Hello all, i'm back !!
(spent a bit longer than i expected as i was helping the friends i stayed with clear up, and they have had a bit of a "damp
problem" in Rockhampton recently...;-)
Unfortunately, some things that should have happened whilst i was away have not, primarily the bumpers and bonnet final paint. But i've given the painters the kick, and so those should be back in the right colour ASAP
Before christmas i bit the bullet and took the engine out to run and optimise it on the engine dyno.
The aim being to get the cam timing, and ignition angle vs water injection mass sorted (which proved impossible on a chassis dyno due to wheel spin and not being able to hold an accurate enough load/speed).
Quite pleased to say we beat my best guess power target (although didn't quite hit the torque number i had predicted). the bad news was that we managed to crack the block! (got a bit carried away chasing the torque figure, and over advanced the ignition during some water injection sweeps, the indimaster cylinder pressure log later showed 160bar Pmax + 43bar knocking pressure oops!)
Luckily i had a spare block, (i had used to measure up for the girdle plate and sump, so it's all back together, and we will avoid doing the same thing again hopefully
After the inital shake down it became apparent that the powersteering system had a significant amount of hydraulic lag at high handwheel rates, which is not good when you are trying to keep things traveling in a straight (ish) line, so i had ditched the original pump, and fitted a much more powerful (1.2kW) system.
The downside is the new system required it's CAN command system hacking (it's a Mk2 Focus RS pump), so i spent a while reverse engineering that, and building a little ecu
to control it. The upside is that the system now has vehicle speed and handwheel rate proportional assistance:
The bigger news is i now have a "paddleshift" system in the car, (custom system ;-) which uses a 12bar air compressor mounted vertically being the passenger seat on the floor:
and a 1litre carbon fibre resevoir and switching solenoid system:
using a custom ECU i have designed, this now interfaces with the engine and throttle control systems to give fully integrated clutchless up and downshifts.
(upshifts are circa 48ms (except for 1-2 shift which is a bit slower at ~65ms due to larger rev drop required) and "rev matched" (does enigne speed closed loop control via my electronicthrottle system) downshifts in ~80ms
Thats all triggered by a WRC stylee carbon fibre paddle sticking out from the RHS of the handwheel:
at the moment, the original mechanical gearlever and "flatshift" strain gauge is still fitted, but once i'm happy with the system i may totally ditch it, or just redesign the centre consol
with a much smaller "backup" carbon lever.
Unfortunately it was wet at Millbrook for the post christmas shakedown of the new trans, but even with a terrible launch the car put in a 7.3s 0-100 with 2 people on board!
the plan is to go back and re-optmise some of the shifting control, and trial run the "max downshift" stragegy that just allows you to hold the paddle away from you, stamp on the brakes, and it will automatically downshift as many times as required until you come off the brakes. (there is also the "pre-emptive" throttle logic to trial, that senses a "stamp" and due to the speed of the ETC can actually get the throttle plates fully open 40ms BEFORE the drivers foot hits the floor ;-)
After the inital tests (in the wet) i have also decided to probably sacrifice a little bit of top end power for a smooth torque curve, so have a custom turbine wheel and housing on it's way, which has some blade clipping and ultratight clearances to try to reduce the boost threshold a bit. With the ALS on, it has no
problem running full boost down to about 1200rpm, but it's so noisy in the car it would get black flagged immediately on most track days etc
Other developments are a "Returnless" pressure controlled fuel system, that is running on a bench test but has not made it onto the car yet, and hopefully totally new super lightweight "CAN bus" wiring loom that reduces the loom wiring to 5 wires in most places.
These days, just one lap top is not enough:
And here she is, waiting for her bumpers:
So, lots of progress, and hopefully comeing to a track day / event near you soon !!