Jag! The Ghostly fleet thread

[ghosty]

I admit this won't be to everyone's taste, but I'm no Stuboy.

[Hooli]

It's yours do what you want. I just remember running two cars on a budget & neither of them ever being right.

[ghosty]

The Volvo has been fine for a long time! The Civic hopefully will be soon.

Today was productive. We started by getting the engine out of the back of the 850.

The Civic looks on:





It's actually a really clean engine, and ostensibly has been well cared for: the intake and exhaust bores aren't clagged up, the spark plugs are new looking NGKs, there is a clean Blue Print oil filter with a recent date stamp, and best of all it's wearing a Gates cambelt that looks to be a replacement, so there's no imminent need to change that, and the engine can drop straight into the Civic.





all the dirt is just oil I'll be cleaning off.

Around this time our neighbour that had previously offered to help us lift the engine arrived, and informed us he had a friend with an engine crane, and would we like to borrow it? He was only a few minutes up the road.

A little while later:





and all tidied into one corner, in place ready to go.

Finally, an important piece of the puzzle arrived today.



For those of you that don't know, VTEC is a hydraulic variable profile cam system. At a certain RPM, a solenoid opens an oilway in the head, engaging some hydraulic lifters that switch to the more aggressive cam profile.
This would usually be done through the ECU but as I'm not using the throttle body, injection setup, ECU or any engine management/electronics whatsoever, the solenoid can't actuate and the car would stay on the standard cam all the time.

The Buddy Club V-CON is, by design, used to change the RPM threshold for VTEC solenoid actuation on the fly. However the way it works overrides any standard engine management functions, which means it doesn't actually require the ECU or engine management to function: which passively allows carburetted VTEC systems to function, with custom VTEC actuation threshold too. The box only has five wires: 12v, two grounds, rpm signal from the distributor or rev counter, and the solenoid actuator. Easy peasy.

[Junkman]

I admit this won't be to everyone's taste, but I'm no Stuboy.

It is to nobody's taste who has taste, trust me on that.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Local engine crane is a bit of luck!

[Hooli]

For those of you that don't know, VTEC is a hydraulic variable profile cam system. At a certain RPM, a solenoid opens an oilway in the head, engaging some hydraulic lifters that switch to the more aggressive cam profile.
This would usually be done through the ECU but as I'm not using the throttle body, injection setup, ECU or any engine management/electronics whatsoever, the solenoid can't actuate and the car would stay on the standard cam all the time.

The Buddy Club V-CON is, by design, used to change the RPM threshold for VTEC solenoid actuation on the fly. However the way it works overrides any standard engine management functions, which means it doesn't actually require the ECU or engine management to function: which passively allows carburetted VTEC systems to function, with custom VTEC actuation threshold too. The box only has five wires: 12v, two grounds, rpm signal from the distributor or rev counter, and the solenoid actuator. Easy peasy.

How are you going to deal with the differing mixture requirements on & off VTEC yo? Either you'll be rich as hell bottom end or lean as fook top end, I know which I'd prefer but neither will make for a nice running engine.

[ghosty]

Er...

[Junkman]

Besides, that steering wheel is pure shit.

[John F]

'Er...' indeed.

https://haynes.com/en-us/tips-tutorials ... o-your-car

I can't see an easy way of persuading your old-fashioned carburettor to do all the work of a modern EFI system, Max.

You should be able to get it running OK on one set of cam profiles, but as I understand it your only option for setting the mixture comes from changing idle & main jets in the carb. I'm no expert on carbs though, I barely touch the things nowadays.

[Junkman]

But that shit steering wheel.
It ruins everything.