Project Barbatos build thread v2.0

Nice work! Just keep imagining the smile on your face the first time you stomp the gas in this thing...

Hopefully the weather is starting to break up there too.

cmcgregor said:

Nice work! Just keep imagining the smile on your face the first time you stomp the gas in this thing...

Hopefully the weather is starting to break up there too.

We had had a few days of rain that had kinda cleared the roads up. Then last night was 20 degrees, with snow and 60 degree winds, and the highway departments were out there dousing the roads with salt. The asphalt is white with salt currently. I thought the weather was going to be nice and I was still going to be slaving away on the car, but it looks like I'm going to be done with the car and waiting for the weather to get nice and the roads to get clean. They are saying 30 and snowy through next Wednesday. Troubling, because my first autocross is May 6th and I have to street-tune this thing, then put 500 miles on it to break in the engine and clutch and then get it dyno-tuned before then

We are now full-on science project level under the hood. Only thing missing is a Mr. Fusion. Vacuum manifold is set up, just waiting on a fitting for my boost gauge. Engine oil, coolant, and power-steering fluid filled. Intake Air Temp sensor is wired up. Cruise control relocated.

Things to do before first fire: 

-Align hood

-Fill gearbox

-Install test pipe

-Fill and bleed clutch hydraulics

-Rewire gauges

Went down to work Saturday and installed a set of fresh 225/45R15 BF Goodrich Rival S 1.5 on my wheels and retired my near-corded RE71Rs

Really wanted to try the Nexen N FERA SUR4G, but they were backordered. The 225s look good and beefy on the car. Looks like I might have to roll the quarter panels and maybe crank up the ride height though. 

Saturday afternoon I got around to finally lighting the car off. And while it started right up, and ran rough (needs tuning) there was a more pressing issue. Engine never developed oil pressure in the 10-15 seconds it ran, took the filter off and none in the filter, so I know it's not a sender or gauge issue. It has a brand new standard pump from Flyin' Miata, as well as a new pickup tube gasket.

Now, doing some reading, I discover that the manual recommends packing it with petroleum jelly, but because they had that under the Inspection section, I didn't see that (I was putting on a new pump, not checking out an old pump). Honestly, the thought never crossed my mind, at work we put oil pumps on 5.3L trucks all the time and never prelube them, just hit the key and they have oil pressure instantly.

Some guys say this is absolutely necessary, and that that it will never self-prime.  Others say crank 30-40 seconds with the plugs out and it should prime, which I' tried several times to no success (I did coat everything in a heavy coating of assembly lube). I'also tried pouring oil down the access plug in the pump housing that goes right into the pump cavity.

Then ended up building a preluber out of a section of 2" PVC pipe with caps on both ends, a schraeder valve on one end, a ball valve on the other and a fitting soldered into an old filter. While it did get oil up past the sender and confirm that the sender/gauge is good, the engine still woudn't pump oil. 

So now the engine is coming back out of the car to inspect what the berkeley is going on

Engine is back out of the car. Took about 5 hours. Now I have to make a dolly to set the old 1.6L on so that my engine stand is free, then split the transmission off and take the front cover and oil pan off. This project is starting to feel a little too Roadkill for my liking.

I know your pain. Ive got 3 like that right now. 

But you are far closer than any of mine. Keep your chin up. 

NickD said:

Engine never developed oil pressure in the 10-15 seconds it ran, took the filter off and none in the filter, so I know it's not a sender or gauge issue.

You say "none in the filter;" did you mean no oil in the filter? I always fill my filter up (as much as I can, given the angles some are on when in the car) before putting it on, do you not do that?

dculberson said:

NickD said:

Engine never developed oil pressure in the 10-15 seconds it ran, took the filter off and none in the filter, so I know it's not a sender or gauge issue.

You say "none in the filter;" did you mean no oil in the filter? I always fill my filter up (as much as I can, given the angles some are on when in the car) before putting it on, do you not do that?

Its kind of hard on the Miatas because it is horizontal on the side of the engine block, tucked up over the top of the subframe. But no, I don't typically prefill oil filters. Also, when it's cranking, there is no oil coming out of the filter housing, where it should be when the oil pump is turning.And our homemade preluber, essentially prefilled a filter and the passages from the filter mount back to the pump

In reply to NickD :

Having looked at how a Miata filter mounts, that makes sense. I haven't changed the oil on one in a long time!

In reply to dculberson :

Yeah, the positioning is less than ideal. But we blew 2 quarts of oil into the engine through a sacrificed filter at 50psi of air, and it still wouldn't pump. Not sure if it's a faulty pump, a cracked oil pickup tube or a stuck pressure relief valve in the pump, but it seems to be something internal

Hoping it's an easy fix. Drop the pan yet?

In reply to Stampie :

Pan is not off yet. I got the whole assembly out of the car at 10pm last night and was cold and tired. Still have to rig a dolly for the old 1.6L so I can take it off the stand, take the transmission off and put the 1.8L on the stand. 

Ugh, that's turrible, sorry man.

Good luck with the fix.

The good news is that I was paying attention to startup, noticed the lack of oil pressure and shut it down. I always love the guys who fire an engine up, see its not building pressure and have the "Rev the snot out of it to build pressure" mentality and waste a brand new engine.

So, the reason it had no  oil pressure was because I screwed up. I forgot to tighten the pickup tube bolts, so it was sucking air around it. Made sure to loc-tite and torque the bolts this time, and I took the pump apart and packed it full of petroleum jelly. I'm going to rig the starter to it and crank the engine on the ground and see if it makes pressure/flow before I drop in the car this time. If it doesn't make pressure this time, I'm bamboozled. My father jokingly suggested a dry sump system for it.

So, four years ago today I brought this thing home. Humble beginnings:

God, those wheels were horrendous

Sucks about the pickup, but I always prefer a clear, easily identified problem to some random issue that I can't find.

In reply to cmcgregor :

Yeah, my fear was pulling the engine and oil pan and seeing nothing wrong and just having to shotgun a new pump and pickup tube at it. 

Test-cranked the engine and it had oil pressure. So now it's going back in.

Really interested to hear how happy you are when you get the Rotrex done. I really like working with Trackdog but keep going back and forth on my ultimate power goals maybe being higher than I can get to with the Rotrex easily.

I think you can do the 94 supercharger as well and they will get you an appropriate sized pulley also

In reply to Jaynen :

I figured the 240hp/180tq they quoted would be good enough for me for a while. Especially because going further than that is going to require some upgrades to the engine (Starting to get where stock rods are marginal and Gary at TDR warned me to keep it under 7500rpm) and then you start getting into transmission grenade territory. Going from 92hp/79tq at the tires to 240hp/180tq should be quite a leap

Got it dropped in and buttoned up today. It runs, I have oil pressure. But it refuses to idle. Not exactly sure what I'm doing with MegaSquirt either,

Well, got it lit off and running today. It kept running super rich and pulling fuel from VE Table 1 was doing absolutely nothing. Then double-checked the TDR injectors and saw they were 700cc units and I had thought they were 350cc (TDR's kit uses 350cc injectors with their fuel cards, but uses 700cc for MegaSquirt) Now got it to start and run and idle and it doesn't smell rich but my wideband has started reading only 7.4 (full rich) or 22.4 (full lean.) Literally at one point it was jumping back and forth between 7.4 and 22.4 and hitting nothing in between, which seems nigh impossible.

Double check the settings on your wideband controller and ensure that they're not set to imitate a narrow band sensor.

Also ensure that the settings in Megasquirt are set to get readings from a wide band sensor.