10vt B3 (The Bandit)

[DE80q]

Time again to kind of start over. Due to a software update, more things were changed than just the ISV. I knew I had a 1.8bar spring in the WG, but the computer was only seeing 9psi at the map sensor. I have tried 3 different boost gauges, and all said between 13 and 15psi. Turns out that somehow the map sensor was calibrated to a 3bar, not the 4bar I have installed. Due to this, all of my VE and Timing tables were altered to suit what the Megasquirt was seeing. Well we fixed that part.

The fun began with trying to get the VE table setup again to be able to run and drive at all. With the first try, it pretty much just flooded out, and I almost didnt make it home. Then with Eric's skilled hands at the map, we were able to get it at least drivable enough to get a descent log. With that log, he has changed more, and gotten the VE better, but still very rich. Slowly but surely we are getting it dialed back in again. Then we will have to look at the timing map again. The fun is never ending!

Once we get it close again, I will be installing new plugs, and a new O2 sensor. The sensor in there now has been put through hell, and I'm sure could stand to be replaced. It does seem to be responding properly though.

For Dana, and Shawn, I was over 10psi at Carlisle!

[DE80q]

Juat a quick update. After a couple of set backs with the MS, its back up and runing strong at 12psi. I should have turned the N75 back on, but want to get it as dialed in at spring pressure as possible.

I have also decided to start workong on my coilovers again. I sold off the setup I previous had, so starting from a scratch. This time it will be done with Koni's on all 4 corners, but with a twist. I scored a NOS pair of typ44 koni reds for the front! I had to make up some koni specific BBSE'S, which honestly, I have no plans to market them. Everything ended up quite thin, and an inexperienced welder might do more damage than good trying to weld them together.



Ill try to post pics of the BBSE'S themselves later. Hoping to have them setup ready to go in a couple weeks. I have also ordered a set of the white line poly bushings for the rear arms. Should be a nice setup.

[DE80q]

Started playing around with the HY35 I picked up a while ago. I tried to find the elusive non wastegate turbine housing, but no luck. So I decided to turn my internal WG housing into a non WG housing.

I completely removed the flapper setup and plugged both holes. As normal, it was cracked.


I used a piece of 5/16" round stock for the lever arm hole, and machined up a plug to fit in the internal WG hole. I also machined a ring to cut up and fill in the area where the exhaust from the internal WG would normally mix with the turbine outlet. In case anyone was wondering, these turbine housings are made of cast iron, and not cast steel as stated on a lot of other forums.



Here you can see that I made the plug a little extra long. This was so I can grind it down to match better with the inlet of the housing.


Sorry, no after weld pics. I wanted to get it in the sand pit asap. I go back Tuesday night, hopefully it will have cooled off by then.

[DE80q]

I have come to the conclusion that I may be one of the worste quattro owners ever.

Here sits the bandit covered in about 3.5" of snow, not going anywhere anytime soon.


I sold the all seasons in preparation to put snow tires on those wheels. Well, I never got them.

I did at least clean it off, but that was because I was out to clean off my 85 year old neighbors blazer you can see in the pic

[DE80q]

Got some more work done on the HY exhaust housing. I noticed what looked to be a separation between the cast iron, and the stainless sleeve that originally held the flapper rod. I filled the chamber with water, and put some air pressure to the outside. Had a nice stream of bubbles showed up in the housing. Instead of attempting to weld the stainless to the cast iron, I pressed out the plug, and threaded it for 5/8-18. Jambed a bolt in, and welded that in.


After it cooled off, I cleaned up the weld in in the downpipe area.


Now im considering machining it tapered to 2.75" from the 2.55" it is now.


I also opened up the plug I put in the WG hole. I matched it as close as I could without removing much from the original casting.


That's it for now, I need to machine the downpipe flange area, and decide if I want to open up the downpipe area after the turbine.

[PRY4SNO]

Lots of neat stuff going on, looking forward to seeing the turbo when you're done and of course as it makes its way onto the Bandit.

[Einbilden]

Love this car. Locks so clean. Read the entire thread and I am all current now. Get that turbo in there would you please!

[DE80q]

Love this car. Locks so clean. Read the entire thread and I am all current now. Get that turbo in there would you please!

Thanks! I've tried to used as many factory parts as I could to keep away suspicion from others. It has worked pretty well, but there are some things that are very tight and only kind of fit.

As for the turbo, when I get the "de-wastegating" done, it will be sent off to a friend to build the header and new exhaust. I'm hoping to have it ready by show season, but that may be pushing it.

[dana]

you should build the header yourself. Your machine work and welding looks very good, and you might actually have a header when you are done instead of a headache and a car sitting and waiting forever. If I can build a header that works on my garage floor with a hand grinder, then you can do it at your shop for sure.

[DE80q]

you should build the header yourself. Your machine work and welding looks very good, and you might actually have a header when you are done instead of a headache and a car sitting and waiting forever. If I can build a header that works on my garage floor with a hand grinder, then you can do it at your shop for sure.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! The biggest problem I run into is time. With dad's passing, I spend quite a bit of time helping mom get things figured out. In the coming weeks, I will be spending more time over there trying to sort through 20+ years of dad's parts hording. It will not be fun trying to categorize and sell the hundreds of parts left from multiple cars.

Then there is my family, which takes up quite a bit of it as well. My daughter is into dance and gymnastics so there is a good chunk taken away as well.

Oh, and let's not forget my unrelenting laziness. I'm usually bad about this, but in the past months it has gotten worse. Probably has a lot to do with a lot of things, but that's my problem. I figure with what I have going on, it would be better to farm this project out. It will probably take a little longer, but in the end will probably be better.

[DE80q]

Finally got the HY all finished up. Time to send it out to get that header made.


Went a little heavy on the grinder though.


It does look much better without the giant bracket hanging off the side...

[DE80q]

I managed to get the 4K output cups shortened for use in the 01E last night. Not much to see, but I can post a pic if someone wants. Now I need to pull original cups out, and see how far the bolt is supposed to be sticking out...

[DE80q]

So it's been a while... The bandit has been having some issues, but I think they are getting ironed out.

First was the coolant sensor. It was acting a little strange. When it was really cold, like yesterday when it was 14°F, it was showing in the mid 30°s. It would also rocket through 45°-90° in about 5 seconds. I actually got to watch this on my new TunerStudio dashboard. Replacing the sensor actually seemed to make it worse. So looked into the calibration, and it was somehow changed. So I set it back to the SAAB(Bosch) settings, and now it reads spot on, and very smoothly. Also, it now reached around 196°, and the fan turns on. Before, it would get to 195° and sit there for quite some time before the fans would turn off.

Then there was a sync loss issue I was having. Again, when it was really cold, I would experience multiple synced loss events just in the warm up time. I didn't believe the sensor itself was the problem though, at least not internally. There was a possibility it would have been the wiring, but I didn't suspect that. I downloaded the PDF file for this sensor, and read about the pull up resistor needed for 5v use. Talked to Eric, and he said it was correct. So then I started looking into the air gap recommended for this sensor. Turns out they want a 1.5mm gap when using their "optimal wheel design". The problem is, for a 60-2 wheel using their optimal specs, it would be huge! So looking at it, I'm figuring my sensor is just too darn close to the wheel, and it picking up the shallow gap in the missing tooth area. I moved the sensor back about a 1/2 turn, and things seems to have cleaned up a lot! So that issue is solved for now.

Now with having turned the N75 back on, I'm is hitting 18psi. It's a lot of fun when I don't have a sync loss. Doing a 3rd gear pull from 2k-6K rpm flat out is a whole lot of fun. Now just need to get the high boost areas of the VE table tuned in to spec. I was seeing around 11/1 AFR during the last pull I did. Slowly but surely this is getting worked out.

Oh, and after all that, I have developed a small exhaust leak where the back of the test pipe meats the mid pipe. I'm going to try to tighten the band clamp again. If that doesn't work, I might need to replace it, and smear on some exhaust cement. It was kind of funny looking under my car, and seeing the exhaust blowing bubbles...

Well, that's it for now, hopefully soon I'll get everything straightened out. Then put in the Bilstein struts up front. That should help out a lot with the handling.

Thanks for reading, hope everyone is haveing better luck than I.

[DE80q]

Yesterday I took a 3hr round trip drive to Pottstown PA. I didn't take the bandit, and that was a blessing, 422 is all torn up, so that would have been quite harsh on my spine.

Anyways, I did said trip to go pick up another "era correct" accessory.




This is a "ski box", so it's 92" long! I got it for a great price, so it was worth it. I picked this up for one purpose. I'm planning a road trip to Massachusetts to get the bandit tuned, and pick up some parts. One of those parts being a 4KQ driveshaft. I have serious doubts that would fit in the car, so this will be perfect. My saying about it is... Is big, it's ugly, and it's era correct! I'll finally end up selling it after the trip just so I don't need to store it...

Also, I'm looking into some sort of coil spacer for the rear springs. The rear sits about 1/4"-3/8" lower than the front. I want to get the fender gaps to be closer in size to each other for the trip. As it site now, the rear will rub if I hit a descent bump. Picking that up some would help that a lot. Anyone have any experience with this?

[88a5tq]

AFR?! Huh? Speak lambda to me lol!

The 80 come with a skibag like the 5k'$ and 200'$? Good news on the sensor gap

[DE80q]

Sorry, but lambda confuses me... I grew up with AFR, so that's what I know.

And no, there is no no ski sack in an 80, at least not mine. If there was, I could probably get away without the box for my trip.

As for the sensor, it seems to be almost fixed. It's kind of strange. When it is really cold, it seems to not respond quick enough. I will get sync loss when trying to do a pull. I no longer get them at idle when cold now though.

[dana]

i've used these on the rear of 90's to fix the sag, ugly but it works. Fits between coils with springs unloaded.

http://www.jegs.com/i/Mr-Gasket/720/1287/10002/-1

[DE80q]

Thanks Dana. I have looked Through those a couple times now. I think I'm going to pick up a pair, and see what happens.

[elaw]

The problem with those is that when you get the car airborne and the rear suspension fully extends, they might fall out.

True story: at the repair shop where I worked years ago, we had a customer with a Honda CRX that he'd done a lot of mods on. He installed a turbo kit, and had replaced some of the rubber components in the rear suspension with spherical bearings. Because of the metal-on-metal nature of said bearings, the rear suspension would make a distinctive rattling noise when it was completely unloaded... like when we put it up on the lift.

We were standing around one day with the car on the lift while the customer was there, and he pointed out that when he got the car up to about 120 MPH, the rear suspension made that exact same noise... due to the car's lightness and bad aerodynamics, there was no weight on the back wheels at that speed!

My boss came up with the perfect solution: floor the accelerator to get weight transfer to the rear.

[DE80q]

The problem with those is that when you get the car airborne and the rear suspension fully extends, they might fall out.

True story: at the repair shop where I worked years ago, we had a customer with a Honda CRX that he'd done a lot of mods on. He installed a turbo kit, and had replaced some of the rubber components in the rear suspension with spherical bearings. Because of the metal-on-metal nature of said bearings, the rear suspension would make a distinctive rattling noise when it was completely unloaded... like when we put it up on the lift.

We were standing around one day with the car on the lift while the customer was there, and he pointed out that when he got the car up to about 120 MPH, the rear suspension made that exact same noise... due to the car's lightness and bad aerodynamics, there was no weight on the back wheels at that speed!

My boss came up with the perfect solution: floor the accelerator to get weight transfer to the rear.

Wow, that is one way to take care of it!

With these being lowering springs, I'm hoping there will never be a time I have to worry about them opening enough to come out.

[DE80q]

Haven't had much going on lately. The car has been sitting for a while now do to weather unpredictability. With it having it's own little issues here and there, I haven't felt too adventures with it.

On the plus side, the boost control seems to be working. It is set to hold 18psi to redline now. Seems to do quite well with it as well. I need to get a log done for Eric though. With changing computers, I lost my SD card logging. I still need to set that back up.

Carlisle will be here soon, hope to see everyone there!

[DE80q]

Getting ready for the Carlisle bike ride this year. Bike been gone over, and seems to be working well. Bike carrier put on, and I love how the side arm hold the bike down.


I need to come up up with some kind of headlight for the bike though. Night riding in tunnels won't be any fun if I can't see what is in front of me...

[DE80q]

I'm going to try to swap out the suspension on the bandit this weekend. It will be nice to have descent struts on all 4 corners. This will be dependent on me finding the 4th strut mount that I know I have...

I also received one of the bicycle headlights I ordered. I'm impressed with the light output of it. I was hoping it would be fairly bright, but wasn't expecting the blinding brightness that it has. Hopefully the second one shows up tomorrow, it seems to have made a wrong turn in shipping.

[DE80q]

After the whole mother's day breakfast for the wife, I packed up and headed to Georges place to swap out the B&G suspension for the Weitec one.

First time these 2 have been in the same space in a long time!


The Weitec's front struts were shorter than standard, this being a suspension kit, I wasn't worried at first. When was assembled them, I got quite nervous though. You can see in this pic just how much shorter!


Needless to say, I was worried for my slightly oversized tires... When we installed the entire suspension, the rear looked like a monster truck at first! After bouncing the car around a little, it settled nicely. Took it for a drive and it settled more to look like this.


After the drive home, it has settled ever so slightly more, but very livable. It feels much better on the road, and does not dart around nearly as much as it did. These springs are definitely stiffer than the B&G's, I'm sure having good struts helped with that too. So far I'm quite happy with it, the rear no longer rubs when I hit rolling bumps, so much better. Looking forward to my travels to the abandoned turnpike and Carlisle!

[DE80q]

The Bandit now has her badge of honor again! It's not the one I wanted to put on, but this one sits nicely using the OEM clips. Looks pretty good.


I also picked up a bicycle helmet for the pre Carlisle ride of the abandoned turnpike. I truly think I'm all set now. This weekend can't come soon enough!