About time I got started...
I have a TVR Griffith 500. It's a great car, but could be so much better with the right engine management.
My aims are to:
- Increase my knowledge of engines and mapping
- Make the car easier to maintain and modify
- Avoid potential problems with obsolete parts
- Gain more power from the engine while using less fuel :-)
- Aid with the development of VEMS
A few words on the car:
[Add pic of Griff here]
It's a light (1078kg) 2 seater convertable with a 5 litre Rover v8 engine (only 2 valves per cyl :-( ) made by a small company in Blackpool. There are no active safety features at all, so you have to drive it properly.
Modifications to date are uprated suspension, uprated brakes, polybushes and a large alloy radiator.
VEMS setup:
Since I'm very time limited for the moment, I've gone for a fully assembled genboard 3.3 with all the bells and whistles.
I plan to have fully sequential ignition and injection.
Trigger setup:
Primary: 32-1 tooth wheel and Ford VR sensor
Secondary: modified distributor with hall sensor - the advance and reterd mechanism will be locked and the factory sensor for the timing will be modified to produce one pulse per rotation instead of the usual 4. (I may make this neater in future and put something directly on the cam wheel as this will be 0.01% more efficient ;-) )
Order of work:
Get VEMS up and running in place of the Lucas 14CUX.
Replace ignition system with 8 coilpacks. Shame Subaru ones don't fit - I've got loads of them.
Do some tuning :-D
Tuning:
New exhaust manifolds will find their way on the car as the original ones aren't the best design. Also, the intake system could be redesigned to use 8 throttle bodies. Plenty of scope when there's a nice ECU dealing with it all.
Other plans:
One goal is to reduce the cars fuel consumption. To this end, I will be investigating "displacement on demand" - ie not fuelling certain cylinders depending on the engine loading. This nicely ties in with the actuation routines for traction control - another thing I plan to look at next year.