When Upgraditis Attacks. Duratec & Jenvey's - some q's

[Ben Fung]

Seems the well of will power to resist upgraditis has run dry and I'm thinking of upgrading from the CC plenum to a set of Jenvey TB's. But I did have some questions for anybody out there who has made the conversion or was considering and decided for something else.

 

Noise - Will the increase put me at risk on the circuit noise tests? (car is to date a standard Duratec R400)

 

Alternatives - I did consider the CC RB's but at double the cost figured I'd go with the Jenvey's, but are there any others I should be considering?

 

Bonnet Holes - Is there a configuration I can run without having to cut a hole in the S3 bonnet? I'm not concerned with the look of a cutout just concerned (v.concerned) about making a dogs breakfast of the cutout.

 

ECU - As I understand it the standard MBE unti from CC is locked, how did you get it unlocked and remapped or did you get a new ECU?

 

Installation - Are there any gotchas that I should be aware of? eg. linkages that require modification, different bolt hole sizes (sorry making stuff up but I hoping you guys get the jist) Or is it a simple bolt on then take to be remapped procedure?

[Pete - W.Sussex]

Ooh I will be watching the replies to this one Ben - exactly the questions I would have asked, but mine is an SV

[paul seymour]

I went with the caterham upgrade and was worth every penny.

It was on a s v so no cut out required.

I changed to this after a 1000 miles and at the time it felt quicker and more responsive and the sound was

Now some 16000 miles later it still makes me smile when i give it the beans.

I know there are cheaper options but at the time my R400 was new and just wanted to keep it caterham approved.

When i come to sell it i know i wont get this money back but i feel all R 7's should have them fitted as part of the standard kit.

Only been sound checked at castle and all was fine.

Good luck and enjoy.

 

[MartinH]

Hi Ben,

Sorry to hear about your dose of upgraditis , I caught exactly the same bug about this time last year and spent the winter upgrading my R300SV Duratec's induction.

 

The route I went down was a bit different, I bought a set of second hand (but barely used) Cosworth roller throttles. The same as on the CSR. These are very similar in nature to the Titan/Caterham roller barrels but in a single unit rather than two units linked. They also came with a nice CF back box and ali trumpets. the good thing about these was that they are much neater than a set of Jenveys in my view and dont require a bonnet cutout (on an SV at least. Cant speak for the S3 chassis though).

 

I was able to keep my existing ECU and I will blatmail you more info.

 

to finish the job, my alternator belt pulley needed some modification so that the new throttle assembly would fit without fouling it and this was done for me by Mick Attree (mic on blatchat) who you should speak to. He works closely with the CC factory and is a great source of info on Duratecs.

 

I havent had the power measured on my car but it certainly feels stronger and in particular now has instantaneous throttle response. Always felt there was a bit of a delay with the old plenum. it is a bit louder now but I don't think you would have any trackday issues as long as you have a sensible exhaust as well.

 

Good luck with the job, its quite satisfying when its all done.

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by - MartinH on 30 Aug 2013 10:56:19

[Shaun_E]

I have a 2.0L Duratec in my car (S3) with Raceline throttle bodies (made by Jenvey) and it needed a cut out. The R500 uses the roller barrels and also has a cut out. I think it unlikely you will get away without one.

Do a search for cutting the bonnet - there was a thread a while back with lots of ideas on what to use. I think the secret is to plan, measure very carefully (make a cardboard template possibly) and then take your time. I just used a jigsaw 😬 (but it was on an old bonnet).

[AdamQ]

I also have a 2.0L Duratec in an S3 with the Raceline/Jenvey throttle bodies. When I installed the engine (converting from a K series), I was very reluctant to cut a hole in the bonnet and did manage to avoid doing that (despite much pressure and abuse from various quarters!). It does mean you have to use shorter (45 mm) trumpets which compromises the lower range torque slightly as I understand it and, with the configuration I had, which was a Pipercross foam air filter on a backplate, the clearance between the bonnet and no. 1 trumpet is very tight - see here. This configuration also means that you're drawing hot air into the engine from the engine bay, which is not ideal and I have since changed things so that cooler air is ducted from under/just in front of the radiator, through an in-line K&N air filter to a home-made airbox on the TBs (this has also reduced the induction noise somewhat).

 

As for fitting, as far as I remember it's fairly straightforward. I used a bike brake cable for the throttle cable and a home-made bracket slung under the TBs - see here.

 

In my case, one of the holes in the head was unthreaded and 10 mm in diameter whilst all the others are 8 mm and tapped to M8 - see here, so that needs to be dealt with.

 

Hope that might help a bit.

 

Adam

[Birkin S3 ZA.]

I have nearly finished my new motor, it has Jenvey's and cams from Ammo at Raceco, I was going to go for the roller type but some recommend the direct to head give better results.

There 54mm tapered and look great on the motor, Ecu by Omex through Raceline, and air filter has to be on the out side of the bonnet 😬 😬

Chris.

 

[Ben Fung]

Thanks for all the info guys!

 

Martin - got your BM cheers for those tips. I'm now having to reconsider the RB option now but a fun dilemma no less.

 

Adam - your blog on the Duratec conversion is an informative, hilarious and educational read.

 

Aside from the RB's or TB's did you need to replace the fuel rail, fuel regulators or injectors? The throttle linkages go without saying but wondered what other bits I'll need. Not sure what the standard R400 injectors are but perhaps someone else with a better knowledge may be able to she'd some light on if they're up to the job.

[MartinH]

In my case I was going from standard R300 (175bhp) to 195bhp and I had to change my injectors from black to blue. In your case if only upgrading the induction you will be going from a theoretical 210bhp to around 220 plus as in the CC upgrade here That has green injectors so if you dont already have them you would probably have to get those as well.

 

For my Cosworth barrel throttle, I was able to resuse the standard throttle cable and just hook it onto the mechanism on the end of the assembly. It came with a new TPS and I resued the old pressure sensor currently attached to the plenum. No new cables required. The fuel rail was unchanged apart from the new injectors. There is also a breather pipe coming from the side of the engine that you will need to reroute. It currently is fed back into the underneath of the plenum but you can just get a longer one and route it to the oil catch tank or even blank it off I believe.

 

Setting up the idle on the TPS and balancing the thottles is a bit of a black art, but you don't need to worry about that yet

 

ATB

 

Martin

[Ben Fung]

Firstly, thanks everyone who helped with their knowledge and advice on this. Here's a long overdue update on which decision I took for the upgrade and hopefully it'll help anyone else who's considering going down this route.

 

Having spoken to various folks who have done their upgrades, PGM, DPR, the two Steve's, consulting the info from the helpful BCers on this thread and searching the archives I decided to go down the route of the Jenvey TBs instead of the roller barrel's. In short - the part throttle driveability was what swayed me in the end.

 

I'm sure roller barrels are a great upgrade but given the feedback from the various people and resources the Jenvey route was the correct option for me given my primarily road based usage with a few track days interspersed here and there.

 

So with that decision begun my first significant winter upgrade. Parts ordered and arrived as a Christmas gift as a set of the DTH 45mm Jenveys from Raceline along with the underslung throttle linkage. I believe some other crafty individuals have fabricated their linkages but I can freely admit that I'm not at that level of ability.

 

As for the upgrade process itself, here goes....

 

I started with draining the coolant so I could get at the bolts securing the plenum and its supporting strut, this was easy enough as was removing the plenum.

 

Changing over the injectors was also simple - removing the fuel rail the injectors came out too. Replace with the new ones as a straight swap into the rail and bolt back on.

 

Bolted on the TB's and found that the alternator belt tensioner top mounting had to be shortened as the mounting bolt fouled the spindle end of the throttle body. The mounting needed to be shortened by 10mm but that was easy enough with a hacksaw and a little elbow grease.

 

With the TB's and linkage installed I shortened the existing throttle cable and attached a new trunion to the end of the cable to secure it in the linkage.

 

Once the TBs were in place the holes for the filter backplate were drilled out using the v.accurate template kindly provided by AdamQ (cheers mate, for taking that headache away) on his blog which is definitely worth a read. A 45mm hole saw did the job nicely for the inlets and a few holes for the MAP sensor added and mounting bolts drilled out too.

 

The new injectors use a different connector than the existing ones and the sub-loom was purchased from CC. Figuring out which wires went to which injectors on the existing setup before cutting away the existing plugs meant it was just matching up the existing wires in the main loom to the correct holes in a new 6-pin econoseal plug to connecting to the new sub loom.

 

The new TPS was connected by again mapping out which pin matched the pin on the existing TPS using a multimeter and a new 3-pin plug attached to the loom with the pins in the right place.

 

On cutting bonnets - now this was one of the main reasons that slowed my decision to upgrade as I was never sure about the cutout/filter look nor looking forward to the task of cutting the bonnet. Well in hindsight I shouldn't have been so concerned as the task was easy with the right tools - I cannot speak highly enough of the drill attached nibbler tool! Also the cut out look has actually grown on me.

 

I used some cardboard as a faux bonnet and slowly widened the hole until I was happy. Once that was fine I taped up the real bonnet and used the faux bonnet hole as my template to mark out where I needed to cut.

 

Did I remember to say I 🥰 my nibbler attachment for my drill?! That thing really is the dogs whats-its, the nibbler made the job of cutting the bonnet so much quicker and tidier (I tested various tools on scrap Al), using a clamped piece of wood to the bonnet to use as a guide the two straight lines were perfectly cut with no burrs, no paint damage and a lovely finish (just needed some wet n dry) in under 5 minutes. The curves were cut free hand and fine tuned with some hand files. All in all a snug fit and I'm very happy with it. 😬

 

Coolant back in, bonnet back on and next stop a mapping session with the two Steve's at Track 'n' Road Performance.

 

More updates, pics and the final result to follow...

[anthonym]

aw, what happened next? I wanted to see his cutout bonnet looks like with Throttle; Bodies as I have long wondered why that solution is not used as in older cars.