If you're getting that car from where I think you're getting that car, you should stop by my shop or your way down or back!
If you're getting that car from where I think you're getting that car, you should stop by my shop or your way down or back!
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:If you're getting that car from where I think you're getting that car, you should stop by my shop or your way down or back!
It's somewhere in Illinois, and I am in Columbus Ohno. Are you on my way?
GasTungstenArc said:Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:If you're getting that car from where I think you're getting that car, you should stop by my shop or your way down or back!
It's somewhere in Illinois, and I am in Columbus Ohno. Are you on my way?
very likely, depending on your chosen route. I'm just off i-80 in illinois, right at the indiana/illinois border.
edit - I'm actually not sure how far south the seller is. You may miss me entirely.
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:GasTungstenArc said:Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:If you're getting that car from where I think you're getting that car, you should stop by my shop or your way down or back!
It's somewhere in Illinois, and I am in Columbus Ohno. Are you on my way?
very likely, depending on your chosen route. I'm just off i-80 in illinois, right at the indiana/illinois border.
edit - I'm actually not sure how far south the seller is. You may miss me entirely.
It's a long drive. If a modest detour is necessary, it doesn't make much difference. I need to find a trailer to borrow, and I'll be up there sometime in the summer to pick up the X.
If purging the system causes a major redesign, may I offer that you just use this tool- airlift vacuum coolant filler. Obviously you'd want to have some self purge in addition but I've used this on three cars and it just flat works. I can't believe I haven't had one before.
Keep in mind; my X is slowly becoming more and more of an abomination, as it's a lemons car, and I'm preparing to swap in a D series engine for cost and lemony-ness (I'd be interested in a reverse shifter though...)
What solved our airbubble related overheating issues was a Vick auto coolant tank, relocated to the trunk wiglcht seems to have lifted it up high enough to self purge, coupled with a silicone hose and valve connected to the bleed port of the radiator that we can bleed outside of the car just in case
That vacuum filling kit is a neat idea.
I always positioned the expansion tank as high as I could get it, and I usually didn't have a problem bleeding the K20 swaps. Still, I would like not to have to bleed the system. I would like to be able to pour in coolant and let it self-bleed like a normal car.
Here are some pictures of the last K20 X1/9 I built at MWB. I have only engine bay pics. The rest is fairly ordinary. This one used a Rotrex supercharger. Please forgive the welds. I promise that I have grown in the eight years since I built this car.
Below you can see the VW MKIII coolant expansion tank mounted as high as it can be. You can also see the Rotrex supercharger with the outlet cut off and modified to fit under the opening in the firewall. After the first car, I always modified the fuel rail to be recirculating rather than the dead-end design that Honda used that seemed like it would be prone to vapor lock with high engine bay temps. Instead of using silicone hose elbows to redirect the coolant outlet from the cylinder head, I always cut and welded a bent aluminum tube onto that fitting. It was always a pain because the Honda part is a die casting with coolant residue dried up in its pores, which is the worst case scenario for aluminum. Still, it looks way more professional than a bunch of hoses and clamps.
Below you see the PRB intake modified for the SC setup with the intercooler just in front of the engine. There was a better way to do this, and the bonus would be that it would be more time consuming. If my car is going turbo like I want it to, I might employ the better design in my head and keep the intercooler right here. On this car more than the others, it got super cramped here in front of the engine; wiring, coolant pipes and hoses, intake manifold, all driven accessories, and the intercooler installed on the front side of the engine. Some people try to minimize firewall intrusion to keep the car more original. I say open that bitch up. It's where you spend the most time on engine integration, so you might as well get comfortable. RIP, spare tire. Buy a AAA membership and keep it up to date.
Below you can see the intercooler coolant expansion tank/fill location. I designed this system to be self-purging. I built the one-off tank for this purpose. Looks like I might be building another... The ATW intercooler is from Frozenboost.com, but I did have to modify it. I removed the 4" pipes and welded on 3" fittings.
Below you can see the flange welded in for the engine cover panel. This is the view toward the back of the passenger seat as viewed from the driver's seat. Normally, my access panel would be on a box built out from the firewall, but I needed more space on this car for the intercooler.
GasTungstenArc said:Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:GasTungstenArc said:Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:If you're getting that car from where I think you're getting that car, you should stop by my shop or your way down or back!
It's somewhere in Illinois, and I am in Columbus Ohno. Are you on my way?
very likely, depending on your chosen route. I'm just off i-80 in illinois, right at the indiana/illinois border.
edit - I'm actually not sure how far south the seller is. You may miss me entirely.
It's a long drive. If a modest detour is necessary, it doesn't make much difference. I need to find a trailer to borrow, and I'll be up there sometime in the summer to pick up the X.
well just let me know - good chance we can make something work.
I'll be building my own coil overs, too. When I was at MWB, Matt wanted to sell coil overs. I fixtured off an existing set from years ago, added camber adjustability, and sourced the machining and laser cutting. He sold a lot. I will probably do something to refine the camber adjustability, then figure out a good way around the awful strut mounts that FIAT used on these cars. The front strut mount "bearing," if you will, is a stack of steel and phenolic washers.
For the strut mounts, I will compare the diameter of the strut shaft where the mount would seat and look for OE parts (not FIAT unless by coincidence) that fit the shaft. I have a couple of vehicles in mind that had takeapartable strut mounts from which I might be able to use their rubber isolator and bearing. Since a bearing isn't necessary for the rear suspension, I might take a different tack for a solution back there. In either case, the OE mounts will need to go. They are no longer available new, and the old ones have a funny wearing habit; as they wear and squish, the strut shaft drifts inward for more camber. X1/9s can end up with a lot of mysterious negative camber. This is the reason. The rubber also squishes enough for the shaft assembly to become loose. We used to stuff a rubber washer into the stack to tighten things up. One of MWB's competitors started making new mounts. Unfortunately, they did not have an OE new mount to pattern from, so they patterned from an old one, which was squished enough to require a rubber washer to be tight. Old FIAT problems. ..
FIAT loved phenolic resin back then. They used it on the strut mounts, as the gasket for the radiator bleeder, and as a carburetor heat shield. I suppose it worked.
I would like the community's input about a using a GM transmission mount such as this one as an engine mount. It's sturdy, but the only dynamic load it ever sees in its intended use is a little bit of twisting during acceleration. In my application, the load under acceleration would be tension (front side of the engine trying to pull the top plate upward and out of the rubber.)
This mount design is purt near perfect for my version of the K20 swap, but I'm not sure about its ability to hold up under a different load from its native environment. I would have two of these working in that tensile load environment. We're talking about a 400HP K20, not a top fuel engine. But tension is tension, and this mount never saw tension where it was originally used.
If this one seems like a bad idea, I am open to suggestions on a mount with simple geometry and of a similar design. It would need to have flanges on the bottom side (no studs) because it's going to mount on top of a square tube.
Ideas other than this one if this one isn't good for my application?
I have nothing yet to report on my X1/9 project, but I finally got the chance to meet a long-time online friend who owns the second MWB K20 conversion, which was the last one before I came on board and started building them based on the K20 kit. This friend was in Los Angeles for some 40 years, but had enough of California, including the extended lockdowns that shuttered his once very successful business. After his business was destroyed, he had no reason to stay any longer, so he moved to VA. That move made it much easier for us to meet.
This car is an actual street-driven race car. It always has race tires. As with all of the other K20 swaps, the engine is stock from tip to toe. It has an excellent tune on the KPro, plus G-Force coil overs with 450lb springs all around. ALL K20 swapped X1/9s are legitimately fast cars even put up against new fast cars, but this one is the fastest of the six that I have driven. Naturally, the supercharged one that I built would have been faster, but we shipped that car with stock injectors and a stock tune because Matt was concerned about ventilating the block (understandable from a businessman's perspective.) The owner took me for a hot lap around some back roads that he obviously had been down before, then let me drive it. What a rush! And aside from being a rush, it was a very satisfying driving experience. He has this car very well sorted from seating/steering position to suspension tuning to alignment to brakes.
The experience has lit a fire under me. That's not to say that you're going to see major progress on my car next week, but it has motivated me further. It has also made me consider some ideas that I had not considered before, such as pinning the engine cover and rear trunk lid.
Now, on a street car, I'm not keen on hood pins. But I'm also not keen on working on an engine with an engine cover in my way. The engine cover does not open very high in stock configuration, particularly after decades of fatigue on the lift spring has caused the cover to sag. Seriously, I have worked on cars that had probably a 45 degree engine cover lift angle. There is a trick to make the engine cover lift higher, but it's still in the way for service. This cover is gutted underneath and is held on by three pins and no hinges. It's something to consider, or at least some non-factory engine cover lifting method...
This car also has me considering cutting away the upper crossmember that holds the hinges for the rear trunk lid and replacing it with a tubular structure similar to what you see in the pictures below. I had already decided to cut out the rear trunk floor to give me more freedom for exhaust layout, but cutting that crossmember out would give me further design freedom, including allowing me to use a cast iron exhaust manifold so that I don't have to spend 20 hours building a tubular manifold that has clearance to the upper crossmember. If I still want the rear trunk lid to close on hinges, I could attach the hinges to the tubular structure. I could even build a "negative jig...thing" that would locate the hinges for me after the upper member is cut away.
Things I didn't like: the clutch throw is short. SHORT. Like probably 1" from disengaged to locked up. It's funny because he warned me about the clutch throw (or lack thereof,) and followed with "but you won't stall it." Wanna bet? I'm just glad that nobody else was around to see me learn the clutch throw. I don't know what's going on there, because the KX cars I built always had a quick-but-still-normal clutch engagement. This car has four point harnesses and fixed race seats. That's a no go for me, although I did thoroughly enjoy my first time being planted in a race seat that held me precisely in one place as I drove the car. I just wouldn't want the rigidity and the ingress/egress difficulties in a street car.
Other reflections from driving Christian's car: it's fast. It's really fast, even when compared to today's hottest "hot hatches." I have always been fond of saying that there's no kill like overkill, but driving this car makes me think that maybe a turbocharger is excessive. That's not to say that I am not going to turbocharge. I have this still-new Garrett T3/4 that would work great on a K20. I just wonder if a turbo car might be somehow less enjoyable by reaching redline too fast for me to enjoy the trip. I am accustomed to *having* to have a turbocharger to be fast. The plan is still turbo, if for no other reason than noise control. (The intake snarl is glorious, but the throttle body is directly behind the driver's ears. And the exhaust could benefit from more muffling than a single straight-through muffler can offer. I'm making excuses...)
This car is way more stripped than I want mine to be. My concept is a "stradale," a homologation street car similar to a Lancia 037 or a Stratos, but less plush than a Sport Quattro. This one here is truly a race car. I'm no longer in my 20s, when I thought that the ideal car was a "street-legal go kart." In stock form, an X1/9 is already close enough for me to a street-legal go kart.
In reply to GasTungstenArc :
Not sure if he's on Xweb, I'll make sure he knows to go there, but I'll bet he is....
GasTungstenArc said:I would like the community's input about a using a GM transmission mount such as this one as an engine mount. It's sturdy, but the only dynamic load it ever sees in its intended use is a little bit of twisting during acceleration. In my application, the load under acceleration would be tension (front side of the engine trying to pull the top plate upward and out of the rubber.)
This mount design is purt near perfect for my version of the K20 swap, but I'm not sure about its ability to hold up under a different load from its native environment. I would have two of these working in that tensile load environment. We're talking about a 400HP K20, not a top fuel engine. But tension is tension, and this mount never saw tension where it was originally used.
If this one seems like a bad idea, I am open to suggestions on a mount with simple geometry and of a similar design. It would need to have flanges on the bottom side (no studs) because it's going to mount on top of a square tube.
Ideas other than this one if this one isn't good for my application?
The energy suspension poly ones have a metal latticework embedded in that will keep the halves from separating, and provide some structural stability for the load you propose. As long is it doesn't have too much leverage on it, should be fine.
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
I might be asking too much, but I have to control NVH. This car mounts the engine directly to the unibody without any subframe bushings to dampen noise and vibration, so I fear that a urethane mount would be too harsh.
I kept NVH to stock or better than stock with the K20 conversions through the use of four vintage FIAT 124 rubber engine mounts, which are still readily available today, and which I will probably use again on my car. As far as fitment goes, the GM trans mount is nearly ideal for the front two engine mounts, but I wonder if it would hold up to being pulled on so hard. So, if nobody can testify to their strength in tension, I'd better not use them.
In reply to GasTungstenArc :
I wouldn't use the stock trans mount for this application, I think it would come apart based on old ones I've taken off cars in the past.
Racingsnake said:In reply to GasTungstenArc :
I wouldn't use the stock trans mount for this application, I think it would come apart based on old ones I've taken off cars in the past.
That has been my concern regarding the mount. Design is perfect for one location on the FIAT, but that mount would never see tension in its intended use.
instead of pinning the engine cover, what about leaving the hinges bolted to the cover but make little captured 'slots' in the body. So it would still release and hinge like normal, but to remove all you'd have to do is pop the latch and then slide the front of the cover backwards a bit to release the hinges from their slots?
Pulling a pinned cover is annoying if you're trying to quickly check the oil or something.
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:instead of pinning the engine cover, what about leaving the hinges bolted to the cover but make little captured 'slots' in the body. So it would still release and hinge like normal, but to remove all you'd have to do is pop the latch and then slide the front of the cover backwards a bit to release the hinges from their slots?
Pulling a pinned cover is annoying if you're trying to quickly check the oil or something.
Check oil? It's a Honda engine. Do I still need to do that?
Maybe something like that would work. Or maybe I could remove the hinge pins and replace them with pins that have a retaining clip for easy removal. But there's still FIAT's goofy lift spring to deal with. I think I would have to replace it with a hydraulic lift strut. I think I did that to the car that I built that went to Dubai. Or maybe it was the Dallara bodied turbo car. I forget now, but I know I did it to one car.
Any updates here? Just thought I'd ask since you're building my dream car.
Deltabox said:Any updates here? Just thought I'd ask since you're building my dream car.
Nothing physical to report. But I have sold my Suzuki GL1100GL motorcycle. This sale will fund the purchase of the x1/9 without taking money from the bank account. I am planning to pick up the car later this summer.
But since you have asked, I have been dreaming up several ways to make this project more complicated. I will highlight below for your boredom:
1) There is a lot of wisdom in FIAT's placement of the fuel tank vertical and directly behind the driver; the driver is the car's second-heaviest component, and the tank is as centrally located in the car as possible. In its location, it has the least possible influence on handling, whether empty or full. But the tanks are often rotted out, and the firewall bulge for the tank is in the way of the throttle body. Add to that my desire to increase service access to the drivetrain package, and I am strongly considering building a fuel tank in the "frunk." The X1/9 is light in the nose for obvious reasons, so I would like to move some weight forward. Even though the weight of the fuel is variable, I can at least move the tank, pump, and filters forward. The tank would take up the whole floor area of the frunk and would be only as tall as is necessary to achieve 10-12 gallon capacity (about 6" tall.) By making the tank as flat as possible, I intend to maximize usable space in the frunk. The tank would have a baffled lower sump in order to keep fuel in the pump during hard cornering, even when fuel level is low. The main volume would have baffles also, and the tank would be aluminum.
2) On the subject of eating up frunk space, I am trying to talk myself into venting the radiator through the hood. This is not so much for cooling as it is for relieving the buildup of air pressure (lift) under the nose of the car. But the airflow won't hurt, either, as the airflow through the radiator will be impeded by the heat exchanger for the intercooler. None of this is strictly necessary; I built a supercharged and intercooled (ATW) X1/9 before, and it had no cooling problems.
3) Back to the engine bay. The X1/9 is built with two cavities between the firewall and the back wall of the cabin. On the right side cavity is the spare tire, which is lost to make space for the K20's intake manifold. There, I always built a box in the firewall to provide space for the IM and to allow for installation and service of the drivetrain and components. On the left side cavity is the fuel tank. If I do build a front fuel tank, I am planning to cut away the left side of the firewall (right side already has to go) and build one large access panel that will replace most of the back wall of the cabin (which at this point, IS the firewall since the actual firewall will have been removed for clearance and service access.) The end result will be a very large access panel that would span both sides of the back wall of the cabin and give access and clearance for everything necessary for the swap. One small gain in doing all of this is that the clutch slave cylinder will have more than the usual 1/4" of clearance to the firewall. I always disliked how close it had to be, even after the tricks of changing fittings on the slave and tapping in the firewall for clearance.
4) Creating the larger access panel also allows me space to reposition some components to make the engine bay more tidy and easier to reach into. The ATW intercooler could also move into the fuel tank area to prevent me from having to perform major surgery on the factory intake manifold. In that way, the project is made slightly easier, but you can't lose them all... The engine coolant expansion tank might move forward to the former fuel tank area, or I might move it to the frunk.
5) Expansion tank in the frunk, you say? I want to vent the radiator to the expansion tank so that the cooling system works like a normal car with no need to bleed air from the radiator. It's kinda weird to think about the expansion tank in the frunk, but I don't think that its position should affect the way it works--as long as it is higher than the device that is venting to it.
6) The factory coolant tubes suck. They rust from the inside out. I think I will build a new system in their place. It would feature aluminum cooling tubes positioned and separated by a series of aluminum plates. The plates would also have additional holes for routing hoses and lines from the front of the car to the back. This system would carry lines for the ATW heat exchanger, oil cooler if necessary, heater lines if necessary, return hose from the expansion tank if the tank is going to the front, fuel lines since the tank would be moving forward, and maybe even clutch and brake lines if I remake them. This whole system would fit in the place where the original coolant pipe "box" was spot welded ten million times into the underside of the X1/9's floor.
I like your thinking on all of this......
MiniDave said:I like your thinking on all of this......
Thanks. I have a lot of time to think about how to make my life more complicated. :)
I am trying hard to strike a balance between the race car that my heart wants and the street car that my mind knows I should build.
I have also been putting a lot of thought into the exhaust system and overall noise. The K20 makes some awesome sounds, but in a mid-engine setting, the noise can be overbearing.
Intake:
The VTEC snort on the intake side is great, but it can be overbearing when the TB is right behind your head. I expect that the turbo alone will put an end to most of that noise, but then there's turbo noise. I will probably make an intake box in the rear trunk and build an intake scoop either through the deck lid or through the closest box flare.
Exhaust:
Since I have built five of these cars, I know what the NA exhaust noise is like with dual 2" turbo mufflers, a single 2.25" turbo muffler, and a magnaflow 2.5" muffler. I never experienced any drone, but on a 400hp turbo engine I also can't use 2.5" tubing without losing power. The turbocharger knocks down a lot of exhaust noise by itself, but I need higher flow than 2.5" can manage without becoming a restriction, and 3" tubing can produce drone. So, I am mentally running through my options, which, as I see them, are:
1) Run a 3" system with a 3" Magnaflow muffler and hope for the best;
2) Run system (1) and experiment with Helmholtz resonators. The problem here is that optimizing the Helmholtz resonator requires measuring equipment that I don't have;
3) Build David Vizard's zero loss exhaust system, which uses a large "pressure wave termination box" to, well, terminate the pressure wave and also serve as a resonator. The problem here is space available. The termination box is necessarily large, and my car is small;
4) Build a system that splits a single 3" off the turbo into two, then run two parallel Magnaflow 2.5" mufflers, known to me not to produce drone on a short system such as mine;
5) Build system (4,) but with Dynamax turbo mufflers for less noise and hope for the best on flow;
6) Build system (4,) but with one 2.5" Magnaflow and one 2" Dynomax. The idea here is that the Magnaflow provides a good share of the flow requirement (560CFM out of 880CFM required for near zero restriction at 400HP) and decent noise cancellation while the Turbo muffler chips in the rest of the needed flow and does a better job of noise cancellation, possibly killing more drone than the Magnaflow muffler is doing...or something.
7) Straight 3" pipe and send it.
With the rear trunk floor removed, I do have space for any one of these options. And the engine will make more than enough power to carry any added weight from mufflers. But I would like the system to be as clean-looking and as simple as it can be while muffling enough noise to make the car pleasant to drive. Any well-informed input on exhaust design for low-to-no-drone and modest noise while maintaining near-zero backpressure would be appreciated.
Three thoughts regarding the fuel cell in the front trunk:
This is pretty common in X1/9 SCCA race cars, and considered an improvement to the car's F/R weight distribution.
Rather than build a fuel tank, just buy something from Summit Racing. The rotary-molded cells are less expensive, and are safe enough to be allowed is some racing classes (like Improved Touring). I should state that this is from memory, back in the 1990's.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/rjs-3008201
A fuel pump/sump design I've used very successfully in several race cars (where it is urgent to never suck air until the fuel cell is completely dry), is to have an intermediate fuel can which receives its fuel supply from a low pressure Facet pump near the fuel cell, and it (the fuel can) has an overflow hose back to the fuel cell. The engine's high pressure pump receives its supply of fuel from the bottom of the can. The can's volume isn't too important, but a tall, narrow design works best (with maybe a cone shape at the bottom). You've got lots of flexibility regarding where to mount the fuel can in the car. It is usually aluminum with -6AN fittings (or whatever sizes needed).
Russ McBride said:Rather than build a fuel tank, just buy something from Summit Racing.
There are some big advantages to a plastic fuel cell, but I really want to try to reserve *some* frunk space for storage, even if it is, as Jay Leno says, only "enough for a toothbrush and a pair of socks." I want to use 100% of the area of the trunk floor so as to make the tank as flat as possible and the frunk as useful as possible. A more-cube-shaped cell will take up more headroom and leave unusable space along the sides of the cell. I also want to position the filler neck way off in a corner, and possibly the same with the sending unit if it needs to stand proud off the tank in an effort to keep frunk volume consolidated and more usable. In short, I want to be able to stow luggage and bags on top of the tank.
On top of all of that, my way takes more time and costs more--two very important factors in starting a project that I don't finish.
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