PRI – Killer show, boys.
Took in three seminars – data collection, wet sump recovery and flow bench – caught up with Podunk (THANKS AGAIN for the spindle and hub work, Terry!) and Woody, AND finally met David Vizard and Harold Bettes.
I was totally geeked.
Came across some solutions. Caught some face time with Uwe Schuettler from Electromotive. I’ve been having difficulty storing dyno runs on my computer. It’s my thought that it is likely operator error on my part, but I haven’t been able to take the time to figure out if it is actually me, a software problem, or an issue with the ecu. When you’re paying for dyno time, it’s not cost effective to be looking for computer errors on your laptop. Besides, the engine cools off, and you have to start over.
There are a couple of issues at play, but chief among them is that I spend so little time with the engine in the car or on the dyno that by the time I get around to logging a run, I’m a little insecure with the procedure. I have NOT been able to save a recorded session. Uwe tells me they have a crank trigger simulator which will emulate a running engine, which will give me the opportunity to actually practice recording engine events. If in fact I’m doing it right and there’s a problem, at least I’ll know to start digging deeper into the software – which is something I can do on my own time.
I also got a little face time with Harland Sharp – and right out in the middle of their table they had the BMC 1275 rockers I struggled to make fit about 4 years ago.
The conversation went something like - “Those things don’t fit, you know”, followed by a long, awkward silence. It’s my hope that putting a grumpy face in front of them might wake ‘em up. I agreed to send pictures – again. The good news is that they have started producing the pedestals in steel rather than aluminum, and they now have hex screw adjusters available, which will make dialing in lash a lot quicker. So it was – “sorry you had difficulties – but we have more crap we can sell you.”
Well, I guess it IS a trade show . . .
Schumann, a company out of Iowa, has come up with a pretty cool method of bypass oil flow recovery for modern GM stuff, but I instantly saw how it could be applied to the Midget. What he pointed out at the seminar is that on a lot of newer engines, the oil pump sits higher in the engine than on earlier V-8s. The farther away from the pump you need to draw the oil, the more power it requires. The kit’s they’re producing changes out the bypass plunger with a ball (doesn’t stick – a trick that BMC had used on the Cooper S, and which I have already incorporated on the Midget), and plumbs the overflow from the HP bleed into the intake line of the pump, rather than further south, back into the pan. The upside is four-fold.
First off, the oil being reintroduced into the pickup is not as heavily aerated as oil drawn from the pan. Secondly, it permits the oil in the pan more time to dissipate the air that it has accumulated. Third, it makes the system somewhat self priming. 4th, it gives you more pressure on the intake side – pressure above atmospheric - which takes the power you’ve already spent pressurizing the system - the portion that's being bled off - and lowers the power necessary to pull oil back into the pump.
In the Midget, the pickup needs to draw about 12” to the pump. In a Cooper, the draw is probably closer to 18”.
The downside is that I could see the oil running a bit hotter, but after chatting with David Vizard, it’s likely I need to get my oil a little warmer anyway.
It’s an incremental gain at best, but I’m looking for every Newton I can grab at this point. The cost of a bung welded to my pickup, a tapped oil return with a fitting and a section of HP hose is an experiment cheap enough to warrant further investigation.
Rick Touchette RTS Tooling was there, and he did the presentation on flow benches. It started out as just a flow bench 101 type of a presentation, but the last 10 minutes turned to his pressure differential valve, which monitors flow through the valve and seat area, and get’s you a pretty good picture as to how your seats are flowing. It’s just a hollow valve with a bleed hole on the edge of the valve seat, set up in a repeatable fixture. He’s had it on the market for about 6 years, but I think it is one of the craftiest diagnostic tools I’ve ever seen.
http://www.rtstooling.com/home?s=Fordboy was out reengaging old acquaintances and making inquiries – he wound up loading many pounds of catalogs into the back of Dodge – probably a good thing – icy on the way back – we needed the traction.
In 3 days, I doubt if I saw 1/3 of it, but what I did see, I was able to get some direction from.
Topic: Milwaukee Midget (Read 3295722 times)