'79 CIS TO EFI

[Bruce M]

My ecu has options to smooth the Map signal. Either the peak or average over a cycle. That’s probably a common thing with newer ECUs. Mine has 4mm hose linking the Honda ITB vac port, via a simple tee style joiner

[Gary71]

My ecu has options to smooth the Map signal. Either the peak or average over a cycle. That’s probably a common thing with newer ECUs. Mine has 4mm hose linking the Honda ITB vac port, via a simple tee style joiner

That would be a good feature, damping it transformed how my car idled

[PeterK]

A new day, and first off, oil catch can time. Being inherently lazy, I just repurposed the bracket that came with the FPR



…and fixed it to the rear shock mount strengthening plate.


I have room (‘cos I measured before I made / modified anything) to take the base off the catch can to empty it, and also room to pull the dip stick out of the top. Happy days (well until I try to join the mahoosive pipe to the tiny one in the catch can anyway).




So, moving on and following a remark by Felix (Sopor) regarding the risk of oil line adapters putting too much side load onto the base, I had a rethink, or maybe an enhancement think.

So what can I do rather than add an adapter to the side of the oil t-piece and bolt the oil pressure and temp switch into that ?. Well, I could block off the 1/8NPT hole in the side of the t-piece, and then drill and tap a new hole the other side in M10x1.

The sensor will then protrude a lot less. Simples. Well, it was a good idea until I realised that despite the multiplicity of tapping sets I own, including many M10 taps, I do not have an M10x1.0. New tap ordered, so another pause in the oily proceedings.

While in the general area, despite my best endeavours, I could not avoid noticing that the flexible in the RHS cam oil feed line looked a little damp.


I had previously noticed a very slight misting of oil in the corner under the oil pressure sender, and replaced the crush washers as a precaution. However, now that everything is out of the way, it is looking more likely that it's the flexible, so one on order from Matthew (Type911). Better safe than sorry.



I had been avoiding the throttle linkage debacle, but couldn’t put it off anymore. So, in the best traditions of CAD, I give you


Which became aluminium


Was bent up a bit and laid in place



Directionally (no pun intended), this appears that it will work, so steel plate time.


There’s no way that I’m going to bend 5mm plate, so I decided to make the bracket in parts and to weld them together.


After a little of fettling, and with my pivot assembly loosely attached, it looks like this


And when I can get a longer M5 threaded rod I might even have actuation from the accelerator pedal.


And to complete my mock up, shorter rods here (and modified pieces on the ITBs) will join the dots.


A slight fettling and some paint, and we'll be good to go

[PeterK]

Fettling ensured, smoothing off all edges, etc


Along with prepping for paint


I put a good coat of paint on the underneath (and also the reducer that will fit on the LHS heater [pipework), and while waiting for that to dry (slowly in this weather), I turned around the arm on the bell crank plate


I will need to check that it doesn’t foul when trying to get full throttle.

Back a few days later, and all paint now on



Sorry for the interruption in service Phill, but daughter twin 1’s car smelled of rubber, so an emergency dash across to Kent (took 2 hours for a 90 minute journey). Not knowing what I might find / have to do, I travelled light


I couldn’t find any issues, so suspect she’s driven over a plastic bag or similar. Never mind, I needed some lunch. and it would be rude not to visit local purveyors


It might be that daughter twin 1 and husband are off to his works Xmas dinner this weekend and we we’re on grandson sitting duties. As I was there, it was suggested that I might as well bring the little fella home a day early. Surely that wasn’t the reason for a worrisome smell !. Only took 3 hours to do the 90 minute journey home !

While he’s here, I have to play with his toys, rather than my toys in the garage. Nana is convinced that I’m getting more fun with this than him, and he know calls it Nandad’s toy.




Anyway, I digress. Before my emergency dash, I decided to bite the bullet and remove the alternator to tidy the wiring properly. So, remove fanbelt and alternator retaining clamp bolt, loosen rear two engine cover bolts and pull


Thread new blue wire


Remove old thin gauge earth wires and old blue wire, and replace warning light feed


Then add some Tessa tape loom binding


Check everything is in the right place


And refit



I also opened the coil catch can, to check for internal baffling. Not sure whether these will suffice, but I’ll try it and see.



Next week I Have MOT-ing of daughter twin 2’s Fiesta, dog sitting for two days, some social three-line whips stuff, but should be back in the garage at the end of the week.

[The Garage Bitch]

Knowing Nana, Twin Daughters #1 & #2 and #1's wee fella the tales make me

See you soon Nandad

[PeterK]

Postie came (again) on Saturday, so I snuck out into the garage after young grandson had been collected. Only had about 90 minutes, but good to play on my stuff after the few days enforced abstinence. First up, my main 12V supply to the EFI fuse panel & relays. I added some heat protective sleeving to my red wire


Threaded it from the starter area, and up into the rhs of the engine bay (viewed from the rear)

Added a ring terminal (and some insulting tape)


And attached it to the starter



Not in anyway connected, other than I now had it (thanks as usual to Matthew at Type911), I installed my replacement cam oil feed pipe


Having thought further about my new oil pressure and temperature switch, and despite my new M10x1.0 tap having arrived, I have moved to plan C. Rather than have it tee’d off the pressure sender, I am going to fit it in place of the pressure switch (attached to the idiot light on the dash). To drive that light, I will just use an output from the ECU. Much neater all round hopefully. So, that decided, I refitted the pressure sender (without a tee) and tightened my oil lines.



A new day, a new set of deliveries. I finally had the terminal, so fitted it to my (other) red wire, and inserted it in my 48 way ECU connector. I then ran the loom from the passenger area, through the heel board (grommet on wire, but not fitted to the hole yet – I have pulled the loom as far through to the engine bay as I can, to give me more room while I wire it to the multi-connectors, when I can pull back to its final position)


It runs up and above the heater flapper valve (might add more insulation here in due course) and it will be cable tied to the existing loomage in this area.

And into the engine bay


So, where will my multi-way connector go – maybe here (my best CAD)



Courtesy of Felix (Sopor) and his US travels, I am now the proud owner of a Clewett cam sensor kit. Can it be fitted with the engine in situ …….

First remove 2 bolts from the top of the rear engine tinware


Then the 5 below (should have been 7, but 2 were strangely missing – or maybe never fitted)


This gives access to the cam end cover plate thingy.


Interweb advice is to drill a small hole, put a self tapping screw in and simply pull it out.


Simply my AR$E.
I did eventually get it out (had to, as even if the Clewett kit had an issue, the cover plate was no longer fit for purpose), but it involved levering (using a piece of thick steel to spread any levering forces away from the cam housing), cussing, dremmeling, jamming with various pry bars, more cussing and mucho swearing, etc, but eventually



A quick trial fit


The Clewett kit comes with a guide, so that with the engine set to 120’ before TDC on No.1 compression stroke, you can add a small M5 bolt to be detected by the cam sensor. My 964 cams already had 4 M6 threaded holes, and although not exactly in the right place, they were so close that If I had tried to drill a new hole using the Clewett jig, it would have run half in to the existing hole. Close enough for me (but let’s hope its close enough for the ECU !)


There’s then some faffing about, adding washers under the small bolt so that the head of the bolt is the required depth away from the sensor mounting flange. I have 2 sets of digital vernier calipers – 1 set keeps switching off, the replacement set has about 0.7mm difference between the internal and external jaws (got a refund for those). I really struggled to get repeatable results today, so maybe time to pend £120 rather than £10 on my calipers.

Anyway, I digress. All set, lock-tighted in and reassembled


Engine tinware modified to clear, and a dab of paint added to the ground edges.


So, can you instal a cam sensor with the engine in-situ – yes you can.

[Bruce M]

Cam sensor angle isn’t too fussy. Typically it triggers shortly before #1 TDC. Using leading or trailing trigger setting in the ECU can make a difference though (sensor approaching the bolt head or leaving it).

[PeterK]

Dog-sitting went fine, daughter’s Fiesta MOT less so, but nothing that a new lower ball joint and a spot of welding can’t fix.
The welding, as expected with these things & even though it’s not an M3, turned from a very small hole into a bigger, then even bigger hole, complete with a second hole at the end of the sill. Some bishing, bashing and boshing followed, then some weldy weldy and some filling and wafting of spray primer, base and clear coats. I did take it back for its retest with only primer on it, just to show that it had been done properly before I hid the evidence. I then had to wipe the oily finger prints off it before proceeding with the rest of the painting.

I have been allowed back in the garage now, so time for a brief update. I tried to refit the engine tinware over the cam sensor, decided that it would never lie flat, so took the tin snips to it, followed by some epoxy paint.


Today It was bolted back in place


While waiting for the paint to dry, I roughed out the holder for the wiring connectors in aluminium



I turned my thoughts to the wiring and specifically reducing the pile of loomage that will no longer be needed. I could have left most of it alone, but I want to clean up the looks of the engine bay, and remove unnecessary and/or shorten required loom runs. Anybody recognise this – is it important as it accidentally fell off while I was snipping.


Whilst it still looks a little on the messy side, I have removed several wires relating to the old CIS & CDI, grouped the old loomage wires that will need to run in and onto the engine, grouped the old loomage that will link to the ECU directly, or via the fuse and relay panels and looped the new ECU loomage to either the engine or body areas. The various large sheathing is only to keep groups of wire together for now.


Some no longer needed wires. I will keep these in the new loomage, as they will provide useful wiring from the engine bay to the front if I ever find I need to run a new wire.


Some of the old, but still needed loomage is now roughly pulled to where the engine connectors will sit.


I need to add connector pin numbers to my wiring spreadsheet, and then the connectors can be wired into the chassis loomage. Then comes the wiring of the engine, which will be a major part of how neat or scruffy the engine compartment looks at the end.


Now onto more mechanical matters, and trial fitting of the manifolds.


The manifolds have somewhere between 4 and 5mmm upstand under the bolting flanges. Unfortunately, the fiberglass engine cover sits about 8mm above the gaskets in places, so a potential source of air leaks if I can’t torque the manifolds down enough to deflect the engine cover.

So, sharpie to the rescue, and some grinding to follow.


But that will have to wait for another day. I will most likely then strip the ITBs, clean, modify, add new injectors, etc and reassemble.

[PeterK]

Well, grinding of engine cover did ensue and manifolds were bolted in place. Although the gaps are generally small (except for the edge of cylinder 4), so I will probably seal off around the inlet runners, reducing the egress of cooling air that will be more useful passing fully over the cylinder fins.


To clean up, I attached a small bore pipe to the vacuum, then a smaller bore pipe in the end of that.

For the tight corners, I used a small brush and a length of more rigid, exceedingly small bore pipe.


I also refitted the (now painted) throttle pivot plate, putting some rubber insulation under the plate where the cabling might otherwise fret.


While in the area, I also removed the oil pressure switch, replacing it with the Bosch combined oil pressure & temp sensor.


And I added a pair of rivnuts to secure the circular connector plate (well, once the paint on it is dry)




Another day, and ITB time. I stripped them down (only needing to slot one of the screw heads). I cut one side support bracket to give room for the extended throttle lever.




The ITBs were ultrasonically cleaned, followed by a quick rub over with a toothbrush for those more stubborn places.



Rather than fabricating a new throttle lever, I just extended what was there. Just needs holes drilling now


These, and all the bracket parts were then blasted and painted.




I was fast running out of ways to extend my procrastination, so wiring it is. This is where I was up to.


Armed with my list of what I think needs to go where


I split the ECU Loom into 1) those wires that will stay off the engine (direct connections) but including the crank & cam triggers and lambda & CANbus wires, 2) those that will go to the engine via the 19 way connector, and 3) those going via the 31 way connector. The plastic cable covers are just temporary, to group and label the sets of wires.


I pulled the rats nest away, just leaving the loomage that goes to the rear light cluster. I had to extend the reversing light wire (grey/brown) - it originally only went to the 14 way connector but now needs to run the the rear of the engine bay, to pass through the new connectors.



This ‘mini-loom’ has now been wrapped with Tessa tape, and to my mind, looks a lot neater, even though it will be hidden behind the fuse panel.


And talking of fuse panels, I temporarily placed it so that I can start thinking about routing some of the main power and earth lines.



Today the paint on the ITB brackets still felt tacky, so reassembly can wait until tomorrow. Following the trial fitting of the fuse/relay panel again, I then spent most of today’s playtime starting to add wires.


I then spent a lot of time faffing, tweaking the loomage in the engine bay and planning out the relays & fuses. I’ve got all the local power and earth lines fitted to the fuse/relay panel. Oh, I also had the distraction of putting my new office chair together – much improved on the hand-me-down that was physically falling apart. However, disappointingly, I did discover that my crimper tool for Deutsch terminals doesn’t do the larger Size 12 that I have in my 19-way connector. Suitable tool now ordered from Amazon, with delivery on Friday. These Size 12 terminals will carry power, ground, starter solenoid, etc


With the wiring, I’m now at the stage where I’m going to need my brave pants, and then start wiring in the connectors. My biggest concern here is cutting the ECU too short, so it will probably end up too long, with me needing to hide the excess ‘round the back’ somewhere.

[sladey]

Impressive stuff Peter

[Darren65]

Great work Peter and looking forward to the road test report

[PeterK]

Thx both

A pause for a few days right now. Daughter 2 brought our grandson for Xmas on Thursday and son-in-law followed along after work. He also worked Monday while I was allowed to change the cam belt in her Mokka. All went well (I think) until I slipped with the torque wrench (engine mounts) and snapped a little plastic fuel tee-piece that fits into the top of the injectors. Of course Vauxhall don’t sell that bit, so a new fuel pipe (£53) should be at local stealer for the first day after Xmas. I guess I’ll find out then whether the cam belt change was successful. I was then allowed to change the thermal fuse in MrsK’s hair straighteners. Who’s a lucky boy !

Today has been assembling a push bike and a BMW electric police motorbike in the shed, ready for Santa to claim all of the credit.


Meanwhile the ITBs look forlornly at me, calling to be reassembled, whenever I enter the garage to get different screwdriver or whatever. They are peering out from under the pile of wire, heat shrink and my newly delivered Deutsch crimpers. Spiel-chucker changed that to crispers - I hope that’s not a sign of my electrics near future.

Merry Xmas everyone.

[PeterK]

Not my most glorious day !. Plan was to reassemble ITBs and refit exhausts.

I remembered that I needed to drill the throttle linkage levers. Did lots of mock ups and scale sketches, used my phone to live stream my GoPro to see the linkages moving to gauge how much movement I would have at the throttle lever, then drilled the first lever arm. When I proudly trialed it on the car, I realised that things would foul. So I welded up the hole, then had to blast and repaint. No further ITB action today then.

So exhausts – what could possibly go wrong. Struggled to get the new gaskets to hang upside down without falling off the engine, but struggled manfully on and fitted the first heat exchanger. Had a quick check look, and couldn’t see any gasket on cylinder 2, so off it came, gaskets added and all refitted. While trying to torque the nuts, my allen head was slipping in the end of the barrel nuts – so off they came, and a washer was fitted under each, to ensure that the barrel nuts didn’t screw too far down the exhaust studs.

Onto side 2. Crisis – could only find 2 of the 3 exhaust gaskets. Looked far and wide, then realised that cylinder 3 had 2 !. So, off came the first heat exchanger again, lah de dah, and back on it went. Now onto side 2, which happily went a little more smoothly. Probably all that recent practice !.

Then on with the silencer, of course using new gaskets and hardware.






Xmas came a-callin’, along with the family, so cambelt change on the daughter’s Mokka, break a plastic tee-piece into an injector, need to buy a complete new injector hose assembly (£53 !), enjoy most of Xmas Day, get sick, sleep for 2 days, wake up, fetch new fuel pipe and fit, go back to bed, feel 5h1t for a couple more days, have to plan for objections around 2 local planning applications, but I finally did get back into the garage for a couple of hours this afternoon.

I had to do a bit of a clear up, as I had just dumped the detritus of Mokka work on top of my bench. That out of the way, it was time for reassembling the ITBs. Choosing the best of how I did things, first I added the throttle lever, then the fitted the trumpet mounts to the ITBs. They were an ‘interference fit’ he says euphemistically.

There was flashing from the ITB casting process


For which I actually used a file, rather than the Dremel, to remove


Then I pressed the mounts on. As I couldn’t be ar$ed to move stuff around to get anywhere near to the press, I just used the big bench vice, protecting the aluminium with some wood.



It did seem somewhat silly tightening the grub screws after the effort needed to fit the mounts, but as they were there and to save them falling out and going somewhere unpleasant, I did

I then added the bracketry that holds the three ITBS together into an assembly


These are the first set where I fitted the trumpet mounts last, but the bracketry is the same, so .. You can see that the bracket has been cut to allow the extended throttle lever room to swing. There is no practical reason for the bit on the third ITB now, but aesthetically it looks like it should be there, so it is.

Then using a little silicone grease on the o-rings, I fitted the new injectors into the fuel rail, adding the original Triumph retaining clips (NLA and stupid money second hand, so I was extremely careful removing and refitting them)


The fuel rail and injectors were then re-fitted to the ITBs


Along with fuel banjos and blanking plugs. I have the option of fitting the banjos either on the ends or the rear corers of the fuel rail. I’ve placed them as you see, but all are loose in case it will look better when I come to plumb stuff in.
I reused the original bungs and banjo bolts (all with new washers) but did swap the banjo parts for ones with an 8mm outlet barb. The original Triumph are a lot smaller diameter.

Here’s a reminder of what the trumpets will look like

The filter pods are from DanST Engineering - they utilise the same filter materials as in the Pipercross filters. Although test results appear to show a slight tail off in HP at the highest revs, the filtration performance should be identical.

So, we ended the day here


Next step, more wiring

[911hillclimber]

Looking serious!
Will you bother with filters?
Oh, and HNY!

[PeterK]

Yes Graham - the filter pods are ‘proper’ filters