vrtigo's 4AGTE AW11

[vrtigo]

mickeyduck: Yea, keen as! Wont be until I swap the engine over into the new car, which will be some time mid next year, due to space constraints. Ill have a garage of my own by then though. Would be cool to have a leaderboard per track.

Statek: Pic

[Statek]

Shiny!

[vrtigo]

And while Im here, here some more pics.


My sump and baffle plate after a good wirebrushing.


Various fittings.
Left: First turbo drain attempt that failed.
Mid: Factory oil cooler return.
Right: Phat -12AN sized fitting thats currently in use.


The project as it was before boost was feeding the engine, but turbo was on at this point.


Proof Note how it is angled away from the gearbox gubbins.


Heres the front mounted radiator for the intercooler. Long hoses laid underneath the car, and a pump at the intercooler end. I have a second one, will hook it up near the front at some point. This was while testing the water circuit, just before I bolted it in place.


Wiring for my gauges.


Gauges in place. The A-pillar triple gauge pod was sourced from EU. For anyone wanting one, I can get you in contact with mr2eddy, hes a legit Dutch dude who makes these to order. $200, so pricey, but well worth it. Dont make do with a universal item!

[vrtigo]

I pulled the turbo apart, and didnt find anything wrong with it, other than some oil coating the inside of the compressor housing. Now rebuilt, back on the car, and going great guns again. No noise.

I finally plumbed the water lines for the turbo. Bought some Kinugawa lines, and so impressed with them - amazing quality. Also bought a few lengths of rubber coolant hose, disconnected the throttle body lines, and directed them to the turbo instead. Let me know if this is a terrible thing to do, but so far seems great! Only downside is the car now idles quite high at all times. I can fix this with a block off plate, though, and will do that at some stage. Its minor though.

The clutch feels like it fades after some use, so might need to invest in some heat wrap or heat shielding, and probably change the clutch fluid.

Still not completely happy with the oil drain for the turbo.. its sized well, but the geometry is not ideal, and I think oil might be backing up still. Not a massive amount obviously, as it doesnt blow smoke and the turbo seems happy enough... but something to keep in mind..

Moving into a house soon, where I have use of a garage. The engine swap will happen soon after that, then cert, and then track time!

[vrtigo]

Move complete, now the serious modifications begin.

Planning the following:

* Rewire the entire engine bay with a Link part-A loom, and make up a junction box to plug it into the (shortened) Megasquirt loom. This has the bonus of letting me simply swap over if I ever get sick of Megasquirt issues.
* Will also wire in a factory fuel injector resistor box. For some reason, my MR2 never had one. I suspect the NZ new cars had to have some "creativity" applied, hence no resistor box and wiring all the injectors together into a single wire that then splits into the two injector drivers at the ECU. I also suspect this is what has been tripping the Megasquirt up all this time.
* At the same time, Ill switch over to my 3SGE CoP's with late model CAS. I have two CAS' - one that I modified by removing the single tooth wheel, and grinding one of the 24-teeth off, so that the Megasquirt can get sequential info in missing-tooth mode. Havent had a lot of luck with this so far, but will try again with the new wiring anyway. If it doesnt work, Ill send the MS off to have a second VR trigger installed, and use the second CAS in unmodified form.
* Need to finally mount the oil filter, rather than have it dangle from zip ties... and re-do the oil lines and install the oil cooler.
* Fix oil leaks. Find a good transparent hose that can be used for hot oil. The one I have isnt specifically designed for it, and Im worried about using it long term and it breaking down.
* Wrap the exhaust, heat shield vital components.
* Id like to fab an alu clone of my steel intake pipe. Dont like the idea of the pipe rusting and flaking in the intake.

[vrtigo]

Oh yea - and picked up a new engine hoist. Once Ive sorted the wiring and the engine is running reliably, Ill do the swap to the yellow AW. While its out, I want to address some quirks - Ill put the cam gear backing plate and covers back on, adjust the cam belt to remove the belt whine, and replace the idler pulley - Ive [Expletive Deleted] it by running the belt too tight.

Ill also replace the clutch and attempt my lightened flywheel once more. Been a few years now and its all rusty, so will need those parts refaced.

Then comes the fun task of mating the modified hoses and cables in the yellow MR2 with the turbo engine. Or maybe, with the exception of the throttle cable, which is sticky in the silver MR2 and beautiful in the yellow MR2, just bring over all the hoses and shit from the silver MR2.

Oh, and I found the old smallport throttle body that I took off in favour of the bigport one, for reasons. It has an idle control block off plate! Ive already pinched it, and will fit it soon, so no more high idle!

[vrtigo]

Got the Megasquirt DIALED in - 10psi now builds quickly, and packs a punch when it kicks in. Most of it was ignition timing tweaks.

Ive decided to rewire the engine bay. Have built a relay and fuse panel, as well as drawn up a diagram plan of the engine bay wiring.



I need to source a rainbow of automotive wiring of 16 gauge, and maybe some lengths of 12 gauge for high power distribution. Im going to use a Link A loom because it has a robust connector and good length of wiring for much of the engine, and is a decent price for what you get.

Ill be using the 4x coil on plugs I have too. I have been testing this setup with a test wiring circuit, and actually managed to get it firing on at least a few cylinders, but not all four. Strange problem, but I was testing in wasted spark. Ill try again with sequential soon. On two cylinders, it sounds like a motorbike! Well get there...

[vrtigo]

This past weekend, I got the engine firing on the COP+CAS ignition. Nice! Ive also got the wiring I need for the power distribution side of the engine bay, and the Aliexpress Link compatible connector socket arrived. Ive moved the battery from the frunk to the boot, and mounted the battery breaker. Next, after mounting the relay and fuse panel, I will rip out all of the factory wiring and begin running relay and power wires.

Ive also repainted my valve covers, but the wrinkle finish didnt work, so I will need to redo. Also attempted to paint the recessed lettering, but had problems there, too.

[vrtigo]

Big progress. I started the rewiring job last weekend, and by the end of this past weekend I had the engine completely wired, as well as the starter, but not the alternator. Even so, I tested it out, and it started and ran just fine. The original plan was to remove the factory fusebox and splice into the loom where necessary, but that was going to be more complicated than I wanted, especially after I saw the simplicity of the M2 connector just before the fusebox - two fat power wires to power the entire front of the car, and the starter solenoid feed coming back from the starter relay. So I harvested an M2 plug from my spare loom, and spliced that to my battery side wiring, and it works beautifully. The only other wiring I needed was a power and ground feed from the coil side of the EFI main relay, to trigger my relay panel when the key is switched to IG2. Its that simple!

Oh yea, and feeding the starter with brand new heavy gauge cable, bigger than factory I think. Sounds much healthier anyway.

The relay panel and battery wiring is a mess at this stage, but Ill tidy it up at some point (yea right).

[vrtigo]

Oh yea, and ran a wire from my pump relay to the fuel pump pin on the N1 connector. Will do my intercooler pump another day. You can also see how I shortened the Megasquirt loom and made it an adaptor for the Link loom.

[mknz]

I have wiring to clean up too

I haven't seen you scream the yellow thing up Grafton road in a while. Is it under a blanket now?

Stop teasing and give us some videos of it going (the more open the throttle the better)

[vrtigo]

Hah, actually I have moved. Traded my parking spots for an actual 2 car garage. As soon as the alternator is wired up, ill take it for a test boost!

[mknz]

http://mr2.org.nz/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=14855 oh look, a way to clean the cobwebs off

[vrtigo]

Ive also realized Ill need to translate the 5V pull-high tach output signal into the 12V pull-low + voltage spike signal that the AW11 tach needs. There are circuits around the net detailing what to do, basically involves using a relay coil, a transistor, a diode, and a resistor. Those parts are on order now.

[vrtigo]

The alternator is wired up now, so the job is pretty much functionally complete. Battery charges fine, so far as I can tell. There is a strange misfire still, which I will need to debug.. might just need to adjust the Megasquirt firing settings a bit. Will take it for its first run this weekend.