Part 18

February Update

36 days and counting until our inaugural race at Sears Point, March 24-25. 

Crunch time.

Since the last update waaaay back in January, we've made a little more progress.  We had planned to try to start it this last weekend, but things didn't exactly work out that way.

Saturday
We put a few gallons of premixed fuel in the car so that we could fire up the fuel pump and check the system for leaks.  After figuring out our fancy fuel jugs (namely, not having fuel spitting back out of the fill neck all over the garage floor), we turned on the fuel pump.  Everything seemed good, until we noticed that the secondaries in the carb were literally filling with fuel.  That ain't normal.

I had to take a break to make a run to the airport to pick up the wife from a business trip to Canada, and when I got back, Van had stopped the flood of fuel into the carb, but the motor had quite a bit of fuel in it at that point.  Probably not a good idea to try to fire it up inside the garage...  We decided that we'd finish up some odds and ends that day, then roll the car into the driveway on Sunday and give her a whirl.

I began media-blasting the original engine components and made a sad discovery.  Although this engine was running when we bought it, it's wonder it wasn't dripping coolant like crazy.

There is a good material missing around the gasket channels, making it nearly impossible to get a good seal between the rotor houseings and the irons.  These things are scrap, unfortunately.  Guess we need to look for some replacements on Craigslist or the junk yard.

Sunday
This car was originally sold in California, and comes complete with all of the overkill emissions apparatus that was required on all cars in 1980.  That included all manner of sensors, solenoids, smog pump, vacuum valves, hoses, wires, and an emissions control unit.  I'm convinced that the sole purpose of the system was to sacrifice power to save the whales, or manatees, or whatever.  Brand new, this car was supposed to put out around 100 hp.  Over time, just due to the age of the internal components of the engine, carbon build-up, etc., this figure had to have diminished substantially.  Add to that the power-robbing benefit of the California smog system, and we were probably down to a peppy 65 horses.

In the course of tearing the car apart, we removed all of the emissions crap.  The only exception is the ECU, because I originally thought that it was required to trigger the igniter module to fire the leading and trailing spark plugs.  Turns out the ECU is not needed, and that's a relief (one less thing to break).

That left us with only the igniter module, the two igniters, and the distributor.  Seems simple, right?  After 5 hours of trial and error, I can tell you that it was not as simple as we thought.  Actually, we might have made it more difficult than it needed to be.

Sunday, we rolled the car out into the driveway.  I suggested that we pull a plug wire and check to make sure we're getting spark, before we actually turn on the fuel and try to start the motor, and that's where it all started.  We weren't getting any spark on the #1 leading plug.  We double-checked our set-up (we kind of had things mocked up to make sure it would run, then we'd finish the ignition install after) and found a wire from the distributor that needed to be connected to 12 volts.  After that was remedied, still no spark.  We then embarked on a 5-hour journey of mickey mouse jury-rigging, half-assed tests from the marginally useful Haynes manual, and trying every combination of wiring to try to get some fire to the plugs; all with no success.

We swapped out one of the igniters; no luck.  We removed the igniter box and pried the cover off to see what's inside this magic box.  We found the design of the thing to be kind of odd, and without a schematic of the circuits, we could only guess as to what it was doing.  Most of the components inside were pretty standard: resistors, diodes, transistors.  But there were two odd-looking components that neither of us had seen before, which Van appropriately dubbed Thing 1 and Thing 2.  They had some manufacturer's markings on them, but we were unable to find anything useful on the interwebz.  We knew the car ran when we bought it, and we hadn't done anything that could have reasonably resulted in damage.  We had to assume we just had it connected wrong.

We re-installed it in the car and tried again with the same results.  After another hour of standing around in the cold staring at it, trying different connections, discussing the possibility of modifying it to a direct fire system or performing the MSD6 mod, we decided to bag it for the day and spend some time researching the problem.

About a half hour later, I receive a text:

Van: I'm wondering if that connector with 2 leads that we jumpered to 12V was actually supposed to have voltage on it.
Me: Voltage out? Instead of in? Not sure which ones you mean.
Van: Or nothing at all.  I'm not sure what connector that is, but the ignitor already has 12V from the coil hot side.  I mean the connector that was also supposed to fire the trailing plugs.
Me: So the ones in the igniter test (GO & BR)?
Van: Yes, those ones.

I scurry off to the garage, simply remove the aligator clip from the ONE wire that we never thought to change during the 5 hours of trial and error, and gave it a try.  Two things became immediately apparent:

1. If you're going to push the start button, you'd better make sure the car is not in gear (or at least that there's nothing of value in front of the car).
2. We now have spark! 

Now, I take full responsibility for determining that, for some reason, that little black wire with the red stripe just had to be connected to 12V.  What's embarrassing is that I've been working on electronics in one form or another for over 15 years, and Van even longer.  We're both pretty good troubleshooters, but for some reason it never dawned on either of us to question the reason for having that wire connected.  Lesson re-learned.

Monday, we try again. Hopefully she rumbles to life.

Part 9

We were finally able to get all the stuck side seals out of the rotors, so we could start a serious cleaning up the engine.  The only solvent that didn't cost an arm and a leg for the quantity that we needed was diesel and it seems to work pretty well.  It was pretty messy, and I had gloves on so there aren't any pics; sorry.  Just imagin a parts cleaning tub full of diesel and dirty car parts and you get the idea.

We found that the last cooling system that this thing was attached to appears to have suffered from a severe internal corrosion issue, which left sizeable deposits of rust and debris in the water jacket channels.  There was really no easy way to clean them all out by hand, save a million cotton swabs and just as many minutes.  Harbor Freight to the rescue yet again...

Less than $75 will get you a media blaster and 25# of walnut shell, perfect for blasting just about anything off or out of an engine without harming the metal.  Something not to be overlooked when using one of these is eye protection.  I would also recommend not wearing shorts, as the ricochets don't feel the best.  And don't do this in your garage, or close to it with the door open; this stuff goes everywhere.

After an hour or so, we had all 5 sections of the motor cleaned out.

And this stuff does get just about everywhere.

With the main parts of the engine cleaned out, we set our attention on the bits and pieces. 

Once we had finally managed to remove all the side seals (intact or not), we ordered new seals and springs, thinking this would be all that was needed.  I wish I'd waited until after cleaning all of the parts...

While cleaning the corner seals, it became apparent that they're probably going to need replacement, too; they're in pretty sad shape.

The apex seals, springs, oil seals, and all the gears, wheels, oil pump chain, etc., cleaned up well, though.

Here's a before and after of one of the rotors.  They cleaned up pretty nicely.

 Now to decide if we need to order new corner seals, or just go with these one.  Then we start putting it all back together...