1UZFE for Superlite Coupe - Ideas?

[Eric]

Hi Fran,

Any issues with the GT trans as far as location in the wheelbase with adapter plate? -any sgnificant change for engine location?

what type of angle do you expect to run on the halfshafts at ride height? (both from plan and end view)
And does the axle centerline require a change to the engine mounts to shift the crank input shaft height?

I think its a great 'box, and should be about impossible to break.

Cheers
Eric

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

Eric,

the CL versus a Porsche box is very similar so no issues at all in any of the driveshaft angularity .
The bell housing to output CL is only 25mm different from the Porsche also...and as there are many different length Porsche bellhousings as standard ..again another non issue.

Another point of note is that all of the guys using the GT trans so far are also using a dry sumped engine that will, in fact lower the CG and will negate most all of the proposed issues raised by being a larger trans.

Now , taking into account that the SL chassis was always designed around fitting this box ,I dont have any of the space/alignment issues that a pre-existing chassis will have...using this unit in a chassis without prior design influence will creat issues ..as its physical size is a major hurdle..

 

[Eric]

On top of it and thinking ahead as always. Other than the cost, it seems an ideal 'box.

Cheers
Eric

 

[Gary F]

Howdy, Gents.

Just sold my 1UZFE powered Cobra. About to contact Fran and place an order for a MK2.

Cobra weighed 2000lbs dry and had a modest 350hp, running tuned length headers and two banks of 4AGE EFI throttle bodies on custom manifolds. Toyota supra indepent suspension front and back, supra 5-speed manual, custom space frame. Unbaffled side pipes and a lazy 7000rpm redline. Oh, the sound when running through the hills......!

Later, Chaps.

Gaz (Gary Frost)
New Zealand

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

Gaz....thats a cracking looking package.... did you build the chassis too??

 

[Russ Noble]

Hey Gaz,

You still in Chch? I can't wait to see an RCR in the flesh!

Good luck

 

[Gary F]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the kind words. Yep, we fabricated the chassis ourselves out of thin wall Duragalv RHS. 70 metres of material! Light enough for two to carry easily. The design was mostly completed late at night under the influence of kentucky bourbon! Didn't make too many mistakes. Our most creative solutions occured around 3am....

The toyota suspension is simply awesome. Front upper and lower double wishbone a-arms, rear upper arms and a trick factory 3-link lower. All on factory eccentrics for alignment adjustment. Torsen LSD diff. The list goes on. We simply (!) built the chassis up around the factory suspension subframes.

The car is still in Chch, Russ. Purchased by a friend of mine. Give me a call and we'll organise a visit. 021-330-662.

Fran, have you sent any kits to New Zealand yet? Would I be the first?

Regards,

Gaz.

(I know we are a little off topic above, but if any one wants to ask me questions about installing the 1UZFE into a kit car, please feel free)

 

[Dave Lindemann]

I built the front of this Lexus 1UZ-FE motor using Toyota 2UZ-FE parts, ie oil pump, water pump, timing tensioner, timing idler, serp tensioner, and serp idler bracket. The 2UZ parts fit fine, eliminated the hokey and expensive hydraulic pump fan drive, and cost less than half what the comparable Lexus 1UZ parts would have cost.

The distributors have been pulled off, and I'll be using a standalone crank triggered ignition system, based on the Ford EDIS8. It'll also have individual COP's (Coils on Plug), probably Toyota Supra units with extender boots. This engine is amazingly easy to convert to a crank triggered ignition setup, because the OEM setup already has a 12 tooth trigger wheel for the fuel injection. If you look below, and to the left of those blue oil pump fittings, you'll see the crank trigger pickup, mounted in the original OEM bracket. For my application, using the standalone Ford EDIS8 ignition, we simply had some 36-1 tooth trigger wheels made up in a group buy on Lexus-Toyota V8 Performance Forum, and voila.

John -

First off - thank you for the information on the Toyota parts - actually, I just purchased a Toyota idler pulley replacement for the hydraulic pump fan drive from David (Lextreme) off of eBay.

Secondly, please forgive my lack of engine knowledge but I have a few questions about the changes you are making to your engine. Why are you converting to a crank triggered ignition system? Are there specific advantages to going this route? The twin distributors appear bulky and overly complicated to a novice like me - just wondering if they create other problems with tuning. If you eliminate the distributors, are you able to use the stock cam pulleys? Another basic question probably but are there advantages to using individual COP's rather than using the 2 coil packs? Finally, does the 36-1 tooth trigger wheel simply replace the 12 tooth trigger wheel for the fuel injection?

I spent today removing all of the external components of the engine - wiring harness, alternator, PS, hydraulic pump fan drive, AC compressor, intake, etc. I was amazed at how heavy the full engine wiring harness is! I'm now contemplating tearing the engine down to see how things look inside - I found what appeared to be a squirrel's nest under the intake. Hopefully that's not an indicator of the condition of the internals!

Regards,
Dave L

 

[Dave Lindemann]

Sorry - first post didn't show up for me.

 

[JohnC]

John -

First off - thank you for the information on the Toyota parts - actually, I just purchased a Toyota idler pulley replacement for the hydraulic pump fan drive from David (Lextreme) off of eBay.

Secondly, please forgive my lack of engine knowledge but I have a few questions about the changes you are making to your engine. Why are you converting to a crank triggered ignition system? Are there specific advantages to going this route? The twin distributors appear bulky and overly complicated to a novice like me - just wondering if they create other problems with tuning. If you eliminate the distributors, are you able to use the stock cam pulleys? Another basic question probably but are there advantages to using individual COP's rather than using the 2 coil packs? Finally, does the 36-1 tooth trigger wheel simply replace the 12 tooth trigger wheel for the fuel injection?

I spent today removing all of the external components of the engine - wiring harness, alternator, PS, hydraulic pump fan drive, AC compressor, intake, etc. I was amazed at how heavy the full engine wiring harness is! I'm now contemplating tearing the engine down to see how things look inside - I found what appeared to be a squirrel's nest under the intake. Hopefully that's not an indicator of the condition of the internals!

Regards,
Dave L

Dave, concerning the crank triggered ignition and COP's, there are multiple benefits:
1) A crankshaft reference can provide a much more accurate and stable indication of where a piston is in the cylinder than the distributor can. And an engine's ECU can then determine on the fly when is the best time to provide the spark for each cylinder, something a distributor cannot do.

2) The distributor is an inefficient electromechanical contraption which has outlived its usefulness IMO. Yes they work, but much better and more reliable ways to ignite fuel/air mixtures have been around for more than a few years, so why not use them? Nobody shed a tear when the points in the dizzies were replaced with electronic triggers, so why not dump the whole affair and move into the 21st century?

3) The "old style" single coil ignition system takes high voltage energy developed in the single coil and passes it around to the 8 cylinders via an inefficient electromechanical switch (the distributor). Each cylinder gets its ignition energy via a longish high voltage conductor that has to be draped carefully around the motor to avoid being burnt and damaged, not get too close to other conductors to avoid false triggering, and it has to be made of special high resistance material to avoid causing fits in the rest of the car's electronics. To think we put up with this mess for years and thought things just couldn't get any better than a set of 8mm wires and a blaster coil......

4) New ignitions have individual coils mounted directly to the spark plugs, so those thick lossy 8mm secondary leads are completely eliminated. With the old single coil ignitions, there was an upper RPM limit where these systems would run out of energy, because there simply wasn't enough time between ignition events to charge the single coil. This shortcoming has now gone away as well, as it's fair to say the coil per plug setups have at minimum, 4 times as much time between ignition events as the single coil does.

5) With the new systems, the spark is no longer generated in a single place and "distributed" to the cylinders but is actually generated at each cylinder and "switched" on/off via very fast power transistors called ignitors. The coils are being charged whenever the car is running, and smart circuits in the ECU's or ignitors know how much current (dwell) to give them. When the trigger wheel on the crankshaft tells the ECU it's time to fire a cylinder, the ECU simply sends a small digital pulse to the ignitor for that coil, and the ignitor switches the circuit, and voila, there's the ignition pulse for that cylinder. No muss, no fuss and no electromechanical switches or bulky spark plug leads.

6) Toyota's original crank trigger was a 12 tooth wheel which has worked fine since the early 90's on their 4 and 6 and the early 8 cylinder engines. Then with ever tighter emissions requirements, and the introduction of advanced engine technology like VVTi, in the late 90's they changed to a 36 tooth wheel with 2 missing teeth. German engines typically use a 60 tooth wheel with 2 missing teeth, and other companies run a variation of both. The reason for the missing teeth is to tell the ECU that the #1 cylinder is nearing TDC, however this is only one of three timing indications for the system on the Toyota V8; each of the intake cams also has a position indicator.

The reason I've exchanged the stock 12 tooth trigger wheel for a fabricated 36-1 tooth gear is so that I can temporarily use a standalone, tunable ignition made by Ford, called the EDIS8. I say temporary, because I plan to use this ignition only for the break in of my engine, then will probably dispose of it, and will use the ignition functions built into my standalone ECU for the permanent system.

Sorry for the long winded post here, but the evolution of ignition systems is a really interesting subject (for me anyway).

 

[Dave Lindemann]

Thanks for all of the information John - you've obviously done your homework! I'll be converting to a Haltech ECU which has ignition control capabilities though I need to check with the vendor to find out if a crank trigger arrangement will work. I like the idea of eliminating the distributors (and plug wires) and having more precise control over the ignition process. Under your #6, you indicate that Toyota changed to a 36 tooth wheel with 2 missing teeth in the late 90's. Did you not use this wheel because of the Ford ignition system? Would this Toyota wheel be something that would work on the 1UZFE?

Dave L

 

[JohnC]

Dave, yes the only reason I didn't use the 36-2 wheel initially is because of the Ford EDIS8, which requires a 36-1 setup. A few of us on Lextreme were interested in the EDIS8, so we setup a GP and David had a few wheels made up with a water jet vendor he knew.

No reason why the later 36-2 wheel won't work, and I'll probably use that for my final setup. It slips right on the crank in place of the 12 tooth gear - gotta love Toyota....

I'm no authority on Haltechs, but most ECU's have multiple setups for different crank triggers, so you should ask your tuner if you can use the Toyota 36-2 trigger. I'm pretty sure, however, the Haltech requires the use of a Hall sensor type pickup, in lieu of the VR sensor (magnetic pickup) which Toyota uses. So this could be a real stumbling block because the Hall would require changing the trigger wheel to one which is aluminum and has magnets imbedded in it. This could be a dodgy proposition....

The alternative is to use the stock Toyota setup with the 36-2 wheel, and a little black box which converts the VR signal into a Hall "looking" signal. I believe there are several sources for these boxes, and perhaps they're even available from Haltech?

Another alternative to get a "Hall" signal, which I'm exploring for my next build, is to use a new generation of sensor called the MRE, which is sort of a cross between the VR and the Hall. This sensor uses a standard ferrous crank trigger wheel like the VR, but generates a nice square pulse like the Hall, so it's the best of both worlds. Supposedly it has a wider range than the VR as well, so it's suitable for more applications. I've picked up a couple of these MRE sensors but haven't tested them yet. They're just a little shorter than the VR sensor on my 1UZ, so it would be spaced away from the trigger wheel a little too far to work without modification of the mounting.

Here's a pic of my 1UZ ready for the dyno. As it sits, it needs only a battery and 3 control wires (1 for the ignition power, and 2 for the starter relay) connected for it to start & run. Gotta love the simplicity of carbs sometimes. (BTW, that's the EDIS8 module sitting just behind the Holley)

The loom is not exactly a work of art, but it's a single use loom, it's functional, and will be trashed after the dyno runs. The COP's will be sitting on ally plate in the finished version, and I hope to conceal their wiring, as well as the injectors' wiring much better in the final version.

Those are 3/4" garden hose connections on the coolant in/out - we'll circulate 150 degree coolant through the motor to bring it up to near operating temperature prior to firing it, and will do the same with the lube oil.

 

[Doug Clark]

DaveC,

Great post! Hopefully I'll be able to find all this information again when I get around to the engine side of things, I've just a little way to go before I get there though.

Whereabouts in Houston are you? I lived in Harpers Landing in The Woodlands from 2001 to end of 2005.

 

[JohnC]

Doug, I live in The Woodlands also - it's a nice area. We've had the home for 15 years, but have spent about half that overseas.

The Holley looks a bit weird sitting up there, because the manifold is designed to take a supercharger, not a carburetor. Once the motor is broken in, the Holley and the EDIS8 will come off, and the supercharger, SFI, and EMS will go on, then it's back to the dyno for power runs.

FYI, in case you become interested in doing an Eaton, Whipple, or Opcon supercharger for your 1UZ, the source for these manifolds is Richwood Technology in Oz. Andrew Mueller runs the company, which is mainly involved in military and aerospace contracts, but they do some really interesting hotrod stuff too. I told Andrew one time that he must enjoy specialising in the weird, as he regularly does things like joining two PD superchargers end to end to make quad rotor units for big V10 and V12 applications. He holds patents in Oz for his superchargers and manifolds, and he's a very interesting and knowledgeable guy to speak with if you decide to go supercharger instead of turbo.

IMO, for a Vee engine, the installation of a PD supercharger is a lot cleaner and tidier than a turbo install. With the supercharger you can leave the exhaust side of the motor untouched - it's only the intake side, and fuel systems which are affected, and of course finding a mechanical drive for it. With a turbo, you have intake mods, custom manifolding for the exhaust(s), lots of custom piping between the turbo(s) intake and exhaust, the fuel system, etc.

Not to take anything away from turbocharging - I like turbo motors a lot & currently own (2) cars with inline turbo motors, but for a vee engine, IMO the supercharger just makes for a cleaner looking package.

 

[Dave Lindemann]

John -

You are a wealth of information - I really appreciate your willingness to share your knowledge with me and others on the forum. You mention that your loom is "not exactly a work of art" - actually, I was thinking it looks pretty darn good!

May I ask which COP's did you end up using?

I'll be interested in hearing how the dyno runs go - please let us know.

Thanks,
Dave L

 

[JohnC]

Dave they're Toyota Supra coilpacks, but are wearing Camry extension boots which can be purchased from Beck-Arnley. Many people with these COP setups prefer to hide the coils in the valley of the valve cover, and cover them up with the OEM plastic covers. I decided I wanted mine to be exposed, and mounted on aluminum flatbar where they could be cooled better, and I didn't really mind the way they look either. It's just that gawdawful split loom that detracts from them, IMO.

I did some comparison fitting and testing of different coilpacks, including Honda car & motorcycle, Chrysler, Suzuki, and 4 different Toyotas and decided I liked this arrangement best. I took all the pertinent dimensions for the different coilpacks with plugs, and will be putting up the results over on Lextreme, hopefully in the next month or two.

These coilpacks are the two wire type, which require external ignitors. Coilpacks with four or more connections, typically have the ignitors built in. I preferred these as some "smart" coilpack/ignitor combinations require to give feedback to the ECU on how much dwell current to give them, however my aftermarket ECU prefers to decide this itself, so it needs a fairly "dumb" ignitor setup.

 

[JohnC]

We've just been to the dyno with this motor and broken it in. It was not uneventful, however, as we spent nearly three days trying to figure out why the timing belt was so loose (causing it to jump time). In the end, we just fixed it by shimming the tensioner, and moved on.

After corresponding with a couple of ignition guru's at the MegaSquirt forum, I wasn't expecting the single EDIS8 module to be able to spark the 8 coils (2 sets of 4 connected in parallel waste spark mode), and sure enough, it didn't. Here's the way I had the EDIS connected initially:

Off came the 8 coils, and on went (2) Ford EDIS coilpacks and 8mm Mustang plug leads. Then the motor fired right up. Dennis Faerman (Faerman Racing Engines, and owner/operator of the dyno) was amazed how smooth the little 4.0 litre motor was. We did a couple of pulls to get the rings seated, then we shutdown and I put the COP's back on and rewired the ignition with (2) EDIS8's, so that they were sharing the VR pickup, and the SAW signal from the controller, but each output was sparking only a single coil. The engine fired right up this way, and we made a couple more pulls.

Here's the twin EDIS8 schematic:

And here's a link to the last pull we did where the motor made 240 lb-ft @ 3100 RPM, and 211 BHP @ 4900. That's Dennis running the dyno, and Dan DaVinci of DaVinci Carburetors riding shotgun. Many, many thanks to both these guys for their invaluable help as I was trying to get this motor running. Dan even let me use one of his 750 double pumper Holley's when my little 390 CFM eBay overhaul wouldn't even start the motor.



We didn't really push it, or try to tune for power because of the weird carb/manifold setup. My intention with this setup was only to break the motor in, not chase power, and we accomplished the breakin very well.

As the manifold is designed to have a supercharger up top, and injectors firing into the intake ports, it just wasn't performing with a carburetor squirting an air/fuel mixture into it. Too, I discovered after the fact that I'd forgotten to connect the signal wires between the ignition controller and the EDIS8's, so we were running the whole time in limp mode with only 10 degrees advance.......dohhh.

Next step is to put the supercharger and fuel injection on and dyno again, and chase some power this time rockonsmile

 

[Greg]

Dave,

here you go....

What transaxle is that and where can I get the adaptor? Thanks!

Greg

 

[Fran Hall RCR]

G50 Porsche and adapters are available from us

 

[John Shand]

We've just been to the dyno with this motor and broken it in. It was not uneventful, however, as we spent nearly three days trying to figure out why the timing belt was so loose (causing it to jump time). In the end, we just fixed it by shimming the tensioner, and moved on.

After corresponding with a couple of ignition guru's at the MegaSquirt forum, I wasn't expecting the single EDIS8 module to be able to spark the 8 coils (2 sets of 4 connected in parallel waste spark mode), and sure enough, it didn't. Here's the way I had the EDIS connected initially:

Off came the 8 coils, and on went (2) Ford EDIS coilpacks and 8mm Mustang plug leads. Then the motor fired right up. Dennis Faerman (Faerman Racing Engines, and owner/operator of the dyno) was amazed how smooth the little 4.0 litre motor was. We did a couple of pulls to get the rings seated, then we shutdown and I put the COP's back on and rewired the ignition with (2) EDIS8's, so that they were sharing the VR pickup, and the SAW signal from the controller, but each output was sparking only a single coil. The engine fired right up this way, and we made a couple more pulls.

Here's the twin EDIS8 schematic:

[was the problem because the coils used more current and the edis could not drive them
in parrell?