Mer-What? XR4Ti Track Car

Holy E36 M3!

I wonder if they were just very bad at driving a stick and couldn't get any farther, lol.

Glad you got it back.

slowbird said:

Holy E36 M3!

I wonder if they were just very bad at driving a stick and couldn't get any farther, lol.

Glad you got it back.

Yes me too! I'm in the middle of trying to tune it so it's really funky right now. Also the alternator squeaks like a banshee, so I bet they wanted to drop that hot potato pretty quick!

In reply to TXratti :

Even thieves dumb enough to steal a Merkur aren't dumb enough to keep it 

Wow, turns out all those old anecdotes about driving a manual because it's harder to steal might have been accurate after all! Glad to hear it wasn't worse!

Fixed everything that was broken during the theft last night, swapped the column piece with a new one with a new lock cyl and a new harness piece.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to TXratti :

Even thieves dumb enough to steal a Merkur aren't dumb enough to keep it 

 So true. They lost money on that one with all the tools that they left.

Haven't found a lot of time to work on this lately but I made some progress! I've had this raspberry piDash sitting on a shelf for a while, and finally got to install it. With it, I purchased a 3D printed piece which mounts it in place of the stock instrument panel.

The Dash runs Tunerstudio and connects directly via USB to the ECU, super fast response (see the video below), and can get speed from a GPS antenna (also via USB).

Here's a video of the guy who sells the kit with the install on his car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11WL1owVeHg&t

It just mounts into the back of the piDash which works great!

I drilled out a piece of the side to mount my AEM Wideband gauge/controller

It came with a fuse splice, which I wired into an always-hot circuit (to allow the computer to stay on if I cycle the key when making tuning changes) and added a switch on the powered side to keep the ability to turn the computer off as well.

Only a small bit of trimming on the backside was required to get the panel to fit, and it mounts from the front and secures from the backside. The stock glare shield actually fits over the whole thing, and I even have a wireless keyboard with a touchpad that works with it, but I want to maintain the touch screen capability (see the video at the beginning).

Here's a comparison of the stock panel and the new setup:

And then I got it installed in the car and connected. It comes up with a standard gauge pack, but it can be customized to be just about anything you like. It can also display (to my understanding) that Tunerstudio reads in.

Now I just need to fix my alternator issue so I can actually use it! Right now it just shuts off after a minute. My guess is that the voltage it low so that it's below the cutoff of the 12v to 5v converter; it was not a problem when the battery was at full charge.

This alternator issue is really starting to bug me... How important is the resistor in the exciter wiring between the ignition switch and the  alternator in a Ford System? This is a 3G alternator being installed into a 2G system. 

Putting the piDash in eliminated the light and the resistor in the stock wiring, but straight to the ignition got things HOT.

I'm honestly at the point where I may put the old alternator back in.

Shamefully admitting that no progress has been made... and the only thing stopping me is putting the nut over the pulley on the stock alternator. 

No matter what I do, I can't get the threads to catch and start to thread on. Frustrating.

TXratti said:

No matter what I do, I can't get the threads to catch and start to thread on. Frustrating.

Shot in the dark: is it left hand threaded?

In reply to ShawneeCreek :

Hmm worth checking! If I remember correctly from when I disassembled it (and from the other Alternator I took apart), they're normal threads. Was spinning it backwards too, waiting for the "catch" before tightening but wouldn't do that either.

Upon further investigation it looks like I damaged the first thread while getting the pulley off...

Not sure I have a die that size.

In reply to TXratti :

It isn't fun, but you can cut the threads back in using a file if you're out of other options.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to TXratti :

It isn't fun, but you can cut the threads back in using a file if you're out of other options.

This may be the method I choose, it's just one small part of the first thread. 

hey man, just wanted to say i'm pulling for you.  super cool cars and i think they have a lot of potential.

this one belongs to a buddy of mine, it was a long term project and is currently in hibernation but i can tell you that after getting a ride around track in it, all it takes is some good suspension setup, sticky tires, and boost and these things can MOVE.  running a built 2.3 among lots of other smaller details.  love that thing.

In reply to ScottyB :

Thanks! That one looks sweet. Some serious coin in those cosmetics as well on your buddies car (wings, grill, bumper, lights), can't imagine what he's got n the motor as well... Does he have a build thread up anywhere? I'll get there eventually, just have to get past these dumb issues.

TXratti said:

In reply to ScottyB :

Thanks! That one looks sweet. Some serious coin in those cosmetics as well on your buddies car (wings, grill, bumper, lights), can't imagine what he's got n the motor as well... Does he have a build thread up anywhere? I'll get there eventually, just have to get past these dumb issues.

serious coin in some areas, but in a lot of others it was prime GRM form.  he taught himself how to paint the car with a spray gun in a home-made booth in his garage, and i think he wired the megasquirt too.  lots of other ingenuitive things.  i think the motor is built for 350+ hp but currently tuned to about 250"ish" for the race class he intended to run in.

this build is so old it was in some forums but the photo links are long dead, so i don't think its much help there.  he had a website for the car that documented everything in great detail but unfortunately the site is down.  if you'd like to reach out to him let me know and i'll put you in touch.  he is very, very knowledgable about them.

he is so passionate about the cars, he actually sourced, and got permission from FoMoCo to reprint an old racing publication about how to build these cars for motorsports .  Its from 1988 so don't expect any high res images, but its potentially valuable info.

https://www.amazon.com/Prepare-Sierra-Motorsport-Motor-Company/dp/0983189404

In reply to ScottyB :

Good info! Mine is also running on a megasquirt, but the Stinger performance-produced PIMP, which plugs into the factory harness. I have similar power goals, but nothing on my car is "built" except maybe the suspension at this point. 

I have electronic copies of all the Ford prep books as well as the Escort one (the racecar was a Sierra underneath). Good info there.

While the Merkur is lonely and stuck in storage, I've been thinking about the plan of attack once I can get it back in the garage.

#1 priority is to fix the chargine issue. First steps to this will be putting the stock alternator back in, with related wiring mods. To get the 3G to fit, I have to grind part of the lug off and space it back with a washer, which doesn't always go well, and the last alternator had play/ was crooked once the belt was tightened. I'm hoping the stock alternator (which the mount was designed for) will fit better and not have this issue.

I had added a resistor in line where the charge indicator light was in the excitor circuit but I believe I had already fried the voltage regulator in the 2nd 3G alternator... with the "relay mod" and the Walbro 255 in the tank, I don't think I'll be lacking for fuel flow as long as the battery is charging. I plan on leaving the resistor in place, even though it isn't quite the same size as the one for the stock wiring (it was sized for the 3G circuit). If it's too big (and thus too much resistance) to kick the stock alternator on, I'll look into replacements.

#2 Priority is a coolant leak/ disappearance. I'm afraid it's a Head Gasket... First mitigation will be loosen and lube head bolts, retorque.

#3 Priority has a couple things:
Return to Tuning. Hopefully get a decent street tune in the car.
Paint the Cage (I bought all the stuff a while back but it was WAYY too hot and humid, then it was too cold)
Reattach stock seatbelts for street tuning
Reinstall rear plastic trim and carpet (cut around cage) - try to get "CAM" legal and cut down on interior noise
 

The Lemons Bug needs to get itself gone (it's FOR SALE, contact me if interested), or I need to swap the cars from the storage unit.. neither have seatbelts nor run very well. It is only 2 mi away though...

Long time, no updates! I'll try not to just have a wall of text. As in the Previous post, there were a couple issues that were going on as it went into storage. I got the other project out of the garage, and the XR came back about a month ago.

Piority #1: Charging issue. While it was away, I was able to get my hands on a good used stock "2G" alternator and installed it as well as re-doing some of the power wiring. The 3G had a different plug and 3 wires beside the power wire; the stock alternator only has an excitor wire in addition to the power wire. I also un-sketchified some of my wiring and installed an actual fusebox for the megafuse which I had just.. bolted in before.

New wiring config with new to me alternator and fixed fuse box:

This solved the issue with the charging. I also had the battery replaced under warranty (it tested bad), so all freshy-fresh on the charging side! With that fixed, I started driving the car around a bit and working with the tuner (Priority #3).  We kept having trouble with the wideband O2 gauge and based on how the car was running (rich), and the gauge was showing lean, things weren't adding up. This has been an issue before this and have been chasing it for a long time. We eventually narrowed it down to grounds for both the ECU as well as the O2.

These were put into the body in the passenger footwell without scraping any paint, or prep whatsoever... Not sure where it is supposed to go when it was stock, but the solution was to split the ECU and O2 grounds to a separate location, and run a direct wire to the battery negative terminal to aid the effectiveness of the ground. This FINALLY fixed that issue and the gauge has been solid since then.

After the fix (I've since put the battery wire on a ring terminal with the other two):

Priority #2 problem of the coolant disappearing is still an issue, and hope to fix it soon.

More updates inbound, I just need to gather photos and type things up. I know I am excessively detailed, is it too much though? 

Continuing to catch up on recent updates, we return to the search for the missing coolant...

The car was running very well, and I was working with the tuner to tune most of the range, driving the car around and running errands as well as doing pulls and driving it in boost to get a lot of data to continue with the tune. That was going great, and feeling stronger and more driveable with every tweak and iteration, however it would consume the overflow's volume(~1 quart) in coolant for about every half hour of run time...  There were no obvious leaks, no puddles on the ground, and I couldn't find anything..

The immediate thought went to the headgasket, but the oil looked like oil and wasn't milky, and it wasn't producing smoke/steam (I know what that looks like, I DID blow the HG last Feb), and it showed 158-160psi of compression across the board...

After swapping the cap on the expansion tank to no effect and getting QUITE low on coolant, I decided that I should check it anyway and proceeded to yank the head off. It took me only about 2 hrs to get to the point where I was ready to heft it off and I had the neighbor come help me do the heavy lifting (iron head, and I leave the intake manifold attached). It's probably not a good thing to be proficient at pulling the cylinder head off of your engine!

Ready to pull the head off (minus head bolt loosening): 

Sitting on the table:

Here's what it looked like after I pulled it out. To me it looked fine, and that everything was hunky-dory, let me know what you think!

So the head gasket didn't seem to be the issue. I saw a few places that looked like they could have leaks, including the heater core (or the connection to the heater core at least), so when I get it back together, I'll have to do some testing with it connected as well as disconnected and see if that changes anything. 

With the car apart and on jackstands for a bit, I decided to use this time to do a number of upgrades, which included overhauling the entire cooling system! Silicone lines, Aluminum radiator (with a Mishimoto Miata dual fan shroud), a giant intercooler, all new intercooler piping and a catch can found themselves into the mix. Scope creep is real, but I'm not bemoaning the upgrades!

hehehe so much scope creep...  but it's gonna be worth it.

I would look very, very hard for cracks in the head- especially inside the ports and around the valves.  I went through several head gaskets chasing what turned out to be a coolant leak inside of an exhaust port.  Out of the four 2.3T cylinder heads here, only one is free of cracks, and it's currently installed on the car so for all I know it's cracked by now too.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

When I blew up the HG a year ago, the head was gone through completely, and one of the exhaust valve seats was cracked and was replaced after being crack checked at a shop (and then subsequent valve seal, exhaust guide replacement and a valve job). Unless I cracked something in less than 100mi of run time, it should be ok.

Once I got the the head off and verified the head gasket was fine, I had a wild hair about replacing the cooling system hoses, and ordered some 1/2" silicone and started changing the hardware on things like the lower intake.

Some people block off the coolant flow to the lower intake, but if you really think about it, it promotes a more even heating/ cooling of the head with it intact. I plugged the whole (which was leaking at one point) where the inop aftermarket water temp sensor was located, and changed the fitting on the end with an unused sensor to an elbow.

While waiting on the shipping for the hose, I set about trying to figure out how the radiator and intercooler were going to fit up in the front of this thing. Using the rubber bits from the stock radiator made for quite the wobbly installation, and another XR guy recommened poly end link parts. Genius.

Which looks roughly about like this when installed:

The intercooler is kind of floating in no mans land, so a solution will need to be devised to hold it in place. I'm thinking aluminum straps to the core support and something to hold it against the radiator at the bottom.

In the meantime, all of the parts had come in for the AN turbo oil feed line and I like how the configuration came out! I put the stock idiot light pressure sensor in there, but I have a 1/4" NPT to 1/8" NPT adapter to put a proper oil pressure sender in there in the future.

I then started messing with the multitude of intercooler parts I had sitting around to try and get a workable configuration and came up with something close minus a few couplers.

This means that I'll have to switch back to the original two bolt output flange (I switched to the hose-end for the previous setup), and I finally get to use my grand national 3" inlet piece. For the cold side I ended up needing a 60mm to 70mm reducer to go from the intercooler to the pipe size that I have, as well as a 3in straight coupler to attach the air filter pipe to the turbo. Unfortunately when taking the housing off the turbo, one of the paper gaskets ripped so I'm now waiting on that to show up before I can start the final reassembly.

Sorry its fuzzy, but the comparison of the two compressor housing setups:

 Gets the configuration to look like the next photo, you can see where the two couplers are needed as well. Thankfully my current run for the vacuum line to the BOV will reach in this configuration, but could extend it some if needed.

Additionally, I finally got the heat wrap for the coolant lines and got them to hold on a bit better with some P clamps, and closed up the system to match the diagram that I had made before starting all of this. My system is FUNKY because I hacked together what I had to start. '89 over flow bottle, '86 radiator and hoses, Saab overflow hose, etc. I moved the over flow hose to go around the back of the head and tee into the thermostat outflow, and tee-ed into the return flow for the lower intake flow, keeping the heater core in the mix.

It's coming together... slowly. Slower than I'd like considering I'm waiting on shipping, but progress nonetheless! SpaceCadet had come by at one point before I started tearing things apart and went for a ride. She makes *ALL* the noises, and I love it. Can't wait to get her back together and start getting the tune comfortable up to higher boost levels. I really hope the cooling system overhaul will fix my issue with the dissappearing coolant... time will tell. We're still getting caught up, be on the lookout for more update posts coming soon!