A quick burst of activity, and I got a ton of things done tonight. I pulled the timing belt off of the engine again. That was so I could get the water pump back on.

While I had the timing belt off, I wanted to paint the block where it would be covered. While I was at it, I painted the side of the of engine I had cleaned. The color is pretty nice. It'll be nice when the whole engine is painted.

Next, I timed the engine. There are details on how to do this on the internet. First, you loosen the cam gears. Then, you put a bar across the back of the cam shafts to lock them in place. Adjust the cams, tighten. The engine looks pretty sweet with the Esslinger gear on it. Timing is going to be easier when I get to that point because of the timing notches.

It is a good thing I timed it again. I think the first time I went through the motions, but the exhaust cam was off by a whole tooth. Now that the engine is timed, and the one side is painted, the other side is next. Grinding, wire brushing, cleaning, and then paint.

I think I want to clean up the aluminum top end as well. We cleaned it up a little bit last night, but only on the back around the water outlet. There's a ways to go.

Also, since the Megasquirt was giving me issues, I flashed it with the MSnS-E firmware again. Everything seems to be working again. I still need to develop a base map and check it with all of the sensors. More things to do...

Upgrading Megasquirt

This morning I upgraded the firmware on my v3 Megasquirt board. If you follow the instructions as per the msextra manual, it is very easy.

I then tried to follow the instructions from diyautotune, and there are a few mistakes. The menus listed on their site are not exactly as they appear in the Megatune software. They are far enough off from the software to make me doubt that I have everything set correctly. I am not sure if they were using an earlier version of Megatune, or if they simply wrote the instructions from memory.

After I uploaded the instructions from Megatune, my injector LEDs on the stimulator board stopped blinking. I am pretty sure this is what was supposed to happen, since with their instructions yoiu are using the indicator LEDs as ignition signals. We'll see when I get the injectors wired up....

Megasquirt

It's been about a week since I received my Megasquirt kit. The manual is very well documented, and the kit could not have go together any easier. There are a few choices that you need to make along the way. I would truly recommend reading through the manual before purchasing it. Not just read it, but understand each step.

There are several steps that are specific to the Megasquirt II daughter board. One of the steps that puzzled me, was how the tach sensor works on the Zetec.

The Zetec uses a VR sensor. The sensor puts outs a sort of AC signal, which needs to be filtered before the Megasquirt can understand it. So, follow the appropriate instructions in step 50.

Also, reaching step 65, I assembled the high current ignition driver. Since I don't have the EDIS driver, I will also need an additional BIP373 for driving the second bank of cylinders.

Doing some research, this can't be done without upgrading to MSnS-E.

So, to recap:
Assemble the VR circuit.
Assemble the high current ignition driver circuit.
Assemble the second high current ignition driver circuit, as per diyautotune.com. This is under the "Direct Coil Control Distributorless Ignition on a Megasquirt-I V3.0 or V3.57 Board"
Upgrade your firmware.

VCT Delete Kit

We finally got the VCT cam gear off of the Zetec engine last night. It took 3 of us, and 2 wrenches. There are a few write-ups on how to remove swap the gears around, but no one indicated that it would be this difficult to turn the bolt.

As I said, it takes two wrenches. A 16mm wrench fits on the inverse Torx bolt that is inside the VCT gear (under the cover), even though you should probably have the correct wrench. Also, you will need another wrench to hold the cam in place. With a little force, we were able to force a 15/16" wrench over the hex on the cam.

This could have been because we rounded it a little by using an adjustable wrench, or because of the casting being a little rougher than it could have been. Regardless of the case, it made it difficult to fit the wrench on there. A small hammer made it easier....

Also, I did it without any instruction as to how to install the VCT Delete Kit. I really hope I got the O-ring in the correct location.

So, I won the auction for the Esslinger cam gear and the VCT delete kit. If I hadn't of won this auction, I would've been in big trouble. I don't know what I would have done if I couldn't get rid of the VCT bump on my engine.

So I started getting the engine ready for the new gear. First, I still had more parts to take off of the engine. First, I had to get the accessory drive pulley off of the drive shaft. I needed some help with this, since I wasn't able to hold the engine from rocking, and try to muscle the bolt free.

Then you need to remove another cover, and then you are ready to remove the timing belt.

You are supposed to be able to loosen a bolt, and release the tension from the timing belt by rotating the tensioner pulley with an Allen wrench. Every time I tried to loosen this bolt, I could feel it trying to strip off the head. I didn't want to risk anything, so I just walked the timing belt off of the front of the gears.

Next, I wanted to remove the water pump, because I wanted to clean it up, and replace the gasket. Not because The gasket is leaking, or I expect it to leak, but because I could at this point, and thought I should.

I know from reading, and from common sense that this car project is going to be packed full of surprises. So, I take off the water pump to find the first real surprise. On the front ofthe cylinder wall, behind the water pump, someone left a little prize for future generations.
That is a smiley face. Yep, this is inside the engine. To some worker in some car factory somewhere, thank you. I know now where the spirits of this car live.

Next thing is getting the VCT gear off. I tried last night, but I couldn't get it to budge. I need to figure out a way lock the exhaust cam gears in place, so I can break this bolt free.

I am following these forum posts here:
Timing Belt Removal (and Replacement)
VCT Installation

Hopefully, I can figure this out, and get the old gear off. But more importantly, get the whole thing back together.

Thanks bud.

My friend is a life-saver. He was able to find all 3 of the items that have been causing me the biggest trouble finding:

Intake (or Inlet) manifold
VCT Delete Kit, and CAM Gear
Renault Fuego Transmission

I don't believe he managed to find all three of them on E-bay, all in one day. Now, I know that I searched for identical phrases on E-bay. I think he must've of been lucky enough to find all of them when they were for sale. But, had he not found them, I wouldn't have been looking.

Inlet Manifold

So, I am still having trouble with intake manifold. I am not going to get the plastic manifold to work. So, I want to replace it with a aluminum inlet manifold. Unfortunately, the intake ports on the engine don't match the intake ports on the manifolds I've found. I have questions submitted to every distributor that I've been able to find, but no one has gotten back to me yet.

And then there is the VCT solenoid on the engine. Supposedly, the engine fits in the car, but barely. On the front of my engine, there is this big bump from the VCT system. Its not going to fit with this big thing hanging off of the front the engine.

Out there in the interweb, there is reference to this thing called a VCT Delete Kit. A few years ago, you could pick it up for about $40. Great. Of course, now I can't find it. The vendors that have been referenced to have had it don't have them anymore. I need to eliminate this thing, or else I am going to have to have to destroy this car to get it to fit.