Posted 10 March 2008 - 11:54 AM
well, its been a while since my last post. the mini didn't go on the BH2n last august as it wasn't set up to do the journey. and to be honest, its sat in the garage untouched up to january this year. i took it to Northampton motorsport for a map and suspension setup.
Basicially the suspension was set up, corner weights etc although the the rear toe couldn't be done due to limited adjustment in the (s)huddersfield rear beam (what a POS, don't buy)). one of my next jobs is to sort this - a simple job of redrilling the inner radius arm brackets closer to the heel board.
the remapping didn't go well - NM checked and adjusted the timing belt, set the ignition maps and balanced the Tb's but couldn't map as the engine ecu temp sensor was registering a massive temp spike when a power run was attempted.
they said the fiat uno rad was big enough for the engine (its quite small, core is 32cm x30cm) but some things have been identified to sort out the temp spike:-
- header tank wasn't high enough, so the cylinder head wasn't full of water. the spike was caused by steam near the ecu temp sensor. i've now got a metro header tank which is a better shape to get it higher than the engine.
- i need to put a 1mm hole in the thermostat so allow some pre warm up percolation and to allow trapped air to escape
- i have tapped a small take off into the main coolant pipe (cyl head to rad). this is the highest point of the plumbing other the header tank. i'll run a pipe from this to the header tank so air can purge out (like on modern car systems).
- the chap at northampton motorsport advised that i should reinstate the water take off in the inlet manifold as this will help cyl head temps. i sourced a pair of ally inserts with 15mm takeoff to go in the rear coolant pipe. these will connect the inlet manifold takeoff and also the plumbing for the heater.
Once all that is done, i will mount the rad correctly and chop the front panel so maximise air flow to the rad.
pics to follow....
