Just to bring my car thread back up, since my last posting on this. It has been nearly 2 years since GC has worked on the engine. It was originally going to be the head work to be done by GC, but due to costs, i thought it was wiser if GC built the engine too, which he did.
So whilst the engine was being done by GC, other aspects of the car were finished off, mainly fitting the rollcage. As you can see from the photo's below, this is what the interior of the coupe looks like now
When the engine build was completed, i collected the engine from GC along with a Helix 6 paddle clutch, clutch cover and bearing to fit to the Fiat coupe 20v turbo 6 speed gearbox
To fit the 6 speed gearbox, caused a few headaches for a start. The bolt holes all lined up correctly, meaning a direct fitment, but there were other implications that went with this. The gearbox casing had to be ground down to clear the water jacket on the side of the engine, and the front part on the engine where one of gearbox bolts goes, had to be made wider due to a stud fitment on the gearbox. Other problems found were the starter motor had to be ground down to fit in the gearbox, but also driveshafts were a different length, and the engine mount was approx 2.5cm too short
Grinding of the 6 speed gearbox
6 speed gearbox fitted
Engine and gearbox in the car, you can see that the mount is not flush with the chassis arm
The fitting of the 6 speed gearbox was aborted and i fitted the normal 5 speed gearbox back on, due to time and money implications that were going to go with this project. Some time passed, and more money became available so final bits were bought to get the engine in place, fitted, check etc..
Garrett GT3076 turbo
Turbo exhaust adapter to allow the 3 stud downpipe i had made a while ago
Tial 38mm external wastegate
MoTeC M48 Pro
External fuel swirl pot
Wider oil cooler. The standard oil cooler is pictured above
Turbo fitted for clearance issues
With things getting close to completion, i wen't to tighten the crank pulley bolt, and disaster struck due to negligence on my part, which caused the cambelt to jump 2 teeth. There was only one way to be sure there was no damage and the engine was taken out and back up to GC again. 3 hours later and a clean bill of health from GC, just time consuming due to everything having to be taken off again. A very big thank you to sedicirich for coming to help take the engine out with me, done in 2hrs and 15 mins!
The wiring loom to be used with the MoTeC was given to me by sedicirich with all the ends labelled up for me, stating which wire on the Fiat loom went to each each on the MoTeC, so a kind of solder and play!
MoTeC Loom
Fiat Loom
Sedicirich's handy work!
Finished wiring loom
There has been a couple of reports from people with higher powered Fiat coupe's having fuel starvation when on boost due to the power / fuelling required, so no chances have been taken and now the car, uses the standard fuel pump, to lift into the external fuel swirl pot, which then feeds into an external Bosch 044 fuel pump and all lives in the boot. The fuel pumps also get a direct feed from the battery, as i discovered many years ago, that deterioration of the wires to the fuel pump, results in a voltage drop to the fuel pump, thus not delivering full flow.
So after blowing a piston over 3 years and 3 months ago, the engine finally started, but this wasn't with out issues too. I had managed to get hold of a comms. cable cheaply to allow me to talk to the MoTeC via my laptop and could see, that the MoTeC was not getting correct sync between the crank pulley and the phase sensor. Various phone calls to sedicirich again and other things were tried but without success, so sedicirich spoke to his mapper Phill Lanes from
GG Motorsport (who i am going to be using) which in turn, ended up with myself speak to Phill and going through various issues. Phill suggested a couple of things and even edited the map for the MoTeC at 11pm and emailed it back to me, which resulted in the engine doing this
So there we go, couple of things to do now, welding of the external wastegate to the exhaust manifold, exhaust downpipe to be re-made / chopped to fit and mapping, then the car will be done, but has it been worth it? Who know's, but i am sure i won't be taking another project on like this for quite a while!!
