M1tch's long term 1ZZ build - Project 11

[shnazzle]

Cool.
MAF mod is a trick. I'd always prefer an ecu-based solution over that.

Airflow should be absolutely fine so suspect the rich running will have more to do with either duff sensors (maf/o2) or a leak somewhere. Shouldn't be running pig rich from stock.

Can definitely see your point on CoPilot, it's massively outdated and really needs a pro to sort it... and then for what? Bernie's is pushing 171hp with flywheel, stg1 cams, PPE intake, sports  cat and free flowing exhaust and well-tuned PFC...
A whopping 30bhp.
So you're probably right about the 150ish.
I probably make more hp wearing t-shirt and shorts and going on a diet.

So, best to just knock it on the head and slap a turbo on for an easy 100hp

[m1tch]

Cool.
MAF mod is a trick. I'd always prefer an ecu-based solution over that.

Airflow should be absolutely fine so suspect the rich running will have more to do with either duff sensors (maf/o2) or a leak somewhere. Shouldn't be running pig rich from stock.

Can definitely see your point on CoPilot, it's massively outdated and really needs a pro to sort it... and then for what? Bernie's is pushing 171hp with flywheel, stg1 cams, PPE intake, sports  cat and free flowing exhaust and well-tuned PFC...
A whopping 30bhp.
So you're probably right about the 150ish.
I probably make more hp wearing t-shirt and shorts and going on a diet.

So, best to just knock it on the head and slap a turbo on for an easy 100hp

Yeah, I will look into other options to run the ECU in a slightly different part of the stock map and see where that gets me - was meant to say that it was running super rich when using the PFC and couldn't get the Copilot autotune to pull out fueling. I have noticed that the stock ECU does run to around 12:1 on WOT so its not too bad, I think its just being conservative with the ignition timing and use of VVTi.

NA tuning is expensive for not a huge amount of gain, I will still use the PFC just not right now, at least I know it will all work when the time comes to run it and can load a turbo basemap and rescale the injectors etc to get the car drivable to a dyno etc.

I think I will look to get the spare engine built up as well as the gearbox upgraded, swap that in at some point and run the stock ECU (with no real power gains but no oil usage!), will then look to bolt on the turbo and run the PFC, might upgrade further to an AEM EMS4 in the future depending on the limitations of mapping on the PFC for higher power.

Its also why I am looking at ways to remove some weight, I do want to remove weight out the car but I also want to make sure its still usable as a car considering its still a road car, I am however going for the power to weight ratio as removing weight helps all over the car not just acceleration but cornering as well as fuel economy.

Now that the weather is getting a bit wetter there is less chance I have to get to drive the car so will look to do a few larger mods soon (such as the soft top removal) as this would take the car off the road until the seatbelt brackets are back in the car.

[paul.mcgrath]

I've seriously gone off the idea of forging my 1zz cause of the near release of the S3 conversion , so my whole turbo setup may be up for sale soon , just a thought ......

[m1tch]

I've seriously gone off the idea of forging my 1zz cause of the near release of the S3 conversion , so my whole turbo setup may be up for sale soon , just a thought ......

Not sure if your setup will be able to support the power I will be aiming for but will bear it in mind for a low boost setup.

[paul.mcgrath]

OK sure , what numbers are you looking for ?

Kit is good for 270 whiffbitz said when fitting it , I've added intercooler and custom exhaust since then and have MWR 630 injectors and fuel rail ready to in aswell , Lee the sparky running same setup but much higher boost

[m1tch]

OK sure , what numbers are you looking for ?

Kit is good for 270 whiffbitz said when fitting it , I've added intercooler and custom exhaust since then and have MWR 630 injectors and fuel rail ready to in aswell , Lee the sparky running same setup but much higher boost

Looking at between 3-400 running around a bar and a half of boost as the engine will have forged internals - what ECU are you running?

[paul.mcgrath]

I would love those numbers from our engine but from info I've read and been told even forging its seems the oil pick up issue will always be there and the gearbox doesn't like anything above 250ish torque wise even with the stronger gears , what are your thoughts ?

Apexi power commander ECU I'm running 0.4 bar , my car on whiffbitz site for dyno graph and other details

[m1tch]

I would love those numbers from our engine but from info I've read and been told even forging its seems the oil pick up issue will always be there and the gearbox doesn't like anything above 250ish torque wise even with the stronger gears , what are your thoughts ?

Apexi power commander ECU I'm running 0.4 bar , my car on whiffbitz site for dyno graph and other details

The Juba gearsets are rated to 400bhp+ and 265ftlb torque, I would look at running the E153 box but its too heavy and has the wrong gear ratios.

I think I am going to go with a custom setup for my needs and piece it together myself as I would probably run a charge cooler instead.

Update on the PFC - I have now slept on it and decided to give it another go and have now had some success:

I know that for some reason my car runs rather rich on the premapped unichip as well as the MWR basemap, its rich everywhere so I decided to reset everything to the MWR basemap again and start over.

The fueling is based on the basemap vs the injection map, Copilot changes the injection map whereas I have read its best to leave the injection map all at 100% - so you can also scale injectors base off the stock settings.

I am therefore tweaking the basemap but using Copilot to edit multiple cells, I knew that the map for my car was rich everywhere so I simply pulled out 5% of the values within the basemap and hey presto the car runs much better. Its still running richer than I would like at the slightly higher engine load (which is good for safety) but much better driveability. I have also logged knock etc and the highest I have seen so far on the runs I have done was I believe 23 which was at low load and might have been on decel.

I am going to tweak the map and see how the logged AFRs and knock looks like but only tweak certain parts, I can see that at the higher RPMs and load the car is getting much richer so I will look to take out say 1% basemap from those values and then see how it goes. I have found a suggested AFR target by cell and there is also a smoothing tool when editing blocks of cells.

I am going to have another go at the PFC and see where I end up, I still have the stock ECU if I need to swap back but its really good to be able to log the AFRs and knock values I can get from the PFC though which is really very useful so I can nibble away at honing the cells but the simple reduction for the whole map has done wonders and the knock levels even under load are in either single figures or low 10s - I would get concerned if the figure gets about around 20.

[m1tch]

I have also found that there is a function within FC edit where it can recalc the base map and reset the injector map to 1.000 - you can't actually get to the basemap with the commander whereas I can with FC edit and Copilot, I am going to have another go using Copilot for autotuning as I initially avoided it again as it was adjusting the injector map - now that I know I can recalc the basemap and reset the injector map back to 1.000 I will be happier with scaling when fitting different injectors.

[m1tch]

Have decided to pull the PFC out again, was running it on a tuned NA map from another car which was performing well, however with only a small increase in performance vs the possible issue of running lean due to it not being the same engine its mapped to I decided its best to pull it out.

With regards to power goals for the car I thought it would be good to chose a car that I admire but won't be able to ever afford to then see if I can get the same power to weight ratio from it, my thoughts went to the Nissan GTR R35 which produces various levels of power but has a fairly heavy kerb weight of 1,740kg.

The BHP per ton of the various facelift models were:

Initial - 478bhp @ 1740kg = 279 bhp per ton
2010 - 523bhp @ 1740kg = 305 bhp per ton
2012 - 545bhp @ 1740kg = 318 bhp per ton
Nismo - 591bhp @ 1740kg = 344 bhp per ton
GT1 & GT3- 590bhp @ 1250kg = 480 bhp per ton

From these figures you can see that the GT1 or GT3 cars are kinda out the picture to match up, but then again those aren't road going cars so the aim would be to go for the top spec Nismo GTR.

Due to the lower weight of the MR2 and some weight reduction I should be able to shave it down to around 950kg (maybe less), looking at a few power levels here are the calculations:

280bhp (double stock) - 299bhp per ton <---better than first GTRs
290bhp - 310 bhp per ton <---better than initial facelift GTRs
300bhp - 321 bhp per ton <---better than 2012 facelift GTRs
310bhp - 332 bhp per ton
320bhp - 342 bhp per ton <---close to Nismo edition
325bhp - 348 bhp per ton
450bhp - 481 bhp per ton <---GT1/GT3 GTR

Looks like my initial power goal is to run 325bhp, the Juba and SSC gears in the gearbox (my limiting factor) may hold at 450bhp however I think running the same power to weight as a Nismo GTR would be rather awesome!

[m1tch]

Exhaust manifold is now off finally, cams are out, need to get myself a 10mm double hex socket to be able to get the head bolts out (will be replacing with ARP headstuds), will be good to see what the internals are like but everything so far is pointing to a well looked after engine.

[1979scotte]

I think 400bhp+ from a turbo 1zz would be undriveable on the road.
Anything over 300 bhp per ton puts you into seriously fast territory.
325 would do that for my V6. 1100kg.
Remember your body weight makes a significant difference to your power to weight.
I add 10% almost when I sit in my 2 with a GTR it would be under 6% and a Bentley Continental GT it would only be 4%.

[Essex2Visuvesi]

Remember your body weight makes a significant difference to your power to weight.
I add 10% almost when I sit in my 2 with a GTR it would be under 6% and a Bentley Continental GT it would only be 4%.

Another added reason to go for a poo before embarking on a track day!   s:lol: :lol: s:lol:  


Also saves on clean up times should one run out of talent before one runs out of corner

[delhusband]

LOL!

[m1tch]

I think 400bhp+ from a turbo 1zz would be undriveable on the road.
Anything over 300 bhp per ton puts you into seriously fast territory.
325 would do that for my V6. 1100kg.
Remember your body weight makes a significant difference to your power to weight.
I add 10% almost when I sit in my 2 with a GTR it would be under 6% and a Bentley Continental GT it would only be 4%.

I will be taking my own weight into account as well (and are in the process of reducing it a bit), I once watched a video on Youtube on a track focused Civic over in the US, the guy was shaving every gram out the suspension, bodywork, doors lower arms etc. The guy however wasn't exactly lightweight shall we say and I saw in the comments someone had mentioned that it would be cheaper and more effective for the driver to go on a diet than the car! I need to get the car weighed once I remove the soft top somehow, might look to see if an alignment shop also has a set of corner weight scales so I can sort out car setup and get the car weighed at the same time.

I plan to get some of those K sport Coilovers from TCB soon, should reduce weight slightly more vs the stock shocks and Tein springs but give much more control in road holding.

I have come up with a slight issue with the car at the moment, the battery has decided to go flat so I think it might be how the wideband gauge is wired in, might look to temporarily remove the gauge as I am running on the stock ECU again as I believe it might be causing a slight drain in the system. I might even look to SORN it over the winter and upgrade suspension and sort out the soft top etc - one of the reasons why I bought a hard top was that I knew the car would be sitting around a bit in the wet so didn't want the car getting damp inside.

On another note, I have ordered a set of double hex sockets to be able to take the head off the engine, still need to sort out removing the front pulley so I can get the front cover off as well but will cross that bridge when I come to it - I do have the OEM flywheel so I should be able to reattach that and use it to lock the crank etc.

I have also just worked out that with the car being 950kg and me being 80kg giving a total of 1030kg, at 335bhp the power to weight would be 350bhp/ton, me sitting in the Nismo would bring it down to 330bhp/ton so still attainable - with the added benefit that even a small reduction in weight in the MR2 would make a larger difference in % terms vs the GTR.

[1979scotte]

It's going to be seriously rapid.
I agree that going on a diet is probably the best way to improve the power to weight ratio.
If your fat like me anyway.

[m1tch]

It's going to be seriously rapid.
I agree that going on a diet is probably the best way to improve the power to weight ratio.
If your fat like me anyway.

Will also be looking to fit a traction control system in as well which should help, coupled with a 'boost by gear' either ECU or boost controller to maintain traction, it won't really be up at the higher power levels all the time, probably be running low boost most of the time at around 200bhp but with the engine overengineered for that power level.

Regards to driver weight, its why I also weighed myself with wallet/keys/phone etc before I went for that baseline run so I can work out the sort of weight the car was on the day - interested to know the power the car is currently making with the stock ECU though - guessing at the same power level at a brand new 1zz vs my lightly modded 1zz with 175k miles on it!

[m1tch]

Cylinder head bolts are now loosened, took a very long breaker bar and I managed to snap an extension bar in the process they needed that much torque to remove, still need to remove the front cover but I am hoping to be able to get the head off this week to check to see what condition the internals are in.

Will then start measuring up the internal parts such as the crank and see what size bearings I need to order to get the right oil clearances, I can then measure up the crank itself to see if its in spec, if not I will get another one as they aren't too expensive.

Hopefully can then get the engine booked in to be honed out, need to check the flatness of the head though in case there is an issue with any warping.

[m1tch]

I think I have finally pulled together a plan of action for my build, I am actually planning to run the engine NA once I get it back in the car on the stock ECU and fueling etc until its run in (as part such as the turbo are easy to fit with the engine in) but here are the parts I am planning on using, most of the engine parts will be provided by TCB who have some very reasonable pricing for the UK. Please also note that I will be upgrading the brakes, water cooling if needed and wheels and tyres along side these mods.

Engine

79.5mm Wiesco forged pistons @ 8.8:1 compression
Forged rods provided by TCB
Supertech springs and retainers
Stock valves (current thought)
Lightly ported head - removal of any casting marks and gasket match
Forced induction cam
Stock bottom end
ARP head studs
Head gasket TBD
Currently looking at bearing options
Cast turbo manifold with T3 flange
Turbo TBD
Charge cooler
Cooler spark plugs
Custom downpipe and exhaust system - single exit
Thermostatic oil cooler

Electronics

AEM EMS4/PFC/Link/standalone ECU TBD
AEM WBO2 guage
Boost controller - TBC
Subaru MAF (if MAF still needed)
3 BAR MAP (if needed)
Race battery in frunk

Fuel

Uprated injectors - perhaps the VXR injectors but still deciding
Uprated in tank pump
Aeromotive FPR
Convert to return fuel system
Meth injection TBD

Gearbox

Stock C64 gearbox but fully rebuilt and refreshed
Uprated JUBA/SSC 3rd and 4th Helical gears - rated to 295ft/lbs
Upgraded driveshafts (if needed)
Gearbox cooling - TBD

[m1tch]

Further update, still stripping down the engine, currently:

Engine on engine stand
Front pulley off
Front cover off
Cams out
Head off

Cylinders 2 and 3 have some wear indicating possibly slightly oval bores, pistons rock slightly, however I can still see all of the hone marks all the way down the bore meaning its either low mileage or has been rebuilt - guessing low mileage as I am pretty sure this engine hasn't been apart before.

Plan for tonight is to pull out the pistons to see if they are 4 hole or not, I also have a set of T gauges to check the bores - I think they will be ok to simply bore out to 79.5mm for the forged pistons, if not I will look to sleeve the block and go for the 82mm pistons.

Will also need to check the crankshaft clearances as well to see what bearings I will need for the right clearance.

I think I might treat the engine to a new front crank pulley unless I can clean up the current one, really is in quite a sorry state!

Will look to simply wrap up the head for the time being, the bucket shims are still in the engine and have kept everything together - will wait until I have a bit more bench space before I start taking that apart, will also get myself a micrometer and measure what the actual shims I have (rather than using the numbers indicated on them as they aren't new).

[m1tch]

Sump is off, pistons are now out - looks like the OEM pistons, all of them have gummed up oil control rings but other than that the rods and pistons are in good condition (although not reusing). The bearings all look ok, crank looks fine but will check the specs over the weekend to check to see if I need standard sized bearings or not.

Plan next is to remove the crank ready for the block to be bored and honed - need to check a few shops as to the cost and what else they need, figure they might need the pistons and rings to hone to the correct size for the right piston to bore clearance.

Everything looks pretty good and clean in there though, annoyingly it was still full of oil (was told that it the oil had been drained but there was a minor spill in the back of the car being transported - however it looks like the Exxon Valdez on the garage floor now!).

With regards to the pistons I will probably look to mod them with enlarged oil control ring holes and they might be up for sale in the future once they are all cleaned up and checked.

[1979scotte]

When I asked about a built engine was told they would want the pistons in hand before any machining was done.

[m1tch]

When I asked about a built engine was told they would want the pistons in hand before any machining was done.

I am just in the process of speaking with the local machine shop, the have quoted £30 a bore, they will also check the current bores free of charge, my dilemma is that if the bores aren't in spec for a rebore to 79.5mm I would have to go to 82mm and get sleeves fitted.

I could either buy myself a bore gauge and check the spec of the bores myself or get the block checked by them - issue being is that if I buy a set of 79.5mm pistons and find that they can't be used then I would need to get some 82mm pistons and liners etc.

I kinda figured that they would need the pistons as they would need to hone to fit for piston to wall clearance - would need to run slightly higher clearance due to the forced induction application to avoid breaking things when it all expands.

I am taking my time over this though, block, crank, camshafts and head are all in plastic wrap to avoid any contamination, will probably look to get the block to them for checking soon so I can then order either 79.5mm pistons or 82mm pistons and sleeves.

Will also be getting some plastigauge for bearing clearances (need to get some bearings! And some micrometers to check the crank specs but the main bearings look pretty much new, I don't think anyone has been in the engine before looking at the state of some of the bolts on the outside but as I can still see the hone marks in the bores I recon this might be a fairly low mileage engine.

[jonbill]

Liners are pretty cheap, so since you're buying pistons anyway, why not just go for 82mm now?

[m1tch]

Liners are pretty cheap, so since you're buying pistons anyway, why not just go for 82mm now?

The sleeves are around £300 plus the machining cost on top - I will check what the costs are for the sleeving job but wanted to keep the engine at close to stock bore, I might still have to sleeve the block if the bores aren't usable at 79.5mm.

Options in terms of costs:

Rebore to 79.5mm, forged 79.5mm pistons = £30 a bore + piston cost

On the other end, the costs spiral a bit if going to 82mm:

Machining work to fit sleeves + bore to 82mm, forged 82mm pistons = sleeve maching cost + £30 a bore (guessing) + piston cost + cost of Darton sleeves + cost of different head gasket

I will look into the costing of the sleeves and machining costs but would rather run with the OEM sleeves and bore as this will mean the sleeves are thicker and there is more of a gap between bores, the 82mm pistons are slightly cheaper however it doesn't offset the much higher cost of the overall setup.