Toyota Corolla project

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greenamex2
Posts: 14
Joined: Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:08 pm

Toyota Corolla project

Post by greenamex2 »

This section of the board was looking lonely so I thought I would post what I am working on in conjunction with Ryan.

I race a Toyota Corolla GT (AE86) in the Classic Modified Saloons championship. It has had Weber Alpha fuel injection since 1994 and, through successive development is now up to 215BHP and 9500RPM. The car has won it class in various championships five times and holds numerous class lap records, so it goes pretty well.

For anyone that knows, the big disadvantage of the Weber alpha system is it can't be programmed by the user, you have to take it to one of a small number of places that aren't particularly conveniently located. With that and the fact that I wasn't overly impressed when I sat next to the guy doing the mapping led me to look at the whole ECU and intake system which hadn't really changed in over ten years.

After hundreds of hours of research (beats working) I came to the conclusion that pretty much everything was wrong and it would be easier to start all over again.

The existing faults are -

- The inlet manifold wasn't matched to the head (long story)
- The injectors are too close to the valves for the RPM being used
- The throttle butterflies are too close to the valves for the RPM being used
- The overall system length is too short.
- The inlet manifold is seriously 'kinked' due to the need to match throttle bodies with a 90mm bore spacing to ports with a 75mm spacing.
- The inlet manifold is also 'kinked' up due to the requirement to clear the clutch master cylinder I no longer have.
- The above two problems also mean that cylinder 1 & 4 and 2 & 3 have different intake lengths/volumes.
- The air box arrangement is costing over 8BHP as measured on the dyno.
- The people doing the mapping were 'unadventurous', and too far away!
- The injectors were close to stalling at idle, and near maxed out at peak revs.
- At a circuit I haven't got a clue whether I have an ECU problem, because I can't hook in and see what's happening.
- There are a number of duplicate sensors between the ECU and the datalogging system.
- My existing wiring loom was getting pretty flaky.

So, after a couple of hundred hours more investigation I decided on the following -

- Custom made inlet manifold with jenvey individual bodies featuring upper (mounted in the intake trumpet) and lower injectors (mounted in the head).
- The injectors in the head would be smaller than current to allow better starting, idling, low speed driving and throttle response.
- I would finally give up on air boxes, revert to a foam filter and duct cool air from the bonnet and front over it.
- The current ECU had to go.

After much more investigation I narrowed it down to Motec (M800), Pectel (SQ6) and Life Racing (F88RS) for the ECU. The Motec didn't interface to my dash/data logging so it was placed second, Life Racing never bothered responding to emails so it was dropped completely so that left the SQ6.

Then my engine blew up and I had an unplanned bill for £2000 to fix it so spending £2800 on an ECU couldn't be justified.

Whilst doing more research into other options (mostly the F88RS) I accidentally came across a board posting talking about a Solaris ECU just being a rebadged Life Racing one. Talking to the company and then Ryan this seemed to be the best of both worlds, all the ECU features I needed (and them some!) but with the customer service and support I need.

Sold.

Well nearly, still trying to get the engine back together and sensors in place so I can finalise the wiring details.

Hopefully the next posting will be how successful all the investigation has been. I am hoping/expecting to get up to 230BHP with no increase in rev limit.
Wez
Santa's Little Helper
Posts: 267
Joined: Thu May 22, 2008 3:19 pm
Location: London

Re: Toyota Corolla project

Post by Wez »

Sounds like a great project, get some pics up 8-)
96 MKIV Supra, S6GP, 591bhp & 523ft/lbs
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