beaterX project thread

[Murlo26]

Originally Posted by Kracka

His is nice, simple and effective...no silly surgetanks, dual-pump hangars, etc.

Originally Posted by scheides

I have been trying to KISS.

The car has a standard Walbro 400 pump (non-e85) in the tank powered by a 30A BAP that's activated at ~3psi (whatever the default hobbs switch is in that kit). The return line siphon is drilled out to 2.8mm to help reduce base fuel pressure. That feeds stock lines up to the fuel rail, where I have a Boomba fuel rail (with a bent stock FPR) feeding FIC 1680cc injectors. On this setup I have base fuel pressure under 50psi and it's enough on real e85 to support 32psi across the board. The car idles, runs, and drives nearly perfect nearly all the time.

I've had my fair share of issues...the FIC's I needed revised spacers and wiring adapters, my DW300 didn't do much more than a W255 would have, and I had problems getting my stock FPR to fit on the boomba fuel rail the way I wanted it to (all documented earlier in this thread if you ever feel like going waaay back).

Also, at 1/3 tank or less WOT is risky--I can do a 2nd OR 3rd OR 4th gear pull, but anything like a 2-3-4 results in massive fuel starvation. On the cruise I took a risk and did hit 14:1 AFR at 8000rpm with four people in the car after a 2-3-4-5 pull. Others want to fix it (and I do too) but otherwise I just keep the tank above 1/2 tank if I really want to rip on it more than a full gear pull. The cup/basket that sits around the fuel pump simply runs empty too quickly...it's stupid but it is what it is. Making a larger (baffled) basket or moving to a surge tank is the way to go if you track the car or absolutely want to run WOT while it's on E but frankly I have no need so I don't bother or worry about it

I've proven now that this setup is enough for me so I don't plan on changing it. If I do anything, it'll be to swap in a E85 version of the W400 but then my base fuel pressure may suffer. I'd consider ditching the BAP and installing a larger feed line as that seems to be working for murlo...I almost did it last summer but this setup has proven to be enough so I'm happy.

His setup is effective, but still suffers the same thing mine does. Which is at lower fuel levels the basket empties as its no longer submersed in the fuel and relies purely on the pick from in tank.

I think you make it way too simple (kracka). The only true perfect setups I have seen are surge tank setups and fuel cell setups. I am holding off as mine works great for my power as long as I keep it ~1/3 and up like Scheides said.

But a bunch of the crap is just inherit to the X design. I will say my double pumper was much more complicated and didn't work nearly as well.

I am glad Scheides' setup is working well though and it works well enough because he did keep it as simple as he could.

still not straight forward for us E85 users making bigger power.

[Kracka]

True true, I forgot about a lot of those little "extras" Scheides has into it...makes me content with my power level since my fuel setup is nothing more than a pump + injectors.

[scheides]

I just noticed some of the pics weren't working...still a few missing after my server crashed this summer. I got a few re-added but I'm gonna have to go back and make sure everything is there....lmk if you find a post that's missing pics.

[scheides]

oooh happy day! Car has been aweful noisy on cold starts and since the spark plug incident it began consuming oil. So today I decided to yank the valve cover off quicklike and measure the valve-tappet-to-cam clearances. Spec is .008" intake and .012" exhaust, both +/- .001.

I could not even get a .005" inbetween most tappets and the cam, all except one actually. Yippee skippee. The car still runs dandy and made 599whp at map's fall dyno day but honestly I'm worried about it. It seems as though there's an issue either with the valves or the valve seats.

Either way I will be seeking second opinions and looking into options but likely I'll be pre-scheduling some machine-shop time, praying to the valve tappet gods (if they don't line up I'll have to order a bunch from mitsu...$20 each x 16 :P ), and yanking the head. If I do I might downgrade to some beehive springs (weren't available when I first built it) and I can't help but wonder about swapping in a set of S2's....decisions decisions.

If I do pull it off I might swap out my (edit, wtf I guess I just stopped typing :P)

[Halon]

Originally Posted by scheides

If I do pull it off I might swap out my

Sick!

[Super Bleeder!!]

Originally Posted by Halon

Sick!

+1

[turbotalon1g]

Originally Posted by scheides

I just noticed some of the pics weren't working...still a few missing after my server crashed this summer. I got a few re-added but I'm gonna have to go back and make sure everything is there....lmk if you find a post that's missing pics.

I'm missing a bunch of pics in my thread. Not sure if its here or FB, because I relinked them via fb and they work.

Originally Posted by Halon

Sick!

Originally Posted by Super Bleeder!!

+1

WTF?

[scheides]

Originally Posted by Halon

Sick!

Originally Posted by Super Bleeder!!

+1

Heh, hit submit and walked away without reading what I wrote, sorry :P

Any constructive ideas?

[Super Bleeder!!]

I'm impressed you measured the clearance at all! Do evoX even use HLAs? Can you reshim it back to spec?

[scheides]

They use buckets or tappets. If tollerences were loose yea I could put in thicker tappets but they went the other way. I could try thinner tappets but I have no real way of measuring how much thinner I'd need to go w/o disassembling and re-assembling who knows how many times...I'm more concerned with how it got this way. I checked tollerences at 1000 2000 5000 and 10000 miles, all we're fine. Now it's at 21k and here we are. ComPression was fine last time I checked it (recently).

[Kevin 1G Drummer]

Shim/tappet valves are a bitch. When I put the motor for my bike back together I think I had each of the 4 cams in and back out probably 4 or 5 times to get the clearances right (mostly cuz my math skills are horseshit).

Were these new valves? My understanding is that if anything is going happen to the valve clearance, it'll get tighter, since the valve essentially stretches out a little. My suggestion is to just go down a shim size at a time till it meets tolerances. It's a bitch, but it's the easiest way to get the tolerances right. I assume you have an assortment of shims?

[Super Bleeder!!]

Originally Posted by Kevin 1G Drummer

Shim/tappet valves are a bitch. When I put the motor for my bike back together I think I had each of the 4 cams in and back out probably 4 or 5 times to get the clearances right (mostly cuz my math skills are horseshit).

Were these new valves? My understanding is that if anything is going happen to the valve clearance, it'll get tighter, since the valve essentially stretches out a little. Exactly how much tighter than the minimum tolerance are they?

I dont think its the valve stretching so much as the valve seat being compressed?

[Kevin 1G Drummer]

Originally Posted by Super Bleeder!!

I dont think its the valve stretching so much as the valve seat being compressed?

Could go either way I guess.

[scheides]

Think this alone could be causing oil consumption though? I don't want to go through the massive PITA of swapping out tappets to only fix part of the problem.

Plus, I am not confident in what tappets I ended up leaving in the car so the tappet swap could turn into a huge nightmare. There's *47* different tappet sizes.

[turbotalon1g]

Not cool. I'm clueless on this subject so all I can do is wish you luck and hope for the best.

[goodhart]

Yikes.

[Kevin 1G Drummer]

I kinda doubt that tight valve clearances would result in oil consumption, the only thing that could really do is make it so the valve doesn't seat with 100% pressure. Hhow much oil is it burning? Enough to smoke all the time? Only on startup?

[JET]

Joe nailed the reason, compressed valve seats probably. That shouldn't cause any issues with oil consumption though. It could allow some combustion pressure to leak back in to the intake or exhaust, but since your power isn't down it does not sound like that is happening.

For the oil it could be valve seals or rings. After your incident I would think rings/cylinder wall would be the most likely but it could be many different things.

[scheides]

The car is down slightly on power so I'm on board with the compressed valve seat theory;

Love second third fourth opinions though keep them coming please!

[Super Bleeder!!]

Time for a leakdown test?