Projects Track Roadster 16 yrs in the making

continentaljohn,

Your encouraging words are most welcome. I have hesitated to write too much because there’s not much tangible progress.

However, I learned that the wiring harness was shipped on Fri Oct 14th and that the “Vertex Magneto” electronic distributor will ship tomorrow. Hallelujah.

I spoke with Brett on Saturday and he is planning to work in the Maserodi this coming weekend. So there is reason to hope that we may have the TR back on the road for testing in the next few weeks. I make no firm predictions.

My plan is to take some photos of the engine showing the EFI completely disassembled; and perhaps a few undercarriage photos showing where the new harness will travel from the trunk area to the top rear of the engine. I’m not sure how much this info will help others but there may be some worthwhile lessons for members who are considering running electronically controlled stack injectors on their hot rod.

For the time being I have ceased kicking the tires in frustration when I walk by the TR (it’s parked next to my daily driver), but I’m trying to keep a sober perspective until there is meaningful progress.

I hope I have lots of interesting news to report very soon. Thanks for your post.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Thanks for the heads up Charlie and look forward too seeing the new goodies on and running to peak performance. When I ran across your post and I was sparked by the use of the Redram. The more I went thru the post the more the TR was getting me all excited. Its great to see your great vision and skills come to life and also the use of the RedRam.
I have the 241 in my 32 cabriolet and over the years have tried a few fuel systems 3x2 2x2 and now a 6x2. So the use of the FI stacks really sparks my interest. Good luck with the new harness!

 

Continentaljohn

On the contrary, thank you for your encouragement and interest, it is you and other rodders who make me want to keep on truckin’.

Kudos for your experimentation with various inductions systems on the Red Ram. In my automotive heart-of-hearts the little Red Ram is my favorite Hemi.

Have you ever tried one of the mid 50s Offy 1x4bbl alum manifolds? The carburator mounting pad is designed for the old smaller footprint such as the Carter WCFB. I have often wondered whether milling out the “4-holer” and mounting a deep spacer would make a nice setup. The low profile and small runners would still be there, but I bet the velocity through the narrow runners would yield fantastic low end torque — just the ticket for a mild hot rod motor.

I have two 50s vintage (1954) Offy 1x4bbls for the Red Ram; perhaps we could arrange a long term loan if you ever wanted to give this manifold a try.

In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for the Maserodi‘s upcoming heart transplant.

Thanks again for the kind post.

Trakrodstr
Aka charlie

 

All most a month now this long term wait is killing me

 

I'll second that! Whats the latest?

.

 

LB+1 and 73RR,

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I have about 20 photos sitting on my laptop, but have not posted any.

Very briefly, all necessary parts and components (known) are sitting in my garage. The Vertex "mag" came out great!

Brett has been busy traveling for his day job; thus, no hands-on progress. We will regroup after the the Thanksgiving period.

In the meantime I will try to post some photos, I'll be traveling and may get some time to load the photos while sitting in airports.

Sorry for the lack of info. We are poised for a showdown with the gods of EFI.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Hmmm...maybe if we offered a sacrifice of some kind...

.

 

<tt><tt> EFI - Every - Fn - Intention {;-)</tt></tt></pre>

 

Hope you can get everything ironed out soon! I see you have intentions to take it down to Austin in a few weeks?


Malcolm

 

LB+1, 73RR, and Malcolm,

Regarding Malcolm’s question, Brett has been busy with his day job at Aeromotive so it is unlikely that the TR will be on the road for the Austin event…Yeah I know what you’re thinkin’…The reality is that we really need to do this next chapter right or I may throw in the towel for a long while. I suppose if I had a trailer I could haul the TR to Austin, but that would be soooo lame.

OK here goes:

Here is the big picture with most of the new components (Fig 1). The next photos show the Dodge Hemi stripped down to the stock Mopar valley cover (Fig 2 and 3). We left the Hilborn stacks in place as this would mean less total effort overall. Removing the Hilborn stacks must be avoided at all costs; if you want to know why, this issue was covered in detail months ago.

At end of the valley cover, toward the firewall, is a revised outlet for the factory crankcase road draft tube (red arrowheads Figs 2 and 3). The green arrows in Fig. 2 point to the EFI nozzle bungs that were (to my everlasting regret) welded to the old Hilborn castings. DO NOT repeat this “welding” mistake; instead use a press fit, a pipe thread or epoxy or anything other than welding to add bungs to a 60 year old alum casting.

The presence of the EFI bungs meant that to remove the false valley cover (Fig 4) we had to grind notches in the plate (Fig 5) to clear the bungs. (Yeah I know the notches are not symmetrical.) The good news is that in the future when I want to remove this plate it will be simple to lift it out after the fasteners are removed.

A series of photos (Figs. 1, 6 and 7) displays several points. First you can see a black rope lying near the roadster. This is the full-sized template Brett and I made to show the guys at Force Fuel Injection (http://force-efi.com/) were each terminal was to be placed when the new harness was constructed. We fished the super-flexible rope along the whole route — beginning in the trunk area, then under the body and along the frame rails and finally up to the top of the bellhousing, near the road draft tube. As we worked along the route toward the engine Brett placed a piece of masking tape on the rope noting where a specific wire need to branch off the harness for each devices or connection (Figs 6,7 and 8).

I assumed that Brett was going to send the rope to the harness shop, but instead he stretched the rope template across the floor along side a measuring tape; then he took a series of high-resolution photos. He then made a composite (montage) of the photos to create an image of the whole rope complete with precise calibration for each branch based on the tape measure. Brett sent the image file to the guys at Force FI, Inc., who then read the various measurements off Brettt’s “blueprint” to determine where a specific lead should exit the harness. Also, in many cases, Brett asked that the terminals be provided, but not affixed to the harness. The result is that we got a big snake of black wires with a pigtail coming off the harness at each required position, plus a bag containing all the necessary terminals.

The photos shows the harness lying on the floor with the major components positioned near the correct terminal. For example in the left foreground of Figure 1 I put the separate EFI nozzle harness and four nozzles. While the harness was being constructed Brett sent our two sets of nozzles to a shop for cleaning and calibration. So we will have 16 properly functioning nozzles available. My old Vertex magneto and spark plug wires/boots are also shown (Fig 1 and 6); however a newly constructed mag look-alike assembly will be used with the modern digital ignition (see the next post for details). Next is a plastic bag containing the large capacitive discharge module (Fig 6; made by Force, EFI, Inc.), which will be positioned under the dash in the spot where the “old” SDS EFI computer was mounted. Further toward the rear are the leads for the Accel CPU and the O2 controller/data recorder module (Fig. 7).

Figure 9 shows a photo of the trunk. The white plastic object is where we will position the mounting plate for the CPU and O2 controller. We will drill a hole in the trunk floor to route the harness underneath the body to run along the inside of the passenger-side frame rail. Next the harness will run forward to supply the fuel regulator near the transmission and finally the harness travels up the back of the bell housing. The small harness for the eight EFI nozzles will connect to the main harness near the road draft tube. The nozzles and wiring will be covered by the alum valley plate (Fig 5). I bought a small sheet (6”x14”) of aluminum/ceramic heat shield, which will lie between the “real” factory valley plate (Fig 1) and the fuel rail/nozzles. On top of all this stuff is where the false alum valley plate (Fig 4) sits.

OK that’s enuff. I’ll add some more text and photos of the newly fabricated Vertex mag look-alike module soon.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Very intresting. I read the first of this quite a while back, just found it again. Am now putting it in my favorites to keep up. Good luck on the new system. Dw.

 

Charlie,

You must be frustrated as hell. Sometimes it's best to walk away for awhile and regroup. But that's even tougher the closer you get to completion. As for me, the Healey is roadworthy and the only niggle is it runs a little hot. Will try a fan shroud and if that doesn't work, will go electric. Click my link below for a ride-along video.
Hope you get your efi worked out and you get a chance to drive that beauty.

Happy Healeydays,

 

Rick and Circletrack 40,

Thanks for your interest Circletrack, we will try to make enough progress so that this thread will be interesting and not a whine fest by yours truly.

Rick,

Way to go! Good for you. I'm sending you a photo of my "thumbs-up" by mental telepathy. You're the man.

When I read about the success of other enthusiast's car projects, I get fired up again. Also, as you know it's good to make small victories to moderate the long term frustrations. The new "mag" is a good example. I'll add text and photos in the next few days. It came out "perfect" in workmanship and appearance. I guess we'll have to see how it performs as an ignition timing device before I declare complete victory.

The workmanship of Force FI guys on the EFI harness is first class. Really nicely laid out and well executed. So there have been some real victories in the last few weeks regarding new gizmos.

I have a nice new set of Smith Bros non-adjustable push rods. Also, I have been working with a local shop on mixing and matching a protective coating for my Halibrand mag wheels. I am tying to emulate the appearance of the Dow 7 coating that Halibrand used to protect their wheels, until delivery, back in the 50s. We'll see how it goes, the finish has got to have that greeny-gold with yellow iridescent look . If the wheels look right I'll mount some tall skinny radial tires to use for long road trips (should that happy event ever occur). The present bias ply tires look fantastic, in my opinion, but are pretty pricey and don't seem to be delivering high wear resistance.

Congrats again on your Healey, it sounds great on your video.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Charlie,

I subscribed to your thread a couple days ago and finally sat down to read it today (from noon til nearly 10 PM). It's hard to put down a good book. First off, you're building my dream car, too. I've always wanted a track roadster. My resources are probably a lot more limited as I'm retired, but you really nailed my vision. I even like the color.

Keep your head in the game and you will overcome the litany of obstacles. You've already invested too much of yourself to stop now. I look forward to future posts and perhaps some magazine coverage. Moserodi will ride again!

Mike

 

Kind comments like yours, Mike, are a major boost to my morale...honest.

I like the blown Metro in your avatar. In the 1960s I worked at Eddies Texaco at the corner of Santa Anita and Foothill (old Route 66). Our station car was a turquoise and white Metropolitan. I drove the Metro to repair many a flat tire or to pick up a customer’s car for a lube and oil change...ahhh...those were the days.

My thread is turning into a Tale of Two Cities, but what the heck.

Take care and if I can ever provide any insights into the realm of the track roadster, just let me know. As you can tell from my thread there were a lot of expensive trial and error decisions made. The basic package is not too expensive, if you subtract the torsion bars and the labor for the nose. We still have the bucks for the nose, btw. I think with a bit of tweeking the nose could have looked a bit like a late 30s Alfa Grand Prix car or the Indy Novi cars.

In any case hang on to our dream, it can happen.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Charlie,

The more I think about it, the more I want to do it. My Met is being built to use electric power, so that means I'll have a left over MG powertrain. What I'm bouncing off the inside of my head right now is a 2:3 scale T track roadster with MG power and a homemade chassis. Of course I'll probably need to build my own body, but I can take a great deal of artistic license in it's design, especially when it comes to the nose.

Another idea I have is to make a 1:2 scale T roadster and power it with a 36V golf cart motor. I've got a 10-year old granddaughter that would love that!

The design phase is almost as much fun as the actual build, as you're probably well aware.

Hang in there,

Mike

 

Mike,

Your idea of a 3/4 TR has appeal and merit. Why not shop around for some old midget sheet metal and nose/grill parts, also even a front suspension. Then you could adapt the BMC engine and the scale might work nicely.

It would be a good size for your granddaughter very soon. Would a single seater TR be something you would consider? Maybe a narrowed model T turtle deck out back...

How right you are about the idea phase, where all things work and are shiny.

We're getting a bit off topic a bit; but I will have some new relevant photos and text soon showing the cool Digital EFI "mag".

charlie

 

I never read a lengthy thread "word for word" but because of the way you write and convey your messages I have been glued to this one. You have paid your dues and I have no doubt you will be enjoying the TR to it's fullest potential real soon. This is coming from a 63 year old that can't put 2 sentences together and make sense! O and being the owner of a project blown 471 241 helps also.................

 

brigrat,

Man-oh-man, a blown 241....it must be one of the very few ever assembled. Do you know Dan Hostetter in San Diego? Dan ran little Dodge Hemis for years at the dry lakes and Bonneville. If not, I'll have to hook you two up. He is a fabulous character and wonderful story teller.

Well, I'm kind of taken aback...between your post and Mike's post earlier you have made my day. My batteries are recharged. Thank you and all the other readers so much. I'm going to call Brett tomorrow and tell him that the fine folks on the HAMB are ratcheting up the moral pressure for us to get the Maserodi running, or at least give it a hell of a try.

I appreciate your kind words regarding my writing efforts. I feel that if you folks are willing to take the time to read my thread, I owe you my best efforts, with clarity being my major goal.

I'll keep my eyes sharpened for a Buick mag/distributor. Good luck with your hunt.

Thanks once more,

Charlie

 

Poor (M) has lost her simplicity of motion - I have been left at the gas pump!
I am glad old age does not last long - Cheers Charlie {;-)

 

Thankyou for such a detailed and entertaining build journal ...

And best of luck with your EFI !

 

Charlie, Looks like there should some positive things in the Maserodi's future. Would sure be a neat one to go for a long distance cruise.
My '29 "A" Modified is at a friends house to get all the running gear hooked up. Then going to convert the RPU bod from fixed windshield posts(glue in w/s) to actual "A" roadster parts. Looking forward to getting the intake and exhaust fabricated by friends.

Wish you all the best. You'll be a cruising soon !

Dave

 

LB+1,

Yeah, the M is not an example of simplicity. I sure hope there are lots more fill-up at the gas pump for you. Keep thinking positiver and hang in there.

Here’s to more open roads and green stop lights.

c

 

Hummm Lab Rat. Sounds suspicious as I was/am a lab rat too — if that means someone who has spent far too many hours in research lab.

You are most welcome regarding the TR, I began the thread wondering if anyone would read the first post; I have been overwhelmed by the continuing interest. I remember thinking that if I did not receive a dozen or so replies that it would be embarrassing. Later as the project began to become, ahem... more complicated....I began to wonder how I was going to “back out” of the thread without sounding like an ignoramus who bit off far more that he could chew. That question remains unanswered.

I think you may be my most distant responder to the thread. How’s the summer weather? It was in the mid 20s (Fahrenheit) this morning (-5 C) in Kansas City.

Charlie

Dave

If you beat me to completion with your Modified project, I am going to have to treat you to a fancy dinner for getting the job done so promptly.

I spoke with Brett last night and he will stop over this evening. He has a chunk of aluminum about 2”x2”x6”, which we want to mock up on the fake valley plate. We are going to eliminate the old fake “fuel block” (vacuum plenum) and make a new one with far larger volume. We want to make sure that the newly fabricated plenum fits well.

I looked exhaustively via the internet for a 8 port fuel block or a mechanical fuel injection barrel valve/distribution block that would work, but adapting an existing part appears to be more work and $$ than just making one from scratch. Basically it will be a ported rectangular box as before, but larger and machined to have a much, much, larger internal volume.

I’ll keep you posted, and you keep working on your Modified roadster.

charlie

 

Wow Charlie, I must say you have one impressive set of ambitions and persistent build going here.
Maybe its covered in these 700 plus posts some place, please forgive me if it has.

I was wondering how you are handling this:
Basically the average of 8/1 vs yours of absolute (1*8) /1
In the Majority of engines, cylinders are of course connected at the crank, a specific volume is calculated for these cylinders and used for the efi fuel curve calibration. They are also connected via an intake manifold, two banks of exhaust some times merged into one.
That being said, the tps, establishs a total air intake that each cylinder draws from. The amount drawn is based on the volumetric calculations. The resultant exhaust is monitored also across the average of 4 connected cylinders.

That's probably not up to your standard of clarity , simplified. Most efi set ups measure one source of air in, one or two sources of 02 out and calculate the fuel based on the program. You have 8 completely separate sources of air intake, yet measure the 02 on an average of 4x2 . In a perfect world, theoretically all will flow exactly the same under 100 percent of conditions. If one cylinder is running rich or lean that will show on the 02, and the computer will adjust all 8. Since there's 8 sources of air there are no averages or compromises tolerable. They all have to be perfect 100% of the time.

 

Vicky,
There are a lot of EFI stack injection (ITB) setups out there, both for "Newstalgia" and modern engines. They are all a compromise system; they assume equal VE for each cylinder. No other practical way to do it...

I believe Charlie's system did have balance tubes between the runners to get a consistent vacuum signal at idle, but that's about all that's possible.

 

Well at least I got you all fired up! "Simplicity" as you are so far over my head with the fuel management, I can't keep up any more! I have been watching from a far
a long while and will continue.

 

Ex, I'll ne the first to admit I'm not very familiar with itb systems and efi mixed on the same system. Most I know about are for wot benefits at a sacrifice to low and mid range. I certainly don't want to hikack charlies thread here and go off about that. Just his car
So Manifold pressure is effectively the current barometer reading plus or minus any Bernoulli's principle effects, both un-monitored variables.
Then an extremely short runner generating a vacuum signal for idle only.
Sounds like idle and WOT are easy, its just all that midrange stuff.

Again forgive me if this has been covered.

 

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Right you are. Your explanation gets at the heart of the matter, or in my case you rightly point out the fly in the ointment &#8212; nobody with common sense would choose this path.

&#8232;In theory, if the EFI computer in my TR had sufficient computational power, something like the engine management systems used on sophisticated racing engines (F1, WRC, LeMans, etc) Brett could probably treat the Hilborn stacks as if there were eight one cylinder engines on board. That would take, at the very least, an O2 sensor at each exhaust pipe and perhaps an airflow sensor for each throat. However, we have far, far more modest intentions for the little Dodge Hemi.

What I failed to realize, and what seems to be the biggest issue, is the importance of a smooth reliable and measurable vacuum signal. The better EFI systems, available for normal human use in a street driven car, make considerable use of a vacuum signal. In 99% of the cases this is not a problem at all because the air induction pathway has a common &#8220;manifold&#8221; plenum somewhere in the system (here I am going to assume no turbo or supercharger).

Now let&#8217;s consider the other 1% of induction systems, meaning true &#8220;stack&#8221; injector setups; which have one throttle plate per intake port and NO plenum. The following questions arise with respect to the old system we are removing:

1) How does one obtain a more valid vacuum signal, or more properly a manifold absolute pressure (MAP) value?
2) Was the derived MAP signal sufficiently strong to be &#8220;read&#8221; or interpreted by the computer (CPU) firmware being used?
3) Was the CPU sufficiently fast (processor speed) and did it have sufficient capacity (fuel maps) given the marginal MAP signal?

The answer to the first question is &#8212; we will have to fabricate a larger common vacuum plenum.

The answer to the second question is &#8212; in the old system it is MARGINAL at best.

The answer to the third question is &#8212; NO.

There are of course other methods of &#8220;calculating&#8221; how much atmospheric gas enters an engine&#8217;s combustion chamber (throttle position, mass air flow), but for the moment let&#8217;s just focus on MAP as that is generally acknowledge to be a reliable parameter (assuming it is valid).

What are we doing about a weak and/or unreliable MAP input to a slow and underpowered CPU?

We have ordered a far more up to date and much more powerful CPU. It is faster, has a wider dynamic range and has far more capacity than the system being replaced. Further, we ordered a system that has a sophisticated plugin module for sensing and processing the wideband O2 signal from the exhaust header pipe (only one side of the V8; the other sensor will signal to a wideband O2 gauge which the driver will be able to see). Next, we have an up-to-date digital capacitive discharge electronic ignition (CDI) system, which is far more flexible than the previous system. The new digital CDI system can tailor multiple spark events (low RPM) at each cylinder individually, including ignition timing across the whole RPM range. The engine management system also comes with a data recorder so that if a tuning problem pops up we should be able to diagnose the issue by retrieving the data after the fact.

On the mechanical side we are building a new &#8220;vacuum&#8221; plenum with ten or twenty times the volume (but still far smaller than a conventional intake manifold plenum).

That&#8217;s pretty much the plan. The only other major issue is that we had a weird electronic gremlin that we were never able to identify. To address this issue we ordered a brand new engine management harness that will completely bypass the old harness. The hope being that the mystical gremlin will be eliminated &#8212; since nothing is left of the old system.

On the human expertise side of the argument, I have an EFI guru on the job, Brett Clow. The original fabricator, Jack Presse, said from the beginning that he would give the EFI system his best shot but he did not claim to be an expert. Keep in mind that I, Charlie, chose the EFI system and Hilborn setup in 2004, BEFORE Jack was on the job.

31Vicky, you are also right in pointing out that the new system will not monitor each cylinder individually and that on-the-road the engine management will be an approximation or a compromise. But I will bet you even money that we will be able to achieve a average 13.5:1 air to fuel ratio (stoichiometry) from 1000RPM to 5000RPM. Not a perfect 14:1, but much better than in the past when we had to push the fuel &#8220;way&#8221; rich on the highway (9:1) to get the engine to run (not die) during partial throttle transitions (i.e., when driving on city streets in the real world).

To summarize, we have a brand new self-contained engine manage system from stem to stern, and a larger vacuum plenum. BTW, Brett has set up a functionally identical stack EFI system on Don Caine&#8217;s SBC powered roadster (here in KC). According to Don, his stack EFI runs nicely in day to day use.

Of course all my talk is cheap, time will tell.

Wish us luck.

trakrodstr
aka charlie

 

Manifold pressure is typically monitored in one runner, that's where the VE assumption comes in... With a throttle position sensor and manifold pressure sensor, what you have is a typical "speed density" management system. Very common and even found on some new cars. The only difference is the lack of a common plenum.

And I think it is relevant to Charlie's situation, and other members understanding it.