114 replies to this topic

[VIX]

Do you still have aircon

Eh? The VX never had AC!

[cnrandall]

Doh!

[manus]

Interesting to hear the weight. Do you still have aircon and the like? Weighed in the Europa this morning at 823kg which is heavy in my books after my 720kg SC Honda Exige. Did you weigh the bodywork before you fitted it?

What have you done with your Europa? It listed 995kg in the brochure? 172kg gone? I've weighted about a dozen Speedsters/VX220's on the scales, none of them below 850kg yet.

Front clam is the only bodypart which I've measured: 13.9kg (with Xenon lights in there).
Full roll cage estimated 40kg or more. Plus a bigger charge cooler, water injection with reservoir, fire extinguisher, bigger oil cooler, wider tires, exhaust heat shield, bigger reverse wing, ... it all adds up
Before the conversion the car had more or less the same weight but no roll cage ....


(Photo made by Jurre Lammertse)


(Photo made by Jurre Lammertse)

[cnrandall]

40kg for a cage... that's heavy! I have one of my 6-points in the Europa and it weighs 28kg.

Mine is completely stripped out but does have stock bodywork and all the safety kit. At some stage I will go for lighter uprights/brakes and a fuel cell which should take it down to below 800kg. More details here http://www.hofmanns....index.asp?id=76

Have to say, you have got that bodywork fitting better on your car than it ever did on the GT3's. I remember those well as I was one of the guy's who drove them.

[cnrandall]

40kg for a cage... that's heavy! I have one of my 6-points in the Europa and it weighs 28kg.

Mine is completely stripped out but does have stock bodywork and all the safety kit. At some stage I will go for lighter uprights/brakes and a fuel cell which should take it down to below 800kg. More details here http://www.hofmanns....index.asp?id=76

Have to say, you have got that bodywork fitting better on your car than it ever did on the GT3's. I remember those well as I was one of the guy's who drove them.

[manus]

Now working on the performance, both reducing weight and increasing power. Goal is set for 2kg/hp.
As the weight is something like 890-900kg, including some fuel, roll cage, all extras on board and the power is approx. 400-405hp there is some work to do.

First step is to determine how many kilos can be removed:
- Heating system, -13kg
- Lexan windows, -8kg
- Nitron uprights, -4.8kg (unsprung)
- Cleaning up wiring, -5kg
- Smaller CC tank, -3kg
- "Rapidos" engine support, -0.8kg
- Intake manifold, -2.5kg
- Carbon steering wheel, -1kg
- Bits and pieces, -2 kg
Should be possible to reduce with 30 to 40kg's. Some cheap and some very expensive kg’s.
Putting the weight target at 860-870kg, this then sets the power target to 430-435hp.

First thing to solve is the intake manifold, the throttle body and the pipe works (Tophat/plenum) on top of the TB.
Manifold.
There are now 2 aftermarket manifolds available and soon there will be a third.
1. EDS/Dbilas http://eds-motorspor...Ansaugrohr-Kit1
2. Klasen http://www.klasen-mo...45d21c96d363d82
3. V-max http://vmax.de/tunin...el-z20let4.html (no manifold on website yet)
All 3 with a different approach on how the air should flow. As I could not find any reports of people actually trying the manifolds, I had to make a selection based on supplier’s information. As my car could use extra power at high revs, but more important needs extra torque in the middle section, I've chosen the EDS manifold to try first.
In future, when power goes above 500hp, or I need to remove more weight from the car, I may need to swap to one of the others. For now, the EDS intake manifold weighs 2206grams (reduces 2.3kg ) and allows better breathing.
Throtte body
Although it may not seem much, but increasing from 57mm to 62mm, having a profiled spindle does give up to 32% more square centimetres where it matters. I have found 2 possible suppliers:
lmfvauxhall.com ( http://cgi.ebay.nl/w...e=STRK:MEWAX:IT )
Courtenay, was announced on their website, but not yet available to customers.
I bought the first one on a replacement base (sent back the old one).
High flow plenum.
The original weighs 653 grams and has an inside diameter of only 45mm.
Found 3 alternatives.
A. M-tech, Ingoing 51mm. Uitgoing 58mm. Weight 550 gram.
You can rotate this one into any angle. (The vertical part is 58mm, only 159 gram, so if you use a different silicone hose, probably a good alternative ...)
http://www.mathijsse...g...id=&mid=103
B. Courtenay, Ingoing 55mm. Outgoing 60mm. Weight 471 gram.
http://www.courtenay...?...oc&docId=22
C. 63mm Tophat RVS, Ingoing 59mm. Outgoing 61mm. Weight 411 gram.
http://www.lotuscarl...o.uk/z20let.htm

I have chosen the Tophat ©. Brilliant quality, lightweight and, important for me, can be custom made to fit the smaller space inside my car compared to standard Speedster engine bays.
(More pictures and story in Dutch available on the Netherlands Speedster forum, http://www.speedster...p...c&start=750 )

And then the preliminary results.
After having the new manifold, enlarged throttle body and Tophat fitted, the car badly needed a remap. My car is programmed without an air-mass-meter, so the ECU’s first parameter is the throttle-valve-position. As there is A LOT MORE AIR available at any given throttle position, the car needs a lot more fuel to compensate.
Remapping was a small disappointment. No way could we get this setup to work 100%, as, and this is the good part, the 480ccm injectors simply cannot keep up with this amount of air......
At high revs, the fuel/air ratio could not be achieved with the 480ccm injectors. So I have to wait for the 630ccm injectors.
However, first measurements on the autobahn have shown massive improvements already. See how easy the car picks up in third gear from 60 to 170.

Before changing the intake accelerating from 180 to 230 took: 10,36s
After changing the intake accelerating from 180-230 takes: 6,86s
And this may be even get better after the right size injectors have been installed.

If final remap is done (planned to take place November 12th), I’ll post the Dyno results here.
If the power is close to the target of 430-435hp, I’ll proceed doing weight tuning only. If not, next step is to change to a bigger turbo. We’ll see how it goes.

Edited by manus, 27 October 2010 - 07:46 AM.

[techieboy]

Top work Manus. I thought you'd sold the car but glad to see you're still developing it further.

[manus]

Km/u Mile/hr
60 37
170 106
180 112
230 143

See how easy the car picks up in third gear from 60 to 170. (37-106MPH)

Before changing the intake accelerating from 180 to 230 took: 10,36s (112-143MPH)
After changing the intake accelerating from 180-230 takes: 6,86s

[manus]

Top work Manus. I thought you'd sold the car but glad to see you're still developing it further.

Thank you. Nobody wanted to have it. In the Netherlands it is road legal and insured for both road usage and European circuits (track days only, no races). Outside the Netherlands this would not even be possible to get it through the yearly MOT/TUV/APK. So the market for selling this car was very limited. It is not for sale anymore and I'm enjoying doing some research and new developments on the little monster.

[fiveoclock]

Top work Manus. I thought you'd sold the car but glad to see you're still developing it further.

Thank you. Nobody wanted to have it. In the Netherlands it is road legal and insured for both road usage and European circuits (track days only, no races). Outside the Netherlands this would not even be possible to get it through the yearly MOT/TUV/APK. So the market for selling this car was very limited. It is not for sale anymore and I'm enjoying doing some research and new developments on the little monster.

Do you know the reasons it wont pass a UK MOT, I thought we were comparatively lenient.

[RobNA]

It is not for sale anymore and I'm enjoying doing some research and new developments on the little monster.

As Matt said, that is good to hear Be sure to keep us up to date

[manus]

Top work Manus. I thought you'd sold the car but glad to see you're still developing it further.

Thank you. Nobody wanted to have it. In the Netherlands it is road legal and insured for both road usage and European circuits (track days only, no races). Outside the Netherlands this would not even be possible to get it through the yearly MOT/TUV/APK. So the market for selling this car was very limited. It is not for sale anymore and I'm enjoying doing some research and new developments on the little monster.

Do you know the reasons it wont pass a UK MOT, I thought we were comparatively lenient.

No mechanical handbrake (hydraulic).
Knife-sharp frontsplitter.
Possibly some other reasons as well.

[rob999]

How much did you advertise the car for out of interest

[manus]

How much did you advertise the car for out of interest

It was there for approx. 25k GBP, only a fraction of the cost to build it. I had >25.000 views on the Internet but only 1 person came to see it and he did not have the money available.

[N17VES]

How much did you advertise the car for out of interest

It was there for approx. 25k GBP, only a fraction of the cost to build it. I had >25.000 views on the Internet but only 1 person came to see it and he did not have the money available.

I thought you had it up on Seloc for a lot more than that...

Damn... I would of bought it off you at that price!!

Edited by N17VES, 27 October 2010 - 10:51 AM.

[Ground Effect]

Very nice and by the sounds of it would,ent take much to make it road legal in the UK

[manus]

...

Edited by manus, 19 March 2011 - 02:16 PM.

[manus]

Last year, after a number of minor upgrades, the engine power was 'only' reaching 391bhp. Target for this year (2011) however is to get the car in the 2kilo/hp range and with a weight of 870kg we were not even close. Removing 10 or even 20 kilo’s can be done but removing 75 kilo's is no option. (The car needs to remain road legal )



The turbo fitted, a gt2871r, is the bottleneck, pumping only 1.7 bar, so new plans were made to reach the target values (adding more horses) and to keep the same smooth boost-build-up as the small 2871 now gives.
Simulations show that the only option to get more air in smoothly is to change to a twin-scroll. The Borg Warner EFR7064 might get the job done. I quote:"...with the rev limiter up we would put the engine into a better rev range after the shift when the rev limiter is higher. But where we will land I cannot say as that turbocharger was never fitted by anyone on the z20let engine till now… …From the data I see it should be nearly the same boost built up as the old gt2871r you had run before but with much more power output. The EFR7064 can get 500HP or 550HP easily. "

OK. Decision for Borg Warner EFR-7064 was made. Including the twin-scroll exhaust manifold.
Then compression rate had better be lowered if we increase the turbo pressure. Lower pistons will do that job. The already installed water-injection system will help as well to prevent knocking. Lowering compression will reduce torque at low revs. Need to change the ignition timing a bit. That will compensate.

The new turbo will deliver enough pressure, but the rev range might delimit smooth pick-up after gear change. Again back to the drawing board and find the limitations in this engine. Main reasons for its current 7500rpm limits are 1) valves and 2) oil. The valves simply won’t close in time and there is not enough constant high oil pressure to supply the bearings.

Adding a dry sump kit (off the shelf product) will solve the oil pressure problem. OK, on the list. It will also help the engines-greasy-air-release-being-oily problem. (And the crankshaft will not splash trough the oil in fast corners.)
Running 7 bar oil pressure, the hydraulic lifters will not work anymore. To overcome the pressure problem and to support the revs we’ll replace hydraulic valve lifters with mechanical ones.

The new valves are better profiled, less weight and will be pushed down using more aggressive camshafts than the ones that are in there now. Getting them closed in time requires dual springs.
To handle the extra power, the crankshaft needs to be stronger. We decided to upgrade to a steel crankshaft (-4kg rotational mass) and add a stronger crankshaft-bottom support (+4kg). It won’t save weight but getting rid of so much rotational mass could be great for picking up revs. We need a new flywheel because the old one will not fit and as we need it, better mount an ultra-ultra light version.

Almost there. The engine mounts will be filled-up with Sikaflex.
The new turbo supports a rev-sensor. We use the output to connect to the Video-VBOX. The traction control unit will also be connected to the MIN01. Any TC cut-off due to lost traction will show on the data files and on video.

The rev limit in the ECU will be reprogrammed to allow 8500 maximum (engine will hold up to 9000, perhaps we’ll do that in 2012).
Found an 75A alternator that weights a lot less. No prblem, we need to modify anyway to make some room for the dry-sump.

Planning is to have the engine back in the car in April. If the engine is done, next thing is brake cooling. Likely I’ll use it in combination with lightweight uprights from Nitron. We’ll see. It is going to be an interesting 2011.

[manus]

Work in progress


The twin-scroll


Need most of the space in there to make it fit

[JohnTurbo]

Very interesting read.