1268 replies to this topic

[Nev]

Excellent.

[Doctor Ed]

1950km round trip in 48hrs, 4hrs sleep and need to go to work. ughhhh... stupid cars.

[Aerodynamic]

Looks very nice. Im impressed.
Good work.
I know these cars can really steal your time.

[Doctor Ed]

ughhh. so got it home, rolled off the trailer, and... wont start...

 

we had cranking issues due to half baked battery, so at dominiks we were running a big ass battery jumped directly to the starter, but now at home, even with a new and freshly charged bosch, it cant spin the engine fast enough to catch

 

apparetly for the first few start/run cycles the ECU needs to learn the cam/crank sensor timing. before this timing is learnt it needs 400rpm to start (doesnt inject fuel befoe 400rpm), and theres no way im getting 400rpm with the battery as is. ill try and jump it again directly to the battery just to prove to myself that the engine does run, but i need to look at the battery supply cable and the front earth cable. seems that the battery is doing it hard trying to send power to the back

[fezzasus]

Sounds like a classic grounding issue.

 

Last year I had to change both front and rear grounding rivnuts on mine to get it to crank, as well as replacing the battery terminals.

[BadCop]

Greetings from Rhodos

Was also my guess. Grounding issue or some corrosion in the fat Red Plus wire Connectors.



It worked perfectly when I connected an old Battery to the starter directly.
Yeah it was big, but it is 8 years old and down on capacity and not even charged.


The Videos Ed sent me show that a brandnew fully charged battery connected over the OEM wiring it cranks very hard, sounds tortured and only manages 100 or 120 rpm.

Which would be enough to start if the crank/cam timing is learned/locked.
But as it is brandnew it is Just about to learn its Positions and needs alot of pulses per second for an accurate reference. And of course it needs the oil pressure to move the phasers fast.

If it is below 400 RPM it commands the injectors to stay shut.

I think I Read the learning also works with 300 RPM but takes quite a while of cranking then.

Anyway - once three "engine run cycles" are completed (without disconnecting the battery from ECU) These values are compared, averaged, stored and then used for future start ups. So the cam will automatically lock and the engine will start even with 100 rpm.

But a good fresh Battery should provide 400 RPM anyway if the wiring is sound

[Doctor Ed]

bought a 65Ah 620CCA Battery (as high as i could get in the 63 size) - will run that as my primary battery, and will make a jumppack out of another battery with good quality fitings/clips etc and jump directly to the starter. hopefully that will get the needed 400rpm for the learning cycle, and the 620CCA's will hopefully be enough for regular starting duty once the learning cycle is over

 

oh yeah, that and ill check out all the power lines and earths from the front. ist a Long way to the back from there!

Edited by Doctor Ed, 10 July 2018 - 12:59 PM.

[Doctor Ed]

Ok, so a little bit of catch-up is in order....

I had to go overseas for work a couple of months ago, and had the car transported to BadCop's so he could be busy with the welding. Once back, I was planning to pop down and we'd spend a lazy weekend getting it running.

Well, Dominik did the welding (see pics of rainbow awesomeness above) and my lazy long weekend turned into a hectic sleepless dash across the country, and a sleep deprived 24hrs of wire chasing.

Dominik's magic with the ECU made it all worthwhile though. What he's managed with the OEM ecu is amazing. Fully remappable, unlimited flexibility, all in an obd (Eu emissions compliant) readable way. For the paucity of time we had to trouble shoot getting it running he managed a stand up job, everything super neat and minimalistic. Everything logically and sensibly laid out.

It looks and runs legitimately stock (for now!)

A few interesting curve balls:

There's obviously a sub variation of the A20NFT fitted with a smaller throttle body. This smaller throttle has a 6 pin plug in 2 rows of 3. There's a bigger tb with a 6 pin plug with all pins in a row. ... but they have the same part number! Pics below! It's a good 10mm difference in throttle plate dia!

Goddamn yellow relay bullshit! Lol. Who originally wired that thing? What a headache... I have one for sale if anyone wants an original.

The crank angle sensor is in a sh*t location on the A20

MAF could be in interesting issue. I've got a bigger 80mm MAF, need to see how the pins/wiring works there once it's properly running. For now, no errors.

Did I mention we repurposed the speaker wires! Convenient!

[fezzasus]

oh yeah, that and ill check out all the power lines and earths from the front. ist a Long way to the back from there!

 

I'd start by inspecting the connectors; the large fuses under the wiper motor and the block of four connectors by the fuel filter. The main cable should be fine unless someone has drilled through it in the sill.

[Doctor Ed]

After much fuckingabout I narrowed it down to the earth cable from battery to chassis and/or chassis to motor. Bridging the negative battery terminal directly to the block with a jumper cable resulted in a reliable and quick broom broom so I'll remake the front earth strap for starters and see how it goes. Easy enough to make a new one. (Removing the old one in the other hand!)

So... Motors running, coolant system purged (new heater system works!), and everything's seems to be working. Time for a little blatt around the culdesac...and... made it about 3m -on the neighbours pavers no less- and the goddamn hydraulic clutch throw out bearing took a dump. I was borderline sus that the throw wasn't right and it needed a spacer, but clutch guys assured me "no no, we made it to the right spec"... yeah, who's right now huh? huh! So, box at the very least has to come out, and redo clutch setup. I've got a gearbox case sitting here, so at least I can mock up only half a gearbox and be able to measure the throw directly.



And just for kicks... the 10x18"s for the widebody:

Edited by Doctor Ed, 10 July 2018 - 08:38 PM.

[vocky]

and the goddamn hydraulic clutch throw out bearing took a dump.

 

been there, know that feeling

 

ps: I have my engine on the bench, so if you want any clutch measurements let me know

[Doctor Ed]

thanks mate, we'll see how we go. ive got the front case of a box here (see pics last page) so will mount a new bearing on that and fit it up, and can measure directly the bearing throw through the input shaft hole.

 

Need to set it up tight and put in a proper clutch stop, but man... getting up under the dash to the pedals sucks dicks

 

[Rosssco]

PITA, but sometimes better when something like that just fails straight off the bat, rather than gradually leaking / degrading and requiring fault-finding..

 

Impressed with this, although I'm kinda happy I didn't go down the A20 route in the end now I see the amount of work (mine would have used more standard bits however).

[Doctor Ed]

Yeah, still would’ve been nice if it just worked the first time!

Having now gone for a spin now in both Steve’s Audi VX and Dominiks A20 VX (which essentially feel pretty identical) I’m pretty happy with the decision. A20 may be capped at 400 out of the box, but 400 is pretty damn amazing

Edited by Doctor Ed, 11 July 2018 - 10:02 AM.

[Rosssco]

Interesting to hear your thoughts on torque delivery and drivability - the 'OEM-ness' and these factors are the main reasons the A20 initially appealed.

[Doctor Ed]

drives like a 400hp 6L V8

 

theres not really much 'turbo' woosh / thrust to it (like turbo cars of old), its just got a big fat torque curve with a big area under the graph. it idles like a baby at 500rpm, and meets EU emissions requirements. a lot is to do with the oem cam phasing which is quite tricky and smartly done, blending cam timing with the turbo/bosst across a 3D/4D/5D?? map.

 

watching /listening to the engine Startup is quite funny. you should see the sequence it goes through to heat the cat quickly...

 

albiet with 400hp theres a bigger exhasut, bigger intake, and everything gets proportionally louder, but ist very civilised

 

dominik was saying hes now done around 30k km on his engine mostly on track days. it still uses no oil

Edited by Doctor Ed, 11 July 2018 - 11:23 AM.

[Doctor Ed]

awesome phone-to-youtube compression:

[VIDEO]

[Rosssco]

Interesting review! I figured it would major in the low-mid range torque, and offer a 'nice' not-too-boosty curve, which appealed. I presumed it would also allow calibration for a very progressive torque curve (possibly SC like) and decent throttle response (small-ish turbo, high boost engine)..

[Doctor Ed]

Having some teething issues with the ECU throwing codes for non vital / irrelevant things like fuel level and clutch sensors etc. we were in a bit of a rush when buttoning it up, so didnt necessarily check over these things in the hurry to get on the road home. that, and the MAF seems to need a bit of calibrating, and my thermofan output is going a bis spastic (whether thats related to the other errors triggering something, dunno).

In anycase, the ECU is in a box with DHL back to Dominik to write the errors out, update the MAF table, and bug-hunt the fan output.

So, ive been pulling the pipework apart, and am getting some ceramic coating done, along with getting som beads rolled on the pipe ends. have ordered some small acc parts to mount things more nicely, got myself an OEM turbo heatshield (nice!) and found some kevlar/alu heat sleeve for the intake pipe over the motor

also working on getting the inteior Kind of 'finished' ... have an awsome set of Lotus carpets i managed to score from a wreck. ist all coming together

and to satisy dsire for random pics... heres the kevlar heatsleeve



also need to design up some sheet metal brackets, design the rear roll-hoop stays, rear toe link stay, and swap that fcuking clutch bearing out. hmmm

[Doctor Ed]

So, onto the carpets...

Stupid lotus mat mounts have long since broken off the chassis, and my desire to spend baller €€ on a couple of aluminium threaded buttons which are a pita to quickly undo anyway was low. So hit up eBay for random generic mat fasteners

€10 for a set of 4 mounts, just needed a little bit of ‚encouragement‘ to fit the lotus mats:

Given the original holes in the mats were too small, I needed to open them up a bit. After fumbling around with a box knife for 20mins making no headway, I headed outside to the shed... a piece of pipe and a blowtorch later...