make up a bracket from some spare pieces of sheet metal once everything else is plumbed in.
Sticking the old master cylinder in a vice and levering under the fluid reservoir seals is the best way to remove the reservoir. I've got a new master cylinder from Poland in my earlier post.
The other brackets and small cylinders for the braking system have been removed, sanded down and given a coat of black hammerite.
The brake pipes just need feeding back into the bay. I was going for a single pipe from the rear beam to the master cylinder however I've been struggling to sort the bends underneath and around the steering rack.
So im just going to cut the pipe underneath the car, copy the bends for the original brake pipes on the bench and join them together with some female to female brake pipe unions.
Being bored with painting and sorting brake bits it was time to get the soldering iron out and get on with the Megasquirt.
I may write up a full guide, listing all the tools and steps to follow and which to skip.
I set out my work area on my desk, two sets of helping hands to support any work pieces.
To practice a bit of soldering, i decided to build something I've had for a while but just never got round to building. It's the Solder Time II Watch, which I first saw on Techmoan's youtube channel.
It had been a few years since I'd done any PCB soldering but it's still as easy as ever.
However before I started there was one piece that I wanted and I didn't order the first time. A megastim. This allows you to test various parts of the Megasquirt whilst you're building it, providing power and once finished simulate engine sensor inputs. I was hoping to borrow one for my build but I couldn't get hold of one.
So another expensive package from America, I don't mind and it means I can build and test more in the future or sell it on for the same amount I bought it for.
Im afraid these are mainly just a few boring pictures of various components being soldered on and just to show you some of the step I took. I know Lee asked me to take lots of pictures.
With the stim built it was time to crack on to the main event.
First job was to solder on the large DB39 connector. This is the main connector that will be joined up to the loom.
Power supply was constructed and plugged in to the stim to test.
Nice healthy 5V whilst testing. So no mistakes or issues so far.
Next it was to construct the serial port and test. First though I needed to test the USB - Serial cable that i bought. This is done through a 'loopback circuit', step 26. of the megamanual.
Once I'd verified that my PC and cable were working, then it was time to plug it in to the stim and try it again.
All sorted and working fully. (sorry i didn't screenshot this instead, no idea why i didnt)
Next was constructing the clock circuit and testing. Putting the processor in to the Megasquirt and loading the firmware on to it and then testing it's working.
Loaded firmware on to the processor and all tested.
I'm afraid I don't have a screenshot of verifying the clock circuit working on megatune, i deleted it by accident.
Input circuits built and plugged in to the stim to then test.
Yeh! finally can see some of the dials moving whilst i turn the pots on my stim.
Now the one annoying piece of the build
When removing the processor after testing the input circuit, i snapped one of the legs off of the bottom socket, like one of the other gold legs you can see. So I then cut off the black plastic socket and I'm sure i can repair it.
I had a look to see how much a new processor would be, well over £100. So instead I've ordered a strip of black socket pins from china for £1.50 and am just waiting for them to arrive.
Starting to construct the output circuit
As you can see from my recent post in the Megasquirt thread, i was a little unsure of how to fit the second ignition module but found this page which gave some good information on how to wire it up.
I added an extra earth cable from SRP4 to pin 6 on the DB39. This is due to larger current that will be running through the traces on the PCB.
Added the two 330 ohm resistors on the underside of the PCB in the proto area (large blank area on the lower left of the PCB).
I was going run them heatshrinked over the topside of the board but decided that anchoring down would be better.
Cut the wires to legnth and soldered to the PCB for the second ingition module.
Soldered the wires up and then heatshrinked.
Bolted down to the heatsink and also added the LEDs. Thats the board all finished
The underside.
Given a spray with 99.9% isopropyl alcohol to clean up the flux residue.
Finally mounted in it's case.
All built and I'm happy with it. Just annoyed i can't actually test it until i fix the pin for the processor.
Next jobs are to finish plumbing the brake pipes, clean up the engine bay, underseal the front of the car, refit suspension and arb.
Then it'll finally ben time to figure out the wiring.
Decided to paint my ARB but thought I'd see which one was in better condition and if there was any damage to the one from the Shoebox.
As you can see from the picture below - Shoebox ARB on left, Paws on the right. Shoebox's ARB, though in a better condition was twisted in the crash and I'm not going to try and reuse it. I could get it reshaped at the local blacksmith's (yes I have one in a village nearby) but what's the point when I have a spare that just needs cleaning up.
I rubbed it down, went up to P1000 and few layers of primer. Usual colour choice as well. I know it will probably be chipped off within a few miles but I wanted it a little different, even if no one will see it.
I damaged the fuel pipe from the hardline that connects to the fuel rail on the inlet manifold of the Shoebox. I couldn't remove the pipe from the fuel rail and ended up breaking the plastic clips. I cut the pipe off and Todger helped me lever it off the fuel rail with a pair of screwdrivers. The plastic end of the fuel rail as you can see in the picture below (though this is a spare fuel rail and not broken)
I ended up cutting the pipe off on Paws as well and wanted to replace it with something better. I took a spare fuel rail to a local fittings place and they gave me some nice anodized adapters to fit with cotton overbraid fuel hose.
However there was just one problem, though the push fit barb was 5/16, the beveled edge that locks it to the fuel rail was too wide a diameter.
I put the adapter pieces on my variable fixed speed drill and put in my vice, to gently file it down.
Filed off just enough so that it would provide a good seal, also rounding the edges.
Next job was to clean up the brake servo. I decided to use the servo off of the Shoebox, though it was slightly dented in the crash but in better condition than the one off of Paws. I did like the look of Todger's polished one but apparently it's a pig to keep in good condition.
Instead I decided give it a coat of colour and for once not bright green. Even I thought there would be a little too much green in the engine bay and would rather it blend in with the car. Masked off and began cleaning it up, sanding up through the grits and started to get a lovely polished shine
I had some rattle cans made up in the car's original colour and again began painting.
Looking nice in the engine bay but shows how badly the rest of the bay needs to be washed and cleaned up (which is one of my next jobs to do)
I wasn't happy with the old breather system, well lack of breather system and am installing an oil catch can.
I have also bought all the piping, silicone hoses and know how im going to mount it. For those that don't know the benefits of oil catch cans, check out this Mighty Car Mods video:
The catch can was a brushed aluminium but once again a little bit of paint was needed. Sorry I know this post is a lot of pictures of painting various bits and bobs
I was painting various bits at the same time, so underneath this cardboard divider is the brake servo being painted.
What colour choice did people expect?
Catch can will be mounted above N/S strut, I will make up a bracket from some spare pieces of sheet metal once everything else is plumbed in.
Sticking the old master cylinder in a vice and levering under the fluid reservoir seals is the best way to remove the reservoir. I've got a new master cylinder from Poland in my earlier post.
The other brackets and small cylinders for the braking system have been removed, sanded down and given a coat of black hammerite.
The brake pipes just need feeding back into the bay. I was going for a single pipe from the rear beam to the master cylinder however I've been struggling to sort the bends underneath and around the steering rack.
So im just going to cut the pipe underneath the car, copy the bends for the original brake pipes on the bench and join them together with some female to female brake pipe unions.
Being bored with painting and sorting brake bits it was time to get the soldering iron out and get on with the Megasquirt.
I may write up a full guide, listing all the tools and steps to follow and which to skip.
I set out my work area on my desk, two sets of helping hands to support any work pieces.
To practice a bit of soldering, i decided to build something I've had for a while but just never got round to building. It's the Solder Time II Watch, which I first saw on Techmoan's youtube channel.
It had been a few years since I'd done any PCB soldering but it's still as easy as ever.
However before I started there was one piece that I wanted and I didn't order the first time. A megastim. This allows you to test various parts of the Megasquirt whilst you're building it, providing power and once finished simulate engine sensor inputs. I was hoping to borrow one for my build but I couldn't get hold of one.
So another expensive package from America, I don't mind and it means I can build and test more in the future or sell it on for the same amount I bought it for.
Im afraid these are mainly just a few boring pictures of various components being soldered on and just to show you some of the step I took. I know Lee asked me to take lots of pictures.
With the stim built it was time to crack on to the main event.
First job was to solder on the large DB39 connector. This is the main connector that will be joined up to the loom.
Power supply was constructed and plugged in to the stim to test.
Nice healthy 5V whilst testing. So no mistakes or issues so far.
Next it was to construct the serial port and test. First though I needed to test the USB - Serial cable that i bought. This is done through a 'loopback circuit', step 26. of the megamanual.
Once I'd verified that my PC and cable were working, then it was time to plug it in to the stim and try it again.
All sorted and working fully. (sorry i didn't screenshot this instead, no idea why i didnt)
Next was constructing the clock circuit and testing. Putting the processor in to the Megasquirt and loading the firmware on to it and then testing it's working.
Loaded firmware on to the processor and all tested.
I'm afraid I don't have a screenshot of verifying the clock circuit working on megatune, i deleted it by accident.
Input circuits built and plugged in to the stim to then test.
Yeh! finally can see some of the dials moving whilst i turn the pots on my stim.
Now the one annoying piece of the build
When removing the processor after testing the input circuit, i snapped one of the legs off of the bottom socket, like one of the other gold legs you can see. So I then cut off the black plastic socket and I'm sure i can repair it.
I had a look to see how much a new processor would be, well over £100. So instead I've ordered a strip of black socket pins from china for £1.50 and am just waiting for them to arrive.
Starting to construct the output circuit
As you can see from my recent post in the Megasquirt thread, i was a little unsure of how to fit the second ignition module but found this page which gave some good information on how to wire it up.
I added an extra earth cable from SRP4 to pin 6 on the DB39. This is due to larger current that will be running through the traces on the PCB.
Added the two 330 ohm resistors on the underside of the PCB in the proto area (large blank area on the lower left of the PCB).
I was going run them heatshrinked over the topside of the board but decided that anchoring down would be better.
Cut the wires to legnth and soldered to the PCB for the second ingition module.
Soldered the wires up and then heatshrinked.
Bolted down to the heatsink and also added the LEDs. Thats the board all finished
The underside.
Given a spray with 99.9% isopropyl alcohol to clean up the flux residue.
Finally mounted in it's case.
All built and I'm happy with it. Just annoyed i can't actually test it until i fix the pin for the processor.
Next jobs are to finish plumbing the brake pipes, clean up the engine bay, underseal the front of the car, refit suspension and arb.
Then it'll finally ben time to figure out the wiring.
OP
OP
Update should be up in the next day or two
About time..... we have been waiting .
Who knows Paws might even end up as nice as Chalky
.Who knows Paws might even end up as nice as Chalky
OP
OP
Who knows Paws might even end up as nice as Chalky
What, growing moss as a garden ornament?
OP
OP
As always I like to try and wait a little while and give you more to read
First off the megasquirt.
As i mentioned in my last post, i damaged a pin on the processor and was unable to fully test it. Well I ordered myself a big pack from china off of ebay.
As you can see from the pictures below: There is a small connector, like a component lead, that goes through the processor pcb, which then clips onto this femal to male socket rail. This is then pushed into another female to male socket that I have already soldered on to the main pcb.
However as I was about to repair the broken one, I knocked the opposite side and snapped the one paralel. Nevermind, got lots of spares now.
Plugged in my stim and it's all working
Also ordered myself a bluetooth adapter from efi analytics, so will be able to mount my phone or a cheap tablet on my windscreen and monitor all the inputs. Yes I have a stupid size screen on my phone (OnePlus One)
Time to get on with the brakes, the pipes were getting in the way.
As i was struggling with bending the brake pipes around the steering rack, I masking taped the new pipes to the old ones as a template and bent around them. Ordered a pack of male to male adapters and made the joins under the car, about level with the handbrake.
Painted the brackets and brake cylinders in hammerite, brand new master clyinder too. Mounted up and pipes routed.
Who doesn't like shiny new things, been gathering dust for the past few years. Nice to finally get them out the box. Brand new coilovers, brand new top mounts and with brand new oval locking washers (the washer that mounts on top of the strut and top mount)
To prevent rust and corrison of the struts, i dismantled them and gave them a liberal coating of ACF-50 and then lubed the threads with Corrosion Block grease.
I roughly undersealed the front half of the car, mainly as it's hard to acess the n/s of the vehicle due to me storing all the old crap and bonnet are stored that side. The box sections will be covered in ACF-50 or some clear waxoyl.
Even covered all wheel arches with underseal, after brushing off the very crusty bits around the brake pipe holders. Luckily I've got some spare brake pipe clips. The one on the far left is from paws and the others spares from the shoebox.
Mounted the struts / springs in the arches. Tightened up the top nut on the bench, in the vice. One did up fine, the second the threaded piece started spinning into the lock washer. Not happy with it, i got my spring compressors out and grabbed an old lock washer from the old struts. The strut still spun and took a chunk out of it >.<
I'm going to wait until it's back on the floor and swap it over to the last spare i've got.
I sill haven't been able to remove what's left of a bumper bolt. I had to drill the head off due to it seizing. As you can see from the damage to the surrounding area, I already tried multiple mole grips, after letting it soak in plus gas and then applying plenty of heat. Even my smallest irwin socket (3/16) just chewed up what was left of the bolt head.
I think I'm just going to cut it flush, drill it out and see if i can retap, or ill just add a bolt/lock nut instead
Next I wanted to reattach the wishbones and ARBs. New strongflex yellow bushes were used through out. I had to remove some of the material inside the rear wishbone bushes, as they werent sitting flush with the wishbone. (no pictures of this im afraid).
Also had to file some material off from the front wishbone bushes and make them a little shorter, due to them being a very tight fit. As standard length, trying to use a jack to push them in their recess, it was starting to lift the car.
Dug around for my arb brackets, though i could scavenge the last set, i'd rather have some new ones.
As you can see, this was the nearside bush and bracket, surprised it didnt just snap off. Then again the wishbone took most of the impact and snapped clean in half.
With the wishbones on, i lined up the arb. Trying to put the bolts into the floor pan, i thought i ended up stripping the threads on the off side. Winding the bolt back out i could see that it had almost started to cross thread. Checked my taps to see if i had an m10x1.25 and retap the holes to clean them up.
Well it turns out ive got a m10x1.5 and a m10x1.75 but not a 1.25m, so another ebay purchase was made for a tap and a die.
Retapped both of the captive buts on the O/S and reattatched the ARB. Retapping the captive nuts meant that there were nice clean threads for the bolts to easily locate and tighten Those strongflex bushes are 'fatter' than the OEM ones and had to get out the rubber hammer and give them a good whack to get them on, especially over the wishbone bush.
Started sorting the nearside and i started to cross thread one of the bolts. Out came the tap(s) again and another nice clean threaded captive nut was sorted
I then realised I'd tightend both bolts but forgotten to actually put the arb to wishbone bracket on
So off it all came again and i reattatched the arb, this time i also got my bottle jack out and used it to provide a more even and constant force than hitting it with a hammer.
Started winding both bolts back in, they were going in fine,the one that i'd retapped went in but was a bit stiff. The other bolt however, the one captive nut that i didnt retap. It started to get a little stiff but no different from the others..... Kept cranking the ratchet and suddenly lost all tension.
The bolt was spinning freely, i thought id snapped the threads but couldnt clearly see.
So i undid the other bolt for the wishbone bush and removed the arb bracket. Got a big screwdriver and pulled the bracket off the bush.
I tried levering between the bolt and the floor pan whilst winding the bolt out. Hoping that if it was simply a stripped thread i could force it to wind on the remaining threads.
I couldnt apply enough pressure so had another idea. If i removed the wishbone completely, i could then fit a big open ended spanner around the protruding threads and use the bottle jack on the other end of the spanner to act as a big lever.
Car jacked back up in the air, unbolted front wishbone bush and removed, then placed back down on the stands. Got myself a big adjustable spanner and hammered it between the bolt and the floor pan. Got the bottle jack under the other end of the spanner and started applying pressure. I was actually starting to lift the car off the stands and bend the spanner.
It's not exactly a small or cheap chinese spanner either.
Tried winding the bolt out, just kept spinning and spinning. It wasn't winding out. Not sure what else i could do apart from cutting the bolt head off, drilling it out and hoping i could retap.
I removed the spanner and took a closer look at the threads of the bolt, to double check and see if had started winding out slowly.
Looked at the threads and wiggled the bolt around a bit as there was plenty of movement.
Turns out I havent just cross threaded the bolt.... i'd snapped the welds for the captive nut.....
(ignore the poor undersealing in these pictures, i was leaning in from under the off side and didnt want to keep getting covered in underseal. Im going to redo this side once i've moved all the crap from the passenger side of the car.)
The captive nut is in box section of the floor, no easy way to access it from below or to the side. Not without cutting out big chunk out the box section, sliding it a diy piece of box section with a captive nut already welded on and reweld and paint.
Okay so what if i cut the bolt and drilled out what's left? Well i'd still have nothing to put a bolt in to and I'd then have an old broken captive nut rattling round. If i drilled out the small hole between the two captive nuts and removed what's left of the captive nut, i'd still have no way of rewelding a new captive nut in there. Plus the box section is just that, a box with sides. I dont want to weaken it and apparently these are like welding paper.
So i've thought of a soloution but im afraid i cant carry it out yet.
I'm going to figure out where the bolt is in relation to the passenger footwell; I'll probably drill a small pilot hole with a long drill from underneath. Then drill a larger hole through the floor, probably a little bit bigger than a 19mm socket.
This will then allow me to fit a big washer and a lock nut through the passenger floor and tighten the bolt, i'll hide the evidence with a grommet and cover it back up with the carpet. No one will ever know.
Just means that if i ever have to unbolt the wishbone it'll be a two man job. One person inside the car to apply tension to the nut whilst the other undoes the bolt underneath.
I wont be able to sort it for a little while yet though, i cant get to the passenger footwell to drill through it. The interior is a bit of a mess
Started getting on with the wiring.
ABS - gone
Code system - gone
Airbag wiring & ecu- gone
All traces of the wiring have been removed. Well except the the rear abs sensors, the car is full of stuff and cant get in the back.
I still need to remove the OBD socket and various wiring but that should be the majority of the wiring im removing inside the cabin. Got confused on the wiring diagrams, forgetting the diagrams of components is for LHD vehicles. So i was looking for R10 (the OBD socket) in the passenger footwell for a few minutes. Then realised R10 meant the OBD.....
The wiring diagram for the diagnostic system isnt actually listed in the contents of the wiring section in the tech manual. It's the last few pages of the 'electronic systems' in volume 4.
Also decided to take my old airbag ecu apart and have a look at how it works. Wanted to see how it senses a crash as there are no crash sensors in the body work. The small white box you can see probably has a 'ball and tube' type arragement. So if enough force is applied, the ball shoots forward (hence the arrow making sure you mount it the correct way) and hits a switch.
I've been tempted to mount the Megasquirt where the airbag ecu was but i've got other plans. I mainly wanted take the airbag ecu apart to see how much space there was inside the housing and if i could modify it to fit something else in there.
The wire strip down begins. Mainly peeling / cutting off old electrical tape. You can also see i'd already got the helping hands and heat shrink out. I accidently snipped through one of the wires when removing the tape. It was for the o/s indicator, so thought id best solder it back together
As you can see i printed out the wiring diagrams and put them in a folder, saves me having to keep taking my netbook in the garage or constanly having to look at my phone. Plus i can easily scribble on paper and make any notes if i need to.
D4 connector on an MPI Seicento. Only five wires on these.
Pin 7 - Grey / Yellow
Oil pressure switch to the warning light on the dash - this is going to be removed. Got an oil pressure gauge which will be a better warning sign, if the light comes on it's probably too late.
Pin 8 - black / purple
Straight through the D4, to a ring terminal on to the alternator D+. This provides the 'recharging' warning light when you first turn the ignition and also sends a D+ signal to the power steering ecu pin 12.
Pin 9 - Orange / white
power to charcoal canister solenoid
Pin 10 - Pink
Output from main relay. Provides power for fuel pump, injectors, coil and a 15A fuse by the ECU. The fuse (B40) then sends power to lambda sensors and the power to the charcoal canister.
Pin 20 - red.
This just goes straight through the D4 to a ring termial and bolts to the starter. It's the ignition switch power to the starter.
Pulled apart the ecu connector to make it easier to start cutting and labelling wires.
Then labelled up all the wires that I've got left and left them hanging in the bay. Hopefully all my labels make sense to me and dont fall off.
Various things like; signal to tacho, cooling fan signal etc.
The excess of wires that you can see in the foreground is just for the external lighting, so much excess.
I really want to remove the large grommet that the wiring passes through but struggling to split it, think im going to have to cut it with a hacksaw at this rate. I want to be able to access all wires and start cutting out the lighting wiring, route it through the cabin and then through the arches instead. Makes for a much neater install i think.
Current job list:
Completely remove all the OBD wiring (though i dont know whether to keep it for power steering codes, doubt it ever would throw a code though
Cut that grommet off!
Deicde where im going to drill the holes in the arches.
Route all the external lighting back through the car. This should clean up most of the spaghetti in the engine bay.
Figure out where and how im going to mount the Megasquirt. Ideally I'd like it removeable but want something stronger that a strip of velcro or something similar on the base. Maybe make up and then mount it to a base plate, weld this to the floor and then have wing nuts / thumbscrews holding it down. Or just weld some studs / bolts to the bulkhead.
Start feeding the wires for the MS from the cabin to the bay.
Clean and paint the gearbox and gear linkage brackets.
Then do i wire up the megasquirt with the engine in or start wiring up sensors then put the engine in and trim back the excess wire? What do you guys think?
First off the megasquirt.
As i mentioned in my last post, i damaged a pin on the processor and was unable to fully test it. Well I ordered myself a big pack from china off of ebay.
As you can see from the pictures below: There is a small connector, like a component lead, that goes through the processor pcb, which then clips onto this femal to male socket rail. This is then pushed into another female to male socket that I have already soldered on to the main pcb.
However as I was about to repair the broken one, I knocked the opposite side and snapped the one paralel. Nevermind, got lots of spares now.
Plugged in my stim and it's all working
Also ordered myself a bluetooth adapter from efi analytics, so will be able to mount my phone or a cheap tablet on my windscreen and monitor all the inputs. Yes I have a stupid size screen on my phone (OnePlus One)
Time to get on with the brakes, the pipes were getting in the way.
As i was struggling with bending the brake pipes around the steering rack, I masking taped the new pipes to the old ones as a template and bent around them. Ordered a pack of male to male adapters and made the joins under the car, about level with the handbrake.
Painted the brackets and brake cylinders in hammerite, brand new master clyinder too. Mounted up and pipes routed.
Who doesn't like shiny new things, been gathering dust for the past few years. Nice to finally get them out the box. Brand new coilovers, brand new top mounts and with brand new oval locking washers (the washer that mounts on top of the strut and top mount)
To prevent rust and corrison of the struts, i dismantled them and gave them a liberal coating of ACF-50 and then lubed the threads with Corrosion Block grease.
I roughly undersealed the front half of the car, mainly as it's hard to acess the n/s of the vehicle due to me storing all the old crap and bonnet are stored that side. The box sections will be covered in ACF-50 or some clear waxoyl.
Even covered all wheel arches with underseal, after brushing off the very crusty bits around the brake pipe holders. Luckily I've got some spare brake pipe clips. The one on the far left is from paws and the others spares from the shoebox.
Mounted the struts / springs in the arches. Tightened up the top nut on the bench, in the vice. One did up fine, the second the threaded piece started spinning into the lock washer. Not happy with it, i got my spring compressors out and grabbed an old lock washer from the old struts. The strut still spun and took a chunk out of it >.<
I'm going to wait until it's back on the floor and swap it over to the last spare i've got.
I sill haven't been able to remove what's left of a bumper bolt. I had to drill the head off due to it seizing. As you can see from the damage to the surrounding area, I already tried multiple mole grips, after letting it soak in plus gas and then applying plenty of heat. Even my smallest irwin socket (3/16) just chewed up what was left of the bolt head.
I think I'm just going to cut it flush, drill it out and see if i can retap, or ill just add a bolt/lock nut instead
Next I wanted to reattach the wishbones and ARBs. New strongflex yellow bushes were used through out. I had to remove some of the material inside the rear wishbone bushes, as they werent sitting flush with the wishbone. (no pictures of this im afraid).
Also had to file some material off from the front wishbone bushes and make them a little shorter, due to them being a very tight fit. As standard length, trying to use a jack to push them in their recess, it was starting to lift the car.
Dug around for my arb brackets, though i could scavenge the last set, i'd rather have some new ones.
As you can see, this was the nearside bush and bracket, surprised it didnt just snap off. Then again the wishbone took most of the impact and snapped clean in half.
With the wishbones on, i lined up the arb. Trying to put the bolts into the floor pan, i thought i ended up stripping the threads on the off side. Winding the bolt back out i could see that it had almost started to cross thread. Checked my taps to see if i had an m10x1.25 and retap the holes to clean them up.
Well it turns out ive got a m10x1.5 and a m10x1.75 but not a 1.25m, so another ebay purchase was made for a tap and a die.
Retapped both of the captive buts on the O/S and reattatched the ARB. Retapping the captive nuts meant that there were nice clean threads for the bolts to easily locate and tighten Those strongflex bushes are 'fatter' than the OEM ones and had to get out the rubber hammer and give them a good whack to get them on, especially over the wishbone bush.
Started sorting the nearside and i started to cross thread one of the bolts. Out came the tap(s) again and another nice clean threaded captive nut was sorted
I then realised I'd tightend both bolts but forgotten to actually put the arb to wishbone bracket on
So off it all came again and i reattatched the arb, this time i also got my bottle jack out and used it to provide a more even and constant force than hitting it with a hammer.
Started winding both bolts back in, they were going in fine,the one that i'd retapped went in but was a bit stiff. The other bolt however, the one captive nut that i didnt retap. It started to get a little stiff but no different from the others..... Kept cranking the ratchet and suddenly lost all tension.
The bolt was spinning freely, i thought id snapped the threads but couldnt clearly see.
So i undid the other bolt for the wishbone bush and removed the arb bracket. Got a big screwdriver and pulled the bracket off the bush.
I tried levering between the bolt and the floor pan whilst winding the bolt out. Hoping that if it was simply a stripped thread i could force it to wind on the remaining threads.
I couldnt apply enough pressure so had another idea. If i removed the wishbone completely, i could then fit a big open ended spanner around the protruding threads and use the bottle jack on the other end of the spanner to act as a big lever.
Car jacked back up in the air, unbolted front wishbone bush and removed, then placed back down on the stands. Got myself a big adjustable spanner and hammered it between the bolt and the floor pan. Got the bottle jack under the other end of the spanner and started applying pressure. I was actually starting to lift the car off the stands and bend the spanner.
It's not exactly a small or cheap chinese spanner either.
Tried winding the bolt out, just kept spinning and spinning. It wasn't winding out. Not sure what else i could do apart from cutting the bolt head off, drilling it out and hoping i could retap.
I removed the spanner and took a closer look at the threads of the bolt, to double check and see if had started winding out slowly.
Looked at the threads and wiggled the bolt around a bit as there was plenty of movement.
Turns out I havent just cross threaded the bolt.... i'd snapped the welds for the captive nut.....
(ignore the poor undersealing in these pictures, i was leaning in from under the off side and didnt want to keep getting covered in underseal. Im going to redo this side once i've moved all the crap from the passenger side of the car.)
The captive nut is in box section of the floor, no easy way to access it from below or to the side. Not without cutting out big chunk out the box section, sliding it a diy piece of box section with a captive nut already welded on and reweld and paint.
Okay so what if i cut the bolt and drilled out what's left? Well i'd still have nothing to put a bolt in to and I'd then have an old broken captive nut rattling round. If i drilled out the small hole between the two captive nuts and removed what's left of the captive nut, i'd still have no way of rewelding a new captive nut in there. Plus the box section is just that, a box with sides. I dont want to weaken it and apparently these are like welding paper.
So i've thought of a soloution but im afraid i cant carry it out yet.
I'm going to figure out where the bolt is in relation to the passenger footwell; I'll probably drill a small pilot hole with a long drill from underneath. Then drill a larger hole through the floor, probably a little bit bigger than a 19mm socket.
This will then allow me to fit a big washer and a lock nut through the passenger floor and tighten the bolt, i'll hide the evidence with a grommet and cover it back up with the carpet. No one will ever know.
Just means that if i ever have to unbolt the wishbone it'll be a two man job. One person inside the car to apply tension to the nut whilst the other undoes the bolt underneath.
I wont be able to sort it for a little while yet though, i cant get to the passenger footwell to drill through it. The interior is a bit of a mess
Started getting on with the wiring.
ABS - gone
Code system - gone
Airbag wiring & ecu- gone
All traces of the wiring have been removed. Well except the the rear abs sensors, the car is full of stuff and cant get in the back.
I still need to remove the OBD socket and various wiring but that should be the majority of the wiring im removing inside the cabin. Got confused on the wiring diagrams, forgetting the diagrams of components is for LHD vehicles. So i was looking for R10 (the OBD socket) in the passenger footwell for a few minutes. Then realised R10 meant the OBD.....
The wiring diagram for the diagnostic system isnt actually listed in the contents of the wiring section in the tech manual. It's the last few pages of the 'electronic systems' in volume 4.
Also decided to take my old airbag ecu apart and have a look at how it works. Wanted to see how it senses a crash as there are no crash sensors in the body work. The small white box you can see probably has a 'ball and tube' type arragement. So if enough force is applied, the ball shoots forward (hence the arrow making sure you mount it the correct way) and hits a switch.
I've been tempted to mount the Megasquirt where the airbag ecu was but i've got other plans. I mainly wanted take the airbag ecu apart to see how much space there was inside the housing and if i could modify it to fit something else in there.
The wire strip down begins. Mainly peeling / cutting off old electrical tape. You can also see i'd already got the helping hands and heat shrink out. I accidently snipped through one of the wires when removing the tape. It was for the o/s indicator, so thought id best solder it back together
As you can see i printed out the wiring diagrams and put them in a folder, saves me having to keep taking my netbook in the garage or constanly having to look at my phone. Plus i can easily scribble on paper and make any notes if i need to.
D4 connector on an MPI Seicento. Only five wires on these.
Pin 7 - Grey / Yellow
Oil pressure switch to the warning light on the dash - this is going to be removed. Got an oil pressure gauge which will be a better warning sign, if the light comes on it's probably too late.
Pin 8 - black / purple
Straight through the D4, to a ring terminal on to the alternator D+. This provides the 'recharging' warning light when you first turn the ignition and also sends a D+ signal to the power steering ecu pin 12.
Pin 9 - Orange / white
power to charcoal canister solenoid
Pin 10 - Pink
Output from main relay. Provides power for fuel pump, injectors, coil and a 15A fuse by the ECU. The fuse (B40) then sends power to lambda sensors and the power to the charcoal canister.
Pin 20 - red.
This just goes straight through the D4 to a ring termial and bolts to the starter. It's the ignition switch power to the starter.
Pulled apart the ecu connector to make it easier to start cutting and labelling wires.
Then labelled up all the wires that I've got left and left them hanging in the bay. Hopefully all my labels make sense to me and dont fall off.
Various things like; signal to tacho, cooling fan signal etc.
The excess of wires that you can see in the foreground is just for the external lighting, so much excess.
I really want to remove the large grommet that the wiring passes through but struggling to split it, think im going to have to cut it with a hacksaw at this rate. I want to be able to access all wires and start cutting out the lighting wiring, route it through the cabin and then through the arches instead. Makes for a much neater install i think.
Current job list:
Completely remove all the OBD wiring (though i dont know whether to keep it for power steering codes, doubt it ever would throw a code though
Cut that grommet off!
Deicde where im going to drill the holes in the arches.
Route all the external lighting back through the car. This should clean up most of the spaghetti in the engine bay.
Figure out where and how im going to mount the Megasquirt. Ideally I'd like it removeable but want something stronger that a strip of velcro or something similar on the base. Maybe make up and then mount it to a base plate, weld this to the floor and then have wing nuts / thumbscrews holding it down. Or just weld some studs / bolts to the bulkhead.
Start feeding the wires for the MS from the cabin to the bay.
Clean and paint the gearbox and gear linkage brackets.
Then do i wire up the megasquirt with the engine in or start wiring up sensors then put the engine in and trim back the excess wire? What do you guys think?
smart51
Established member
You don't need to trim back excess wire. You loop the excess within the bundle. That way it just disappears.
OP
OP
Life, work, Christmas, new year have all gotten in the way but progress is slowly being made.
Will post an update in the next week or two. I know most people like plenty of photos though, so need to go out in garage and take some more.
Will post an update in the next week or two. I know most people like plenty of photos though, so need to go out in garage and take some more.
OP
OP
Christmas and New Year have come and gone, been busy with work etc. So not too much has happened but hopefully you'll like what has
Mainly I've been working on the wiring. After seeing various pictures of Centos with wire tucks and personally I quite like the clean look. I've decided to not go for a really minimalist style that some have (chalky for example). I know some might think 'why not do that? especially as you have plenty of time.' I just prefer the slightly cleaner look. i.e a few wires in the bay but not masses of ugly plastic conduit everywhere. Well that's the plan anyway.
To tuck and tidy the wires through the wheel arches, I first had to figure out where I was going to drill the hole in the O/S arch. I I didnt want it too high, though it probably would of been a better idea. I had some ideas about water spray around arch liners or something. I also didnt want to drill into any of seams, for fear of weaking anything structurally. Well making any weaker than it probably already is on a cento.
As You can also see in the picture above, I also have a recharable work light. I got a 10W one off of ebay and though it's awesome and will be perfect for working on dark driveways, I really should of gotten the 20W. The 10W is fine but really would of liked one that would of been a little bit brighter, it was only about £8 more as well. Nevermind.
Bought a stepper drill set, though after i bought it i found a set in the shed, that i swear wasnt there wehen I looked before, typical.
Firing up the drill and pushing it through the bodywork wasnt something I was happy with, Todger will tell you that i really dont like doing anything (even intentionally) that damages a car.
The hole was made larger than than this eventually and added a grommet. Bought myself a box of them off of ebay to plug any other holes or bits that used to have any wires running through them.
All the wiring for the off side was labelled, all connectors removed and then pulled back through the car. It's a pretty easy just but just time consuming. Having a spare complete loom from the shoebox was a big help too.
All the wires going over the top of the steering column were then wrapped in loom tape and final routing will be sorted when the dash is ready to go back in. Yes I could of completely unwrapped all the loom in the car and shortend the wires but this would of meant removing the pedal box and after I'd already put the brake servo back on and limited space to store stuff too is playing a big part. The current running through the wires isn't exactly great and I used all the correct guage wiring for higher current draws, such as headlights.
Drilled a hole on the N/S arch and fed all the cables through to get them out of the way. Not wrapped them yet as im not sure if i'll have to enlarge the hole slightly and just wanted less wires inside the cabin when i put the Megasquirt system in.
As you can see from the picture above, there were still alot of wires floating about in the bay. Especially from the maxi fuses. These wires normally go round the entire engine bay, i decided to trim them and route them underneath the heater matrix.
All the crap that was stored in the battery tray was removed and i decided to mount the maxi fuses on the opposite way round. As the battery will be mounted in the boot again (welded and bolted down this time) there's plenty of room in the battery tray for this. Also the lower moulded plastic cover for the maxi fuses would only fit one way round and if i would of wanted it mounted round the original way, the fuses would have to be unpinned and mounted the other way too. This way it's going to be nice and neat and with eassy access to the fuses.
I had been using a gas soldering iron for all this so far but it finally gave up and the adjuster is stuck on a low heat. I swapped to my electric iron and I have to say I should of used it in the first place. A gas iron is great for portability but i much prefer an electric, cleaner and better solder joins, a lot less 'dry' joins too.
I say this as the cables from the maxi fuses are a thicker gauage and it was so much easier for the electric iron to heat them up evenly, whilst the gas iron was melting the solder but not putting much heat into the work piece.
I mounted and routed the cables underneath the gutter piece in front of the heater matrix. I wasn't going to use this gutter piece but decided I'd rather keep it. Plus the fuel rail attaches to this and though i was tempted to completely remove the steel fuel pipe and swap for a braided or cloth covered one, I've decided to keep it for now.
Sorry once again my phone seems to have difficulty focusing in my garage, so it's a little blury.
Now I just need to neaten up all the wires that come through the arches, wont be doing this until the engine is back in though. All the headlights and that going on will be one of the last things I do. I want to get the engine in and all wired up, make sure it runs etc before the lights go in. Yeh I could test them by hooking up a battery but they're buried in the car and I can't get to them.
Next job will be to roughly sort out the wiring for the relays. Going to create a small mounting bracket from some scrap sheet metal ive got. The only trouble is i dont have any air tools at the minute. My compressor has been returned for a warranty repair. It's a v-twin and i've not got any compression on one cylinder.
I'll make a rough idea out of cardboard, then once my compressor is back ill get the air grinder out and dust my welder off too. Then paint it all in smooth black hammerite.
Also bought myself a new blowtorch. I've had enough of trying to remove the very rusty tie rod ends. They've spent more than long enough being covered in plusgas and then heated with a mini gas burner, gripped with mole grips as tight as i could get them and hit with a big hammer. They still haven't moved, so decided to get something a bit more powerful.
I've been thinking of removing the entire steering rack and attacking it on the bench or get the blow torch on it in the garden, just so i dont damage anything on the car with the heat. Will probably just keep it on the car and hold the ends off of the bodywork with mole grips and blocks of wood.
I removed all the crap from down the passenger side of the car, the bonnet has been moved into the shed, after having a small tidy up to make space for it.
You can also see a P75 block wrapped in cling wrap in the bottom right of the above picture. Still not got round to selling it.
With plenty of space down the passenger, i removed all the crap from the passenger footwell into the drivers footwell. Removed power steering ecu and bracket so i could lift all the sound deadening.
I started trying to cut the lower arm bolt off, the one with the snapped captive nut. The hacksaw blades I bought are made of some cheap chinese carbon steel though. First few strokes with the hacksaw and most of the teeth were already blunt.
Decided to get the reciprocating saw out instead. Lying under the car like a chinese acrobat wasnt fun, space is an issue in the garage but I managed to set it up in a comfortable position and only just score the box section next to the bolt whilst cutting it off.
Instead of taking what probably would of been 20 odd minutes of sawing it took a total of about 5 (i had to swap the battery over half way through).
Managed to finally cut it off though
I tried to push the captive nut off to side so i could drill a pilot hole from underneath. However as I pushed it up, it rolled down the box section. So in the picture you can see the hole where it was by the ARB and instead it rolled down the box section to the drain hole. You can just see it in this picture. It's a little larger than the drain hole, I was hoping it might just be about the same size and i could pull it out.
Drilled a small pilot hole from underneath.
Then got the step drill out again and made it larger.
I then got out a small camera with a magnetic pick up tool, I hoped to just fish it out and pull it out the box section from the passenger footwell.
However the magnet wasn't strong enough. I could get my fingers in the drain hole and push it up box section slightly but not far enough for a magnetic pick up tool to reach. The telescopic magnetic pickup tool i was using I then snapped in half, the magnet itself was just a little bit too large to fit down the box section, even after I enlarged the hole.
I do have a smaller telescopic pick up tool but can't find it anywhere.
I then tried to fish it out the captive nut with a coat hanger and various bits of tubing, It was going okay but couldnt quite grasp it properly. Then when I'd about given up and decided to pull the coat hanger back out it caught the captive nut, which rolled down the box section.... Plus with the car being up in the air this meant that it then rolled right down far as it could go.
So I then had the captive stuck right at the bottom, with no tools that i could get to it with. Was tempted to wait until I got my compressor back and get the cut off tool on the box section and cut a small piece out of it, remove the captive but and weld it back together.
Or just borrow a flexible magnetic pick up tool (which I'd have to borrow or buy).
Instead I decided to first try a stronger magnet. Bought it off amazon, should have a pull strength of 45kg / 100lbs. I thought it that can't drag it up the box section I dont know what will.
Well it didn't
Was stuck right down at the bottom of the box section.
The magnet is powerful and will easily even lift a brake disc but just wouldn't pull the captive nut along.
I stuck my micro usb camera down there and i do have some grainy shots of stuck right down at the bottom. Can't find them on my phone however.
So instead i bend the end of an old coat hanger into a hook and gorrila taped it on to the end of the camera.
Then it was like one of the worlds most terrible seaside arcade games; i was trying to fish the captive nut up the box section via the drain hole, which was just big enough for the hook.
Well a lot of 'fishing' later and I finally got it back up to the drain hole
Now it was time to try and get it up out the hole in the footwell.
I cut the hole in the footwell even bigger. This was so it would be easier to get a magnet down.
Using a piece of my green vac hose, which was the perfect size, i glued in the head of my broken telescopic magnet.
As you'll have probably already spotted in the picture before, i finally managed to get it out. Took a lot longer than i thought it owuld but happy i no longer have to think about cutting the box section apart.
I even got my carbide hole cutters out and started mearsuring up to get a rough idea of how much i'd need to cut out to remove it.
If i really couldnt get it out at all, the alternative was going to be to fill the box section with expanding foam to stop it rattling around.
To add a little bit of extra support when i bolt the arm bracket through the floor I modified an old earth point i had lying around. I will then slide this into the box section.
It's only about 2mm thick though and it's just to spread the load out other than just using washers. It may well crumple and deform but should be okay. I do have some 4/5mm thick mild sheet steel, so if i think it's worth it ill make a better one.
So looking at the above picture, it will bolt through the floor with the head of the bolt (on the left) coming up from underneath. So it will go; bolt, spring washer, washer, wishbone bracket, floorpan, plate, washer, spring washer, lock nut.
The washer alone would hold it in place and the spring wasehr and nylock nut are just to add an extra layer and hole in in.
Well to say that the track rod ends were seized on was an understatment. I'd soaked them in plus gas every time i went into the garage and beat them with a hammer but still then wouldnt move.
Who doesn't like the smell of evaporating plus gas?
Well i beat it with a hammer and ended up sticking my mole grips on the track rod end and hitting it with a dead blow hammer to shock it loose.
The locking nuts really didnt want to be removed. Ended up getting the blow torch back out and covering them in plus gas. Shocked them off with a spanner and hammer and then wound them off with a deep socket.
The O/S was a harder to remove, ended up using my cordless impact to remove the locking nut. None of the threads appear to be damaged, just covered in crap. Will wire brush / wire wheel and maybe dig out an m10 x 1.5 die. I've run my tap through the nuts and they spun through easily.
I've since refitted the N/S wishbone and managed to tighten up both brackets
Will take pictures for the next update as I havent gotten any yet.
ARB is now all connected up. The only thing i found strange is that there is no mention of the ARB in the tech manual (that i could find anyway). I was looking for torque values. If anyone has any ideas, let me know, if not i'll just do them up 'tight'.
Next job is to clean up the gearbox and paint all the brackets as well.
All my dust covers on the gear selection cables have perished and are falling to bits. I have found a similar item that i think will fit on ebay, so may give that a go. If not a complete gearbox seal kit from Fiat is about £40. Which means I'll be doing a gearbox teardown if that's the case.
Want to replace driveshaft boots, inner and outer.
Mount the megasquirt
Get the engine back in and start wiring it up
Questions & comments are welcome as always. You guys let me know what you think
Mainly I've been working on the wiring. After seeing various pictures of Centos with wire tucks and personally I quite like the clean look. I've decided to not go for a really minimalist style that some have (chalky for example). I know some might think 'why not do that? especially as you have plenty of time.' I just prefer the slightly cleaner look. i.e a few wires in the bay but not masses of ugly plastic conduit everywhere. Well that's the plan anyway.
To tuck and tidy the wires through the wheel arches, I first had to figure out where I was going to drill the hole in the O/S arch. I I didnt want it too high, though it probably would of been a better idea. I had some ideas about water spray around arch liners or something. I also didnt want to drill into any of seams, for fear of weaking anything structurally. Well making any weaker than it probably already is on a cento.
As You can also see in the picture above, I also have a recharable work light. I got a 10W one off of ebay and though it's awesome and will be perfect for working on dark driveways, I really should of gotten the 20W. The 10W is fine but really would of liked one that would of been a little bit brighter, it was only about £8 more as well. Nevermind.
Bought a stepper drill set, though after i bought it i found a set in the shed, that i swear wasnt there wehen I looked before, typical.
Firing up the drill and pushing it through the bodywork wasnt something I was happy with, Todger will tell you that i really dont like doing anything (even intentionally) that damages a car.
The hole was made larger than than this eventually and added a grommet. Bought myself a box of them off of ebay to plug any other holes or bits that used to have any wires running through them.
All the wiring for the off side was labelled, all connectors removed and then pulled back through the car. It's a pretty easy just but just time consuming. Having a spare complete loom from the shoebox was a big help too.
All the wires going over the top of the steering column were then wrapped in loom tape and final routing will be sorted when the dash is ready to go back in. Yes I could of completely unwrapped all the loom in the car and shortend the wires but this would of meant removing the pedal box and after I'd already put the brake servo back on and limited space to store stuff too is playing a big part. The current running through the wires isn't exactly great and I used all the correct guage wiring for higher current draws, such as headlights.
Drilled a hole on the N/S arch and fed all the cables through to get them out of the way. Not wrapped them yet as im not sure if i'll have to enlarge the hole slightly and just wanted less wires inside the cabin when i put the Megasquirt system in.
As you can see from the picture above, there were still alot of wires floating about in the bay. Especially from the maxi fuses. These wires normally go round the entire engine bay, i decided to trim them and route them underneath the heater matrix.
All the crap that was stored in the battery tray was removed and i decided to mount the maxi fuses on the opposite way round. As the battery will be mounted in the boot again (welded and bolted down this time) there's plenty of room in the battery tray for this. Also the lower moulded plastic cover for the maxi fuses would only fit one way round and if i would of wanted it mounted round the original way, the fuses would have to be unpinned and mounted the other way too. This way it's going to be nice and neat and with eassy access to the fuses.
I had been using a gas soldering iron for all this so far but it finally gave up and the adjuster is stuck on a low heat. I swapped to my electric iron and I have to say I should of used it in the first place. A gas iron is great for portability but i much prefer an electric, cleaner and better solder joins, a lot less 'dry' joins too.
I say this as the cables from the maxi fuses are a thicker gauage and it was so much easier for the electric iron to heat them up evenly, whilst the gas iron was melting the solder but not putting much heat into the work piece.
I mounted and routed the cables underneath the gutter piece in front of the heater matrix. I wasn't going to use this gutter piece but decided I'd rather keep it. Plus the fuel rail attaches to this and though i was tempted to completely remove the steel fuel pipe and swap for a braided or cloth covered one, I've decided to keep it for now.
Sorry once again my phone seems to have difficulty focusing in my garage, so it's a little blury.
Now I just need to neaten up all the wires that come through the arches, wont be doing this until the engine is back in though. All the headlights and that going on will be one of the last things I do. I want to get the engine in and all wired up, make sure it runs etc before the lights go in. Yeh I could test them by hooking up a battery but they're buried in the car and I can't get to them.
Next job will be to roughly sort out the wiring for the relays. Going to create a small mounting bracket from some scrap sheet metal ive got. The only trouble is i dont have any air tools at the minute. My compressor has been returned for a warranty repair. It's a v-twin and i've not got any compression on one cylinder.
I'll make a rough idea out of cardboard, then once my compressor is back ill get the air grinder out and dust my welder off too. Then paint it all in smooth black hammerite.
Also bought myself a new blowtorch. I've had enough of trying to remove the very rusty tie rod ends. They've spent more than long enough being covered in plusgas and then heated with a mini gas burner, gripped with mole grips as tight as i could get them and hit with a big hammer. They still haven't moved, so decided to get something a bit more powerful.
I've been thinking of removing the entire steering rack and attacking it on the bench or get the blow torch on it in the garden, just so i dont damage anything on the car with the heat. Will probably just keep it on the car and hold the ends off of the bodywork with mole grips and blocks of wood.
I removed all the crap from down the passenger side of the car, the bonnet has been moved into the shed, after having a small tidy up to make space for it.
You can also see a P75 block wrapped in cling wrap in the bottom right of the above picture. Still not got round to selling it.
With plenty of space down the passenger, i removed all the crap from the passenger footwell into the drivers footwell. Removed power steering ecu and bracket so i could lift all the sound deadening.
I started trying to cut the lower arm bolt off, the one with the snapped captive nut. The hacksaw blades I bought are made of some cheap chinese carbon steel though. First few strokes with the hacksaw and most of the teeth were already blunt.
Decided to get the reciprocating saw out instead. Lying under the car like a chinese acrobat wasnt fun, space is an issue in the garage but I managed to set it up in a comfortable position and only just score the box section next to the bolt whilst cutting it off.
Instead of taking what probably would of been 20 odd minutes of sawing it took a total of about 5 (i had to swap the battery over half way through).
Managed to finally cut it off though
I tried to push the captive nut off to side so i could drill a pilot hole from underneath. However as I pushed it up, it rolled down the box section. So in the picture you can see the hole where it was by the ARB and instead it rolled down the box section to the drain hole. You can just see it in this picture. It's a little larger than the drain hole, I was hoping it might just be about the same size and i could pull it out.
Drilled a small pilot hole from underneath.
Then got the step drill out again and made it larger.
I then got out a small camera with a magnetic pick up tool, I hoped to just fish it out and pull it out the box section from the passenger footwell.
However the magnet wasn't strong enough. I could get my fingers in the drain hole and push it up box section slightly but not far enough for a magnetic pick up tool to reach. The telescopic magnetic pickup tool i was using I then snapped in half, the magnet itself was just a little bit too large to fit down the box section, even after I enlarged the hole.
I do have a smaller telescopic pick up tool but can't find it anywhere.
I then tried to fish it out the captive nut with a coat hanger and various bits of tubing, It was going okay but couldnt quite grasp it properly. Then when I'd about given up and decided to pull the coat hanger back out it caught the captive nut, which rolled down the box section.... Plus with the car being up in the air this meant that it then rolled right down far as it could go.
So I then had the captive stuck right at the bottom, with no tools that i could get to it with. Was tempted to wait until I got my compressor back and get the cut off tool on the box section and cut a small piece out of it, remove the captive but and weld it back together.
Or just borrow a flexible magnetic pick up tool (which I'd have to borrow or buy).
Instead I decided to first try a stronger magnet. Bought it off amazon, should have a pull strength of 45kg / 100lbs. I thought it that can't drag it up the box section I dont know what will.
Well it didn't
Was stuck right down at the bottom of the box section.
The magnet is powerful and will easily even lift a brake disc but just wouldn't pull the captive nut along.
I stuck my micro usb camera down there and i do have some grainy shots of stuck right down at the bottom. Can't find them on my phone however.
So instead i bend the end of an old coat hanger into a hook and gorrila taped it on to the end of the camera.
Then it was like one of the worlds most terrible seaside arcade games; i was trying to fish the captive nut up the box section via the drain hole, which was just big enough for the hook.
Well a lot of 'fishing' later and I finally got it back up to the drain hole
Now it was time to try and get it up out the hole in the footwell.
I cut the hole in the footwell even bigger. This was so it would be easier to get a magnet down.
Using a piece of my green vac hose, which was the perfect size, i glued in the head of my broken telescopic magnet.
As you'll have probably already spotted in the picture before, i finally managed to get it out. Took a lot longer than i thought it owuld but happy i no longer have to think about cutting the box section apart.
I even got my carbide hole cutters out and started mearsuring up to get a rough idea of how much i'd need to cut out to remove it.
If i really couldnt get it out at all, the alternative was going to be to fill the box section with expanding foam to stop it rattling around.
To add a little bit of extra support when i bolt the arm bracket through the floor I modified an old earth point i had lying around. I will then slide this into the box section.
It's only about 2mm thick though and it's just to spread the load out other than just using washers. It may well crumple and deform but should be okay. I do have some 4/5mm thick mild sheet steel, so if i think it's worth it ill make a better one.
So looking at the above picture, it will bolt through the floor with the head of the bolt (on the left) coming up from underneath. So it will go; bolt, spring washer, washer, wishbone bracket, floorpan, plate, washer, spring washer, lock nut.
The washer alone would hold it in place and the spring wasehr and nylock nut are just to add an extra layer and hole in in.
Well to say that the track rod ends were seized on was an understatment. I'd soaked them in plus gas every time i went into the garage and beat them with a hammer but still then wouldnt move.
Who doesn't like the smell of evaporating plus gas?
Well i beat it with a hammer and ended up sticking my mole grips on the track rod end and hitting it with a dead blow hammer to shock it loose.
The locking nuts really didnt want to be removed. Ended up getting the blow torch back out and covering them in plus gas. Shocked them off with a spanner and hammer and then wound them off with a deep socket.
The O/S was a harder to remove, ended up using my cordless impact to remove the locking nut. None of the threads appear to be damaged, just covered in crap. Will wire brush / wire wheel and maybe dig out an m10 x 1.5 die. I've run my tap through the nuts and they spun through easily.
I've since refitted the N/S wishbone and managed to tighten up both brackets
Will take pictures for the next update as I havent gotten any yet.
ARB is now all connected up. The only thing i found strange is that there is no mention of the ARB in the tech manual (that i could find anyway). I was looking for torque values. If anyone has any ideas, let me know, if not i'll just do them up 'tight'.
Next job is to clean up the gearbox and paint all the brackets as well.
All my dust covers on the gear selection cables have perished and are falling to bits. I have found a similar item that i think will fit on ebay, so may give that a go. If not a complete gearbox seal kit from Fiat is about £40. Which means I'll be doing a gearbox teardown if that's the case.
Want to replace driveshaft boots, inner and outer.
Mount the megasquirt
Get the engine back in and start wiring it up
Questions & comments are welcome as always. You guys let me know what you think
Wow dude , fancy poping round and showing me how to get the effot to get back out there and carry on i need to get back out and work on lola , but its to cold and dark out there lol
Will you be coming to brooklands ? ( ofcourse not in this in any thing )
Will you be coming to brooklands ? ( ofcourse not in this in any thing )
Sweet baby jesus and the orphans!! I defo would have burnt the car to the ground in anger before overcoming them obstacles... I was getting angry just reading the post haha, well dine for persevering and getting there in the end
OP
OP
Bit of drive for me I'm afraid. Otherwise I'd couple round and give you a hand ;-)
It's nice to be able to work in a dry, insulated garage, with plenty of light and if I get cold, I just stick my electric fan heater on. Means I can work in there whenever I want to.
Brooklands in the one show I've never been to and always wanted to go. However it's the Mrs birthday that weekend, so not sure if I will be. I'd love to get the car done by then too but not putting any date on it.
In 2010 I went to Stanford, MIT Car, Gaydon and Trax. So would be nice to do most of them again.
I see MIT Car is at Gaydon again this year, so will probably be there. Even if I'm not in a fiat.
ThanksSweet baby jesus and the orphans!! I defo would have burnt the car to the ground in anger before overcoming them obstacles... I was getting angry just reading the post haha, well done for persevering and getting there in the end
Yeh the post doesn't show how annoyed I was but I decided to not give up, doesn't mean I wasn't tempted to just smash the car to bits though.
Will get some pictures of how I tightened the arb brackets down and how I'm going to mount relays / fuses etc. in the next day or two.
As always, if anyone wants to know anything, feel free to ask. Always happy to help.
I also went round and saw Todger yesterday. He ended up showing me some Polish centos and it gave me some future ideas.
Did a bit of research and found something that I think will fit, with a little bit of fabrication. It's early days yet but never say never
I have also had issues with the captive nuts in the chassis box section breaking the welds, since then it's always nerve wracking removing the arb and wishbones.
Another good update as usual
Another good update as usual
Snap, Mrs Blu's birthday is always the same time as brooklands, or the nearest weekend to her birthday is the brooklands weekend - why can't they just move it slightly - i really wanna go
OP
OP
Well tonight I went in the garage to torque up the arb bracket bolts.
Set it to 88nm and started tightening the two on the o/s that I retapped.
It just spins and spins.....
Sigh.
Decided to wind them out and check the threads out. As they came out so did a nice dusting of swarf. Threads on the captive nuts are nice and chewed up, can get a bolt in but won't hold any tension.
Decided to not even try tightening up the remaining captive nut on the n/s.
Good news in that I did manage to torque up my fix
So m12 x 1.25 helicoil ordered, decided no more messing about trying to retap holes and do it properly. Otherwise I'm going to end up with 4 holes drilled in the flootwells at this rate.
Normally I don't update my thread when I get stuck but got a bit frustrated and decided to make a post about it instead.
I've also ordered something very stupid. Should give the Pawsbox a bit of JDM love. Will take pictures and show some rough mockups when it arrives.
Pie in the sky dreaming but looks like it might be fun
Set it to 88nm and started tightening the two on the o/s that I retapped.
It just spins and spins.....
Sigh.
Decided to wind them out and check the threads out. As they came out so did a nice dusting of swarf. Threads on the captive nuts are nice and chewed up, can get a bolt in but won't hold any tension.
Decided to not even try tightening up the remaining captive nut on the n/s.
Good news in that I did manage to torque up my fix
So m12 x 1.25 helicoil ordered, decided no more messing about trying to retap holes and do it properly. Otherwise I'm going to end up with 4 holes drilled in the flootwells at this rate.
Normally I don't update my thread when I get stuck but got a bit frustrated and decided to make a post about it instead.
I've also ordered something very stupid. Should give the Pawsbox a bit of JDM love. Will take pictures and show some rough mockups when it arrives.
Pie in the sky dreaming but looks like it might be fun
I can see a lot of planning and preparation coming on in the next few months... .
Thanks
X
.Thanks
X
OP
OP
I'm afraid there won't be another update for a month or so. Life's getting rather busy again.
However when I can finish the next post, it's going to be a big one
However when I can finish the next post, it's going to be a big one
OP
OP
Right my Fiat friends, I've been away for a while. This post is one I've been writing for a few months, so hopefully it won't seem too disjointed. I've come back and written various bits as I've gone on. Enjoy
Helicoil Fun....
My helicoil kit arrived and I set to work to redo the arb bracket bolt holes.
The car had to be jacked up as high as the stands would allow otherwise I wouldn't be able to get the drill underneath at the right angle. My air drill would've fitted by i'm afraid that I still didn't have my compressor (returned under warranty).
I also decided to clean off some of the hammerite from the underside of the ARB brackets. I'd put the paint on so thick, i believe it was restricting the bushes. As Whitz has said to me before though, there’s no real way of brushing it on thinly quickly.
Looked through my box of spare bolts and found another pair of the same size and pitch. The two that were previously in there didn't have sharp threads, probably due to the bolts 'slipping' under tension.
I went to screwfix and picked up some cutting paste. Normally I'd just use some light machine oil but this time decided to do it properly.
Drilled them out, retapped and put the helicoil in. However it didn't go in correctly with all the coils neatly. Also as they're shallow blind holes, I couldn't use the punch to break the tang off and even needle nose pliers wouldn't fit to pull it off.
So stuck the drill back in and drilled out the helicoils until I could pull them out with pliers.
So that's two helicoils down and eight left.
It was a struggle, ended up using another two for each of the two holes. One wouldn't thread in properly and the others when I wound the bolt back in, the helicoil also went further in the hole with it.
As I couldn't snap the tang off and as it protrudes past the original threads (due to the holes being shallower than the coils) it was catching the tang and then turning the helicoil as well as the bolt when being tightened.
By this stage I was really getting annoyed, only had 4 threaded inserts left and 3 holes to do.
So this time I was determined to break the tang off. Using various small screwdrivers, I managed to get pliers to just get hold of it and ripped it off.
Wound the bolts in and they held tension. Only took all day in the garage and far too much time. I was happy to give up and smash it all to bits at one point throughout the day, that's the best time to take a break, have a cuppa and biscuit and then come back to it.
The next day I was dreading trying to sort the passenger side. I decided to first try and tighten the remaining captive nut. I thought I might as well make sure it doesn't hold tension before i drill it out.
Turns out it would actually hold tension saved me a job and happy that I don't have to use one of the two remaining inserts.
The ARB is now reattached and all tightened up, so that's one more job out the way.
Even though it was tightened, I struggled to then get the socket off the nut in the passenger footwell. I'd over-estimated the angle for the pilot hole and wasn't quite square.
Ended up hitting the end of the breaker bar with a dead-blow hammer and deformed the hole to get the socket off. Little bit of the paint / sound deadening came off too but I’ll just spray over it with some spare red paint (MCM style).
Gearbox Clean-Up
As I've mentioned in an earlier post, I'm going to stick with the Abarth / Schumi five speed box whilst I break the engine in, then will probably switch over to the six speed at some point. However the gearbox is filthy and I want to clean it up and gIve it a lick of paint.
I know of a local company called Saxton Manufacturing, they're a local company that mixes up and sells cleaning chemicals in house.
Nice bunch of guys and used them before when i had to buy bulk amounts of TFR for a previous job. Nice little gem tucked out the way and prices are reasonable. Everything comes in 5 litre bottles and you can also grab spray bottles off them too.
I bought engine degreaser to brush over the gearbox, after i attack it with a wire brush and try to clean any crap and corrosion off of it.
Brake and clutch cleaner to clean and wipe down various bits.
Beaded hand cleaner - Think like Swarfega but without the price tag and I have to say it cleans just as well.
Here's a price list incase anyone is interested.
(I was going to scan it but threw it away before i remembered to)
Got the jetwash out, protected any electrical connectors, breather and driveshaft cups with nitrile gloves and zip ties.
Sprayed on the degreaser and let it soak, then agitated it with an old paintbrush.
Inside the bellhousing; if you look at the top you can see the state of the gearbox before i cleaned it.
Just because it's been degreased and washed doesn't mean that it's clean. There was plenty of corrosion starting to form, so out came the rotary wire wheels. I can say I'm glad I didn’t have to do this all by hand using wire brushes and sandpaper, I don't think I would of bothered if that was the case.
I left a small section of the bellhousing so you can see a before and after shot.
After removing the corrosion, it was time to get painting (which I feel like I've done a lot of other the course of this project). Luckily, I actually find the whole process of cleaning and painting very therapeutic and rewarding.
Hammerite special metals primer was used as the casing is ali, this only has a recoat time of two hours so the two layers of this went on quickly. Then, as usual, a (thinly applied) covering of hammerite smooth black. Took me a while to get the hammerite on thinly and far too many coats but I’m happy with the results. Plus minimal sagging and runs.
I also bought a set of MG TF gear selector boots, they were only ones I managed to find on ebay that looked like they might fit. I'm pretty sure if i went to a gearbox place or even a specialist place they might have something in stock that would fit.
As I've mentioned before I thought Fiat did sell them as part of a seal kit but turns out I was wrong after looking at the diagrams again.
However instead of searching for gaiters / boots, I’ve found that they are also referred to as ‘rubber bellows’ and there’s plenty to choose from on the net. I just need to measure the internal diameter and length of the old ones.
Wiring - Relay & Fuse Holders
I’ve had these for a while but don’t think I’ve uploaded a picture of them yet. A set of micro relay and fuse holders that can be joined together.
I want to mount them in a similar place to where the original relays were and will make up a small bracket to mount them to. I may also buy a small tub with a sealable lid so they’re covered from any water coming in from above.
I know they could be mounted in the passenger compartment but I’ve decided to keep them in the engine bay for ease of maintenance.
"Hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea....."
Right now this is where it (hopefully) gets a bit more interesting.
Todger was telling me about a Polish Sei made by TRS Racing; 1.4 16v with a C15-60 Rotrex supercharger - Clicky
Now personally I actually prefer a supercharger over a turbo, I think it's from watching the Mad Max movies when i was younger. You can already tell this meant that naughty ideas were starting to form in my head.
I'm already going to have the car running on an aftermarket ecu, the engine is a freshly rebuilt, I've got plenty of time and who doesn't like the whine of a blower?
It would be rude not to at least research and see if I could do it, wouldn't it?
I wouldn’t need to fabricate a new exhaust manifold, oil / water feed lines, yes maybe create a new inlet plenum but I could use Craig's as an inspiration, I could get some scrap bits of sheet metal and I can get it TIG welded at a local place for peanuts (I wouldn't trust my own welding ability for this).
Looking at the way the charger is mounted in the TRS cento, it's driven via the Aux belt and could be easy to replicate......
Research Begins
I searched for various threads on FiatForum and no one has successfully fitted a supercharger to a cento in the UK (to my knowledge). Yes there's been a Rotrex powered 1.4 16v mk1 Punto and I know that JCR Racing have been developing a supercharger kit for the new 500 and Grande Punto. Neither of these would have any hope of fitting within a cento bay, especially with a 16v engine fitted.
Okay, what about the compressor used in the TRS Cento? The prices for the centrifugal compressor used in the TRS Sei (model number C15-60) retails for over £1000, no thanks! That's too much for me, even I can't justify that expense on a single item and I can't afford it anyway (even with some fag packet man maths). Maybe I could pick one up second hand and save a little bit of money? I couldn't find any for sale and even then who knows how long I'd have to wait until a decent one comes up for a good price and isn't snapped up by somebody else.
Instead i decided to broaden my search and flick through various forums and websites, trying to find something suitable. After a searching and googling and i came across this website; it lists various superchargers that can be imported from Japan and though the article is a little dated the info is still good.
Peaked my interest and decided to try and find out more information about the smaller ones listed.
It lists one called an AN09, a small 'roots' type blower that was used in various Japanese kei cars in the early 90s, including the Nissan March Superturbo (which if you've watched Mighty Car Mods for a while, you’ve probably seen one before). This blower is also known as an AMR500, created by Aisin for Nissan.
I managed to find some pictures of one that had been refurbished somewhere on the internet.
Initial Questions
So a small supercharger that's probably coming up to 20 years old and is no longer in production, that might fit....
With lots of hypotheticals and unknowns, I thought it would be best to try and research some various questions:
Would it even fit within a cento bay?
What are the specifications for the blower?
Where can you buy them from?
Can you buy them refurbished or is the info available to rebuild these?
What boost pressure could it run?
What boost pressure would i want to run?
What pulley size would i need to run this level of boost?
Where and how to mount it?
How would i cool the charge air?
Should i use a similar idea to TRS for adjusting the tension of the belt?
Would all this fail because the woodruff key on crank is made of toffee?
That was just a list of some of my initial questions and hopefully below I'll talk you through how i tried to work my way round and through them, so to say.
Hopefully this won’t seem a disjointed as I won’t answer the questions above in a linear way. Instead I'll first give some information about this blower and then work my way through naturally.
As always if anyone has any ideas, thoughts, comments or questions ask away.
Will it work and whose tried it before?
Well the only info i could find (in English) has mainly been from air cooled VW owners and even there, there's not that much info available.
There is actually one person on FiatForum who is planning on putting one in his 850. These have mainly been carb'd engines, though I have found a few of the VWs have been converted to run on fuel injection, via megasquirt too.
So hopefully it should run fine in a FIRE engine, I mean all it's doing in theory is a basic smog pump and the roots style blowers are the oldest type and very basic in design and operation.
As this blower seems to only of been used on a number of kei cars and the Nissan March, there is very little info available in English. It's taken me a bit of searching and collating a bit of data. I could of simply kept this to myself and made it a bit of a mystery to everyone else but I believe that if the data is freely available, people can then use and improve on it further.
I'm going to try and not link to many websites and instead rewrite any information below, as I don't know how long any external links will be available for and I'd rather it can easily be found in one place. So if anyone looks at this in future it hopefully won’t be full of dead links. Plus all the pictures in this post I’ve reuploaded to FiatForum, so should always be available.
The article I've linked above says it's a small supercharger but I believe it would probably have been an Australian article and their definition of small is probably a little different to ours, especially in relation to engine bay space. So let's break down some of the specifications that I've managed to find.
AMR500 Specifications
Roots Style Supercharger
500cc swept volume
16,000 rpm - MAX
150 bhp (Approx) - Max Recommended Power Output
17mm shaft diameter.
45mm Inlet / Outlet (as standard)
50mm / 2" Aftermarket flanges available
130cc 85w90 GL5 Oil
Dimensions
If it could be mounted in a similar position to the TRS charger, would there be enough space behind the engine up to back of the battery tray (which would have to be removed).
Thanks for Todger letting me borrow old pictures of Chalky, as I didn't have any pictures at the right angle, or an engine in the car for that matter.
How much and where from?
There's plenty to choose from on eBay and a little bit cheaper for a refurbished unit off of aliexpress.
Approx prices at time of writing.
£220 refurb'd
£150+ used
These don't include the cost of customs or any other various taxes that you might be liable for.
Will it fit?
So the price isn't too bad and as I managed to find some pictures of the dimensions I went outside and measured up a rough idea of where I believe it would sit in the engine bay.
The battery tray would have to be removed (easy enough) and I decided to measure to roughly where the rear of the engine should come to (using pictures of Chalky as a reference).
Hmm looks promising and it might just fit in there.
What Boost Level Should I Run?
Price, okay. Size, maybe okay. So how much boost would I want to run?
I found this table whilst browsing Superchargers and Turbochargers written by Alan Allard. The book was written 1982 but still thought it was interesting
A supercharger runs with a fixed amount of boost depending on the size of the pulley on the blower, in relation to the size of the pulley on the crank.
So once I know what boost level I wish to run, then I can calculate the pulley required on the supercharger.
After speaking to Todger he recommended that I don't exceed 0.8 bar / 11.6 psi with standard internals. After the time and money I've already spent my car, I don't want to blow it up by running a silly amount of boost. After browsing various threads and seeing what others have run, I've decided to jump straight in and say 10 psi.
Could probably run a lower level of boost if i wanted to but thought it would be a good level to start at.
Boost vs. Pulley Size Calculations
So now that I have a rough idea of the boost I’d want to run, I'll show you how I calculated the pulley size required. This is with a theoretical rev limit of 7200 and 80% volumetric efficiency .
(1.242 x 7200) / 2
4471.2 l/m
X0.8
3576.96 l/min
This is how much air could be taken in by the engine every minute at max rpm.
The 0.8 is because the combustion processes is never 100% efficient and instead I've used these calculations the hypothesis of 80% volumetric efficiency.
It is divided by two as air is not drawn into each cylinder on every rotation of the crank, due to the nature of the four stroke cycle.
14.533
Recent air pressure in the East Midlands. You could just use 14.7 as this is 1bar - atmospheric pressure (well that's not technically correct i know but were using man maths here)
14.7 + 10
24.7
The standard ambient air pressure (1 bar) + wanted boost pressure.
You could also use specific air pressure for your local area, dependant upon altitude etc.
24.7 / 14.7
1.68
Total air pressure when boosted, divided by the ambient air pressure.
This is how much 'greater' air will be required when boosted.
3576.96 x 1.68
6009 l/min @ 10 psi
This is the amount of air that the engine will require at max rpm and 10 psi of boost.
So the previous calculation of air the engine will require at max rpm, multiplied by the difference when boosted.
6009 / 0.5
12018 max s/c rpm.
This is the max rpm that the blower will spin at. Well under the 16k max limit.
The max amount of air that the engine would require, divided by the swept volume of the blower. If we look at the above specs the swept volume is 500cc or 0.5l.
12018 / 7200
1.67
The ratio between the supercharger pulley and crank at max rpm.
Now that I've calculated that it will require a 1.67:1 ratio, we can work out the required pulley diameter.
Crank pulley part number - TVD1049
Diameter of crank pulley
150mm
Circumference
π x 146
458.67 mm
(I’ve used 146mm here as the pulley diameter for a TVD1049, as the diameter listed also includes the trigger teeth)
Circumference of sc pulley
458.67 / 1.67
274.65
Diameter of sc pulley
274.65 / π
87 mm
So a pulley diameter of roughly 87mm should produce 10 psi of boost with a theoretical 80% volumetric efficiency.
I've had a little bit of difficulty finding a suitable should that's 87mm and haven’t looked at getting a custom one made, there are a few that 90mm in diameter though.
The belt type used for the aux accessories is 4PK and though commonly used for alternators, a/c compressors and power steering pumps there is no off the shelf pulley with a large enough diameter.
After a lot of searching and looking through various pulley catalogues there is an idler pulley manufactured by Dayco that is the right size.
Dayco 89002. This is the correct outside and inside diameter but being an idler pulley it does not have a keyway the centre is a bearing.
I’ve ordered one from the US and should be here in the next week week or so, I’m going to get a bushing made with a keyway and then press it in. If that doesn’t work, I’ll speak to a local machine shop and get them to make me one.
Theoretical Max Boost
What's the max amount of boost you could run? If we assume that the mitigating factor is the 16k rpm limit of the blower, we can work out what size pulley is needed and the max amount of boost it would create.
I have worked out this via a max theoretical supercharger rpm of 15k. If anyone really wanted to push it to 16k, feel free to work it out.
1108 - 21 psi (approx)
⌀71mm pulley
(7k rev limit)
1242 - 16 psi
1368 - 13 psi
⌀73mm pulley
(7200 rev limit)
Mounting and Tensioning?
I believe it would have to be mounted in a similar place to the TRS Cento - with the blower above the alternator, allowing it to be driven by the aux pulley.
Due to the shape of the blower being rectangular, the only way it appears to be able to fit under the bonnet is for the inlet/outlet to be at the 'top and bottom'. Perhaps it could be mounted at an angle but space would still be the main issue.
A mounting bracket similar to the one used in the TRS cento I could fabricate easily enough and there's plenty of existing bolt holes on the side of the engine. Including the cover for the inlet camshaft.
I found a diagram for an idler bracket on the Ke Motorsport website. I could make one similar to this, using the pictures below as an inspiration. This would mean that I wouldn't be wholly relying on moving the alternator to add tension to the belt.
Pipe routing and cooling?
As its a blower that simply works by rotating two opposing vanes, it can be mounted either way up and the airflow direction would be reversed. This allows some flexibility with how to route inlet / boost pipes.
Looking at pictures of the AMR500 and again using the TRS Sei as inspiration, it should be possible to have the inlet for the blower enter from underneath and the outlet from the top.
From my expert diagram, this is a rough idea of how I think it could be routed. The air filter being below the master cylinder and having it run underneath the inlet mani and into the bottom of the blower.
The charge air would then go over the top of the inlet mani and around the engine. It could then potentially go to an intercooler or 180 degrees and round into the TB.
However I don’t think wouldn't be possible with a standard inlet manifold and I've already mentioned doing something similar to craig and using his inlet plenum design as an inspiration.
Or I as I found this on TRS' website from one of their projects, I could make something similar to this:
I quite like this design and I could then make an inlet plenum to my own specifications. For now this is another potential idea and I'd first need to get another alloy inlet manifold to cut it up and have a play.
So an old style blower, that is taking the air around the back of the engine, under the inlet manifold, with heat rising from the exhaust, through a compressor, which is on top of a hot engine, then straight into the TB. Compressed air is heated anyway due to ideal gas law and adiabatic heating. Yeh it's going to need to be cooled....
So how would I run any potential intercooler pipes?
Well, if I'm assuming the top of the blower was the outlet and follow my rough diagram above down to an intercooler in front of the gearbox. How am I going to get the cooled charge air back to the TB? Space isn't exactly great and I'm sure it would be possible but is there a neater solution and one that might also offer more cooling potential?
Plus it might be another first.
I did a little bit of reading and decided that an water-to-air chargecooler may be better suited. It takes up a smaller space, has less piping and should provide better cooling to the charge air.
The charge air will pass through the cooler, inside is a heat exchanger surrounded by a water jacket. This water jacket is connected to another radiator/heat exchanger (which I'd mount in front of the gearbox) and circulated via a 12v electric water pump.
This would save space by being smaller than an intercooler and it’s associated boost pipes. A water-to-air chargecooler could then be mounted above the gearbox, the coil packs may need relocating slightly but this could be done by simply fabricating a bracket.
I already have a spare Cinq SPI radiator I'd acquired ages ago and this second rad shouldn't need a fan on (hopefully). The car should only be making boost whilst moving and when it's moving airflow will help cool the charge air. There could be minor heat soak when stationary but if it were to become an issue, it would be easy enough to wire in a fan and another relay.
A quick flick through ebay and you can pick up cheap chinese barrel intercoolers for about £80. Not a bad price, yes more expensive than a cheapo front mount but space is limited.
A cheap chinese 12v electric water pump can be picked up for about from £20. Yes there are specialist ones available but I'd try and keep costs down.
A small inline radiator cap and various piping / tubing wouldn’t be too expensive either. Plus I've got plenty of spare heater and cooling hoses as I've bought new ones.
Plus some fittings and adapters, which may be a little expensive but could be one of the first water-to-air cooled Supercharged centos.
Will a water-air chargecooler fit though?
An ebay listing had the dimensions for it's smallest cored cooler - 4"x6" (approx 100mm x 150mm).
From these I made a rough cardboard mock up.This picture does not take into account the tapered ends of the cooler but is just the entire length of 30cm and rough diameter.
Looks like it might fit. This could work.....
Another expert diagram to try and illustrate what I'd be thinking of doing. (though the cooler should be on the underside, so it’s closer to the inlet mani)
Biting the Bullet
Well there's only one way to test if this would definitely fit......
Rebuild
I've bought myself the blower but opted for one that hasn't been reconditioned, can it it be rebuilt though?
I bought this one mainly to save cost but also to see how to take it apart and replace everything myself. I'm not sure if I'll even end up saving any money over a recon'd one though.
On the plus side I can make a small guide to help others that might want to try and rebuild one.
I have only managed to find one guide on how to take them apart however it's in japanese and Google translate does a literal translation, so doesn't really help but there are some pictures. Here's one page as an example - Clicky
I've managed to find images where people have it disassembled but never a full guide on how to rebuild one. So I've taken it upon myself to help others out and show you how I've done it (well attempted to)
Bearings
I'm glad I found that image of the bearings in the boxes as it saved me pulling it to pieces and then taking it all apart to measure them all to then work out part numbers.
The NSK bearing pictured above is no longer manufactured but looking through various archives of online cataloges I found it's dimensions and found the same size produced by a different manufacturer.
Quantity / Dimensions
2x - 17x47x14mm open
Part no. 6303
1x - 17x47x14mm sealed
Part no. 6303-2RS
1x - 17x52x16mm sealed
Part no. 949100-4370.
2x - 20x30x7mm oil seal
Total cost £22 (approx)
Teardown
[NOTE - If you're planning on rebuilding an AMR500 yourself, you WILL need access to a press]
All fittings and components were bagged and labeled as they were removed.
So with the blower on the bench I first removed the old pulley. In my case just a quick buzz with my impact gun to get the nut securing the pulley on.
Inlet / outlet pipe and flange removed.
This allowed a look at the vanes from both sides and also a clearer view of the inside of the casing. I could see visible score marks too. More pictures of this later on.
With the end plate removed, you can clearly see the bearings, these would need to be pressed out from the other side. The bearing on the left is the odd sized one.
I damaged the gasket here and using a razor blade to remove it would be advisable. I can't find any off the shelf replacements, so I'm going to be making my own.
Flipping the blower over, I first drained out the gearbox oil and then removed all the fixings and pried the cover off. Theres one large large O-ring here that is shaped like a number 8 (see above photos of them in component parts).
You can also see where I presume someone has taken this apart before and added a marker to show where the vanes line up so as not to collide with each other.
I added a small centre punch mark to one shaft and its associated pulley, this is so I know to put them on the right ones. I then got my puller out and set to getting the backlash gears off.
With the gears removed the vanes are no longer in sync and will collide with each other, so i tried to keep the fiddling down to a minimum.
With the backlash gears off you'd think it would be simple to pry apart the two halves of the case.... Sadly it's not that easy.
If you look at the picture below you can see that there are two slightly larger holes opposite each other, roughly at the top right hand side and bottom left of the 'number 8'. These have two dowel pins that need to be removed.
I didn't have a punch small enough to fit from the other side, instead I improvised with an old drill bit.
I then tried to get the case apart with various screwdrivers and gently work my way around the edge. With the case being made of aluminum though, it's incredibly soft and I don't want to damage the seam and prevent a decent seal being made. I tried bracing the casing in various DIY jigs (various blocks of wood cut and arranged in different ways) and hitting the end of the protruding shaft with a rubber and copper hammer. Didn't do a thing.
I had to admit defeat and see that the only way I could take it apart further would be to use a press. Even if i wanted to put it back together, I'd still have to use a press.
With the two shafts of the vanes being different heights, I had the idea to get a small piece of box section and drill two holes, this would then allow me to get two bolts and adjust the heights of each to push it out evenly.
I went to a local fabrications place that I know of and asked them if I could have a small offcut of box section or something similar. I'd also brought the blower along with me and showed them what I needed it for.
The owner said that I was welcome to use the fly press they had on site and there were lots of off cuts next to it and that I was free to help myself to. Bonus
I was only planning on popping in to get a small piece of metal as I had to go to work. I thought I'd have a quick look and see what I could use and come back tomorrow to push it out properly.
Next to the press was also a metal cutting saw and some long pieces / off cuts of threaded rod, some of which some were just a little bit smaller than the shaft diameter.
Started to press the first half of it out. One side 'popped out' and broke the seal easily enough but the other side hadn't moved more than a few mm. With time running out I decided to head home and look at it tomorrow.
Found out what the problem was.....
Next time I must remember to remove the woodruff key
I knocked the bearing back into the housing, though I didn't have a socket big enough and had to borrow a classic mini balljoint tool that my dad had made at some point in the 60s.
The next day I headed back (wearing suitable clothing and bringing work gloves) and used the press. Luckily everything was still set up where I'd left it.
They pushed out easily enough and there was some round tubing off cuts that were the perfect diameter to also push out the bearings.
Then I flipped the case over and pushed out the vanes.
The oil seals were removed by levering them out with small screwdrivers, though I did end up denting the brass and ali surrounds that hold them in place.
Double checked I did have the right bearings for the job
Cleaning
All the components (except the vanes) were given a bath in the degreaser I'd bought from Saxton Chemicals. They were brass brushed, blow dried and brass wire wheeled on my die grinder.
The vanes have a coating and teflon coated edges, although teflon doesn't commonly react with solvents I didn't want to take any chances with the degreaser. Instead I decided to just test a small area with white spirits and then give it a quick wipe down and blow dry.
Paint or polish?
With the blower broken down into it’s component pieces it was time to figure out how I was going to finish it. I had various ideas about adding black wrinkle paint to the ‘hot side’ in a bid to try and keep the temperatures down as much as possible. However I don't know if the gains would be worth it, though it would be good to try and then measure results with an IR thermometer.
I even toyed with idea of painting in green (who’d have guessed) but ultimately decided that I’d already have enough green with the engine and catch can, plus the amount of prep work required would be a lot and I’m well over my green paint budget.
In the end I decided to try and give the blower a rough polish instead, not a mirror finish but just something to draw the eye to.
I taped over the flange where the two bearings sit, the started to go over the casing with miniature flap wheels, 120, 240, 300 grit and then quick rub over with wet/dry up to 1200 grit.
By no means why this going to be perfect and I wasn’t aiming for a mirror shine, so didn’t make sure it was neat and every piece sanded over perfectly.
I bought myself a small metal polishing kit off of ebay: This included 3 x 2” polishing wheels, compounds and smaller felt bits.
The end case that houses the two gears was the easiest component to try and practice this on first due to it’s shape. Gave it a rough sand up to 1200 grit and stuck the variable fixed speed drill back in the vice.
As you can see I really wasn’t aiming for a perfect finish and just tried to focus on the centre section and gave the edges a rough going over. Still happy with it and looks good out in the sunshine.
Polishing everything else wasn’t too hard, just the smaller areas on the main housing had to be done with smaller felts. I used my electric dremel for this as it can be set to a slow fixed speed and roughly did a few passes with the polishes.
I’m afraid these pictures don’t really do it justice and though it’s far from a perfect finish I’m happy with it. Compared to the closeup picture with the woodruff key you can see how much cleaner it is than before
Now I’m happy polishing bits I could easily polish 8v rocker covers to a near mirror finish and I might even do the two I have in the garage and offer them on an exchange basis for others wanting theirs doing.
Improving Flow
After bolting down the 2” aftermarket flanges I bought, I noticed there would be a sharp ridge due to the larger diameter. Out came the cartridge rolls again and I decided to shape in a small lip on both sides.
The Vanes
As I mentioned earlier, I was a little unsure of what to do with the vanes due to their original coating and believing they had Teflon edges. After a little bit of research and reading I decided to buy WD-40 Dry PTFE Lubricant. Temperature range is up to 250C and should stop anything sticking to the vanes. Don’t know if it’s really going to be worth it but looking at the state of the vanes, there are some chunks taken out where they’ve made contact before. I’m hoping this just due to previous thermal expansion and if this happens again the lube will allow a little bit more movement to take place.
Vanes were give a quick wipe over with a dry cloth, the shafts taped over, balanced in some old bearings and then given a light mist with the spray.
Gathering Parts
Whilst I was rebuilding the blower I got together some of the other bits to make this all work.
Boost Pipes & Chargecooler
‘Barrel style’ chargecooler, electric water pump and an inline radiator cap
I may buy a different pump as the outlet sizes aren’t really going to up to the task I think. With a pumping rate of 600 l/hour it should be able to circulate 10 litres per minute. Little bit of trial and error here as I don’t yet know what the total capacity of the system will be.
I was a little unsure of what diameter silicone elbows and piping to buy, I could have chosen 50mm / 2” but the inlet/outlet on the charge cooler is 57mm (2.24”). For simplicity I decided to just stick with 57mm throughout. Yes, it would of been possible to stick with 50mm but the 180 degree bend would have caused the most difficulty, need multiple reducers. So I’ve bought various types of 57mm hose, clamps and tubing to knock something up. Though cutting down the metal pipes will mean that I’ll have to weld a small bead near the edge of the pipes instead of swaged ends.
I do also have a metre of straight pipe to cut and shape. I really want a solid piece of pipe from the flange and not have a silicone elbow (hence why I have bought any). I will figure out how this will be mounted when the engine is back in the car.
The 180 bend will need to be trimmed down a lot, the ‘start’ of the bend will have to be joined on to the chargecooler. It may also have to be mounted sideways and not one on top of each other either but will see how much space there is when the engine is in.
Blow Off Valve
As this is going to be blow through configuration I will definitely require a blow off valve to try and mitigate a pressure spike when I close off the throttle quickly. If, for example, I’m driving along at WOT and suddenly close the throttle (e.g. to change gear) the blower will still be spinning and drawing in air. This would cause the pressure from the blower to the throttle body to increase dramatically and could cause a pressure surge that may bend the throttle plate, cause boost pipes to blow off or rush backwards into the compressor itself (as compressor stall can happen on a turbo application).
Alternatively I could mount the TB next to the air filter (creating a draw through system) and this would decrease the likelihood of this happening. The MAF sensor would also have to be wired into the inlet plenum and no longer be mounted on the throttle body.
(I know that draw / blow through systems are generally related to carb’d engines but I thought that the term can still be suited to EFI systems where fuel is injected later)
I ordered a cheap dual piston blow off valve and took it apart to have a look.
Dual piston BOVs aren’t commonly used on much modern stuff (not that I can find anyway) and the spring rate is fixed and very stiff.
Instead I thought it was best to order an adjustable BOV so I don't have to mess around trying to find different springs / stack up washers
Once it’s set up I hope to be able to wind the spring down just enough so it stays closed whilst idling and then tighten it up a little bit more to take into account a stronger pressure level that should occur when coming off the throttle quickly.
Inlet Manifold
To create a custom inlet plenum I don’t want to cut up the metal inlet mani that I already have. Especially as they’re getting rarer and harder to come by, instead I messaged some breakers and purchased another one. This one will need a little port matching but it’s in a lot worse condition than the one that was on my car, so I won’t feel as bad when I stick it in a band saw and cut it in half.
I don't know how there is corrosion and oil on the runners….
The plan is to cut it in half and create a smaller ‘box like’ plenum, that will also have small hose barbs for boost gauge / blow off valve. I’m not too sure on the design as of yet, need to do a little more research and reading, then discuss with a local fabricator.
Once the blower is reassembled I’ll be able to mount it to the side of the engine and work out how much room I’ve got to play with for an inlet manifold and if there’s enough space to have the outlet for the blower on the top.
Decompression Plate
With all that charge air going inside the engine the compression ratio should ideally be lower. I know there's a few ways of doing this cheaply, including the old 'two headgasket method' but I think a decomp plate would be a cost effective way of doing this.
Low compression pistons would be the best option or even machining my existing pistons, however new pistons would be expensive and I don't have access to a lathe.
So I've sent a message to Ferriday Engineering in Wales to get a rough idea of how much a decomp plate would be.
They should be making me one up in the next week or two to lower the compression ratio from 10.6:1 - 9:1.
I’ve spoken to Bailey Performance in Telford about mapping the car, injectors, fuel pump etc. I’ve given him a BHP figure I’d like to achieve but there’s far too many variables at this stage but I’ll wait and see.
Also got an MLS headgasket to go on and new head bolts, which means the engine has got to come apart again to fit it all.
Next Time
Well I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got so far.
The plans have changed somewhat for the final build and I’ve decided to try something different. No idea if it will work successfully (if at all) but fingers crossed.
The next job is to reassemble the blower (which I’ve already started). It won’t be done for the next week or so due to work stuff but soon after (I hope).
Then once it’s back together unwrap the engine and figure out a final plan to mount the blower; create brackets etc.
Make a tensioner
Hope this Idler pulley can be converted to a drive pulley, if not I’ll get one custom made.
Once the blower is (roughly) mounted see how much room I’m going to have for the inlet side of things.
Create a final inlet plenum design and get it made
Then it’s a simple job of borrowing a hoist and putting it back in the car.
The end of the project might be in sight but it’s a long way off at the same time.
Will the engine blow itself to bits?
Will it just become a bigger air pump?
Hopefully you guys can give me any suggestions and tell me what you think
Pirus
Helicoil Fun....
My helicoil kit arrived and I set to work to redo the arb bracket bolt holes.
The car had to be jacked up as high as the stands would allow otherwise I wouldn't be able to get the drill underneath at the right angle. My air drill would've fitted by i'm afraid that I still didn't have my compressor (returned under warranty).
I also decided to clean off some of the hammerite from the underside of the ARB brackets. I'd put the paint on so thick, i believe it was restricting the bushes. As Whitz has said to me before though, there’s no real way of brushing it on thinly quickly.
Looked through my box of spare bolts and found another pair of the same size and pitch. The two that were previously in there didn't have sharp threads, probably due to the bolts 'slipping' under tension.
I went to screwfix and picked up some cutting paste. Normally I'd just use some light machine oil but this time decided to do it properly.
Drilled them out, retapped and put the helicoil in. However it didn't go in correctly with all the coils neatly. Also as they're shallow blind holes, I couldn't use the punch to break the tang off and even needle nose pliers wouldn't fit to pull it off.
So stuck the drill back in and drilled out the helicoils until I could pull them out with pliers.
So that's two helicoils down and eight left.
It was a struggle, ended up using another two for each of the two holes. One wouldn't thread in properly and the others when I wound the bolt back in, the helicoil also went further in the hole with it.
As I couldn't snap the tang off and as it protrudes past the original threads (due to the holes being shallower than the coils) it was catching the tang and then turning the helicoil as well as the bolt when being tightened.
By this stage I was really getting annoyed, only had 4 threaded inserts left and 3 holes to do.
So this time I was determined to break the tang off. Using various small screwdrivers, I managed to get pliers to just get hold of it and ripped it off.
Wound the bolts in and they held tension. Only took all day in the garage and far too much time. I was happy to give up and smash it all to bits at one point throughout the day, that's the best time to take a break, have a cuppa and biscuit and then come back to it.
The next day I was dreading trying to sort the passenger side. I decided to first try and tighten the remaining captive nut. I thought I might as well make sure it doesn't hold tension before i drill it out.
Turns out it would actually hold tension
saved me a job and happy that I don't have to use one of the two remaining inserts.The ARB is now reattached and all tightened up, so that's one more job out the way.
Even though it was tightened, I struggled to then get the socket off the nut in the passenger footwell. I'd over-estimated the angle for the pilot hole and wasn't quite square.
Ended up hitting the end of the breaker bar with a dead-blow hammer and deformed the hole to get the socket off. Little bit of the paint / sound deadening came off too but I’ll just spray over it with some spare red paint (MCM style).
Gearbox Clean-Up
As I've mentioned in an earlier post, I'm going to stick with the Abarth / Schumi five speed box whilst I break the engine in, then will probably switch over to the six speed at some point. However the gearbox is filthy and I want to clean it up and gIve it a lick of paint.
I know of a local company called Saxton Manufacturing, they're a local company that mixes up and sells cleaning chemicals in house.
Nice bunch of guys and used them before when i had to buy bulk amounts of TFR for a previous job. Nice little gem tucked out the way and prices are reasonable. Everything comes in 5 litre bottles and you can also grab spray bottles off them too.
I bought engine degreaser to brush over the gearbox, after i attack it with a wire brush and try to clean any crap and corrosion off of it.
Brake and clutch cleaner to clean and wipe down various bits.
Beaded hand cleaner - Think like Swarfega but without the price tag and I have to say it cleans just as well.
Here's a price list incase anyone is interested.
(I was going to scan it but threw it away before i remembered to)
Got the jetwash out, protected any electrical connectors, breather and driveshaft cups with nitrile gloves and zip ties.
Sprayed on the degreaser and let it soak, then agitated it with an old paintbrush.
Inside the bellhousing; if you look at the top you can see the state of the gearbox before i cleaned it.
Just because it's been degreased and washed doesn't mean that it's clean. There was plenty of corrosion starting to form, so out came the rotary wire wheels. I can say I'm glad I didn’t have to do this all by hand using wire brushes and sandpaper, I don't think I would of bothered if that was the case.
I left a small section of the bellhousing so you can see a before and after shot.
After removing the corrosion, it was time to get painting (which I feel like I've done a lot of other the course of this project). Luckily, I actually find the whole process of cleaning and painting very therapeutic and rewarding.
Hammerite special metals primer was used as the casing is ali, this only has a recoat time of two hours so the two layers of this went on quickly. Then, as usual, a (thinly applied) covering of hammerite smooth black. Took me a while to get the hammerite on thinly and far too many coats but I’m happy with the results. Plus minimal sagging and runs.
I also bought a set of MG TF gear selector boots, they were only ones I managed to find on ebay that looked like they might fit. I'm pretty sure if i went to a gearbox place or even a specialist place they might have something in stock that would fit.
As I've mentioned before I thought Fiat did sell them as part of a seal kit but turns out I was wrong after looking at the diagrams again.
However instead of searching for gaiters / boots, I’ve found that they are also referred to as ‘rubber bellows’ and there’s plenty to choose from on the net. I just need to measure the internal diameter and length of the old ones.
Wiring - Relay & Fuse Holders
I’ve had these for a while but don’t think I’ve uploaded a picture of them yet. A set of micro relay and fuse holders that can be joined together.
I want to mount them in a similar place to where the original relays were and will make up a small bracket to mount them to. I may also buy a small tub with a sealable lid so they’re covered from any water coming in from above.
I know they could be mounted in the passenger compartment but I’ve decided to keep them in the engine bay for ease of maintenance.
"Hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea....."
Right now this is where it (hopefully) gets a bit more interesting.
Todger was telling me about a Polish Sei made by TRS Racing; 1.4 16v with a C15-60 Rotrex supercharger - Clicky
Now personally I actually prefer a supercharger over a turbo, I think it's from watching the Mad Max movies when i was younger. You can already tell this meant that naughty ideas were starting to form in my head.
I'm already going to have the car running on an aftermarket ecu, the engine is a freshly rebuilt, I've got plenty of time and who doesn't like the whine of a blower?
It would be rude not to at least research and see if I could do it, wouldn't it?
I wouldn’t need to fabricate a new exhaust manifold, oil / water feed lines, yes maybe create a new inlet plenum but I could use Craig's as an inspiration, I could get some scrap bits of sheet metal and I can get it TIG welded at a local place for peanuts (I wouldn't trust my own welding ability for this).
Looking at the way the charger is mounted in the TRS cento, it's driven via the Aux belt and could be easy to replicate......
Research Begins
I searched for various threads on FiatForum and no one has successfully fitted a supercharger to a cento in the UK (to my knowledge). Yes there's been a Rotrex powered 1.4 16v mk1 Punto and I know that JCR Racing have been developing a supercharger kit for the new 500 and Grande Punto. Neither of these would have any hope of fitting within a cento bay, especially with a 16v engine fitted.
Okay, what about the compressor used in the TRS Cento? The prices for the centrifugal compressor used in the TRS Sei (model number C15-60) retails for over £1000, no thanks! That's too much for me, even I can't justify that expense on a single item and I can't afford it anyway (even with some fag packet man maths). Maybe I could pick one up second hand and save a little bit of money? I couldn't find any for sale and even then who knows how long I'd have to wait until a decent one comes up for a good price and isn't snapped up by somebody else.
Instead i decided to broaden my search and flick through various forums and websites, trying to find something suitable. After a searching and googling and i came across this website; it lists various superchargers that can be imported from Japan and though the article is a little dated the info is still good.
Peaked my interest and decided to try and find out more information about the smaller ones listed.
It lists one called an AN09, a small 'roots' type blower that was used in various Japanese kei cars in the early 90s, including the Nissan March Superturbo (which if you've watched Mighty Car Mods for a while, you’ve probably seen one before). This blower is also known as an AMR500, created by Aisin for Nissan.
I managed to find some pictures of one that had been refurbished somewhere on the internet.
Initial Questions
So a small supercharger that's probably coming up to 20 years old and is no longer in production, that might fit....
With lots of hypotheticals and unknowns, I thought it would be best to try and research some various questions:
Would it even fit within a cento bay?
What are the specifications for the blower?
Where can you buy them from?
Can you buy them refurbished or is the info available to rebuild these?
What boost pressure could it run?
What boost pressure would i want to run?
What pulley size would i need to run this level of boost?
Where and how to mount it?
How would i cool the charge air?
Should i use a similar idea to TRS for adjusting the tension of the belt?
Would all this fail because the woodruff key on crank is made of toffee?
That was just a list of some of my initial questions and hopefully below I'll talk you through how i tried to work my way round and through them, so to say.
Hopefully this won’t seem a disjointed as I won’t answer the questions above in a linear way. Instead I'll first give some information about this blower and then work my way through naturally.
As always if anyone has any ideas, thoughts, comments or questions ask away.
Will it work and whose tried it before?
Well the only info i could find (in English) has mainly been from air cooled VW owners and even there, there's not that much info available.
There is actually one person on FiatForum who is planning on putting one in his 850. These have mainly been carb'd engines, though I have found a few of the VWs have been converted to run on fuel injection, via megasquirt too.
So hopefully it should run fine in a FIRE engine, I mean all it's doing in theory is a basic smog pump and the roots style blowers are the oldest type and very basic in design and operation.
As this blower seems to only of been used on a number of kei cars and the Nissan March, there is very little info available in English. It's taken me a bit of searching and collating a bit of data. I could of simply kept this to myself and made it a bit of a mystery to everyone else but I believe that if the data is freely available, people can then use and improve on it further.
I'm going to try and not link to many websites and instead rewrite any information below, as I don't know how long any external links will be available for and I'd rather it can easily be found in one place. So if anyone looks at this in future it hopefully won’t be full of dead links. Plus all the pictures in this post I’ve reuploaded to FiatForum, so should always be available.
The article I've linked above says it's a small supercharger but I believe it would probably have been an Australian article and their definition of small is probably a little different to ours, especially in relation to engine bay space. So let's break down some of the specifications that I've managed to find.
AMR500 Specifications
Roots Style Supercharger
500cc swept volume
16,000 rpm - MAX
150 bhp (Approx) - Max Recommended Power Output
17mm shaft diameter.
45mm Inlet / Outlet (as standard)
50mm / 2" Aftermarket flanges available
130cc 85w90 GL5 Oil
Dimensions
If it could be mounted in a similar position to the TRS charger, would there be enough space behind the engine up to back of the battery tray (which would have to be removed).
Thanks for Todger letting me borrow old pictures of Chalky, as I didn't have any pictures at the right angle, or an engine in the car for that matter.
How much and where from?
There's plenty to choose from on eBay and a little bit cheaper for a refurbished unit off of aliexpress.
Approx prices at time of writing.
£220 refurb'd
£150+ used
These don't include the cost of customs or any other various taxes that you might be liable for.
Will it fit?
So the price isn't too bad and as I managed to find some pictures of the dimensions I went outside and measured up a rough idea of where I believe it would sit in the engine bay.
The battery tray would have to be removed (easy enough) and I decided to measure to roughly where the rear of the engine should come to (using pictures of Chalky as a reference).
Hmm looks promising and it might just fit in there.
What Boost Level Should I Run?
Price, okay. Size, maybe okay. So how much boost would I want to run?
I found this table whilst browsing Superchargers and Turbochargers written by Alan Allard. The book was written 1982 but still thought it was interesting
A supercharger runs with a fixed amount of boost depending on the size of the pulley on the blower, in relation to the size of the pulley on the crank.
So once I know what boost level I wish to run, then I can calculate the pulley required on the supercharger.
After speaking to Todger he recommended that I don't exceed 0.8 bar / 11.6 psi with standard internals. After the time and money I've already spent my car, I don't want to blow it up by running a silly amount of boost. After browsing various threads and seeing what others have run, I've decided to jump straight in and say 10 psi.
Could probably run a lower level of boost if i wanted to but thought it would be a good level to start at.
Boost vs. Pulley Size Calculations
So now that I have a rough idea of the boost I’d want to run, I'll show you how I calculated the pulley size required. This is with a theoretical rev limit of 7200 and 80% volumetric efficiency .
(1.242 x 7200) / 2
4471.2 l/m
X0.8
3576.96 l/min
This is how much air could be taken in by the engine every minute at max rpm.
The 0.8 is because the combustion processes is never 100% efficient and instead I've used these calculations the hypothesis of 80% volumetric efficiency.
It is divided by two as air is not drawn into each cylinder on every rotation of the crank, due to the nature of the four stroke cycle.
14.533
Recent air pressure in the East Midlands. You could just use 14.7 as this is 1bar - atmospheric pressure (well that's not technically correct i know but were using man maths here)
14.7 + 10
24.7
The standard ambient air pressure (1 bar) + wanted boost pressure.
You could also use specific air pressure for your local area, dependant upon altitude etc.
24.7 / 14.7
1.68
Total air pressure when boosted, divided by the ambient air pressure.
This is how much 'greater' air will be required when boosted.
3576.96 x 1.68
6009 l/min @ 10 psi
This is the amount of air that the engine will require at max rpm and 10 psi of boost.
So the previous calculation of air the engine will require at max rpm, multiplied by the difference when boosted.
6009 / 0.5
12018 max s/c rpm.
This is the max rpm that the blower will spin at. Well under the 16k max limit.
The max amount of air that the engine would require, divided by the swept volume of the blower. If we look at the above specs the swept volume is 500cc or 0.5l.
12018 / 7200
1.67
The ratio between the supercharger pulley and crank at max rpm.
Now that I've calculated that it will require a 1.67:1 ratio, we can work out the required pulley diameter.
Crank pulley part number - TVD1049
Diameter of crank pulley
150mm
Circumference
π x 146
458.67 mm
(I’ve used 146mm here as the pulley diameter for a TVD1049, as the diameter listed also includes the trigger teeth)
Circumference of sc pulley
458.67 / 1.67
274.65
Diameter of sc pulley
274.65 / π
87 mm
So a pulley diameter of roughly 87mm should produce 10 psi of boost with a theoretical 80% volumetric efficiency.
I've had a little bit of difficulty finding a suitable should that's 87mm and haven’t looked at getting a custom one made, there are a few that 90mm in diameter though.
The belt type used for the aux accessories is 4PK and though commonly used for alternators, a/c compressors and power steering pumps there is no off the shelf pulley with a large enough diameter.
After a lot of searching and looking through various pulley catalogues there is an idler pulley manufactured by Dayco that is the right size.
Dayco 89002. This is the correct outside and inside diameter but being an idler pulley it does not have a keyway the centre is a bearing.
I’ve ordered one from the US and should be here in the next week week or so, I’m going to get a bushing made with a keyway and then press it in. If that doesn’t work, I’ll speak to a local machine shop and get them to make me one.
Theoretical Max Boost
What's the max amount of boost you could run? If we assume that the mitigating factor is the 16k rpm limit of the blower, we can work out what size pulley is needed and the max amount of boost it would create.
I have worked out this via a max theoretical supercharger rpm of 15k. If anyone really wanted to push it to 16k, feel free to work it out.
1108 - 21 psi (approx)
⌀71mm pulley
(7k rev limit)
1242 - 16 psi
1368 - 13 psi
⌀73mm pulley
(7200 rev limit)
Mounting and Tensioning?
I believe it would have to be mounted in a similar place to the TRS Cento - with the blower above the alternator, allowing it to be driven by the aux pulley.
Due to the shape of the blower being rectangular, the only way it appears to be able to fit under the bonnet is for the inlet/outlet to be at the 'top and bottom'. Perhaps it could be mounted at an angle but space would still be the main issue.
A mounting bracket similar to the one used in the TRS cento I could fabricate easily enough and there's plenty of existing bolt holes on the side of the engine. Including the cover for the inlet camshaft.
I found a diagram for an idler bracket on the Ke Motorsport website. I could make one similar to this, using the pictures below as an inspiration. This would mean that I wouldn't be wholly relying on moving the alternator to add tension to the belt.
Pipe routing and cooling?
As its a blower that simply works by rotating two opposing vanes, it can be mounted either way up and the airflow direction would be reversed. This allows some flexibility with how to route inlet / boost pipes.
Looking at pictures of the AMR500 and again using the TRS Sei as inspiration, it should be possible to have the inlet for the blower enter from underneath and the outlet from the top.
From my expert diagram, this is a rough idea of how I think it could be routed. The air filter being below the master cylinder and having it run underneath the inlet mani and into the bottom of the blower.
The charge air would then go over the top of the inlet mani and around the engine. It could then potentially go to an intercooler or 180 degrees and round into the TB.
However I don’t think wouldn't be possible with a standard inlet manifold and I've already mentioned doing something similar to craig and using his inlet plenum design as an inspiration.
Or I as I found this on TRS' website from one of their projects, I could make something similar to this:
I quite like this design and I could then make an inlet plenum to my own specifications. For now this is another potential idea and I'd first need to get another alloy inlet manifold to cut it up and have a play.
So an old style blower, that is taking the air around the back of the engine, under the inlet manifold, with heat rising from the exhaust, through a compressor, which is on top of a hot engine, then straight into the TB. Compressed air is heated anyway due to ideal gas law and adiabatic heating. Yeh it's going to need to be cooled....
So how would I run any potential intercooler pipes?
Well, if I'm assuming the top of the blower was the outlet and follow my rough diagram above down to an intercooler in front of the gearbox. How am I going to get the cooled charge air back to the TB? Space isn't exactly great and I'm sure it would be possible but is there a neater solution and one that might also offer more cooling potential?
Plus it might be another first.
I did a little bit of reading and decided that an water-to-air chargecooler may be better suited. It takes up a smaller space, has less piping and should provide better cooling to the charge air.
The charge air will pass through the cooler, inside is a heat exchanger surrounded by a water jacket. This water jacket is connected to another radiator/heat exchanger (which I'd mount in front of the gearbox) and circulated via a 12v electric water pump.
This would save space by being smaller than an intercooler and it’s associated boost pipes. A water-to-air chargecooler could then be mounted above the gearbox, the coil packs may need relocating slightly but this could be done by simply fabricating a bracket.
I already have a spare Cinq SPI radiator I'd acquired ages ago and this second rad shouldn't need a fan on (hopefully). The car should only be making boost whilst moving and when it's moving airflow will help cool the charge air. There could be minor heat soak when stationary but if it were to become an issue, it would be easy enough to wire in a fan and another relay.
A quick flick through ebay and you can pick up cheap chinese barrel intercoolers for about £80. Not a bad price, yes more expensive than a cheapo front mount but space is limited.
A cheap chinese 12v electric water pump can be picked up for about from £20. Yes there are specialist ones available but I'd try and keep costs down.
A small inline radiator cap and various piping / tubing wouldn’t be too expensive either. Plus I've got plenty of spare heater and cooling hoses as I've bought new ones.
Plus some fittings and adapters, which may be a little expensive but could be one of the first water-to-air cooled Supercharged centos.
Will a water-air chargecooler fit though?
An ebay listing had the dimensions for it's smallest cored cooler - 4"x6" (approx 100mm x 150mm).
From these I made a rough cardboard mock up.This picture does not take into account the tapered ends of the cooler but is just the entire length of 30cm and rough diameter.
Looks like it might fit. This could work.....
Another expert diagram to try and illustrate what I'd be thinking of doing. (though the cooler should be on the underside, so it’s closer to the inlet mani)
Biting the Bullet
Well there's only one way to test if this would definitely fit......
Rebuild
I've bought myself the blower but opted for one that hasn't been reconditioned, can it it be rebuilt though?
I bought this one mainly to save cost but also to see how to take it apart and replace everything myself. I'm not sure if I'll even end up saving any money over a recon'd one though.
On the plus side I can make a small guide to help others that might want to try and rebuild one.
I have only managed to find one guide on how to take them apart however it's in japanese and Google translate does a literal translation, so doesn't really help but there are some pictures. Here's one page as an example - Clicky
I've managed to find images where people have it disassembled but never a full guide on how to rebuild one. So I've taken it upon myself to help others out and show you how I've done it (well attempted to)
Bearings
I'm glad I found that image of the bearings in the boxes as it saved me pulling it to pieces and then taking it all apart to measure them all to then work out part numbers.
The NSK bearing pictured above is no longer manufactured but looking through various archives of online cataloges I found it's dimensions and found the same size produced by a different manufacturer.
Quantity / Dimensions
2x - 17x47x14mm open
Part no. 6303
1x - 17x47x14mm sealed
Part no. 6303-2RS
1x - 17x52x16mm sealed
Part no. 949100-4370.
2x - 20x30x7mm oil seal
Total cost £22 (approx)
Teardown
[NOTE - If you're planning on rebuilding an AMR500 yourself, you WILL need access to a press]
All fittings and components were bagged and labeled as they were removed.
So with the blower on the bench I first removed the old pulley. In my case just a quick buzz with my impact gun to get the nut securing the pulley on.
Inlet / outlet pipe and flange removed.
This allowed a look at the vanes from both sides and also a clearer view of the inside of the casing. I could see visible score marks too. More pictures of this later on.
With the end plate removed, you can clearly see the bearings, these would need to be pressed out from the other side. The bearing on the left is the odd sized one.
I damaged the gasket here and using a razor blade to remove it would be advisable. I can't find any off the shelf replacements, so I'm going to be making my own.
Flipping the blower over, I first drained out the gearbox oil and then removed all the fixings and pried the cover off. Theres one large large O-ring here that is shaped like a number 8 (see above photos of them in component parts).
You can also see where I presume someone has taken this apart before and added a marker to show where the vanes line up so as not to collide with each other.
I added a small centre punch mark to one shaft and its associated pulley, this is so I know to put them on the right ones. I then got my puller out and set to getting the backlash gears off.
With the gears removed the vanes are no longer in sync and will collide with each other, so i tried to keep the fiddling down to a minimum.
With the backlash gears off you'd think it would be simple to pry apart the two halves of the case.... Sadly it's not that easy.
If you look at the picture below you can see that there are two slightly larger holes opposite each other, roughly at the top right hand side and bottom left of the 'number 8'. These have two dowel pins that need to be removed.
I didn't have a punch small enough to fit from the other side, instead I improvised with an old drill bit.
I then tried to get the case apart with various screwdrivers and gently work my way around the edge. With the case being made of aluminum though, it's incredibly soft and I don't want to damage the seam and prevent a decent seal being made. I tried bracing the casing in various DIY jigs (various blocks of wood cut and arranged in different ways) and hitting the end of the protruding shaft with a rubber and copper hammer. Didn't do a thing.
I had to admit defeat and see that the only way I could take it apart further would be to use a press. Even if i wanted to put it back together, I'd still have to use a press.
With the two shafts of the vanes being different heights, I had the idea to get a small piece of box section and drill two holes, this would then allow me to get two bolts and adjust the heights of each to push it out evenly.
I went to a local fabrications place that I know of and asked them if I could have a small offcut of box section or something similar. I'd also brought the blower along with me and showed them what I needed it for.
The owner said that I was welcome to use the fly press they had on site and there were lots of off cuts next to it and that I was free to help myself to. Bonus
I was only planning on popping in to get a small piece of metal as I had to go to work. I thought I'd have a quick look and see what I could use and come back tomorrow to push it out properly.
Next to the press was also a metal cutting saw and some long pieces / off cuts of threaded rod, some of which some were just a little bit smaller than the shaft diameter.
Started to press the first half of it out. One side 'popped out' and broke the seal easily enough but the other side hadn't moved more than a few mm. With time running out I decided to head home and look at it tomorrow.
Found out what the problem was.....
Next time I must remember to remove the woodruff key
I knocked the bearing back into the housing, though I didn't have a socket big enough and had to borrow a classic mini balljoint tool that my dad had made at some point in the 60s.
The next day I headed back (wearing suitable clothing and bringing work gloves) and used the press. Luckily everything was still set up where I'd left it.
They pushed out easily enough and there was some round tubing off cuts that were the perfect diameter to also push out the bearings.
Then I flipped the case over and pushed out the vanes.
The oil seals were removed by levering them out with small screwdrivers, though I did end up denting the brass and ali surrounds that hold them in place.
Double checked I did have the right bearings for the job
Cleaning
All the components (except the vanes) were given a bath in the degreaser I'd bought from Saxton Chemicals. They were brass brushed, blow dried and brass wire wheeled on my die grinder.
The vanes have a coating and teflon coated edges, although teflon doesn't commonly react with solvents I didn't want to take any chances with the degreaser. Instead I decided to just test a small area with white spirits and then give it a quick wipe down and blow dry.
Paint or polish?
With the blower broken down into it’s component pieces it was time to figure out how I was going to finish it. I had various ideas about adding black wrinkle paint to the ‘hot side’ in a bid to try and keep the temperatures down as much as possible. However I don't know if the gains would be worth it, though it would be good to try and then measure results with an IR thermometer.
I even toyed with idea of painting in green (who’d have guessed) but ultimately decided that I’d already have enough green with the engine and catch can, plus the amount of prep work required would be a lot and I’m well over my green paint budget.
In the end I decided to try and give the blower a rough polish instead, not a mirror finish but just something to draw the eye to.
I taped over the flange where the two bearings sit, the started to go over the casing with miniature flap wheels, 120, 240, 300 grit and then quick rub over with wet/dry up to 1200 grit.
By no means why this going to be perfect and I wasn’t aiming for a mirror shine, so didn’t make sure it was neat and every piece sanded over perfectly.
I bought myself a small metal polishing kit off of ebay: This included 3 x 2” polishing wheels, compounds and smaller felt bits.
The end case that houses the two gears was the easiest component to try and practice this on first due to it’s shape. Gave it a rough sand up to 1200 grit and stuck the variable fixed speed drill back in the vice.
As you can see I really wasn’t aiming for a perfect finish and just tried to focus on the centre section and gave the edges a rough going over. Still happy with it and looks good out in the sunshine.
Polishing everything else wasn’t too hard, just the smaller areas on the main housing had to be done with smaller felts. I used my electric dremel for this as it can be set to a slow fixed speed and roughly did a few passes with the polishes.
I’m afraid these pictures don’t really do it justice and though it’s far from a perfect finish I’m happy with it. Compared to the closeup picture with the woodruff key you can see how much cleaner it is than before
Now I’m happy polishing bits I could easily polish 8v rocker covers to a near mirror finish and I might even do the two I have in the garage and offer them on an exchange basis for others wanting theirs doing.
Improving Flow
After bolting down the 2” aftermarket flanges I bought, I noticed there would be a sharp ridge due to the larger diameter. Out came the cartridge rolls again and I decided to shape in a small lip on both sides.
The Vanes
As I mentioned earlier, I was a little unsure of what to do with the vanes due to their original coating and believing they had Teflon edges. After a little bit of research and reading I decided to buy WD-40 Dry PTFE Lubricant. Temperature range is up to 250C and should stop anything sticking to the vanes. Don’t know if it’s really going to be worth it but looking at the state of the vanes, there are some chunks taken out where they’ve made contact before. I’m hoping this just due to previous thermal expansion and if this happens again the lube will allow a little bit more movement to take place.
Vanes were give a quick wipe over with a dry cloth, the shafts taped over, balanced in some old bearings and then given a light mist with the spray.
Gathering Parts
Whilst I was rebuilding the blower I got together some of the other bits to make this all work.
Boost Pipes & Chargecooler
‘Barrel style’ chargecooler, electric water pump and an inline radiator cap
I may buy a different pump as the outlet sizes aren’t really going to up to the task I think. With a pumping rate of 600 l/hour it should be able to circulate 10 litres per minute. Little bit of trial and error here as I don’t yet know what the total capacity of the system will be.
I was a little unsure of what diameter silicone elbows and piping to buy, I could have chosen 50mm / 2” but the inlet/outlet on the charge cooler is 57mm (2.24”). For simplicity I decided to just stick with 57mm throughout. Yes, it would of been possible to stick with 50mm but the 180 degree bend would have caused the most difficulty, need multiple reducers. So I’ve bought various types of 57mm hose, clamps and tubing to knock something up. Though cutting down the metal pipes will mean that I’ll have to weld a small bead near the edge of the pipes instead of swaged ends.
I do also have a metre of straight pipe to cut and shape. I really want a solid piece of pipe from the flange and not have a silicone elbow (hence why I have bought any). I will figure out how this will be mounted when the engine is back in the car.
The 180 bend will need to be trimmed down a lot, the ‘start’ of the bend will have to be joined on to the chargecooler. It may also have to be mounted sideways and not one on top of each other either but will see how much space there is when the engine is in.
Blow Off Valve
As this is going to be blow through configuration I will definitely require a blow off valve to try and mitigate a pressure spike when I close off the throttle quickly. If, for example, I’m driving along at WOT and suddenly close the throttle (e.g. to change gear) the blower will still be spinning and drawing in air. This would cause the pressure from the blower to the throttle body to increase dramatically and could cause a pressure surge that may bend the throttle plate, cause boost pipes to blow off or rush backwards into the compressor itself (as compressor stall can happen on a turbo application).
Alternatively I could mount the TB next to the air filter (creating a draw through system) and this would decrease the likelihood of this happening. The MAF sensor would also have to be wired into the inlet plenum and no longer be mounted on the throttle body.
(I know that draw / blow through systems are generally related to carb’d engines but I thought that the term can still be suited to EFI systems where fuel is injected later)
I ordered a cheap dual piston blow off valve and took it apart to have a look.
Dual piston BOVs aren’t commonly used on much modern stuff (not that I can find anyway) and the spring rate is fixed and very stiff.
Instead I thought it was best to order an adjustable BOV so I don't have to mess around trying to find different springs / stack up washers
Once it’s set up I hope to be able to wind the spring down just enough so it stays closed whilst idling and then tighten it up a little bit more to take into account a stronger pressure level that should occur when coming off the throttle quickly.
Inlet Manifold
To create a custom inlet plenum I don’t want to cut up the metal inlet mani that I already have. Especially as they’re getting rarer and harder to come by, instead I messaged some breakers and purchased another one. This one will need a little port matching but it’s in a lot worse condition than the one that was on my car, so I won’t feel as bad when I stick it in a band saw and cut it in half.
I don't know how there is corrosion and oil on the runners….
The plan is to cut it in half and create a smaller ‘box like’ plenum, that will also have small hose barbs for boost gauge / blow off valve. I’m not too sure on the design as of yet, need to do a little more research and reading, then discuss with a local fabricator.
Once the blower is reassembled I’ll be able to mount it to the side of the engine and work out how much room I’ve got to play with for an inlet manifold and if there’s enough space to have the outlet for the blower on the top.
Decompression Plate
With all that charge air going inside the engine the compression ratio should ideally be lower. I know there's a few ways of doing this cheaply, including the old 'two headgasket method' but I think a decomp plate would be a cost effective way of doing this.
Low compression pistons would be the best option or even machining my existing pistons, however new pistons would be expensive and I don't have access to a lathe.
So I've sent a message to Ferriday Engineering in Wales to get a rough idea of how much a decomp plate would be.
They should be making me one up in the next week or two to lower the compression ratio from 10.6:1 - 9:1.
I’ve spoken to Bailey Performance in Telford about mapping the car, injectors, fuel pump etc. I’ve given him a BHP figure I’d like to achieve but there’s far too many variables at this stage but I’ll wait and see.
Also got an MLS headgasket to go on and new head bolts, which means the engine has got to come apart again to fit it all.
Next Time
Well I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got so far.
The plans have changed somewhat for the final build and I’ve decided to try something different. No idea if it will work successfully (if at all) but fingers crossed.
The next job is to reassemble the blower (which I’ve already started). It won’t be done for the next week or so due to work stuff but soon after (I hope).
Then once it’s back together unwrap the engine and figure out a final plan to mount the blower; create brackets etc.
Make a tensioner
Hope this Idler pulley can be converted to a drive pulley, if not I’ll get one custom made.
Once the blower is (roughly) mounted see how much room I’m going to have for the inlet side of things.
Create a final inlet plenum design and get it made
Then it’s a simple job of borrowing a hoist and putting it back in the car.
The end of the project might be in sight but it’s a long way off at the same time.
Will the engine blow itself to bits?
Will it just become a bigger air pump?
Hopefully you guys can give me any suggestions and tell me what you think
Pirus
OP
OP
Small intermediate update. There's more but I haven't finished writing it all up yet but have a few people ask me to post updates. So here's a small slice for you.
Supercharger Rebuild Cont.
Went to another local garage and they let me use their press.
As you can see in the second picture above, I also couldn't quite easily press in two of the bearings with what they had available and instead of going home and coming back another day, decided to improvise with old bearings and various sockets.
With the blower back together, I couldn't actually spin it over by hand (though I could before) I assume this was due to the ptfe coating on the rotors, I know the tolerances are tight and that small layer might have just been the difference.
Though when they get hot and expand it will be fun to try and figure out if it's still going to catch or just take the coating off. Going to give it a buzz with my impact gun instead and spin it over a few times and make sure it's all good.
The plastic pulley that I bought though it's the correct size, as I mentioned before it's an idler pulley and thus had a built in bearing. I did try to press this bearing out, to then get a bush made. However the bearing is mouled into the pulley and thus when trying to push it out I broke all the plastic surrounding the bearing. I could get a custom pulley made but have decided to just go for the stock 75mm pulley that came with the blower.
It's already a 4pk pulley and though it should create near enough the max amount of boost, I'm thinking the that pressure losses due boost piping and chargecooling should mitigate the higher boost level.
Inlet Manifold Choices
Thinking about the inlet manifold situation and after speaking to Whitz I decided that it wasn't worth the time and effort of chopping up a mk1 mani.
Instead I've opted for the T-Jet manifold as it's shorter and more compact. Plus after all the thousands of hours that Fiat probably put into designing it, I'm sure my attempt at creating one wouldn't be as good.
I purchased this off ebay for £60, that included the injectors, fuel rail, wiring and TB too.
Throttle Body Adapter
The early cable operated throttle bodies are only 3 bolts and the newer fly-by-wire are all four bolts. However the earlier mk1 ali inlet manifold does have a an adapter plate on and I was hoping this would be a direct fit.
Though you can't really tell from the pictures above, the early adapter piece is too small a diameter. Three of the holes line up perfectly and I was getting hopeful but it's not to be. Nevermind.
As I've got that old apadter it will be easy enough to measure the dimensions of the three holes for the TB and then use CAD or something similar to create the correct size diameter circle and bolt dimensions. Should be able to get then get a local place to make me one easily enough. Plus with the old adapter I know how far to counter sink all the holes etc.
Fuel Rail & Injectors
I first gave the inside of the manifold a wipe down with white spirits as there was quite a bit of oil in the runners (assuming from breather system), then covered all the openings ready for some a little bit of bodg...... fabricating.
After speaking to Dale bailey Perfomance, he advised that I not bother to run the T-Jet injectors and reccommended a set of Bosch 200cc injectors (part no - 0280155963).
Now the fuel rail is something I got stuck on at first and was a bit unsure of what to do. The T-Jet fuel rail has a return line and built in regulator as standard but the MPI Sei has a returnless system as standard. The only way to use this fuel rail would be to run a return line back to the tank, plus then I'd want to use a standalone rising rate fuel pressure regulator too.
I did think about trying to use the EVap line as a return and I did a bit of research and thought this might be feasible but decided against it in the end.
I was a bit of a loss as the returnless fuel rail from the 1108 and the early 16v engines have injectors that arent symetrically spaced. Where as they are with the tjet rail.
Luckily I still had the Stilo fuel rail and inlet manifold from when I bought my engine and it uses an even spacing and is a returnless system too. Bonus!
I know there may be difficulties with fuel pressure but this is something that could be overcome if needed and should be a work around. If not I'll run a return line to the tank but we'll wait and see.
Quick flick through ebay for Fiat fuel rails and you can pick up these 'newer' returnless fuel rails from about £6+
Due to the schrader valve though the fuel rail wouldn't sit parallel due to a plastic clip on the tjet manfiold, just below the map sensor. So naturally I stuck the manifold in my vice and cut the piece off. (sorry the picture isn't clear and my bench was a mess)
That's better. The fuel rail sits nice and parrallel, the holes to bolt it down never have a hope of lining up with the studs on the manifold.
So out came the low budget cardboard mock up solution (sorry about the blurry photo), to then create some small brackets out of ali.
Found a matching pair of bolts that were just the right length in my box of spares, drilled the brackets to the correct diameter and then they were put into place roughly. The ali was then bent by hand to the correct shape, the bends aren't due to me simply tightening the fasteners down. Lock nuts were then added to the bolts for the fuel rail too and the other end of the brackets utilises the studs that come with the T-Jet manifold.
Due to these brackets being different sizes and bent to the correct shape there is no movement in the fuel rail and therefore shouldn't be able to blow off under boost (not that I should be running enough boost for that to happen). I've still tried to counter this by using the locknuts and maybe even threadlock on the studs as redundency.
Im aware that even after all this the fuel pump will still probably need to be swapped out for something with a bit more power but I'm hoping the fuel pressure will still be suffiecient.
Battery Tray
The blower will be sat roughly where the battery tray would be and as the battery will be in the boot again (fastend securely). So the battery tray had to go.
I drilled out all the spot welds holding it on at the front, then used a chisel to knock the remaining piece free. Then drilled out the spot welds out at the back, used a screwdriver to move the small tab holding the tray in place, then simply lifted the tray up and out.
I only cut part of the front tray support off and leave it attatched to the chasis, it might come in useful to use for supercharger mounting brackets.
Going to give it a clean and then give it a quick spray with some red paint, though knowing me i'll end up doing most of the engine bay if I start painting.
Decided to leave the small piece sticking out at the front, could be used for a convenient place to attatch mounting brackets for the blower.
Supercharger Rebuild Cont.
Went to another local garage and they let me use their press.
As you can see in the second picture above, I also couldn't quite easily press in two of the bearings with what they had available and instead of going home and coming back another day, decided to improvise with old bearings and various sockets.
With the blower back together, I couldn't actually spin it over by hand (though I could before) I assume this was due to the ptfe coating on the rotors, I know the tolerances are tight and that small layer might have just been the difference.
Though when they get hot and expand it will be fun to try and figure out if it's still going to catch or just take the coating off. Going to give it a buzz with my impact gun instead and spin it over a few times and make sure it's all good.
The plastic pulley that I bought though it's the correct size, as I mentioned before it's an idler pulley and thus had a built in bearing. I did try to press this bearing out, to then get a bush made. However the bearing is mouled into the pulley and thus when trying to push it out I broke all the plastic surrounding the bearing. I could get a custom pulley made but have decided to just go for the stock 75mm pulley that came with the blower.
It's already a 4pk pulley and though it should create near enough the max amount of boost, I'm thinking the that pressure losses due boost piping and chargecooling should mitigate the higher boost level.
Inlet Manifold Choices
Thinking about the inlet manifold situation and after speaking to Whitz I decided that it wasn't worth the time and effort of chopping up a mk1 mani.
Instead I've opted for the T-Jet manifold as it's shorter and more compact. Plus after all the thousands of hours that Fiat probably put into designing it, I'm sure my attempt at creating one wouldn't be as good.
I purchased this off ebay for £60, that included the injectors, fuel rail, wiring and TB too.
Throttle Body Adapter
The early cable operated throttle bodies are only 3 bolts and the newer fly-by-wire are all four bolts. However the earlier mk1 ali inlet manifold does have a an adapter plate on and I was hoping this would be a direct fit.
Though you can't really tell from the pictures above, the early adapter piece is too small a diameter. Three of the holes line up perfectly and I was getting hopeful but it's not to be. Nevermind.
As I've got that old apadter it will be easy enough to measure the dimensions of the three holes for the TB and then use CAD or something similar to create the correct size diameter circle and bolt dimensions. Should be able to get then get a local place to make me one easily enough. Plus with the old adapter I know how far to counter sink all the holes etc.
Fuel Rail & Injectors
I first gave the inside of the manifold a wipe down with white spirits as there was quite a bit of oil in the runners (assuming from breather system), then covered all the openings ready for some a little bit of bodg...... fabricating.
After speaking to Dale bailey Perfomance, he advised that I not bother to run the T-Jet injectors and reccommended a set of Bosch 200cc injectors (part no - 0280155963).
Now the fuel rail is something I got stuck on at first and was a bit unsure of what to do. The T-Jet fuel rail has a return line and built in regulator as standard but the MPI Sei has a returnless system as standard. The only way to use this fuel rail would be to run a return line back to the tank, plus then I'd want to use a standalone rising rate fuel pressure regulator too.
I did think about trying to use the EVap line as a return and I did a bit of research and thought this might be feasible but decided against it in the end.
I was a bit of a loss as the returnless fuel rail from the 1108 and the early 16v engines have injectors that arent symetrically spaced. Where as they are with the tjet rail.
Luckily I still had the Stilo fuel rail and inlet manifold from when I bought my engine and it uses an even spacing and is a returnless system too. Bonus!
I know there may be difficulties with fuel pressure but this is something that could be overcome if needed and should be a work around. If not I'll run a return line to the tank but we'll wait and see.
Quick flick through ebay for Fiat fuel rails and you can pick up these 'newer' returnless fuel rails from about £6+
Due to the schrader valve though the fuel rail wouldn't sit parallel due to a plastic clip on the tjet manfiold, just below the map sensor. So naturally I stuck the manifold in my vice and cut the piece off. (sorry the picture isn't clear and my bench was a mess)
That's better. The fuel rail sits nice and parrallel, the holes to bolt it down never have a hope of lining up with the studs on the manifold.
So out came the low budget cardboard mock up solution (sorry about the blurry photo), to then create some small brackets out of ali.
Found a matching pair of bolts that were just the right length in my box of spares, drilled the brackets to the correct diameter and then they were put into place roughly. The ali was then bent by hand to the correct shape, the bends aren't due to me simply tightening the fasteners down. Lock nuts were then added to the bolts for the fuel rail too and the other end of the brackets utilises the studs that come with the T-Jet manifold.
Due to these brackets being different sizes and bent to the correct shape there is no movement in the fuel rail and therefore shouldn't be able to blow off under boost (not that I should be running enough boost for that to happen). I've still tried to counter this by using the locknuts and maybe even threadlock on the studs as redundency.
Im aware that even after all this the fuel pump will still probably need to be swapped out for something with a bit more power but I'm hoping the fuel pressure will still be suffiecient.
Battery Tray
The blower will be sat roughly where the battery tray would be and as the battery will be in the boot again (fastend securely). So the battery tray had to go.
I drilled out all the spot welds holding it on at the front, then used a chisel to knock the remaining piece free. Then drilled out the spot welds out at the back, used a screwdriver to move the small tab holding the tray in place, then simply lifted the tray up and out.
I only cut part of the front tray support off and leave it attatched to the chasis, it might come in useful to use for supercharger mounting brackets.
Going to give it a clean and then give it a quick spray with some red paint, though knowing me i'll end up doing most of the engine bay if I start painting.
Decided to leave the small piece sticking out at the front, could be used for a convenient place to attatch mounting brackets for the blower.
