"Quit your jibba jabba" You can set the fuel pressure yourself, but once set up I don't think it needs changing? I think you will benefit from an initial rolling rd set up/tune. Some of our experts, change their jets and optimise things themselves, but many people use a rolling rd as they can see what is happening at different engine speeds and have better more accurate gauges etc etc If it's any consolation my engine is currently on my garage floor, with the heads at a machine shop!
Oh no! What happened to your engine? Sorry dude. Think the fuel pressure can be tweaked (Kadron range is 1.5-2.25psi), so it will be good to have that ability. Hoping the engine builder will tune the thing properly when it’s in - but he has done and not done some curious things. There are limitations to Rolling Roads, from what I can gather. My setup should be a best of both worlds. Really i’ve only spent £300 on additional gauges because most folk have Oil Pressure & Temp, which I didn’t. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The other way of looking at it if you have the will and like this side of van owning is by fitting fuel pressure and AFR gauges, for not much more than the cost of a RR session, you're set up for good and firmly in control of your destiny. The downside is that if you enjoy experimenting, you might end up spending more on jets and venturis than the carbs cost. RR's are... ok. I've used 3 different ones. Others seem to have more luck but we're sort of stuck with whatever's available locally? 1st was highly recommended old guy who did a great job but sprinkled on the blarney and tried to trick me into believing his jet changes increased the HP when all he did was give it another 500rpm. He also claimed it was the "smoothest one of these" he'd encountered when in fact the flywheel was so horribly out of balance at that point it was making me cringe from 2-3,000 rpm. Great job but marred by his theatrics. If I hadn't kept a close eye and knew nowt I might have been recommending him on the false premise that his tuning significantly increased the HP. Expensive but he knew what he was doing. 2nd was cheap and one of the chaps said he had a splitty. I just wanted to see that my guesstimate was safe for razzing around. He didn't understand vacuum advance, he thought that 40 degs would toast the engine and couldn't grasp the concept. Nethertheless he detuned the timing, disconnected the vac advance and unbalanced the carbs because he didn't notice a plugged idle jet. That was before we even did a run! I had to fix the idle jet after in the car park and reset the balance and timing and all when I got home. I got a graph though. lol 3rd was a well known dub place in Manchester - again I just wanted to see it was safe. You would expect this chap to understand vacuum advance so I was surprised that he was also clueless and frightened of it. He advised I fit an 009 and meanwhile refused to run it on his rollers with the vac advance connected! - this is the owner. I let him carry on because it didn't effect what I wanted to find out. At that point I bought fuel ratio and pressure gauges. A rolling road will normally set fuel pressure, jet your idle, balance the carbs and then choose a main jet that is safe to WOT for whatever size venturi is fitted. In this process they ignore any fine tuning to control the overlap between idle and main jets and have zero idea how your van will run at cruising speed. I dispute that their probe in the exhaust afr is any better than mine. And to re-iterate - they set idle, they might not bother to select the best jets for that as you can set idle mix with any jet size. Then they test and jet for full load as that's when damage is done and also peeps like the HP reading. Nothing between. On the other hand, it is what it is and this is good enough for most people - no brain power wasted in learning and understanding carbs which are complex things, no parts and gauges to buy and you can just get on with your camping. Horses for courses.
It’s a shame that so many professionals cannot be trusted to actually know what they are doing. I’m so very grateful to receive the knowledge and experience you all have. It’s a lot to learn, but I am learning. This is a ‘forever’ investment for me, so I always intended to learn as much as possible...I just naively dreamt that would be done sat in various cafés around Europe at my leisure, and not in a desperate frazzled state for 3yrs trying to get my life back on track! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I stand corrected. The engine buidler recommended i got it set up on a rolling rd after it had some miles on it. I went on a rolling rd recommended by local vdubbers My AFR gauge experience is different to yours. my gauge is an analogue cb performance gauge. It was fitted prior to this engine. All i found was that the needle would swing to rich when i put my foot down.
I had no (very little) compression on number 2 cylinder. Identified by Mike at Techenders. Suspect was exhaust valve seat coming loose. Turns out 7 out of 8 valve guides had come loose and intake valve seat on number 2 had come loose (luckily no damage to this head). Gauges can be good to show if anything changes. I have oil temp and pressure, which all looked fine. Perhaps Cylinder Head Temperature would have been more useful! Perhaps if my Air Fuel Ratio gauge had been re connected then i would have noticed something was up?
Up your way there are some good rolling roads so I'm I'm sure you were directed to a good one. Well yes it is supposed to be richer at full throttle, the gauge should tell you exactly how rich and also help you tune the accelerator pump squirt (that's another thing the RR is very unlikely to do as standard)... It would also tell you if you could run a leaner idle jet and save some petrol and whether you had a lean or rich idle/main progression... if you did such things Paul. All those press fit parts coming loose in your heads - excessive heat is the obvious suspect. With no CHT and no AFR you may have been regularly driving it too hard or the tuning might have been out but not for long, or pretty much anything that causes hot heads. RR is like MOT in a way - only valid at that point in time. One thing my CHT taught me was 65mph with a strong tale wind can be 80 degs cooler than same into that wind and my petrol gauge confirmed a difference of about 8mpg! That was to and fro along the M62.
Bummer. Yes, the gauges, for now, are just going to indicate changes I should be aware of for others to fix - further down the line I hope to then make those changes myself. It’s a minefield of possibilities that lead to this though. Fast forward 20yrs and I might be able to identify & explain. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I'll try and source a cht gauge for a type one engine (i'd want to know temp on all 4 cylinders) Any recoomendations? I'll also try and reinstall an Air Fuel Ratio gauge, wiring and gauge are there, just need to get a new hole cut in the exhaust to fit the sensor!
I got this CHT: https://www.mainline-sensors.co.uk/...e-gauge-vw-pyrometer-cht-5-meter-sensor-cable For all 4 you’d need 4 gauges & sensors. I’ll just swap mine around cylinders whenever I check spark plugs. I think an EGT off the opposite cylinder head will give you an idea of changes in temp though. Same company: https://www.mainline-sensors.co.uk/products/exhaust-gas-temperature-gauge Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
No bung included. I’d already gotten this for the now scrapped garbage adaptor: Various ones available. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Both those gauges I find are ones that will immediately and definitely show you have a problem. Carbs out of balance? - it's not going to show on your oil gauges. Nor is a blocked jet or inlet air leak etc etc. I settled for a double gauge, one each side of the engine which I got from a 2CV place then extended the wiring (ordinary wire). 4 might be over-reaction to your predicament. All of this could be over-reaction, it depends how you look at it.
Could well be an over reaction. If i fit 4 x CHT temp gauge, then im sure it will be something else that goes wrong next time!
Ain’t that the truth. lol I know i’ll have more gauges than a Spitfire, but I kinda want to get geeky with them. Using each more as a diagnostic tool rather than worry gauges (they fulfil that function too). The dashboard i’m making will be removable to take in to the engine bay whilst tuning. With the 123Ignition app on the phone (blank space) giving rpm and other stuff I know not enough about yet. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Other than RPM which your 123 app will do if you're round the back (mine won't connect reliably from the front), I don't think any gauges will help adjusting anything. You don't even tune idle mix to afr and everything else is only of use out and about. Ergo, I wouldn't bother making anything removeable. Plenty room up front to be fairly discrete about it.
Just jumping on the back of this, can you share your 123 setup, attached are mine which I don't think is right? Sent from my SM-G975F using Tapatalk
There won’t be anything discrete about it, with each gauge being illuminated a different colour. On the tuning side of things, I was mainly thinking it would be a good learning tool for me having the gauges visible in the engine bay. Whilst driving it will be eyes-on-the-road; limited to barking out observations to Siri for making notes. It’s not something I have to do though, so your guidance is taken on board. I make pretty much everything easily detachable anyway - especially the strings on my purse. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
