Lemons X1/9 but more cylinders

So brakes and suspension that inspire confidence are on the critical path to tripling the horsepower of the car, so these next updates aren't really off topic :). Next race is April 1st at The Ridge in Shelton, WA. After that I'm hoping we can get back to the fun bits of figuring out the swap.

Finished with the upgraded brake master cylinders. They took two iterations, which sucked. The first mounting box I made I tried to keep fairly simple, but it ended up flexing when you stomped on the brakes. The entire front bulkhead was also flexing. So I ended up having to cut the whole thing out and start over. Apart from the ugly welds on the thinner pieces (ugh) I'm happy enough with the result. I'm even happier with how the brakes feel. Such a big upgrade. Now they feel firm and the pedal travel is very much reduced. It was impossible to modulate the brakes accurately before because of how long the travel was, so I'm really looking forward to the race when we can put the new system to the test.

Ignore the sketchy brake line going through the bulkhead without a grommet - I took the picture before dealing with that.

Ride height is probably a bit high in the rear, but I'll get that dialed in the next week or so. I'm happy with the fronts, no more rubbing on the fenders. Maybe we'll give the car a wash before the race. :)

And just to make things a little spicier, the transaxle in the bus exploded a few weeks ago, which is my home during the races. So it's a mad dash to get a new/used one and get it put back together before April 1st. Pulled the motor yesterday and picking up a used transaxle this week.

Just saw this, as a LeMons racer of 60's European iron myself, this makes me happy.  Followed.

I still love this car. Carry on!

Race number 4 is in the books. We raced at the ridge this last weekend, and it went well. Every type of weather showed up. It was pouring, then sunny, then hailing, then pouring, then snowing, then sunny, etc etc. It made racing super fun, since our car was a little bit more competitive with our lack of horsepower. We ended up p4 in a class of 13. We did very short stints.

We had two unscheduled stops, both on Saturday. One was to fix a tire that was rubbing in hard right turns and we got towed in once when the water pump belt snapped and the car started to overheat. Fortunately we saw the overheating on the telemetry and were able to tell the driver to shut it off before the engine was hurt. Three driver errors also ate up some time.

The brake and suspension upgrades worked well. I finally was able to get confident on the brakes and was braking later than just about anyone, with still a ton of margin. The stiffer springs helped it respond more quickly. Overall I'm super happy with how these relatively large changes just worked without much fuss. I had dialed in the brake balance on the street the week before and didn't need to mess with it all weekend. We also cut some radiator vents in the hood and made some ducts, and it seemed to run about 10* cooler, but also the ambient temp was cooler than the last race, so hard to tell how much impact it had, but it seemed to help a bit and the hood louvres look cool.

So I think with these changes working well the car is ready for some more power. I've started looking around for fuel cells, and unfortunately the biggest one I can see fitting in the frunk is only 12 gallons because of how the brake setup takes up space. This is pretty far from ideal, but the driving skill on our team is almost nonexistent, so I don't think it'll be the limiting factor in competitiveness.

A bit more progress today. Got the lower and upper intake manifold on, which required more cutting. Took the engine out to cut a small slot so the water pump pulley would clear, and put the engine back in. Then I undid my previous cross brace to accommodate the throttle body. Got the accessories mounted and the serpentine belt clears everything. The engine is actually easy to take in and out, the process doesn't require any special cuss words.

With the forward brace needing move a few inches to clear the upper intake manifold, the window needs to be made of lexan. I'll also need to figure out a brace that will work there. And then remake the rear upper bracing. I'm thinking something along these lines.

Which sort of close to the prototipo

Going on vacation for the next week but hope to jump back into it when I'm home.

Great to hear the race report.  It is such a good looking car

I started trying to measure halfshaft lengths that i'll need and it's a real pain in the ass.

First mistake was taking the strut out. I need to measure at the top and bottom of the suspension travel, so I figured I'd take the strut out to make it easier to move around, but of course that lets the whole hub flop around. But even if I didn't make that mistake, it's hard to get a really confident measurement.

I'm thinking my strategy will be:

* set the car at approximate ride height

* get a measurment M measured from the edge of each CV joint

* M + the depth + snapring bit is the full length of the halfshaft?

alternatively I could cut up my bad sleeve axle attempt and mock some up with tack welds to get a length

I had read about measuring at the top and bottom of the suspension travel, but the more I think about it, the less I think it really matters? Because either the CVs will either accomodate the lengthening and shortening of the axle through the suspension travel, or the won't and they'll explode, but there's not much I can do about that. Shouldn't I just get the measurement from where the suspension is in the center of the travel and where the CV's are in the center of their telescoping range?

ultimately i just need to be 100% confident in the measurement I come up with because it's not super cheap to get them made and if the specs are wrong then i'm lighting money on fire.

aside from that problem, I found that the starter is bad. I ordered a cheap one a while back from ebay and it just grinds on the flywheel (though it does turn the engine..). horrible noise. super annoying. i'd prefer to find a used one but none of our junkyards have a vr6 in stock right now. but at least the engine freely...i never actually verified that.

alright, axles have been created and are on their way to me.

spent some time this weekend working on the car. got everything wired up and we were able to start it. the speeduino wasn't that tricky, it all just kinda worked on the first go, apart from me putting the fuel lines on backwards so it was pressurizing the return, oops. got it up to temperature and discovered that the junkyard geo metro radiator is leaking, so i went back to the junkyard and got one from a 2000ish civic. the valves were incredibly loud for the first few minutes but quieted down and overall it sounds healthy and has good oil pressure. it has been sitting for 15+ years so i had no idea what to expect.

rozap said:

Doing some brainstorming on how to add more cooling to this. Since it'll be mostly running at WOT for hours on end, I'd prefer to overdo it on the cooling. I'm thinking a second small radiator to supplement the radiator up front, which is from a scirocco and is a bit bigger than the stock one, but it's just about the biggest one we can fit up there.

Maybe a small radiator from a geo metro plumbed in parallel with the existing radiator? I would have liked something longer and skinnier, but this is the only thing the junkyard was able to provide.

Maybe this is a bad idea and it makes more sense to do something else. If I go this route, I'll rejigger the muffler to be farther away.

The main advantage of putting another radiator here is that we can then make a duct to the radiator inspired by the abarth prototipo

 

I also cut up that shift box that matthewmcl sent me, in order to reverse everything. It'll work, and the cables should be long enough once I cut holes to route them properly. Yes it's ugly, but this is lemons.

 

Also, saw this at the junkyard, for sale, in one piece with a manual transmission. It was incredibly straight. Or you could make a lemons car out of it.

Do you have any details on what modifications you had to make in order for the shifter to work backwards?

mblommel said:

Do you have any details on what modifications you had to make in order for the shifter to work backwards?

It was just putting two holes and mounts on the opposite side of the box, then running the cables out that side. So when you move into 1st gear, whereas before it would pull on the cable, now it pushes it. Then since the cables are mounted to the transmission backwards (coming from the front of the transmission, rather than the rear in the corrado) the two backwards motions are canceled out.

I drove my GF's 2.8VR6 Passat today. That's a peppy car for 1996. I bet this lightweight car flies! I'm a big fan of this engine now

Yea I think it'll be fun. My Corrado feels reasonably quick considering it's from 1993. The X is about 700 pounds lighter than the Corrado. It definitely won't be the fastest thing on the track, though, even in lemons. Maybe mid pack in naturally aspirated form. Right now our car is generally in the bottom 3 or 4 cars in terms of fastest lap.

In reply to rozap :

Ah, got it. That makes perfect sense. I've been looking at a Ford Focus shifter I have here for a similar mid-engine switcheroo and was wondering the best way to make that happen. Thanks!

And as a former X1/9 owner glad to see this one getting driven in anger. Thanks for sharing. 

Well, just a quick update here. We decided to do one more race with the existing drivetrain rather than try to get this all finished by October. Boring choice, I know, but the races tend to sneak up on us so probably best not to rush. I think we'll be able to really tear into this after October and get it over the line.

But that means I can work on the other projects. When the van spun a bearing in April, just before our last race, I parked the van in the shed for about 3 months while moped around about it. After moping, I figured I'd just upgrade to subaru power rather than rebuild the 1800 and continue to have stinky heat and 65hp. So that's finally happening. Got an EJ20 off craigslist, and I'm making progress on it. Going to also speeduino this, just so I can get extra familiar with that ecosystem.

Also taking the time now to fix the rusted front floor pan and rusted sliding door track.

Finished all that up and now the floor pan is unholy and the sliding door actually rolls nicely. Cleaned all the mechanisms for the slider in the ultrasonic cleaner and now I can open and close the door with my pinky. Previously you had to slam it and it had sunken far enough on the track that nothing was linking up anymore. Feels like a new bus now.

Love your projects. But what I don't understand is why people put Subaru 4-bangers in busses when the EZ30 is barely any bigger and has more appropriate torque figures.

Just availability. And the current bar is so incredibly low that even a lowly EJ20 is a huge improvement.

(Love your projects. But what I don't understand is why people put Subaru 4-bangers in busses when the EZ30 is barely any bigger and has more appropriate torque figures.)

Easy answer is the stock transmission won't handle the torque of the EJ30. 

The EJ25 Is pushing the limits of the stock bus transmission. 

Can it be built to handle the power? Sure it can but why? Your better off putting in a reversed ring&pinioned Subaru 5 or 6speed. 

So a N/A EJ30 on stock transmission with 100k plus mileage and expecting it to survive is not a wise idea.

So the little old 2.0 or 2.2 is a good choice for a bus just for running around town or to tow a little X 1/9.

Also I'm close enough to actually go and see it if he allows visitors to his shop.

brad131a4 (Forum Supporter) said:

Also I'm close enough to actually go and see it if he allows visitors to his shop.

Visitors are welcome. There's even a couch in my shop for comfortable beer drinking and heckling.

Sliding door track was finished a few weerks ago. The door is so quiet and smooth now! And all the body lines line up now! I can open and close it with just my pinky finger! Seriously over the moon about how good it turned out. It was janky as hell before.

EJ20 is in. Did the timing belt prior to installing the motor thinking space would be tight. Nope - there's nearly a foot of space in the engine bay behind the motor. Nice.

Been working on the cooling system and it's nearly figured out. Heater core sits up front under the floor inside the belly pan. Have a bunch of other little things to complete, but I've been making steady progress and feeling very motivated, because I want to get back to work on the X1/9 swap.

Love your builds and your attitude, thanks for sharing.  As for cooling, a radiator out back will be starved for airflow as the notch behind the cabin causes the air to get messy and detached.  Take a look at a Lotus exige:  Radiator up front, serious ducting ramp installed toward the front of the hood to send it upwards and reduce air under the car.  You will finally reach speeds where air management and downforce might be a thing.  You get a lot more bang for your buck managing what goes underneath the car than what passes over the notchy topside .   If you can mount and datalog headlight levelling sensors front and rear, that's a cheap way to collect data on the effectiveness of your aero.  Put 100lbs over the rear axle, measure the change and now you know what 100lbs of rear downforce looks like, etc..    Happy building.

End of summer update:

The car is ready for the race on October 14th at the ridge in shelton. This is our last (planned) race with the stock drivetrain. Over the winter we'll transfer the VR6 from the brown car into the race car, and do the fuel cell and permanent install. Since it's our last race, I bumped the shift light RPM range up so we can launch a connecting rod into orbit.

For this race we installed a front and rear sway bar. The rear bar was donated to the cause and is from a VW bug and I made it "adjustable" by drilling extra holes in it. It fit perfectly. The front bar is for an X1/9 so...it also fit perfectly. No idea what the relative stiffness is between them, but hopefully we can adjust the rear one so that the balance is nice. The stock X has no sway bars on either end so hopefully this will help things. We also improved the connectors for our radios, as we lost about ~10 minutes at two previous races un-bending some of the janky connector pins.

An exciting development is that I've nearly convinced my teammate Steve to bring his lemons 128 out of retirement. It last raced in 2012. Please, post in this thread asking Steve to ship it over from Virginia. Or show up to the race and yell at him. If we end up running two cars we'd need to acquire a few new teammates, so if anyone is interested in lighting time, money and their sanity on fire, let me know.

Steve, ship the damn car out here!

The van has started for the first time. Still have about a page of TODOs to work through, and then have to actually tune it. I spent a lot of time debugging the speeduino and it turned out to be an integer overflow bug in the firmware causing the crank trigger to never sync. Once I fixed it it fired right up. But I was chasing that issue for a few days and felt like I was going insane. But it ran much smoother and quieter than the old engine, so I'm very excited about it.

With the van build taking up a bunch of time I didn't get to do any track days over the summer. But I did get to do my first mini roadtrip in the lotus, which was on the list since I got the car but hasn't happened yet because driving more than 100 miles from home in a car like that is always a gamble. We went down to the indycar race at PIR via 101, hitting up some breweries on the way. Super pretty drive. And the car didn't do anything offensive, which was a huge success.

Nice Esprit!

We completed our last race on the 1500cc engine. Before the race I changed the oil and found a number of large chunks of bearing in it, so I had many concerns, but it was too late to rebuild the spare engine so we just went to the race and hoped for the best. The oil pressure was still good, and there was no noise, but I figured we'd get around 10 laps before it deposited a rod on the pit straight. So we started off with super short stints so everyone got a chance to drive it. But the little 1500 held on for the entire race and we managed 249 laps. It was a super fun race with a lot of changing conditions again, which slowed the whole field down and we had some really fun w2w battles. At the end we were in a battle with the chevy stylemaster for IOE, and only 3 laps down on them and around 25s per lap faster, so it came down to the wire, but the prize went to them. I think we could have beat them but there was a very long red flag on day 2 from a BMW in the wall (everyone was OK). We had a few off track excursions on day 1 in the wet, and the starter wire fell off again so we were push starting the car.

Front and rear sway bars helped the car quite a bit, and the balance ended up being great, so I didn't mess with the adjustment at all. It understeered a bit on corner entry, so you could trail brake pretty deep into a corner, and through the middle of the corner felt really balanced. I might add a bit of rear bar but overall I'm super happy with our improvements.

I think I'll need to corner balance the car as I got a couple front left lockups in the wet. But braking performance continued to be really good and I was braking later than many other cars could. I had a few somewhat sideways moments in the wet but the car was easy to manage, and a few moments where I overshot my braking point, but still managed to hit the apex, so it turns out I could have been braking harder and later and I was leaving a lot of time on the table that way. I need to work on my ability to move closer to the limit rather than settling into a rhythm and just turning laps. Still improved the fastest lap by a second from last time out.

Even though we didn't blow it up, the plan is still to pull out the sawzall in the coming weeks and begin transferring the vr6 into the racecar.

Bus project is now "done". Went for the first drive the other day and it was awesome. It's so quiet, smooth, and powerful. Huge upgrade over the aircooled engine. Spent too much time making a display that talks to the speeduino and renders the temperatures, fuel, oil pressure etc on the dash. It took some trial and error but now it is working reliably. It's an stm32 with a little enclosure I printed. The nice thing is that I can reuse the same hardware and software I wrote for the Fiat, since it is also speeduino powered.

Big rainbow on the maiden voyage. A good sign.

Really looking to getting out on some road trips once I log some more mileage on it. Haven't run into any big drivability issues yet, but still need to tune the cold start and the closed loop for the ISV. When I have the seat heaters, lights, and heater fan all on, the draw on the alternator causes the idle to be a little low because I've only done the open loop ISV tune. But these are pretty minor issues in the grand scheme of things. It's a massive improvement compared to the old engine. I'm  also running a pretty conservative timing map, but maybe one day I'll rent some dyno time.

With that project done, I was excited to start on the X1/9, finally, oh wait, what's that puddle under the other car...

I had some coilovers that I bought like a year ago but they shipped me 4" ID springs when the car has 3" ID springs. The company insisted that the part was correct despite me sending them pictures. So the coilovers went into the cabinet and I was upset about it for a while. But this forced the issue. So I turned the perches down to fit 3" springs and reused the old springs, which are a similar rate.

It wasn't that hard...I should have just done this a year ago, but I was annoyed at the parts supplier. Both rear struts on the car were completely shot.

All done. Took it for a drive and it's a big improvement.

Ok, so *finally* it is fiat time again. Engine removed.

...and cut up. We also removed the VR6 from the brown car, and I removed all the engine mounts that were tacked in. Started notching the frame of the racecar and have made patch pieces and tacked them in. The closest bit is the pulley and serpentine belt, so the plan is to tack things in, make sure the engine fits, then remove it and do the final welds. So it took me long enough, but things are finally moving and we accomplished a lot this weekend.

And it sounds like the Fiat 128 will be shipped out here in the next couple months. So we may do a two car team *if* we can acquire a few more folks who are excited about racing old italian trash in lemons. So if anyone is in the Olympia/Seattle/Portland area and wants to join up, shoot me an email at chrisd1891@gmail.com. The 128 is an IOE slam dunk.

A bit of progress. Got all the mounts tacked in, and tacked in the bracing that replaces the old ones. The front one had to move forward by a few inches, and the rear brace+firewall between the engine was really tightly packaged even with the old engine, so the new brace is moved back a bit.

Did more thinking about how big the notch in the frame is, and I'm not super stoked on it, since it is a load path. This notch is required to accommodate the crank pulley. It will be welded up with thicker metal than is currently there, but the fact remains that it is a thinner box. My plan is to add a 1" tube brace on the top of it. Purple is load paths, yellow is a spreader plate, blue is the brace.

Should be fine. Maybe. Dunno. We'll see!

rozap said:

A bit of progress. Got all the mounts tacked in, and tacked in the bracing that replaces the old ones. The front one had to move forward by a few inches, and the rear brace+firewall between the engine was really tightly packaged even with the old engine, so the new brace is moved back a bit.

Did more thinking about how big the notch in the frame is, and I'm not super stoked on it, since it is a load path. This notch is required to accommodate the crank pulley. It will be welded up with thicker metal than is currently there, but the fact remains that it is a thinner box. My plan is to add a 1" tube brace on the top of it. Purple is load paths, yellow is a spreader plate, blue is the brace.

 

Should be fine. Maybe. Dunno. We'll see!

Just based on the weight of the car, and the various engine attachment points, and the cage, me thinks you might be overthinking this.

Sure, put the tube in for piece of mind.  Then never worry about it again.