JP's 220+bhp NA 16v Mango Westcoast - 2015 updates!

[hard_corejoeboy]

221??!! Blimey from.a 1.6 non turbo!!

That must feel awesome! Bhp/tonne is pretty special too.

Nah my Twingi is has been too busy breaking slave cylinders at Bedford to do do anything like that haha. First unreliable french car i've had although something french has still not stopped me from getting home so it could be worse...

[wrighty89]

Originally Posted by jpsaxo

If you came to Trax you'd know

805kg with half a tank of fuel, 221bhp @ fly & 150lbft torque

Stonking figures there and I bet the driveability is amazing. Would it be safe to say this engine build was in double figures in terms of thousands (£)?

Very interested in the design of the manifold, whats the rest of the system like? 2 boxes? What tailpipe did you go for?

[Ryanp]

Cant believe you are pissing off to OZ again Josh.

You should ship the thing out there and go attack Bathurst.

[Sandy309]

As promised, some pics from the build. Aside from the waiting list, it takes me about 4 months to put an engine together like this one. I have other stuff going on around it obviously, it's not a solid start to finish build. Many custom parts need to be sourced, I need to make some of them and some processes I like to do in stages, like porting the head; if I can get it to a stage and leave it for a few days and come back to it, I see it in a clearer more objective light than just locking the door until it's done! Managing the way I work is as important to the quality of the build as the engineering.
I'll detail some of the stuff, but alot will remain undisclosed, because I don't want to give away too much of how I get the engine to work the way I want! Power is an important objective, but the way the power is delivered is every bit as important and I also aim to design in reliability, durability, ease of use and ease of maintenance. My race engines come back every one to two seasons for rebuilding and I like to make that process as simple and enjoyable as possible, but decisions and tweaks made in the first build.

Turning the valves. I can't get the exact size and shape valves I want off the shelf and because I'm always making slight variations to the spec to try and improve the engines, I can't afford to tie myself to a bulk order. So I buy blanks and perform the finishing and groove cutting myself. Faces are finished on a Serdi valve grinding machine for high precision and equality.


Block bored and honed in the wash tank before being decked and surface ground


Crank getting a clean after journal polishing. I don't grind or lighten the cranks, I use low mileage ones that polish easily and balance them, that's all; the severe lightening I've seen some do worries me greatly!


About ready for first dry build


Custom CP pistons laid out. This is an "X-forging" slipper design, extremely strong, light and low friction, but thanks to good design and material, durable too. Much less likely to fail by fracture too if things go a bit wrong; that may seem an odd priority, but engine failure can and sometimes does occur, if you use the right bits then secondary failures can do alot more damage than the primary cause. Alot more expense and down time for a race engine!


Pulleys, springs etc. Double springs are used, by Piper in this case. Their springs are extremely consistent and reliable, something that has been an issue for me in the past with other suppliers.


Plastigauge on all bearings, a quick and easy way to check built up clearances. Assume nothing, check everything!


Checking ring gaps, should be checked at various depths in the bore to get a braod view. Piston can be used to push it in square, skewed it will mis-read. I use conventional ring packs, witnessed alot of misery and frustration with "Total Seal" etc types. CPs ring packs generally need little or no gapping if the bore is correct and bed in wonderfully quick on a suitably honed bore.


Block surface ground and painted, no core plugs as yet though. Surface grinding the head gasket faces ensures ultimate precision and the perfect finish for an MLS gasket. Precision is the groundwork of reliability.


Onto slightly cruder matters. Scummy seal housings don't do any harm, but if you have access to a vapour blaster and make sure they're properly cleaned of media after, can be nice.

[welshpug]

ahhh Mike does make an awesome exhaust, full system?

[Sandy309]

Skimming off the inlet and exhaust gasket faces, fly cutting is fine for this! Makes the seal more reliable if you have a nice clean face and looks nice too


Head just about ready, another wash before another dry build!


Inlet manifold ported and ready. I make a specific GSXR bodies set up for the race engines, slightly bigger bodies, different shape tracts to suit the ported head (ported with the head, so even better than "Direct to head" type bodies), twin injectors and trumpet profile I've evolved to create the right pulse tuned response with the race engine package.


Lots of nice shiny and mostly new bits. I favour genuine for most of the seals, gaskets etc; quality is consistent and often cheaper than aftermarket bizarrely.


New core plugs going into the block. They don't ever really need to be replaced in these engines, but looks right!


Checking crank end float. You can see some surface rust on the block, despite the care I take to avoid it! Note gasket lines not painted to ensure a good face for the sealant. I hate oil leaks and it cleans up easier like that during a rebuild.


Head, ladders and cams laid out ready for valve clearance machining.




Pistons going in for the last time. I have sleeve type ring compressors for my regular bore sizes, much much gentler and easier to use than clamp type.


Checking valve to piston drop before the head's final assembly. I've already worked it out, but a physical check confirms it and informs me the safe amount of cam swing. My cam timing in this package is a fixed value really after extensive engine dyno testing of various configurations, but I prefer to know and have good notes, in case I discover a better way in the future.


Bottom end nearing completion! Note Peugeot Sport sump baffle. I know cheaper ones are available, but the manufacturing quality of this kit is the best I've seen We've considered making out own version, but we'd struggle to do it this well for the money, even with the machine and fabrication resources we have. I also much prefer the main bolt mounting to the faff of multiple gasket faces with a sandwich type. When you have to reliably seal and then clean and reseal at rebuild time, it starts to matter!


More from the final stages and mapping etc later.

[Alanaponep]

What a great few pages of updates!!!

I don't know if anyone's done it yet but using your atf figures and the weight at TRAX your at 274.5BHP/T!!!!!!!!!

Holy CRAP dude!!!

ps, Sorry for looking mongish in the award photo!! Was knackered by then!

Well done.

[hard_corejoeboy]

I figured it would be high as a guess but didn't realise it was that high! Blimey a focus rs is around 203bhp/tonne!

Sandy how the hell do you get into your job lol i mean how do you end up doing that stuff with your life i mean its pretty specialist?!

[unreal106]

Sandy - thank you for this little insight into engine buildin from your self like your notes after every image and good work on keeping the best bits covered up it takes a long time to develop these things to have someone steal the ideas would be horrible!

just a couple of questions have you used some form of grease on the oil pump chain?

and if you don't mind what finish is on the inlet tract? 320 grit level or higher?

[unreal106]

also is the plastigauge measured in mm or inch? which way round have you got the card there?

[Beaniemoo]

I am über jealous of this engine!
Amazing build!?
Wish there was some way within the realms of possibility that I could have one of these engines!

[Sandy309]

Joe- I'll spare you the long version, but it's quite accidental really. Cars have been a life long obsession and despite my parents' best efforts to steer me into something more glamorous (I studied yacht design), I've always built and modified my own cars as a hobby. Through that I met John Read (JRE racing engines), Mark Shillaber (SRD) and Colin Satchell. I became friends with them and John and Mark nurtured my mapping skills to the point where they offered to employ me to do it and make looms for them; so I left my "proper" job and went full time on this (2006). That work remains my main work, Colin and I are close friends and he's given me alot of machining and engineering skills; which I've honed through working with Pete Willis (PWE), who's renowned for his high precision and also ports heads for several well known engine builders! Pete has an engine building history to be envied, going back to Brian Hart, when they were building the works Escort engines (BD series). Building engines to a decent standard is a very tough way to make money and if anything goes wrong, you're pretty much instantly going into loss; so I limit the number I do, to ensure I can keep doing it well and the mapping/loom work I do for others is really what puts bread on the table. The engines I build now are almost exclusively for competition; but the occasional interesting road/track engine is nice to do if it's going to be a well thought out project.

Tom- Grease on oil pump chain is Graphogen. It's pretty horrible stuff, which gives black globs in the oil for a couple of changes after the build, but it hangs on really well to ensure good lubrication on first start up. If an engine is going straight on the dyno, I use less of that and more oil, but I knew this one would be stood around for a week or two and oil will then drain away.
Don't really want to give away how I get the tract finish TBH, but flash photography always makes porting look rougher than it is, so a bit of a distraction!
Plastigauge being used in imperial. I use thou on smaller tolerances and mm on bigger measurements! I have to be bi-focal on this, Some of the machines I use are imperial and some are metric; hopefully keeps my brain alive.

Moving on a bit... Come the end of July, I was closing in on my much anticipated week off at the start of August and Josh's target date for going to the ring was looming. It was starting to look a bit too optimistic for him to make that, but I kept trying anyway. I don't like sending engines, because of the risks involved (I've known friend's engines get damaged or go missing all together in transit!) So I was relieved that Josh came to collect it. I normally engine dyno all my engines now (mainly to ensure they run ok and run them in before fitting), but that would have meant a couple extra days and this spec is so well practiced and the package so developed, that any data is likely to be repeated. You can see I run a nose mounted crank trigger on this spec, combined with our own steel flywheel. Colin prepares me a special version of his crank pulley kit for that purpose.


Josh had modified the bulkhead for a bit more induction room without the engine. We have to dress the scuttle back or cut it away to get sufficient clearance for the layout I use, so I supplied him with as much information as I could on what was needed. It did fit, which is a credit to the mods, but only just and might well be a bit restrictive as it is!


It was fine though and after a bit of an epic sorting out all the issues around the 7.25" race clutch, Josh had it ready in the car once I was back from holiday. Early on it didn't go well, there were a few issues with the interior loom that had been modified, some of which we had to solve there and then, some of which I had to work around. A faulty oil pressure switch also caused some concern until we found out what was wrong!! I have already put alot of time to refining the ignition map for this spec on previous race engines and once the lead angle was calibrated (a very important mapping basic that's often not corrected!!) it was quickly running smoothly and I started to put some miles on it to let it settle down.


The rollers I'm using here are a good old fashioned set of Sun RAM XII, the mainstay of the industry for many years and a perfect donkey machine for the sort of setting up I do. More modern equipment can produce nice looking graphs and give a convincing impression of accuracy in many cases, but all I'm interested in here is to run it in, making sure it drives correctly and has clean fueling and ignition properties throughout the range. Running in can be a laborious process for some engines, but the precision, machining methods and materials I use mean that within a few hours, it'll be pretty much as good as it'll ever be and should give long service with minimal attention.

Once I started to drive through the outer areas of the range, it became clear that there was some sort of fueling issue. No matter how much injector duration or pump enrichment I added, it couldn't quite keep pace and went lean. Beyond 7000rpm it was really getting iffy and I deduced the most likely cause to be the fuel pump. My race engines are usually in cars with custom tanks and pumps, so I've never had this problem before. Once the map was essentially sound, bar the upper extremes, I set a lower rev limit (8000rpm) and advised Josh that it would be ok to drive home to fix the problem, but care should be taken!

Once Josh was ready to go, I asked him to brim the tank up the road, then again when he got home (250 odd miles) and report the miles and litres, to give me an idea on economy. He did and I was surprised but pleased to see 37.9mpg!

In the interim, Josh sourced an uprated pump and although driving carefully, sent me regular reports about the performance! He took it to a local rolling road shoot out as it was and although it was clearly not running correctly, it still showed 211bhp and 149lbft.


Once the pump was fitted, he drove back down to me so I could properly finish the map with a decent fuel supply. It was transformed, it was only now I could see how bad the fuel supply was before and it felt and sounded stronger everywhere. I raised the rev limit to 8800rpm, it's safe to go higher, but my engines don't generally need to be revved high to perform, due to the low down power and flexibility; so it's preferred to keep the limit sensible.
Once the map was perfected in the rollers, I wanted to see what the fueling was like on the road, as with the changes in air delivery at speed, it often differs. With Josh driving I watched how it went. 1st-2nd-3rd were really an assault on the transmission and tyres and it became clear that it needed more fuel over the top (7k+) than in the rollers, by up to 7%. I regularly see this with testing on rally cars etc and makes me wonder how many purely rolling roaded cars are seeing ideal AFR out in use. I've corrected cars this way in the past and when one was taken to a well known rolling road for a magazine article, they reported it was rich over the top; well if they'd have tested it as thoroughly as I did... they'd know why!

On his way back home again, I asked Josh to do the brim thing again, once home he left it overnight and cold started before re-filling, with the improvements it now gave a simply astonishing 43.5mpg! Some of my race customers have reported improvements from about 1.1 down to 0.7 litres per lap with my engine over their previous ones; so I knew I was getting good efficiency, but bloody hell!

Josh was able to pop back to the same rollers and drop it in again. As mentioned above, it's probably a bit rich over the top now and a slight wobble in the curve would suggest that, but nevertheless, 221bhp at 8750rpm and 151lbft at 6850rpm are in the right area, about 5% less power/torque than the best I've seen from this spec on the engine dyno, but could be partly down to the engine bay and rolling road variation. But the curve is plain to see. It's almost standard for other engine builders to question my engine dyno figures, in particular the curves my engines generate. Well, say what you like about the figures (race results kinda back them up), but i don't think you can argue with the curve!


Thanks to Josh for his faith throughout the project and all the fine souls that continue to help and support me

[unreal106]

thanks sandy - i appreciate the finish is hard to give away but that is enough information for me I understand now what has gone on. thanks

great work as always well done!

[welshpug]

just had a flick through, poor MA box

[Rossp]

Excellent report sandy. Well done again.

Congratulations josh for owning it!

[Ryanp]

Thanks for the write up sandy.

Nice to see the curve, a lot of us have dips at certain RPMs with different set ups so shows how well thought out the pulse tuning as well as the rest of the build is thought out.

[LEE_VTR1]

sandy brown that's an epic write up and after experiencing a passenger ride in this car it's an animal.. so smooth on delivery and just so astonishing well put together.

you sir are a legend amongst men! fair play sandy!

[rich112]

Was excellent to see josh, looked great on track. Sandy, just amazing build.

[unreal106]

Lee how wild you say it compared to Danny's when low boosted?

[Alanaponep]

AWESOME write up Sandy

So not only are you getting 274.5 Bhp/ton but your getting 43.5mpg as well!!! What an absolutely amazing piece of engineering! I can't believe the performance that these little engines can have squeezed out of them when setup and run properly. I genuinely am in total awe of this build. Well done.

Some may accuse me of blowing smoke up your arses but you know what, I could think of worse things to be accused of lol!