Category: Powertrain

• Transmission Rebuild
  
  • I ended up dropping the money on a Quaife QDH3Y limited slip differential to drop into the car. It cost about $930 shipped direct from Quaife in the UK. All the US resellers had big markups on the diff. Quaife’s website makes it look questionable as to whether it’s actually in stock or not, but they shipped it relatively fast.
  • The rest of the transmission looked great inside. I had some difficulties finding the correct axle seals for the male axles vs the female axles that I had but otherwise everything came apart and went together as expected. Gave it a fresh coat of paint as well since I didn’t do that the first go around.
• Autocross testing
  
  • Decided to test out the repaired transmission with an autocross at Atlanta Motorsports Park. Seems to work great! It’s definitely a little less noisy than the last OBX one. Hoping this one lasts for quite a while. The car definitely needs some driving improvements on a tight autocross like this. Boost lag is extremely noticable and the braking for such a light car is underwhelming due to the forward bias.
  • My friend is now the caretaker of the Wreck Racing E28 BMW we built in college and it made an appearance at the autocross as well. Man it’s fast!
  • My company Ampere EV had our electric DeLorean serving as the pace car and it participated in the autocross as well. About dead even times with my 818 on the small autocross course.
• Misc Fixes
  
  • The car is already back apart and on jackstands to go through and fix a few more issues I’ve had.
    
    • Fuel filler neck seems to leak fuel in hard right turns with a full tank. I think just some hose clamp adjustment at the gas cap is needed.
    • Front door gap panels need to be made for water resistance.
    • Cleaning up the rear body seams and front fender mold lines to get the car to “10 footer” level appearance. Lot of work for somewhat small results!
    • Replacing the rear hatch struts with 40lb ones. The 30lb ones provided by FFR don’t quite hold it up and it has been a nuisance.
    • 3D printing a new intake mount, maybe with an airbox to come later.
    • Clutch doesn’t quite want to bleed right, not sure if the reservoir is clogged/bad master or if the pedal just needs further adjustment. It simply doesn’t suck in new fluid when trying to bleed it.
• Ampere EV
  • The EV conversion system start-up is coming along well! Continues to take a lot of my time off of things like 818 work, but we’re nearing the end of development of our V1 system and it’s shipping out to customers now. Our product is a fully integrated EV drivetrain that includes everything except for vehicle-specific mounting solutions. Our development and show vehicle is a 1982 DeLorean DMC-12 we have converted with the full suite of products such as air conditioning, power steering, fast charging, etc in addition to our standard battery modules, controllers, and display products.

The Ampere EV Delorean "Ampere One"

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July 2022 Update: Transmission Fixed and Autocross Testing

July 2022 Update: Transmission Fixed and Autocross Testing http://www.818coupe.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/20220618_195625.mp4http://www.818coupe.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/20220618_202336.mp4 Transmission...

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lsumner4July 3, 2022

Feb 2022 Update!: Transmission Failure

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The post July 2022 Update: Transmission Fixed and Autocross Testing appeared first on Lawson's 818C.

Category: Powertrain

• It been a long time since my last update! Some general info here:
  • The car now lives my startup’s headquarters in Dawsonville, GA. Way more space, just no more time!
  • I’ve put about 5,000 miles on the car including a couple track days and autocrosses.
  • Pretty much nothing else has changed (besides what’s below…)! I’ve just been driving it on occasion.
• Transmission Failure
  • While cruising around in North Georgia with some friends, I suddenly lost any drive after a downshift. 5 hours, and one tow, later I was able to easily diagnose the issue. The output of my OBX differential had sheared off on the drivers side – meaning the diff was free to spin as it pleased without providing any torque to the other wheel.
  • Some background here: The transmission in my car is a frankenstein monster that I put together because I was on a college budget and wanted an LSD. Due to a series of unfortunate events I had two separate broken tranmissions (thankfully in different ways). I cobbled the gearset from one with the case, ring, and pinion from the other to make one transmission. I added to this an Ebay-special OBX helical limited slip differential because I could not afford the Cusco unit at the time and honestly I preferred to have a helical anyways. I had initially expected that something with my rebuild had failed but this turned out not to be the case.
  • What this means for me:
    • Replacing the differential requires fully removing the transmission and taking it apart – not a quick job.
    • My “ideal” fix would be to find one of the rare JDM 5-speeds with a front LSD from the factory. These go for about $700-$800 dollars and would drop right in. They have a helical differential in them but I’m not sure from who.
    • If I cannot find a unicorn transmission I can either spend $900 on a Cusco clutch-type differential or I can throw a cheap/free open diff in a call it a day while I wait for the time or money to have something better.
• I will certainly fix it eventually, but tbd on when and how it will get fixed. There are numerous other things on the car I need to fix or finish such as the door sealing, bodywork edges, and fuel tank venting. These may or may not get wrapped into a “Phase 2” of the build.

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July 2022 Update: Transmission Fixed and Autocross Testing

July 2022 Update: Transmission Fixed and Autocross Testing http://www.818coupe.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/20220618_195625.mp4http://www.818coupe.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/20220618_202336.mp4 Transmission...

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lsumner4July 3, 2022

Feb 2022 Update!: Transmission Failure

Elementor #2272 It been a long time since my last...

Read More

lsumner4February 28, 2022

Resuming Work and Interior Finishing

Resuming Work and Interior Finishing Previous Next After a very...

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lsumner4May 27, 2021

New Year, New Job, New Website!

New Year, New Job, New Website! New Job! I have...

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lsumner4January 5, 2021

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The post Feb 2022 Update!: Transmission Failure appeared first on Lawson's 818C.

• Track Day: I took the 818 to its first track day at Atlanta Motorsports park. I got to do 2 sessions of about 10 laps each. Overall the car did great! It was certainly fast and the temperatures all stayed in check throughout the session. The car does need some alignment improvements and working ABS/proportioning is high on my list of fixes. I made a youtube summary video of my thoughts of the car on track. If you’re reading this in email format you’ll have to click the link here: https://youtu.be/ZM5VYiwly_Q
• Intake Plenum
• I built and painted my aluminum intake plenum. It was cut on the waterjet and painted in wrinkle black paint. It appears to work and everything looked great on track so I suppose it’s a win!
• Upcoming Plans
• I have intentions to build a trunk, passenger side mirror mount, interior water fixes, and some body sanding in the next month or so. I will see how much I can get done, but those items would be some great improvements to the driveability of the car.

The post November 2020 Update #3: First Track Day! appeared first on Lawson's 818C.

• Engine
  • So I spent yet another weekend mostly troubleshooting engine issues. I had hoped that the ECU swap would be a nice 10 min fix-everything solution but that was far from the case. I swapped the ECU’s and everything stayed exactly the same which was quite disappointing. I quadruple checked my AVCS wiring and found that I had switched two of the sensor wires side-side (second time I’ve done a similar thing because the plugs change orientation in the pinout instructions). With that fixed, I still had the check engine light but AVCS was working as it should on the new ECU when I logged. So I logged, looked over the logs, logged some more, looked again, got friends to look, etc. I nearly gave up until I remembered someone casually mentioning that some EJ207’s had a IAT sensor in the throttle body which was redundant when the USDM and other cars had one in the MAF as well. Sure enough, unplugging that allowed the check engine light to go away! With how common this swap is, I’m not sure how that info was so hard to find or diagnose. I still have not determined which versions of the EJ207 have the different IAT sensor and which don’t.
  • The car with full boost is fast, very fast. I never drove the old engine at WOT before it died, but this one is quite the thrill! Should be plenty of power for me.
  • I hope my engine work is wrapped up for a while. Ready to move onto something else, anything really, on the build.
• ABS
  • ABS is fully functioning. Wiring all worked perfectly and I can hear the pump run as it activated. I’ll have to get to some better testing facility than my driveway to really evaluate it.
• Seats
  • Seat brackets were cleaned up and painted. Should be ready to go back in the car soon.
• 3D Printing
  • I’m designing revised radiator mounts and a mount for my airbox using CAD and I’m going to 3D print them. The airbox really needs to be secured before I drive it too much more and my radiator mounts could just use some aesthetic improvements.

The post November 2019 Update #2: No More Check Engine Light! appeared first on Lawson's 818C.

• Chassis
  • Reattached rear suspension, axles, and crossmember to put the car back on the ground
  • Bled my clutch line. I’m not sure why exactly, but I have had a very difficult time getting my clutch master to actually suck new fluid out of the reservoir while bleeding. Instead it tries to suck fluid back from the slave (compressing the slave). Sometimes it works and eventually I got it to a useable state. Anyone have advice on this?
  • Fixed my vehicle speed sensor- just a corroded connection in the trans harness connector to the VSS.
• Engine
  • Engine is still running well, but I’m having weird issues while trying to get it to ignore the rear O2 sensor. Right now, I have not finished the exhaust for the new turbo flange so I do not have the rear O2 sensor installed in the exhaust. Because of this, I figured I would delete the codes for the sensor so it doesn’t turn off boost control and set a check engine light. However, deleting the codes did not actually delete the check engine light and in fact set a flashing check engine light instead (no misfires or anything with the engine. Just the same code). It would do this whether I had the O2 sensor plugged in or not. I’m going to hope that installing it correctly will fix all this but I’m at a loss as to what exactly is going on with the whole codes thing.
  • I have found that the BTSSM app and a USB-C to USB-A adapter allow me to use my tactrix cable to connect my phone to the car for logging, code reading, and live gauges. Highly recommend this setup!
• Interior
  • Passenger seat and bracket now installed thanks to some help from a friend (who coincidentally also helped install the driver’s seat). The passenger seat has to be quite upright because of the fuel tank and interior crossbar but FFR doesn’t really seem to have given many options there…oh well I’ll be on the left side most of the time anyways
• Test Drive
  • I drove the car around and overall everything is great! Only had 8psi of boost because of the CEL turning off boost control but my passenger monitored AFR and timing while we drove and everything looked good. Car will be crazy fast with full power. Also, my alignment is in serious need of fixing. The car is darty and all over the place right now but I didn’t have high expectations since I haven’t really put effort into aligning it. So it was driven pretty gently while I work out the bugs but now I’ll finally be able to start sorting a few of those.

The post September 2019 Update #4: Back to Go-Kart appeared first on Lawson's 818C.

• Brakes
  • Lines plumbed to all 4 wheels. Master cylinder lines waiting for a new MC.
  • ABS sensors installed and wiring secured.
  • My NC miata master cylinder didn’t work out… :(. Couldn’t get the front line to clear the frame. Another guy on the forum bought a RHD miata booster+master which I would say is a much better move but I hadn’t thought of that. RHD NC masters are hard to find so I got a mazdaspeed 3 master cylinder for $20. It has a 1″ bore rather than 7/8″ but maybe that’s better for my larger brakes vs the Miata. We shall see. It’s the price to pay for trying new solutions.
• Engine
  • Dyno tuning planned as soon as I get the car go karting and tested a little. Hopefully in a couple weeks or so.
  • BOV fixed- it was missing it’s vacuum port connection so I installed one from a hardware store.
  • Cooling leaks continue (at a decreasing rate at least)! I fixed the coolant pipe adapters except for the one on the water pump. It has a very slow drip still. I also have a mystery coolant drip from somewhere near the oil pump area but I can’t pinpoint where it’s dripping from.
• Small Items
  • E-brake handle partially installed. I appear to be missing the rear tunnel cover from FFR to finish the install. I dug through ALL of my aluminum panels, which there were many.
  • Sealed the passenger side of the firewall and installed the center panel. Driver’s side is staying bolted in but unsealed for a while until everything mechanical is sorted.
  • Seatbelt mounted on the driver’s side. I went through the lower frame rail for the outside attachment and attached the buckle to my seat bracket.

The post March 2019 Update #3: Brake plumbing, seatbelts, still leaking coolant… appeared first on Lawson's 818C.

• Drove the car out of the garage! Only about 10 ft because the brakes are still MIA.
• Rear brake stainless lines installed and mounted to the chassis.
• Cleaned up some loose wiring and such to prepare for go-karting.

• I made some minor changes to these small front supports I have for the seat brackets. They should be welded up this week and hopefully I can finally do a full test fit in the car this coming weekend.

The post March 2019 Update #1: Moving under power, brake lines, leaky coolant connectors appeared first on Lawson's 818C.

• Engine
• 3rd ECU was finally tuneable! I adjusted the fuel injector size and latencies to match the 2005 WRX Sti stock tune which are what my fuel pump, fuel rail, and injectors are from.
• Idle is fixed after finding a open vacuum port on the intake. There are quite a few of these and I forgot to cap a small one on the passenger side of intake that was hidden by the coolant reservoir.
• I had a small coolant leak from the hose used for my “Wayne’s cooling mod” bleed port. Fixed with a correctly-sized hose clamp and the cooling system appears to be purging itself as it should. I’ll need to run the engine more to get all the air out.
• My throttle cable appears to be missing the lead end on the engine side…I’ll reach out to FFR about this.
• Chassis
• ABS pump mounted. I should be ready to plumb brakes once I’m motivated to tackle that job. I mounted it in the same location as a few others on the forum.
• Battery hold-down installed.
• I’m working on designing seat brackets for my Corbeau A4’s. Currently on revision 2 of the design that will bolt down through the floor cross-rails. The mounts will allow me to either bolt directly to the seat (passenger side) or attach Sparco sliders (driver’s side) and should add a few degrees of rearward rake to the seat bottoms.

The post January 2019 Update #2: Engine Idle Fixed, Odds and Ends appeared first on Lawson's 818C.

• The car has finally started without any mechanical carnage! (See video)
• It has a new passenger cylinder head now since the last attempt.
• Engine
• I disassembled the engine while it was still in the car. This involved removing the timing components, turbo, partially removing the intake, the intercooler, misc hoses, and half of the exhaust manifold. All said, quite time consuming but everything was possible to do without pulling the engine. The clearance was very tight for doing the timing components, removing the head, and installing the turbo. I had to shorten my 10mm allen socket so it would be short enough to install the cam pulleys, but nothing else required any modifications or special tools.
• The engine appears to be running pretty well now. I need to tidy up the wiring some more, finishing bleeding the coolant system, and solve the rough idle. I’m not sure what’s causing the rough idle, but the tune is for a stock WRX and not a hybrid motor. My injectors are STi so they’re slightly bigger than stock WRX but only like 100cc. There also could be a small vacuum leak or something I haven’t sealed well enough. Once I get an unlocked ecu I will try adjusting the injector size and see if that solves it.
• Transmission
• Fixed my axle seal leak and replaced the drain plug washer. Then refilled with 3.7Qts of 75w-90 gear oil. So far, the leaks seem to have been fixed  

The post First Start!!!! appeared first on Lawson's 818C.

• Engine
• So…I attempted to start the engine and things did not go as planned. It turned over fine at first. It backfired a couple times for the first crank or two but the engine never started. Then I heard the timing belt slip followed with a noise that I’m pretty sure was the piston and valve hitting but could’ve been some other kind of metallic carnage. So I began the process of pulling spark plugs, timing covers, crank pulley, and removing the timing belt. The passenger side exhaust pulley is very difficult to turn. Hopefully the pistons are alright, but I’m likely replacing the passenger side head. Not sure why any of this happened exactly. I quadruple checked the timing before installing the engine and the tension on the belt was good.
• Cooling system is complete.
• Wiring
• Wiring is finished for all the components currently on the chassis. Only issue I had was diagnosing why the starter wouldn’t trigger. Turned out to be the starter relay in the fusebox.

The post December 2018: First start attempt (ended poorly) appeared first on Lawson's 818C.