I bought a basket case. Now what?

[The Engine Room]

The OEMs stopped using steel fuel lines more than 20 years ago. I find nylon fuel lines easier to work with, they look better, and they're cheaper. If you use the right fittings, you just heat the tubing with a heat gun and push it on; you don't have to use clamps.

 

I like to pull fuel lines off of mid 90's GM vehicles because they come in standard sizes and the fittings are all compatible; and they are return systems so there at least 3 lines. I got these off of a 98 Cavalier because they are pretty much straight. I got all 3 lines for $9 at Pull-A-Part because I fully expected the OE steel lines to be rusted out. It turns out that the OE steel lines were in perfect shape so I could have just gotten the 8mm pressure line only and saved $4.

 

I'll add an 8mm (5/16) pressure line and use the original (1/4"?) line as a return. A Subaru STi has an 8mm fuel line and I know it's good to carry at least 350hp.

 

The pressure line, surprisingly, was almost the right shape and length. Laying them out in the sun softens them up and makes them easier to work with.

 

 

The line from the sending unit on the Cavalier was already bent to the shape that I needed so I just stuck it on there. It has a quick disconnect fitting so I can drop the tank. The first bend after the QD fitting was also already in the line.

 

 

I had to add the bend where the DOT tag is so it would hug the fender.  I just gently heat the line with a heat gun and hold it where I want it until it cools. 

 

 

I clamped the new fuel line to the existing brackets with rubber coated P clamps using the existing mounting screws. There were a couple of places where the plastic line touches the steel lines. I just added a piece of split rubber tubing to keep it from chafing.

 

 

The only tight bend is where the line passes under the rear seats into the driveshaft tunnel. I had to add a spacer and use a longer mounting bolt. I zip tied the new line to the old lines while they cooled so I would get a nice, tight radius.

 

 

I had to straighten this section but the process is the same: gently heat it up and then let it cool in the shape you want. Notice that GM has already put a hose protector in the area of the front U-joint. How nice of them.

 

 

There is another quick disconnect fitting at the front of the trans tunnel. It was only about a foot short of being exactly the right length. That's actually pretty handy because I needed to make an adapter hose to attach to the Civic fuel filter.

 

 

I picked up an OE Civic fuel filter bracket while I was at the junk yard but the Datsun ignition coil mounting bracket is more perfecter. The adapter line is a steel hose barb tig welded to a piece of the Civic fuel line. The hose coming out of the top of the filter already has the correct banjo fitting to connect to my fuel rail. I straightened out the OE Datsun fuel line and bent it so it goes across the firewall and then kicks out under the intake manifold.

 

 

I hooked everything up to check for fuel leaks. You'll notice that I pulled the engine again (more on that later) so I just hooked up the fuel rail to the supply and return lines, taped the injectors into it, and connected a vacuum pump to the fuel pressure regulator. I just set the battery in the trunk and roach clipped the fuel pump directly to it.

 

 

The pressure drops like it should with the simulated engine vacuum but I didn't have an accurate gage to check that it increased with pressure. I'll scrounge up a boost gage and check all that out later. I only put 1/2 gallon in the tank so I know that it's pulling from the bottom.

 

But look at that! I have a complete fuel system!

[Doctor510]

NICE WORK!

[The Engine Room]

Just to recap the fuel system:

 

Fuel pump for BMW E36 - Free ($24 at Pull-A-Part)

Pickup strainer for 95 Miata - $7 (Amazon Prime)

Fuel filter for 97 Civic - $8 (Amazon Prime)

Steel, screws, brass fittings, clamps, and riv-nuts for cover - $19 (Ace Hardware)

Wire connector, nylon bushings and spacers, o-rings, brass screw and nuts for electrical connection - $16 (TSC)

Nylon fuel line for 98 Cavalier; rail hose, banjo bolts, and pressure regulator for '97 Civic; emissions hose, clamps and bolts from random cars - $17 (Pull-A-Part)

Fuel injectors for 2005 Civic - Free ($28 at Pull-A-Part)

Fuel rail material - $22 (Ebay)

[The Engine Room]

Just to button up the evap system, I installed a Teflon piston check valve and elbow on the end of the vacuum line with a flare fitting to keep it tidy.

 

 

I was tempted to use the OE shuttle valve but I don't know if it'll take boost or if I can get a replacement. This valve is rated at 0.02bar cracking pressure and 800psi back pressure; so I know it will be fine.

[The Engine Room]

This is the OE spare tire but it's the same size as the others with it's 6.5" contact patch (it's actually about 5-5/8"). They didn't expect much from this car, did they?

 

[The Engine Room]

I'm going to keep a running total of the costs of the car right here.

 

Purchase price of the car: $400

Registration and taxes: $55

 

Intake/Exhaust System:

 

Intake manifold, throttle body, and sensors from a 1995 Mercury Tracer - $30 (Craigslist)

60mm Aluminum pipe and bends - Free (around $60 from RPS)

Turbo from 1984 Saab 9000 - Free ($70 from PaP)

Combination MAP/IAT sensor from 2005 Golf TDI - Free ($8 from PAP)

Intercooler from 2005 Golf TDI - Free (~$40 from eBay)

(8) 35mm (1.375") U bends - $79 (Jegs)

Hose, tube, fittings, clamps - Free (probably less than $20 if scrounged from PaP)

 

Fuel System:

 

Fuel pump for BMW E36 - Free ($24 at Pull-A-Part)

Pickup strainer for 95 Miata - $7 (Amazon Prime)

Fuel filter for 97 Civic - $8 (Amazon Prime)

Steel, screws, brass fittings, clamps, and riv-nuts for cover - $19 (Ace Hardware)

Wire connector, nylon bushings and spacers, o-rings, brass screw and nuts for electrical connection - $16 (TSC)

Nylon fuel line for 98 Cavalier; rail hose, banjo bolts, and pressure regulator for '97 Civic; emissions hose, clamps and bolts from random cars - $17 (Pull-A-Part)

Fuel injectors for 2005 Civic - Free ($28 from PaP)

Fuel rail material - $22 (Ebay)

(I also bought about $20 worth of brackets and fuel line that I didn't end up using but I'm not counting that)

 

Emissions System:

 

Aquarium Charcoal - $17 (Amazon Prime)

Grease trap material - Free (~$5 eBay)

Fuel cell foam - Free (~$4 eBay)

Vacuum check valve $4 (O'reilly)

Fuel Filter $3 (O'reilly)

Piston check valve (I don't see an exact copy but I would have bought this one for $7 if I hadn't had it already)

 

Electronics:

 

EDIS system from 1995 Tracer: $50 (Craigslist)

[dukerollo]

Watching this with interest. Keep the updates coming.

[The Engine Room]

Here is a great example of what I mean when I shit all over aftermarket parts. Honda used the same fuel pressure regulator on basically everything that they made for like 30 years. It's the size of your thumb and they are $30 new; $5 used. I've seen 300,000+ mile cars with a factory regulator so they're bulletproof.

 

I found a 0-15psi gage so I checked my fuel setup to make sure that the pressure regulator would regulate boost. The fuel pressure with the manifold pressure at 1 bar (no boost, no vac) and it is 51psi.

 

 

The fuel pressure with the manifold at 0.1bar (full vacuum) is ~38psi. That's a 1:1 ratio.

 

 

The fuel pressure with the manifold vacuum at 2 bar (14.7psi boost) is 66psi. That's a 1:1 ratio. I'm sure that it would go higher but that's the limit of my señor gasket pressure gage.

 

 

This compact little $5 regulator is perfectly fine within the boost limits of a factory motor and will last forever; but it's usually the first thing that people replace with some red anodized p.o.s. that they got off of the internet. Bear in mind that the fuel injectors aren't running so this regulator is flowing the entire volume of this fuel pump that has been proven to carry over 350hp.

 

[The Engine Room]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am converting this engine to run a Ford EDIS system. I have used this before (because it's usually cheaper than buying a replacement distributor) but there isn't a lot of information out there on good, clean installs of the trigger ring onto the A-series engine. There are several setups on the Wiki page but they all look tacked-on. I wanted to do something a little cleaner.

I had the engine out for other reasons so I went ahead and took a bunch of measurements. The flywheel-to-crank bolts are not equidistant so the flywheel only goes on one way. I noticed that, when the crank was at TDC, one of the pressure plate dowels was also at TDC. These made it possible to machine the trigger directly into the flywheel and, since the dowels are also not equidistant, setting up for the cut was a piece of cake.

Conveniently, there is a lot of extra material on the back of the flywheel. Also, conveniently, there is a big unused area on the trans spacer plate at 6 o'clock that I can use for mounting the trigger. The stars are aligned.

The stock EDIS ring is a 36-1 tooth trigger where the teeth are 3.6° wide and the gaps are 6.4° wide. As long as this ratio is maintained, the diameter of the trigger is unimportant. The teeth are 8.1mm deep so that's how deep I went. Also, the missing tooth is 90°BTDC.

.

Here is the flywheel after I machined it. Notice the 12mm hole I drilled opposite the missing tooth, which was a calculated value to offset the missing material. I'll final balance it with the pressure plate once I know which pressure plate that I'm going to use.



The trans spacer plate needed a slot and two tapped holes for the bracket. I didn't have a machine set up for flat plate at the time so I just printed out the drawing in full scale and transfer punched it to the plate. I used a step drill and a file to make the slot:



The bracket and plate are slotted to give a total of 10° of adjustability. I calculated that I needed 7mm of stick out, but the bracket is slotted to give +3mm of depth adjustment as well.

 

I still need to round the corners and clean up the bracket. I am shame.



The bend in the sensor connector lines up with the oil pan such that it looks like it was always meant to be:

[sebpv]

My feeling is that you will need another hole half size drilled forward of the first one. I wont bother you with the math behind it.

[The Engine Room]

Please do. I like math.

[sebpv]

You can represent the missing notch as a section modulus; it has a surface area, a depth and a distance[centre of gravity of disk and notch]. We can neglect the depth as both the hole and notch have equal material thickness but the disk bevel will slightly offset the result. To find out if you need to enlarge the hole you go with this:

 

SM of notch: {L x W} x D1

SM of hole: {pi x d} x D2.

 

If you add another hole, just make sure the combinaison of SM of holes equal the

missing notch. The SM will be reduced if distance is reduced i.e. hole is closer to center.

 

Since the drilled hole is ever so slightly closer to the center than the notch, and the hole is half the surface area of the notch, I assumed that you will need to drill another one.

[sebpv]

Now Im curious to know what math you used to calculate the location and size of your drilled hole. My math doesnt take into account the complex geometry of the notch so I would take that only as a general start...

[The Engine Room]

You.

 

I like you.

 

The diameter and depth of the hole was automatically calculated by Inventor.

 

I just drew the flywheel as a solid and set the axis of gyration. Autodesk makes it really easy to make symmetrically balanced parts.

[sebpv]

just balance it as normal and drill at a

smaller diam fully or partly as needed in the same axis but forward. Ur too close to the edge to change the current hole

[izzo]

I like this a lot. Following and subscribed.   I have 2 hatchbacks myself. 

[The Engine Room]

just balance it as normal and drill at a

smaller diam fully or partly as needed in the same axis but forward. Ur too close to the edge to change the current hole

 

I think that our misunderstanding is the fact that I'm working in 3D and your math is in 2D.

 

Here is my math:

 

The missing tooth has a mass of 0.2483212279018775 ounces,

 

at a principal radius of 4.398425196850394 inches,

 

giving a static unbalance of 1.092222345716447 oz/in along an axis of 0,0,1.

 

The balance hole has a diameter of 12.0mm boreded to a depth of 9.075mm

 

giving it a mass of 0.2828137751103672 ounces

 

at a principal radius of 3.861984251968504 inches

 

giving it a static unbalance of 1.092222345716 along 0,0,-1.

 

As you can see, the actual unbalance force (change in the actual center of mass about Z) caused by the 12mm hole is exactly opposite of the missing tooth. It is an actual calculated value of the mass at radius, not the surface area; that AutoCAD calculated to 12 decimal places.

 

[datzenmike]

Lost track of this post. Wouldn't a charcoal canister have been easier to replace? Wrecking yards are full of them, all cars have them.

[sebpv]

Oh I wasnt prepared for that haha. I guess we'll find out shortly that I was wrong.

[The Engine Room]

Lost track of this post. Wouldn't a charcoal canister have been easier to replace? Wrecking yards are full of them, all cars have them.

 

That was the original plan; but I didn't want to have to crawl around a bunch of cars to try to find one that would fit, route all of the vent lines to the new canister location, and hope that I got one that was still good.

 

I have less than $25 and a couple of hours in the one that I built and it looks outwardly stock. It has about 5x as much carbon as it really needs so I won't ever have to look at it again.

 

I've never been one to do things the easy way.

[The Engine Room]

I started making room in the engine bay for the turbo by redoing the coolant suction/heater return tube. I cut off a piece of 3/4npt pipe and turned it down to 26mm. I found an old forged steel 3/4 pipe elbow and welded a 32mm barb fitting onto one end. Then I welded a 1/2npt bung onto it, threaded it onto the pipe nipple, and pressed it into the block.

 

 

I decided to run the heater return tube in 1/2 copper since I had a bunch of it left over from building my house. This is how it turned out:

 

 

I tucked it real close to the block to maximize the amount of room I had to work with:

 

 

I don't know what it is about this phone that makes all my welds look shitty.

[The Engine Room]

I decided to use a PCV valve from a Mitsubishi Evo since it threads into an 1/8npt fitting and I know it'll handle a lot of boost. 

 

 

The block adapter is a 3/4-3/8npt bushing that I turned down to 21.3mm.

 

 

The baffle is a piece of 3/8npt brass pipe that I threaded to 1/4nptf on one end. There is a reducer fitting and then an elbow and the EVO PCV valve. Inside the pipe is a spring and some bearing balls in between two bong screens. The balls act as a baffle, and the spring keeps the airflow from pushing the oil up the walls of the pipe. 

 

[The Engine Room]

I am using the coil pack off of a later model Focus because it uses standard plug wire boots. I wanted to keep the wires pretty short and neat; and I needed to seal up the distributor hole, so I made a coil pack mount that does both. 

 

 

I didn't want to rely on the single M6 screw to mount it so I made a 2-piece plug that grabs the inside of the hole with a Viton o-ring. I mushroomed the end of the screw so, if the plug comes loose, it doesn't fall down and jam the camshaft.

 

 

The plug is made in 2 pieces so it squeezes the o-ring and grips the inside of the distributor bore and pulls the plate down tight. 

 

[Stoney]

Love the engineering you have done so far.

 

So many people, myself included often overlook using factory parts from another model to achieve the desired end result, your fuel system is the perfect example.

 

I for one will be reminding myself constantly to recycle parts from other cars now, I have already stripped a car years ago for all its nuts and bolts, so much cheaper then buying from a store. Something I need to do again soon, as i'm running low on them.

[The Engine Room]

I popped the cherry on this chassis by removing the left hand motor mount to make room for the wastegate. You can see the 100 x 120 x 6mm plate bolted to the block that will be the basis for the new motor mount. 

 

 

One of the worst mistakes that I see people make when building a manifold is relying on the manifold itself to support the weight of the turbo. This is a huge no-no and is the main reason that fabricated manifolds crack. I made an extended oil drain flange and tack welded it to the motor mount plate. I may revise this later but it'll work for the fabrication process.

 

 

Sorry about the dark pictures as my shitty phone doesn't have a flash.

 

You can see where the turbo will end up.

 

 

I hoped to get further on the manifold tonight but I have a 9-month-old.