Back to my roots

[2DoorJim]

My start-up is pending I'm wondering if someone can enlighten me on how to oil prime this engine (SR20). It's been sitting for a couple years, completely drained, pan off at one point when I cleaned it up and inspected the inside.

I can inject oil into either the oil pressure sender port or the turbo oil feed line, both of which I presume will hit the mains, throws, cams etc, but I'd like to reverse feed some oil into the oil pump. Will this happen if fed via the oil press sender port?

I'll also pull the plugs and crank until I see pressure after priming.

Hoping Julian will see this, have done something similar recently.

[okayfine]

Jim, you should have no problem priming the oil circuit through the oil pressure sender port. I'd imagine the same could be said for the turbo oil feed line. Same circuit, no one-way valves or anything like that. I've had great success via the oil pressure sender port, but I haven't done a modern turbo motor.

I did prime my L20BT, however, using the standard L-series method of a long screwdriver blade in a drill into the oil pump. This pressurized the entire system including the turbo line, no problem.

If you listen through the oil fill port in the valve cover, you'll hear the oil squirt out the cams. Once this happens, I'd have no qualms going for engine start, as in the additional step of plugs out and spinning until pressure rises is not necessary. It's also not harmful, so if that's what you want to do, go for it.

Attaching the SR/DET oil circuit, for giggles, since it appears to be a much poorer drawing than the one in the 510 FSM.

SR Oil Circuit.jpg (118.75 KiB) Viewed 4790 times

[2DoorJim]

Thanks Julian, that clears it up for me. I'll do it through the oil pressure sender port, try and catch a picture. Hopefully I get a few hours in today then tomorrow, fluids and noise!

[2DoorJim]

Good progress tonight! Since the other half is in bed and she could care less about the miracles of internal combustion I'll share here instead. I'm about 15 months into this 510 since I bought it. Been tossing a few hours at it each week and finally got it to run for the first time.

I built a stainless exhaust for it this past weekend and though the hangars are MIA I was close enough to firing it up when a friend dropped by tonight. He's been a source of inspiration whenever I complain about how long it's taking to resurrect this hulk so I figured it would be fitting if he could see it run. I was just finishing some final welds to the wastegate discharge pipe when he showed up so we proceeded to put the exhaust system in, install the rad, coolant, fill it with oil, prime the oil galleys, add a couple gallons of gas in, prime the fuel rail, AND,........




nothing



silence


WTH!



I must have disconnected something.... My buddy's looking things over and noticed a disconnected relay, it's a spare so problem is somewhere else. I'm scratching my head thinking I obviously removed a main power feed to the ecu but I know the wiring and it's dead simple! Couple minutes go by when it suddenly comes to light that my simple, yet effective security system is doing exactly what it's supposed to! moron.

After about three tries of the key making some crude adjustments to the fuel parameters it fired up. We only ran it for a few seconds and shut it down noticing it was running on 3, or two. Sure enough one cold exhaust pipe. Pulled the plug boot and put a plug in it and ran the motor for another moment, spark was fine so it must be fuel. My friend tapped on the injector and it seemed to come to life since the header pipe started to warm up but even after it ran for a couple minutes we noticed it was far cooler than the other header tubes using a IR thermometer. I'll give it another shot tomorrow and see if it's freed up by then otherwise I'll pull the injectors and test flow them to see what's up with the problem unit.

Continued to check for fuel, coolant, and oil leaks and all looked fine except for a small oil drip which came from the turbo oil feed banjo on the block. I'll pull it out tomorrow and have a look at the crush washers, anneal them or replace them perhaps.

It will take about half a dozen start and warm up sessions to start refining the fuel map, set static reference timing etc before I can drive it, but then I also need to finish exhaust hangars, mount the seats, quick alignment, hood, front fenders.... work in progress!

Here's my buddy on the drill priming the motor while I dispense useful instruction. I have a couple of these small hydraulic pumps which are perfect for this. I keep the pump clean but I still ran half a quart of oil through it into a drain barrel just in case there was any debris inside the pump. I pumped the oil in through the oil pressure sender port as Julian suggested.



The gold color in this picture is oil coming out of the spray bar onto the cam. It took about two minutes to purge the air out of the galleys since the hydraulic pump is small displacement. Could hear gurgling from the oil filler then drops started to appear from the spraybar and eventually a steady stream.



Engine bay after it ran. Intercooler and air filter are ready for install.



This picture hardly does justice to display the disorganization and mess in my garage from the last few days, not to mention after tonight.

[okayfine]

That right there is some progress!

[bertvorgon]

Jeezus...I think I have turbo envy...makes mine look like it came from a lawn mower ( actually, it's used on John Deer tractors now )

Looks good Jim!

I did look at those pictures you sent me.....amazing work and machining.

[2DoorJim]

Project update.... Spring is around the corner and I need to get this thing going, it's all I think about day and night.

I left off last fall with it running, mechanically complete, street legal etc. I put a half dozen short drives on it and did some basic efi tuning before moving it out my work place where it was going to live over the winter while I carried on with bodywork. At this point I haven't had it on boost but it feels like it's going to wind up good, tight turbine housing...

This 510 chassis came with a multi color urban assault paint scheme which was a little too conspicuous for me so late one evening with some masking tape and paper, seven cans of grey primer and and a can of black, I was good to go for test driving. I had been planning to put flares on the 510 so I cut the fender lips off in order to clear the tires, ugly but mobile - redneck machine. Some guy driving a restored ford courier truck followed me along the freeway, gave a big thumbs up. Not bad for it's first outing, steam roller tires and all!

Aside from replacing the left rocker panel nothing much got done on the 510 until February but it's well under way now. My original plan was to add flares of some description but in the back of my mind I wanted a more aggressive look, the only thing which did it for me was box flares and I eventually settled on something similar to the BMW E30 M3 style fender. Many hours looking at various web pictures of custom flares brought up all sorts of designs from all over the world.

My plan at this point was to build my own flares using hand carved foam cores then lay up fiberglass on top, followed by finishing the glass surface. I didn't have any desire to produce plugs, molds, then final parts. I started by building up the left front fender with pourable expanding foam then I trimmed the foam to shape. I actually re-poured the foam three times as I adjusted my design, not that I'm looking for perfection but I just wanted it to look OK. I consulted a few friends from racing and autobody and got some good feedback,now I was on my way.

I turned my focus to my left rear quarter which I built up with construction foam. Over the course of two days I massaged the shape until I thought I was satisfied. The sequence of pictures shows the steps, foam, carving and sanding, filler, primer and mold release, glass, surface filler. There was some preliminary work to prep the body with structural adhesive where the epoxy/glass bonds directly onto the car. Front fenders are fiberglass which are far more simple to deal with. In case anyone is wondering, this was a rust bucked 510, I didn't cut up a good chassis. I selected this chassis specifically so I could head down the road of fender flares.














This is where I was a week ago, but I had one nagging thought about proceeding with this project. Now is the time to turn back if I wanted a stock bodied 510. May seem odd to question it at this point but seeing how most everyone is into stock bodied 510s I couldn't help be a little worried that I was investing time into a 80's style project which might have people rolling their eyes. Though my objective was to build a hotrod of sorts (like I wanted as a kid) I thought I might ask the brain trust here on the realm. I posted "Box Flares" in the electrical/Bodywork forum asking what the general conscious was regarding my flare idea. The response was unanimous to proceed though there was a little debate about specific design of the flares, but was already thought out among the guys who I had look at the project to give me their opinion.

Here are a couple shots of the left front fender, but as it currently sits both front fenders are now done and I'm onto the front lower cowl panel. Needs to massaging to make it fit around the intercooler then adjust gaps to meet the glass fenders. More pics to follow.

In a weeks time I should be onto replacing the right rocker, then I get to repeat the rear fender process on the right side.







The white stuff on the front fender is an epoxy surface filler. It's not sanded yet in this picture, and it ruins the contrast needed to see the actual shape. Better pictures to follow. The shape of the front fender is similar to the rear fender.

[2DoorJim]

Buy the best car you can afford to buy, otherWISE:





Under the first layer:




Under the second layer:









Sometimes I want to burn this thing.

[Mattndew76]

I will say that its never as bad as it appears at the time. You will love this car..

I generally hold my contempt for the (ass-hats) person that do such things vs attempt the real proper repair.

Keep up the great work.

[McShagger510]

VERY cool box flare design & execution. Fun part will be matching up to the other side!

James

[2DoorJim]

Hey James, save me now, don't be comparing left and right!

I'm still scratching my head on the fuel filler door. My decision to have some crown on the top of the fenders was going to mean reworking the door. Few options I've considered are moving the filler bucket up but I won't gain enough to clear the flare, change the filler to inside the trunk and cover over the door, loose an inch off the bottom of the door which might cramp the filler nozzle but looks to be the least work.

Got the pan and inner rocker rebuilt yesterday, onto fitting the rocker today. Rust be GONE!!!

[dan_the_man]

If you looking to a race car look you could do a filler through the deck lid. Filler hose and bib stationary with a rubber cousin seal to decklid. Allowing you to fill fuel without opening trunk.

[okayfine]

If you looking to a race car look you could do a filler through the deck lid. Filler hose and bib stationary with a rubber cousin seal to decklid. Allowing you to fill fuel without opening trunk.

Was reading Jim's latest post and was going to write the same thing. Why not? The resulting car isn't going to be subtle anyway

[Dave Patten]

How about a filler thru the tail light panel similar to the BRE cars? It could be dressed up a little more than what they did, you won't be doing any high speed refueling.

Use a fill pipe off an early pick-up that had an in cab gas tank. You could use the same rubber grommet from the truck to seal around the pipe. '70's and early Fords/Chevys had them and they are readily available as aftermarket reproductions.

[McShagger510]

Gas filler hidden in trunk would be my vote.

James