I managed to get the car to the tuner for some fab work and the tune prior to a quick 2-week trip offshore. As I arrived, he went through all the wiring and everything looked good, a sigh of relief from myself.
Unfortunately, it seems my modifications to the fuel pump housing failed and we could only build about 3psi of fuel pressure before dropping to zero. I suspect the fuel pump nipple is not sealing in the housing, having fallen due to a lack of support or was never seated properly in the first place.
We did manage to get the car running off brake cleaner – win.
Whilst offshore I ordered a new housing and bought the Denso 265 LPH pump I mentioned in my previous post. The pump is indeed identical to the factory one, going into the new housing beautifully.
The fabrication works looks absolutely awesome. I have a small to-do list before heading back to the tuner in the next week or so.
As you can see, some of the items are already complete, including a catch can.
I tidied up the brackets for the intercooler and oil cooler, rounded the edges etc. Location is looking great, I managed to fluke centralizing the intercooler. I had forgot the factory lower grill is partially blanked on the driver’s side.
With everything mounted, I “put the key in” for the first time in at least 6 months. I did this twice hearing the pump prime both times and no leaks at the rail!
I also cranked the car a few times too, no noises and no leaks. All that’s left is putting the CVs back in, filling the box with oil and delivering it to the tuner!
Following on from my previous post, I got the clutch, flywheel, motor and box in only to realize the concentric slave cylinder was leaking. Now I’m not sure if this was my doing or it was dead out of the box but I’m leaning towards the latter. Taking it apart I couldn’t see any issues, so I think something internal had failed. It was also marketed as an “upgraded’ CSC however it was almost identical to the new one I got. Thankfully, the CSC came in my clutch kit as they are ridiculously expensive alone. I also got an absolute bargain on the kit as part of a sale.
With the CSC problem, I had to delay my dyno day and I wasn’t very impressed with the support from the OEM.
We must move forward though. After a brief break from the frustration, work kicking my ass and waiting on the new CSC I eventually got it all back in with the clutch working.
I also tidied up the wiring, extended some sensors etc. It’s looking good.
Today I dummy fit the oil cooler & intercooler with associated lines. I will get Rob (the tuner) to redo most the piping, but the overall layout appears to work. The dump pipe is going to very tight – he has his work cut out for him!
Not much to do now, need to do fluids, check for leaks and that’s about it. Touch wood…
After mocking up everything I wasn’t entirely happy with the oil filter location. I think with the oil cooler installed, swapping the filter would be a very annoying task. I grabbed a right-angle oil filter adapter/housing common to the base models (without the OEM cooler). The access is now much better, and the oil filter is away from the heat source.
As I didn’t have the o-ring (which commonly fails), I filled the groove with sealant and used the “revised” gasket. It’s very tight to the drain line, but once again – clearance is clearance.
I spent a bit of time making a heat shield too. The embossed aluminum is fairly easy to work with. I will get the cuts I made to fold the outer edges tacked up as currently they are a bit flimsy. Once the dump pipe is made, I may attach a second piece per the pictures below. The injector loom was also a bit loose, so I knocked up a bracket for a p-clamp to hold it.
In more exciting news, the engine is now off the stand and on a dolly. Ready to chuck the clutch and flywheel on! Tune day, Aug 12, is coming up awfully quickly.
With the wiring (mostly) complete I went ahead and married up the loom to the engine. I am fairly happy with how everything sits. Unfortunately, I lost the factory tie down points for the injector harness due to the adapters I’m using but I can make something work.
I also wired in 2 relays with will act as reversing relays to control the variable intake runners. I toyed with the idea of just locking them in the long position as they can’t be deleted (easily) with this plastic intake manifold – which I’m praying holds up OK to the boost level I’m running. If I go for a bigger turbo down the line I will definitely need to source a ZC31S intake manifold (cast alloy).
The tuner, Rob, thinks that there will be good benefits in having the link control the runners, especially down low. I am once again thanking KAPOW who made a post on the Link forums detailing how to control it. There’s even a great video documenting the logic from Link staff! I have wired it pretty much exactly per the post – it came up pretty well.
Interestingly, the range of motion is very small, like 15-20 degrees.
I ended up re-routing the water line nearest to the dump pipe following advice from other turbo swift owners. Now both the feed and return are on the cold side. I am yet to nail down the feed point but I have some ideas, the tricky part will be avoiding chafing. I also added some heat wrap to the AC lines.
With that, there really isn’t too much more to do other than get the clutch on, bolt the gearbox up and slap the assembly in. I got the flywheel machined last week and fit the concentric slave – all looks good! I will also fit the factory right angle oil filter housing as I realized my current position will make the oil filter very hard to change, I would need to remove the oil cooler lines every time I change the filter…
My crimping skills continued to grow, as did the cramps in my hands.
After all was said and done, I checked each end where I had spliced into the factory wiring with a multimeter. I found two wires, the TPS signal (GRN) and Ignition 3 (BRN) which I had incorrectly tapped in to. This was easily fixed and happened due to there being multiple GRN and BRN coloured wires.
I also left plenty of extra cabling left for the tuner. Where he needs to weld bungs and install sensors – CAN Lambda and Intake Air Temperature (IAT).
I am quite pleased with the results and have begun to tape everything up. You can see in the images below that I have also crimped on the sensor ends, and replaced the Delphi 3-pin connector mentioned in my last post.
I also finally got some 3/4 UNF jam nuts to tighten down my oil filter stud. Local bolt shop even gave them to me free, bless them. Oil filter sandwich plate is now in, with various fittings tightened with a bit of teflon tape.
I finally broke the back on wiring. It took a lot of trial and error with open barrel splices to figure out the right die and pressure for my ratcheting crimper, but I am very happy with the results. Just look at that crimp!
I currently have half the wiring done, with the remainder being all the OEM signal taps:
Crank position
Cam angle
Throttle position
Ignition coil(s)
Injector(s)
I have left extra loom for the tuner so he can just cut it back and wire in the sensors that require welded bungs – Intake Air Temp (IAT) and a Link CAN Lambda.
I also mounted the Link with the supplied bracket using riv-nuts, pretty happy with how it turned out.
Unfortunately, I wrecked one of the pins on the fuel pressure sensor so I will need to procure another connector just to steal some pins. To my knowledge, it’s a Delphi/GM connector.
Here is an updated wiring table for what is left. “y” indicates done, “R” is for the tuner, blank is another day…
Good progress recently. I had a bung welded in the sump just above max oil line by one of the guys at work. The fitting was a little worse for wear after welding but I think it should seal fine. I had to shorten my drain line a little, which I may have overcooked it as it was a bit of a pain to tighten but I think it will be fine.
I also installed the Walbro 255 which was a lot more difficult than expected due to the pump being slightly wider and a lot longer than the OEM pump. I made some modifications to the housing and got it to fit but it’s not the prettiest solution. In hindsight I should’ve just bought a Denso equivalent which would’ve dropped straight in with very similar specs to the Walbro.
I used the sanding wheel on a dremel to remove a small amount of material evenly from the inside of the housing. Then I cut various tabs and screwed in some stainless screws at the 3 factory tab locations to hold the pump up, allowing for the extra height and giving the filter sock about 3mm of clearance from the bottom. You have to be careful doing this as the pump housing has a cavity around it, you can only drill in to the ‘sleeve’ that has the tabs.
Before re-installing the fuel tank and pump I hot wired it to check it ran fine – which it did. Hopefully I am not missing anything!
I also got the engine all sealed up, pretty much ready to chuck back in once I sort out the wiring (which I am procrastinating a little). I also mounted the fuel rail with my 1000cc injectors. I’ll need to do a quick check once it’s in the car to see if they’re sealing properly. I will be adding a fuel pressure sensor, which I’ve added a tee for.
Here is the wiring table, all I’ve managed to do is some practice crimps using open barrel splices and putting a Deutsch connector on my boost solenoid. I have purchased some fancy wiring, including shielded ground wiring and nice heat shrink. There has been some revisions to my wiring/pin table too which you can see below.
In my previous post I detailed how I planned to run the turbo lines and work around the oil cooler sandwich plate etc. Well, the parts arrived, and it went mostly as planned.
The exhaust manifold and turbo are now torqued up, good to go.
It took a lot of fiddling to get the oil pressure line to work without contacting either the exhaust manifold or coolant line. I ended up just re-using the HKS kit line with a 90 degree M-F swivel off the top of the turbo. The return line was simpler; however it took me 3 attempts to get the height just right. First it was to low (in the oil), too high (no room to weld), just right (I hope..).
I still need to clean the sump thoroughly for welding and drill the locator hole for the bung. Hopefully, how I have it now is above the oil line as I am finding the stainless braided line a real pain to work with. Even when taping the cut location, it still frays quite badly, making the fit up of the nut very difficult. The plan is to fill the sump with water post cleaning to double check the return is above the maximum oil level but I’m quietly confident.
I’m also hoping the coolant line is OK with the heat sleeve around, everyone seems to think so, but time will tell. Doing a walk around, admiring my work I also noticed the wastegate actuator was sitting on the block. I managed to pry it so there is a circa 2-3mm gap – “clearance is clearance”. The ZC31S block must be slightly different in this location as I can’t imagine HKS had this kit leave the factory colliding with the block.
Before:
After:
This marks the end of the “difficult” mechanical scopes, it’s now time to tackle wiring…
Here are some higher resolution images if how the hot side setup looks:
I finally dummy-fit the turbo up and tried to fit up per the HKS ZC31S turbo kit manual but I really wasn’t happy with the setup, particularly with the length of the feed line.
The feed line is “AN4″ or 7/16” JIC and the return line is “AN10″ or 7/8″ JIC. If you’re a hydraulically inclined like me these sizes suits 1/4″ and 5/8” tube OD/hose ID respectively.
Personally, I hate how “AN” centric car plumbing is. You pay an insane premium for the anodized pretty parts. The hose fittings are nice and the way all the off the shelf hose options align to AN size is convenient given all the big automotive retailers sell both the fittings and hoses to suit a range of applications. Still, as a mechanical engineer/hydraulic engineer (depending on the day) it still irks me in a weird way. I can’t complain too much though – at work, our fitter and I both like using thread sizing as opposed to tube od/hose id dash sizing. Tomato tomato?
Below is my mud map of how I plan to run the oil lines. The water lines will make use of the lines that formerly served the OEM oil cooler (a very simple, leak-prone, heat exchanger). Excuse the horrible paint work, this was only really used for ordering bits – which have arrived!
The OEM oil cooler as mentioned above isn’t the greatest, the HKS manual calls for it to be rotated but removing it makes much more sense given I’m running a decent size oil cooler anyway. It’s worth noting with the oil cooler I hardly saw temps above 85C, even on 30C+ ambient track days. Unfortunately, removing the factory cooler reveals no “stud”, luckily, I found an option online that should do the trick nicely.
Apart from that I was fairly unwell during the tail end of this week. Today I did bolt up all the timing gear, new sprocket, guides and tensioner. I reused the chain as it looked to be in good condition and the manual states it is OK to reuse.
Once I make the new oil lines, it should all start coming together!
