V-12 Engine into 308 Build, over on Grassroots

Are you running the same gear ratios as a stock 308?

Jim

 

In the transmission yes, its is a stock US QV trans. But all 308 transmissions are not the same.
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The drop gear are 27/30 stock but I run them 30/27 (engine/trans) so here is mine v stock US QV
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With my tires and gearing 65mph in 5th is 2600rpm vs more like 3100 in a stock US QV.

 

Mike,
I'm sure you covered this somewhere along the way in your many informative posts, but how did you achieve the drop gear ratio reversal? Is it a simple gear position swap or does clearance need to be made for moving the larger gear?

 

Walked into the shop and what the...
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Oh my.....at least now the source should be obvious
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Hot start was getting sad so I figured Saturday's no fuel pressure drive maybe fouled something but the 1st 3 plugs out say I need to look a bit deeper. I had the cylinder fuel correction off and a quick look at sync suggest it would have made the issue worse with lean 4 the lowest and rich 6 highest MAP. I have a handheld manometer with differential mode so I think I'll redo sync using that once i find the oil problem.
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There is nothing easy about it but I was already doing a lot of the work anyway to connect the 12 to 308 trans and just did the extra. The trans and the clutch shaft are are different splines. I did my swap a little different that the other cars which included getting the engine further right to center it better. I did that by shortening the flywheel/clutch/throwout setup by jst over an inch and to take advantage meant making a new shorter clutch shaft so I just cut the trans gear spline patter on it.
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Down at the trans end the input shaft needed to be extended so my extender fits the trans shaft but holds a clutch gears.

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The last piece is that means the position of the center idler gear needs to change and that means welding new bearing bosses into the case and cover, and this was the only part that added work to my project.
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For a normal V8 308 there is a place in OZ with bolt-on setups. Its about $5k last I heard but its you've got a torquey engine 1st gear gets pretty worthless and the lower revs at cruise are kind of nice.

 

forgot to include the plug pic
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Most all the velocity stacks broke....its like the screws tightened themselves while it was running.
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I'm reprinting them now and ordered some metal sleeves...when they get here I'll machine the prints to accept them and that should prevent a repeat.
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I was planning to fire it back up this afternoon, but the new WB controller should be here today so I'm thinking I'll get those on-line and plan to run Wed or Thursday. My general plan is ignore the oil leak for the moment and focus on the other issues.

For the oil, it about to get pretty cold so I will just plan on pulling the engine. That will lets me fix the leaking front cam cover, reseal the timing cover and probably rework the whole feed/return oil pump part that makes installing such a bugger. and if I'm doing that I'm thinking lower the return pump and hoses....I know the setup is suboptimal and strongly suspect I'm seeing the oil level in the sump vary significantly so exactly when I shut down its full or empty and leaks or doesn't so 2 problems. That and fix the power steering are the big must do winter items and I guess suspension geometry will move to if there's time list.

 

I put the bushes in the resin printed parts and can now torque to my heart's content.

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A buddy offered to try filament printing with a high temp polycarb so if these fail, that's next I guess.


and while it feels like I step back as much as forward, this feels like forward


https://youtube.com/shorts/cB2uETAwpsc

I added some new code so cranking throttle is in crank position and timing is normal so it fires up nice, then drops to idle settings. Coming off idle there is a smooth transition in the timing which should make it a bit easier to get rolling form a stop, I'll test that bit tomorrow.

The new WB controllers are in and working and I still saw a little difference bank to bank so I settled on sync the TBs, adjust the bank linkage to get matching lambdas then resync down the banks. The new lambda values are very close to what I was getting from my rear bank sensor and kind of confirmed the front bank so pointing in the right general direction but was not to be trusted which is kind of what I thought. It seemed good tonight, hopefully its all still good tomorrow.

A little public service message. The calibration voltages the 14point7 WB controller outputs are very helpful, but the spreadsheet they publishe for helping calibrate the analog output only works right at 14.7AFR. If you plug in 14.1 for E10 or in my case 1 because I use lambda not AFR, the calibration numbers are gibberish. I sent an email with the required correction so hopefully they'll fix it.
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I think your problem is expansion Polycarbonate expands 0.006”/inch in all directions when hot I am in the molding business and deal with this all the time I would suggest using a high heat rubber washer to absorb the expansion of the funnels.

 

Currently the stacks are not polycarb, that is an option I'm considering. The current material is a UV cured resin form anycubic they call ABS like. They say its got 30-40% elongation at break but don't publish any toughness data and the stuff is quite brittle and the heat deflection is 60-65C so it really can't take any load at operating temp. With the new bushings the stacks are basically floating trapped between the flange on the bushing and head of the bolt....but I don't know if that will be enough. There is also a tough resin that they of course list no roughness data for other than saying its resistant to breakage....I could try that too I guess.

This is minor enough though, I need to get it tuned so it starts and drives as it should and then sort out the oil leaks.

 

Today I turned the key with the engine at 65F and it started and settled to idle without me touching anything, really nice!

....but it just didn't sound quite right. Coil output 1 is not working correctly and I run waste spark so cylinders 1&6 are dead. I do love this ECU but I'm not sure they are still actually in business and I know its not in the budget. Its always something.

 

What might be the ECU options for this thing? Motec and Bosch Motorsport probably the only competent solutions?

 

yeah. Bosch is stupid money. They bought motec and it looks like have lowered some pricing although it looks like the development package that would let me do everything I currently do is still expensive.. Haltech R5, link G5, rusEFI has a 12 cyl unit $750 that appears to have everything I need. The enginelab website is still live so I can probably get on or a used AEM should work if I can find 1. I don't know....

 

Are you thinking about changing your ECU? Have you looked at ECU Masters?

https://ecumasterusa.com/

 

I spent some time looking at the pro16 and its pretty ok overall. Its got a bazion I/O pins but not a lot of ways to use them that I could figure out. The list of pre-defined outputs is fairly short and there are only 5 custom outputs which are pretty nice but its only 5 so no way to use more outputs, at least not that I saw. Simple stuff like there is a defined channel for check engine light, but the only way I could see to use it other than to select it in a custom output. Kind of the same in inputs, LOTS of pins available but how to use them? Its a maybe at $2544

The haltech Nexus 5 seems quite good but more expensive . But is allows 20 generic inputs and 20 generic outputs and can definitely do almost everything I currently do other than trim fuel from 12 MAPs, but it can read and display them. Overall its the nicest I looked at today, but $4500 though, nearly double the price of their 8 cyl unit and the other options on the list

The prices on the motec M150 have dropped but other than it is 12fuel/12spark its still pretty sad until you add a bunch of upgrades and they've removed the generic examples that I know were there once upon a time so there is no way to actually see if it can do what I want to do. I think it mostly can? I know if I add the $2400 development license i can make it do everything my enginelab could do (except log, that another $400 for basic, $1500 for good), but there does not appear to be anyway to know what lesser licenses do other than a generic feature list. But plus side it looks like if I order from Oz an M150 with the basic GPA license can be had for $2500+ shipping & connectors and from what I could see in the 1 example it will probably mostly work?

The enginelab website will take my order for a replacement, just plug it in and I'm done. $1900

There are no manuals anymore so I have to downloads the software and go through it with whatever in application help there is so its slow and maybe I just mis what I was looking for not really knowing what they call it or where it might be found.

oh and no oil puddle Friday after running Thursday, but a huge puddle today after running Friday.

 

I lied. I got a drink and spent a couple hours looking at what I could do with a rusEFI Huge for $825 with the connectors
https://www.shop.rusefi.com/shop/p/rusefi-huge

I have an open question on the current rating for the H-bridges....so can it drive my 7A actuator.
Its open source so a little lite on support but it looks like it can do everything except the MAP cylinder trim and TB sync if I learn to work the scripting that lets you add custom features. I MIGHT be able to make the TB sync display work with the 2 custom gauges that are available and CAN info for the reading and a CAN selector to tell it which reading to display. It doesn't look bad if the H-bridge has the current I need.

 

Got through the maxxecu pro the software and manual tonight, There are many things I like and I can get it to do all the think I currently do other than the cylinder trims, The CAN support looks top shelf, I could probably put that to good use.

..... but I have no idea how its calculating the fuel. Its asking questions in odd ways so I really wonder why. It honestly feels like the actual engine control is an after thought. If I buy 1 of these I'd need ot run it on the bench first I think to understand what its doing so I know how to setup everything.

No response yet from enginelab on if mine can be repaired or what all they have in stock....I'll give it a few days though.

 

I do really like a lot of things about the maxxecu pro, the software is just nice. The actual engine control is state of the art 2000 but the software lets me alter and add in enough places that I'm sure I can get it working nicely. The h-bridge outputs (throttle drivers) are just sad at 2A when my throttle (BMW E46) actuator draws 7A so I'd need to keep the external driver I currently use.....but Lana did not approve a $2500 car budget advance. Maybe for the spring.

The ecu I have has 10 spark outputs, #1 is fried. With many newer ECU it would be a non-issue as i could just pick a different output but ecu automatically assigns 1-6. Tonight though I had all 12 cylinders running again. The software lets me select 12 cylinder coil on plug as if there are 12 outputs because early HW did have 12...mine actually does have 12 too but the softer can't access 11&12 correctly. But that wouldn't help anyway, output 1 is dead....but it also supports 2-stroke and allowed me to select 12 cylinder 2-stroke so now I can waste spark off any 6 driver I want. The spark is fixed

The down side is I now have 2 fuel pulses per cycle. I still have 12 outputs so cylinder trim still works. I set the global fuel trim to 50% but it was still pig rich and idle VE went from 50 to 35...I may put it back to 50 and mess with the global trim more. It wasn't running great and I realized after I shut down the injection timing table at 360 on a 360 degree cycle it not right. Also I can't set 2 cylinders to the same crank position, I can but the ECU gets confused and cuts spark. so I set the pairs (1/6, 2/5, ect) 0.5 degree apart....I think I'll increase it a bit though as I don't know what the ECU is actually capable of and injection angle isn't all that critical so no need to find the ECUs limit.

But it runs again.

 

There is a fuel timing and spark timing table and I've discovered they have to match or it sparks exactly 1 time. So I put the channels with spark on the nominal angle, and matched their fuel channels. Then the non-connected spark channels are offset 10 degrees which is as far as I was comfortable mismatching fuel timing. It runs pretty good but was wanting to drop cylinders.

I let it cool and pulled the plugs and average spark plug colors seem to match what lambda is saying. I have a few plug that are darker and a 3 pretty white which checks out with the lambda reading with the rear bank wanting to go 30% lean and the front 15% lean so I'm pretty sure those are the ones that were dropping. Sync is a little messed up and I have the cylinder Map fuel correct off. I'm thinking I'll through some fuel at the lean ones so they stay running and resync the TBs.

The in-line zener fixed the rear axle speed sensor so that reads correctly now....although as I type I'm realizing I didn't confirm the factory speedo is still reading as-was, on the tomorrow list.

The Temp gauge wasn't reading, but the ECU was reading CLT temp from the engine. not sure what that's about, hopefully not another dead ECU output.

 

30% off. Do you think it’s your VE table needs to be adjusted or could you have a vacuumed leak? I ask because I had a hell of a time trying to figure why my ECU was running so much correction at idle. I finally found it was a vaccine leak.

 

Right now, the numbers are making the most sense they ever have. Add fuel the 3 leanest run correctly and the lambda reading on both banks matchand is right about 0.85-0.90. Lean it out to get lambda to 0.95 where I want it for now and cylinders start to drop. Losing 2 cylinders in a bank of 6 is 1/3 the cylinder so it should read 33% lean...as it does. I'm dropping 1 in the front bank, it goes 16% lean as it should.

When I was tuning for the first time with the new lambda sensors the other day I liked 55%VE to see the correct lambda on bank 1 (rear). When I pulled the plugs 1&6 were dead, traced to the ECU. Now with all 6 running I'm at 35% to get lambda correct. 55 X 0.667= 36.7 so VE is right were it should be for the first time and overall the plug colors agree.

Why 1, 2, 9 are lean I do not know but 9 seems to always end up on the lean list, I'd need to check my notes on the others. Could be a leak somewhere. Could be TBs not well sync'd. Could be valve clearances, the simulator says this engine is extremely sensitive to the valve clearances and I set them wider than the cam maker suggested...but the simulator said 0.002" which is the shim steps matters.

Tomorrow I will give 1, 2, 9 more fuel so all the cylinders stay running that do the best sync I can. After that I'll run it a bit and trim as needed to get all the cylinders happy. Then its ready for the road again I guess.

 

A bunch of Weber 48IDF carbs solves this whole debate. /duck and run

 

LOL! When I was learning ECU tuning I kept thinking, I wish this thing had Webers. Now I have 4 beautiful Webers on my 308. After spending an hour getting them in perfect sync I realized I forgot what a dark art they can.

 

The last time I put a carburetor on a performance engine was 1996. I agree they are super easy to get running (assuming you have a functional ignition system) but they are simply impossible to make run right on complex engines. At 400 or maybe 500hp I'm sure webers could be made to work fine....at 800+ from 5.4liters it needs every trick in the book.

But I am pretty disgusted with the ECU. I put so much effort into getting it to where it is and now that the mechanical stuff it final working the ecu is obsolete. I think I have a working patch and will keep my eyes peeled for a direct replacement but will also be setting money aside for a modern replacement. The tuning I'm doing will translate to any ECU so not wasted time.

Anyway, tomorrow AM clean the plugs, add fuel to 1, 2, 9 and get the TBs sync'd. Then another look at the plugs and maybe go for a drive. I like to believe my drive videos (ok the burnout shots) are why and F40 body is getting an 800hp V12.

 

Ok, I added 20% more fuel to 1, 2, 9 and did the TB sync. At shut down 1, 9 to about the expected color, 2 needs more....something is wrong. 9 has been a problem child all along and all the injectors other than #7 moved to different cylinder so its not that but it does trim.

I have a much bigger issue though, detonation. It runs fine for maybe 15 minutes then it doesn't. It seems to idle fine but with random misfires but rev it and well it doesn't rev. Plug gaps not where I set them. ECU is now officially ready for the trash.

Now do I save money and brush up on my C and learn Lua so I can make rusEFI do what I want or save my money until a maxxecu is in reach?

On to wheel wells I guess, that should be time not money.