1600 16v long term project

[NudgerSS]

Looks good mate and some great skills. That's the same rad I used on my Vauxhall conversion

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[Hoggy]

Dash looks ace mate 👍

[webster444]

Quite chuffed with how the dash came out, had to destroy the moulds to get them released though unfortunately

[Basil]

Looks very nice, can't wait to see how the rest turns out.

[webster444]

Thought I had better update the progress on the mini from the last few months.

Most of the time had been spent wiring the car from scratch, which seemed like a good idea at the time but turned into a bit of a headache! I used a fuse/relay box from an astra & trimmed it down to about 20 fuse slots & 5 relay slots, this leaves me spare for anything required in future.


Looks messy in the photo but it is slightly tidier in the flesh, the dash hides it all anyway


I also cracked on with making the engine loom & wiring in all the engine sensors required for the Megasquirt, the oil catch can was also added and plumbed in ready for starting the engine.


Spent the best part of a day going through all the pre-start checks and vital settings required on the Megasquirt, cranking the engine over with no plugs to check oil pressure & ensuring the ECU was receiving a clean RPM signal. Turned out that I had wired the VR sensor the wrong way round so had to rectifiy this before starting.
I had also noticed that my TPS had some weird behaviour whilst calibrating on the MS, once the throttle was fully pressed down the TPS signal on Tunerstudio dropped off slowly, initially I thought that I had a wiring/voltage issue but these all looked ok. It then occurred to me that my throttle bodies were only mounted to the engine via silicone hose joiners and my throttle cable was anchored to the head, this allowed the throttle bodies to move slightly from the head. The black bracket in the engine photo sorted this.
Eventually the time had come to attempt to fire up the engine, I was rather nervous about this as I had bought the engine off an ebay breakers 6+ years ago and then fully stripped & rebuilt so have never heard the engine run, this is also my first attempt at building my own ECU and working with delicate electronics. But to my surprise the engine fired up on the first attempt, it took a lot of throttle manipulation to keep it running and it was running extremely rich, to the point that fuel was pouring out the exhaust and the piston crowns were soaked when I pulled the plugs. I spent a couple of days playing about with the Map to get it idling by itself at sensible AFRs, another surprise that it idles quite well considering it has no idle control & lumpy cams.

I had a fair saga attempting to get my Koso digital tach to read any revs, after a lot of experimenting and research I eventually discovered that an adjustable floating resister was needed to get it to read any revs, I also had to wire it to one of my coil pack signal wires instead of the Megasquirt tacho output that I had configured.
For some reason I had thought that the Koso dash had a water temperature gauge but it turns out that I was wrong, so I added two 50mm temperature gauges to the dash.


This meant that I would have to find somewhere to fit the temperature senders, luckily the thermostat housing had a spot to drill and tap for the water sender beside the CTS ecu sensor. For the oil sender I machined a oil filter sandwich plate on the lathe so that I could add the sensor.



Next step will be to crack on and try get the body work finished and ready for painting, still to sort out a set of fibreglass doors & try get them to fit first. I also need to sort out my drive shafts, I was hoping to get them cut and sleeved by Aband but I haven't been able to get a hold of him, I do not have a tig welder otherwise I would give it a go myself!

[ardonfast]

Interesting read, you don't need Tig so have a go yourself,

[webster444]

Originally Posted by ardonfast

Interesting read, you don't need Tig so have a go yourself,

I've only a 140amp mig so I'm worried that I won't get the weld penetration that I would need. Might just give it a go anyway though and see how it goes

[ardonfast]

Yes I don't blame you, have you got them ready to box up with the metal glue ?
Maybe a fab shop near you can bosh them for you ?

[webster444]

Not yet they are still to be cut etc.

I may have to treat myself and get a tig welder as I now have a land rover to rid of tin worm and a tig would be a great help

[ardonfast]

Land rover , glutton for punishment lol
Did you meen t,I,g or did your autospell say it instead of might? Just asking

[webster444]

Haha must of been autospell!

Pity I didn't invest in a decent tig welder before I started building the mini, could of done a few things differently