126 replies to this topic

[sonscar]

Does the tuning software have real time diagnostics?After a look for any physical failings,your intake rubbers being a prime example,that would be my first call.Good luck,Steve..

[Chris1992]

Get it taken up to them on a low loader.
I am having some issues with them. And again to be fair they reply and sort the issues out next day, but why should there be any?

 

That will be my next plan if Revivals can't sort it, although I feel confident that once the ITB inlet rubbers are air tight there shouldn't be any more problems. Although I've said that before! And you're absolutely right about that mate... 

 

Reading all of this makes me think while the hell did I spend so much money on a product which by the sounds of things has not had a decent amount of R&D done on it.

Just means now I have to spend another £1k on a Haltech ECU and associated parts.

 

Yep... Get out while you still can! Although that being said, supposedly if you can get the car to SCS Delta themselves then they will do a decent job of setting it up. They're booked up until late August though.  

 

Don't get too down hearted, it might be as simple as a loose or knackered crank sensor, positive thinking required.

Shooter

 

 

Thanks man, yeah just need a break from thinking about it for a few days lol. I'll see this through to the end even if it kills me (or bankrupts me).

[Chris1992]

Does the tuning software have real time diagnostics?After a look for any physical failings,your intake rubbers being a prime example,that would be my first call.Good luck,Steve..

 

I'm not actually sure to be honest. I would hope so! This is out of my realm of expertise though so hopefully if the feature is there then Revivals will find it. 

[sonscar]

I found with bespoke systems you quickly need to develop a hands on approach.I found it very rewarding.Some "Experts" were less than knowlegeable.I do not have experience with Minis but an 1800 MGB,think larger MIni.With development from an idea to having a car which I would give my wife to drive without pages of instructions took about a year.Sonnik do not give up yet.Steve..

[sonikk4]

My problem Chris is the money has been spent, engine being built so it’s either a case of suck it up and keep going or find some more money ( not easy at this point in time) and go the different ECU route.

For me it’s the other things that I have had done like softer conical valve springs as the poundage on the SCS supplied items is excessive for the seats. Also I’m have Wurth time serts fitted on the exhaust manifold side for extra strength and longevity there.

Not hugely expensive but after talking to other 7 port billet head owners etc it’s something else that realistically I should not have to do.

[Chris1992]

I found with bespoke systems you quickly need to develop a hands on approach.I found it very rewarding.Some "Experts" were less than knowlegeable.I do not have experience with Minis but an 1800 MGB,think larger MIni.With development from an idea to having a car which I would give my wife to drive without pages of instructions took about a year.Sonnik do not give up yet.Steve..

 

I was always skeptical about switching from carbs to a fuel injection set up as I was worried I wouldn't know what to do if it broke down. The thing that sold me was people telling me the point of injection is that it WON'T break down... So much for that    

 

My problem Chris is the money has been spent, engine being built so it’s either a case of suck it up and keep going or find some more money ( not easy at this point in time) and go the different ECU route.

For me it’s the other things that I have had done like softer conical valve springs as the poundage on the SCS supplied items is excessive for the seats. Also I’m have Wurth time serts fitted on the exhaust manifold side for extra strength and longevity there.

Not hugely expensive but after talking to other 7 port billet head owners etc it’s something else that realistically I should not have to do.

 

I fully get that, and I'm in the same boat to be honest. If this D400 kit has to go in the bin then the Link set up I'm eyeing up will probably come to 2k after I've had a whole new custom loom made to suit my car. No ideal when I'm trying to save for a house at the same time!  

[sonikk4]

I found with bespoke systems you quickly need to develop a hands on approach.I found it very rewarding.Some "Experts" were less than knowlegeable.I do not have experience with Minis but an 1800 MGB,think larger MIni.With development from an idea to having a car which I would give my wife to drive without pages of instructions took about a year.Sonnik do not give up yet.Steve..

 
I was always skeptical about switching from carbs to a fuel injection set up as I was worried I wouldn't know what to do if it broke down. The thing that sold me was people telling me the point of injection is that it WON'T break down... So much for that    
 

My problem Chris is the money has been spent, engine being built so it’s either a case of suck it up and keep going or find some more money ( not easy at this point in time) and go the different ECU route.

For me it’s the other things that I have had done like softer conical valve springs as the poundage on the SCS supplied items is excessive for the seats. Also I’m have Wurth time serts fitted on the exhaust manifold side for extra strength and longevity there.

Not hugely expensive but after talking to other 7 port billet head owners etc it’s something else that realistically I should not have to do.

 
I fully get that, and I'm in the same boat to be honest. If this D400 kit has to go in the bin then the Link set up I'm eyeing up will probably come to 2k after I've had a whole new custom loom made to suit my car. No ideal when I'm trying to save for a house at the same time!

Yup, we have sold and are due to move in under three weeks and just for good measure one of our electric awnings have failed so that’s another £1k before we hand the keys over. Houses and cars are money pits. Have a look at the Haltech range of ECU’s, everything I have seen about them is positive especially when you look at YouTube and the Aussies.

[sonscar]

You may not need a new loom as all the sensors and coils and injectors are already wired up.Identifying the wires and connecting to the new ECU plug should be all that is required,hands on is usually free.Steve..

[stoneface]

I did a similar ECU conversion many years ago. I went from a Weber ECU (pile of junk) to an Emerald ECU.

I just cut the plug off the weber loom and wired up to the new ECU plug.

There were a few extra wires to add but nothing difficult, just time consuming.

[GraemeC]

I wonder if the inlet pipes were leaking when Revivals mapped it, then once they failed completely and you 'fixed' them it has now ended up too rich?

[Chris1992]

I wonder if the inlet pipes were leaking when Revivals mapped it, then once they failed completely and you 'fixed' them it has now ended up too rich?

 

I was chatting about it with my dad today and we came to exactly the same conclusion. At least I hope that's the case as that would mean a nice simple fix! 

[Steve220]

 

I wonder if the inlet pipes were leaking when Revivals mapped it, then once they failed completely and you 'fixed' them it has now ended up too rich?

 

I was chatting about it with my dad today and we came to exactly the same conclusion. At least I hope that's the case as that would mean a nice simple fix! 

 

Graeme raises a really good point here. I did some road mapping on a mate's car, and failed to recognise there was an exhaust leak. I was adding a worryingly large amount of fuel to compensate the air getting in. It wasn't until i could smell exhaust gasses in the engine bay we did a leak check of it and found the culprit. Once sealed up, the AFRs were almost in the 11s for a N/A car!! That's even too rich for turbo at high boost levels!

 

Lesson being that it's worth checking it all and re-attacking.

[mini13]

save the curent map, fix the rubbers stick a base map in it and check it

[Chris1992]

Update time, I have a living car! For now...  

 

Picking up where I left off, I had just had the car recovered back to revivals after it completely died on me in Leamington. It was with those guys for a couple of weeks as they were snowed under with other clients now that grass track season is here. I was lucky they were able to look at the car at all at such short notice. Anyway, the first step was sourcing new rubbers. Rang John at SC who said he'd dig some out for me but that went no where, so I managed to source a set of good ones off ebay from Germany and popped over to the garage to fit them. So assuming this was the only issue we began the arduous task of getting the damn thing mapped again, but as usual it put up a real fight. We did find though that it was now running extremely rich.

 

The next hurdle we found was the fuel itself. In my last update I mentioned that I had brimmed the tank with fuel at Texaco right before it had to be recovered, well this turned out to be about as good as filling the tank with water, as that's pretty much what it was! Couldn't believe it, as I paid extra for the high octane stuff, but there was no denying how watered down it was. On closer inspection you had to actually put your nose right in the filler neck before you could get even a wiff of petrol. So the tank was drained and refilled with some good BP stuff. 

 

We were beginning to get somewhere, but the engine still wasn't happy and we were running out of ideas. After deciding to put a mechanical fuel guage on the end of the fuel rail, we discovered that it was only pushing 15psi! To put it in perspective the regulator is fixed at 50psi, so out came the tank to inspect the pump. Now I should mention that I have converted to an MPI tank with MPI fuel pump as many people told me this was the easiest and simplest way to set up fuel delivery for these engines. What we found was that the pump had actually started to fall apart in the tank, and had slipped down in it's mounting clamps so that it was no longer making a good seal on the inlet pipe. We fixed this fairly quickly and got the tank back in the car, and there was an immediate difference in how it started and idled, but it STILL wasn't perfect. We checked the guage again which this time read 44psi. Much higher than before, but still not quite enough as under light throttle the engine would splutter and the fuel guage needle would flutter slightly lower. So... out came the tank again. 

 

At this point in time I had been desperately trying to get the car ready for Players Classic show down at Goodwood (best modified car show of the year imo), and it was now 7pm the day before I had to leave with the car still at the garage. Mark at Revivals had stayed open late just for me and I was over there helping get the tank in and out, so after we found that the MPI pump is in fact not up to the task we were almost ready to declare defeat, until mark mentioned that he had some Bosch pumps lying around from a volvo. These flowed at 80psi, so with a bit of 'engineering creativity' (or bodging if you prefer), we were able to cannibalise one of these pumps and fit it into the tank.

 

Once it was all back in the car we went to fire it up only to be met with absolutely nothing. After much head scratching I realised I'd wired the pump the wrong way round (it was getting late now). With that sorted we tried again, but still nothing, the pump wasn't even priming. After checking every fuse in the car about 6 times this was really starting to get annoying, until I remembered that the fuel pump actually had it's own fuse wired into the engine/ECU loom from SC. I'd completely forgotten about this as I'd stuffed it all behind my center console. Sure enough this fuse was fried so after replacing it the whole car finally burst into life and ran sweet as a nut. Que much celebration! From then on we were able to tweak the map to get it running nice, and that was that! This saga has finally been resolved. I still hate the D400 ECU with a passion, but I have a feeling the fuel pump could have been the source of all this pain right from the very start, or it was at least an important contributing factor.  

 

I made it down to Players Classic (about 3 hours each way) with no issues and had a fantastic weekend with lots of wonderful comments, and people mostly wanting to know what the engine was. The only slight bit of drama I had was about half an hour from home on the return journey; as I pulled into a services I hit the absolute mother of all potholes. It was so violent that I was certain I'd bent a wheel or a suspension arm. Once I parked up I had a look under the car and was extremely alarmed to see oil absolutely pouring from somewhere. I initially feared that I had somehow cracked my sump, but after lifting the bonnet I found that the main large oil drain pipe that goes from the cam pully plate down to the block had popped off the block. I was able to get this back on and re-secured, but when I got home I noticed that even though it was still attached, It had started to slide off again. For those unfamiliar, SC provide an alloy oil drain piece which bolts to the block in the old mechanical fuel pump location. It is essentially a cube with some stub pipes coming off, and is used for feeding oil back into the sump from the head, as well as one pipe for a breather to be connected. One of these stub pipes is much larger than the others and has the main large oil drain pipe pushed onto it and secured with a jubilee clip. The issue though is that the Pipe is under a bit of tension due to the way it is routed, and the stub pipe has no lip or return on the end to prevent the clip/pipe from sliding off (very poor design imo). I have now fixed this by carefully hammering a flare onto the end of this stub, and time will tell if this fixes the issue. 

 

So, I guess that about sums it up! I'll come back here and update if I run into any more issues relating to the engine. I wonder if it would be worth renaming this topic to make it easier for others to find who may be going through the same issues as me? 

 

I also realise I haven't posted photos, so here you go! 

 

[sonscar]

Looks very good.Just shows that all fuel injection faults are not due to the ECU.Enjoy,Steve..