Bringing this Blog thing up to date

Current status of the car:

• Engine is installed.
• Transmission is installed. This involved a custom made input shaft extension that was inspired by David Anderson's work as written up here.
• Almost all of the wiring is complete. I found some very nice environmentally sealed connectors over at Tyco's website. I don't have the part numbers handy, but I will post what they were, if not just for my own record. There is a handful of things I want to improve, but in order to do it, I need to take the whole thing apart and rebuild everything. Maybe later.
• The starter is installed. This involved probably the scariest bit of working on this car, and that was chopping large portions of the engine apart in order to make it fit. In retrospect, it wasn't that bad. The portions of aluminum that got cut off went with the original Ford transmission that won't be used anymore. The aluminum was excessive, and the cutting got nowhere near any functioning chambers of the engine.
• I bought a new fuel pressure regulator to replace the original Suzuki one I intended to use. This new one came has a nice bypass line that plumbed directly into the Lotus fuel tanks. The install is very nice and clean. This also give me the capability to adjust the pressure, which may come in handy when I can start tuning it.
• I have attempted to start the engine, but it failed. The starter just clicked. Crap. The just installed transmission is bound up, probably on the pressure plate.
• Uninstalled the transmission and took apart the bellhousing from the gearbox, thinking I could see up into the bellhousing and see where the pressure plate was binding. No dice. The bellhousing is closed except for the input shaft opening. At least with the two pieces separated, I could determine if it was the transmission binding.
• Test fired the engine again. This time, the starter turned the engine over. Sometimes. It turns out that the starter must have a flat spot on it, and it just so happened that the spot was right where I was trying to turn the engine over the first time.
• Got everything reinstalled, and tried to turn the engine over again. Great, it turns over, but will it start?

And this brings us up to this point. At first, everything was wired up, and I wanted to check the fuel system for leaks. I added a little bit of gas, and checked everywhere below that level for leaks. Nothing.

Next, bypassed all of the Megasquirt control for the fuel pump, and turned it on. Nothing. Not any leaks, but nothing from the fuel pump either. A quick call to Summit Racing and they had a new one in the mail to me that day. Uninstalling a fuel pump is not a fun task, let me tell you. First I drained the system of as much fuel as I could siphon out, but I still ended up covered in gas.

So with the new fuel pump in, I checked everything for leaks again. Nothing. Fired up the fuel pump for a few seconds, and no leaks! I did notice that the regulator was set to about 25psi, which is way too low for the fuel injectors. So, I fired up the fuel pump and slowly turned up the pressure. At about 35psi, I noticed a little leak around the one fuel injector where it plugs into my homemade fuel rail. It was a very small leak, which I thought I could ignore for the time being. When I got the pressure up to around 40psi, fuel started leaking (and at a pretty good rate) out around almost all of the injectors. Drats.

So, with my friend mopping up the gas, and me in the passenger seat turning the key, I tried to get the engine to turn over. Nothing. The starter turned the engine over, but it didn't start. So we went through some troubleshooting.

• Was the engine getting spark? Well, sometimes.
• Was the engine getting fuel? How can you test this if everything is covered in fuel from the fuel rail leaking?
• Was the Megasquirt getting the right signals? Um.... No.

The MS was not getting the right crank signal. After some head banging, and much fighting with everything, it turns out that the VR sensor was wired backwards.

So, here's where I stand today:

• A new fuel rail is almost completely built. I just need to drill out the 0.430" holes for the injectors, and this won't happen until I get a drill bit for the job. It's on order, so hopefully I can get this done before this weekend.
• The MS is getting the correct signal from the VR sensor. When I turn the key, it says the engine is cranking.
• When the new fuel rail is in place, I will again attempt to turn up the pressure on the fuel. Hopefully, it doesn't leak, and I can get the injectors to fire.

If the injectors fire, and I am still getting spark, the engine should fire. Should being the operative word here.