Build Diary
November 2008

November started and it was good

So, the bonnet didn't close.  Now it does.
The combination of Katana breather, which is a bolt on replacement (very minor fettle to clear some screw heads), thinning the bonnet a little, and spacing up the side of the bonnet by 5mm all worked in the right direction.  The spacing of the bonnet needed doing anyway, as when I was strengthening the bonnet where it meets the skuttle I must has messed up the radii a bit and so it didn't line up with the main tub.  Hopefully this will help/sort it.  

I will try to dig out a picture of the new breather.  Not very exciting for anyone but me!

COOLING

I have been worrying about how to mount the radiator and oil cooler for a long time.  I had picked up a couple of radiators, one wide one (scirroco) which was a close fit in the gap (widthwise), and a thinner Polo (maybe golf) one.  Sylva folk all say you need a Polo one, and it does seem to fit quite nicely so I went with that. Also I found a thermostatic fan switch in my old spares box (I used to have a Golf GTi Mk1, 1.8litre, sadly gone) and remembered that this wasn't the reason for the overheating (many moons ago).  So that screwed in nicely.

The problem with fitting the radiator (for me), is that there are lots of options, and none of them are bad but none are great.  The Phoenix (unlike the Fury) has no radiator mounts, so you can have it anywhere you like.  I took "inspiration" from a photo I found of a works STM car



So I tried to make a nice box that I could mount off the removable bonnet hinge frame (this is mounted with 4 big M8 bolts). I made this up in cardboard before cutting and folding it out of alluminium (that big sheet that I bought has done me well).  Here is the finished article with the oil cooler and radiator mounted.



Oh yes, I was 40 around this time.  Yes, yes, kit car mid-life crisis, at least I am not in denial.


and here is it bolted in



Note also the new streamlined breather cover (that not so massive box on the top of the engine), and the Max-Power pair of horns (they came as a pair and it didn't seem fair to leave one in the box).

Next job was to hose all the water cooling and oil cooling up.  A very enjoyable job.  I replaced what seemed to be a perfectly good oil filter with a new oil filter.  Bolted up the oil hoses (my adapters here are all a bit agricultural), and I connected up and fitted the oil pressure sensor.  I have read that you shouldn't screw these directly onto the engine as the vibration wipes them out.  For this reason I got some braided hose and did all that stuff.  Adapting from somethign back to itself and costing a few quid.  I put transparent heatshrink over the braided hose as it is like a file without.  Here's a photo (did you guess that I might have got a new camera for my birthday!).


For the water cooling I managed to find some alloy pipe actually it was from an old patient stretcher (it probably worked on young people too).  To stop the hose bursting off it is traditional to put a bead on the end using a "beading tool".  As these are expensive I didn't do this.  The locostbuilders site is a mine of (often useless) information, and this suggested that you can soak thread in epoxy and then wrap a few turns around the end of the tube to make a bead.  I followed this approach (actually using JB Weld, my new favourite bonding stuff) and it seems to work.  I ordered a couple of hoses that include 90deg bends and also change the size.  In the above case 32mm down to 25mm.  These are silicone based material but black (inverted chavery).  It turns out that I need one 32mm down to 22mm for the thermostat take-off, so I contacted Rallydesign.  No great surprise 6 weeks (although their adverts talk about them having most things in order, unlike their competitors).  Is it just me, or are rallydesign a bit rubbish (they are cheap though!).
My only concerns now are air locks in my hoses.  The hose running forward from the one in the above picture has a rubber section where it dips under the steering rack.  More on this as I work out what to do.

Finally, a story of 3 sumps.

My engine came with a standard sump (I say standard, but it had a few scars from an aftermarket exhaust, but is fine nonetheless).  When picking up some bits from some nice sidecar boys I picked up another sump (diy cut down and welded/glued up)actually pretty nasty when looked at closely, but it comes with a baffle and I could get someone to use this as a design guide and repeat the work on my "perfect" sump..  Finally I bought a third sump from a side-car guy off e-bay (beautifully made, but very low fluid volume), be told me the volume was low, but the words billet and £50 were enough to have me posting a cheque.

So now I don't know what to do.  The standard sump hangs down below the chassis rails.  The cut-down version is too rubbish to us (although I could get it patched).  The billet one is too shallow (although I could get an Accusump which would solve that problem).  Not sure what to do.  Here is a picture.





Loads of other little jobs.  Mounted the fluid reservoirs for brakes and clutch (decided to keep them separate as one is very important but the other isn't safety critical and includes a few homemade bits).  Also sorted out mounting the battery and CDI and loads of other bits and pieces.  Progress is fast as there are fewer things to think about (i.e. in the early days you don't know where anything is going to go, so can't get on with it for worrying).

Back to the wiring now.  This is taking longer than expected.  But its worth getting right.  Once the wiring is finished then I can try starting the engine.  Exciting times.


Today my car looks like this




23rd November

Progress has been rapid.  Well it feels rapid, although mostly I have been wiring.  This is very rewarding, as every new cicuit yields immediate gratification.  As I am planning to make it road legal there are some interesting SVA requirements for lights.  Mostly sensible, but when you are making a loom from first principles, and actually I built the loom Mk1 over a year ago, as it was something that I thought I could work out before the car was at home.  Just to list some interesting requirements:
1) sidelights and hazards must be able to work with the key out of the ignition (this is safety stuff)
2) Main beam and dipped beams are mutually exclusive (otherwise the bulbs burn out, not sure whether this is SVA or not)
3) Fog light should only come on with main beam (this isn't an SVA requirement, I don't think)
Requirement 1 is incompatible with a battery cut-off switch, but I guess I can just leave the key in for that.  Or short out the switch for the test.  Having a battery cut-off is great when wiring.
I have had some fun with the petrol gauge.  It appeared to have an inverted scale.  This is just the way the sweeper goes across the variable resistor.  I swapped this over.  Today I wanted to start-up, so I put in a gallon.  The gauge now reads FULL.  So, there is some incompatibility between sender and gauge.  Not the end of the world, and I can sort this later.

First start up

So, I filled the oil (Thursday).  I decided that it could only help to poor the oil from the top, so I took off the breather cover and poured oil in from there.  I carried on until the level was at the top of the sight glass.  Today I flushed the cooling system and then filled with coolant.  The header tank and filler cap are NOT at the highest point during normal running as there would be a clash with the bonnet, but I have made the mounting so that the header tank can be rotated up to make it the highest point for filling and bleeding.  This means I can keep the water runs quite short, and it should work.  It snowed last night, so I put anti-freeze in (pink stuff).  I can't say it was a nice day to be working on the car (a bit cold, and intermittently raining) but I wanted to get it started.

I took the plugs out, popped a bit of 3 in 1 down each bore, and turned the engine over on the key (no fuel in the tank, fuel pump disabled).  It turned over nicely and I had two bursts of maybe 10 seconds.  The oil pressure light was still on (low pressure) but I knew that I needed to fill the oil cooler before the oild would get to the engine.  There are warnings about overheating starter motors, so after the second burst I took stock.  There was no pressure so I guessed that I was still filling the oil cooler.  I checked the sight glass and topped up the oil level.

Then I turned the key again and the oil pressure light went off.  Great relief.  The engine turns over quite quickly (with no plugs) and isn't that loud compared to a car unit.

Next step, fuel.  Popped round to local petrol station and filled a can, and dumped this into the fuel tank.  Plugged in the fuel pump, and turned the ignition the tone of the pump changed after about half a second, and then fuel started to fill the filter adjacent to the engine.  All good.  I disconnected the feed to the fuel pump.

I have heard bad things about the frailty of motorbike spark plugs.  Basically once they get fuel soaked then they are only fit for the dustbin.  I wanted to avoid this.  So I decided to see if I had a spark before  I went further.  No spark.
I started checking things.
1) Wiring to the signal generator (I was worried I had the wrong polarity here, and this turned out to be true) I corrected the polarity and followed the user manual to check the resitance (150Ohm, on my rather crappy meter, so probably around specification).
Looked for sparks again, No spark.
2) Power feed to CDI (aka Ignitor Unit in suzuki speak).  Checked.  12V and Earth as expected.
Plugged in lamp across one of the coil inputs, looked for light or sparks, No spark.
3) Started looking at how the CDI should be wired up.  I had to ask for help with this previously, and basically either I have wired it wrong, or the CDI is broken.  There is a test for the CDI in the manual (which needs a special Suzuki tool, that I don't have).
It turns out that I haven't wired all the inputs to the CDI.  One is related to the interlocks for the stand/neutral.  Previously I believed that these were bogus (basically Suzuki had added them to save some wiring).  Now I am not sure whether that needs connecting.  I have connected it live and earth and still get nothing.  perhaps there is a magic resistance for this?

Hmm

Post-weekend update

Some success on the CDI front.  It turned out that there were a few things that were not quite right.

0) I used an oscilloscope to look for signals from the signal generator (effectively the crank sensor), this gave a most encouraging wavey lines, positive lobe, and a pair of lobes one positive one negative), so that is probably working (I had previously checked the resistance, and that agreed, but the rotor could have been missing).
1) Earth wasn't perfect (0.7Ohms to ground as I hadn't tightened the earth lead) silly me.
2) The CDI that I have isn't the same as what it claims to be on the box (different numbers on the board to the number on the box).  Not sure what is going on here, but it came from a side-car racer, so maybe it was a trick to get past the 11,000rpm limit (by using a GSXR750 CDI, 750s rev to 14000rpm, but 750CDI as all 4+6 pin).  Mystery continues, but it explains why one of the four connectors doesn't agree with the GSXR1100WP loom (inside the box it isn't connected to anything).  Stabbed myself quite hard with a screwdriver whilst opening the box, DIY liposuction.  Actually beyond the blood and pain opening the box was very useful.  It was clear which leads went to the coils, and which went to earth (in each case the ones going directly to the big transistors), and it gave a fair clue on what was the earth.  

So, I tried again.  The battery had been on charge overnight, and low volts is also a cause for concern with these things.  I used a light instead of one of the coils.
No light.  Then I swapped the signal generator leads over (as this can vary between suzuki CDI's) and "Hey presto" the light worked perfectly and when I switched it to the other coil it worked again.

But still no sparks.  I checked everything over on the high tension circuit.  One of the spark caps had a higher resistance than it should have (180kOhm rather than the ideal 10kOhm) so that was broken (new ones are £26 and no-one has one, so I got a set of coils, leads and spark caps off e-bay for £23, in the mean time I got an NGK one 5kOhm resistance, and good enough for getting things going for £3.45).  I got some new plugs (£32 can you believe it, but they are that everywhere) for good measure.

Still no spark, until I realised that I was an idiot and I needed to earth the spark plug outer  :-(  thats what happens when you work in research, you forget the obvious.

Spark seen.

Now to plug everything together and get some fuel flowing.  I connected that all up and found that my pump cuts out before the filter is full.  Also one of the T-pieces into the Mikuni carbs has a slight leak.  So, next step is to rebuild the carb and look into why the fuel pump won't.

I did have a quick go as starting, and I did get a cough and a splutter.  I think that one of the carbs is functioning, but it isn't enough to start the old-girl up.  No exhaust so this isn't a trick for late at night!  ALl my messing around has dulled the battery, so it will benefit from a few days to get back to tip-top condition.

TO DO LIST

1. Sort out fuel leak (order fuel seals 4x 13673-44B00)
2. Make some attempt to rebuild and clean the carbs (I suspect they are all a bit jammed up inside)
3. Sort out why the pump isn't pumping (could it be related to the fuel filter)
4. Sort out why the fuel gauge is reading full when I only put in 1 gallon (this is either incorrect wiring or incorrect resistance, I thought I had fixed this)
5. Fit new coil cap (when it arrives)


29th November

1. Sorted fuel leak.  New rubber seals were perfect (you can order Suzuki parts online from these guys http://www.robinsonsfoundry.co.uk/ , for parts numbers http://www.alpha-sports.com have suzuki parts diagrams).
2. I opened up the carbs a bit, but didn't have full rebuild kits.  There was no gunky stuff anywhere so I decided to not dissassemble them (generally all that would happen is that I would lose a few springs!).  I did put an additional spring on the carbs to close the throttle (BEC's generally don't use throttle return cable like on the bikes)
3. TUrns out it is pumping.  The filter contained air, but fuel pressure was fine.  The strange thing about motorcycle pumps is that as the pressure gets higher the pump slows down (this sounds like the pump has croaked even when it hasn't).
4. There was additional insulation on the potentiometer (now partially fixed)
5.  Ordered via e-bay, not installed.

So, I asked for help on why it wouldn't start (locostbuilders).  Lots of good ideas, but basically one simple idea, try starting with "Easy Start".  This is a spray that you spray into the engine (instead or aswell as fuel).  This was ideal as it wouldn't flood the plugs (being a gas), and so it would allow me to investigate my sparks (and timing) in isolation of the fueling.  I took off the carbs.  Sprayed in some of the magic spray and turned the key.

It fired.  I did it again and sprayed a bit more, and it ran (roughly) for a few seconds.  RESULT.  So the wiring is right, and the spark plugs are not completely fried.

I then reinstalled the carbs, and used my easy-start trick again with the carbs on.  Loud is not the work.  It ran at a fast idle, and I have no manifold.  I let it run for maybe a minute or two until I was worried about the neighbours calling the police.  I blipped the throttle a bit.  It seemed to be running on all four.

Next I put on the manifold, I don't have a silencer, and when you run a standard bike manifold on a BEC you have to run it upside down (i.e. not under the engine but over it).  I fired it up again, and it was still loud loud loud.  I ran it for a couple of minutes, until the manifold started smoking (buring off surface oil).  Then turned off and took stock.

A couple of small water leaks
Header 1 was cooler than the other 3 headers
Tacho doesn't work
Temp gauge doesn't seem to work
Oil leak from oil cooler
Oil leak from oil cooler hose at engine end
Oil pressure gauge doesn't seem to work (wierd this one, maybe earthing)

I don't need to run the engine much, as until I have the final exhaust the tune is irrelevant.  But I would like to get the gauges working, and check the cooling system out (i.e. under pressure, the temp gauge, the thermostat and the fan).  For all of this I need to run for 10 mins, so need to have it a bit quieter.  



Other stuff.
Filled the brake system with fluid and started the bleeding process.  Rear calipers need rotating so bleed points at top.  Quite a few leaks, which is a pain as most of the joints don't have swivels, but hey-ho.  I hadn't appreciated how tight these things need to be.


I will post an "engine start" video tomorrow.  

A great end to November.


Go to Next Month

Back to Index,