Karen's Imp Sport

[bks974c]

Imp off the trailer today and opened engine lid looking to see if I could identify the clutch problem. Easy one, one bolt missing the other loose, that's why it progressively got worse. New bolt and nut and tightened up, all good again.

However, the oil warning light on. Nothing serious as oil pressure guage reads OK. Not the switch as still on when wire disconnected so it's a wiring fault. Got to pull the dash anyway as speedo under reads.

Scott

[Pog]

A rather impressively small list of teething problems for how quickly it went back together towards the end, glad to hear it coped so well!

Definitely worthy win!

Pog

[bks974c]

Oil warning light sorted, cable nipped when I tightened the slave cylinder.

Reset needle on speedo and see how that works.

Scott

[bks974c]

Speedo now over reads, I'll take it out again and set up using the sat nav to calibrate it.

Sorted the parking of the wiper motor, it was indeed a right parking one , big relief that I don't have to take out the dash and heater to access the wheel boxes. Simple enough fix, the gearwheel controls the direction of park as well as the angle which was 105 now 125- standard Imp.

Heater actually nice and hot, it's good to have the knee and face vents as directed air makes it feel much warmer. 3 speeds with additional booster gives good flow. All good now.

I think I've put Montes on the rear as sits low, rides fine but not the look I'm after so will prepare a standard set and swap.

Scott

[bks974c]

Carrying on with sorting out bits and pieces, Karen had her first drive in it this morning and think it will take her a wee while to get use to it again.

She did identify that the central locking wasn't working properly and a speaker was rattly.

When I plugged the sat nav in there was no power, so after fiddling about under the dash, identified that there was no fuse in the holder, fitted one and power restored.

Fitted a new speaker, I had bought a pair but only replaced the one that I had spotted as faulty.

Central locking was the pin bouncing off the edge of the hole, little filling sorted that.

Dug out a pair of rear springs and indeed had fitted montes, my excuse is that I was of the belief that I only had standard springs but it turns out that I have 3 set of montes, where they came from I have no idea. Replaced then, will need to top up transaxle as lost a bit of oil.

Removed the drums to check on the shoes as Karen was not impressed by the brakes, rears have barely started to bed in, check the fronts tomorrow.

Removed the injector rail as I want to fit new O rings, I'm not sure of the material so had ordered an assorted box of Viton ones, unfortunately it did not contain the sizes I needed so have ordered them individually, hopefully I worked out the sizes correctly.

Scott

[bks974c]

Injector seals not quite correct so have ordered some more. Probably arrive tomorrow so Wednesday to fit.

Removed glass from rear hatch and dug out the sealant then replaced with silicone, went with silicone as wanted to use something that could be removed if needed.

Car no longer sits like a dog with worms Standard stance restored (without positive camber)

Cut open the silencer and repacked with new fibreglass in an attempt to stop the booming, if there is a change I'll buy the parts to make a repackable silencer and repack regularly. I was expecting to find the material all gone but it was mostly there but full of carbon/soot.

Fitted the rubber lip to the spoiler as it was when done 20 odd years ago but this time it's from a different Ford.

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Scott

[bks974c]

The fuel rail seals are a tight fit, just as I wanted but one of the two seal into the manifold was a loose fit on the injector, fitted some from the assorted box. All leak free so fitted the exhaust heat shield. There were concerns that fitting the injectors in the lower manifold between the headers of the exhaust manifold might cause problems due to the heat, this has proven unfounded as the injectors and fuel rail remain cool to the touch while all the surrounding components (manifold and carb bodies ) are hot but no more than they normally are.

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Exhaust note has changed, no longer have a pressure wave inside my head.

Removed the instrument cluster and took out the speedo head and adjusted it on the way home comparing it to the sat nav, now reads very close to the actual speed, tomorrow will refit.

Laptop that I use for the mapping has packed up so can't tweek the mapping at the moment

Scott

[edgedj]

that's really neatly packaged Scott, nice work. I'm thinking of fitting pancake filters to mine (injectors in the top but very similar setup). Just noticed your airbox has two inlets though, that's a new one for me. Did you fabricate that yourself or is it a factory change to the sport airbox?

[bks974c]

that's really neatly packaged Scott, nice work. I'm thinking of fitting pancake filters to mine (injectors in the top but very similar setup). Just noticed your airbox has two inlets though, that's a new one for me. Did you fabricate that yourself or is it a factory change to the sport airbox?

Dave

Followed your version with interest, specially liked the fly by wire. The twin pipes are one of my mods for no other reason than being different. Inside is a K&N panel filter so no more buying replacement ones - see page 6 for pics.

Scott

[bks974c]

Speedo back in, reading correctly now

Adjusted the ride height at the front as had set it too low to compensate for the Montes on the rear, with the car sitting level I have 1.8 and 2 degrees negative camber which is more than I'd like. Over the winter I'll rebuild a set of front hubs with new kingpins etc and do my adjustable camber mod so that I can set both the ride height and camber as I wish. I've booked the Imp in to get new tyres fitted to the rear as currently on more of a track tyre.

Took Karen out in it again, looks like it will take some persuading to get her back into it think it just needs some seat time.

Scott

[bks974c]

Karen has been using Blu for the last week and not reported any problems so far, she filled up today with some E5 but said there was a strong smell of petrol. I already had a one way valve as I had noticed whiffs of fuel on occasion, so took it it to the shed to have a check over, on removing the tank cover I noticed blue coloured water that I thought might be some spilt screenwash. Thoroughly checked for the source and couldn't find anything, ran the engine with the booster pump on and nothing, so started to put the cover back on only for the the heater valve to let a drip out

On closer inspection it was leaking past the push rod but only when not running, it passes the blow test so binned that one and took another used one from stock and fitted that, no leaks

While working on that, fuel began to appear around the fuel sender unit, the fuel was expanding due to the sun shining on the tank. Removed a gallon or so of fuel to allow me to work on it, seal not in the best condition, made up a new one from the sheets of Viton rubber that I keep for such jobs and put it back together and all good. Decided the one way valve wasn't going to be any good as either it would allow the tank to pressurise or create a vacuum neither being desirable.

On the way home no smells of fuel but the heater was still hot with the valve in the cold position, so had a look on ebay and found a NOS for £5 plus postage but open to offers so got it for £4 +. Also ordered a TX1 taxi valve as going to need it sometime for the other cars.

I had been toying with the idea of taking Blue to WWW, just driving her down but having had to top up the oil after a week of running despite not smoking and only the usual drip of oil that maybe just a little too far. I am hoping to collect the original engine from Andy Jones on the way so I can finish rebuilding it and refit over the winter, it will have the rear oil seal conversion so NO oil leaks

Scott

[moose]

Hi Scott. Get a proper rollover valve rather than a non return valve.

[Uncle Henry]

Rollover vent valves perform two essential functions. Used in conjunction with your vent line, a rollover valve will allow your tank to breathe and not build up pressure or vacuum during normal operation. Remember, as fuel is added to your tank, air in the tank is displaced and has to go somewhere.

From the net.

AG

[bks974c]

Thanks Mike and Andy, I have a roll over valve on the rally car but wouldn't have stopped what I thought was the problem, the smell of fuel that I thought was coming from the vent pipe. With the one way valve fitted and the sun shining on the tank causing the fuel to expand and now with nowhere for it to go, it found the weak point in the fuel sender sealing gasket. Out today and no hint of petrol so looks like the gasket was the problem all along although not leaking was allowing fumes to escape occasionally, the one way valve while in itself the wrong tool for the job actually proved itself by identifying the real problem.

I adjusted the tension on the heater valve cable last night, I'm not sure if this was what sorted the heat on all the time or simply giving it time to dissipate the heat when switching from hot to cold. It took 2-3 minute of running the fan before it started blowing cold after switching from hot to cold, sometimes patience is a virtue

Scott

[bks974c]

Borrowed Karen's Imp for the run to Ladybank car show, we met up at Halbeath Park and ride before departing for a scenic run the long way round stopping at Hub 71 for a coffee and then onto the show.

Weather not the best as had some heavy showers on the way there and at the show itself but a great day out on great roads, only incident was a wayward hub cap but that was corralled and put back on.

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[The Nun]

Looks like it was a dirty weekend.
Damp roads

[bks974c]

Sunday was back to Scone, this time for the SVVC car show, again borrowed Karen's car, some us met up at Kinross services.

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Slightly cooler today than the rest of the week which had been scorching, much better for hanging about outside, on arrival we parked up with the others (9 imps and a Clan Clover - a few less than expected, due to various reasons) then headed off to find a coffee and bacon roll. Good selection of stalls, so wandered off looking for bargains - none found but bumped in a few folk I knew and stopped for a chat as you do. It is amazing how that can consume a couple of hours, by this time it had started to warm up so off comes the jumper and head back to our stand.

Great day to just chill and have a chat before realising I still hadn't looked at the cars so off for another wander, some lovely cars but funny how certain area of cars hold more attractions, for me 50's/60's & 70's. Tractors and stationary engines not really my thing.

After a bit more chilling and chatting, some of us thought it might be time to head especially after queuing for hours to get out last year - only small que this time. Maybe next year the new road will be open and that will help.

On the way home I had 3 misfires, no power loss just a single definitive miss and then gone Couldn't replicate it, could be a number of issues but rather than mess around just now I'll pick up the engine from Andy Jones when I'm down at the WWW, get it put together and then see what I can find.

Karen's crank being balanced.

Just as I crossed the Forth, the heavens opened and the promised heavy rain hit and boy was it some down pour but the wee Imp coped admirably and didn't leak . Topped up the oil and ready for Karen's commute - no word of problems so that's good news.

Scott

[bks974c]

Picked up Karen's original engine from Andy Jones, it has been overbored with new pistons and fitted with rear oil seal, decked and balanced, supplied as a short engine.

Starting on the re-assembly, fitted studs and original oil pump after checking it and all clearances on min. Pulled a couple of heads that have previously been reconditioned with new guides and valves -1.3 & 1.125, chose the one with the standard oil drain connection - the other has the 930 set up.

Shimmed the cam, Sport, nice to have proper sized shims for a change - all in the .100" range. Took quite a few goes simply to get to the point where there was measurable clearances.

Prepared a sump for the engine and looked out a head gasket, all the new ones seem suitable up to 998 which was a surprise.

Scott

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[bks974c]

Been putting the engine together, spotted a top tip on Andy Jones Shrigleytube TV for setting the initial cam clearances, unfortunately it was after I had done mine .

Checked the compression ratio and it came out at 10.91:1, I usually go for 10.5:1 but believe it will be ok, besides having full engine management means I can retard the ignition timing and add more fuel if necessary or worse case, pull the head and open up the chambers. When the engine that is in at present was rolling roaded, it was set on the rich side 13:1 AFR so there is a cushion in the map.

With the high compression ratio I chose not to run the cam advanced as I usually do with Sport cams, setting the cam to 50" lift at TDC rather than the standard 40" give a bit more torque low down, as it give more time for the cylinders to fill at the expense of a bit of top end power. The reality is most of the time is spent at below 50% throttle so that is where you want the engine strong. I also have the option of retarding the cam if it should prove necessary but unlikely.

I timed the cam in at 40" at TDC and it came out spot on with the alignment mark of the cam sprocket, as it has a new chain fitted it was tight getting it on. It is fitted with a multi-hole sprocket which proved unnecessary but is there if needed in future.

Prepped and painted the many bits that get bolted onto the engine, and modified various parts to suit the engine management components, I decided rather than stripping all them off the other engine, to assemble the engine with it's own to speed up the swap. Waiting on standard temp and oil pressure switches along with some UNC stainless bolts to finish off the cam cover.

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Scott

[bks974c]

After spending time last week rebuilding the automatic transmission for the Mustaguar which was a very steep learning curve it's back on to Karen's engine, I woke with the thought had I put the O'ring for the oil feed to the head . I can't actually remember doing it and usually paranoid about it falling out that I check it multiple times, I was going to pull the head and check but have vague memories of checking which o'ring it was and how it sat with the block having been decked, took a brave pill and chose to leave it. Time will tell if that was the correct decision.

Pulled the test engine out and cleaned up the engine bay, amazing how quickly it gets mucky. Tidied up some wiring and got the new silicone hoses out that I had bought for it.

I decided to lacquer the engine since it had been blasted and wanted something to keep it nice but didn't want to paint it, bought some etch lacquer to try and again see how it lasts.

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Scott

[Uncle Henry]

Etch lacquer ? Who knew

AG

[bks974c]

Think it was developed specially for diamond cut alloy wheels.

Scott

[Uncle Henry]

Interesting Scott. I'm going to research this : could be the answer to certain prayers.

UH

[bks974c]

https://www.advancedpaints.co.uk/produc ... quer-kits/

https://www.advancedpaints.co.uk/wp-con ... at-TDS.pdf

I used the 2K version.

Scott

[bks974c]

Tuesday saw the engine in and fired up instantly, while it warmed up I checked the static ignition timing and despite using a different crank pulley and trigger wheel it required exactly the same correction -missing tooth 83 degree before TDC. The instruction say to align centre of missing to but looks like it should be the leading or trailing edge, something I'll bear in mind for the next on.

Once that was done I checked the temp and oil pressure, temp OK but oil pressure lower than I would have liked but initially put it down to the running in oil SAE30 so carried on with running it at fast idle for 20 mins or so with the occasional wee blip.

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Overnight I thought about it and wasn't happy to run finish running it in on the road with the oil pressure as it was - using the standard Sport gauge and comparing that to how it was with the engine I'd just taken out. so I drained the oil and put some regular 20W/50 in. I tried to get some cheap/no name 20w/50 as they won't have much in the way of friction modifiers if any but couldn't find any locally which is understandable, I used to sell pallet loads of the stuff in a previous life

Anyhoo, when the engine was hot it was still too low for my liking although it was a tiny bit better. Head scratching time. Andy Jones had built the short motor and refurbished the cylinder head and I had assembled it so I gave him a shout and asked for some advise, he mentioned he had a bent cam carrier and an oil filter housing that didn't seal and was bypassing. As the engine sounded a bit tappety I pulled the cam cover off and at Andy's suggestion started it briefly, well there was plenty of oil there and now everywhere else but it proves there was flow and the worry about a missing o ring unfounded.

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After clearing up as much of the mess as possible, at least it was clean , I checked the cam carrier and found I could get a 1.5/2 thou feeler gauge under the pulley end. I removed it and upon examining it noticed it was clean in the area of concern, possibly due to oil escaping and upon removing the cam that end had a little scoring. Dug out another Sport Cam and carrier out for comparison and decided to use that one so set about cleaning it before Keith came over and I guillotined some metal strips for him and then went to the Imp Club mid month meeting.

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Scott

[bks974c]

So while we had a potential smoking gun, I still wasn't totally convinced this was the problem so gathered various bits from home, oil pumps/filter housings/cam bearings but will deal with cam first and see from there.

Fitted the carrier with new bearings and the checked and adjusted the clearances, I've always gone with 7/14 as a target but following advice from Andy that 10 on the exhausts will quieten them and he hasn't seen any regression with the stainless steel valves. It also makes sense that when specing them Rootes would have an eye on the long term and lack of regular maintenance and not set them to a minimum.

I set them to 6/11 as I missed the 10 due to not having the correct shims but close enough, buttoned everything up and restarted and let it warm up.

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Happier now, so set the idle up as the new engine required slightly different settings and continued with putting all the ancillaries etc back on.

It still sounded tappety but further investigation traced it to injector tick and the exhaust which was just placed on the manifold.

Scott

[bks974c]

Thought I had little to do today but the car had other thoughts, I just had the air filter to oil and install and wanted to disconnect the pipe from the oil pressure gauge and bleed it as it was a bit slow to react while the warning light went out instantly,

Needed to remove the instrument cluster to gain access to the pipe nut, did that and started the engine until clean oil flowed out the pipe then reattached it. That's when things started going backwards, when I started the car again the gauge was fine, the needle now swept smoothly but there were no warning lights or fuel and temp readings

Ok, common point between all them is the ign feed going into the cluster and right enough when I tested the white wire no power so started trying to find out why assuming in the process of removing the cluster something had become dislodge or broken except I couldn't find anything and all the other white wires I could access had power.

So now I actually removed the cluster as I had loosen off and pulled forward enough to work around the back while lying on my back peering up, once out I could properly get to the wiring and the white wire wasn't actually white but white with a trace and the white was on the other side hidden by the connector itself and it had power.

Now with the cluster on the bench I could check it properly and found the printed circuit had a break in one track, the one track that affects 50% of it's functions, moving it either was enough to break it or it was broken already and just happened to be making contact until disturbed. Easy enough job to replace the printed circuit from another but wasted so much time.

Had a few other wee job to do on the car before taking it home on it's first run but I noticed a few misses when it was idling so connected up the laptop to the ECU and could see when it missed the MAP sensor reading went to 100, that I think is it losing the signal so will need further investigation. I logged the run home and there was no sign of it repeating and no noticeable misses.

As I was running it in kept the rpm below 4000 and the engine is lovely and smooth and feels strong however need to check the heater as no hot air, suspect that the clip might have popped off the cable, job for tomorrow.

Oh and the oil pressure good plus I checked the engine number and it is the original for the car, although not that important but it is nice that it is.

Scott

[bks974c]

Took Karen's Sport back up to the shed today and almost immediately I could see the MAP sensor dropping out but the car kept driving OK so I pulled into a layby. Because I had seen issues yesterday I had packed a couple of spare ones and set about swapping them (it's located under the air filter housing and easy to get to, just left the old one in place and the new one hanging), the readings were off so changed the settings so it reverses the output. Completed the journey without further issues.

Rather than delve into the hot engine I looked at the heater issue and found the cable still attached so that's not the problem, I had issues with the valve previously and the hoses were cold so swapped that out for a NOS one, still didn't make any difference Checked the hoses coming off the engine and the bypass hose hot but not the heater hose , the set up uses the Sport banjo fitting for the heater hose and bypass as the normal bypass connection taken by the temp sensor for the ECU. The heater hose is taken off the 90 degree pipe so swapped them round so the heater route is the easiest route. Better but not yet 100% so closed off some of the other pipes and rev'd it and got some air out the system hmmm, the I checked the booster pump I have in the heater circuit and that's not working, traced the problem to a bad connection at the switch once sorted toasty heater again

Back to the MAP sensor, played around swapping the sensors around and the current one definitely has a fault causing the engine to hunt so put a new one on and reset idle, however, it reads slightly different from the original for the same pressure about 10kpa which will alter which load point on the maps it is looking at. I have ordered a Bosch sensor and see how that reads but in the meantime all seems to be running fine.

Get some more miles on it new week.

Scott

[RoyBlunt]

Scott,
What booster pump have you got in the heater circuit?

Roy

[bks974c]

Hi Roy

Karen's Imp has a Jaguar one as I had it left over from another project it is ideal as it has 15mm connections most of the others have 19mm which I've used in the Clan. They really offer a huge improvement.

Jaguar xjr6 one that was 15/16mm, MJA6710AA or MNA6710AB.

This site has a selection of sizes https://www.thewetworks.co.uk/products/ ... ation-pump

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324356865839 ... 9e327ba832

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402662951744 ... BMiIDn1ddi

Scott

[bks974c]

Getting some miles on it for running in but the first couple of days didn't go as hoped, first night it ended up sitting idling for an extended period as the bypass was at stand still die to a car accident, not ideal but coped admirable then the next day on the way to the shed traffic was stop start. The ease of running in on a dyno become apparent.

Bosch Map sensor arrived the other day so fitted that, Happier with the reading but still fluctuating wildly about. A little internet research suggested using an inline fuel filter with a mig tip inserted in the hose. I approached this scientifically, one step at a time, with each step it improved so now the reading is steady,

It all makes sense, the sensor is a highly sensitive device and it's seeing all the changes as the valves open and close, the fuel filter acts as a damper and the mig tip reduces the size of the changes the sensor sees.

I also played with the TPS settings, there is play in the linkage that the sensor is not reading. I set the minimum to when the TPS sensor starts to read so now the ecu reacts better to low speed acceleration. The TPS is used to provide fuel enrichment when it show a rapid increase on a sliding scale depending on rate of increase.

Last couple of days the car has got better and better to drive, I think both the changes and as the engine starts to bed in.

Sorted the headlight alignment and that makes a big difference to driving it at night.

Water ingress at drivers door needs further investigation.

Scott

[John A Ross]

Scott

Is the MAP sensor voltage output or digital (PWM) ?

If it is straight voltage output a couple of nice large caps at the sensor would level out the readings.

Does the software not take x samples per second and avarage the reading (settings) ? or is it the physical location and pressure that needs dampened that is the issues rather than the transducers sensitivity ?

Just curious.

.

[bks974c]

Scott

Is the MAP sensor voltage output or digital (PWM) ?

If it is straight voltage output a couple of nice large caps at the sensor would level out the readings.

Does the software not take x samples per second and avarage the reading (settings) ? or is it the physical location and pressure that needs dampened that is the issues rather than the transducers sensitivity ?

Just curious.

.

It's straight voltage as far as I'm aware, 3 terminal 5V/earth/ signal. The problem is the location that it is taken from - twin strombergs manifold, it has a bridge that connects the two carbs effectively between 1&2 and 2&3 and tapped in the middle of the bridge.

I believe the sensor see all the little pulses that are happening with the valves opening and closing and the idle control valve doing it's thing, the filter and mig tip slows down the changes effectively averaging it.

Check out videos I took at the time https://www.youtube.com/@scottclements1040

I could have tried it with the restrictor alone and see what that would do, probably give it a go next time.

Scott

[John A Ross]

Scott

Ah OK, no adjustment on sampling time or mean levels on the ECU ? the raw ECU ADC will sample anything up to 256k samples/s or more and with only 5V its not a big range. I recken if you drop a large bulk cap across the 5V to stablise the reference voltage and another slightly smaller across the sensor wire and gnd itself it would help as your not looking for a millisecond read.

[bks974c]

Had to tidy up the shed today and move stuff around to bring the Jaguar XJR6 in for a head swap so took the opportunity to have a look at Karen's Sport, I was a bit suspect of the oil pressure as the oil light seemed slow to go out and the original oil pressure gauge is hardly a precision instrument.

Connected a real oil pressure tester to the block take off and ran it up to temp, oil temp was 65 degrees, not fully hot but good enough for the purpose of the test, idle 900rpm, oil pressure was 35 psi, rev'd it and it's 60 psi so I can relax now, all looks good

Scott

[Uncle Henry]

The problem is the location that it is taken from - twin strombergs manifold, it has a bridge that connects the two carbs effectively between 1&2 and 2&3 and tapped in the middle of the bridge.

Do you not have a "reservior" box downstream to iron out the valve pulses ? It was a build suggestion on my Megajolt, and so I incorporated one.

AG

[bks974c]

The problem is the location that it is taken from - twin strombergs manifold, it has a bridge that connects the two carbs effectively between 1&2 and 2&3 and tapped in the middle of the bridge.

Do you not have a "reservior" box downstream to iron out the valve pulses ? It was a build suggestion on my Megajolt, and so I incorporated one.

AG

Andy

The inline fuel filter would be equivalent to the reservoir box ?

Scott

[Uncle Henry]

Haha, yes, of course. And sealed too. I assume its big enough

AG