Kal-El

Hi, to answer your question there is a calculable difference, read here: http://www.w8ji.com/rotating_mass_acceleration.htm I've just fitted the TTV racing lightweight flywheel to my car and I can tell you it's one of the most noticeable differences I've made to the engine spec. Engine response is completely changed. Just a wiggle of your big toe has the engine revving up and requires you to alter your throttle and clutch control considerably. You can't be lazy with gear changes and pulling away requires more revs but ultimately it's far more rewarding. Less reciprocating mass means less energy wasted accelerating engine components and ultimately affects the cars acceleration as per above link calculations. It doesn't change the bhp output of your engine but does does alter the bhp-seconds. for the money, I'd say it's definitely worth it. At £270 for a TTV Racing light weight K Series flywheel which is 100g lighter than the R500 flywheel and includes integral ring gear you really can't go wrong. Order one immediately! P

These two cars are 1800cc, Throttle bodies, 1444 cams, 4-2-1 and big valve vvc heads, built by DVA. Torque doesn't dip below 160ftlb until after 8000. How are they making such big power?

Food for thought: if the engine made the 160ft/lbs as suggested, that would be at about 6300 revs. Peak power on 1444 cams is about 7800. That would mean a torque figure of just 145lb/ft. A loss of 15lbft over just 1500 revs? 145x7800/5252 = 215bhp

Ok so we're all coming in about the 215 mark. Interesting. I guess my question then, is what more could I do to hit the 230-240 bhp other 1800cc K's are managing on Dynoplot?

I think I'd be delighted with anything over 220 too! 160ft/lb would be pretty awesome! Especially from an 1800.

So I've now finally completed my new engine install. See blog here for deets link :) Once its run in fully, I'll be taking it for a power run. Anyone care to guess what the Bhp at the flywheel will be? A pint at the next Penn Sevens meet for the person who comes the closest! P

For those of you following my previous long winded diatribe, here is the final chapter of this year long saga.. Previous blog here: Link Having previously consigned myself to the fact the Titan Roller barrels leaked and ticked over too high, I decided to contact Titan anyway to see if there was anything they could do. Turns out they could, and duly collected mine and sent a new replacement set the following day. Not bad considering I purched them back in October! Thanks Brian! In the interim Jason at Hellier had been busy starting to put together the bottom end. Things immediately came to a hault after disassembling and cleaning the donor block I'd purchased. Too much corrosion meant that the liner heights would be compromised, and in fact the whole block was rendered useless. Not wishing to take any further risks I decided to buy a brand new block from Rimmer Bros. £247 plus vat. Thanks very much. Shame I didn't do that in the first place. Lesson 1, don't trust buying second hand, even if you are told its fine when you point out it looks like its been stored outside for 20 years, covered in salt and rain. New parts ready to go together For those interested here is the list of kit I'd acquired over the past 8 months: Brand new block (£247 plus vat) Brand new crank (off eBay, £75! Winner) Omega Pistons Westwood cylinder liners Max Speeding Steel Rods (I know what you're thinking and I'll come to these later. £199) Mahle Tri metal race bearings TTV Racing flywheel (Looks just like the Titan R500 ultralite flywheel, but is 100g lighter, and has integral ring gear. Bonus! And it only costs £270 inc vat and delivery, another Bonus) Sabre Head 33.3 / 27.5 Piper 1444 cams Turbo Sport hard anodised verniers (£120) New water and oil pumps VVC mkI block mounted coil pack Magnecor 8.5mm race leads Caterham cam cover and gold insert Uprated AP Clutch (Bought from Burton, saving £80!) Jason started the build by balancing all the components. He has his own top end digital balancing machine. Crank to start... (see what I did there?) plus flywheel And all together After finishing, the balancing machine was reading 0.0 on the most sensitive setting. Vibration Free then? ;) The Max Speeding rods were surprising well balanced out of the box with only minor adjustment needed. These were then balanced end to end too. Jason was very impressed with the quality of the rods. Previous versions he had seen hadn't been that good, but these are the lattest DVA spec rods and were pretty much perfect. No maching to fit needed, and were dimensionally perfect. Jason uses them on his Mitsubishi and Subaru engines without issue and I think for the money they are terrific value. Now so long as they don't break, why bothter spending £1,000 on branded rods or scouring the ads for the very old single tang Rover rods? Lots of guys on Seloc use them without issue. Time will tell. Engine coming together nicely Shiny... And finally One complete K-Series monster! I think Jason has done a fab job. I picked the engine up, which included a 5 page build sheet plus all my receipts etc to go in my folder. The engine had the timing marks setup for me, plus the clutch cover marked up, all ready for install. So, two weeks later I managed to con Andy, John (Bio) and our friend Steve to come over and help me put the new lump in. And when I say help, I mean do all the work, whilst I point a lot, criticise and make tea. Now I did make a bit of a mistake. I went to a drinks thing at some friends the night before and not satisfied with drinking at least a bottle of wine, we thought it would be a good idea to do Crystal Skull vodka shots in the kitchen before we left. Knowing that I'd be fitting the engine the next day, this was definitely not a good idea. I felt pretty rough in the moring and didn't expect things to go well. To be honest I was expecting to be typing about all the dramas we'd had, parts not fitting, things breaking, bits and pieces I had forgotten to order etc, but somewhat surprisingly the engine went in ever so smoothly which left us all scrathing our heads! This can't be normal? By the time we had got everyting back on, exhaust, fuel rail, plumbing etc it was 7pm. Since we'd all been at it from about 10am, we decided to leave firing it up until the morning. The following morning Andy converted my loom to accept the JP Mini Timer plugs needed for the Mk1 VVC coil. (It had coil on plug previously) Again, I was expecting this to be a nightmare but actually only took about 30 minutes. We put the ECU in test fire mode to confirm it was firing correctly. My car has an EU3 loom, but I wanted to use the old style cam cover, but have it distributorless with wasted spark. This was the best solution I could come up with. And I must say I am rather pleased with the result. We filled it with Millers Classic running-in oil, filled the cooling system, took the plugs out and then turned it over. Jason had already primed the oil pump and said that the engine would change note just before we got pressure. After about 30 seconds of cranking it went high pitched, and sure enough the pressure came up. Now, I had the bright idea of downloading the Emerald ECU software, and an SLR500 map from their website and using the numbers as a basis for the new map for my car. After all, they are quite similarly specced. Turned out to be a completely naff idea! The SLR500 map was miles away. Had a huge fuel spike (probably compensating for some issue) and barely got the engine started. Whilst holding it at 2000 revs to ensure the cams bed in, Andy got to work. We only let it run for a minute or two as we wanted to get it under load straight away. A quick check for leaks, and we were off. With my left foot on the brake, and a decent amount of load we set off for the A41 again. (Sorry to all those who encountered me and thought I was driving like a nob. I wasn't actually racing you up the inside lane as you went passed, but doing some controlled runs to get the map right, and also bed the rings in!) Honest! First impressions? Well, the first thing I noticed was the lightweight flywheel. The engine spins up (and down) so fast, its ridiculous. Next thing was the noise. It sounds totally different. Much more throaty and definitely more "racey" for want of a better word? (eager, revvy, rortier, you get the picture) The new Titan RB's worked a treat, and it now ticks over at 1100 rpm smoothly. Hurrah. Jason pointed out to me that when you fit the RB's you need a special dowled stud for the head. Titan sell these but didn't tell me or supply them in the kit. Why not just charge the extra £16 and include them? Duh! John was following behind whilst we were mapping in case we had any dramas, and reported after our first run that there were no signs of oil burning or anything untoward. Result. After a few more miles I'll be doing a leak down test to see where we are. (As recommended by Millers). We only mapped it up to 6500 revs, as I am not sure the oil can tolerate 8000. I'll put in some semi synthetic at about 750 miles, and complete the mapping, and then put in the highly rated Fuchs Titan Pro R 15/50. I've now covered about 320 miles, and I have to say its getting better each time I go out in it. You can really feel the cam start to pull at about 5,000. It's got loads more torque than it had before. To sum it up in just one word, I'd have to say "Mental". Even limiting the revs to 6500 it trounces the XPower 140 unit. You barely have to make any effort at all to be going quick. I can't wait to get it run in fully and mapped. I'll be R500 baiting on a country road neart you soon. Watch this space So what have I learned on this Odyssey? Tuning is really REALLY expensive. Much more than I planned. (It helps if you don't ignore what you're spending because you know its too much. This just makes it worse) Max Speeding rods are great. (I hope I don't need to update this point in the future) Titan Roller Barrels don't have any drivability issues if they don't leak. They're awesome. Piper 1444 cams are perfectly drivable on the road if you're not planning on towing caravans Don't buy anything from Caterham. They're criminally overpriced! Listen to your engine builder implicitly Don't skimp on anything if possible. It will cost you later. Use proper running in oil or risk glazing your bores.Thanks for reading :) Massive thanks to: Roger Fabry at Sabre heads (I'll miss our long chats) Jason Langan at Hellier Performance (Fantastic work, and top bloke) Brian at Titan Motorsport Andy Hammond, John Salmon and Steve Littler whose help and patience were extraordinary. Piers

Hi all, Does anyone have an Emerald map they could send me that would be close for the following spec: 1800cc 11.3:1 compression fully ported VVC/VHPD head Piper 1444 cams 140/125 4-2-1 DTH bodies. I'd just like to have a look at the ignition table to compare against what I currently have. Thanks, P

Hi You can order a new gold pump direct from Titan Motorsport. Regards Piers

Yes absolutely, I just want to arm myslef with as much knowledge as possible before I do it. Curious to see where others have ended up and why.

I need to make a decision soon as to what I want the cam timing set to for my new engine build. I'm sure I read somewhere that Oily recommends 140/125 for 1444 cams, and am wondering what affect this has on the engine. i.e. Best peak power, best spread of torque etc. What other settings are people using and what affect has it had on your power / torque curves. Thanks

Thanks for the pics guys, they look great. :)

Has anyone got any pictures of their car sporting the new ZZR tyres fitted to 15" rims? I'm thinking about a set to replace my ageing CR500's and wondered how the new 50 profile looks.

Part 2 So its been a busy week and I managed to collect all the parts I required to finish the roller barrel and ECU install. I've also picked up the finished head, plus cams and ancillary parts, ready to take to Jason at Hellier Performance for the new engine build. I'll try and get it all there this week if possible. This is of course assuming all the final parts arrive. That is, a new set of Omega pistons, Mahle Tri-metal bearings plus a set of Westwood spun cast liners. Seven's and Classics are supplying me with a donor block which has been modified ready for the Caterham install which I collect on the way. Head complete Nice chamber work. Note the recess machined around the exhaust valves. Helps flow apprently. 101 CFM at 11mm lift to be precise. Inlet's were 140 cfm. Enough for about 240 Bhp according to our Rog. John came round after work during the week, such is his generosity to help get the throttle bodies installed. After the initial dry run, we fitted everything tightly and it was all looking pretty good. (Thanks again John!) Far tidier than the plenum setup Well, everything except the throttle cable. (Which is a pig to route btw). It was too long internally, and we couldn't see any way to tweak the nipple (oh Matron!) to shorten the length. I thought I must need a different cable for the roller barrels. A quick call to Caterham the following day revealed I didn't need a new cable at all. No, its adjustable. "How?" I hear you ask. By bending the throttle pedal!! Yep that's right. This is what Caterham apparently do too. With engineering ingenuity like this its amazing us Brits won the war. Twice. The Germans would certainly never allow this. Now the car was ready to start, and we were just waiting for Andy to return on Sunday morning with the ECU and loom. After a slow start, (we had to stop to watch Mercedes throw Lewis' victory away. Seriously, what happened there? They said they had an error in the data. With all their resource, all they really needed was a Sky Sports subscription. All 3 of us could see it was never going to work) we got the ECU plumbed in, plus the LC-2 wideband sensor. We then calibrated the water and air temp sensors by putting them in the freezer, then measuring the temp with a pyrometer, and measuring the resistance with a multimeter. We did this again at room temp and at boiling point. Its not easy holding a sensor in boiling water and measuring the resistance and temperature all at the same time. Job done. Next job was replacing all the coolant we'd lost. Finally it was time to try firing it up for the first time on the bodies. We'd balanced them visually to get us going. Amazingly it fired first time again and idled quite smoothly. We adjusted the balance using a manometer, then double checked this by measuring the amount of revs the engine dropped when pulling an injector from each bank. Once this was equal on both sides we were done. It took about 15 minutes. Another job done. After the engine had warmed up we set the idle. It seems to idle quite high, even with the barrels fully closed but this appears to be an inherent issue with the design. If you block the trumpets up with your hand the revs completely drop so they are not leaking from the manifold/head. It's not that bad as to be of any concern, as once the 1444 cams go in it will idle a little high anyway I am guessing. With Andy strapped in with laptop at the ready we began the mapping process. Part throttle settings first at low revs. It was actually driving quite smoothly right away. Some good educated guess work on the fuelling. We slowly progressed up the load sites whilst annoying everyone on the A41. Sorry if you got stuck behind us! By the time we got to Wendover, we had done most of the fuel mapping and the car was running great. Too great in fact. Then something went wrong, and it started running slightly rough. Still driveable though. Since the light was fading we called it a night. Next morning we took the bonnet off. Andy spotted straight away that the idle control bolt and the balance adjust bolts had both fallen out. Damn it!! Thankfully I had a few M4 bolts I'd bought for something else only 2 days before. So with the bodies balanced again we set off. We spent about another hour honing the fuel map with only a minor adjustment to the timing. It was pinking ever so slightly so we retarded it a fraction and no more pinking. The car is now running far better than it did on the plenum and std EU3 ECU. The throttle response is so much more linear and direct. A vast improvement. This was quite a surprise given all the bad press I've heard relating to the roller barrels and part throttle driving. Have I mentioned the noise yet? They sound like the end of the world! The noise alone has shaved off at least half a second off the perceived 0-60! The car now pulls really hard all the way to about 6700 rpm, where it was running out of puff about 6000 before. And this is despite us only being able to get about 96% throttle. The linkage is jamming on the return spring at the moment and needs filing down. Annoyingly we'd need to take them off to do this and since its only temporary we decided to leave it. I'm glad that its all come together so well, and I'm pleased we got the roller barrels set up and mapped prior to the new engine. I can't imagine having any dramas whilst trying to run in a brand new engine. Now I just have to wait to get the new engine built, for the final part of this trilogy....

Hi Titanium7, Do you run your engines in on the road or the dyno? I am contemplating running my new engine in on the dyno as this mitigates any issues from "environmental" factors by trying to break the engine in on the road. Does anyone know what a dry sump system is worth in terms of additional bhp?

Hi Mankee, Yes Andy is responsible for the Predator ECU. Do you know him? You are right in that it uses the MS software, however the board he has desined for the Saxo is a complete rework, and he's now working on a version for the K-Series EU3 Caterham. It was really interesting to see it all come together. I've contemplated the 1.9 conversion but after discussing it with numerous people, I decided to stick with 1.8. The engineer who originally worked at Scholar has long since moved back to SA, and not one engine builder I have spoken to has had a decent word to say about the current 1900 conversions. I was tempted by Vincente's 1900 at VGK but the cost and logistics were just too much, and for a little more you could have his 2.0 engine. I'd be very happy with 230 bhp which is what I am aiming for, and if I can get close to that I'll see where I am. I suspect and extra 80-90 bhp will keep me entertained for a while. :) I think Roger's head work is superb, and he is the nicest chap to deal with, and very enthusiastic about his work. I had a full tour of his workshop, and he was keen to show me the work on my head in great detail. There is far more work that goes into the head than I had imagined. I'll be very interested to see the flow figures later this week which I'll post up. I stuck with the 27.4mm exhaust valves due to the already escalating costs. The inlets apparently have a far great effect on the volumetric efficiency. Besides, the R500 made 230 Bhp on std valves, so I'm not too concerned. I think the overall difference will be minor. I guess we'll find out in due course! What parts have you gathered so far?

If anyone's interested I've just posted my first blog here detailing a lot of the engine upgrades I'm currently fitting to my car, including making a completely custom made "plug and play" EU3 ECU. Thanks to Bio (John) and Andy Hammond for all your help this weekend. Link

After puchasing my car last year (an Xpower 140) I decided it was time to seek some more power. Taking the sensible approach after talking to Dave Andrews and Kiwirog (Roger Fabry), I decided to swap the standard K16 head for a reconditioned VVC head, along with a set of Piper 1320 cams as these can be run on the standard plenum without much ado, and would allow me to retain the stock bottom end. A cylinder head was duly sourced from We Love MGF's from ebay and shipped to Kiwirog to cast his eye over. Sadly the first head had damage and was returned as it was unsuitable. Thankfully We Love MGF's were incredibly helpful, and shipped another the same day. This one looking like a good contender. Whilst waiting for Roger to port the head, I figured it would be wise to replace the standard manifold and exhaust system. After reading on Blatchat and discussing with a number of people, I decided upon the Powerspeed system. As luck would have it, one of our members messaged me to say that he had a brand new system that he no longer needed and it was still in its original bubble wrap, for an imperial S3 chassis. A deal was quickly struck, and the car booked in for fitting at Powerspeed's premises. Much much better I think you'll agree The alternator needed removing to reverse the connectors as they were too close to the manifold. After refitting and testing it all seemed ok.... Until that is, I drove off to discover the ignition light wouldn't go out. After removing it again and inspecting it, it was clear the diode pack was damaged. Damn. Thankfully Powerspeed loaded the car onto the trailer and off we set for Sevens & Classics where I purchased the car last year. Thankfully Tim and Andy did a great job of resolving this for me, and turning it around very quickly. The car is now considerably quieter which was a pleasant surprise, however when you open it up it has a much more throaty growl. A far more pleasing and mature sound (a lot less raspy). Very pleased. I can't say I've noticed much performance difference, however this may be due to the size of the manifold and system being 1 7/8" primaries, 1 3/4" secondaries, and a 2 1/2" silencer, which on my standard Xpower 140 may be on the large side. But that's ok, there's more coming... Stage 1 complete! Whilst waiting for the head, I spoke with Titan motorsport about their Roller Barrel throttle bodies, and to my delight they actually had a few brand new sets being made up. This was because they had a box of parts left over from previous production and had enough parts to make up about 10 new sets. They requested some new castings from the foundry, and I decided to take the opportunity to buy some. After expressing my delight to Roger, we decided that the Piper BP285H cam would make better use of the new induction. I also decided that these cams would benefit from having the standard VVC head fully ported, but retaining the standard valve sizes. Talk about scope creep? With the realisation that a potential 200 Bhp would quickly destroy my bottom ending sinking in, I decided I'd at least need a set of forged pistons. And this is where my project suddenly took a turn down a rather more expensive path. With the extra cost of fitting the pistons, and the car being off the road for some time, I started thinking that I'd be better off with a donor engine, and whilst I'm at it, fit new steel rods, some new Mahle bearings, a TTV lightweight flywheel and a full balance. Things are now starting to get rather expensive. Having decided this bottom end upgrade essential, and more practical I then started thinking about more power since the new bottom end would easily cope. It's a slippery slope I know... So back on the phone to Rog, and I decided that what I really needed was 12.2mm valve lift and solid followers. New Piper 1444 cams ordered. Now, a fully ported VVC head flows approximately 130 cfm at 11mm lift. This means a theoretical maximum output of about 220 Bhp. (130cfm x 4 cylinders x 0.43 = 223 Bhp) Hmm perhaps this will be a restriction? 1444 cams can produce over 230 Bhp on an 1800 engine. Back on the phone to Roger, and some new 33.3mm inlet valves on new seats are being fitted as part of the build. On Roger's flow bench, this spec head previously flowed 153cfm. This equates to a maximum of 260 Bhp. Much more scope for upgrades there then! I went to see Roger the other day to check on the progress, and have a few pics of what's been completed so far: On the bench being ported Standard VVC exhaust port And ported (not finished yet) New insterts err, inserted? Std 31.5 inlet vs 33.3 inlet Std rover cam vs Piper 1444. Guess which is which? Anyway, whilst I am and collecting all the above parts and waiting for the head we move on to Stage 2. The ECU. A friend of mine has designed his own ECU, which he has been fitting to his Citroen Saxo customers for many years. He very kindly offered to build me a complete plug and play solution for my EU3 loom. This weekend, he come over with a test / development Saxo board, and with the EU3 ECU plug I purchased from Emerald, we began painfully figuring out the wiring loom with the help of a diagram I aquired and a multimeter. Old development board for testing the custom loom. the board looks alarming sparse doesn't it? We started by connecting the power to the ECU from the loom, followed by the crank sensor. Each wire being stripped and then soldered to the corresponding pins on the plug. We tested the loom using a tone on the multi meter. Surprisingly the documentation I had, had quite a few errors on it. However, this became less of a problem the more progress we made. Custom wiring the EU3 ECU plug to the test board ECU now ready to test! After we had connected the VR sensor, we powered up the ECU to see if the software would recognise the flywheel tooth pattern. We found the pre-configured "Rover 2" selection worked perfectly, and could see the RPM from the engine being turned over registering on the software. Result! Hardest part done. (Apparently. I just watched and made us all tea) Next we added the sensors, water and air temp, plus the MAP sensor. The following day, we started early and within an hour we had sparks! Next we setup the fueling and injectors. Andy created a base map and we were ready to try starting the engine. Bio (John Salmon) kindly assisting on first start up Believe it or not, the engine actually fired up on the first turn of the key! To be honest I was quite surprised, however Andy (ECU man) was not, and somewhat miffed at my doubts. Well done Andy! Setting the idle, and checking sensors etc Following the successful running of the engine, Andy is taking the mocked up loom adaptor and base map, and is now beavering away to redesign the Saxo plug ECU board to fit a Rover EU3 plug. This should take a few weeks. In the meantime he will come back with a tidied up loom adaptor and a proper ECU so that I can run the car once i've fitted the throttle bodies. So on to stage 3 If you're still with me, I'm impressed. I know I waffle a lot. Something even my 6 year old daughter reminds me of frequently. We decided to try fitting the RBTB's. And this is where we have hit a snag. I found there was no air filter backing plate in the kit, the std fuel rail and adjustable FPR doesn't fit, and the caterham RBTB support brackets also don't fit. (At least, the rear doesn't). I've also had to order an LC-2 wideband sensor to plug into the exhaust and ECU so that we can put a proper map on the car. We'll do this on the road once its all working. Ready for fitting First set of problems uncovered.. More to follow.... (Shortly I hope!)

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Does anyone know where I can get the fuel rail and regulator as fitted to the R500? I have the std rover 1.8 rail which fits upside down but then means I'd need a longer fuel hose, and mt adjustable FPR then wont fit either. Thanks P

Having spoken with John at Performance Braking, he's recommended the new replacement for the Pagid RS15, namely the RST3 pad. This is for the standard calipers with RS14's on the rear as they have a very similar torque curve, just slightly less. Just wondering if anyone has tried this combo on the std twin pots?

Does the Rover EU3 loom have EV1 or EV6 sized connectors? Thanks

Must be in useable condition. Thanks

Pictures?

I need someone to build a decent bottom end to mate to my new VVC head that Roger Fabry has put together for me. Pro-Tune are quite close to where I live and have most of the facilities I'd need on site. Has anyone had any experience with them (good or bad) that they can share? Thanks Piers