Jag V6 swapped Dolomite

[new to this]

Nice that you got the car through the MOT on my car I've had the exhaust manifold and front downpipe ceramic coated, can't say how much it reduces heat from engine bay as still not got my car running yet
Dave

[SprintV8]

Hats off to you mate.
For getting this far and sticking with it.

Was it MOT to the Vehicle age?.

One day maybe all the Engine Modified Dolomites could have there own day out together.
Retro @ Goodwood.

[Tony Burd]

Well done on getting the MOT!

Have you got any photos of the finished engine bay?

[Boost All The Dollys]

Nice that you got the car through the MOT on my car I've had the exhaust manifold and front downpipe ceramic coated, can't say how much it reduces heat from engine bay as still not got my car running yet
Dave

I’m planning on getting the exhaust manifolds either coated or wrapped but might be a winter job as to get the passenger side manifold off, I’ve got to pretty much take the engine out and thats a full day job.

Hats off to you mate.
For getting this far and sticking with it.

Was it MOT to the Vehicle age?.

One day maybe all the Engine Modified Dolomites could have there own day out together.
Retro @ Goodwood.

Yeah, but mine was just past the cut off for the super relaxed emissions test so was struggling to get it below 4.5% CO and 1200ppm HC but got there in the end.

That would be awesome, maybe not goodwood for me as that’s a 7+ hour journey!

Well done on getting the MOT!

Have you got any photos of the finished engine bay?

Nothing yet, it’s an absolute mess at the moment. It’s not show worthy just yet, still have some things I want to tidy up before that happens. I’ve had some serious fuel leaks that have taken all the paint off the valve covers so it looks like it’s been on fire at the moment but I’ll be getting some soon and posting them on here. Here is some screenshots from the videos I’ve taken of it running so pardon the quality and a video of it driving around. I’ve done some work to the tune since I took that video and it runs a bit better but nowhere near perfect.





https://www.instagram.com/p/C7zG5WsKVYp ... A2MXk3eQ==

[Tony Burd]

Sounds nice once you get the revs up!

[xvivalve]

That has proper sound to it...prepare yourself for low MPG and lot's of fun!

[Boost All The Dollys]

Sounds nice once you get the revs up!

Yeah, it’s not too bad but I’ll have to get a video from outside at higher rpm, currently it’s breaking up at 4.5-5krpm so I’ll have to sort that out before I take it to its 7k redline

That has proper sound to it...prepare yourself for low MPG and lot's of fun!

Yang, I already know that it’ll be guzzling fuel if (when) I drive it like mad. In theory, the MPG won’t be that much worse than the original engine. Best I managed out of that was ≈33mpg on a long trip. The Jag S Type technically got around 25-30mpg so il thinking it’ll be around 15-20 in this. It sounds amazing at 1k-4krpm but I’m not sure about higher rpm, I think it sounds a tad odd and very loud but I’ve not heard it from outside the car yet

[Boost All The Dollys]

Well done on getting the MOT!

Have you got any photos of the finished engine bay?

I finally took a picture of the mostly finished engine bay. Now that it’s on the road and working, I have a lot of work to do before I start taking it to any shows or track days but it’s good enough for now.

[new to this]

I like the way you've keep it neat looking, no wires in the way, looks OEM not much room round the sides
Your strut braes does that support the radiator ?

Dave

[Boost All The Dollys]

I like the way you've keep it neat looking, no wires in the way, looks OEM not much room round the sides
Your strut braes does that support the radiator ?

Dave

Thank you, I’ve tried my best to make it look neat but I did a lot of work after I had made it neat so it’s still a tad messy for my liking. There’s paint, filler, and metal dust absolutely everywhere but need to pull the engine out to properly clean it up.

And yeah, absolutely no room on the passenger side of the engine. I made the decision to have the engine offset to the passenger side to manage weight and to give myself a load of room in the drivers side for the alternator, starter motor, and exhaust. It’s not offset by much, maybe an inch or two but it makes the engine super tight to the strut tower. To the point where I can’t get the passenger side manifold off without removing the engine.

The front bar is more radiator support than strut brace. It’s not particularly strong and has a lot of flex in it but I only needed it to hold the radiator in place. There isn’t really the space for a strut brace, or at least a reasonably robust one. I do have some plans to stiffen up the chassis; fender bars, MX5 style chassis rails, butterfly brace, and some sort of roll cage.

I mainly need to strengthen the front subframe as I’ve had to cut off most of the cross braces from that to get the engine and gearbox to fit. I’ve added one back in that bolts to the anti roll bar mounts but I’m still concerned about the steering rack member flexing slightly. Next big job will be making some sort of tubular subframe.

[Boost All The Dollys]

Well, new update and it’s not a good one.

The engine. It’s knackered. Done for. Ruined. Completely FUBARed.

I had finally got it booked in to be put on a dyno to get the engine properly tuned. The weekend before, I decided to take it out for a quick spin just to make sure it was ok to make the drive to the dyno. Only a quick 10-15 mile drive. And this is when the fuel pump decided to break. This didn’t mean there was no fuel, just some fuel at a much lower pressure than normal, which caused it to run super lean while I was driving along and probably caused some pretty severe knocking/pinging leading to it either spinning a bearing or bending a rod.

This eventually led to the little end of the rod disintegrating and jamming the engine up. WHILE I WAS DRIVING! Which was not fun. Thankfully it didn’t lock the wheels up, the clutch and flywheel took the abuse until I could hit the clutch.

So far, I’ve managed to source a new-to-me engine from a semi local scrap yard to put in so I can still try and get it dyno’ed soon. I did end up missing the day I had previously booked but that’s not too much of an issue. On the plus side, if the old block isn’t too mangled, it’s going to become my spare engine, and I’ll probably build it up as an upgrade engine (higher lift cams, high compression pistons, ported head etc) rather than entirely stock but that will be a few years in the making.

The downtime has also given me some time to add in some upgrades that had been in the works, mainly cooling. My current radiator set up is a ratty 2nd hand Mk2 MX5 radiator that I was using more as a stand in but it seemed to have just enough capacity to work properly but I have now fitted an upgraded Mk2 MX5 radiator that’s about twice as thick and less crusty so that should keep the engine temps down a bit.

I’ve also added an oil cooler, which because of the very limited room under the bonnet, I’ve had to ditch one of my radiator cooling fans for now as they’re trying to occupy the same space. I’ll be trying to add it back in at a later date if I get any cooling issues.

For now, have some pictures of the carnage:


What’s left of Cylinder No. 2 connecting rod


Some of the damage to the block. It’s broken bits of Cylinder No. 4’s bore, chipped the piston, and twisted the rod


Bits of Piston No.2, con rod, and block in the sump when I pulled it off

[new to this]

Sorry about your miss hap, are you running two fuel pumps on your setup ?
the MX5 also do an auto version/ that would mean a built in oil cooler in the rad if it helps

Dave

[Boost All The Dollys]

Sorry about your miss hap, are you running two fuel pumps on your setup ?
the MX5 also do an auto version/ that would mean a built in oil cooler in the rad if it helps

Dave

Just the one fuel pump, a Walbro 255 which is more than enough pressure and flow when it’s working properly. I think it just dropped below the 3.5bar I have the regulator set to so it was still enough pressure to run the car but on the verge of too lean so it wouldn’t idle.

That would be a nice and neat solution! I hadn’t realised that. The rad I have is for a Mk2/NB MX5 which is slightly different to the Mk2/NA even though it’s the same size. It’s the mount points are different and I can’t really find any Uprated/alloy radiators for the Mk2/NB that have that cooler/heat exchanger built into them, only can find OEM/thin radiators.

I should be ok for cooling. If not, I’ll get some small 100mm fans to put on the oil cooler and radiator. If its gets bad, ill try and find/commission a combo oil cooler and radiator.

[Boost All The Dollys]

*Best James May impression* Good News! It’s running!

I’ve got the new engine in in just over a week, I gave up on fitting an oil cooler for now. I just don’t have the space for it. I need to properly engineer a better location for it which will take some time. On more positive note, I changed some of the ECU settings and it runs okay now. It’s absolutely hilariously rich tho, somewhere around 10:1AFR when cruising, makes it stumble on the odd occasion when setting of from a stop. This shouldn’t be too big of an issue as I have the dyno booked for the end of the week which should iron out any issues I’m having with the tune.

The new radiator I fitted is working a treat too, it’s over twice as thick as my old one and when cruising, it holds the temperature below 70ᵒC (I think)

[Boost All The Dollys]

July/August Update

So after the calamity that was June and July, I’ve been trying to enjoy the car and getting some miles on it to shake it down and tune it decently before I take it to a dyno for a proper tune. I did try and take it to a dyno that’s semi-local to me and they didn’t want to put it on in its current state. Main issues for them was a persistent oil leak and a misfire.

It’s not a serious oil leak at the moment, but it is coating everything under the engine in a light film of oil, which includes the exhaust manifold. The oil leak has been a constant issues that I’d been chasing on the old engine but seemed to be changing it’s location but I think I know what’s happening. On the old engine, I replaced the sump gasket 2-3 times and couldn’t fix the oil leak fully as I had two leaks when I thought I had one and the second oil leak was coming from a weeping oil line connection.

The problem with the sump gasket is that I’m not using one , I’m only using gasket sealant as the mating face of the sump isn’t very flat and as I’m using ITBs for the intake, the existing Jaguar Crank Case breather doesn’t have a vacuum source to operate properly. There are intakes for the crank case on the cam covers but I think they’re too segregated from the crank case to work effectively. Now that my old engine is in my workshop, I’ll have a look at the crank breather system and see if I can bodge it into working without a vacuum source and just run it into a catch can. Hopefully this will reduce the likelihood of a leak. If I still get one, I’ll try and redesign the intake manifold to add a vacuum port so that the crank case is under slight vacuum which should stop any oil from leaking out.

As for the misfire, that was coming from the ignition coils. Turns out that the stock form of the VW 4 pin coil-on-plug coil packs just aren’t compatible with the Jaguar spark plugs. The VW coils have a metal shroud that go around a rubber insulator which goes partially over the head of the spark plugs. The metal shroud is grounded through the coil pack. Originally, I had trimmed the shroud down as it was quite long and would rest on the hex part of the plug so would be an alternate path to ground after the spark. After I had trimmed them down, I still had the occasional issue with the spark jumping to the shroud so I had wrapped them in electrical tape to prevent this. Turns out that it wasn’t enough to prevent it from arcing to the shroud instead of the spark plug… so I removed the shrouds entirely. This has completely removed the misfire which has also removed the odd engine stumbling I was getting at low RPM.

I’ve also made a load of changes to the map in the ECU as well as getting my hands on a really good map from a guy called Dave who has the same engine fitted into a MK Indy Roadster/Caterham-esque car. His map made around 270hp on a standard Jaguar engine with the Mondeo ST intake manifold, so unsure how compatible that is to my ITB arrangement but it’s a good start. I’ve taken his map and dialled the ignition timing back a touch just to reduce the chance of knocking until I can get the car on the dyno.

One other issue I’m going to resolve is the problem of voltage. I have the standard voltmeter fitted to the dash and the ECU also measures the voltage to add in correction factors to the injector and ignition timings. For some reason, these are different. The ECU reads it at around 13.8-14V and the gauge seems to be reading around 15-16V and is sometimes reading off the gauge. When I use an independent meter on the battery, it’s about 13.5-14V when the engine is running. This change in voltage is also changing the water temp and fuel level gauge readings (I know the fuel sensor has the voltage regulator but I don’t entirely trust it to work amazingly). The temp gauge isn’t much of an issue as I can just mentally adjust what is “operating temp” but the fuel one is annoying.

When the cars on flat and level ground, it will start to fuel surge/start with just under 1/4 of a tank showing in the gauge. If I start the car, this changes the reading from 1/4 to 1/3-1/2 of a tank so I never know if I’m too low on fuel. If the car is angled either forward or backwards by a few degrees like on a decent hill or under hard acceleration, it will have some problems running and absolutely will not start. I have had it happen 2-3 times now where I’ve stopped to check why it’s not running well and then it’s refused to start due to lack of fuel even though it said I had 1/2 a tank.

I think that I need to either modify the fuel tank to add some baffles or move my fuel pump to a surge tank as well as sorting out the voltage issues. I’ve found a small 10-20A voltage regulator that I’m going to fit between the battery/alternator post and the main voltage bus for the car wiring loom so that only the engine sees the higher voltage and the original dolomite loom and equipment sees the regulated 12V.

Anyway, enough of me wittering on, hope all of you who read my ramblings are having a good summer and hopefully I’ll get around to some of the Dolomite meets and see you all soon.