Lemons probe / engine rebuild/ other hack job work

[rmlunsford]

I've got nothing really to add to this, but just confused about the pump speed.

How are you getting the calc of the water pump to spin at 9k when the engine is at 6k?

The water pump pulley is about 4.1" the crank pulley that drives the pump is about 4.8"

Not my math but I just measured and you're about exact. Keep in mind there are two different diameters to the crank pulley, the water pump I believe runs off the smaller diameter. Water pump pulley might be 4.0. The internet tells me this means that when the crank is spinning at 6,000 the water pump is at 7,200, not 9,000.

[RacerXR]

Good catch short4stuff. So much for trusting someone else's measurements and math. I just went out to the garage and measured my FS pulleys. The factory crank pulley is about 5.5", the water pump pulley is about 4.5". That's like 7.3K rpm at 6K engine speed.

The underdrive crank pulley I have is about 4.5 inches. So it's about one to one with the water pump speed.

While that does make the math above suspect, I do know that these motors don't like to spin up to and over 6K all weekend long. All this talk inspired me to order a new underdrive pulley for the JDM Protege motor I am prepping to replace my current dead motor.

BTW, the FS motor has a long stroke to bore ratio. So building a torquey motor is easy. The KL motor is over square. So it's gonna want to rev. I assume Mazda tuned the intake to this fact as well. So getting a KL to peak before 6K rpm may be a bit optimistic. But, that doesn't change the approach.

[RACERSNUT]

You know RacerXR, I went back and measured the rear pulley of the harmonic balancer and I'll be man enough to admit I was wrong. It is 4.69" on the balancer and 4" , so roughly 1.18 ratio. Which makes 7035 RPM of the water pump at 6000 RPM of the engine. Now, that's ALOT better.........but I think I'll still do my own impeller just the same.

Having said that, I think it's kind of hard to compare an FS motor to a KL. Granted in theory you make some good points. I've actually driven an FS powered LeMons car. The car was bought for $250, (a mechanic sold it to us without a title), and we changed the oil, put a water pump and timing belt on it and called it good.

We finished 27th out of 94 cars at Carolina Motor Sports race track in SC. The owner/driver, (not me), wanted to keep it in second gear and run it off to the rev limiter to turn 2 after the front straight. I didn't, and would shift up to third when it got past 5,500. Like yourself, I am somewhat 'mechanical sympathetic' to engines.

If I run an Unorthodox under-drive pulley, will you pay for my engine assembly to be balanced? I have somewhat more faith in the folks at Mazda that the engine was designed around a harmonic balancer. I'm sorry, but to just throw the balancer in the trash doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. So, we can agree to disagree.

I'll play with my KL motor and do the best I can, and you can run your FS motor and do the best that you can. Maybe we can meet at the track one day and have some fun.

[dillinr]

I'd keep the OEM harmonic balancer as well.

Next step, custom ATI Super Damper.

[RacerXR]

You bring up a good point regarding the harmonic balancer. I'm still a bit on the fence regarding if it's a good idea to ditch it. Obviously, the same goes for lightweight flywheels.

If you run an unmolested junkyard motor, it was balanced at the factory. If you are gonna rebuild a motor, it would be foolish not to balance it as well. Getting the rotating assembly balanced is pretty reasonable ($150 - $200) at any decent machine shop. That's cheaper and far lower risk than getting a custom water pump impeller milled and balanced.

I have run an under drive pulley for 4 races now with no problems.

[RACERSNUT]

dillinr,

I've not talked to ATI, do you have any contacts there?

[dillinr]

I don't, but have looked into it. They will build you a custom one, you can measure everything, write it down on a sheet and they'll build it. My plan is to call them, see if I can send them one, and let them measure it so well all know it's correct. May be worth talking to them for a slight discount if they can build a few at once instead of one at a time?

http://www.atiracing.com/products/da...hubs/index.htm

It's on my wish list as my next AutoX engine may end up revving north of 8k rpm.

[RACERSNUT]

I'd be down for a group buy.......might have to wait until after Christmas. LOL.

[dillinr]

Me too. I'll be talking with them in January. I'll inquire about lower cost for building a few.

[rmlunsford]

Got the car moved over to the garage and started pulling suspension apart. Bought some coilovers off a forum somewhere for a protege, which actually appear to fit. Except for the fact that the previous owner took a good bit of material out of the top bolt hole on the lower part of the strut.http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/p...psxaunmbak.jpg

Luckily I can weld to it, so I'm going to weld in a little steel and take it back to the right size. I'm not really sure why they did this as the coilovers have camber plates.

Also the new huge radiator came! Griffen 31 by 15.5 by 3. I'm pretty sure i'm going to have to move the radiator crossmembers to get it to fit. Should be fun.
http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/p...pssymcmt9l.jpg

[rmlunsford]

Can anyone enlighten me on how to embed the pictures?

[RACERSNUT]

rmlunsford,

Did you get your radiator installed? Looking at the above picture, it appears that it's a Single Pass unit. Is that correct? Have you raced with it yet?

[rmlunsford]

Alright so ran into some usual problems, work space got lost for a while but we got a new one, spent too much time drinking instead of working on the car, and other things. However, we finally finished putting the engine back together (I had a machine shop do the short block and then I put the rest of it back together to the best of my very limited ability.) That engine is actually in the car and it fired up last night and sounds great, albeit loud as hell in a small airplane hangar w/ only the headers hooked up. The radiator is all installed and plumbed. I ordered a generic one, and even though the fabrication work seems minor, it took me forever to get it all lined up and looking ok. I'll take some pictures the next time I'm over there.

Anyway, we're aiming to race it 2/5 and 2/6 at a 24 hours of lemons race at Barber in Alabama.

If anyone feels like taking bets on what we will break next, feel free. I'm hoping to get it to a track day in January to test out the new cooling system / engine.

[rmlunsford]

startup video: https://www.facebook.com/goldfishrac...1810129679337/

[majo8]

Anyway, we're aiming to race it 2/5 and 2/6 at a 24 hours of lemons race at Barber in Alabama.

Cool. I'll look you guys up at Barber. I'll be there again, but again without my Probe. Someday.

I'll be racing Apocalyptic Racing's Blue 78 Celica w/ a GM Ecotec engine. I've raced it with them before, and they've won class B and finished as high as 4th overall.