cranking test!

Quite a nice milestone this one. Had a couple of hours spare this morning so rigged up a battery direct to the starter motor, as I hadn't actually tested the motor and solenoid which came with the 2nd hand (but only 19,000mile) gearbox. 

Cranking the engine over allowed me to visually check that the alternator mounting looked ok. It looked fine, but the real test of my pulley will be once the engine is running at full speed.

The cranking test also enabled me to check my oil circuit. The pump seems to be priming correctly and even at this slow speed cranking I was getting good oil flow around the circuit and back into the dry sump tank. J

Worth mentioning: the cranking is such slow speed as I am using a knackered old battery from my road car for the testing. It still holds charge but drops down pretty quickly under load. You can just about see in the image from above, the multimeter reads 14.2V, under cranking this was dropping down to 10.5V or so after just a couple of seconds. I will actually be running two batteries in parallel on the Exige as I have figured out this is the lightest way to achieve the CCA (cold cranking amps) I think I'll need for this large, high compression V8.


Quick vid of the alternator pulley during cranking:

chassis loom complete

Hazards:

Wiper:

This completes the chassis loom. I have now tested and confirmed as working:

• LED indicators (LED friendly relay in-transit to slow the flash speed above)
• LED headlights
• LED brake lights
• LED rear rain light
• new washer pump
• new horn with new horn button
• wiper with 3 speeds as per standard but with vertical park
• Fuel pump

All this with removing a total of over 2kgs from the standard loom! Not to mention tarting up the horrible standard switches with some nicer illuminated toggle items.

There is one further addition I plan to make to the chassis loom and that is to add some small laptop fans to act as screen demist now that I have removed the standard heater matrix and fan.



In other news, the main loom design is complete. Further updates shortly but here is the schematic:

Electrical systems testing

Sorry the updates have been a little lax lately. I have been busy on the car however so I'll try to cover quite a bit in this post.

The main focus has been on various aspects of the electrical system. I have been busy trying to get the lighting system working again having ripped out 75% of the standard loom. As this included the standard dash and also the alarm/immobiliser units the indicator hazard circuits were interrupted, and as yet I haven't managed to get them fixed.

The brake lights are fixed and working though:

(as is the rear rain/fog light!)

The car is now full of fluids. Engine oil, gearbox oil, coolant and 10L of unleaded have been poured in. 

Filling the coolant and fuel systems allows me to test the pumps. I started with the fuel system. Giving the fuel pump 12V allowed me to set the adjustable FPR (3.6bar) and check the system for leaks well prior to the first engine start:

The tissue paper around the unions is good trick to check for leaks. Sometimes a tiny leak is very heard to spot with the naked eye, and such a small amount of leaking petrol will quickly evaporate. So wrap some tissue paper around any unions you are suspicious of and then inspect. Even the tiniest leak will leave a mark. 

So far the integrity of the system looks good. I am going to run an extended test for an hour or two later in the weekend just to be 100% sure.

Following completion of the fuel circuit testing I will be switching to the EWP. Even without the engine loom and PWM signal I can give the EWP 12V to kick it into action and check the coolant system for leaks.

Nitron NTR40

Another nice set of bits has arrived. Nitron shocks with Eibach springs and helper springs.

These save 1.82 Kg in total over the standard Koni S1 shocks and springs!

I should be able to get these fitted in the next couple of days, starting with the rears.