The "Secret Project".......... or, whats been taking time away from the 744t

The "Secret Project".......... or, whats been taking time away from the 744t

Well, here it is, the 144 that I was SUPPOSED to co-drive in 07, but my good friend wrecked before that could happen. Instead of competing in the Western Ohio Region SCCA SoloII, we started gutting the car and preparing it for much better things.

The motor is a stock shortblock with .032 taken off the block, largest valves available from the factory (B20 guys, inform me on what they are, I'm clueless, I just did the suspension and pulled the motor), Iskendariens rowdiest cam, and the first factory overbore (60k on the motor before the rebuild, all new bearings, lifters, pushrods), and one or two hotrodder tricks applied internally. Using a 240t auto radiator (two row) and factory Djet, IPD swore up and down it would work, if it doesn't, Weber 44s are going on it. Debating on a grooved head, for all you wanting a real subjective test, it may happen on this car.

The car is a 1973 144e, Djet, M410 4spd. It has 250lb springs up front, about a 1 inch drop, and turbo wagon springs in the rear with two coils cut. 164 sway bar in the rear. The next thing is FCP/IPD poly's all around and 164 rotors/ 240t calipers.

The hood is Army Green and will have a vinyl white star on it to honor my sister in Kuwait right now..... its the least I could do.

And without further adou, the pics.




Egads.... what a mess (still convincing Eric that MSnS is the ONLY way to solve his fuel supply issues)

A TurboBricks style exhaust if I've ever seen one myself

And FREE slicks, still have some life in them. Even if they only last one run.... free is free (and even better when you have your own tire mounting machine) Found them in a dumpster behind Forgeline wheels in Dayton.





Were open to any advice you have to give. The car needs to stay within some guidelines to not get bumped out of class (gimme till tomorrow to call Eric and ask him which one that is), but... nothing too crazy suspension wise, really... just any tips on how to tune the B20... if there are any when running a stock dizzy and Djet.

This is where most of my time has been spent, drinking and farting away my hours on a car that will probably be 100x's more competitive than mine (especially with Eric... dude drives a k-car hard enough to shame a C4 Vette... come to a Dayton autocross to witness it. STOCK 854 GLT beating up on MR2s running slicks.. pretty funny).

IPD may swear they work, but any stock MAP-based system (which d-jet is IIRC) with a crazy cam wont do well, and I hear d-jet is not happy with any mods, even high-mileage where the motor pulls less vacuum upsets precious d-jet.
so i've heard

Remember d-jet is some form of EFI, and people have converted to MS from d-jet using stock injectors (which are pretty big IIRC)

Cool project though!

MrBill said:

IPD may swear they work, but any stock MAP-based system (which d-jet is IIRC) with a crazy cam wont do well, and I hear d-jet is not happy with any mods, even high-mileage where the motor pulls less vacuum upsets precious d-jet.
so i've heard

Remember d-jet is some form of EFI, and people have converted to MS from d-jet using stock injectors (which are pretty big IIRC)

Cool project though!

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I will admit I know NOTHING of djet, I think its flow-based. If it is, then it may work. I'm really not taking IPD's advice on this one. One test fire with my LC1, if its past 15 at WOT at ANY point, its getting carbs. This motor is anything but old.... 60k original miles plus new bearings the entire motor through... along with stiffer valve springs (looking for a motor that will spin 7500 without hesitation, not that we want to go that far on a regular basis... but holding gears is important... 6800 is what the shift light is set at).

On a side not, for a complete rebuild, with a fully assembled and timed motor, he only paid 600. From other work that this shop has done, he got one helluva deal. For anyone in Dayton, I would recommend Dick Sommers (Dick's Crank and Cam) to anyone looking for work. He wasn't afraid at all, and got the .032 spot on.... put it all together and had it done in less than 3 weeks. He did break the first camshaft, but thats because Eric didn't give him the spacer/bearing that goes on B20 cams.... not really the machinist's fault. But to Dick's credit, he called Eric up the day it happened (2 days after we dropped it off). If not for the broken cam, I think the motor would have been done in less than 10 days.

D-jet is a MAP based system. If you've already got it in the car, swapping to MS is CAKE. The stock injectors at 3-bar run 490-495cc (bigger than browntops by a LONG shot). D-jet will adapt a LITTLE to some mods but not that well. I'd go 44's if you're familiar with tuning, since you'll get far nicer response from them, plus they're simpler and no electronics to fail. Of course that's if you don't wanna go MS.

As for the block and head, you should be able to fit 46/40's without too much trouble. 44's are stock on the FI heads, 38's are cake, and there's a LOT of power to be had in the exhaust tract with a little time porting. The bottom end will need a little fine-tuning to be happy to 7500, and dual springs are a must at that point, along with a steel gearset to hold up to the dual springs reliably. At 9.5:1 SCR I've got NO pinging on crap cali gas without a grooved head, but I've got a nice tight bit of squish going. See if you can tighten that up and you may not even need the grooved head.

Good luck mang! Looks like a killer project you got there.

Are you sure on the front spring rates? 250 lb. is pretty low for the front of a 140. My old ipd springs are 520 lb, and dedicated racers can reach the 800 lb. range. Just curious.

gsellstr said:

D-jet is a MAP based system. If you've already got it in the car, swapping to MS is CAKE. The stock injectors at 3-bar run 490-495cc (bigger than browntops by a LONG shot). D-jet will adapt a LITTLE to some mods but not that well. I'd go 44's if you're familiar with tuning, since you'll get far nicer response from them, plus they're simpler and no electronics to fail. Of course that's if you don't wanna go MS.

As for the block and head, you should be able to fit 46/40's without too much trouble. 44's are stock on the FI heads, 38's are cake, and there's a LOT of power to be had in the exhaust tract with a little time porting. The bottom end will need a little fine-tuning to be happy to 7500, and dual springs are a must at that point, along with a steel gearset to hold up to the dual springs reliably. At 9.5:1 SCR I've got NO pinging on crap cali gas without a grooved head, but I've got a nice tight bit of squish going. See if you can tighten that up and you may not even need the grooved head.

Click to expand...

MS may bump the car out of the class Eric wants to stay in. And eventually, we want to race the car up at Mid-Ohio, so it has to stay within some confines.

It has double wound valve springs, and new bearings and rings throughout, basically a complete refresh... should be a new motor. The ability to hold gears is all Eric built the motor for.



As for spring rates, the car is kind of soft up front, but really stiff in the rear... I hope its a tail-happy setup that is easy to throw the weight around in.... new springs up front are dirt cheap, made locally... so we should be able to take the old ones back and trade them in for a few bucks.


Thanks for the advice. Its not so secret anymore, but alot of time has been spent, and its been a long time for me to keep my mouth shut.

There are a few other updates in store, so stay tuned.

cool project

Looks like a lot of fun. IPD made a lot of power with djet injection. From what I remember they made 5 more hp on djet than carbs. I think it was 195 vs 190 on one of their project engines. Be sure that engine has the ipd oil pump drive tang reinforcement ring installed. It's a small ring that fits onto the top of the oil pump where the drive tang inserts. It supports it and prevents the tang from breaking off. That would be very bad.

Great project, heres to a lot of fun with that beast.

needs lots more spring if you want to keep slicks flat on the ground

dl242gt said:

Looks like a lot of fun. IPD made a lot of power with djet injection. From what I remember they made 5 more hp on djet than carbs. I think it was 195 vs 190 on one of their project engines. Be sure that engine has the ipd oil pump drive tang reinforcement ring installed. It's a small ring that fits onto the top of the oil pump where the drive tang inserts. It supports it and prevents the tang from breaking off. That would be very bad.

Great project, heres to a lot of fun with that beast.

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Well, thanks for the advice on Djet... did IPD end up doing anything to Djet to allow it to keep up with the increased fuel needs, or was it basically a stock EFI???

I'll ask him about the oil pump drive tang... I know the oil pump was replaced just for good measure.

I can't wait to drive it, I've already witnessed Eric shame some GTI's on the longer courses (before he wrecked it and had the motor rebuilt ).... cheers to the older Volvo's, they really are competitive.

needs lots more spring if you want to keep slicks flat on the ground

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The slicks popped up well after we had done the suspension. We are going to run them, see what happens, should be a hoot (theyre 10 inches wide!!!). New front and rear springs are cheap... but then we need new shocks to deal with much higher rates. Its all about keeping things as cheap as possible. You'll know how it all turns out...

djet tuning

IPD still sells the oil pump ring for the pushrod engines. To tune djet IPD also used to sell a tuning box but it basically consisted of adding a potentiometer to the a/f ratio tuning location inside the djet box on a wiring harness to a dash mounted box to hold the pot. Then when tuning the engine you could adjust the a/f ratio till it was correct. Nowadays you wouldn't need the dyno to tune it just a wide band O2 sensor.

I'm not sure if they would provide you the information of where to solder in the wires for that pot. They used to sell it as a package that you exchanged your old djet controller with them for. Maybe some of the other folks might know where to solder it in. There was a thread recently that I don't remember what one it was about how djet was setup at the factory. There is a board mounted pot for a/f ratio and they would set it at the factory and smear sealant on it. The IPD setup just replaced this board mounted pot with one on the dash. Should be cheap to do yourself if you can figure out what pot to replace.

I don't know much about D-jet personally. I do know 4 guys running in the ITB class over here on the eat coast that all run D-jet. I think it's because they can only run SU's if they want to stay carb'd. With that setup a 142 won the championship last year in ITB. These guys where running some wild ( and illegal ) cams.

But the 140 guys in E and F production where running DCOE's and they stayed pretty fast.

My 2 cents

That's awesome, but what did happen with the 740? I remember you were doing stuff about 2 years ago and it just stopped?

mean machine

What class are you trying to run? If FSP, forget about the slicks and look for some DOT R-comps. 225/45/15 on 15x7 at least.

Probably need about 800-1000lb front springs and about 200-250lb rear.

to be honest about the legality of those 142 cams.....they only measure and spec lift. The 142 guys change duration and lobe separation in order to make 175hp on a "stock" B20

Jonathan

why does it need such high spring rates for? Is the design very indirect or what?

Vee_Que said:

why does it need such high spring rates for? Is the design very indirect or what?

Click to expand...

exactly. double a-arm has the spring mounted inboard on the arm so there's a leverage ratio to contend with. strut suspension is basically 1:1, so a 300lb spring is 300lbs at the wheel. but a-arm might be 0.3:1, so a 300lb spring becomes 90lbs at the wheel = soft.

Ok, I thought so, like with the trailing arms on the IRS or the live axle Volvo's needing higher rates, 200lbs is too little for the rear of the IRS for sure.

racing stuff

For ignition on a 140. I saw this setup at Watkins Glen. A 1975 B20F magnetic trigger distributor which also provided advance with the vacuum retard left unhooked. They had this triggering the GM four pin ignition module which fired a hot aftermarket coil like from Accel or MSD. I forget which coil it had. But the ignition module looked like the one used by GM from the mid 70s to at least the mid 80s. It was the one that's usually inside the distributor on GM cars but this was mounted on a heat sink piece of aluminum which was in turn mounted onto the inner fender. Seems like a good way to have a hot ignition. I might try this with my 123GT.