Building a Microsquirt Daily Driver

[turbobaja]

So far no signs of damage from my wiring...accident . Still starts, runs and drives great. LC-1 is now just stuck flashing 7.4 on the display and I'm getting a code #8 flashing on the LED. Basically a "too rich" code, or sensor overheating?? Plenty of cases on line with failed sensors with this code, mostly due to poor sensor mounting location, or from excessive lean (fuel cut) to rich swings in fuel trim. I think I'll try a new sensor on reflashed firmware and see how it reacts before I gut the wiring harness out of the vehicle. Right now I've got nothing to datalog to show Innovate what it's doing...yet.

[Steve Arndt]

I reflashed the firmware on my LC1 from 1.22 back down to 1.1 and it helped some but I still gave up and sold it off.

Steve

[turbobaja]

Well, new sensor acts just like the old ones. It seems to do the heater calibration and free-air learn just fine, reading 21.9 after learning. Once the engine is fired up it just acts like it did before. Either flashing 7.4, or stuck on some randon number. No error codes flashing from the LC-1. I rechecked all the connections to the controller, changed both the butt connected power and ground connections to soldered connections and did another relearn,...same thing. So I pulled the sensor out of the exhaust and plugged the hole, and cut the power and ground to the controller so the gauge won't always be flashing in her face. I did a voltage drop test on the ground circuits and tested for good power @ the cut controller wire, all tests good. I had no luck trying to communicate to the controller before and after the rewire, so no datalogging was possible. Time to contact Innovate and see what they can do for me.

[turbobaja]

Time for a little update. Still no wideband function since initial tuning, but its been running flawlessly and daily driven by my wife for about a year now. She loves it!

I've been dealing with quite a bit of milky junk building up in the breather and plugging the vent hose to the air filter. Only been an issue during these cold/wet months, but it's BAD!! Causing oil to blow out the crank pulley bore and create quite a mess in the engine bay. For some reason this engine has always had very high oil pressure with it's 26mm pump. I've checked the plungers and springs and they seem to be ok and moving freely. Running Mobil 1 5w-20. I finally checked the oil temp with a meat thermometer stuck down the dipstick tube after a long drive yesterday and it only got up to 160F. So today I cut almost 1" off the oil cooler control spring (pulley end) to hopefully make it easier to bypass the cooler and get the oil up to temp a little better to boil out some of the moisture.

Any body every try doing something like this to raised oil temp??

[Max Welton]

Thermostat failed?

Max

[Piledriver]

(agree on tstat)
May also need to yank the cooler completely, or swap in an early fan when the temp cools off.
I ran a T1 cooler on my T4 motor most of last year, and all winter, zero vaseline build up.

...OTOH I have a pretty good heated oil separation unit in my breather tower (stuffed with woven SS pot scrubbers, equivalent would be the gen stand for a T1)

OT: Does the 5W20 M1 have enough zddp to be safe?

Most oils do not, Mobil1 products in particular were called out for the issue by LN Engineering and Jake ages ago.

AFAIK (as to Mobil products) only the Mobil 1 "Turbo Diesel Truck 5W-40" has proper amounts of ZDDP etc to be used on flat tappet engines. (Perhaps they make some HD single grades that are good, as does Shell)

Heck, I'm wondering how well it would work as shock oil... Considering making some "Phonis" for the Mk4

The 14pont7.com spartan all-in-one WBO2 works great by all accounts.

Note Alan make two styles now--- the $105 one has an integrated sensor (not plug in) and the $125 version controller that comes with and takes a std LSU4.2 sensor.
(This was due to customer feedback from folks who apparently eat sensors for breakfast, I think I would also spend the extra $20 for the other half of the connector)

He also makes a nice looking "WB controller in the 2 1/8" guage head" setup...

[turbobaja]

T-stat is still functioning correctly. All stock T-1 cooling shroud and tins in place. With the t-stat closed (cold) it increases flow through the oil cooler. These silly engines just need a thermostat for the oil separate from the air rather than using pressure to determine if the oil should be cooled or not . Very tempted to delete the DH cooler. I don't think the problem is simply too much blow-by.

The Mobil 1 5w-20 shows 900ppm on the pertinent zinc/phos levels. Running single springs and a cam smaller than stock, stock PRs and 1.25 rockers. It's a 4,000 rpm engine...so far so good.

I've got a new LC-2 for this engine. It's temporarily installed on an engine I built for a fellow STFr that will get broken in and tuned any week now. Then I can get a look at the tune again on this engine.

[Steve Arndt]

If you google "mobil 1 zinc PDF" it shows the zinc and phosphorus levels.
http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/Mot ... _Guide.pdf

Valvoline VR1 is noted as being high in ZDDP and it is only 1300 ppm zinc and 1200 ppm phosphorus.
http://www.valvoline.com/faqs/motor-oil/racing-oil/
"Valvoline VR1 Racing Oil contains .13 percent of zinc and .12 percent of phosphorus"

Karl, by switching to the "high mileage" 5W20 you would get a 20% or so bump in the zddp levels over the normal mobil 1.

Now, back to the warm up. Like Pile said, the narrow fan is an option.

[Devastator]

The 14pont7.com spartan all-in-one WBO2 works great by all accounts.

A friend of mine just installed one of these a few weeks ago and loves it!

[Piledriver]

The 14pont7.com spartan all-in-one WBO2 works great by all accounts.

A friend of mine just installed one of these a few weeks ago and loves it!

The two step self test output voltages at startup makes me want one just for a sanity check.
It's just a neat little feature that makes calibrating the analog output>ECU a breeze.
(all Alans setups will be like that eventually, IIRC his higher end stuff already has it)

[turbobaja]

I do have a skinny fan I could try. But honestly if I'm pulling off the shroud to swap fans I'm probably gonna delete the DH cooler while I'm in there (I would add an external cooler w/thermostat). Swapping fans from warm to cool weather sounds like a lot of work compared to a potential oil control modification. I haven't measured CHT on this engine yet, but the thermocouple mounted on the #1 cyl intake stud (used for 'coolant' temp) only goes above 200F during a hot-soak with the engine off. I think the full-flow oil filter setup is also cooling the oil some.

[Steve Arndt]

Power pulley. Except crank trigger complicates pulley swaps. That is one thing I like about the CB trigger design. It is ugly, but it allows swapping pulleys.

You can change fans in the car without touching the shroud. You just pull the alternator/fan out as a unit to the rear of the car.