Robbo's Twincam

Robbo · Post by **Robbo** » 26 Nov 2005, 19:06

Poida and others,
Good idea mate, I was just thinking the other day that a twincam forum would be a good idea.

First off, I think I'll just introduce my engine and where it's at...

I bought the engine quite a while ago to put into my project shell I had. I live in Brisbane and I bought it off a bloke in Adelaide, who drove it up himself. I never heard the engine running, and in hind-sight it wasn't the best buy, but hey, I've got it now!

According to the previous owner, the engine is an ex-HDT engine, whether or not this is true I don't know. It was sold to me under the assumption that it was ready to bolt in, oh my god was he lying.

First of all, he didn't give me a few things, like half the loom and a few other bits and bobs, nothing too important. Then I discovered that one of the cam follower buckets was completely smashed. I was told the engine came with aftermarket race cams, but it has standard cams in it. It would have had aftermarket cams in it though, because all the clearances were WAY off, and he must have changed it back to standard cams, run it for a while and because the clearances were too big it smashed the bucket.

I sourced another bucket off a fellow twincammer. I didn't take off the head though because I didn't want to get another head gasket. In trying to time the cams one day I took the spark plugs out and was looking through the hole to see where the piston was, and saw that the valve had a nice big chunk missing out of it.

So a new valve it was (which I got from the same bloke). I got a new headgasket (from Burson, which turned out to be for a 2L, mines a 1.8L, but I'm using it anyway). It also had a couple of small holes in the sump that I welded up at some stage.

Fitted all of that up, timed the cams up, did wiring of the car (not engine) and now I can turn over the engine with the starter motor! This is over the period of a couple of years, hehe.

Other things I've done to my engine to date are fitted an XF throttle body to the plenum, bought some extractors off a bloke from hotgemini, and fitted an oil cooler off a starion. I've ordered a MegaSquirt ECU (DIY EFI computer, nice and cheap) which should arrive in a couple of weeks, so hopefully it'll be running not long into the new year.

So that's my engine story thus far. Not a lot, doesn't even fire, but I've learnt a lot in pulling it apart a couple of times so far.

Robbo

Robbo · Post by **Robbo** » 27 Nov 2005, 18:48

forgot to mention that the previous owner sold me the engine set up with a crane ignition system, but forgot to give me the crane ignition module.

So I had a fixed dissy (no advance or retard) with an optical sensor in it and no way to drive the ignition.

This was most of the reason I got a megasquirt... to get rid of the distributor completely, and run wasted spark (I bought some twin tower ignition coils today off an ecotec commodore).

Also forgot to mention I've had the head cleaned up, the surface machined, the valves reground (I would have done this myself, but my valve spring compressor doesn't fit on the dohc head!) and the valve shims reset to the right clearances.

archangel62 · Post by **archangel62** » 30 Dec 2005, 02:45

Sounds nice, I should start a thread like this for my G180W. How much did yours set you back, if you don't mind me asking?

Robbo · Post by **Robbo** » 30 Dec 2005, 09:50

under the assumption of it being a race engine (HA) good for about 100rwkw (HAHA) and it being ready to bolt in (HAHAHA) including him driving it up from adelaide to brisbane it cost me $1500

Robbo · Post by **Robbo** » 12 Jan 2006, 17:39

my ecu arrived this week, so I'll be working on it on the weekend, hopefully it'll start in not too long! woohoo

Robbo · Post by **Robbo** » 16 Jan 2006, 10:35

did some wiring on the weekend.

IAT, CLT, TPS, CAS all work

I had previously bought some twin tower coil packs off an ecotec commodore but found out on the weekend that they require a seperate ignition module to fire as they draw 36amps to switch! I took them back to the wreckers to swap for coil packs off a mitsu galant... wired them up and they work sweet, so I have spark aswell, although I'll have to get some different ignition leads and mine don't fit properly.

Basically, all I have to do is wire up the fuel pump and buy 10cm of EFI hose to go between the swirl pot and the efi pump and my engine might actually start! About 30mins of work to go hopefully, plus the usual 'something has gone wrong' of any amount of extra time.

archangel62 · Post by **archangel62** » 17 Jan 2006, 08:54

Nice work! I hardly need to tell you but you have to tell us how it sounds and runs! And vids maybe

Looks like your effort's really starting to pay off. Also, you're a wise man, accounting for the "oh shit, something's wrong," time. Valuable lesson learnt there.

Robbo · Post by **Robbo** » 13 Feb 2007, 18:07

Hehehe, well.... not a hell of a lot has happened since I last posted over a year ago!!!

I actually got to a point of trying to start the engine, but it didn't... then for some reason the fuel pump won't turn on anymore, the computer doesn't seem to be sending the signal to the relay to turn on...

Car has pretty much sat there for rest of the year, and will probably start on it again soon... bit of a shame really

Post by **Poida** » 14 Feb 2007, 14:50

Ahhh... don't worry about it too much. Things traditionally sit for yonks then all of a sudden an urge comes upon you and whammo... it all starts happening. One day you'd get the bug and off you'll go till it fires up again. It can't be too many things wrong. Possibly even just a break in the power line from the ECU to the fuel pump.