The Temptress

[robertXX]

Brace yourselves !

Yup ...it's new project time .

may have just kinda sorta bought this ..




hey ..it was cheap

engine is a 3.4 litre hemi head ..




now cleaned up and reground and ported a touch...all cast iron ...getting that onto the bench and off the car was a nice bit of excercise its 118 lbs in weight.


plan is to make a new inlet manifold , give it 10 psi boost (it's 7:1 cr) and so my first question is , valve seat recession ?



as far as i know my options are ,

oil drip ..nothing and suffer recession ...water injection might help ?


so please tell me all about it .



regards
robert

[Fox vehicles]

That is a beauty, well, I'm sure it will be once you have done it! I would recommend a splitter with one pipe to each branch of the manifold, then probably a pumped (electronic) valve saver kit if you are applying a bit of boost. Flashlube was originally made for the transition from leaded to unleaded fuel so has to be the way to go. Keep us updated on the project; love to see this kind of thing brought back to life

[LPGC]

Great stuff!

[Budgetbond]

Well done, luv your advance planning, is that a Railton?

[Gilbertd]

What is it? For some reason I'm not seeing a picture......

Although once I posted I am, weird.

[robertXX]

Sorry i should have said , it's an Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire mk2 , 1955 . sort of a rolls bentley competitor , for the driver who didn't need to impress

Thank you for the positive comments , i am most curious about how many miles could i do without any valve protection ? , and is there any other way to protect the valves other than the lube systems , which i assume will drop my octane a bit .


When it arrives the engine was locked solid , , so i had loads of fun trying to wack the pistons out from underneath , i only lost one ,



and now its honed ready for reassembly .




ignore the crack !


regards
robert

[Gilbertd]

A dollop of Isopon should sort that piston out......

[robertXX]

A dollop of Isopon should sort that piston out......

luckily Gilbert , the AS spares dept are sending me a set of crank shells , and a couple of pistons and rings , from a good used engine....... FOR NUFFIN !!!

[Brian_H]

It might be worth speaking to a local machine shop about replacing the valve seats if you think its a problem. I gather its possible to cut the existing seats out and put a hardened seat in their place from conversations with the one I use. Same sort of thing that gets down to older vehicles that ran leaded petrol ok but couldn't cope with unleaded. Real question would be does it need anything though?

[LPGC]

Armstrong Sidley Saphire, I was thinking more Anthill Mob car from Wacky Racers. Turbo'd should show a clean paid of heels to Dick Dastardly.

Unless you're going to be doing some mileage VSR might not be worth worrying about? Pushrod engine so relatively easy to pull the head for new valves and seats as Bri said or do as Mick (Fox vehicles) said with a lube system. Won't the engine design smoke a bit even in new condition, probably protect the valves a bit anyway.

[robertXX]

yup i agree simon , it has no guide seals , although the guides are like new , it should self lube a bit , and mileage would prob be no more than a couple of thousand a year .so ill try it , and if i am adjusting the ex tappets every day , have a rethink.

[robertXX]

well , a little more progress on this , now running and has a cooling system on it .


https://youtu.be/zZX7E4a-7PU


i am now contemplating the lpg system , and wondering about using a lambda feed back on a mixer ring , i wonder if anyone has experience of the mpg with those . eg , a comparison between:

1)petrol mpg ,

2)mixer ring with just the power valve mpg ,where you could run leaner than 14.7 :1

3)and the feedback system which tries to run 14.7 all the time .


i do know that the ring on the astra 2 litre i built with just the power valve , would let me run into the 16 to 17 :1 range , and i would get 33 mpg long runs . but thats the only exp i have with that .never tried a feedback system , ,and since i have all the bits including the interface circuit board i it might be worth a go .




regards
robert

[LPGC]

Hi Robert, long time no chat.

Not sure what sort of petrol carb is on the old engine but type of carb can make a difference to petrol, some will give better mixture than others, some will atomise the fuel better than others. MPG on petrol might not be as good as it could be, in which case (and since LPG will be perfectly atomised and allow you to play with mixture) you could get better mpg on LPG than petrol. Can probably only say it depends...

The low compression is probably a negative for great mpg. Would normally advise running closed loop at 14.7:1 but you found better economy on the Astra running a lean mixture, though that will have had a bit higher compression than 7:1 and a very different engine design. If you fitted a closed loop system like a AEB175 you could set it to run closed loop, or set 'lock the default' and set range of allowable stepper movement (away from default) to zero... the option of running 14.7:1 closed loop or setting the stepper valve to hold a set position like a manual valve. A stepper valve can do everything a manual valve can but a manual valve can't do everything a stepper valve can - If you use the stepper valve like a manual valve one advantage is you can adjust it's position from the drivers seat whilst watching mixture on your wideband setup, maybe while driving to compare how it pulls with different mixtures.

[robertXX]

Hi Simon , hope alls well

i am hoping someone out there has run their car on petrol ,mixer , and mixer with aeb175 on , and noted the difference in mpg ... i know i know ... it a long shot lol.

[LPGC]

Not bad thanks Rob, hope you're well too.

I have run a Talbot Express camper van open loop and closed loop, better results with the closed loop but being a small engine in a large van it was worked hard all the time with little chance to run light load comparisons.

I believe Dai @Classicswede has ran vehicles open / closed loop and Mick @Foxvehicles might comment if he sees this, maybe @Gibertd too.

You'll probably have a play with ignition timing etc too though?

In some cases even where people give comparisons between open / closed loop, although they can say mixture was stoch on closed loop there might not be info regarding whether on the road mixture was rich/lean or very close to stoch when running open loop in days before relatively cheap wideband sensors and for carb vehicles not fitted with any sensors.

[robertXX]

YEs good points , i will be changing ignition timing for the lpg , and boost , as you say hopefully others will pop in here and discuss

when you say better resluts with closed loop , do you mean more power of more mpg or both ?


with the aeb software , can i choose to run different stepper motor positions at different rpm /map readings ? is there a plotable map like i use for fuel injection ?


regards
robert

[LPGC]

Better economy... but maybe near top bhp too.

The AEB175 will only let you set 2 default settings for the stepper motor, one for idle rpm and one for off idle. As you're driving it will steer mixture to 0.5v lambda, except for 4000+rpm (with wot if TPS is connected) where it will aim for around 0.75v lambda. Also if TPS is connected it has 4 'boxes' for TPS reading, every time it moves between boxes (you move the throttle enough) it will reset stepper position to the default. There is no plottable map on any stepper system I am aware of... but there wouldn't be because they're all designed to use narrow band lambdas which themselves can only meter mixture within a very narrow window of stoch. Some closed loop mixer systems only have one default. To get any more advanced you'd probably be looking at something like Tartarini Etagas which is a bit like K Jetronic fuel injection but for LPG, it effectively has around 8 defaults that are rpm based not TPS based.

0.75v isn't as rich as would expect for max bhp on petrol, but with LPG there's no charge cooling advantage of an excess fuel factor and LPG in the intake displaces what could be incoming air so in effect can lower volumetric (air) efficiency. But on a turbo you might want to go richer than the 0.75 and mixture effects other aspects including burn speed.

It could be a project for an electronics engineer to design something that could emulate narrow band lambda voltage using wide band probe as input and steer the emulated voltage to give 0.5v when mixture is at a mappable for rpm and TPS point wide band mixture... Probably haven't worded this very well but I expect you'll know what I mean.

[CNG]

This is a project after my own heart. My grandfather had an AS. For those that have never seen one, they are huge.

I run a classic as a 'daily' doing 9-10,000 a year. I'd admit, choosing a 60s Land-rover is a little more predictable than this old dowager, but I've always fancied a tatty 'gassed' Mk10 Jag or similar as a 'daily'. This barge has got to top them all. Me? I'd touch as little as I could, leave the paint 'as is'. Give it an oily-rag resto-mod, and just waft around in the thing.

[robertXX]

thank you simon , that is more adjustable than i realised , i thought it was fixed at 14.7 all the time . no provision for running leaner ?, i tend to run 17:1 on the astra for cruise . i thnk .75v , on a narrow band will be good enough , i am not expecting to be struggling for power.


thank you cng , it is quite large , i am undecided on the paint , but i do now have it driveable , and am designing and making an inlet manifold.

[robertXX]

hello all ,

made the turbo hotside ..





made the new inlet manifold..




which is now all welded with this original plenum on it ..





thats everything to the right of the red line , so now its time to gather my archaic lpg dross together and see what i can cobble up..again..


bits :


vap..




feedback valve..




various electronics ..






dont think i need this bit ..




61mm throttle body with pot on it ..




thats now cleaned up .


my plan is to use a doughnut 42 litre tank in the spare wheel slot , and a 90 litre cylinder tank above it in the boot ...

the m/valve in the doughnut looks like this ..






i have a working sender for it , buy not a solenoid darn it , its a very thick post one .


i want to use the tanks as primary and a reserve ,so.will have a three way switch on the dash for 90 litre / all shut /42litre reserve, that will isolate the 12v feed to the solenoids on each tank .,then on the fill side a simple t piece to each tank from the filler pipe .


now to the mixers , i have a choice of the classic ally one that uses a centre like this ..





i have two of these 36mm and 42mm ,

but then i also have the omvl plastic ring insert one too..




for which i have 36mm 38mm and 42mm rings ..



theres the 42mm fitted .



the big question is , is one design of mixer better than the other ? the omvl one is very different it's dynamics ,and design .


anyone ??




regards
robert