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The sense wire is hooked up, the new alternator put out a steady 13.8 Volts with the engine running and most electrical loads on. I'm confident that the failed alternator has a damaged voltage regulator and it finally failed shorted, shooting the voltage up to 17+ volts. The battery took the hit and sacrificed itself to protect the rest of the electronics.
I think the battery size is too small for the engine's cranking amps. Jason and I talked about a temporary installation of a flooded wet cell (ordinary) battery with higher capacity until this gets sorted out. I don't think the extra 30 pounds is going to make much difference for now.
Yeah man - while it's nice to be back at the track, I have to admit, its feeling a little unfamiliar.
So as I mentioned above, I put a new battery in the car to try to rule it out as a contributor to my throttle issue. Before my first session I warmed the car up on the skidpad and it seemed really good - fired up way stronger than it had previously and no throttle issues. I went out on track and tried to reacquaint myself with the car, turned maybe 5 or 6 laps and the ABS warning went off. I felt it out and thought I could continue to drive taking it easy for the seat time. About half a lap later I scanned the gauges and saw that the battery voltage was reading 17 volts - not good (the ABS shuts down in over voltage). I got the car in to the pits and the battery was quite warm (HOT) and had leaked some of its battery juice out. Another first session let down. About this time my Dad arrived and was nice enough to drive to the nearest Oreilly with the alternator I needed, 1/2 hour away and pick it up. An hour later he was back with, the wrong alternator. I called the store and told them what I needed, they said come on back and bring the fried alternator and we'll match it. So back out my Dad went and another hour later he was back with the correct alternator. Aaron and I had it back in the car in under 15 minutes, enough time to get back on track for the last 2 sessions.
The next session was OK, the car really didn't want to start but it did and I ran about half the session, I could hear some noises that I wanted to check out but otherwise the car ran fine and the new alternator was definitely working better than the last. the last session the car was even more reluctant to start but did and I made it through about a lap and change before the throttle quit working. Although I had rigged up away to clear and re-fire the car on track, that only works if the ****ing battery has enough jam to start the car...which it didn't so, another tow off the track for me.
The good - the potential of this car is huge. The engine vitals all seem really good and I am highly confident the parts selection for oil and water cooling will work. The ABS is working which I still think of as an achievement considering the swap to the .1 system. The car sounds amazing and seems to be a smile maker. We managed to acquire and swap an alternator in the middle of the track day despite having to make 2 trips to get the part. The pull of this engine is stupid, the days of getting left behind by a new civic type R are gone and we have enough power to keep up with... pretty much anything ?
The bad - I don't know with great confidence why I am having this issue with the throttle. I am more confident now it has to do with a low voltage battery condition but don't know with certainty. I smoked the brand new battery, that thing is screwed, $160 down the drain. I realized I should have questioned the state of the alternator for 2 reasons - 1. The voltage at idle has been half a volt low and quite jumpy. I kind of thought maybe it was normal for this charging systems... but 2. I had completely forgot but when we were on the dyno the car was hooked up to a jump pack attached to the alternator. At one point early in something shorted and the alternator threw spares like the 4th of July - after a couple anxious moments, everything seemed to be working fine and I subsequently pretty much forgot it ever happened. In retrospect, it's pretty clear the alternator was hurt then and I should have called into question the lower than expected charging voltage.
More bad - I have no confidence in the car and my driving SUCKS and I would say, I have no confidence in it either, there were a lot of fast cars on track today and I was the guy I bitch about just not keeping the pace - I am spending a lot of mental horsepower when on track questioning and comparatively little driving. Mentally, things are really sped up and I'm feeling behind. At this rate, it's going to take a lot of seat time to get back to the comfort level I am accustomed to.
Anyway, I'm off to buy another battery.
What have you done with grounding? When we add more load to the electrical system (or more charging capability) we have found that a second engine ground is essential to proper operation of the car as a whole. Doing this has increased the capability of the starter to spin the engine over better,. This has solved almost every voltage issue that we've encountered in the past couple of years.
You might at least try adding a second ground to the engine/ chassis. To test this I have ran jumper cables from the engine all the way to the battery to see if starting RPM/ strength is increased. It takes large cables to see any difference when doing this test due to the distance..
An inductive meter around the positive lead can help find losses as well, while on the starter.
People often think that voltage issues are only from the + side. A wise man that thinks outside the box taught me that the ground side is where I always need to start.
I recently dealt with these losses and solved the whole issue with a second large diameter ground wire running to a perfectly clean spot on the chassis. In that situation I also found the stock single ground wire was internally corroded and had turned green. Replacing the ground helped a bit...... adding the second ground changed the game.
Engine has 2 grounds off it. One to factory ground stud location and another to the opposite frame rail.
The in chassis ground runs from battery to another factory ground location on the tunnel with the solid state kill switch (itself grounded to chassis) in between.
Engine has 2 grounds off it. One to factory ground stud location and another to the opposite frame rail.
The in chassis ground runs from battery to another factory ground location on the tunnel with the solid state kill switch (itself grounded to chassis) in between.
This is one if the problems with dedicated track or off road vehicles. Its basically trial by fire when u finally get the car into its arena. Without being able to just drive it around on the street it takes a long time to debug. The motor will get there and then u can work on the suspension. It just takes time and money .
So trying to find a way to describe just how much harder the car accelerates now and hopefully I can use data to paint the picture.
The log below is a lap from the new setup (green) and old (brown).
The story begins at the beginning of the straight, far left on the graph in the pink box where my entry speed with the new setup is down around 21MPH. Now, entry speed into a straight will have a huge impact on top speed obviously. What is so telling is that despite that huge disadvantage, the new setup blew by the old setup at about 115MPH. Now there is a ton of ugly in that log - mainly I am slow as **** but I need you to look past that for purposes of this conversation - that is all on me, not the car (well, kinda the car cause I was waiting for it to stop responding to throttle inputs at any second but you get the idea).
This means that it took the same distance for the new setup to go from 70MPH to 115MPH as it took the old to go from 90MPH to 115MPH and you can see how above the crossover just how much harder the new setup is pulling compared to old. Think about that for a second.
Despite me being a big ***** - I still managed to quite accidentally hit my fastest top speed ever at Thompson at 131MPH.
Even with the frustration with this throttle issue/charging system (I'm convinced all the same issue), if feels pretty cool to have a fast car, a proper blow the doors off **** fast car.... Now if I can only learn how to drive it fast.
Holy crap! It's coming... Same entry speed, you be above 140 when it's time to brake. It's coming...
Yeah - I'm kinda thinking the same thing... 7500 RPM in 4th should be about 140 MPH, I thought through no scientific research that would be enough hence the 7500 RPM rev limit and now I'm thinking maybe shift into 5th and not work the motor so hard since it seems like I may need more MPH anyway.
Been a long time since I've updated the thread.... and that's cause I have done no, none, zero, zilch car stuff. Work and travel and travel and work....
But... I saw my buddy @Matt Romanowski got these gucci CF dash hoods and despite the fact I would normally hack something up to accomplish this task they were too nice not to pull the trigger on. It's going to look really good and keep the glare off the windshield which was a thing. Hoping I can get a couple more opportunities on track before everything shuts down... Also, started putting together my list of things I already want to change on the car for next season and will go into those in the not too distant future. A lot of small stuff.
Been a long time since I've updated the thread.... and that's cause I have done no, none, zero, zilch car stuff. Work and travel and travel and work....
But... I saw my buddy @Matt Romanowski got these gucci CF dash hoods and despite the fact I would normally hack something up to accomplish this task they were too nice not to pull the trigger on. It's going to look really good and keep the glare off the windshield which was a thing. Hoping I can get a couple more opportunities on track before everything shuts down... Also, started putting together my list of things I already want to change on the car for next season and will go into those in the not too distant future. A lot of small stuff.
Didnt understand those part. Where do you have to mount it?
Well, with regards to getting the car back on track before the season ends, as so often when one hopes, one ends up in disappointment - I put the car to bed today and I'm on to 2024 planning. There were too many small things I wanted to address so I could free up some mental horsepower while on track to focus on driving what feels like a different car. The throttle issue and weirdness with the battery need to be sorted and I just have not had the time to do that satisfactorily.
So, getting the car ready for winter had to happen today as we are going to have some cold temps coming in the next couple days and given the car only had water in it, I didn't want to find a cracked block in a couple days - I don't know how likely that is to happen but I know... I really didn't want it to. So, kicked couple'ish gallons of water out and refilled with dexcool. Got the system bled so I'm confident the soup is mixed and took it for a quick lap around the block before pulling it into the garage - the sensation of driving the car on the road is pretty hillarious.
I'm biased but man o man do I enjoy listening to this thing chug away at idle.
Now she's back in the garage on stands and I'm getting together the off season list, I'll likely post some info on the plan in the next week or so as I decide on some things.
I wish I was able to get more track time, for me and all the people who have followed the build. There are a lot of things I'm happy about with the way the car has come together, built my first engine and it works and makes jam, plumbed my first dry sump system, integrated a PDM and all the systems it controls work as I want them to, got the .1ABS system working as if it came in the car to begin with, the turbo cooling system and oil cooler so far seem like they are working perfect, but, I am disappointed I wasn't able to really get a return on the investment this year. I am 100% confident, I will make the car better this off season. With so many big ticket items requiring big cash outlays last year, there were areas I just didn't have the financial bandwidth to invest what I would like. With the big stuff behind me, I'll have a little more flexibility this off season to upgrade and add to the smaller stuff.
Anyways, thanks to the folks that have passed along words of encouragement and those just following along, I appreciate the support and especially thanks to the guys that have helped with technical stuff and hands on with the car.
10-02-2023, 12:23 PM
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