DarkLighter Tuning Kamei Wabbit build! by T3Bunny

11 minute(s) of a 391 minute read

So I have been out of comission for a few. Had somewhat of a crisis on the homefront that ended up with my beautiful Toshiba Tecra M5 smashed into more than a few peices by the now ex.

Then an unexpected trip to pick up my best freind from Orgeon. That was a 1500 mile adventure to say the least. For some reason I was only averaging 30mpg instead of the 37mpg I was getting around here... But I have shaken most if not all of the bugs out of the car.

Water injection became my biggest priority. Followed very closely by the absolute NEED to drop a .75 fith into the tranny. Its very hard to stay out of boost even on level ground at highway speeds.

Boost is another minor issue. This turbo happily spins to 18psi, starting at about 2500rpm... Once I finally got its wastegate setup working right it still makes a solid 10psi. I was hoping for 6-7psi instead. Oh well 10 is managable. The engine is built to handle the 18psi easily, but the hot piped turbo, no intercooler, and no water injection (yet) don't get along well enough to survive 18psi without serious issues.

My biggest concern is the fuel grade. I CAN NOT run anything other than 91. I am hoping that again the water injection will be my ticket here.

Another problem I came across was running out of gas three times in the middle of nowhere. The tank in the bunny is only 10 gallons. This is a serious issue when combined with the currently crappy fuel economy. A 300 mile range just won't cut it.

Why? Well most of my freinds know about my plans to drive through Mexico and down into Central America. Its taking a lot of planning and will take a lot more, but I am getting there.

I did a lot of things on my build for reliability and simplicity more than performance with this in mind. The minimal engine bay especially helps with keeping track of any leaks (laready been there) and making working on everything a lot nicer. 

August 30, 2009

Fuel economy has been a very interesting problem... So newest update there is around town I am getting 37mpg. But on the highway its dropping to the 30mpg. Pretty simple explaination actually. At highway speeds right now shes sitting on the edge of boost or in mild boost most of the time. In dire need of that .75 5th gearset for sure.

My buddy Ed and I spent most of Friday playing with a nice little tool from Eastwood. Fender rollers are cool! After rolling the fenders we dropped it a couple more inches. Her stance is much better now. I am exactly 20mm from as low as I can go in the fronts before I run out of threads on the H&R's. Any lower is going to require cutting, welding, and other fun fabrications.

My biggest problem has been getting the fuel delivery setup correctly. Depending on where I look my fuel injectors are listed as 35lb - 38lb. On a standard 3bar regulator. I had upgraded from my 25lb ish ones. Mainly because these fuel injectors match the white engine...

Problem is I was running a 4bar fuel pressure regulator. So basically that would make my injectors about 44lbs. Even with setting my MegaSquirt for a single pulse and simaltaneous firing, I was at only 1.4ms pulswidth at idle. This was causing all sorts of nasty idle problems and off idle issues.

Swapped in a 3bar regulator Thursday. Still have to go retune the car yet again but at least now I can get her ti idle perfectly! Sometimes one has to suffer for the sake of art. SPeaking of art, the white engine? Its awesome! It makes it SO MUCH easier to track down leaks! Not that any VW rabbit woud EVER leak ANYTHING right?

Well I am off to go retune. 

September 28, 2009

Well its been a depressing past month. I was on my way to the drag strip after some very successful tuning runs when I wrecked the car. She is not too bad off, but they put a doctors order on my license until I am fully checked out. I don't remember anything of the accident, but there was no signs of head trauma either.

Not being able to drive for a month has SUCKED for me big time. Fortunately my best friend is still here from Oregon.

Damage to the car is mainly hood, fender, and bumper. Sad about my hood, theres a lot of stickers on it I can't replace. New fender will have to be rolled too. Bumper is just rubber trim and end caps it seems. Alignment got whacked, no big surprise as I ended up offroading it across railroad tracks. Lost a front brake line either the cause, or caused by the accident. And destroyed a snowflake wheel. The tire is okay but I don't have any extra snowflakes.

So finally put the Ronals on. Need to space out the fronts as they rub the coilovers. But otherwise they look the trick. Getting lots of little things done to the car though waiting for the rest of my appointments. The kneebar is modified, painted, and in now. Looks damn nice!

Not sure how much more I will get done on her before winter sets in. I will probably end up taking her off the road for winter and just drive my Audi Quattro. I am sad as I didn't get my last drive of the year in yet.

I will try and get some pictures up shortly of the accident and the new progress. 

November 17, 2009

deathare, you were asking what gaskets I used on the turbo setup. Head to exhaust manifold I used the single piece corrado metal gasket.

For turbo to manifold I used 034motorsport's high temp turbo loctite. This stuff is expensive, and worth every damn penny too if you have ever had turbos fall off your car....

I usually do not use gaskets on turbos as honestly (in my opinion) they tend to blow out much easier than a properly torqued setup. The experts can never seem to agree on this, so honestly it tends to be my wallet that wins. "Proper" gaskets always seem to be impossible to find too.

For the turbo to wastegate cover deal, I left the ones that were already there in and just replaced the studs.

The ONE EASY gasket to get was the turbo to downpipe. Seems that that is a standard toiletbowl gasket. I got this, the wonderfully restrictive OE downpipe, and the metal spring clips from PartsPlaceInc that deathare recommended to me.

As for the downpipe, I simply needed the car online immediately. Eventually, I will let my fabricator have the car for a day to make up a bigger DP. I knew I would end up needing the toilet bowl end anyways.

So today I got a couple projects ahead of me! I need heat in the bunny. The heater controls and box were missing a lot of parts. I finally got the wiring, another full heater box assembly, and all the mounting hardware to swap the whole deal out. Its cold outside, so I am hoping I can be lazy and pull it off without disconnecting the heater core already in the car.

After I get heat, time to solve my tuning issues. Haven't figured out what the exact issue is yet, but I am suspecting my IAT temp readings are not accurate. And I verified that she is boosting a lot harder than supposed to be, or tuned for. Need to fiddle with the rev, launch, and over boost cut settings so they don't load the engine up as badly. And get my boost controller workign again so I don't pop the jug! 

Well found the overboosting problem! Damn generic MBC was setup according to the directions I found on the wonderfull internet. The directions were wrong.

I had it working right over the summer. But accidently pulled the hose out of my turbo. So I am guessing it got hooked up according to the directions when I was putting it all back together.

And my turbo is spooling out 19.2 psi according to the last datalog! YIKES! Shes tuned for 10psi...

Good day so far, I just fired up my latest MegaSquirt project, a 1987 Toyota AE-86. Got my boost issues sorted out. Now time to go get some heat in the bunny! 

Ugh well final update for the day. Pulling the heater box out proved to be a headache. Had to pull the wiper assembly, speedometer cable and a bunch of other little stuff to get it all out. To add insult to injury, the replacement setup is damaged. So I got to rebuild the current one with the parts needed from the former replacement.

And since the wiper assembly is out, time to finally do the MK3 motor swap onto it.

So she will probably be offline until the weekend. But at least I got another few weeks out of her! Not sure how long I will be able to drive her around. Once it starts to accumulate snow around here, I will have to put her up until it melts. Way to low to even get out of my driveway.

Time to finally MegaSquirt my Audi 90 Quatto! Its CIS hates the winter as its cold start and a few other things are bad. I think its Motronic is actually cooked.

November 19, 2009

Although I gotta say I have cut up, wrecked, and otherwise destroyed a few more than I have saved... But as they say some must die so that others can live!

For this project I cut up a '83 that was in BAD BAD shape. But its wiring was perfect, go figure?! I plugged in all the relays and powered it up, the door chime started going off!!! Not sure I have ever even HEARD a rabbit with door chimes before! I also scrapped my '91 Etienne Aigner Cabriolet. Although that one I was good and sold the shell (with intact interior) to a friend. It will be saved eventually.

Well today was somewhat of a success. I got the heater all reassembled and the blower is working. I ran into four issues though. First is the '83 harness wiring is still somewhat of a mess especially in the upper dash area. Most of the changes between the '77 and '83 occurs here. This hit me from several angles. There was no heater blower wiring as the '83 had AC in it and a completely different setup. So I ended up having to use a few different harnesses to make that section up. Turned out well other than the spade connection for OE grounding point. I have nothing to plug it into... 

The worst part of the wiring up there though is all the switches that had to be converted over, and the mess previous owners have made of the radio wiring. I have it mostly cleaned up now though. I have to reroute a lot of stuff so it doesn't interfere with the heater controls.

As far as wiring goes I have one major decision left to make. I really want to convert all my bulbs over to LEDs. The idea is that hopefully I never have to change them or deal with them flaking in and out like the incandescents are prone to doing. Theres 14 bulbs that dim with the instrument dimmer, and another 6 assemblies for interior lighting (of which I have none working right now). I converted the radio one already, but I used white LED's and I think they lack the vintage feel that incandescent bulbs have. Its way too white. I am hoping that yellow bulbs fix that.

My second issue is all my instrument lighting blinked on and off a few times, then died the other night. SO I may end up having to go through it all and if so then its a good time to make the changeover.

The third problem today was the freaking heater cable. I have routed it several times and just can't find the right path for it to either not be too long, or too short. I need another early car to take a look at where the cable is routed. My Bently isn't divulging this info.

Fourth and finally I seem to be missing all the wiring for the door contacts and overhead light...

Anyone want to chime in about heater cable placement and where the wiring for the door contacts plugs into?