Dec's Corrado

The Beige fella has been after me for a while now to stick a project thread on this car up here! Hadn't got around to it, mainly because I cant get the damn car to actually work....and I pretty much threw the towel in last summer. But things could all change tomorrow.......

To start off with I had a perfectly sensible 1.8L 16v Corrado.

Kept it pretty standard for a couple of years. Then went for a full respray, as the oul Tornado red was starting to turn a couple of different shades of pink!

A year later it developed a small leak from the pulley end of the water pump. Instead of doing the sensible thing and replacing the pump, I went a bit mad and dismantled the whole car.

I spent the next year gradually rebuilding most of the car as I got the funds to buy the parts. It's currently built up to the following spec:

Engine:

• Rebuilt 1.8L 16v block + head
• TurboTechnics pistons
• S2 conrods
• WoodyRacing Tubular stainless steel turbo manifold
• T3/T4 hybrid turbo
• 02J gearbox, only covered 5k, with mirror polished bell housing, and 02j shift mech from a Bora
• 228mm lightweight Bildon Motorsports flywheel
• Sachs VR6 clutch
• Custom made stainless downpipe
• Modified S2 inlet manifold
• VR6 throttlebody
• Bosch greentop 440cc injectors
• All new engine mounts
• Custom made fuel rail with adjustable fuel pressure reg
• Full Venair silicone coolant hose kit
• BeCool methanol/water injection kit
• Innovate motorsports LC-1 Wideband lambda probe + controller
• Modifiend sump with O.E windage tray
• 320mm slimline rad fan
• CDA type air filter
• Tial 2.5" bov
• 38mm external wastegate
• 690mm handmade Alu FMIC
• 63mm silicone + polished alu inlet pipework
• Megasquirt II V3.57 ECU
• Scorpion Boxer stainless exhaust

Suspension + brakes:

• 305mm Brembo 4-pot front brakes+calipers with custom made braided brake lines
• Fully refurbished subframe + polybushed ARB
• New wishbones fully poly bushed
• New trackrods
• Rebuilt + powdercoated rear beam with new bushings + poly bush inserts
• Rebuilt rear calipers with new hoses / pads / disks
• Coilovers
• Rear strut brace

Interior:

• Heated leather interior (refurbed and recoloured 'tan', but has turned out too orange for my liking, so will be recoloured again
• Megaview custom built into the ashtray housing
• VDO oil pressure + boost gauges in O.E cubby hole cluster
• Quite a bit of Dynamat on the doors + floor + boot etc.
• Duostyling AFR gauge
• Various Alpine speakery things

Exterior:

Aim here is to have it pretty standard

• Full respray in a slightly darker Tornado red shade (needs a bit of a tidy up after various people scraping it)
• Side rubbing strips removed
• Passat moonroof
• 16" RX reps
• Lupo wipers

I'm sure there are loads more bits I've forgotten too!

Basically I finally got everything assembled last summer, and then couldn't get the feckin thing to start. After attempting quite a few different things and throwing the guts of another £1000 at it in the form of various other new parts; I threw the towel in, and the car sat there abandoned at my old house until last month. I had it brought up to my new house and spent another week + few hundred £ trying to get it to start a few weeks back....but again made no progress.

BUT....tomorrow there's going to be a bit of a group brainstorming session on the car...so hopefully there will be some updates to this thread then! Hopefully can make some progress, as the car is starting to look a bit sorry for itself...and the thoughts of breaking it for parts have started to enter my head

Few random pics of varous work over the last two years!:

Before I started taking it apart:
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Custom made downpipe:
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Going OTT with the sound proofing (there's another layer on the outer skins of the doors)
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Refurbed rear beam going on outside my old house
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Rebuilt subframe assembly ready to go on
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Megaview fist install in the ashtray housing
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..and with the control buttons installed:
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Engine pretty much as it looks now (but it's gathered quite a bit of dust since then, and has a few new bits and bobs)
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FMIC being test fitted (ignore the pile of timber beneath the car )
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Original engine layout, but this had too many issues with clearance for the turbo
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Nice project, like the way you went from a waterpump leak to all that

Two questions though

1) you wen't for turbo technics pistons and s2 rod combo

Dec wrote:

• TurboTechnics pistons
• S2 conrods

All the turbo technics sets I've come across achieved lowered compression by offset drilling on the wrist pin bush on the small end of the rod. So in theory by having returned to a standard S2 rod you've gone back to higher compression. Secondly why didn't you use the S2 piston aswell as they've been tried and tested to 450hp whereas the T.Technics ones don't go much above 300hp?

2) why the choice of the VR throttle body would a 2E not been ot more suited for the boost run setup giving improved throttle response?

p.s. don't take the above as criticism just curious as you gone to so much effort and could've made it better with no extra work.

Awesome post dec, we will all be hassling you to get this finished!

awesome to be honest, never knew you did all that

Well myself dirtytorque and mrbeige spent an epic 7 hours attempting to get the car started today.....and despite some progress being made and one massive back-fire. It still wont catch! But it definitely sounds closer than it has been so far...and sounded pretty promising at the end of the day (despite us forgetting to recalibrate the coolant + inlet temp senders & the lambda controller when we re-flashed the ecu )

I have a few settings to change tomorrow and will give it another shot then!

BIG thank's to both Rob & Stu for all their help though, and for coming all the way over on a Sunday morning!

JNLRacing wrote:Nice project, like the way you went from a waterpump leak to all that

Two questions though.

I bought the block + head pre-built to that spec, so it would have been a bit of work money to get some S2 pistons fitted. It was compression tested in the in the workshop where I used to work, and the compression checked out as was expected. So the guys who assembled it obviously knew what they were at. 300bhp is more than I want anyways...so it's not really a prob.

Same sort of story with the throttle-body. The inlet manifold was bought modified with a Vr6 TB flange (and came supplied with the Vr6 TB)

Dec wrote:<SNIP>.....and despite some progress being made and one massive back-fire. It still wont catch!

Sorry, what was that, I didn't quite hear you Dec????

God I miss tinkering with cars, I really am going to have to pull my finger out with Gooney, after todays spirited attempt:)

Really good to 'try' and help with your car today Dec, much fun, albeit a little disheartening, but as you said, thanks to today's efforts, I hope that Rob and I (well, mainly Rob) have got you closer to getting '_______' (*insert name for car here ) started/running.

I'm thinking you might have a bit more luck once your re-calibrated those sensors, and got a good battery on it, then maybe change the coil, if it's still not playing ball...

Progress is good even if its slow. Keep at it.

Yup, will recalibrate those sensors this evening and give it another shot!

Was looking at getting a new coil (just to completely rule out the one on there being the problem). Can get a Lucas 'High-energy" sport coil for pretty good money. I assume I want the version without the built in ballast resistor?

Dec wrote:W
It was compression tested in the in the workshop where I used to work, and the compression checked out as was expected.

All a compression test will do is check that the rings and valves are sealing nothing else. Keep an eye on detonation and high EGT's as you come to map it along with AFR ratio's.

Other than that good luck with getting her up and running.

Dec wrote:Yup, will recalibrate those sensors this evening and give it another shot!

Was looking at getting a new coil (just to completely rule out the one on there being the problem). Can get a Lucas 'High-energy" sport coil for pretty good money. I assume I want the version without the built in ballast resistor?

I'm tempted to send you the coil I used with mine.
what do you think?
Its shiny and new and so will look the part in your bay.

This Car looks great btw people.
Just as good as in the photos.
I'd keep my msq on there aswell as it is already setup for a boosted engine where as your previous one wasn't.
maybe just change the required fuel number for your engine aswell.
All the other settings for fueling and ignition should be relevant.
keep at it.
Now I have had a nights sleep I feeel like going at it again.
ah well,i'm sure you'll do fine.

dirtytorque wrote:I'm tempted to send you the coil I used with mine.
what do you think?
Its shiny and new and so will look the part in your bay.

This Car looks great btw people.
Just as good as in the photos.
I'd keep my msq on there aswell as it is already setup for a boosted engine where as your previous one wasn't.
maybe just change the required fuel number for your engine aswell.
All the other settings for fueling and ignition should be relevant.
keep at it.
Now I have had a nights sleep I feeel like going at it again.
ah well,i'm sure you'll do fine.

I heartily concur. Install is well executed, albeit the wiring is still in it's 'get it running' state.

I could quite easily spend another day trying to get it going!

Just had a very interesting conversation with one of the senior engineers at work, and he said that at very low RPM at crank (<100) it is unlikely that the ECU was able to sync the ignition trigger and thus we wouldn't see a constant spark during the crank when it was that low (quite often I think). Soooo, that would explain why when at the end of the day when we had a far better cranking speed, the spark was much more regular, and thus a good battery should remedy the situation. Even with a low battery, the coil will energise and supply (not so) High tension signal anyway, so it wont necessarily be the coil, although changing it is one less thing that could be at fault.

One other thing that could be happening is the ECU could be resetting with the low battery voltage, especially when the battery is very low, so that could have been adding to our problems....

/\/\/\ good stuff.
If it comes to it i'll do another visit.

just thinking how tired i must have been.
My msq config was written for red tops so the fueling will be out.
definately re do the required fuel calc and you may want to drop the cranking pulsewidth values down.
probably why Stu had to mash the pedal to get it to kick.
Too much fuel.
Best to block that isv off sooner rather than later too.

Ok, it sounded a lot better when I tried it this evening....but still not quite there. I changed the requied fuel to 6.8, calibrated the senders and lowered the cranking pulsewidths. Ran out of juice in the batteries after about an hours playing, so I'll have to give it another go tomorrow.

Rob...I may well take you up on that coil, if you are thinking of selling it. At least it could rule that out of the equation!

Rob/Stu...you are both more than welcome anytime you fell like calling over to play with the car!

I also have a coil if Rob cant deliver, off my G60, been sat for 3 years in a box and was used from new for about 1-2 years.

well i'm suppose to be going to the pod next week,however..

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so maybe i'll detour to Decs with a coil.

579rpm...it's a 'start'

For a full 4 seconds too!

Good project!

My old Turbo Technics 16V also had the offset drilled small ends. It was all TT apart from the stealth racing reworked fuelling (K star KS301 + a rail of VR6 injectors). One of the best engines I've ever had. Smooth as butter, full boost at 3000rpm from the weeny little T25. They were the days....

Anyway

mrbeige wrote:Just had a very interesting conversation with one of the senior engineers at work, and he said that at very low RPM at crank (<100) it is unlikely that the ECU was able to sync the ignition trigger and thus we wouldn't see a constant spark during the crank when it was that low (quite often I think).

What firing tooth on startup is used? Assume it's a 60-2 wheel? With a 60-2 wheel, timing is fixed to 6 deg BTDC if missing tooth 1 is used to fire the coils, and 12 deg BTDC if missing tooth 2 is used to fire them. Experiment with the firing teeth to see if it helps with the back firing.
Does the Megasquirt have a 'transition from cranking' setting?
This is the speed when the engine is recognised as successfully running. Once this transition has taken place the engine remains in running mode until the speed drops below 500 rpm when cranking mode is resumed, which uses the startup fuel table and the aforementioned fixed timing. So even at 100rpm, the coils should still be firing at 6 or 12 deg BTDC.

mrbeige wrote:One other thing that could be happening is the ECU could be resetting with the low battery voltage, especially when the battery is very low, so that could have been adding to our problems....

That's what i was thinking, the battery draw under cranking might be starving the coils of juice. Need to check if the batt voltage falls below 10V during cranking.

/\/\/\

yes.

after startup(300 rpm on decs corrado at the mo) megasquirt goes into afterstart mode.

Which is defined as X amount of engine cycles.
At this point it still isn't using the VE table to fuel the car.
The injectors are fired for z amount of miliseconds for x amount of engine cylces to help prop the engine up after startup.
Different vales of X and Y are used at different engine startup temps.

After x amount of cycles has occured you are then into the warmup enrichment phase which gently leans out the mixture from a startup mixture to stoich as the engine warms up.Once the engine is warmed up sufficiently MS then uses the values in the VE table to calculate and reach the target afr's.
Obvioulsy in closed loop mode injector pulsewidths are also modified depending on the info coming back from the lambda.
As long as Dec can consistetly get past the 300 rpm bench mark it should now just be a case of fine tuning the afterstart and enrichment.
His job is made a bit more differcult as he has no idle bleed valve or isv.

Tuning his advance tabe around the startup area for more power may also help sustain his idle.
i think he is nearly there now.
I think the other cause of the misfire along with the battery issues was that his coil seems to need more dwell than mine did.
I have read somehwere that later coils are better and don't need to be charged as long.

kevhaywire wrote:

mrbeige wrote:Just had a very interesting conversation with one of the senior engineers at work, and he said that at very low RPM at crank (<100) it is unlikely that the ECU was able to sync the ignition trigger and thus we wouldn't see a constant spark during the crank when it was that low (quite often I think).

What firing tooth on startup is used? Assume it's a 60-2 wheel? With a 60-2 wheel, timing is fixed to 6 deg BTDC if missing tooth 1 is used to fire the coils, and 12 deg BTDC if missing tooth 2 is used to fire them. Experiment with the firing teeth to see if it helps with the back firing.

Dec's system uses the dizzy for trigger...so I think we had it set to 'rising edge' and various setting of trigger offset...think it ended up at 6 degrees.

kevhaywire wrote:
Does the Megasquirt have a 'transition from cranking' setting?
This is the speed when the engine is recognised as successfully running. Once this transition has taken place the engine remains in running mode until the speed drops below 500 rpm when cranking mode is resumed, which uses the startup fuel table and the aforementioned fixed timing. So even at 100rpm, the coils should still be firing at 6 or 12 deg BTDC.

MS has an after-start enrichment, which I think is where it goes after crank. The cranking inj PWM (based on coolant temp) is used until it exceeds a set cranking speed...this was set to 300 originally and increased to 350 IIRC

kevhaywire wrote:

mrbeige wrote:One other thing that could be happening is the ECU could be resetting with the low battery voltage, especially when the battery is very low, so that could have been adding to our problems....

That's what i was thinking, the battery draw under cranking might be starving the coils of juice. Need to check if the batt voltage falls below 10V during cranking.

We were definitely seeing less than 10v during cranking at some point. I'm pretty sure we had battery power issues, as the batteries we were using were being rung out quite a lot....the Bosch one Dec had lasted about 3 lots of cranking

I'll bow out gracefully at this point, I have no idea when it comes to using Dizzy's as crank triggers

Get a proper 36 or 60 wheel on the crank with a hall or inductive sensor

My transition from cranking is set to 900rpm, which works a treat

kevhaywire wrote:I'll bow out gracefully at this point, I have no idea when it comes to using Dizzy's as crank triggers

Get a proper 36 or 60 wheel on the crank with a hall or inductive sensor

My transition from cranking is set to 900rpm, which works a treat

I have said that it'd be better going down the trigger wheel route, and either EDIS or drive COP directly....

Any progress Dec?

Yo guys!

Bit of a long absence on my part due to various work commitments and a very nasty PhD thesis to finish writing!

The car now has had all sorts of shiny ignition parts fitted to it after I bought a sizable chunk of the 034motorsports 16v website catalog. Fitted all the bits months and months ago......and that was the last thing I did to the car. It has been sitting out in the garage gathering dust since........not even attempted once to get it started with the new ignition system!

Suffering from a MAJOR lack of motivation at the moment....and the thoughts of just sticking a standard Kr engine back in it...or even doing the unthinkable have crossed my mind!

Really didn't help that a useless friend of mine has put two nice dents in two panels of it while it was sitting in the garage, that along with the constant dents and scuffs it got outside my old house means I can now go around it and spot nasty paintwork and dents on pretty much every panel.......so it looks like it could need an almost full respray again! After only spending 2.5K on the road since getting the paint fully redone.