darrenjlobb's Adaptronic Managed Compound Blown Derv Bus Build

[welshpug]

Nicely engineered solution there, whatever arrangent you go for will be bloody tight on space!

I think the phase 2 xsara and the phase 2 vans have a different pedal box and bulkhead pressing, so wonr be directly compatible, 206 mc makes things quite easy with its 2 bolt flange and short body.

[darrenjlobb]

Time for another update, involving at long last some engine activities!!

But not before fitting a Satchshift kit that has been floating around in my workshop for far to long (amongst the pile of parts for this car!)  Have never been a fan of the stock transmission linkages with the short shift kit fitted, just always feels a bit broken / bodged.  

So decided to give this a whirl, as an "off the shelf item to plug and play".. Which I must admit, for most users, it is, and to be fair is a very well engineered kit, with all bases covered, will quite literally bolt straight into any 306 bar drilling a hole in the bulkhead and obviously removing the center console / hacking bottom off dash a tad. However I am fairly sure in my case its going to need some modification around the subframe area to clear my manifold and downpipes etc, but will run into these issues later on!! For now just fitted as OEM / anticipated, and will deal with modifications at a later date.

So first step was fitting the new pivot assembly to the subframe, which picks up on 100% stock bolt holes:




Then fitted the gearstick itself, and made a hole in the bulkhead (sorry don't seem to have many photos of this):




And then connected it all up to the front of the car with the supplied linkages. One thing I was pleased with here, is the main under car linkage sits around .5cm from the top of the tunnel which gives a tonne of clearance for exhaust vs stock shifter, 3 inch pipes are always "tight" in this area on the 306, so this is a nice bonus.




Threw the dash back in to clearance it, and all is sorted :




Then got carried away an dropped a set of S16 seats in it, starting to represent a drivable car again now! Or at least I can sit in it and make car noises and pretend it drives now?!



So with this complete, it was finally time to turn attention away from the car itself, and back to the engine, which was great news as we all know that is what I am about really and all this bodywork farcing has been quite a drag!

So set about dragging the block out the corner of the workshop where it has sat for considerable time....only to be reminded of how many parts I had robbed from it for other builds, leaving very little left!

The way I found it:




So stripped it bare again, dropped sump to inspect, put back together and cleaned it all up and fresh coat of paint applied. The short block never did anything over 1k miles on the MTDI anyway due to taking off the road with head problems. So was all as new still really.







For those that are new / that didn't read my previous MTDI build thread, the main reason I stripped this engine back down so quickly in the first place was due to problems with valve float, I was pretty much straight into issues when I started leaning on it , so I decided given the goals / long term aims with this motor / head combo, it was in my best interest  to get the head up to spec as best as I can now, while its apart. So I sent the head off to Marko at NPS heads in Finland, who is about the only person this side of America that I would trust to go anywhere near a diesel cylinder head, in particular, a DI unit.

So got the head stripped down, and sent off to Finland.



The first thing that Marko did was strap the head to the flow bench in stock trim, to give us some figures / base line to work with. At this point I have to say, I was quite surprised, and also very impressed with the flow figures as stock.

So it was time to let Marko start reaming out the head to aim for the best airflow we could achieve, It was the first head he had seen like it, so I took the time to slice up my old head here in the UK, and take lots of photos to give an idea of the meat available in various places in the head to try to avoid breaking through and writing off the cylinder head (brand new casting from PSA when i build it, so am trying to avoid this!!)







I should note at this point, we had a fairly lengthy discussion regarding the direction of the head / motor, and its fair to say the head as been ported past the "normal" point he would go on a street head, in short, we really are aiming for maximum airflow here, so slight risks have been taken to achieve this.

Next was to get the bare head back on the flow bench to re test it and look at gains (hopefully!)




At this point we both had a giggle. as the results far surpassed what either of us had expected, and had put a good 27% total airflow increase on the head, which all in, was giving me some very exciting airflow figures, very pleased with this to say the least!

---

After a few more discussions regarding intended engine RPM / Powerband info, some final work was done to ensure optimum swirl for the given intentions. And the casting was complete, ready to go back together.



So in with new seals etc, all VR as normal :




Marko was keen to have a look at the camshaft situation, so dropped the stock shafts in from here in the UK and started to gauge them up / look at lift characteristics etc for realistic airflow:



Also at this point discovered some varying valve lift, which was obviously not right...and after some closer inspection discovered some of my rocker arms were rooted:



So will be replacing these as matter of course I think!


The head has now gone back together, with stiffer springs inlet and exhaust side, to keep the valves shut at more useable boost levels, and although the swirl is tight, the base runners should now be good to around 9000RPM before having a detrimental effect on swirl, this is vs around 4500RPM as per stock. With the stock camshafts, which I have decided to retain at the moment, we have figured peak power / flow to be in the 5000-7500rpm range, with swirl obviously coming into this more and more at the top end causing some choke effect.

Either way, I will let you do the Math, and see the "potential" power capabilities airwise now on the longblock...

So with the head back in the UK, it was time to do a final clean and inspection:






Then time to drop on the block and torque down, and finally make it an "engine" again!

As normal a VR MLS gasket used, and ARP head studs. A new set this time to allow me to use a full set (old ones from my XUD were to long as couldn't use the end two due to interfering with the camchain)

Studs in and gasket in place:



Head on:





And torqued to spec (our own!):




Due to the rocker damage as talked about before, I decided to replace all 16 rocker arms as a matter of course.... I also decided to replace the hydro lifters at this point. I had considered going solid a few times, but am yet to actually see one of these lifters fails, and given the range of other engines they are used in, at higher rpm / spring load, they should be fine, so am going to run with them unless / until they do course a problem, which hopefully they should not...


New parts:




Installed:




Shafts installed and assay lube applied:



And all covered up again!






Thanks for reading as always, video on the YouTube for those that enjoy as always.

[Mattcheese31]

ohhh mate, what a beautiful update, smiling all the way through it, really exciting potential in the head now, you look to be going for this serious as a heart attack style, much respect x . . . .

[pioneer DJ paddy]

Music to my ear's this project fair play keep up the great work :-) u though any more about turbo's #winbus lol

[Eeyore]

So rediculous... Wish I knew enough to do this.

[bashbarnard]

i cant remember was this a 2.2 block or a 2.0 block. Im Surprised standard rocker arms will rev that high to be fair and not break. saying this i have no experience with anyone saying otherwise, im just surprised. what lb springs are going onto the valves as well out of interest because they are obviously going to add more stress to the rockers etc. Really do love your projects though man. epic build this and a one of a kind thats what makes a project go from good to epic imo. pushing the boundaries which you certainly do. best of luck and look forward to the next update and seeing this in the flesh at some point

[Piggy]

Best update
...ever.

[zx_volcane]

hurrrayy, so good to an engine going back together for this. Satchshift too, lets hope it works out.

[Dum-Dum]

THat is such a huge update. I'm gonna have to read it again tomorrow to take it all in.

[Frosty]

Great to see this taking sets in the right direction now, top work as usual Darren!

[mr_fish]

nice to see

[silverzx]

OH LORDY! Dread to think of the amount of time and money that's going to have been spent on the complete engine when it's done.

[darrenjlobb]

Some fair failing going on with this project for last month or two again, have been a bit busy / stuck with other projects and also the farm, so havent really touched this other than constantly pushing the car in / out of the workshop to do other vehicles, (this issue is getting old fast now after 3 years!!)

Anyway, there is some progress going on behind the scenes, flywheel is being skimmed, running a different flywheel now as required the crank reluctor sections for CP pickup. So have found the lightest stock flywheel for my fitment, and also the large clutch. Waiting on the that so I can bolt up clutch / trans.
Also waiting on another long block donor, for some parts at the other end of the engine, wanting to alter the cam belt arrangement, so hoping to rob some parts from the more modern style motor to do this...

No real updates, but still on the mind / slowly moving forward!

[daniel909]

Busy on the farm but have time to do a oc update

[darrenjlobb]

Busy on the farm but have time to do a oc update

Haha behave you Radger, I believe your Cherry PO*** consumed a good weeks worth of late evenings at one point instead of the green machine

[C2K]

Dunno how you find the time to do everything! Too many projects...

[306Dan]

Best way to spend my lunchtime yet, keep up the good work

[daniel909]

Busy on the farm but have time to do a oc update

Haha behave you Radger, I believe your Cherry PO*** consumed a good weeks worth of late evenings at one point instead of the green machine

Nothing like a high pressure pump change at 1 in the morning

[zx_volcane]

nice to know things are still occurring with this, bit by bit.

[Dum-Dum]

Little by little my friend, just remember that some of those side projects are earning you money or parts towards this build.

[darrenjlobb]

Another small update, Have started to look into the cambelt / fuel pump etc side of things. Am going to be running a fairly large CP3 style HP pump on this engine, for several reasons really, but overall just felt its the way I want to go. Although a smaller bodied pump would fit most likely on a stock bracket and work, I want to use a large body pump however, which just isnt physically going to fit on the stock bracket / belt arrangement.

So decided best way forward would be to isolate the HP pump from the cambelt entirely, and fabricate my own bracket etc for it, and run off an Aux belt. Therefore simplifying the cambelt to just the crank and cam, which once fitted can be left well alone and not touched (hopefully!)

So as the RHR / Siemens managed versions of these engines actually have this simple cambelt setup, I had hoped to use all the parts off this engine, and got hold of a block for this purpose, however as I have found with most aspects of this build, things that look like they will just bolt up, don't, and overall, this plan was fairly useless / didnt work out.

So the side of the engine starts out looking like this:



After mocking up the proposed idea a few times, it became apparent that I couldnt use the stock tensioner location, as it was to low (down on the block) and pushed the belt to close together to where they would touch (not good) so decided the best way would be to relocate it up on the top, on the cylinder head. So drilled and taped a hole and fitted a stud to the head. Obviously this isn't an "ideal world" method of doing this, If i had realised before I would have done this while head was removed, but with some care / people watching drill angle etc, I was able to get a good square hole, and tap it effectively.






This allowed me to bolt up a tensioner:




Next part of the problem, is with the stock RHW engine mount housing, the belt wants to rub on it, as it was designed for the belt to go up and over to the pump, not down behind, the RHR has a pulley built into the bottom of it, to relieve this problem. However the housing does not fit directly to the RHW block / head combo. So in the end I re drilled one of the holes in the block, and relocated the top right hole on the housing. Which allowed me to put 3 of the four bolts in, leaving just to top left bolt, which is a big dowell also.

I wanted to retain this dowell as adds alot of strength to the setup, but the size of the dowell hole in the engine, was much bigger than the hole in the housing, so reamed out the housing to be a good fit on the RHW dowell, and then found the stock dowell was also to short, so cut the head off it:



Drilled it out:



And then tapped it out to take an m8x1.25 to allow me to bolt it up solid, then fitted it to the head:




Here you can see the complete assay bolted up, looking almost stock:



And then the belt fitted / timed up:




Thanks for reading

[Paul_13]

Liking it!

[Dum-Dum]

Good progress man, Is there space for another width of belt between the engine and chassis leg?

Surely a v rib belt won't provide enough grip on the pump pulley when it's building 2000bar?

[darrenjlobb]

Good progress man, Is there space for another width of belt between the engine and chassis leg?

Surely a v rib belt won't provide enough grip on the pump pulley when it's building 2000bar?

Will be running it on the same belt as the alternator. Am converting the alternator / crank with 8 rib pulleys, and then another on the HP pump. Should be more than strong enough in theory.

[Niall]

I do love you're projects. Most people wouldn't even entertain the idea of basically creating their own timing belt system. "nah, crack on!"

I was thinking the same as Dum with regards to belt slippage if you're going to a V belt for the pump. I know when i was looking into charging my car (not that slipping was ever a problem on 6psi lol), a lot of the yanks that used the huge Eaton's used to rave about the Gates green back belts. I could never find a supplier for my size in this country but i'm sure you could!

[welshpug]

what did the RHR use? wasn't it driven off the other end of the cam?

[darrenjlobb]

I do love you're projects. Most people wouldn't even entertain the idea of basically creating their own timing belt system. "nah, crack on!"

I was thinking the same as Dum with regards to belt slippage if you're going to a V belt for the pump. I know when i was looking into charging my car (not that slipping was ever a problem on 6psi lol), a lot of the yanks that used the huge Eaton's used to rave about the Gates green back belts. I could never find a supplier for my size in this country but i'm sure you could!

Well it was the only logical way to go with it, so that is what needs to be done. Regarding belt slip, am hoping with good wrap it should be fine. The yanks run there second CP3 off a 8 rib belt, so in theory I'm only doing the same... Slippage would be my main concern , but am hoping it will work out ok, failing that I would likely have to convert the aux system to use a toothed belt, which again if it came to it I would, but it will be far easier to retain a serpentine for now.

what did the RHR use?  wasn't it driven off the other end of the cam?

Yeah the RHR normally has a HP pump on the right side of camshaft, obviously my RHW head doesn't, and i certainly don't have space down there for it either!

[welshpug]

damn turbos getting in the way

[darrenjlobb]

Another update to the long ongoing project here,

Have been working on mounting up the HP pump to the motor for the last couple evenings. The pump I will be running is a CP3 style big frame unit, specifically an R110, meaning clockwise rotation 110mm3/stroke capacity. I wont bore you with the benefits of using the newer CP3 style pumps, but the inlet metering etc is much better suited to my needs, and also just a better design IMO in general. 

Anyway, the pump is off a tractor (well its new, but as fitted to Deere / CNH tractors with Bosch common rail systems.) Due to the much larger frame size, and the fact I am intending to run it on the Aux belt, there was no way I was going to be able to use the small alloy bracket PSA use to mount the stock HP pump. So decided to just make a new one up first as last rather than attempt to modify something to work. 

The pump in question (one is an R110 and one is an L110 as had previous plans to reverse the pump and mount on the wheel arch for room for a blower, but now that the blower isnt being used have stuck with the R110 and conventional mounting)



So step one was to make up a base plate that would pickup on all the stock bolt holes on the front of the block:



And bolted in:



Next was to make up the mounting plate / face for the pump itself, started by boring the 52mm hole for the pump snout:



Which fits like this:




Measured and drilled the mounting holes (some precision required here as with holes to mount to block to make sure its spot on first time, last thing you want on mounts like this is slop so it can be mounted in more than one position, belt alignment is key here!):





Mounted up to the block for a test fit:



With pump mounted up to check alignment:



And a lick of paint:






To enable me to convert to an 8 rib style belt I had to have some new pulleys machined up for the crank, alternator and tensioners, and was able to use an off the shelf item for the CP3 from the states.





Old alternator / tensioner only fitted in pic for testing, will be fitting a new Valeo unit and have a new tensioner / pulley, but being machined out in the center at the moment for clearance.

Obviously some modifications to the car / engine mount cradle will be required for clearance for this lot once we get to that point.

Also had time to get the flywheel and clutch fitted up, going with a Helix 4 paddle solid clutch, with a heavy pressure plate (hence the hydro clutch). Running an EW style flywheel as much lighter than the DW counterpart, but still uses the larger clutch, correct offset and has the 40-2 pickup. Already had a flywheel here, but had it machined:



Bolted up:



And clutch fitted up:



Thanks for reading!

[Eeyore]

great work as always