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[Ian_D]

Very interesting read over on PH lozzzzzz.

Gave me some ideas for the engine/kitcar I’m supposedly building (not done anything for 18 months now). 

Keep up with the good work. 

Regarding the heat issues on these engines, would fitting a lower temp stat not help the problem? Just thinking that if the coolant flowing round the engine is cooler than the stock setup, surely this would help cool the engine more effectively due to the bigger potential difference? Or is that not the problem?

[Abiton]

Not sure that would work well.  You'd immediately be making your radiator less efficient at transferring the coolant heat into the atmosphere, which is where it needs to go.

[Ian_D]

Not sure that would work well.  You'd immediately be making your radiator less efficient at transferring the coolant heat into the atmosphere, which is where it needs to go.

Yes that would be true, but if the coolant is already several degrees cooler, would that matter? 

[Marks DTM Calib]

It may help but you fundamentaly need to get that cooler coolant to the right places.

We know the exhaust headers are pretty poor.....maybe it could be an excuse to fire up my newly aquired TIG set. 

[Kevin Wood]

More coolant flow external to the engine (through the rad.) often results in poorer coolant circulation around the extremities of the engine internals (due to the bypass flow being killed by the thermostat for a start), so cooling it more can make localised cooling issues worse.

However, I have a special knackered uprated thermostat that opens at about 75 degrees if anyone's interested. Shall we start the bidding at a tenner? Beginning to wonder why I went to the trouble of changing it.

I do like the dual-redundant Facet fuel pumps. Someone else to add to the "one of these bstrd things left me by the roadside" club, obviously.

[lozzzzzz]

Thank you all for you interest  I’ll be posting every future post on here as well as the other forums

2woody,
I’m between Hereford and Worcester.  The PAS pump is on its way to being stored in the garage, as I don’t think I’ll be needing it.  The PAS rack I’ve put in is currently plumbed into itself, there is a token small amount of fluid in it for lubrication the rack, but otherwise its just a quick rack for now.  The way it feels at the moment I’m pretty sure I’ll be leaving it that way.  It’s not really that heavy (especially as the engine is so much lighter) and I want lots of “feel”. 
I’m in the process of making a freewheel pulley to replace the pump.  It was just plumbed into itself for the purpose of starting the engine. 
After reading all this about temp I’ll definitely be getting a lower temp thermostat, do Courtney do one?
I’ve heard all about the Hammerite problem .  If I did it again I’d use Pore15 or something.  But, there in an undercoat of good quality red oxide, and an overcoat of awesome stonechip, highly recommended (cant remember the name  ) and lastly, all parts of the chassis that were rusty were replaced in stainless steel, so I’m not too worried about it at the moment.  If it needs doing again in 5 years time, it’ll come off the body really easily, as all the bolts are stainless too. 
That’s amazing that we have an X Reliant chief here, I’m in awe!  I went to a talk from the Designer Tom Karren the other day at a Scimitar club event, it was a real eye opener.  I imagine Reliant would have been a really exciting company to work for in its day, you seem to have done so many cutting edge projects.  I take my hat off too you .

Kevin,
I’ve known off Dave Walker for a while now, I’ve read all his features in the PPC magazine from the beginning, he’s certainly very good at what he does, and I will be making an effort to go use his rolling road and expertise, even if he’s a million miles away from me, and can be a little intolerant of inexperience . 
I noticed when I was taking the heads off, that the GM head gaskets were very different to how they would have started life.  There are a number of holes to allow the coolant to flow between he heads and engine (or the other way, can’t remember now) but these has become significantly bigger through corrosion and must have changed the way the coolant flows, I can see how these engines need to be looked after. 
“I do like the dual-redundant Facet fuel pumps. Someone else to add to the "one of these bstrd things left me by the roadside" club, obviously.  ”
Funny you should say that Kevin, I’m a member of that exact club, and don’t plan to be again. 

Marks DTM Calib,
I see what you’re saying and it certainly makes sense, but one of the hardest parts of this project so far has been knowing when to stop.  If money wasn’t a problem, there would be an LS1 engine under the bonnet.  I did fancy the 3,2 (and didn’t know about the extra advantage of the forged crank at the time), but it all boiled down to money.  I’m really pleased with what I got for my £1k, a 100k 3.o x police, with full history and an £1800 lpg kit fitted less than a year ago. 
I did check the big ends, mains and bore, but once again, its knowing where to stop, they all looked fine so it was only the top end that got a rebuild,
As for having a go, you should all defiantly have a go at porting (depending on my results), there are no excuses, you could all port the throttle body, its like an hour job, start to finish, and I’d be willing to bet that most gains will be made from the porting I did on the plastic base to the inlet system, there is such a restriction there its crazy, and its free, you don’t even need to take the heads off. 
You should defiantly fire up the TIG and loose the Cats, there’s at least 10hp right there. 

Ian D,
Thanks for your kind comments.  I will fit a cooler stat.  In theory it will lower the efficiency of the radiator by a very small percentage, but if that ever became a problem, the overall coolant temp would rise a bit and you’d be right back where you started with the old thermostat, it’s a no brainer, I’ll definitely get one in there soon. 

[Nick W]

It may help but you fundamentaly need to get that cooler coolant to the right places.

We know the exhaust headers are pretty poor.....maybe it could be an excuse to fire up my newly aquired TIG set. 

Why would you need TIG for making headers? A MIG would be plenty good enough.  Unless you were planning on making them from aluminuum, which seems unlikely. A mate made new headers for his dad's Ferrari using a £100 MIG and  CO2 , without taking them off the car(over£1200 each new), so it's, more operator rather than tools!

I do have a TIG set, but I bought it because I had the money at the right time and because I plan on making various aluminium radiators and other parts for my hot rod projects. Otherwise, MIG and oxy-acetylene are MUCH more useful for car stuff.

[Kevin Wood]

I'll be watching progress with interest..

I've gone to the solid state Facet pump now, which seem to be more reliable (that's me doomed).

So, are you piggy-backing the LPG system from the outputs of the petrol ECU or doing something more interesting?

[lozzzzzz]

I'm MIGing my manifolds, and to be honest they would look a lot nicer with TIG, and some skill

But they would look ace either way if I had a pipe bender inseat of cutting and shutting

Kevin,

The omega came with a full on Landi Omegas system, that was piggy back off the original ECU.  Canems (the aftermarket ECU bought) do do an LPG and Petrol ECU, but its over £200 more, so I thought I'd just go with the Landi LPG ECU as it was in the Omega.  So that will need setting up as well.  Theoretically it should just work, and read off the slighty higher injection duty cycle, but the tacho signal is different so I might need to get the LPG tuned on the rollers too. 

The Canems ECU has 2 maps so that'll take care of advancing the spark on LPG and I could adjust the fueling through that too hopefully. 

[Marks DTM Calib]

It may help but you fundamentaly need to get that cooler coolant to the right places.

We know the exhaust headers are pretty poor.....maybe it could be an excuse to fire up my newly aquired TIG set. 

Why would you need TIG for making headers? A MIG would be plenty good enough.  Unless you were planning on making them from aluminuum, which seems unlikely. A mate made new headers for his dad's Ferrari using a £100 MIG and  CO2 , without taking them off the car(over£1200 each new), so it's, more operator rather than tools!

I do have a TIG set, but I bought it because I had the money at the right time and because I plan on making various aluminium radiators and other parts for my hot rod projects. Otherwise, MIG and oxy-acetylene are MUCH more useful for car stuff.

Simple. Tig gives a much nicer weld joint and you could even use stainless.

[Martin_1962]

There are a couple of ported 2.6s on the forum, I am also using 3.0 cams, definately quicker than before and nearly 3.0 in get up and go.

[serek]

Hi folks, thanks again for my warm welcome a few weeks back. 

I'm wondering what people think would be a safe rev limit to set my ECU to (aftermarket management in a Scimitar).  The engine is very ported in a number of areas, with full on three branch exhaust manifolds, and a very unrestrictive inlet track, the torque curve will have moved up the rev range.  So higher revs will yeild a good hike in power (fingers crossed).   But I really don't want to risk damaging it at all, it needs to be reliable and bullet proof. 

I've searched the forum and found that folk seem to think the MV6 limit is about 6750rpm with rumours of the police cars going to 6800-6900rpm (this was a police engine). 

I guess I'm wondering if anyone has heard of a standard bottom end coping with 7000rpm all day, or conversly has anyone heard any horror stories after a remap and slight raise in limiter. 

My current thinking is to go with a solf cut (retarded spark) at 6750 and a hard cut (no spark) at 6800.

Thanks for any comments you could leave.

sound like nice project
can you post some photo of your engine bay and exhausts system please
who you going to use to setup ECU master?? or you do yourself

[lozzzzzz]

I'm not entirely sure, but I think I want Dave walker of Emerald ECUs to set it up but it is accross counrty from me. 

So here are a few photos

Here's the engine bay as it is at the mo.

Although the LPG injectors are there, htey're not mounted properly yet.  You can see I've not got the throttle body, plastic suround (I broke it by accident ).  The old ECU was butchered to make a bulkhead connector.  You can see the inlet air temp sensor hanging there as there is no ducting yet.  You can just about make out part of the vaporiser below the expansion tank. 

Here's some piccies of the nearly finished drivers side manifold (no collector yet).  It certainly doesn't look like a pro made manifold, but rest assured its a smooth bore on the inside






This is how far I've got with the passenger side so far


Here's a the start of the solution to the PAS pump problem.  I decided to reuse one of the old (but not very old) cambelt idlers. 


Its getting there.

There are so many piccies, I'll gladly put more on if folk want to see, but they are all on the piston heads link here
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=149&t=989675&i=0&mid=&nmt=

[2woody]

Worked with Tom Karen for a while - can't for the life of me remember what for...

Most of the business owners in the low-volume motor industry live in cloud-cuckoo land and tend towards new sportscar designs rather than sound business footings. ( that's as polite as I've ever put that statement )

Also, can we have some definitive figures for how much power the LPG costs you ? My gut feel says about 10%, but it'd be nice to see for sure. When you get to Dyno-day, I might come along myself, there's a couple of things I want to do.

I might make some time to come say hello when I'm coming past - i'd love to see the car sometime.

Stuart

[henryd]

Very interesting thread,keep it coming