8000 rpm/300 bhp 3.2 rebuild

[wadsworthi]

Yes Graham twin plug works perfectly with Emerald!

[911hillclimber]

Good to read Ian.
Gary: that's the plan today if my back and right shoulder hold up!
If it fails to show any life, it is going back, but only if I get assurances the costs involved are covered by Clewett.

This will be a test of Customer Service.

[911hillclimber]

Clewett have just emailed me back.

They refuse to pay for the return of faulty parts.
If I return the ecu to them, they will charge me to forward it to Electromotion.

So, $2100 for nothing and if faulty, I pay to get it back.

BUYER BEWARE.

[Gary71]

I’d go the Visa route. ‘Goods not as described’

Takes a while but it works.

[911hillclimber]

Yes, project for Mrs HC to see what the rules of engagement are.

If it takes a while it does, but if I can gat the $$$$$$ back, great.
I am now going to wire the engine up today and see.
If all is still dead, then the ECU is duff.

Obviously Clewett are weak. But putting obvious anger and disappointment to one side, i need to get this thing going.

I hope to discuss this with Alex at DTA, the ecu's are well known and they are based in Leamington Spa, may well go over to see them and approach this from a different angle, ie, coil on plug.
They have been in touch via a dedicated hillclimb forum, Uphill Racers i use a lot.

What a bitter taste.

EVERYTHING on this engine from the USA has been bitter, expensive, and you are essentially left alone.

Said it often, Never Again.

[andytat]

Thumbs up for DTA.
I have installed 3 of their ECUs on 911s that I have built, all with great results.
The last installation was COP and it works perfectly.
Alex is really helpful, give him a call.

[911hillclimber]

Good to read Andy, thank you. I could do with some re-assurance!
I have a pm to Alex, and being so close I will call him tomorrow and even see if I can visit him to discuss, only an hour away with bits in hand.

I known them as a supplier for years due to their hill climb years.
They do an 'ignition only' ecu.
Doubt it would fire twin plugs though....
I hope to keep the coil pack and trigger wheel etc of the Clewett system and simply use the DTA to substitute the ecu of Electromotion.
This would reduce the loss of Clewett parts and be a quick fix.
It would bring the complicated part local to me and not in the dreaded USA.

Alternative is to dump the coil packs and to find/go for coil on plugs and DTA.
Changing the crank sensor is not expensive, £60.

So, back to the garage.

Sure helps to 'talk' about this thing!

[Lightweight_911]

.

Very annoying/disappointing for you Graham - I understand your frustration.

However, you need to put this into perspective - there are 1000's of other Porsche owners who've fitted the Clewett system to their cars & have had no problems.

I would imagine that if you sent your ecu back to them & it did turn out to be defective then they would re-imburse you for the cost of sending it back.

It's no consolation for you but I think it's a bit unfair to tar the whole US automotive tuning industry with the same brush ...

.

[Bruce M]

Based on the information posted so far (other info you may know but is not here), I’d say the odds are the ECU is not faulty. Some further testing is required to confirm if that is the case or not. I wouldn’t be sending it back to the USA until I was 100% certain it is faulty.

I’d bench test the ecu. Mount the pulley in the lathe and set up the sensor. Minimal components to get a baseline confirmation of the ECU (flashing status light). If that works then add the coil packs and a spark plug to see if that sparks (adding components step by step to see when the system fails).

Best guess is the starter is creating electrical noise but your comment above (feedback from US) suggested that was unlikely. Due to placement or wiring?

My approach would be to bench test. If that proved the ECU is functioning, I’d reassemble as was but with a bit more care with the sensor wiring. Most of the wire is shielded but not around the connector. If the system failed again on the engine, I’d test with an oscilloscope to confirm if it is noise (with & without the coil packs powered). Id also test the ECU power & ground to confirm those are not the source of the noise (oscilloscope test again).

If noise is proven to be the problem, I’d (no particular order)

1) try clip-on ferrite choke (if the ecu power / ground wires are noisy. These are £10-20 for a pack from Amazon next day.
2) try a few mods such as 1K resistor across VR sensor wiring.
3) try a hall sensor. I suspect you could use a cheap M12 inductive sensor from Amazon (£5-10) to test that option. Similar wiring but it does need an extra power wire. EMC do sell a hall sensor upgrade, if that temp test works.
4) test with a regular starter instead of the hi-torque item.

Good luck & try to be methodical + patient

[911hillclimber]

Today:
I have re-routed all the coil pack/leads. This layout is almost as it would be in a 911 twin plug where the coil packs are mounted on the rear suspension 'damper cross member, BUT they are further away from the starter by about 6"
The leads are not neat and tidy, but a few plugs would fire as so prove all is fundamentally well. All 12 are connected.
The crank sensor cable is free to run to the ecu with not proximity to the rest and about 30" from the starter.
The wires to the Brize starter are 12" away from the sensor, again, just like on a 911.

I connected everything back up.

1
with the 2 power feeds to the 2 coils disconnected the ecu was powered.
The green light is solid as it has always been.
In this state the only noise source is the starter when used.
I cranked the engine over, light stayed green, no alternating red/green. It goes to red solid when you stop cranking the engine, just the same as before ripping it all out.
2
I connected the power to the 2 coils.
Result was as above.

So, 35 hours in / £2100 and i have nothing from this box of tat.

Little wonder I'm unhappy.

Clewett have stated (before I just sent this summary) that they would not pay for any postage even if the ecu is faulty.
If I send it to them, they will charge me to send it to Electomotive for testing.

Electromotive web site says they are not repairing anything now, and their tech guy works one day a week.

Even if he gets it he will not look at it, I am 3000 miles away...I will never see it or a replacement.

My other option is to get over this lack of customer service and change tac.

DTA in Leamington Spa make ecu's and make an 'Ignition Only' unit, £500. It may drive twin plugs, have not asked until tomorrow.

It may be cheaper and quicker to accept this and simply replace the Clewett ecu with something else.

I will then chase re-reimbursement via VISA, though i have doubts there too.

I have always had little faith in Specialists, and here i am again being proven correct.

To respond to Andy's comments:

I have had dealings with Piston supply, cam supply, rod supply, Ignition supply all USA based with this engine, some via UK dealers.
It has not been good and I have paid dearly for thie 'state of the art' products.
Kent Cams were brilliant and delivered in 42 hours. I got lucky going to them.
If a part is supplied new, and is faulty, then it will not work.
You can make 1000+ identical items and one can be faulty.
When I worked in the lock industry we got to 112 ppm, those 112 fault came to haunt us. We made/supplied about 8 million locks a year. It happens.
How problems are dealt with counts, and I do not feel my experience is good here.

This is my experience, and I'm sure everybody else has zero problems and the world is wonderful, none of you are in my shoes. You are lucky.

Bruce;
You make good points as ever, i will spend the rest of the day doing as you suggest.

[Jonny Hart]

As I said before, noise won’t become an issue until the engine fires a spark plug. Forget noise for the moment, the root issue is the sensor.

I had a look at the XDI manual. It looks to me that the unit uses an Ampseal type connector and that the crank sensor wires (which have crimps already attached) require inserting into the plug. In my experience, on this type of connector, the pins sometimes give the impression they are ‘home’ when they are not. I would check this.

If it is this connector type, the pins also require twisting to unlock them before pulling them out. That puts quite a bit of strain on the wire so I would check for a wire break all the way back to the sensor. use a pin to probe through the wire insulation at the sensor end.

[911hillclimber]

Thank you Jonnie, much appreciated.

The 23 pin connector is really nasty.
The pins have to be inserted past a silicon seal and bottomed in the body of the connector. They are ,of course, very delicate
Remind me of the AMP multipins i dealt with in the weighing industry in the 70's!

I have all but lost the energy to carry on with this, BUT, will go through the pins in the connector, just to make my day.
All the female connectors in the body of the plug at to the 'surface', none are spaced back.

This Clewett package is hailed as a fully engineered kit for the Porsche 3.2 twin plug.

I really expected it to be closer to plug-n-play than this silly situation.

[chris68]

Think I'd capture a plot of the supply voltage directly across the ecu while cranking the motor. Need to make sure it remains within ecu limits.

[911hillclimber]

Tried the suggestion made by Jonnie, no difference.
Some days ago I measured on a dvm the volts to the coil packs and ecu while cranking the engine.
9.2 volts.
We then connected a 12.4 volt charge lipo battery to the power leads for the ecu and coils.
This meant the power to the ecu etc was 12.7 while cranking the engine.
No difference.

The sensor resistance is 618 ohms, correct according to the manual.

I fail to see what is wrong other than the ecu is broken.

[911hillclimber]

Chris:
Just noticed you have a 100cc historic Kart, i restored a Barlotti Class 4 7 years ago.