30 July 10 ...... Installing the Emerald K6 and bleeding brakes!

No pics I'm afraid in this blog update as I am working so quickly there is just not time.

Finally my new Emerald K6 arrived. Lots of apologies from Karl at Emerald but he wanted to make sure that the base VVC map was a good one and had been testing it on a hack at Emerald HQ for a good while. I had set aside a saturday morning to do the pin movements. The Emerald ecu has only one 36-pin male euroconnector and the std. VVC MEMS loom has 2 female 36-pin euroconnectors coloured black and red). The idea is that the removable pins are moved from the two existing plugs to a new single one provided in the K6 kit. This takes some concentration but after a couple of hours I had swapped everything and checked it thoroughly over a second time. Software from Emerald supplied CD was loaded onto my IBM Thinkpad laptop, RS232 serial lead was connected to the appropriate port on the K6 and that;s where it stopped. Turns out the usb connectivity firmware is not yet sorted on the K6 even though it has a usb port and guess what my laptop doesn't have an RS232 serial port. To that matter neither did my works laptop so I was buggered! A quick email to Emerald on the Monday produced a very nice EasySync usb to RS232 adapter which with software loaded worked a peach. 

 Got comms with the ecu, took a quick tour of the base map settings, checked the immobiliser was de-activated and hit the start button. Went first time and fairly quickly ticked over steadily. After a brief run the levels were checked and the engine given a good run to heatsoak everything and to give me a chance to bleed the cooling system. The Live Settings page is great and everything looked good. No leaks anywhere and teh engine felt very crisp and responsive on the throttle.

I did find the next day that the coolant had dropped and there was a hint of coolant under the o/s rear sill which turned out to be a hose clip that had 'relaxed'. Annoyingly this did involve removing the petrol tank shear plate to check that the leak wasn't on the coolant pipework in the sills. 

Bringing things bang up to date, earlier this week attention turned to bleeding the brakes and clutch. I had put new seal kits in both front and rear calipers and new stainless aeroquip brake lines. Quick check that unions and hoses were tight and a fill of the reservoir with Motul RBF600 and on with the Eazibleed. Brake fluid pi**ed out of the rear calipers depositing most of the (expensive) Motul on my drive. Retired hurt that night!

Next night rear calipers came off and were stripped. Turns out after consulting the SELOC masssive yet again that there were some bits missing from the calipers I had bought used (cheers Junks lol...). To be fair he didn't realise! So I took the bits I needed from the original calipers which were the threaded bits that fit inside the piston and wind the piston out as part of the handbrake auto adjust mechanism. These in itself were not directly what caused the fluid to leak but the seal that was part of the missing bits is what stops the fluid leaking out of the top of the piston and through the dust seals. With the right bits fitted the clutch and brakes were bled through using the Eazibleed. Couldn't get anything on the brake pedal at first and had to have a second go using the inverting and tapping the front caliper method. Got a good pedal at one stage but lost it again so there must be some air still in there somewhere. 

Got the whole weekend to work on the car this weekend as Em is away on a hen weekend so makimng a start on fettling the bodywork and getting it looking like a race car. Another update and some piccies soon.........     

17 July 10...... It's been a long time since........

......the last blog post so apologies for that!  It is because I have been spending so much time on the car honest!.

So a quick catchup since the last blog post. Front compomotives rims had a rub down and paint in satin black to match the rears. It was a diy job in the end but they turned out well so I am happy. Then on with the used yokohama fronts (courtesy of Ben Pitch, cheers Ben!)

Daughter Rhiannon joined in to add the female touch by rim striping all four wheels. Ta!

The job that has taken the longest really and far more time than I had expected/allowed in the build is the electrics and wiring. 

3 reasons really, firstly I needed to fit an electrical isolator with pushbuttons (required by regs/MSA blue book). Didn't want to go down the Cartek route as so many of the ET guys were having problems. I went with the Brise EV200 which meant that there weren't very many 'this is how to do it' guides - well none really tbh! In the end Neil at Polevolt linky came up with the goods (literally). Bought all my wiring stuff inc. relays, pushbuttons and connectors all from Polevolt - brilliant! and I now have a great schematic that I now know works very well. Beauty of the EV200 is that when it is off, it really is off - no battery drain (yay!). Neil recommended the use of an in line main fuse (200A) and primary and secondary failsafe relays that cut the feed to the ecu and allow the alternator to discharge (to save it cooking!) if the power is cut at high revs.    

Second reason is that I discovered sections of the loom that were not in great condition i.e. the copper was badly oxidised to the point where I couldn't get solder to take to it when soldering the new fuel pump pigtail to the exciting loom for example. Two things were needed, to check the impedence of the critical wires in the existing loom and to run a new section of loom for the new things I wanted to add (extinguisher and isolator external pushbuttons, fuel pump switch and coil feed to fuel pump relay in MFRU, change light from Emerald when it is fitted, +12v feed via Brise relay for ecu etc.,). The new small loom follows the route of the existing front to rear harness i.e. via centre tunnel, fuel tank bay and along n/s of engine bay to ecu/relay position.

Third reason was that I wanted to sort out the dash and ignition wiring. The previous owner had fitted an autolec switch in the dash that controlled the feeds to the ignition switch. The autolec had to go and the wiring was pretty bad (and dangerous!!) so something had to be done with it. I wanted to fit a switch and pushbutton panel to house the new isolator pushbuttons on & off, start button to replace the keyswitch, ignition/ignition drop out on/off toggle switches again to replace the keyswitch, fuel pump switch (so I can control when it primes and test it independantly of the ecu), heater fan switch and more importantly a cooling fan override switch. Took best part of 3 weeks to get it all sorted and meant the installation of a couple of heavy duty relays to switch the ignition but it does all work very well.

So with external pushbuttons recessed (see pic right taken before the dash dwitch panel was fitted) and wiring complete. Next job was to make some ally shear plates to support then rear clam and provide something to nail the ecu and relays to. Armed with cardboard templates and 1.2mm ally sheet, they were cut to shape using air shears and folded/returns formed using my 750mm bench bending brake. Job was a carrot and the few days after were spent attaching the various relays, connectors, fuse holders and the MEMS ecu using rivnuts. 

The idea was to sacrificially fry the old MEMS ecu if I had got anything wrong. So with trepidation and a keen nose I switched on the Brise (with a purposeful 'thunk' as the relay came in). On with the main ignition and ignition drop out. All seemed good and the isolator dropped out with another positive 'thunk' when the external kill button was pressed.   

Before I was tempted to touch the new start button, there was the small matter of fluids. Next few nights in early July were spent filling the gearbox and engine with the finest Motul could offer (aka expensive!!). Then it was plugs out and coils disconnected to spin the motor over to get oils into the new filter, take off plate and around the laminova and hoses. Probably spent an hour or so whizziong it over and then checking oil level and for leaks before re-fitting the plugs and re-connecting the twin vvc coils. Re-assuringly the oil pressure light went out straight away each time it was turned over.  Then it was on with the coolant hose clips and a final check that everything was tight before filling with 'OAT'. Then the Janspeed S/S sports silencer and de-cat pipe were loosely fitted (to keep in with the neighbours you understand!). 

With an appropriately assembled audience (well the long suffering gf Emma actually) I was ready to hit the start button. Nothing, not a light!! .... Emma gave me that look that is instantly recognisable from a woman as being one of anti-climax and disappointment (with a bit of "could have told you that would happen" thrown in - you know fellas!). I have read enough threads on SELOC to know that either the fuel pump and/or MFRU are at the heart of many a starting problem. So it was out with the Fluke tester and checking for feesd and earths. Eventually after checking the fuel pump fuse, safety cut-out, alarm by-pass connections and MFRU I diagnosed no volts. Turns out I had connected what I thought was one of the many earths in that area of the car to an earth point (naturally) but actually one of those black wires with a black sheath looking pretty earth like turned out to be a live feed that should have been connected to the +12v starter motor terminal. Hey-ho. So back out came Emma, hit the start button. Nothing, not a light.... Emma retired to Big Brother with the words "don't bother calling me out again..."      

Back to the SELOC thread and the massive said en masse that I needed to earth out the fuel pump relay earth that is normally earthed through the ecu ('cos the ecu immobilises this). With relay earthed and no audience it started first time and ran for about a second which is what I expected and is about all you will get from a MEMS without a matching Lucas 5AS module and fob - which I don't have. Good feeling to hear it run though........