The Rocket ST159

[buildityourself]

Oct 23, 2018 14:59:08 GMT casesensitive said:

By the time the offside was close, the M18 bolt was wound out almost all the way, there's no nut going on there, and it's still toeing in. Plus, it has to now be under more stress.

This might be a daft question/point as I'm not building a Rocket, but are your top wishbones the wrong way around? The coil spring looks far to close to the rear. Flipping it round will centre the shock and change the top position of the upright and change the geometry which might then mean you can get the toe correct on the adjuster.

I hope this helps, and if I'm wrong I apologise, but its not clear in any of the manuals I've seen the way these go and its easy to get them muddled up.

[buildityourself]

Oct 23, 2018 14:59:08 GMT casesensitive said:

So, I left it loosely attached, as I'm replacing all the RTR-supplied zinc bolts with SS ones next week.

Actually looking at the above picture my previous comment was wrong as the upright looks pretty vertical in another pic. The front adjuster you mention that the nut won't fit. I believe if the wishbone is threaded internally the nut is supposed to go on the other side (the eye side of the thread), like the camber adjuster. This means that you can still unwind quite a lot which will help with your toe problem.

[ssmith764]

I set mine by measuring between either end of the crossbar of the wishbone and the frame and adjusted until it was the same at both ends. It ended up as shown in the picture

[drbrian]

Any luck on this idle issue? I did some work on my Zetec Engine intake and it is now idling at 1,700 to 2,000. Do you think I may have got some thing in my idle valve or it is dead or something?

[daydreamer]

I had a fast idle issue sometimes when pulling up at lights or junctions. that turned out to be a sticky Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) that was not returning to rest after I released the throttle pedal. A bit of adjustment and cleaning and that cleared it up.

If you have an OBD II reader then you can see the TPS value. From memory the rest position is around 15-18% , certainly not 0%. it can be useful to check this on full throttle , I found my pedal was bottoming out on the stop screw on the bulkhead at 85% and when I adjusted the pedal I could get upto 98% on the TPS

[drbrian]

Thanks for the input I will try that this week!

[kiwicanfly]

I had an issue with my idle valve and solved it by cleaning it out. However the symptoms weren't a high idle speed, instead it was "hunting" the rev speed fluctuating quite a lot.

I found it initially when driving, if the revs roped below 2k such as when slowing down this happened and the car surged violently.

The only other time I recorded high idle revs was when the pickup was set in the speedo to be a single point but there are two on the engine, in fact at that time I believed I had an engine capable of reving at well over 8k because that was the limit on the dash and it went well over!

[casesensitive]

Nov 7, 2018 14:18:27 GMT daydreamer said:

I had a fast idle issue sometimes when pulling up at lights or junctions. that turned out to be a sticky Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) that was not returning to rest after I released the throttle pedal. A bit of adjustment and cleaning and that cleared it up.

If you have an OBD II reader then you can see the TPS value. From memory the rest position is around 15-18% , certainly not 0%. it can be useful to check this on full throttle , I found my pedal was bottoming out on the stop screw on the bulkhead at 85% and when I adjusted the pedal I could get upto 98% on the TPS

I have replaced my ECU with an ME one, so while I no long have an OBDII port, you do get pretty much all info down the serial port instead.
My situation viz-a-viz intake is also different, because I've fitted Jenvey ITBs and don't have a MAF (though I have added an Intake Air Temp sensor); but the strategy with ITBs is to to use the idle screw to have the butterflies open a smidge (currently at 0.4mm), and set that as TPS 0 position.
TPS RAW (which is the actual voltage that comes out at the set 0% position) is actually 7050 (of possible 65,535), or about 10.7% of TPS physical position. The top, 100%, is set at 86.5%, using the Jenvey TPS. Butterflies are fully horizontal at TPS 100%. Do check that at full pedal extension your butterflies don't open past fully horizontal! I don't think it's possible with the Ford one, but it's absolutely possible with the Keihn/GSXR1000 ITBs I had for a while, and the Jenveys too.



Before I dismantled everything, it was idling pretty high (1600) and very lean (18-20 AFR), so I do have some adjustments to make, though I'm led to believe that's all in the butterfly aperture (too much gap) and the fueling.

At TPS 0 level, we're telling the engine that this is where we want to idle, and to send in an amount of fuel that's appropriate at idle. We should be able to idle at under 1000rpm or thereabouts, and if it's at 1500 or above, we need to close the butterflies more.
Having a wideband O2 sensor is as good as mandatory here; it'll tell you immediately if you're lean (>14.7 AFR), and need less air (or more fuel), or rich (<14.7 AFR) and need either less fuel or more air. If it's choking and won't catch or coughs out, it might need more fuel in the first few cells in a configurable ECU.

So my setup is very different to you guys', but the principles are similar.

[casesensitive]

Nov 7, 2018 14:18:27 GMT daydreamer said:

I had a fast idle issue sometimes when pulling up at lights or junctions. that turned out to be a sticky Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) that was not returning to rest after I released the throttle pedal. A bit of adjustment and cleaning and that cleared it up.

It might be worth checking the cable pulls freely in both directions, maybe some lube into it? The return springs on the GSXR ITBs weren't up to much, I considered adding some springs to my accelerator pedal. The Ford ones are decent sized, and the Jenveys don't need it either, but worth verifying with the engine off.

[drbrian]

I ordered another TP sensor, the old one was sitting around 22%, then I took it apart, looked a little old.
Thanks
Brian

[drbrian]

Problem of high ideal is still there, the car ran perfectly prior to me messing with the throttle body, my guess is a screws something up with dirt or derby.
This is what I did so far to fix the problem to no avail.
Replaced Throttle Position Sensor with a new one - reading 18.4% at closed
Replaced Crank Case Valve I think it is called CP Valve.
Replaced the MAP Sensor,
Checked the throttle cable for sticking, it is not sticking and is flat on the idle stop.
Problem is still there, next I am thinking of buying another Idle valve.

So you know I modified the throttle body by cutting off the top lip to shorten it a bit so I could fit the intake under the bonnet. I could have gotten some plastic shavings into the throttle body. Maybe that screwed up the Idle Valve.
Thanks
Brian

[casesensitive]

Test run for new coolant lines

The coolant lines run too close to the exhaust manifold for comfort, and got a little roasted. They also leak, it seems from a distored Tee from over-tightening (because it was drippy..). So the plan is to make at least the 2 tees (32/22/32 and 22/22/22), and if I can pull it off, most of it.
Yesterday was about testing a tube-notching technique and validating I could weld pipe, which I've never done.

Ordered the minimum amount of 316 tube I could to get a run of 32mm (well, 31.5mm) and 22m (21.5mm); ended up with 6m of each, and not cheaply either. Going to use the rest for another project, shush, don't tell SWMBO. ImpactIRL in Cork played a blinder.

Quality of the pipe (22mm) and tube (32mm) was fantastic. Came with 2x 3M timbers too, will concoct some use for that too.



Into the V-block, which made it easy to articulate in the vice.



I used this brilliant pipe-notching calculator: www.blocklayer.com/pipe-notching.aspx



Big cut with the cutting disc, smaller ones with the grinding stone and worn flap wheel till the fit up was decent.



Drilling the right sized hole in the parent tube was tough, had chop up a step bit



The heat of the welding pulled the parent tube in a few degrees, which will be difficult to prevent. The stainless is so much more forgiving that aluminium to weld though, really happy I went this direction.



Test fit in place of the 22/22/22 tee, a little looser than the plumbing fitting I was using, but much longer legs, so room for two clips.
I might weld in some 'bumps' to help catch the mikalor clamps

[familyguy]

Out of curiosity (and to try and avoid the same problem) just how close were your coolant lines to your manifold for it to cause a problem?

[casesensitive]

Nov 12, 2018 14:34:12 GMT familyguy said:

Out of curiosity (and to try and avoid the same problem) just how close were your coolant lines to your manifold for it to cause a problem?

I don't know if I have a photo, but the gap between the cover for the manifold (wrapped in heat-shielding fibreglass nastiness) and the silicone coolant lines was about 15mm or so, and they got pretty roasted.

[carlyd]

You can buy the 32mm T pieces in stainless for under a tenner on ebay 

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stainless-304-exhaust-inlet-pipe-T-Piece-32mm-63mm/163276308999?hash=item260406c207:m:mS_OHO4GXOt8nloLx0cbcpg:rk:11:pf:0