82 replies to this topic

[smiley]

Earlier this year i built in my SC together with exmantaa and speedster4fun from the NL club (also members here).
As i am technically challanged, my main job was making coffee and taking pictures.
It was done in 2 (very long) days.


Day 1; The cooling and the hosework:

First step is of course the front clam off.
Also took the opportunity to put maze over the air inlets in the crash box


Then bleed the radiator, and take it out, as it was OEM, thus a ticking timebomb.
The radiator is only screwed to the radiator housing. When all screws are loose, they come off the crashbox at the same time


The new elise-shop radiator is bolted on top of the pro alloy radiator. Some small strips of plastic are put between the the 2 to make sure the warm normal radiator does not affect the SC one.

The existing fan plug is cut off the original fan for reuse.
The 2 new smaller fans (that belong to the pro alloy kitt) take over the task of the larger old one.
The old fan plug is connected to both connectors on the new fans. All put together:


In order to test the fans if they work you can activate them by putting a small set of plyers on the 2 thick wires from the second relay, which should cause the fans to spin.


Put something light on the radiator. If it blows up, the electrics are ok. If not, you need to swap the wires on your plug.


I had the cooler version with pipes on the drivers side (euro). So 2 holes need to be made in the radiator housing.
The whole shabang is then ready to be put back in, but not just yet as we need all the room there is for the hoses part.

There are 2 methods to get the hoses in. First the method we used:
Saw a temporary hatch in the inside of the sill:


Pay attention not to stick the saw part in too deep, as important hoses allready go through there.


The white color you see, is the first foam layer to penetrate.
For this we created a pipe with teeth that fits exactly in a vacuum machine pipe.



This way you can easily turn it around, and saw out the exact circle you need (the foam is about 4cm wide, and very soft)


In the background you can see an identical foam layer (also 4 cm to go through).
Keep in mind that the chassis is smaller in the front then the back, so keep the pipe in line with it, to make sure you end up correctly in the back.

[smiley]

The hose can now be fed through the pipe to the back:

In the top of the sill 2 holes are made for the hoses to pass through.
They sort of make an S shape inside the sill, before going to the back.

When you take off your left back wheel and liner you can stick your head in, and you will see a black piece of foam: (pretty big and thick)

The trick is to end up under the foam block with the hoses.


Your 2 hoses can now take the same route as the other hose into the engine bay.



The hoses are equiped with rubber rings, so they will not sand against the sill.


The first hose will now be roughly at the hight of your abs computer, and the second one will be in the wheel arch.
I put some foam on the hose to make sure it would not rattle against the clam.



Another method to get the hoses in, is to remove the sillcover. (the black piece with the triangles)
You then get room to stick your hand in, and try to route the hose that way.
You probbaly need to break through the white foam pieces with your hoses, and it will be quite a puzzle to get them under the black foam part.

Will post the good stuff tomorrow evening.

Edited by smiley, 08 November 2011 - 10:16 PM.

[techieboy]

Fantastic method of running those hoses. Though I'm not sure I could have ever taken a jigsaw to the end of sill, like that.

[Mike (Cliffie)]

Track day at Assen or Zandvoort anybody?

[VXT Tim]

I'd love to do Assen. Good write up so far.

[Nelly Vx]

Looking forward to the updates

[jonnyboy]

Love the cutting method with the pole. Genius!

[smiley]

Day 2, time for the good stuff

The boot lid, rear wheels and arches come off.

The clam is protected with bubble wrap, as you will be leaning against it a lot.

Remove the airbox, airpipe, throttle body and inlet manifold. Then disconnect the fuel rail:

Try to drain as much coolant as possible before disconnecting the cooling hoses as this is really nasty stuff to clean up.

I mounted the pro allow catchtank on the same bracket as where your normal header tank is mounted on.
It's a perfect fit, as it was custom designed for the vx (as was the radiator).


On the left you see the relais, and on the right the bosh pump.

For the pump you need 3 wires; a continuos power, an earth wire and a signal wire.
For the signal wire we took the one for the fuel pump relais, which on my car was the white/purple wire on the blue connector block part.

Do not go blind on the color; This wire is pin number 8 on te blue X2 connector.

The continous power was taken from the starter motor:


The earth can be taken from the central earth connector on the engine block:


The stock water cooling hose is in the way of where the SC pully needs to be, so needs to be re-routed.
You can go over the SC, or around it. We went around it (that's the S hose courtenay sells).


The S hose is mounted here, with an alloy spacer in between the S and the stock one:


The bottom bracket for the SC can now be mounted on the engine.

Some do not put it in, as it's a pita to reach, but as the manifold plus SC is quite heavy, i did not want to have the weight put on the inlet bolts alone, so we put it in.

[smiley]

The manifold can now be put on, also referred to as the laminova, due to the cooling type:

On the right side you can see 3 small pipes, on which the outer 2 are connected with a Y piece.
The inner one is to receive cooling water from the SC radiator, and the outer 2 go via the Y piece to the catchtank.
This Y piece setup is referred to as the dual pass modication.
By default it only has 2 pipes in it. (you need to send an original to courtenay for conversion)

So default has 2 pipes, which is of course 1 for water in, and the other for water out.
That way the cooling water will pass through all 4 laminova cores, before it exits (quad pass; in from below, and out at above):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s98OuoHAg8I
With 3 pipes, the water enters via the middle pipe, splits inside on the 2 laminova cores, and travels through the outside laminova's via the 2 exit pipes out.
The cooling water now become s less hot then with the quad pass, as it exits the system earlier.

The complete route of the cooling water:


Here you see the laminova cores, and the dual pass endplate (GM Part #88958721)

The laminova's can only send water one way, so make sure they are correct, in case you modify your quad pass to dual pass.

Here they are correctly set for dual pass:

Dual pass is only handy for track use, or stage 3 preparation. (this is a stage 2 conversion)

Of course the gasket goes on, before putting it on the engine:


The manifold bolted on:


Here you can see clearly how close the (modified) 100 amp dyno is to the manifold:

Trying to use a larger 120 apms is pretty much not going to work. Get your hands on a smaller 100a is best practice.

The black turbo injectors (max 270bhp) put in the fuelrail:


My fuel lines are cut, to be rerouted to the left, instead of the right.

The fule lines normally run on the right side, next to the engine, very much in the area of the SC belt, which can be dangerous if it snaps. (bending the lines out of the way of the SC belt as much as possible is also an option)
My lines are connected to the fuel filter, just behind the (euro) driver seat on the firewall.

[smiley]

A new alloy bracket for the oil dipstick has been made:


The loom now has to be opened pretty much completely:

Make sure you number your injector wires before cutting!! (1,2,3 and 4).

The next wires need to be extended as the ecu will be mounted on the left side against the firewall:
4 x injectors (4 earth draden, for each of the injectors, and 4 x live wire which can all be put together, as the injectors are activated via the earth )
1 x map sensor (3 wires)
1 x ecap valve (2 wires)

Here are the new fuel hoses to be put on the rail later:



The pin layout of the throttle does not match the pin layout of the 68mm lsj throttle i have put on, and need to be adjusted:

With a small scredriver remove the purple protection cap

You can now see small black pins next to the coper colored connectors.
Move the small black pins to the side, and coper wires can be pulled out


Wire out:


The following wires need to be swapped:


The ecu is mounted on the left side of the firewall:


The loom can now be rebuild. (plastic protection tubing still missing here)

[smiley]

The SC belt can now be put on. (In my case a "Continental Contitech 5 PK 1285")
The pully on the supercharger has been alligned 1.5mm to the outside to make sure it's alligned.
My 5 ribbon belt now runs on the left side of my 6 ribbon pully.
If you put he pully 1.5 mm to the inside, you cound run the belt on the outside ribes of the pully.

Without this, it's a matter of time before they start to squeek/shred.


You can now put on the last few hoses fuel lines, ecap valve and fuel regulator:


Car started first time, and perrrred like a kitten.

Went on the dyno a few weeks ago (still running the courtenay basemap)

(ignore the drag power part; it's a maha and spits out silly numbers on that part. The bhp and torque should be spot on)

Edited by smiley, 08 November 2011 - 11:27 PM.

[smiley]

Engine bay fully finished

[ArticMonkey]

Great guide, and all with the clam on.

[Rally]

Smiley, great guide. A question about plumbing - there is a 90 degree adapter just behind the throttle body and a pipe running off to the right of the engine bay. What's going on there?

Edited by Rally, 09 November 2011 - 12:10 AM.

[smiley]

Smiley, great guide. A question about plumbing - there is a 90 degree adapter just behind the throttle body and a pipe running off to the right of the engine bay. What's going on there?

That replaces the circled one on the 2.2 inlet manifold in the right picture:

The one with the square plug.

It's the fuel fumes recirculation if i'm not mistaking.
You can leave it out completely, but of course with more chance of fuel smell.

Edited by smiley, 09 November 2011 - 12:20 AM.

[smiley]

Just noticed no pictures on the map sensor swap, but hope that's abvious. Also the throttle layout pin descriptions are in Dutch. If anybody needs it, it translate it into english. You will find more detailed guides on here then just my foto session. I just posted it as a visual aid to some large text based conversion descriptions out there.

[Rally]

I've seen that a lot of conversions have that blanked off or have left the, presumably redundant, sensor in place. Is it optional to put that in?

[smiley]

Is it optional to put that in?

Yes. Blanking off to get rid of the fumes is also fine.

Every country does things differently as you see

[Rally]

Just to be clear, we're talking about this bit, right?

[smiley]

Yes.