1000 horsepower junkyard motor builds?

I have to tip my hat to frenchyd.  He at least gets the juices flowing, good or bad.  Me on the other hand, my posts get ignored, or I'm a thread killer.

Now, an observation.  SBC motors and the LS variations, appear to have great longevity.  The GM E series transmissons, meh.   These with a TH 400 seem to be a fair setup, for endurance style racing. Heat is a killer, for sure.  A plan to escape heat seems to be a running theme.  Picking the right vehicle, ie: weight, cost of parts, ability to get air flow etc.    On the other hand, a Crown Vic P71, or Town Car, may fit the bill.  Just look at all the Cabs/Limos that were cruising the big cities for years. Durable, different shifts with drivers/driving styles.  Able to withstand heat (idling, bumper to bumper traffic etc.)  Plus, the P71 has a "track" record already. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I know zero about Lemons, Chump Car and so on.

One more thing,  being a purist is admirable, but in my experience, once you decide to make a vehicle race only, that's pretty much it.  You're only a virgin, once.

frenchyd said:

In reply to yupididit :

Did you bother reading my post?  

Out of that entire post only 2 sentences were directed to me. But yeah okay. 

You win forum troll award. 

yupididit said:

frenchyd said:

In reply to yupididit :

Did you bother reading my post?  

Out of that entire post only 2 sentences were directed to me. But yeah okay. 

 

You win forum troll award. 

I owe you an apology. 

I was responding to Stampie’s comment and clicked on your copy of his remarks.  

That’s the flaw with trying to respond to everyone in a hurry. 

I write something, someone misunderstands what was said,  I try to correct them.  And the nonsense begins.  It’s like trying to hold a conversation in a crowded,  noisy, room.  People are going to read things wrong  or part of things. 

For example; My comment about delicate turbo 400, apparently no one took that for the sarcasm it was intended to be.  As if the delicacy  was at question. Now  I understand how elections can be  altered via the internet.  

Further,  people with little or no actual racing experience are trying to tell me how to build a race car.!?!  When I repeatedly explain what I need to understand is modern ECM’s.  

I’m a Dinosaur. OK, I accept that.  I’ve asked for help every way I can.  Talking about 1000 horsepower junkyard engines sure turned into some click bait. As if that was  anyway to win an endurance race.  

But!!! I got a glimpse of a piece of an answer, In following that lead I went down a rabbit hole that lead to another couple of leads. One of which sorta answered my questions.  

I didn’t know enough to ask the right questions  

but here’s what I’ve learned, not in this order. 

1 the MegaSquirt will work, 

2 It’s not the endless data entry from unknown graphs I feared. 

3.  The Jaguar is compatible because it has the ferro  sensors built into the distributor.  ( post 1975 ) 

4. I will need to add 4 wide band O2 sensors  to the exhaust stream.  

5 The missing pieces I need to buy are  readily available at affordable prices.                            

Frenchyd,

I've said before and I'll say it again - I'll try to help however I can from afar. I'm not an engine builder but I am in IT. So I'm confident I can get your megasquirt running.

In reply to Robbie :

Thanks Robbie;  my problem was I didn’t know enough to ask the right questions.  

I’m still a Luddite,   I can’t get a consistent way to respond without triggering the bold.  

I’m really tired of  asking my wife ( IT project manager) the wrong question or phrasing it in the wrong way.  Having her grab it out of my hands etc.  

She’s  far from the first.  I was an early computer owner. But never anything serious.  I’d replace them every 2 years or so. With the next “best” one. 

When portable phone and computers collided  I was right there.  My teenage daughters were pre computer millennial’s but teaching their dad was too much.  But I’m just not on top of technology.

   I remember as a young boy getting my first crystal radio.  My dad fumbled around with it and occasionally would find a radio station.   My grandparents were hopeless though. Same thing when transistor radios came out. 

That’s how I feel now.  Like my grandparents did then.  Grandma never did manage to learn to drive a car.  But Grandpa did, sorta.

Whoa Nellie! He yelled at the truck as it crashed through the back wall of the garage. His foot had missed the brake and he pulled back on the steering wheel.  Old habits die hard. 

Maybe some of these links might help with the MS installation.

http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=45081

http://www.msextra.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=69058

http://www.msextra.com/forums/index.php

In reply to Dirtydog :

Reading those is what terrified me. Not a soul mentioned the self learning function.  They  almost all got excited about controlling the spark. 

No one mentioned Boost or alcohol. 

There may be a horsepower or two in digitally injecting fuel in at the right time. And maybe a few more  if the timing is exactly spot on.   So figure instead of 262 horsepower it’s making 267  

But the use of E85 will give you about 10% more power just by itself.  That’s 26 more horsepower. So from 262 to  288  with no other changes.  Plus you save .60 a gallon  or $14.40 a tank. ( but that is savings over regular.  Savings over premium is $1.30  or  $31.20 a tank full.  Little known fact E85 can have over 100 octane  but it will always be higher than 92 octane. 

Almost everyone was driving a later HE engine.  That has the 11.5 -1 compression ratio  with timing retarded to prevent preignition.  With the higher octane timing can be advanced which will yield even greater power.  

You've already twinturbo'd a v12 xjs right? 

I'm going to MS a v12 car too that isn't commonly used and I think the Mercedes v12 might have more hurdles to overcome than the jaguar. But, I'm starting off with at least 389 horsepower and 400 torques and keeping it naturally aspirated. 

There seems to be a lot of info on MS'ing the jag v12. From what I've read, all the pieces are there in regards to the info. You just have to collect and interpret. Most and foremost you have to get started. Dancing around it gets you exactly where you are now, nowhere. 

In reply to yupididit :

I did it and it’s still running but boy was it kludged.  Every once in a while I see it at a local drive-in. Next time I’ll take a picture but you won’t be impressed. 

When I did it the car couldn’t cost more than $500 and you had to have records. 

Just felt like I should add my two cents. 

I started my MegaSquirt project last year, I had fringe interest in it as a management system for almost ten years. But I kept getting scared off.

I learned two major things while completing the project.

Firstly when you break it down sensor by sensor and output by output it’s not that bad. I fire all 8 injectors at the same time. My coils fire every time the motor hits top dead center. Is it perfect ? No but it made wiring it a lot easier and the motor runs great!

Secondly I learned so much about how fuel injection works in general. Truth be told all you really need is a crank sensor so the ecu knows when to do stuff, a coolant temp sensor so it knows when it’s warmed up, a mass air pressure sensor so it knows how many extra atmospheres you’re trying to cram into the intake, and a throttle position sensor so it knows when you mash it. 

I find if you look at it like that it’s pretty simple.

On a v12 I’d do a lot of the same basic recipe. 3 banks of ls coil packs for spark. A gm coolant temp sensor. I’ll mail you a 2 bar gm map sensor, and I’m sure that you could make the crank position sensor that jag uses work along with the tps.

Edit: forgot you’ll need a wideband. At least one. But one for each bank may not be the worst idea. 

In reply to 1SlowVW :

Thank you for that.  That’s exactly my experience . I’ve known about the Mega Squirt system for a very long time. But when I went on the site everybody was all focused on the ultimate this and that Talking utter nonsense as if they were all tuning Formula 1 machine to the nth degree.  

My only issue to solve now is to see if the GM thermal sensor will send the right data to both the megasquirt system and the Jaguar temp gauge.  ( nice to keep all the gauges proper

frenchyd said:

In reply to 1SlowVW :

Thank you for that.  That’s exactly my experience . I’ve known about the Mega Squirt system for a very long time. But when I went on the site everybody was all focused on the ultimate this and that Talking utter nonsense as if they were all tuning Formula 1 machine to the nth degree.  

My only issue to solve now is to see if the GM thermal sensor will send the right data to both the megasquirt system and the Jaguar temp gauge.  ( nice to keep all the gauges proper

Frenchy,

Is there room for two temp sensors on that engine? Perhaps drill and tap a new port if you have too? All you do then is run the GM sensor to the Megasquirt and the Jag sensor to the Jag gauge.

In reply to TheRyGuy :

That’s exactly what I would do. Drill and tap the water pump or something for a gm sensor and let the jag one do it’s thing.

TheRyGuy said:

frenchyd said:

In reply to 1SlowVW :

Thank you for that.  That’s exactly my experience . I’ve known about the Mega Squirt system for a very long time. But when I went on the site everybody was all focused on the ultimate this and that Talking utter nonsense as if they were all tuning Formula 1 machine to the nth degree.  

My only issue to solve now is to see if the GM thermal sensor will send the right data to both the megasquirt system and the Jaguar temp gauge.  ( nice to keep all the gauges proper

Frenchy,

Is there room for two temp sensors on that engine? Perhaps drill and tap a new port if you have too? All you do then is run the GM sensor to the Megasquirt and the Jag sensor to the Jag gauge.

First I’ll check and see if the GM sensor output will work for the Jaguar temp gauge as well. 

I’d prefer that because the only way to keep weight down is keep it off one ounce at a time.  

The water rail on V12’s  is an ugly squared series of castings  but that’s where the temp sensor is. Plus the coolant rail works at less than optimum.  Coolant goes in at the front of the engine and the factory  system has it coming out at the front making it too easy for  cooler fluid to short circuit  around the front while the back of the engine runs hotter. 

  I’ll build a simple tube rail with the out let at the rear.  The flange the tube is welded to will have small holes at the front and full sized holes at the rear.  That will force the coolant to go through the whole engine rather than short circuit.   From the back it will go up to a  tank   at the firewall. ( then in a tube going forward up to the radiator).  That will feed a tube going up to the radiator.

 One real issue with stock XJS’s is the two radiator caps in the front actually require the back end to be raised to bleed all the air out of the system.  Tank on the fire wall will be at the high point.  So it will be self bleeding.   

In reply to frenchyd :

Sounds like you know more than a little bit about these engines. 

If the stock gauge uses a Bosch or even a Lucas (not sure what year you’re working with) sensor you can calibrate the ms to work with it. Gm sensors are just the default so they make the project a little easier.

In reply to 1SlowVW :

I’m switching all the sensors to GM to make things easier. While I’ve been building, racing, and working on these engines for 40 years  what I know about mega Squirt is right next to nothing. Heck until this weekend I was terrified I would be doing an endless amount of data entry on something I had no idea of how to find.  

Finding  out  that it’s self learning was a real revelation to me.  

I suspect the sensor is Lucas  because everything else is Lucas including the ECM  and injectors. Evan on the 1975-1976-1977  which used the Bosch system of 3  four cylinder units batch fired.  

In reply to frenchyd :

Pulling up the coolant sensors for a 75 shows that the one for the gauge is separate from the one for the fuel injection(which it says is in the thermostat housing).

"sharing" temp sensors can get tricky, there is some information here: http://www.megamanual.com/v22manual/sharesen.htm will be same with a gauge sender. I have only done it once, and generally it's easier to install a second temp sensor. Bonus if there is already an OEM spot for it.

Also "in general" EFI and MS is simple, but there are loads of details you can choose to pay attention to. If you are not good at sorting the wheat from the chaff, as one may say, it can get daunting. 

In reply to Paul_VR6 :

Thank you, gulp.  I got through that•••• once, I figure slow reading while sketching diagrams 10 more times I'll understand what it's saying.  ( believe it or not I had electronics training about 400 years ago ) 

I'm planning on using mostly GM sensors  for simplicity's sake.  But it's anything but plug and play isn't it?  

Yet I believe it's going to be doable. Now that I don't have to program it since it's capable of self learning.  
 

I'm not sure about the parameters or how you go about letting it learn.  
Am I correct in first you get it stated, hen allow it to idle for a while and slowly  bring the speed up?  
After allowing it to run at various speeds  introducing some boost?  

frenchyd said:

In reply to Paul_VR6 :

I'm planning on using mostly GM sensors  for simplicity's sake.  But it's anything but plug and play isn't it?  
 

Stop looking at whole wiring diagrams. Focus sensor by sensor. Most will all be 5v and grounded back to the ecu. 

Coolant temp sensor for example is labeled CTS on the wire in my set up that’s the sensor output, the other 2 connectors will be 5v coming from the ecu and a ground. Sounds simple doesn’t it? 

Just tackle it like installing a stereo. One Chanel at a time. 

Trust me if I can do it you can get through it.

In reply to 1SlowVW :

It's nice to have sage advice like that.  Last time I wired up a race car it overwhelmed me and I wasted time polishing things that could wait rather than digging in and dealing with it one at a time.  
as a result of that wasted time I was wiring it item by item getting it to the race.  They'd go in,  have a meal and bring me out a cheeseburger but I had one more item wired up.  They'd check in a motel and I'd wire one more thing,  then get up an hour early and wire a couple more.  While they relaxed and enjoyed  the cruise I was below deck wiring.  I finished just before we docked. And fired it up for the first time at tech inspection. 

The self learning is only as good as how you configure the AFR table and how long you let it run like that. If you have some of the base settings off, or encounter things like misfires, it can go off script pretty easily. 

It's good advice going one sensor, output, etc at a time. Digest in little bits. 

Just to piss on the electric fence a bit, there is a thread on Speed-Talk right now about what it would take to build an 800hp LS3 for endurance racing, and right off the bat it is accepted that the OE engine block is not good enough at these power levels.

https://www.speed-talk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=58787

Speed-Talk is chock full of lots, and lots, and lots of high performance knowledge, from people who do the building and the testing and the experimenting.  I see some GRM faces there too.

E85 is good in a lot of ways, but you burn a lot more of it than gas. The injectors, pump, etc generally need to be upgraded to handle the higher flow...and you have to pit more frequently. 

In reply to Lof8 :

Oh I'm going to join there. GRM is 90% of my forum time lol