Very upgraded LPG Scimitar MV6 build

[loz]

I'm getting on fairly well with the bigger tube now, I've made a jig to help cutting the tube.


The first tube is all finished and welded up now, before weld



And after welding, not too neat yet but getting used to the SS welding again.


Made some ground on the seond primary pipe now too,




More to come

[loz]

Got some more done this afternoon

You know when your wire wheel is about to give up when it keeps spitting bits of wire at you


Got the two pipes all welded up after lunch, The second pipe isn't attached to the header plate yet as I have to extend the primaries a bit cos they've lost length in all the bends


This is where I'm at at the moment. Again the outwe two pipes aren't attached yet but al the bends are now in place and the tubes end in the right place. With the originals bottoming out on the road I was reluctant to make the collector the same design as it leaves at least one pipe a little exposed to damage, especailly as they're bigger diameter, so I'm going to make a flat collector, that goes into a 2.5 inch exhaust. Thats a good increase on the original 2.25 inch. The websire suggests 3 inch but thats so big, its heading for boyracer terratory. And The surpra I had made 200bhp on one 2.5 inch pipe so I can't see it being a big restriction for the v6 (having two pipes an all).

Some photos then.






The pipes look way larger than the originals but I think this is partly cos they're closer together, so here's a side by side photo to comparison.


There is still room enough to get a fist between the wheel and the manifold with the suspesion jacked up nearly to where it'll be


More to come

[loz]

Well, all the primary pipes are fulled welded up, ground back and "wire wheeled". Each pipe has been extended so that they all fall between 26.25 and 27 inches in length, and line up with each other for the collector to be made next. I'm chuffed with how they've come out, the welding might look like bird poo on the outside but I made sure there were no burrs before closing each bend section and they look really smooth inside I might wrap them to hide the welds

They're well tacked in place at the moment so besides the collector its just the pipes to header plate that needs welding up now, I'll do that really slowly I think to keep warping to a minium. Oh and make the other side!







I might have got a little too enthusiastic with the camera

[Relentless Rob]

Three Patirot side exit pipes under each sill?

I did an exhaust for a CBX three down pipes each side then I cut two lenghs of pipe lenghways (about ten inched long and I cut eight inches) and opened it up into a vee shape. Welded three pipes together the same way you have and fabricated four plates to funnel to a single exhaust box each side of the wheel. It worked really well and sounded awesome.

[loz]

Afraid not Rob it all gets a bit sensible from here back.

I'll be making the collector just as you suggested, cutting a pipe up its length and filling the top and bottom with sheet. But I need the car to get through track day sound rules and I'd like to be able to drive on the motorway without it defening me.

I'm thinking one silencer (not straight through), then just a pipe all the way back, on each side of course. but I've no experiance of how loud that might be I ring around a little today.

[Relentless Rob]

Before you seal the collectors, you can add some baffle so they count as your front boxes.

[loz]

Not a bad plan Rob, I've got to do something about the rest of the exhaust actually, see below.

Had to head for town this morning for some more cutting discs, welding wire and wire wheel. Then I got on with welding up the pipes to the header plate, the right side is all done now, I'll do the collector when I know more about what exhaust system I'm going to fit.

Here's a little piccie so of the limited progress made on the left side.


I got this far and decided to give it a break as my face was beggining to hurt. There are so much dust and fumes from this job, I soon get a headache and can feel the dust in my head its horrible, so I wear this beastly, full face dust mask, its really heavy and the it rubs my face every time I put it on and take it off

That enough of the wining!

So instead I thought I'd have a go on the lathe. I've hatched a little plan to do away with the PAS pump until I know for sure if I need it or not. Its involved changing the pulley but otherwise the pump has remained unharmed, and I've already bought another pulley incase I want the pump after all.

So I took one of the old cam belt idlers, which I'm sure isn't that old at all, the bearing feels really tight.


And took the edge off it on the lathe


Then took the locating centre of the pulley out a bit, from this


To this


Made a collar from an old smaller pulley I had lying around


The collar holds the pulley in the right place, so its centre is over the centre of the bearing, so there is no nasty loads on the bearing.


And here you have it, ready to be welded on.


The collar is conveniently cast iron so I'll grind some weak points into it and when the welding is done the collar can be broken off and the pulley welded on the back too.

I've yet to make the mount for this but I think it'll end up being better than having a reseroir full of oil perminantly circulating.

Hopefully I'll get more done on the manifold tomorrow.




Right so the exhausts...

Feel free to stop reading here, I'm after a few opinions on what to do.

I liked the old system, the scimitar used to make much more induction noise than exhaust but my understanding is that the front silencer (not a straight through) is quite restrictive. Having looked into this a little, I've come to the conclusion that my options are like this:

a) have a silencer at the front the same style as the old on but bigger and just a pipe all the way back after that. The non straight through will keep it quite so it'll just be a bit louder without the rear box on. Money saved and a nice sound. BUT less power!

b) fit straight through exhausts front and back, it'll make more power, BUT I'll want to kill myself after an hour on the motorway.


The engine will be suitable mapped for whatever I decide upon.

I've not got much experiance of different type of exhaust and would appriciate folk giving their thoughts. I want it to sound nice but be safely under the noise limits for a track day, and not be a horrible drone on the motorway.

More to come

[Rob Bell]

Straight through silencers aren't necessarily that noisy, so actually is well worth considering. Plus if you make you're own cans, you could make it re-packable...

[loz]

Hmm, so it sounds like I should give a set of 4 straight through silencers a go. If its too loud, then swap the front ones for non straight through.

I spent today looking at the wiring and I've nearly completed the wiring from the bulkhead mounted terminal and most of the ECU conectors too. I phoned a friend and aasked a few questions about when he did his loom and he suggested red insulation tape and a sharpy perminant marker, and label everything. So I have been and it seems to work really well.

I've started making the mounting face for the terminal.



And here's the new bit of loom coming together



I'll get somemore tubes of araldite and flood the area where the connecotrs are soldered on to stop any movement and seal it up (after I've soldered on lots of spare connections just in case).

More to come.

[loz]

Made great progress with the wiring today, it might not look much but this section of loom has taken two days to make and represents "breaking the back" of the wiring job

I'm well pleased with it, whats left to do is much easier.

To recap: This is the connector that was the omega ECU, I angle grinded the circuit boards off and used it as an engine connection. So this will mount in the bulkhead and every connection to the engine will go through this terminal.

This is the connectors all soldered on (with 7 spare wires). I put some plastic sheet around the connecotrs and flooded it with araldite to seal it up, make sure there can be no shorts and make it more robust. This is the part that will be facing backwards towards the glove box.


I started off doing all the connections between the engine terminal and ECU terminal


And now its a whole independant section of loom, fully labelled so it can be removed and worked on in future.

So top left is the engine terminal (bulkhead mounted), bottom left is the ECU terminal and laptop serial connection, next to the serial connection are the LPG injector intercept connections to the LPG ECU, and top right is the connection from all that stuff to the cars loom, through a great little rachet terminal that I harvested from the omega passenger footwell

I've really enjoyed doing the loom I think I'm weird

More to come.

[owelly]

Good work so far matey. What you need to tidy your welds up, is a flappy disc. Like a flap wheel but on a disc for the angry grinder. It would polish those weldy lumps away no bother.

[loz]

Thanks Owelly, I'll give that a go when I get back onto the exhausts, the one thats nearly finished is welded together now so I won't be able to reach some of the welds, but I'm not too fussed really you won't see them really.

I did anther bucket load of wiring today, having the omega as a supply of wires has been awesome. The cars loom is nearly done now, all the new relays are in for the ECU the fuse box finished (I put some extras in today before neatening it up a bit. All thats left in terms of wiring is redo the central consol panal with some extra switches for fuel pumps and connect them all up

I got the "engine to ecu to car" section of loom in this afternoon
Made a little back plate with welded nuts to hold the terminal in sercurely, and burnt my little finger


And this is how it looks all finished





Exciting new, I connected the ECU up and the laptop and it all works its not running or anything but all the sensor inputs come up on the laptop screen. Never have I been so excited to push a pedal and see a bar move on a laptop screen.

More to come

[loz]

The whole thing is sealed and the terminal is sealed to the bulkhead it should be alright.

ITS RUNNING

it took a while to figure out that the crank sensor wire were the wrong way round but as soon as that was sorted, and the ECU gave the green light, I connected the pumps and it lived, I'm over the moon.

Here's the video



Its been such an awesome summer, today was my last day working on the car and its such a fitting end. I'll still dabble, but I'll not be able to get it finished till the Christmas I think.

Thanks for all your comments and support so far.

[fha772]

WELL DONE!!!!

You seem very happy in the video

[Mr Bounce]

That's awesome!! Am SO impressed with this