Well it's back to the army this weekend. It is our first drill since we have been home, I am kinda currious to see what everyone else did with their hard earned cash. I concider mine well spent everything I do to the car continues to impress me, and makes that Lotus a little less glamorous.

 

Well that was a total waste of a weekend! What do you mean that customs sent our personal gear to Cqnada, and Texas! I litteraly sat in the drillhall and either slept or worked on my tune. I played around with the TQ limmiters and the throttle map, got home Sunday night loaded it to the car and WOW my idle is a lot better, the throttle is smoother than a Caddy DTS-V, and after tweaking the fuel map a smidge (leaned it out a little, now it barely dips into the 10's) it feels like I picked up some power. Durring my next tuning session on the dyno with TOBZ, we will play with the fuel a bit more, change the timing, and hopefully make the switch over to E-85. I might tweak the maps a little more on my own but without the dyno to see my TQ graph I really don't want to mess with it too much.

 

I have been tuning this thing all day by myself. There are still some timing issues to hammer out to correct the knock levels, but its coming along nicely. The knock is because I am running a LOT of timing on 91 octaine pumpgas and my water meth kit is spraying 90% water. (Hopefully the atachment works)

 

I take it that everyone can see my data log graph from last night by the lack of complaints? Those knock levels where NOT something I was particularly proud of. So today I fixed that problem. No I did NOT touch my tune, it is the exact same as yesterday. I simply put the water meth system to the test, and the results speek for themselves. ALCOHOL WORKS!!!

There are a couple variables that could affect the logs, (but not even close to the amount seen in this log) first being TEMPRATURE, it is about 20 degrees cooler today than when the log yesterday was taken, and the BAROMETRIC PRESSURE is also off from yesterday, a storm is on it's way in.

For the most part everything else is the same. Same tank of fuel, same tune, same road, same amount of load in the car. (well almost the same weight, topping off the W/M tank added a couple pounds) Even had the W/M system set up the same, starting spray at 7psi of boost and hitting full flow at 9psi.

What I DID change: I swaped the puney 3gph W/M nozzle out for one that is concidered to be oversize for the application, a 7gph. I also added about 1/3 of a gallon of DENATURED ALCOHOL not METHONOL to the gallon or so of mostly water that was in the tank. I used denatured alcohol because it has a higher oxygen content than methonol, and it was laying around the shop.

As you can see in the graph: knock levels droped by almost half in most areas, the AFR curve still could use a little smoothing but it is reletively stable, and at around 9psi of boost when the W/m system hit full flow the air dencity had a giant leap (BLUE LINE AT TOP OF GRAPH), I even picked up over a pound of boost acording to the log. And let me tell you this thing screams, its like to drive!

 

Looks great! Hopefully by the time summer is in full swing down here in the frying pan I'll have some extra $$$ to get an aftermarket shift **** without the nice chrome ring (which feels like a branding iron)....

I'm shooting for a trip to MITM this year, which is, IIRC, in August. Hopefully you'll be up and running with the E85 tune and all your other goodies and at the event to show it off....

Thanks for your service and for blogging your build!

C ya,
Dutch

 

Rick, It looks like you have made some progress, had to read all the posts......
Are you satisfied? The tune today will tell the tale.

I did'nt see that you installed the head or cam, did I miss something? And, is the rear bumper burner getting replaced? Another bumper is NOT the answer....

Too bad about the rim, we have almost as many pot holes as smooth road out here & when they fill with water........ 5 tires & 1 rim since November 10..

If the present administration put every out of work person to work on our crumbling, existing, infrastructure our economy might stand a chance....... We, in this town, have storm drains that are over 150 years old & water delivery that's almost as old... It all leaks or it's clogged.

I hope the tune goes well. I got 230whp on the dyno a year ago w/ Cosworth head ( second tweak on this head ), 380s, a little exhayst work & cat back. It feels more like 212 - 215 not 230. Torque is 180 & it feels like it, it was 161. Post the results....
Have a great tune,
Steve

 

Didn't take the car down to TOBZ today. I am reschedualed for the 26th, lack of work at work right now has made my paychecks near non existant. Instead I went on a club run with MINI5280, and had a blast in the twisties. This time I took my dad along, and he was quite impressed, both with the car and my driving. I did however go into limp twice before lunch, so I brought the timing down a little in the upper rpm's and gave it a little more fuel. The rest of the run went great, until we got down off the mountian, then at the first traffic light BLAHH-BLA-BLA-BLAHH-PSHHH, DAMN LIMP MODE. Its almost there, just needs a little masaging here and there on the dyno, Then its time to make the switch to E-gas!

 

Oh the missing parts of the thread, that you mentioned Steve can be found VV HERE VV
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-the-mini.html

Oh no cam install either, I am still using the stock head and bump stick.

 

Hey all, haven't posted in a couple days. I have been real buisy with all kinds of stuff. Sunday I kept geting a cylinder 1 misfire code, so I pulled the plug out to check the gap, and it was fine. So when I tried to put it back it got just past hand tight and beoke in half! It took about an hour to get the broken half out of the hole but it came out clean. I took the broke plug down to the parts store and they wanted to exchange just the one, but I made them change out all 4 for free. I'm really not a fan of NGK's anymore, not that I ever really was but, I will be replacing theese with Brisks like I had in there to start with. Yesterday I started cleaning up the look of the rear interior, taking out the chasis sealing goop and the residue from the sound deadening stuff. I also got a good idea of where to hide all the wiring and how to run the harness. I am going to need to take the roll bar back out and weld some harness keepers on it before taking it to the powder coaters. Lots of work to go, pluss geting retuned on saturday. I will post some more pics when I'm not using my phone to post.

 

Heres the pic's I promised earlyer. I started geting the wires sorted out, there are a lot of wires that are not going back into the hatch. The wiper was taken off shortly after I bought the car, so thats one big set. The washer line dosent serve any purpose so its gone, and I really dont se any point in keeping the rear defrost on a summer weekend car, so it's not going back togeather. That makes my job of fishing all of them back into place a lot easyer, I only have two little plugs going back.

First the spark plug carnage







Now for the interior work
With GOO:




Without GOO.




And the wire hiding: So many wires, so little use.




Thats all I have for tonight. More is always on the way.

 

Going to be pretty cool when finished

What half cage is that?

Are you going to do any head work?

 

Thanks D-MAN, the roll bar is AUTOPOWER's "RACE" bar its nice but I wish the side tubes went to the floor rather than the sides of the body. I will probably end up building a rear brace to conect them togeather with an anchor point in the center of the floor.
As for headwork I am planing on doing a full motor build down the road, but for now I am leaving all the internals and S/C stock. It would be nice to have a bored block with 9.5:1 compression, a TPR-2 head with NEWMANNS 288 RACE CAM, and a SPRINTEX TWIN SCREW, if someone was willing to donate though.

 

Hitting the dyno rollers again today! I will post random cell phone updates, and pics at the end of the day. Also a little prieview of whats coming next. (YES YOU ALL WILL GET YOUR DYNO CHARTS!)

 

Awaiting "coming next" preview and dyno results with 'bated breath....

C ya,
Dutch

 

Sorry for not posting any updates, it was NOT a good day of tuning.

It started off ok, I guess, then I woke up. I hadent driven the car all week, I was too buissy working on geting the wires hidden in the rear of the car, but thismorning it felt like something was off driving it down to the shop. It didnt seem to have the snap it usualy has after driving the slowest car in the world around for a week. The first pull on the dyno, prooved that something wasn't right. It had a baseline pull of just under 166 hp, running the same tune that I have been wirking on for a few weeks, that is less than the first baseline before we even started tuning! TOBZ went to work trying to figure it out, and started building an entirely new fuel map. We where doing our runs in 4th gear, the AFR's where going everywhere we just couldn't get it nailed down, it looked kinda like the back of a pissed off porquepine, and if we added any kind of correction it would just make it worse. Finally we started geting somewhere, and ended up just shy of 176 hp. I started running a little low on W/M mix, so I dumped in about 3/4 of a gallon of denatured alcohol, and we picked up about 10 lbft of torque but horsepower stayed the same. It held power for a while but we where making some pretty big changes and we where always within 1-2 hp of the 176. Something was terribly wrong, we even switched back to the original tune that we started playing with today, and I was now at 140 measley HP.
Then we started looking at the logs a little more closely and noticed that I was slowly loosing boost. Maby the weather? Or high air temps? (I WISH!) We made one last run and payed close attention to the boost gauge, and there wasnt any there, then came the screatch of death! My S/C locked up totaly!!! and the car was dead! The S/C belt was so hot that it burnt my fingers when I touched it, and I knew I would be towing it home. Surprisingly it started long enough to get it out of the shop before the belt broke, it even had enough strength left to bust the S/C free again, and let us hear the destroyed gears inside of it.

What is somebody to do in times like this? Make a plan, of which route to go on the rebuild ofcourse. The car will probably be sitting for quite some time, as I gather the money togeather for a new other than stock S/C. I need to find about $3000.00 somewhere, and with work being as slow as it is right now that could take a while, but it will be rebuilt better than ever, and with my new blower of choice on the engine as is right now, it shuld make my 230hp goal pretty easily.

I will put up pics in the morning (or afternoon) right now there is beer to drink, and I better get at it, it's really been one hell of a day!

 

Dude! Sorry to hear you had a bad (and rather expensive) day!

So, are you going to go Rotrex?

C ya,
Dutch

 

Nope, no snail charger for me. A Sprintex twin screw will reside in place of the stocker, eventually. The kit is being relesed on the first of April, and it's already gaining a lot of intrest amongst the non RMW croud. The reviews are great, and it makes a lot more power, with the same boost and less heat than the stock 45. Log on to MYNES forum to check out all the parts and pices, test videos, install pics, and info.

 

Rick, not good.
The good part is April is SOON, the bad is not knowing how healthy the engine is...... The Sprintex looks like a winner - there's a formula for IAT, every degree cooler = x degree cooler EGT, it's a multiple I can't remember.
No more bad news, PLEASE!

 

Yep the SPRINTEX does seem to be about the best option for people who want to keep ALL their existing mods, upgrade the S/C and gain a ton of power. It lets you keep your standard I/C, bypass valve, radiator, alternator, and intake manifold (Pretty much everything that gets ditched out if you do a ROTREX.) and only replaces the S/C, the inlet and outlet for the S/C, the tensioner, and the water pump. The only part that is ran differently than stock is the new electric water pump.
MYNES and SPRINTEX both have done lots of testing, on multiple cars (In different states of tune) here and in Austrailia. Both companys have backed up the claims of gaining 50 HP on an otherwise stock car, and have seen more than that on cars that where modified.
The reason is due to the heat loss over the standard M45, and less parasitic drag with the design of the twin srew, and not running a gear reducted PTO drive water pump. The boost stays the same, the air density goes up (Due to cooler IAT's) and you get a big kick in the shorts of power that will smack you right between the legs every time you hit the go pedal. Plus your cooling system will thank you for the electric pump. Your water pressure will stay the same at idle as redilne (In my case between 950 and 7200 RPM) no pressure surges when you hit the gas, and no more leaky PTO drive. You can even throw the pump on an override switch and run it with the engine off.

YES it SUCKS that my car will be down for probably a few months but, I see it as an oppritunity to make it better. It will also give me time to ensure everything else gets done properly without feeling rushed to go out and drive.

 

Sounds like a better thing, then, if it requires a lot less new accessory stuff to fit and provides roughly the same benefits (less heat and better air density, less drag) as the Rotrex.

Or even a time-delay relay to let it (and the fan) run a bit after the engine shuts off....

Hopefully you'll still make it to MITM.... I wanna see this beast once you get it going!

C ya,
Dutch

 

Even if it shows up on a tow truck it will be at MITM! That is the one event that I would not miss for anything.

Maby I shuld change the name of the thread to: Mine Blowed Up, I will continue...

 

Heres the pic's starting with the good.

Ah wire hiding, such a tiedious PITA job, but it looks so good.


This is what the hatch looks like with all the wires in place and pluged back in.


One big bundle down, one smaller big bundle to go.


Sooo mutch more pleasing to look at. (Both sides done)


The end results yesterday morning.








I forgot to mention that I got rid of the radio antena all togeather. Who needs an antena in a car that you can barely hear the radio? I will wire the remaining 2 speakers and head unit into an ipod adapter, for long trips.


The car sat so low on the dyno that we needed to find a different place to mount the front straps.


The graphs from the first two pulls, couldn't figgure out why they where so crappy until later on.


Here is the S/C belt after the S/C falure.





Heres the S/C pulley, it got so hot that it discolored, there is even belt melted to it the alternator pulley and the idler.


I will have more once the tear down and rebuild begins, for now I am going to concentrate on the rest of the car, and make sure it is good to go.

Here is a small preview of whats to come. (Ah the mysterious parting shot)

 

Hey sorry to here about your blower. How many miles did you have on it? See...you talked about wanting a new blower and you old one dies. Why does it always work that way .

Good luck with the Sprintex. Jan and Ian thought the first version had some potential but after some serious testing they felt it needed some modifications before they would sign on. It sounds like sprinted went back and changed a couple things since then. Hopefully this new version fixes the problem's they ran into.

What kind of testing on this new version have they done? Have they tracked the new version yet or pushed the boost past 17lb's? I don't mean running it on the dyno or pushing it hard from stop light to stop light but really push it to find out what it can take? How many miles have they put on the new version? I hope customers aren't customers don't end up acting as the real testers.

Regarding your comment's below about the Rotrex. The only "mod" you can not use switching to a Rotrex would be an aftermarket intercooler. That was done by design. The goal in the beginning was to make it so you could use a stock IC. After we built it to except the stock IC we asked ourselves why? Why use the stock IC when we could design one that works better. Stock works good but the after market units that fit the stock horns were just poor. We also wanted to remove the bottle neck that is the stock IC horns. So after using the stock and an aftermarket we redesigned it and made it better. Better = more HP and TQ .

Also, with the Rotrex you can keep your radiator, intake manifold and alternator (not sure what you mean about the alternator). You know longer need the crept bypass valve. So why keep it . It also uses an electric water pump and a stock Copper tensioner

Longboard

 

Well LB, as you know Sprintex has had this S/C under development for the last year or so. They have done actual track testing in Austrailia, but Mynes has just got the two first pre production units installed and set up. They havnt got the green machine to the track yet that they are talking about, just dyno and street testing so far for them. Sprintex has corrected the shortcomings that jan found with the first prototype, and even added some good new fetures, like the cast pipework, and their new tensioner design. Mynes is making almost 50 more HP on a stock car with stock tune, than the car had with just a 15% pulley. The green machine is cranking out more power than ever and from the videos it is verry violent when the skinny pedal is pushed. Best part is its not even making 17 pounds of boost yet, they are still running around 15! The blower itself can handle 15000 RPM continuous and they are well within theese limits, smaller pulleys are to come and so is more boost and power.

 

It's so sad to hear about your supercharger dying(3rd gear pulls next time?). Did the rotors seize in the main housing before you were able to rotate the snout shaft or was it just your snout bearings failing miserably? Good luck with the Sprintex blower! Keep the updates coming!

Jeremy