Short block long stroke engine

[ill_will]

I'm starting to turn my attention to fuel injection. Made up a couple of sandwich plates to mount temp/pressure sensors for oil at the filter, and coolant at the thermostat. I will keep the mechanical gauges too on the dash, these will be for the ECU only.

[ill_will]

Test fit of alternator and exhaust manifold.

[Europa88]

I've been following this thread with interest and its looking really good!
I would be very interested in your fuel injection setup as I'm just about to go down this route with Jenvey heritage ITB's with an existing MBE ECU.
I'm also rebuilding the twink with a steel bottom end and short duration high lift cams. When I say I'm building it, actually its James Goldstraw of Grace Engineering doing most of the work and I noticed you had your crank balanced there!

[ill_will]

Hi Europa88,

Thanks for posting. I enjoyed dealing with James - he appears to take pride in his work and is very knowledgeable, and he listens too. The only snag for me is getting to his workshop is a bit of a nightmare from where I live.

I was initially thinking of using Jenvey heritage throttle bodies. They look great (I want to try to keep things looking stock) but they are extremely expensive. Two (at least) other considerations I am undecided on:

- Part throttle tuning. To do this well some tuners recommend a hybrid of alpha N at wider throttle openings and MAP at light openings, (if the ECU supports it.) The latter via a vacuum balance bar. Drilling the head is a no no for me; I'm not sure if the heritage bodies have bosses suitable for drilling. Many of the other ITB options do not have bosses, so I'm not totally sure how to solve this one.

- Idle control. I suspect timing based idle control won't be great during cold start up. With - say - throttle by wire this problem is solved, but this isn't a route I want to take. Also not that easy with an ICV without post-throttle bosses.

I'm playing around at the moment with the idea of a plenum arrangement. Not saying I'll go down this route, but haven't ruled it out! If anyone has tried one on a twin cam I'd be interested to hear.

Cheers,

Will

[Europa88]

Hi Will,
James is true pro and a hidden gem IMHO.

My ECU is very limited it what it can do, cutting edge in its day which was 20 years ago. I will go with Alpha N (The heritage bodies have an inbuilt tps) I’m not going to run closed loop so in theory I don’t need Lambda, only ambient air and coolant sensor. I’m already running wasted spark and have a base map for fuel so I’ll try this route first. I have added a Barometric sensor just in case I travel to any mountainous regions.

I’m planning on running a swirl pot and a lift pump rather than a deadhead system as my car is a Europa and being mid engined gets very hot at low speed. If the fuel evaporates in the fuel line the air can only go through the injectors, whereas with a return to swirl pot and / or tank it’s not an isssue.
I’m only up the road in Oxford from James so not too bad.
If any one is interested he is going to video the whole rebuild and put it on YouTube
Cheers
Neil

[ill_will]

Hi Neil,

That all sounds sensible. I guess if you're needing to modify the loom at any point you could always add some additional wires to future proof it should you change ECU or add sensors further down the line.

I came to the same conclusion as you on the fuel return, but plan to run an in-tank pump (an Elise S1 unit.)

Please encourage James to do a twin cam video, the more detailed the better! There isn't enough high (quality) content on the twin cam (or elan restoration in general tbh.) Making videos must take up a lot of time though so understandable.

Cheers,

Will