Well since posting on this forum late last year, I have now got a running race car
. 7 months and about $16000AU worth of engineering and we had the debut last weekend at the Queensland "A" Supersrpint Championships. I'd like to say it was a smooth run but we had no end of dramas and we only ended up getting 3 timed runs out of a possble 7.
The conversion of the east-west motor to run RWD was fun in itself and required some heavy duty thinking. The motor was moved back a little from the original position of the Isuzu motor to help with balance (interestingly enough the difference in weight was only 8kg's). The original brake booster was removed and a Nissan master cylinder put in it's place with no booster. The steering rack had to be moved forwards and down to get the motor to fit under the bonnet, this lead to having to change the steering arms to stop the bump steer. The gearbox is the original Gemini box with a modified housing to bolt up to the back of the C20XE (a custom flywheel was needed) and the diff is also the standard item.
We managed to fluke a Coscast head on the motor we bought (from a 1993 Holden Calibra) but we had to do the headgasket so changed the cams to a couple of pretty big ones recommended by Tighe Cams there in Brisbane. We are running the factory EFI with the factory computer remapped for the larger cams.
Issues we had were, ruptured an oil filter as the filter was too close to the sway bay, we got a shorter filter and lowered the swaybar 5mm to now give 10mm clearance. We seem to have an oil leak at the cam belt end of the motor and also a water leake so we're replacing the water pump, timing belt and seals to hopefully knck that on the head. The computer seemed to go into a "limp home" mode, or similar, twice which saw me running on 3 cylinders so aborted both runs. I disconnected the battery for about 15mins and let the computer reset, that seemed to fix it but not sure why it did it in the first place??? Any ideas?
With the new cams etc we estimate that we are running approx, 180-190hp but will get it dyno'ed once the fluid leaks are fixed to stop the guessing. What would be the best thing to do next to try and get approx 200hp out of it? We are currently trying to devise a cold air induction for it and I am pretty sure the injectors have not been cleaned so that is high on the list but first a few questions please...
Is it worth cleaning the injectors or getting bigger ones for the bigger cams?
Is it worth up-specing the supression leads, if so what is the best to get?
Will getting the iridium plugs give much in the way of performance?
I know that all of the above will only produce little gains but any gain is a bonus from here on in. I have heaps on the wish list like Motec computer systems, Toyota Supra Box etc but the sponsors have found the extra outlay a little too much for them so I have to foot the bill from here on in.
