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How do you spend the Extra Horsepower

Extra Horse power in land rover series…? you think I am crazy right..? I am sane and sober by all means, but yes, I am trying to squeeze few ponies power in dolly’s engine by adding SU carb instead of worn zenith and electronic ignition…

I hope I got few ponies already now, to squeze one more HP, I might as well decommission the current air filter and replace it with high flowing air filter… with something like this…

KN filter for SU HS6 carburettor — Yes… that is KN filter, some says it built to last… let see how long it last in land rover series :)

I hope it will add half or one more ponies.. :), but the next question is, with the extra horses… how do you “spend” it…? there are few options I have in my mind…

Air condition,
On board air pump and
Power steering,

I finally decided to spend the horse power for Air conditioning as Jakarta is very hot and I frequently get stuck in Traffic jam… lot of choice on the air condition system and I just follow what ever the local garage suggestion on what brand to use…

Because I have plan to have double blower air condition and the Station wagon is big… we opt for bigger compressor as in below picture:

Sanden 505 VS 508 — Both are Sanden Compressor, the above is the 505 type (smaller one) and the below is the bigger one 508 version…

And the local garage made all the necessary bracket and fitting and install it in Dolly engine..

Air condition Land Rover — Installing Air condition in series land rover

And this is when the new air compressor installed…

Sanden 508 compressor in Land rover series

And this is the Engine bay af ter everything installed…

Land rover engine bay — Here you can see the new air filter vs old air filter and new Aircon compressor

I still left the old non-functioning Air filter for two purposes:

Just in case I will cross Sahara desert anytime soon.. I can connect it to the carburettor
To hide the messy cable behind it (which it failed to hide it anyway :))

So that’s it for now… if you spend few extra horsepower with something interesting, please write it down below… Cheers

A Fish in the fuel tank..?

Remember this set up due to not enough fuel supply..?

It only helps temporary, and the problem is coming back.. loss of power again at all RPM, it clearly the problem is somewhere else… So I want to solve it once for all, first mechanical fuel pump… This where probably the source of the problem is… I rebuilt mechanical pump with this kit part number AEU 2760 …

This will sort this out and no need for additional electronic fuel pump, Done..! me think… but “No Way José..” the problem still exist… it really confusing.. what else should I do..? Now with the fuel pump should be OK after the rebuilt… there are only two possibilities, one is something blocking the fuel line and the other one is something blocking the Carburetor…

I decided to check the fuel line and fuel tank first… I drained the fuel tank and blow the fuel line with compressed air… this will this certainly clear anything that currently blocking the fuel line.

And this is what we found in the tank.. a fish mutant..?.. :), see, no matter how strong your pump is… if this blocking the fuel line… the fuel supply will be much less than the engine needed. I hope it solve the riddle for good..!

Dirt from fuel tank — I think it is sealer

Cheers for now

Electronic Ignition – A Little Incident

Electronic Ignition can be considered as upgrade from point contact ignition, but which one…? a lot of option out there, but for me I choose the cheap(ish) option ( but not the crap by all means)… Powerspark from SimonBBC… the consideration is: the technology is already mature, the improvement will not be much different with the point breaker anyway, and I might go for Megajolt route later so I do not want to spend big money here. I ordered this item, a Chinese copy of Lucas distributor 45D4… well Lucas is well known as prince of darkness anyway, what can be worst from that…

Cut the story short, I have received the item in a good condition and installed it about two months a go… I feel bit of improvement compare to the old distributor (not sure if this is only psychological or actual), it works.. so no more maintenance… or so I thought…

One month later, when I happily driving around the town… I heard a noise from the engine bay and the engine stopped… just like that… ooh, Dolly is playing another “guess what when wrong this time” kind of quiz again…!

I opened the bonnet and checked few things, I saw the distributor cup is no longer properly clamped or loose, and the rotor arm is not in the place it should be… ah.. this is the problem… “Common Dolly, you insulting my intelligent… this is too easy….” I said to Dolly (if you see a landy owner talking to his / her car, consider it as normal… we do that all the time :)). Easy fix, just put it back I will be going in no time… me think… but it seems I under estimate dolly in giving a hard quiz… the engine is not starting… it crank OK but not starting…

Another look at the distributor, it is clamped alright now, slightly loose but clamped by both clip, tried again cranking again the engine.. same result…so this is the time more thorough investigation is needed. I checked the inside of the distributor…

The Cup… although cosmetically no problem I found something strange… here is the pict:

So no wonder the electric current can not be transferred from coil to spark plug, because no connection to the rotor arm … it should have something like this…

cupdistori — original 45D4 cup distributor

But what about the rotor arm..? it too seems badly “injured”… here is the pict..

What the hell has happened… I am checking the internet and seems no one is having the same issue, so I accept it that this might be my fault during installation, somehow it is probably not properly clamped, the cup is loose, and *Bang* the rotor may be hitting the one of the aluminum post inside the cup, the rotor stop moving but the mighty force of the engine pushing it further and the plastic broken, and so on and so on…

I finally replaced the rotor arm and the cup from the original dizzy which I always bring for the spare… I fired up the engine no problem, and I can go home safely… seems that the main unit is OK…

I talk to Simonbbc and ask whether this type of “accident” is covered by his warranty… He kindly agree to send the replacement… great service… no wonder he has 100% satisfied customer in ebay. Now the original distributor cup is still being used waiting replacement from Simon…

Cheers for now…

Dissapointing dyno result – Solved..!

This few days, I can not sleep and eat.. I wish I did not do the Dyno.. :). But that is the beauty of having old car, this problem is actually a lot more interesting than problem in the office, you do not know what is wrong… it just does not work as expected but the good thing is almost everything under our control to solve it…

So what is wrong then… if you read my previous post, you know that Dolly power is low, and peaked at 3000RPM, which should be around 4500 RPM and lot higher. A lot of things can be the cause, I need to check it one by one…

Engine Compression, may be the compression is low and resulting low HP… checked… and the result is 165 psi across all pots. so no problem here.
Fuel supply problem… how can it be..? I just replace the seal… and seems works ok
What about ignition timing..? I checked using strobe and the result is 5 deg, should be no problem…
The suspect now is the carburetor SU HS6 or electronic Ignition or problem with the timing chain

The fellow land rover forum said that the Electronic Ignition can be faulty, or since I do not know the advance curve of this distributor, it may be not suitable for landrover… to prove this point, I did an exercise… set the ignition timing too advance (deliberately) and drive it full power (stopped when it start knocking), and then retard it a bit and drive it full power again, and so on and so forth until the timing is too retarded loss power at all RPM). In this exercise, I found that no matter what, I lost power after around 3000 RPM at all ignition timing set up. So the Electronic ignition is no longer suspect.

Now how about carburetor, again little exercise in the morning, I set the jetting from too rich to too lean, again the result is the same.. loss power at around 3000 RPM. and I gave up… I am not bother checking the timing chain, the symptom is not relevant for timing chain. I just use it at low rpm, but back in my mind I always have that question… “what the hell is wrong” something is fundamentally wrong and we can not find out what it is..? even my fellow land rover forum who usually very knowledgeable on this matter can not solve this riddle.

Finally I went to local Land rover garage and discuss it with the garage owner, I show the dyno result… just with one glance he said… ” Fuel supply problem..!”. Can not be… I replaced the seal and clean it… “Fuel supply problem..!” he said again… How can it be..? I challenge him… “FUEL SUPPLY PROBLEM.. ! DAMNED..!” he almost throw the “land rover number one tool” at me.

Ok Ok.. I said… how to solve it…? He then installed an electronic fuel pump after the mechanical lift pump… “this will do” he said. “let me know how it goes…” Why not install it before the mechanical pump..? me questioning his installation… “you fool..! you want the fuel flood your engine and blow you up…?” and it shut me down… :) here is the installation..

Very true.. this solve the problem… I can feel Dolly is still pulling even after 3000 RPM, very happy, I say thank you to him (and pay of course) and drove home smiling… I do not bother to dyno it again… one because I have to pay, two I am afraid that I will find another problem that keep me awake during the night… may be later, but not now :)

So moral of the story is… don’t dyno even if it is free…. ah ha ha..

Many ways of praying

Dissapointing Dyno (rolling road) Result…

Last weekend I got a good offer from a garage owner friend who wants to dyno Dolly, I think he is a bit curious about dolly. Of course I agree, it is always good to know the power curve of our car.

I am very confident that Dolly will get a good result as I already upgrade few things : Electronic ignition and Carburetor and I have rebuild the engine. so the expectation is : I will get higher power than stock, there is no way it will be lower. Finally the day came and we prepare Dolly on the rolling road, setting up big fan in front of Dolly to cool her engine.

Full of expectation, my eyes set on the computer while the operator revving the engine as high as he can…. A lot of gibberish number, I only want to see one thing… 70 or above… that is the HP (horse power) for stock engine… however that number never came… and when I see the operator is amused (not in a good way like scratching his head), my heart sunk… oh my God… whats wrong…?

And then he asked the owner to try to operate dolly. He too also gives a “give-up” look and then he ask… what is the engine cc..? “2.250 cc” I said and hastily added “low RPM torque type of engine” to make sure he understand that peak torque is around 2200 RPM not like racing cars.

Do you know the peak BHP for this car… “at least 70..!” Me answering his question… “Yeah I thought so” he said… fiuh… I feel relieved… so all the confused look is seems because they expect a gazillion torque or horse power like many of their racing customer cars. ” So what’s the result look like…” I impatiently asked.

“Not even 50 BHP” … hearing him saying that, you will feel like you got stung by hornet in the forehead… he see me stunned he continue his sentence: “yap… we have tried it three time and the result is the same… sorry…” and then he gave me a print out showing the result. To give you a perspective on the dyno result, here I charted dolly BHP and added “Standard” engine BHP from their brochure (I actually stole it from Darren one of the land rover forum friend).

BHP dolly — The standard engine BHP is measuring the engine on the flywheel (engine Power) while dolly is using on the wheel (wheel power), so the gap is acceptable, sometime the difference is as high as 30%

Comparing the above chart, you will see that Dolly’s peak power is at 2300 RPM at only 48 BHP, while standard engine peak power is at 3600 RPM at 74 BHP… now the question is why Dolly’s power seems to prematurely ended… certainly she is not a young girl anymore, but I am sure she should be able to out do anyone with stock engine.. :)

I hear you ask…: How come I do not know the problem in the first place… I should have known right..? I ride her every day how can I not notice it… (I can see your smirk there Bas****d). The answer is because I never ride her hard… Dolly is at best when you ride her slowly, attentively, and she will reward you with satisfying side to side smooth and gentle rocking… (Are we still talking about car here…??? ).

I am glad now I found the problem that is half the answer… A lot of things can go wrong, The carburetor, the ignition, the engine, fuel pump, chain timing, vacuum leak etc… So I need to check it one by one… its time to play doctor with Dolly.. if you have any ideas what to check and have experience sorting out similar problem.. it will be great if you can share it down below

Cheers…