Sam's build thread

[Sydneykid]

he's ditched the Civic has he Gary?

Yep, his dad sold it to the Zourkas's from Vic, they ran it in IP at the Bathurst 6 Hour Meeting.

Cheers
Gary

[Sydneykid]

there are a few videos of him in a datsun 1200, must be a piece of work but the engines don't like it

The 1200 belongs to John Boston, has a CA18 in it which was breathing a bit under boost on Friday, so I helped them replumb the breathers. That worked OK but it had an engine "issue". It's a fairly basic car, light with good power, main issue is it lacks a floater, so no camber/toe rear end. Jordan also ran an Evo X in the 6 Hour with a similar result, engine and/or turbo "issue" (the smoke escaped). I will be picking on him about killing 2 cars in one weekend

Cheers
Gary

[sambb]

ah ok yeah I thought I saw a similar Civic in the 6 hour. Ouch two engines will add up!

[sambb]

A few things happening. Car is using a bit of oil. This has kind of coincided with putting the oil cooler in and also since then I've been running on Penrite Racing 10 10W-40 reasoning that that slightly thicker oil would hold its viscosity better at track temps. I cant rule out the oil being the cause but you'd think thicker oil wouldnt result in nore burn, unless that is because its running too cold with the oil cooler and now that winter has arrived........ or my engine could just be dying? I also checked the PCV system, have no seal leaks, and the 'boot it after idling for ages' valve stem seal test seems fine too! I'm thinking oil control rings probably.
So I made this up to temporarily get a good look at what the oil temps are doing now that its cold, and will get the gauge wired up next couple of days.

Also went and acquired one of these:

Its an original OE fitment K03 off an EA888 2.0L turbo motor eg MK6 Golf GTI (not S3 or edition 30 as they have the mutant K04). Even though its a K03 keep in mind it is not an on par turbo to our wee little snail. It has the side exit better breathing hot side housing that our vintage K04-023's have, and its integrated manifold is better designed with better flow, less EGT's/back pressure. Its compressor and turbine sizes make it about equivalent to a well setup K04-023. edit: 280hp on a TFSI so 260 on the 1.8T but with much more area under the curve at lower temps than the K04-023. Its N75 is mounted on the turbo but will work with our Bosch ME7.5. The diverter valve also on the turbo can be changed in that position for an off the shelf pneumatically actuated one or I can just blank it off and keep my remote DV position. Dump pipes are off the shelf and cheap even at 3in and there are a million and one compressor pipes available that will literally make it plug and play for the pipework to the intercooler. I'll need to make a custom oil drain for the turbo but the other oil/water pipes are straight OE items available from VW (for a fortune I'm guessing).
The only hard bit is actually fitting it to the 1.8T. Port spacings are the same and port diameters work too. Either of these adapter kits will work but the CA solutions one is seen as the best:

CB Auto. K04-064 TFSI to 1.8t Adaptor plate
Adapter VAG 2.0 TFSI to 1.8T 20V

Basically the CB solutions one wholly bolts up against the head and then the TFSI mani bolts to that without mods. Its bolts are correctly angled so that you just fit nuts that are perpendicular to the OE mani. The other one needs the OE mani/gasket drilled and then bolts directly to the head. As a result the studs are at a different angle to the OE mani so uses angled washers for the bolt up. Think I like the first one but you pay for it!
Considering it comes off a 2.0L Gti engine I reckon its going to rip on the 1,8L. Just hope my oil usage problem isn't something terminal so I can get it on quick sticks.

[sambb]

Alright I've done a bit of temperature monitoring on the car during commutes. The oil temp sensor/VDO gauge works great and was pretty much dead on with the VCDS instruments group 3 figures coming off the OE sumps dual level/temp sensor. Oil temps do seem to be coming up to temp just the same as it had with the exchanger and when running around the oil temp is more or less fixed around the 98 degree mark. It remains to be seen whether it will stay there when I'm on the circuit - I suspect once some real airflow is punching across the cooler oil temps will be well under control compared to what they were.
So there goes the theory that the oil cooler was maybe keeping my oil too cold for too long resulting in excessive useage. Oil cooler seems to be in the clear so far.



What I'm unsure about now is what to do about the water temps. As I'd said a while back when I first didtched the heat exchanger so, the coolant temps can be seen to vary ie you can literally see a variance in the water temps around the thermostat action. After a long run down a hill or an easy 5th gear trundle at 100kph the temps will go as low as 88 degrees. However they will go as high as 98 degrees in heavy traffic now. When water/oil temps were exchanging before, they pretty much held each other exactly to about 94-96 degrees and stayed there.
I think what is happening is that water temps now want to naturally stay a tad lower than the old systems spec when you are moving as they are not being dragged up by the oil temps. But the problem when you are stationary/stuck in traffic is that water temps naturally climb but the radiator fan switch is set too high and will allow water temps to nearly hit 98 before the fans come on - result equals a large variance in water temps and coolant temps that are in general just too high.

So the advice for me part: I'm thinking that if I drop down to the next lower radiator fan temperature switch, the fan control will fall more into line with where the thermostat is looking to regulate temps giving me a more even 90-92 degrees. thoughts?? But if I do that what I'm unsure about is what the fans are going to start doing on the track when radiator temps potentially start to climb into a fan switching territory that is a step lower than before? It could be that they wont now that the water temps wont be getting dragged up by the oil and that water temps on track will be unchanged from what I'm seeing on the road, but I'm interested what those in the know think!!

[metalhead]

Interesting... I use the same oil by the way (I built my engine with tighter bearing clearances than stock), and have always found a bit of oil around my breathers. I deliberately run my fan switched at a highish temperature, so that it only switches on if stuck in heavy traffic for a while - but I found I had to lower the temperature (it's switched by my fuel injection ecu) at hillclimbs or the temp would creep up while waiting for a run, to the point that the fans would just be switching on as I prepared to start my run and the engine was hotter than I was happy with while competing. What I need to do is run a switch so that I can override the ecu to switch the fan on when waiting in line at hillclimbs, haven't done it yet though.

[sambb]

Yeah I think mine will be ok running around but its those traffic and start line temps just getting way too high that I'm worried about. That's why I always sit in the queue with the AC running so that I've got both fans going to keep a lid on the temps (keeps the intercooler cooler too). They run them hot these days for NOx emissions and fuel economy don't they but jeez nudging 100 degrees is a bit excessive.
If the oil useage continues and it wasn't a figment of my imagination I will change back to OE 5W-30 but I cant really see it being an issue with that brand/weight oil. I'll compression test it just because its easy (only 4 cylinders ha ha) to rule out the top rings. After that i'll drop the dump pipe to see if its the turbo (h

opefully given that i'll have a newby to play with probably this week!). Beyond that it could be oil control rings or maybe still

stem seals I guess. Please please please don't be the bottom end. I have the spare on a stand but not the bucks to do anything with it.
Hows your beast progressing. Close to getting back on the track?

[sambb]

Our radiator fan switch is the one above. Its a dual circuit ie the 97-87 is the switching points for the fans on low speed and the 102-97 put the fans onto high speed. From what I can gather rom Vortex, if you remove the plug from our fan switch and bridge pins 1 and 2, the fans will run on low speed. Putting on the A/C will do the same. Bridging pins 2 and 3 will run fans at high speed. I'm guessing from that that pin 2 must carry the 12V. I'll have to bell it out but without swapping the sensor/switch for another one I should be able to test the likely effect of having a switch in there that runs the fans earlier, by doing a little wiring mod to the OE sensor so that the fans run at high speed from both switch points. If that helps keep water temps at 90 degrees in traffic then it may be worth going to an earlier switching radiator fan switch.
I found this Tridon one that will fit:

Neuspeed do the 3 pin flat plug conversion kits. It may be a bit too much on the cold side though with the low speed fans not stopping till its down at 77 degrees and probably wouldn't work unless paired with a cooler thermostat too but something similar could be worth a look.
Anyway, food for thought.

[metalhead]

Hows your beast progressing. Close to getting back on the track?

Yep. Didn't make it up to Kempsey, but I've had it on the road for a few days. Drove it to work today. Going good!

[sambb]

Just heard from Graham Orr re Kempsey. He won his class under 2L in the CRX. He said that Daryl Small you know the VL commodore maroon and silver sport sedan thats always at Bathurst flipped his car end over end and landed on his wheels on the finish line and then got straight out of the car! He said it was pretty heavy to see.