75 Performance.

[Duk]

R6 Coils are a great fit in the V6 spark plug tubes, being the perfect length but will require an insert/bush at the top of tube because the coil is a bit to small (Spark plug tube about 33mm, coil 27mm) to locate properly and can move side ways a bit at the top. Even without the top insert/bush, the coils are nice snug fit on the spark plugs and should stay in place without any retaining device.

[Storm_X]

Any updates ?

[Duk]

Nothing post-worthy. I made some Nylon bushes to locate the top of the R6 coils but I've been spending time working on the rear brakes as my job position will be changing very soon so I need to get what ever machining I need to do completed while I can.

*I thought I might add that the crimping tool I bought to use with the weather proof plugs does an excellent job! It simultaneously crimps the pin to the wire and pin closes around the little sealing boot and clamps it tight against the wire too. All easy and consistent.*

**I thought I'd add another comment about the crimping tool. It is designed to hold the pin in a moving block, then you put the sealing boot over the wire's insulation and put the small amount (about 4-5mm) of bared wire inside the pin and crimp the whole thing together.
Technically it is designed for the weather proof plug's pins. But, if you remove the pin holding block, it will also do an excellent job of crimping the pins for Bosch injector plugs and also the Denso plug's pins. It's a bit fiddly, but much better than trying to use long nose pliers or the like, as the crimping tool rolls the tags that hold the wire rather than just folds them over and flattens them.**

[Duk]

Have been making a bit of progress. Heaps of little things to make and do, but it doesn't always look like you're going forward when you do a bit for 1 job, a bit for another and then a bit for yet another etc, etc........
So I thought I'd do a bit of dummy assembly to help me feel the progress.
Like MD, I'm using series 6 (FD3S) Mazda RX7 mags which are 16x8 with a plus 50mm offset. I'm still waiting on the adapters. Rubber on the tyres is good but to big (225/50/16), so I'll need to replace them with something like 225/45/16 or maybe even 215/45/16.
Oxy welding aluminium is pretty awful, but a grinder and some crinkle finish paint will fix that. Engine bay in these cars is pretty tight with the V6, with the Vortech hanging on the side and the water to air intercooler plus more hoses and plumbing.............  

[BradGTV]

looking good mate 

[Storm_X]

You're lucky that engine bay is loOking good, it beaks my heart to see the 75 so dirty. 

I can't wait till I sell my silvia so I will have some more cash to spend on my giulietta.

[Duk]

I'm quite amazed that it all fits under the bonnet (I put the bonnet back on). I knew that it fitted, but when I put the bonnet back on, you can look in side the engine bay when the guards aren't on and see the top of the engine and see just how much room there still is. There's heaps of room above the back of the plenum chamber.

Next up will be my upper chassis bracing that will tie the left and right sides together at 4 points. I'll also use the chassis brace to brace the master cylinder/fire wall, that should dramatically reduce the amount of flex and give a much better feeling brake pedal.

Once the brace is done, I'll take the engine out (again) so I can take the flywheel off and send it to Pace Engineering for lightening and rebalancing along with the already lightened clutch flywheel.

I'll be real happy once the rear brakes are done and the clutch flywheel is back. Then I can put the transaxle back in the car along with the rear suspension. That'll be a big part completed.

There's still SO much to do  .
Especially since I need to overhaul the heads  .
Dealing with the cooling systems hasn't even started. I'll be using a bigger, modified VL Commodore radiator and also an air conditioner condenser from my old R32 Skyline half cut.
I'm 95% sure I'll use an electric oil pump and separate tank and oil cooler for the supercharger.
The water to air intercooler pump, plumbing and radiator still need to be dealt with.
I want to use a 5 litre VT V8 Commodore/Bosch 120amp alternator 'cause they can deliver 80ish amps when the engine is idling (depending on drive ratios of course).
Battery in the boot.
Water injection tank and plumbing.
I'm making smaller diameter, shorter primary extractors + a twin 2.25" exhaust that will join after the TA cross member into 3".
Bigger injectors.
Finish wiring up the Adaptronic..................

[BradGTV]

why the need to send ur flywheel interstate? it can be done locally for a good price..

[Duk]

why the need to send ur flywheel interstate? it can be done locally for a good price..

After seeing Scott Venables approach to lightening and balancing the offset weighted flywheel (a brilliant method), I wanted to make sure that who ever did the work knows how important the offset balance factor is with these engines, hence my requirements for someone like Vin Sharp to do the job.
The clutch flywheel isn't an issue, but I figured I'd just get Vin to balance it too.

[Duk]

The engine bay brace. It incorporates a master cylinder brace too.

[scott.venables]

Looking good Duk.  How are you going to attach the brace to the master cylinder?  Have you used special tube or just standard mild?  Are you modifying the engine loom for the new ECU or making a new one?

Keep it up,
Scott

[Duk]

Looking good Duk.  How are you going to attach the brace to the master cylinder?  Have you used special tube or just standard mild?  Are you modifying the engine loom for the new ECU or making a new one?

Keep it up,
Scott

The master cylinder brace will have a bolt that is adjusted so that the bolt head is snug against the master cylinder's end. It doesn't have any physical attachment to the master cylinder itself.
The pipe is just standard 1.6mm wall thickness exhaust pipe. The main hoop is 1 5/8" and the diagonal pieces are 1.5". It's plenty solid and I'm looking forward to how the whole thing feels when it's back on the road.
I put the supercharger and intercooler back on for another photo to show how congested it's getting in the engine bay.

The wiring loom is all new and started with an Adaptronic 2 metre loom plus some additional wire to make the sub-loom for the ignition coils and a sub-loom for the injectors (still have to get off my arse and finish that). The sensors will be plugged directly into the Adaptronic loom.
I was going to mount the various relays and fuses in the engine bay, but because I mounted the computer high up in the passenger's foot well, I'll mount a lot of the relays and fuses below the computer mainly because it was actually hard to find a nice neat place to mount them in the engine bay.

Nearly finished the driver's side, simpler extractors. Each pipe is 1.5" and is 500mm long plus or minus about 10-15mm. Semi-unfortunately I had to use spun donut for the rear cylinder to keep the 500mm length. Technically it shouldn't flow as well as the more open radius mandrel bends, but I wanted to keep the lengths as close as possible to 500mm.

[Duk]

Well, due to the poor ol MR2 starting to show her age (a dead supercharger that leaks its gearbox oil into the inlet air stream and some other problem that is either a dud ignition coil or wiring, a cracked turbo manifold or dying cylinder), I've felt compelled to rush the Alfa along.
IE, I need some other wheels.

So I completed the driver's side extractors (had to modify the center pipe) and greatly shorten the collector. I then attacked the passenger's side........ At which point I chucked a tantrum and gave up  . Not quite that bad, but I did put that aside and simply refit the original manifolds.

Next step was to wire up the crank angle sensor so I could crank the engine (with the spark plugs out) so I could check on the Adaptronic that I wired the CAS correctly.
Although not complete, the wiring loom was plenty done to hook up the ECU and perform this test. So I plugged it in, flogged the battery out of the MR2, did some rudimentary wiring to hook it up and switched on the ignition!

Nothing!

I checked, double checked, triple checked and checked again.

Nothing.........

So I pulled the whole loom out of the car and put it on my desk along with the battery.
Long story short, I got the computer to switch on (I don't know what I did differently, though) but I f@#ked up by putting 12 volts directly into the auxiliary output that will drive the tacho (ignition on 12 volts and the tacho signal are in the same 2 pin plug I added to the body wiring loom). So I'll have to have that fixed......... 
Strangely, the computer was switching on with 12 volts fed into the auxiliary output 

Oh well.
Tomorrow I'll put the wiring loom back in the car and test the wiring of the CAS.

[Darryl]

Strangely, the computer was switching on with 12 volts fed into the auxiliary output 

Hopefully/possibly it was being powered via a protection diode from aux out to +ve rail (to prevent aux going above 12v, assuming 12v is actually connected).

[festy]

Strangely, the computer was switching on with 12 volts fed into the auxiliary output 

Hopefully/possibly it was being powered via a protection diode from aux out to +ve rail (to prevent aux going above 12v, assuming 12v is actually connected).

+1 - I'd guess the output is something like an open collector driver with a back-emf diode (so the output can safely drive relays) - and that diode was feeding the power into the ECU because the "output" pin's voltage was higher than the (unconnected) power rail.
If that's the case, then there shouldn't be any damage done.

How confident are you that the 1.6mm exhaust pipe brace will be rigid/strong enough?