Banjo

Yep ! Always need that cooling water ! Was thinking about "plopping" it all in my neighbours "swimming pool", but She is a bit of a dragon, so I don't think that would end nicely. The electical generator has always been my preferred option. I guess I am still going to need a clutch & a straight through gearbox, to actually get it started, & up & away. Talking about starting; I'm actually experimenting at present. Lots of people complain, about no instant starting with ECUs, as it can take "up to two revolutions of the crankshaft, before the ECU "synchronises", & then fires a spark plug for the first time. Some ECUs apparently, start in waste spark, & then as soon as it fires, it switches back over to sequential ignition & injectors. I'm looking at a way of getting it to fire within 1/4 of a turn of the crankshaft, under the starter motor. Requires another sensor, but that's no big deal. Just drilling up a new trigger wheel/disk, to see if it is possible. Would love to get away from having that "missing tooth" requirement, on the primary crank trigger wheel. What system do you use on Josh's rally cars ? Cheers Banjo

Not quite to that point, as yet. Think you & I canvassed this idea some time back. Have looked at a few utube videos, for D.I.Y. at home; using water type engine dynos, which can be tricky. Simplest system seems to be to use a automatic transmission torque converter, from a car a bit bigger than our Rollas, & hang a bar off it rotationally, to which we can add or subtract weights, to produce a quanative load, in foot pounds or whatever ? Any suggestions grately received. Cheers Banjo

Tah Luca ! Yes it is a lot of fun. I'm not an expert on these things. Expert: Ex = A has Been Spurt = A Drip Under Pressure I'm learning just like everyone elso, but appreciate all the feedback & info that others put on the web & RC Forum, so feel obliged to list here, anything I discover, or gain an understanding of. They say a picture tells a thousand words, so that makes it more interesting. At the moment, I'm toying with the idea, of trying out a three sensor system, instead of two. If you go for a waste spark, & batch injector system, you can get away with a single crank sensor system, using a missing tooth trigger wheel. With crank + camshaft position sensor, you can do full sequential ignition & injector firing, but the crankshaft trigger wheel, must still have a missing tooth/teeth. With three (3) sensors, you can also do full sequential ignition & injectors, but you don't have to use a missing tooth crankshaft trigger wheel. The missing tooth/teeth wheels seem to cause a lot of issues, when sensors miss reading a tooth. Without a missing tooth, the RPM information is updated more often, & is more accurate. I already have a third sensor on the flywheel, which would very accurately provide the exact position of the crankshaft. You can achive the same, by looking for the next tooth, on the crankshaft trigger wheel, after the camshaft position pulse. However, the camshaft pulse timing can vary due to slop/wear/etc. in the timing chain & sprocket, & distributor/oil pump lelical gear. I'm not sure that a lot of aftermarket ECUs provide a decoder, to accomplish this. Need to do a bit more research. If anyone on here has "been there", or has info on this aspect, I'd love to here from you. Cheers Banjo

The circuit itself is quite simple. The Hall Effect device Proximity switches I used (NJK5002C), actually have an LED built into the case at the back, where the lead comes out. However, I wanted to have both LEDs in one location, where you could view them side by side. In practice, the Hall Sensors are located in the 'Camshaft Position" dizzy on the side of the engine; & the Crankshaft position trigger wheel, is down at the very bottom of the front of the engine; rendering it difficult to view both LEDs directly, at the same time. As the Hall Effect sensors are powered by 12Vdc, I wanted to ensure the signal sent to the ECU trigger inputs for cam & crank, were optically coupled; which helps reduce any hash on the 12 volt line, being transmitted to the ECU trigger inputs. The MOC5007 does this well, with a photo diode internally, which completely isolates the input from the output of the device. As well as that, the MOC5007, has an Schmitt differential hysteresis final stage; which again, helps produce a very clean output signal. The output is an open collector output, so that its output load can be tied to a supply other than 12 volts, if necessary. I have chosen to tie it to 5V, so that the signal can be directly fed to the ECU, which will have a 5 volt rail, in the case of the Speeduino ECU. The 10K ohm load resistors could possibly be omitted, as most ECU crank & cam inputs, have pull-up load resistors, either permanently in place, or optional, with a link or the like. The "Crankshaft output signal" from the MOC5007 is fed directly to the “clock input” of a CMOS 4060 counter IC (pin 11). The counter, has it's initial count set to zero, at power up, by a monostable pulse directed to the "reset input" (pin 12). The counter then starts counting from zero, & will produce a output at a count of 32, which is turned into a monostable pulse, to drive the BC547 transistor & “crank pulse” LED. There is enough drive, to do away with transistor, if the LED is needed to be powered by the 5 volt DC supply. So a simple circuit that works well, & although not totally required, for ECU operation, will make trouble shooting & understanding the operation of the crank & cam shaft inputs very clear. Note: Just a word of warning. The NJK5002C Hall Effect sensors have an unusual colour coding for the three wires coming out of them. Brown: +ve supply voltage 6-36V DC Black: Open Collector switched output Blue: -ve supply connection

One of the problems with trigger wheels, is the need for specialised equipment, to check that the multiple critical timing signals, from the crank & camshaft position sensors, are working properly. There was something to be said for the simplicity of the “Kettering System”; we are used to; where if your engine did not fire, you quickly removed the dizzy cap, & could quickly decide what was the culprit; sometimes just visually, or with a simple screwdrive & trouble light. With the trigger wheel in particular, this becomes even more critical, once you understand how the ECU interprets the signals coming from the VR or Hall Effect Sensor. eg: If the air gap of the sensor from the trigger wheel teeth, was a little wide on just one or two teeth, such that a signal was not produced from those particular teeth; then those missing pulses, to the ECU; could well appear as if they were the intentional missing teeth on the trigger wheel, & throw the complete timing out. Take the case of say a destroyed/missing magnet, due to being dislodged by the centrifugal forces on it. Same result; the timing gets thrown out completely. I decided that I would build a simple opto-coupler & LED visual system, that allowed very simple & quick, verification, that the signals from both crank & cam sensors were working correctly, while cranking the engine. The results were a simple small “black box”, housing the electronics, with two (2) visible LEDs, that was mounted near the front of the engine. Placed there, it could be viewed, if for instance, you were turning over the engine by hand, very slowly; to check whether every tooth, or magnet, in the trigger wheel, was creating a pulse. I posted a picture of this little box, earlier in this thread. However, there was an issue. When the engine was being cranked, with 35 magnets (36 – 1) producing 35 pulses every revolution, visually; you cannot see the clear make & break of each trigger wheel transition, & the LED looks like a blur, for the crankshaft LED pulses. So I decided that if I built a counter, that counted the individual teeth/magnet signals, & only produced a LED pulse once the count was reached; say once per rev; it would clearly indicate that all was good. I would still retain the LED that indicated every tooth or magnet transition, so that you could turn the crankshaft over with a ratchet & socket, & see every individual tooth pulse, if needed. The result was even better than I envisaged. The counter I used had an output for a count of 32, which was close enough to one revolution of the trigger wheel/disk. I could have made it count exactly to 35, or 36; but that would have required an extra IC chip, & the result would not be noticeable. Cranking the engine with the spark plugs removed; which is the fastest cranking speed possible, gave a clear visual indication of the cam, crankshaft pulses, plus a clear LED pulse output for approximately every revolution of the crankshaft. The resulting box is shown below. I’ll drawn the circuit up, & post it on here, with a description of its operation; in case there is someone on here that wants to replicate it. Cheers Banjo

I read a couple of stories on the web, regarding some people poorly fitting trigger wheels to engines, where the results have been catastrophic. It led me to research the use of a harmonic balancers, in general, & on K series engines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_damper Torsional twisting, flexing, & vibration are typically more common in long crankshafts, such as are found in straight six & eight cylinder engines. It occurred to me, that our little K series engine did not fall into that category, so why did Toyota feel the need to fit a harmonic balancer. The K series engine, also has a main bearing on the crankshaft between each & every cylinder, so should theoretically, be pretty safe. Bearing in mind that 1200cc K Series engines, were successfully used in midget dirt track racing cars in previous decades, at rev limits at least twice what they were designed, would I have thought; proven them almost unbreakable. In fact, I believed the only K Series engine that was fitted with a harmonic balancer, was the 5K; however, I have since discovered that there were some 4K engines that came out with harmonic balancers fitted, & I presume the 7K had them also. Even the very simple & small crankshaft pulley fitted on the 3K engine, were balanced at the factory, as the few I have on the shelf here, all have 1, 2, or 3 balancing drillings on the rear of the pulley. The crankshaft pulleys on the 3K & 4K, were also quite small in diameter, compared to the much larger diameter, fitted to the 5K. When fitting a trigger wheel, to the crankshaft pully, the bigger the diameter, & the more trigger teeth; & the faster the ECU can respond to crankshaft rotational speed changes. The problem appears to be, that the trigger wheels themselves are not balanced, & in many cases, the reason the trigger wheel, failed; was because it was attached; (even welded), to the outer harmonic balancer pulley itself. It was for this exact reason, that I made my trigger wheel 150mm in diameter, which is only a little bigger in diameter, than the 5K pulley outer diameter. That also accommodated a 36-1 configuration, & still left sufficient distance between the rare earth magnets, to obtain very clear switching transitions, which I have checked on my oscilloscope. It is also, one of the reasons, why I made my trigger when out of aluminium, rather than steel. I have a similar sized steel trigger wheel, which I bought on line, & it weighs 550gm (over half a kilo). By comparison, the aluminium trigger wheel, also 6mm thick, like the steel one; weighs just 200 gm. The other issue that makes the steel trigger wheel an issue, is that the majority of trigger wheels have either one or two missing teeth, at one position. The lack of two teeth; naturally create an imbalance, but most trigger wheel manufacturers, simply drill a hole in the trigger wheel, close to the outside; exactly opposite the missing tooth/teeth, to compensate. Because my aluminium trigger disk, does not use teeth at all, the only imbalance would be one 4mm x 5mm rare earth magnet, whose weight is tiny. I can easily drill, at 180 deg., to compensate, for the missing magnet, or just not drill out one hole. I also took care, in ensuring that the trigger wheel/disk, was only attached physically, to the crankshaft pulley “centre piece"; & spaced off the centre piece, so it cleared the pulley grove section of the harmonic balancer. The real beauty of using aluminium wheel, & the tiny rare earth magnets, is that you aren’t confined to using the traditional VR (variable reluctance) sensors, whose output signal needs conditioning; before it can be used reliably, by the ECU. The only disadvantage I can envisage using magnets; is that they may attract, iron filings, to attach to the disk. Might be an issue, if you plan on driving your Rolla around the Pilbara area of W.A., but should not be an issue on sealed roads. The worst case scenario, would probably require a little fixed brush in place to keep the face of the trigger wheel free of debris. Cheers Banjo

Received an email from T3 this morning, including a gallery of pics they took at the above event. For those of you, who love looking at restored classic Toyotas; where attention to detail, & money has no limits, you will enjoy scrolling through these pics on the T3 FaceBook site. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.5630226273683848&type=3 Enjoy ! Cheers Banjo

Good news indeed, Luca ! Always a sinking feeling, when you have spent precious bread; on something, like an engine; & then face the thought, you might have bought a lemon. All good from here on in. Keep us in the loop. P.S. where are you located geographically ? Cheers Banjo

Can't help you, I'm afraid, but my guess is, you've been watching this video ? https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x31kxgi Cheers Banjo

That's why the distributor is so importantant to the operation of the oil lubrication system. No distributor; then the oil pump cannot be turned. In motors where I have done away with the distributor altogether, I have used a cut down dissy base, with a cap, purely to drive the oil pump. Hope you have some good news to tell us tomorrow. Cheers Banjo

Hui Luca, Here is a pic that clearly shows the oil pressure to the head, passing through the camshaft bearing journal once every two rotations, of the crankshaft. Hope that solves your problem. Just hook up a battery, & turn over the engine. If that is not possible, then drive the oil pump, via your drill & screwdriver blade, & get a second person to slowly turn over the engine with a 17mm ring spanner on the crankshaft pulley centre bolt, until the camshaft holes line up, & you hopefully will witness oil squirting out of the hole you circled, on the block. P.S. Don't forget to put the dizzy back in, if you are using the starter motor to turn it over, as it needs that, for the oil pump to turn. Let us know how you go. Cheers Banjo

Hi Luca, I'll pull out the "yellow Bible", on the K Series engine, & see if I can't scan the relevant part about the lubrication system. I keep forgetting you are not turning the engine over with the starter motor. Is that not possible. I note it is connected, in your pic, on this thread. Cheers Banjo

Your issues, triggered a memory of such an issue I had with a K Series engine years ago. You might like to read this thread, where others pitched in with ideas. https://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/5130-oil-pressure-problems/#comments The Ryco site doesn't list the Z386 oil filter as being suitable for the K Series engine. Cheers Banjo

So if there is no oil coming out that circled hole to the second rocker shaft mount, from the front, you can be quite sure, that the issue is in the bottom half of the engine. I just looked up a Z386 Ryco, which is one I have on the shelf here, for a later model Toyota Corolla or Echo, my daughter or wife has. The Ryco one specified for the 5K, as well as other K Series engines is the Z68. I tend to use the Z423, which has an anti drain back valve, which the Z68 doesn't have, off memory. the Z423 is also used by some Merc models. The Z386 is quite a small filter physically, by comparison, to the original Z68, specified for the 5K engine. Have you got a picture of the Z386 filter mounted on the block ? It has a pressure relief valve & an anti drain back valve built in, but not an anti syphon valve. I'm now wondering wether there is someting wrong in the filter department, that is draining the oil straight back into the sump. The only other place, short of leaving a bearing slipper out, during reassembly, would be something to do with the timing chain tensioner, or oil squirter, for the chain. We are fast running out of alternatives, to dropping the sump, as I believe the engine, is already in the car. Cheers Banjo

Hi Luca, What is the brand & model number of the oil filter on your 5K engine ? I'm presuming it was brand new, when it was fitted to this engine, that has never run. It just sounds to me, like you might have an oil filter with a faulty high pressure valve, or the like. If in any doubt, then simply replace the filter with a brand new one, & see if that changes the results, you are currently getting. It's an initial cheaper option than getting the sump off. P.S. Does this 5K block have hydraulic or solid lifters. 5K blacks were manufactured with both configurations. Was the 5K convertered to solid lifters, at some time ? P.S.S. Did the rocker shaft supports have any shims under them, between base & the head ? Have heard of oil pressure issues, sometimes, if a solid lifter conversion, is not carried out properly. Cheers Banjo