TR7 LexusV8 conversion

[dwtr6v8]

Getting close my friend! Which will be quicker....your TR7V8 or my TR6V8?

[Dan B]

You have a liter on me, plus the TR6 is probably lighter.....

[Scott Costanzo]

Dan, do you think we're going to see it running at the meet? 😊

[dwtr6v8]

Well thank you Dan, I did lose a little weight.

You are going to have a very sweet ride!

[Dan B]

Scott, I plan to have it ready by June.  I am bringing it home from Jim's on Sunday, so I will have it here, so unless I break something between now and then it should be good to go.

[Scott Costanzo]

Looking forward to seeing it Dan! Take some video this weekend!

[rficalora]

Congrats Dan.  That's probably the most fun time of a conversion...  We'll, maybe 2nd most... just behind driving it the 1st few times!

[Dan B]

https://youtu.be/9AjGSA8Qa6w

[mgb260]

Dan, Congrats!

[Scott Costanzo]

Congratulations Dan!!!

[Dan B]

Here is a video highlight of the weekend.  Thanks to Carl for shooting most of it on his phone.
https://youtu.be/23FfZX_K9TY

[BlownMGB-V8]

That's an excellent video clip Dan. But then I guess it would be considering whodunnit. So... pipes and mufflers, and there's little doubt it'll be at the meet in Lewisburg. OK, I'm envious....

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

One of the tricks we needed was a pedal stop for the clutch. When fully depressed the clutch re-engaged and would not allow Dan to shift it into gear. But a test drive showed that it would fully disengage halfway down. We welded a fabricated nut plate to the back of the clutch arm (done in the car) and added a 3/8" carriage bolt and lock nut to stop the pedal halfway down and all was good.

We also found a new failure mode for the HTOB. (Which was in fact just fine. We did install the new seals anyway.) Because the feed line had not been pulled all the way out of the bellhousing it had a loop and got up against the pressure plate. So once the engine had been started it stripped the braided sheath and holed the liner. Found a stray hose in spares and fixed that easily enough.

What Dan's video doesn't show, is that this car is going to be FUN! Dan, Carl and I all drove it down the driveway and back. We all got silly with it. I'll be sweeping gravel off my driveway for a week!  Dan sat on the hill and tried to use up his aged, hard, and way too small rear tires all in one go. Luckily the rubber was so old that it mostly left powder which the rain has washed away but there's still a mark that will be there for awhile.

The initial tune was surprisingly close and he can drive it like that with no problem. There is a little work to do to enable the radiator fan control and get the IAC going, and the warmup is too rich, but he should have no problem driving it down to the muffler shop. After that? Well Dan, just watch that right foot until you get some real tires under it.

Jim

[DiDueColpi]

Pretty cool guys.
Let the fun begin!

[MGBV8]

Just wanted to say that this project was a blast to be a small part of & to watch Jim work his magic.

Now Dan's TR7/8 has a proper engine!

[Dan B]

Derick, a 24 year old member of WVBCC, fixed my heat pump, then got a ride in my TR7.    He shot video with his phone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZd5pCsrpjc

[bsa_m21]

Sweet!

What are the two items sticking out of the dash, below the radio?

[Dan B]

That is just a 2 fer for the cigarette plug.

[Dan B]

One issue I have been dealing with is control for the electric fans.  We installed Volvo relays for the caravan fan.  Originally those were connected to the Megasquirt controller which Jim modified to be used that way.  We enabled the ports in TunerStudio and set the parameters for the fans and Voila!, they worked as expected.  This was on a weekend in late April.
Not being ones to leave well enough alone, we looked at each other and said, "I wonder if we can get Megasquirt to drive the tach...."
So, we proceeded to do the mods to the board required in the mega manual for that.  Plugged the controller in and nothing worked.  After spending 4 or 5 hours messing around with it, turning ports on and off, plugging, unplugging, etc., we tried turning all the ports off and going back to the restore point in the software and got the car running.
So, being frustrated, I said, "hey, it already has a temperature switch, I can just use that."  So I wired in the original 1uz temp switch and sure enough, when the car warmed up the fans came on.  Great solution, I say.  NO.. because they do not turn off with the ignition.  They turn off when the sensor cools down or the battery gets below 11.5 volts (not enough to start the car).  So since then many have seen me pop the hood and unplug the fan wire.
Last night I enabled the external ports on the megasquirt.  The car will still start and run, so it has not blown up the controller program like it did before, at least not yet.  I have not changed the wiring back yet, but it looks promising.

[donkelly23]

Being that I am running the Boxster Fans on my Wedge I am curios why the fans don't work being controlled by the MS. I'm intriqued as I plad on using it to control the 2 fans in my set up

[BlownMGB-V8]

It's because all that electrical stuff runs on smoke and magic. Since we didn't let out any smoke, clearly we somehow managed to cross up the spellwork. I have no clue how, everything was fine until we hooked up the tach. But then I'm no magician, how would I know?

But hey, that's great news Dan. Next thing is to hook one of the MS output wires back up to one of the Volvo relay inputs and see if the car will still start. If it does, I bet the MS will turn the fan on and off too! Then you can hook up the second one.

Jim

[DiDueColpi]

You might want to put a diode into the relay input Dan.
Those Volvo relays are big enough to send a substantial voltage spike back to the MS.
Possibly gave it a serious "headache".

[Dan B]

Thanks for the tip, Fred.  Will do.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Could already be installed on the board on the spare output circuits, might be worth checking. Called a flyback diode, it is there to prevent the counter-emf spike from reaching the controller. Usually done one of two ways, either:

Directly inline, passes normal energization current but blocks reverse currents or,

zener to ground, conducts high voltage spikes away from the circuit.

Wouldn't hurt anything to add one inline even if the controller already has one.

Jim

[Dan B]

Apparently I didn't reset the controller when I tried it last night because today the car wouldn't start.  I went back and disabled each port one by one with no success until the last one was off. Here is the error message I got each time.