New Engine Time!, First drive on 4/23/23! Options

[rfinegan]

Great Job Zach, looks and sounds GREAT...Let us know how she performs after break in!

[VaccaRabite]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1lK-la8w0s

Balanced out the throttle bodies tonight, and got the idle roughed in.

Still waiting on the new fuel pressure regulator to come in, but at 40PSI I figured was close enough to balance and set idle.

When I started the balance the pass side was pulling 25 on the gauge and the driver side was only pulling 1. LOL! Only took about 15 minutes to get that resolved - I spent more time figuring out how to remove the tops of the air filters.

First drive -
I went out tonight for the first drive - even with and exhaust leak and low fuel pressure.
Weather was... well... It was raining, but not hard enough that I needed the top on - so topless I went into the night.

A good bit more torque in first gear. In fact, between the wet road and not expecting the throttle response, the rear got loose coming out of my driveway. FUN! This could be the engine that convinces me to get the fender flares I've been sitting on welded in, do the 5 lug conversion and get some bigger rubber.

But NOT until the Bus is on the road!

My car is back on the road! I was able to wipe off the last task on my project board tonight "DRIVE!"
From this point on its just maintenance.

Zach

[brubou]

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[mepstein]

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[Root_Werks]

Yay! Always so gratifying to drive after putting in the work.

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[VaccaRabite]

The Holley fuel pressure regulator came in yesterday but I had not time to work with it. Too much prep work for Amy's surgery today.

And Dillion from PMB reached out to let me know a trick for getting the last couple PSI out of the stock regulator - right now I'm at 40 of the 43psi the injectors are intended for. But I think its probably better to be in the middle of the range, instead of past the high end. The Holley unit is 15-60 psi range so its about perfect for this application! Just need to find time to plumb it in.

Before I drive the car again I also need to get it in the air and snug up the heat exchangers. I've found in the past that they tend to loosen up a little after the first couple heat cycles, and I know I have an exhaust leak anyway. Its possible that this second set of pipes is also cracked somewhere under the jacket, but I doubt it.

I'm going to be home while Amy is in surgery, which annoys me. But someone needs to be here when the kids come home from school and tend to the dogs. We tried giving that job to her mom for the first round of surgery and that did not go well (sigh), so her mom will go to the hospital with her today and take her home after while I continue to get the house prepped for a longer recuperation time with this round. But I will maybe have time to get the car back on the lift and poke at the exchangers before she is home. Will keep my mind off the surgery.

So much going on right now.

Zach

[ndfrigi]

We will be praying for successful surgery and quick recovery for your wife Amy!
Congrats also for your new engine!

[rgolia]

Very sweet. Cant wait to see and hear it at the NE Gathering.

[Dion]

Congrats on the engine start ad drive, All the best wished for Amy.

[VaccaRabite]

I made the mount for the Holley fuel pressure regulator.
I had to chuckle the entire time I as working on it as I knew how to make the stock pressure regulator work and it would have taken 15 minutes to make the change. Tje stock regulator tops out at 40PSI, but you can eek out the other 3 PSI by removing the lock nut. I decided I wanted something where my pressure was in the middle of the range of the regulator, not over the top of it.

Everything was made from stock I had laying around the garage, though I did have to buy a 1 1/8th inch hole saw.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/live.staticflickr.com-1435-1682870072.1.jpg)
This is a stock regulator in the stock location with a cheap gauge that you really can't see without doing gymnastics. We can do better.

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The first and second drafts looked like this. The plan was that they would raise the regulator up to the level of the fuel rail, but still bolt to the stock location. the first effort was flat, and the reg was the right height but the wrong plane. So I heated it up and put a twist in the base (you can see the in the picture). This would have worked, but it looked ugly as sin in the car, and it made the return line shunt off towards the center of the engine. I did not like it, so back to the drafting board.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/live.staticflickr.com-1435-1682870074.3.jpg)
This was attempt 3. I found some M5 socket bolts and so I just tapped some bar stock, and bent it to fit and welded it to what was left of the Mk1/Mk2 mounts. It lives on the rear bulkhead.

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And there is it. I can even easily read the gage! This was just the fit up - no hose clamps or anything.

It came out again, and got painted. Once that dried (which took forever with all the rain we have had this weekend) I put it on for real and got the pressure dialed in. 43PSI - perfect! Got back inside before 11PM!

This took hours to make (compared to the 15 minute mod I could have made tot he stock regulator), but that's including breaks to check on and tend to Amy.

I want to drive the car but its just POURING right now. Hopefully this week.

Zach

[r_towle]

Very cool!

[VaccaRabite]

More bracket fabrication last night.

The engine shipped with an idle control valve that was not perfect. The housing did not allow the plunger of the ICV to actuate all the way.

@Eric_Shea called me about this after the engine shipped, but before I had time to install it. They had found the issue when testing Aarons engine. Remember mine is only engine #2 for them in this configuration. He said they had noted the problem, and would ship me the solution when it was available. Totally 100% excellent customer service as always!

The solution came some weeks later. After I had done my install and taken the first drive. I texted back and forth with PMB Performance about where best to put it. They had designed a simple bracket for this that attached to the place on the doghouse where the coil would live on a stock or carbed engine. Since this engine has no coil, that's usually free.

But that's the location where I had my oil pressure gauge sender remote switch. And since I already had all the wires run, I wanted to be able to use the location the "old" ICV had been. PMB had put crimp-nuts in the tins on the pass side and I liked the ICV there. So I decided to toss the well thought out PMB bracket provided and make my own.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/live.staticflickr.com-1435-1683891731.1.jpg)
This time the 1st try worked beautifully and I did not need to try other things like I had to do with the fuel pressure regulator bracket.

(IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/uploads_offsite/live.staticflickr.com-1435-1683891732.2.jpg)
All plugged in and ready to go.

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The view from the other side.

I started the car and immediately the car jumped to about a 1000 rpm idle. Exactly where I like it! From cold (it was about 68*F) the car started like a modern car and sat at idle quite happily. It was a marked improvement over the other valve.

It was late, so I did not go on a drive. I'm planning to drive over to see a friend on the MD Eastern Shore Saturday, so the car will get about 300 miles. I've put about 60 miles on the new engine so far.

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I took Josh (my youngest) out on Tuesday after work and school. He agrees. Every 914 needs this engine. As Ferris said - "If you have the means, I highly recommend it!"

There is one more change that needs to get made to this motor, and it something that Eric and also talked about after I got it delivered but before I was able to install. The ECU uses the oil temperature sensor, so there is not a place for the cabin mounted gauge to attach. Eric found a plate with two sender mounts, so that is what I'm going to do. But that has not arrived yet, and its NOT critical. I'm going to wait for the end of the driving season and install it when I do the next oil change, since the engine has to be dry of oil before changing out that plate. I have a large oil cooler and a Manly dipstick gauge for spot checks, its just not ideal as I have to get out of the car and open the engine bay to read it. But I'm super not worried about it. I monitor engine temps via head temp anyway and by the way, this engine runs COOL! Under 330* pulling the looooong fast hills on 83, in 5th, doing 90.

Zach

[BeatNavy]

Very cool, Zach (and PMB!) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumb3d.gif)

What IAC is that? One that came with my engine was a Hyundai valve that seemed too small. I have since changed it to a BMW IAC that did work somewhat better, but I certainly don't get 1000 RPM on a cold start.

[VaccaRabite]

Very cool, Zach (and PMB!) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/thumb3d.gif)

What IAC is that? One that came with my engine was a Hyundai valve that seemed too small. I have since changed it to a BMW IAC that did work somewhat better, but I certainly don't get 1000 RPM on a cold start.

IAC valve housing

There you go! This is just the housing - it does not come with the actual valve. Holley IAC Motor 543-105 is the valve motor.

Holley IAC motor

Zach

[Superhawk996]

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[76-914]

Congrats on a long overdue upgrade to your Type 4. And also to @Eric_Shea I know he went to Hell and back on this journey to improve the Type 4. Hopefully there is a mile long queue forming outside his door with these favorable reports. It's nice to have a reliable power plant, eh? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[Root_Werks]

Awesome to see this come together!

Very tidy install of all the parts Zach, well done!

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[Freezin 914]

Nicely done! Congratulations!

[JamesM]

Ordered a new Holley fuel pressure regulator, more clamps and some more sae 30r9 hose. Hopefully it will all get here Monday.
Will be a very busy weekend and Amy goes back under the knife Tuesday (round 3). So I’d love to have this done by then. It may be premature, but I may try to wash the car today juuuuust in case I can drive it before the surgery date.

Zach

Which regulator did you go with?

Mario has a piece that is almost a direct fit for the stock regulator, can be mounted to the tin in the stock location with minimal effort.

Also, you may want to swap your oil tower PCV for an open port, would vent a bit better.

[VaccaRabite]

I've been driving the car, and learning the new engine and new tuning system.

I did a 180 mile drive to Philly and back when I needed some stuff from Bus Depot for my bus project. And last weekend I did a 300 miles drive on Saturday and showed the car at Bug Out VA. I was the only 914, and got lots of questions about the engine.

I did datalogging for the entire 300 mile trip. I'm just scratching the surface of the Terminator X ECU. The engine comes with what they call a "hand terminal" that plugs into the canbus jack. This is a super handy tool that I ignored for most of my break in.

Right now I don't have it run through the tunnel - and that's something I intend to do! Its just too handy a tool not to. Its a data logger, but it also has a gauge cluster so you can see what the ECU is seeing.

I also bought a canbus splitter so that I can plug my laptop into the ECU and leave the hand unit plugged in.

With a little over 600 miles on the engine, its time for and oil change and valve adjustment. And I need to get the data logs back to @eric_shea for evaluation (which I will do when the CANBUS to USB cable I ordered comes in).

There are a couple things that I think can be improved. the gas mileage is about 18 mpg with me cruising during break in. That MAY improve on its own as the engine tightens up. But I bet there is improvements to be made at idle and off throttle.

There has also been some rev-hang, where the engine will stay around 2000 rpm for a moment when I push in the clutch instead of dropping immediately back to idle. At first I suspected the IAC was adding air - and I think that was Eric's opinion too. But driving with the hand unit in the cabin with me, I could see that the IAC was fully closed. The hand unit is REALLY handy! Playing with the car tonight (and watching the TPS data on the hand unit) I suspect the issue is mechanical and not part of the tune. On throttle close, the TPS was showing the throttle sticking at ~22% open instead of closing. I'm almost sure that is the cause of my rev hang.

The difference between fully closed and 20ish% is under 1mm of travel. It may need a helper spring, or there may be some slight bind in the throttle body sync.

Closing the throttle at idle will hopefully cure the rev hang, and give me a little boost to mileage. I fully expect that this motor should be able to get at least 25mpg when cruising down the freeway.

As to driving impressions - this motor is a beast! I was accelerating up hill in 5th on the freeway, doing well over 90, with head temps that never got over 350 and the throttle was never wide open. You don't need to drop a gear to pass traffic. And you CAN pass traffic.

I've still not done any 2nd or 3rd gear pulls at WOT yet. That will happen after the oil change and adjustment.

There is NO drama starting the car. Either cold or hot, it starts right up.

If you are thinking about getting one. STOP THINKING. Call PMB and get the ball rolling.

Zach