Small (or maybe not) project. 91 elan

[dapinky]

so... its Sunday and i didint make it to CC (which im completely gutted about.

I Have borrowed an elanscan and got it working to read from the car without any issues. althought due to my ignorance. the data i am seeing doesnt help much.

Hi Joao, as an aside - Could you tell me if you were using Windows 10 or 11 to run Elanscan? On Saturday I tried 2 different laptops (Win 10 + 11), 2 different FTDI drivers, 2 versions of Elanscan (V9 + V10-Beta), 2 cables and Pinky's Bluetooth sender, on 2 different cars, but I couldn't get a reliable data feed. Dave suggested that maybe one of the myriad updates to Windows may have broken the functionality. Since then I've tried compatibility mode for Windows XP, 7 and 8 with the same result, and found that running Windows7 in a Hyper-V VM won't work as there's no USB passthrough. If I had any hair left I'd be pulling it out....

I have now found 2 laptops, one with W7 and one with an 'old' W10........ but neither work reliably enough to do anything with (one needs a good shake to switch it on, one needs to have the power button held down! - both should be small repairs, but in the way of the modern world, they were simply thrown in a cupboard and replace with new ones!

Todays job is to wipe the HD (well, actually it is only a 32Gb chip in the motherboard, but you know what I mean) and install either Wxp or W7 and try from there, on my old Acer Aspire netbook which came with W8 but now runs W10.

[chrism]

RonR + dapinky off topic I know, but if it's any help...I'm running ES quite successfully from my win10 l/top downstairs in the garage. (As much as I'd like to I can't upgrade it to win11 'cos it isn't new enough.)

I've also installed ES on my indoor win11 PC and I can transfer files between them to read stuff more comfortably on the bigger screen - so as far as I can see ES ought to be able to accommodate both platforms, or vice-versa.

I seem to remember making a point of downloading the latest copy of the FTDI driver (I think from google...)

ps I've tried in the recent past to download win7 but I don't think it's supported any more - it doesn't seem to upgrade as you install it and the download doesn't finish

pps On the win10 l/top I'm running ES file vers 0.10.12.72 (as well), prod vers 0.9.9.46 on Win10Pro 22H2, OS 19045.2846 build if any of this helps...

[dapinky]

Thanks for that, Chris - my situation is such that with W11 on my main laptop (and W10 on the netbook) I can connect ES and log a file without much problem....... until the last time I tried, and it wouldn't connect.

I had been using a Bluetooth sender for a few years, so went and dug out my old cable.

I tried an older version of ES, and that wouldn't even pick up the BT signal in a COM port... and the cable was recognised, but kept giving a fault when i tried to get a PROM dump.

I'm no expert, but I know it all used to work, so I shall try and replicate the system that worked, and then simply not update any software!

[Tuga2112]

i have done multiple attempts at finding which bits in the elanscan are related to the CAS output in order to confirm its working.
Although there seems to be a relationship between some of the bits with engine spins,
i could not pinpoint any flag in the ES that would refer to CAS ticks (or rotations)

this doesnt fully surprise me, as according to the wiring diagrams the CAS is connected to the coil packs control module (or whatever is its name) and not the ECU.

i have found in a different thread an example of elanscan log of a good running car, and will using that to compare to mine in hopes of finding some anormaly (althoug that is probably a wasted effort because the only way to compare idle logs is to run my car with an induced leak at the MAP)
.

im only looking at some of the data, and honestly i need help here as im only guessing but..

noticed the folowing as soon as the MAP readings come in,
MAP goes from 0.9 to ~0.30 (similar figure to the control readings)
spark advance drops from an average 20 to 16 for 2 cycles, and then ramps up to 35. drops to 20 and ramps up again 35 before the engine completely dies (control line is around 15)
injector PW drops drastically from a steady average 4.4ms to 0.5 and then over the next 10 cycles recovers to 4.5ms and increases up to 7ms just before the engine dies. (control value is around 2ms )
DRP interval (no idea what that means) starts clinbing extremely fast as soon as the MAP is connected. while its value before matches exactly the control.

the control file i got wasfound in this thread and judging by the data, i am convinced its from a car with O2 sensor. installed. which unfortuntale means i dont have a base to compare the CO pot value.

from the investigation i get the impression that the ECU is pushing the spark advance too far and theres just not a good explosion to keep the car running, and then it dies out before the computer has a chance to adjust the spark.

i am tempted to make a blind adjustment to the CAS just to see if there is any difference .

one thing to note, is that my timing belt is just about to turn 5 years old... i already got a set from RA ready to replace, and if the issue is timing, maybe i have been cursed with a partial failure just before the 5 year mark... although it seems pretty unlikely its something that i can think that may be reason for the whole problem... after all my spark advance when the engine was stable was 5degrees higher than the control

[chrism]

221115-101804.zip

(164.66 KiB) Downloaded 5076 times

Tuga this is the only 9929 file that I have; the others are 1499/O2s.

Perhaps you can use it for your CO baseline?

[Fredjohn]

Joao
Just FYI you can't measure the timing with Elanscan. You need to do it the old fashioned way with a strobe.

Sorry you couldn't make CC. It was a very good warm day! Maybe next year.

[Tuga2112]

221115-101804.zip

Tuga this is the only 9929 file that I have; the others are 1499/O2s.

Perhaps you can use it for your CO baseline?

thanks chris, its usefull to get hold of one for comparison. the reading on the co pot is different to the o2. but not in the manner i expected. but im sure someone else will be able to explain why,

Just FYI you can't measure the timing with Elanscan. You need to do it the old fashioned way with a strobe.

i am aware of that, but my dificulty is a little worse, because the engine doesnt idle in service mode (unless i induce a leak on the map sensor), so i cant set timing full stop.


given the lack of any ideas, my plan for today is to experiment the CAS angle see if that makes a difference, I've checekd the logs and knocks are being recorded, which only tells me the knock sensor is functioning to some extent although it may still be faulty (no idea how to test)

[chrism]

Yep, re 9929/1499 maps it's interesting to use ES and overlay the separate CO/O2 data for comparison, showing continual adjustment by closed loop 1499. Imo they 'average out' to be fairly similar?

It's a pity that the graph axes are not more typical of accepted/normal values tho'...they seem a bit meaningless. Perhaps someone in the know can add some more info on what they signify.

[Tuga2112]

. Imo they 'average out' to be fairly similar?

i agree, but my expectation was a flat line from the open loop (pot output) and a variable figure from closed loop (as each detonation increases the o2 reading and then it drops a little until the next detonation)
i was surprised to find a perfectly capped range oscilating for the open loop.

car is finally working... now the issue was the fuel pump... yes the exact same fuel pump that ran fine for 5 minutes after being installed.



turns out that idiot that installed it... you know that one from the youtube videos... he didnt put the hose clamps on the fuel line... the pump increased pressure and worked itself loose... im not quite sure how the car did get detonation for so many attempts, i can only guess the pump was directed at the hose, but just not adding pressure, so it allowed fuel in but at a very low pressure..

now that this is working again, i need to go back and re-set the POT and the base timing... but i suspect i wont be doing that because im planning on doing the timing belt.. and seems like the perfect moment for it given the circunstances.

this is a lesson that i really seem to struggle learning... if something goes wrong after work done in the car... even tho it may seem unrelated... go back and confirm the work was done right...

one thing that i am now tempted to do, is to look into adding a fuel pressure sensor to the car, not sure how to make a display that will look from factory,

anyways onwards and forwards... i think the next jobs will be timing belt, oil, plugs and filters, then i wil be doing a close loop and video about the everest chip. certainly got a busy week ahead of me

[RonR]

Glad you found the culprit Joao,

Don't feel too bad, I've had my share of Doh! moments in the last few weeks too, my stupidest was scratching the clam when lifting the engine into the car

Good Luck with the Cambelt & Closed Loop conversion.

[Tuga2112]

well.. the next day i started the car and it was running very poorly again..

particularly bad in service mode, but i kept service mode on for all the adjustments going forward.

this time in order to be 100% sure i swapped the fuel pump again. and it was still rulling poorly.
at that point i tried to set the timing. but the readings were impossible to make. so i just put the CAS close to the original position and moved on to the CO pot... which after a bunch if fidling it must have gone past the range....

in a act of desperation i gave it 6 clockwise full turns and suddenly the idle whent from rubbish to sounding good. i then gave it another 3 turns to bring it a little closer to the "middle" of the adjustment (after becoming aware the pot has a 20 turn full range of motion)
then i moved on to do the timing.. which i set to 17BTC (because my average consumption got worse when i set it to 16) and then Pinky made me aware the TPS reading was off (i already noticed that previously) but more importantly, he made me aware that fixing the reading was just a matter of adjusting the angle of the TPS, so now my TPS is reasing exactly 0.40 instead of 0.46 and finally adjusted the iddle air control screw, which turned out to be a whole turn loose compared to the setting required to get to the 950 idle while in service mode.

this mornign i got out as early as i could and gone to the garage to find out if they could plug the emissions analiser to get my pot fine tuned.. they are happy to help. but one of the staff is on hooidays, so i will have to looka t that later next week..


so, then i decided to enjoy the car and give it a little test drive... which had a bit of shacking on the steering... swapped brake disks... situation inproved... gone for another test drive and heard a weird noise followed by the low oil pressure light turning on
stopped the car as soon as i could. which ended up being at the same garage i was earlier... and the oil cooler is completely soaked in oil... leading to the assumption that the pipes probably burst when i heard the weird noise

i spoke with the garage. they cannot help as a business. but the mechanic himself offered to tow me back after work... ive walked home... and im now crying myself to sleep to forget about this event.. untill i get a phone call to go over and towthe car back. hopefully i dont have any serious damage but only time will tell... the good news in the middle of this is that i have learned that hte propshaft business that helped me with the previously seized lower ball joint, can do the job of replacing the hidraulyc fittins from the pipe.

im now in research mode trying to learn about the side effects of this problem

[RonR]

Bad luck Joao, my sympathy is with you!
I was lucky enough to spot one of my oil cooler pipe ferrules was loose while I had them off the car, otherwise I'd have been in exactly the same boat in the not too distant future. Hopefully if you stopped the engine immediately there would still be enough oil left around the bearings and the turbo for them not to run dry.

[texas2201]

another job done while i was waiting for parts (before the first head gasket change gone wrong) was to fix the outriggers.
i got this done at the same time for both cars to get a discount

in short.
used a flap wheel to remove rust.
neighbour welded plates in the places that needed it the most.
i then painted the whole area using anty rust hammerite black paint.
then i replaced the sound insulation with new material that is supposed to not soak up the water.

and some pictures!

Tinypic is no more any chance you still have the pics somewhere? I need to do this job.....

[Tuga2112]

tinypic has been gone for a long time.
unfortunately i lost most of the pictures i had there.

no idea what pictures where available there originally but the outriggers were not done properly back then and i had to go back to them many years later, which i got a video on youtube on that.

if your looking at the outriggers, you are very likely to need to pay attentnion to the jacking points as well. which is also on a different video.
as far as head gasket i think i have some pictures, i would have to look up to see what i can find.

[texas2201]

Thanks - it is the front drivers side jacking point that has collapsed. But while I am in there I will check the outriggers and replace the foam under the carpets

[Tuga2112]

right. so its been a while. and clearly im terrible at keeping people up to date in here...

the positive side about that is that i can give rather succinct resume of the past... 9 months.. but the downside is how much about it that im going to forget mentioning BUT

as far as the oil pipes. i bought replacement ones. and got them crimped by a local prop shaft specialist who has all the machinery i love to see.
in the meanwhile other mods have been done for instance.

Timing belt kit was swapped... which was an interesting ordeal, sure not a hard job this time around, (Having a scisor lift and a beefy impact driver plus prior experience helps a lot), however there was a couple of hurdles
the first was the dayco water pump i got from rockauto... its a fit.. but the holes in the pump didnt align perfectly with the engine. i ended up enlarging a few of them in order to be able to install it.
resetting the timing was a doodle..
the second was a strange sudden loss of coolant while test driving. which i didnt experience 6 years ago... it made me panic and top up with tap water (forcing me to completely drain the coolant later) as the airlock was so big that all the coolant in the reservoir disappeared duringthe 10 minute test drive... however to my confusion there was no sign of leakage anywhere in the water pump or radiator.
so after checking for both pump and bottom radiator hose and a 20 minute iddle in the lift... no leaks... and no drop in the coolant reseroir...
then second run with exactly the same scenario.. i topped up the coolant again with tap water and took it back in the garage.... started scrathing my head.... in the meanwhile while waiting for a few folk from here to give me some pointers i started other jobs as the car was going to be stuck in the garage regarless..

close loop conversion (video recorded) o2 sensor removal + added wiring + Ecu upgrade from RonR

Alternator swapped with the one i refurbished a few years ago (i had a new one from SJS in the car, which the regulator does not work with close loop conversion... just another bad point about SJ)

gaz dampers installed (recorded)

new PMN springs (recorded)... after a minor faff with the fact their front springs dont fix the OEM dampers... and they re-send me a different set that did fit ...

the passenger side lower ball joint was replaced (again) as it broke for some reason... im pretty sure the previous was PMN stock and lasted less than 3 years... a little worrying IMO

I found my driver side raft assembly was not right... it seemed to set the wheel a bit too far back and was touching on the struts... so i swapped that with a "new to me" one which has perfect clearance with the new shocks and springs

Made my own Elanscan cable (a pair for myself and a spare for a friend)

an after all that..
while i was halfways throuhg fitting the springs and dampers Peter mentioned the airlock... which made me drain the system off the "inpure" tap coolant and top up again. and this time take more coolant with me for the test drive.... which after 5 minutes did show, and i topped up again... and then a little more coolant dropped.. and made me think there was a minor leak... which again i couldnt find...
eventually i just drove the car to work with 3 stops along the way to check coolant level... and finally i got it stable where theres no more sudden drops..

only to find myself with a new clunk noise when braking... a funny one which only happened the first time i hit the brakes when moving forward.. but then would happen again the first time braking when reversing... and vise versa..

so... car goes back in the lift, and a very close inspection of all the suspesnion fasteners is done... nothing is loose... another test drive... problem still there.... it sounded like it was coming from the passenger side.. so i took the calipers out and found a very minor movemenr on the sliders... replaced the sliders... and noise still there....
at this point i threw the towel and called the cavalary.. (M100 owners from the Northeast Lotus club) 2 weeks later i finally get the car on a 4 post after showing the issue to one of my friends.. and the bugger looks about, wiggles a bit here and there... and figures out my driver side driveshaft has too much play (guess where that exact issue has happened before ?) onse he spotted that i felt like a massive idiot... how come just 4 months ago i had a similar issue and this didnt occur to me ???

so, as soon as i got home, i ordered 2 pairs of different tripod bearings from the 2002 clio sport v6 3.0 (same tripod profile as the kangoo, but unlike the kangoo ~80bhp the v6 clio has 227bhp and a maximum torque figure slightly higher than the M100's engine) and this car is again off the road while im waiting for the parts..

i will be making a video about that driveshaft job as well. and maybe with a bit of luck. the Clio parts will survive the test of time and be a much more affordable solution than the GKN replacement that is a known fit)

well i guess thats quite a lot. as usual theres more videos on the youtube channel for anyone who has too much time to spare.

fingers crossed i will be in cascle combe this year, as for out of luck. for the past 2 i have been unable to attend for missfortune reasons related to the car having some problem or other

[Tuga2112]

theres been an update on the driveshaft situation.

the good news is that the Renault tripod works just fine. (done a 40 mile test run)

the bad news is. the issue i have is neither the jackshaft bearing neither the tripod bearing... the issue is the jackshaft splines coupling with the cup which have some play...enough play to make the clunking noise i was trying to diagnose.

so now i am looking for a replacement jackshaft. with cup included.. im not very found of the idea of replacing with a used part as the mileage of the replacement would probably be rather close to my car, so im all hears if anyone has experience in sourcing a new jackshaft.

i couldnt find them in SJs website, neither pmn. rockauto has new parts for the impulse. but i have no idea if the impulse shafts have the same lenght as the m100 or not. or even if the gearbox is the same. so theres a chance things wont line up.

any advice is appreciated

[dapinky]

I know we had a brief chat on messenger a few days ago, but I was a bit busy to really put much thought into it.....

..... so here goes a set of random thoughts....

1) I know that the Impulse has different driveshafts left and right.
2) I know that the gearbox seals on the left and right are different, (and the Elan uses two of the left-side ones), but I don't know if the dimensions, specifically the diameter, of the shafts are identical.
3) The driveshafts for the Impulse are about £30 each at RA...... and the Right one is 12" longer than the left one, so I don't think the Impulse uses a separate jackshaft (although the driveshaft does have a central bearing, according to RA parts)
4) I have zero knowledge of the Impulse and have never seen one - so my thoughts are based on the parts lists on the internet!
5) I'm 100% sure that a new jackshaft could be made from parts available, but I wouldn't know who could do it, or at what cost.
6) I know that if they could be made, I'd buy at least 1, and possibly 2!!!! (dependant on cost)
7) That said - any company that could do such engineering could probably re-design the complete driveshaft from gearbox to wheel, to use off-the-shelf joints and splined ends to 'future-proof' the entire driveshaft situation.

[Tuga2112]

swapped the driveshaft and jackshaft with the one from the project car, and noise still in place.
had another m100 owner have a look and he got the impression the noise was coming from the suspension at the passenger side... this actually lines up with my perseption from inside the cabin, i will be re-checking if the top struts are properly tight next. fingers crossed this will be the final attempt to sort that out

[Tuga2112]

another couple of hours spent at the ramp with a fellow M100 owner (who happens to have previous experience as a MOT tester) looking for this elusive clunk.
nothing bvious. took the strut out, and he checked the area, everything looked good. and gone up in the ramp for the 3rd time.. another full inspection highlighted a small leak in the rear caliper bleed valve. and that the DIY ARB rose joint fitting was a little bit closer on the passenger side compared to driver side... added more spacing and re-installed. but no change.

at this point my friend gave up. "im stumped" to which i replied.. your stumped for 10 minutes.. i been stumped for 2 weeks

so, i went to my MOT tester garage and asked when he can slot me in for 30 minutes to look at things from the pit while i move forwards and backwards making the noise happen.
the tester told me to triple check the track rod ends.. now my friend has checked them already, but thats the next thing im going to try and confirm its fine.

at the moment the only possible issues that i can think of investigating is the top of the raft assembly bushing (suggestion from MikeY) and the TRE ... im certainly running out of ideas now. but shall continue to investigate until i get to the bottom of this.