Supersport Engines

[mav]

How do i tell the difference (Visually) between the standard and SS versions of the 1.6 rover engine.

 

I have the ECU numbers for a ss engine, and will bne checking these in due course. There is no Caterham Motorsport cam cover on my engine. Is this a dead give away?

 

Comments appreciated

 

Martin

[Tony Martyr]

As bought and delivered the SS engines have a red caterham plug cover and I thought the non-ss came with a black cover. I don't think the ecu offers a clue but you could look at the cam so long as you had a standard unit for comparison

[robmar]

another to check would be if the car has a shift light AFAIK the SS does and the standard does not.

 

Also if you can see where the rev limter kicks in, I know this is not the visual check you where after. The SS is way over 7K and the non ss is below

 

rob (I pick the car up on saturday :-))

[mav]

Sorted.

 

Caterham have confirmed that I have the new EC3 or EU3 varient of the K engine.

 

Thanks for your input guys

[Miraz]

Does anyone have a definitive statement of what has changed in the new EU3 engine?

 

Anything that might impact compatibility with bolt-on goodies?

 

Miraz

[robmar]

This is not a definative list but from my experince the differences I noticed where

 

1. eu3 is wasted spark, with coils on top of cylinders 1 &3

2. eu3 has no distributor

3. the ECu is in a different case with different connectors, not sure if the internals are the same

4. the shift light on the SS EU3 doesn't work!

5. the cover on the top is nasty plastic rather than metal

 

I am sure there is more

 

as for bolt on goodies I am not sure as I am no expert

 

rob

 

[V7 SLR]

Rob, does the fact that the wiring to the ECU mean you can't upgrade easily to an M3DK? Is the loom different then? If it is, this would be a bit of a pisser IMO.

[robmar]

From what I have seen and understand is that it is the loom for a car with the stack dash. However I would either have to change the connectors to fit the current aftermarket ecu's which would be a nightmare. I expect as soon as there become more cras on the market with these engines (caterhams, elises etc) the companys will start to produce ecu to fit these connectors.

 

I did send some pictures to Karl at Emerald a while back and offered my car as a guniea pig if needed ;-)

 

 

Rob (picking up the car saturday)

 

[Bob Corb]

I've already spoken to Gems, they were interested in developing a plug swap ecu, this was 6 months ago so they might be doing it already. I was particularly interested in an ecu for a VVC engine as I fancy tweeking my ECD3 VVC up to about 180BHP with porting/larger throttle body/higher CR and more revs.

 

Bob

[robmar]

Bob - I believe Emerald have started work on an ECU for the VVC

 

DVA posted this on the 7's list a couple of weeks back

 

"Emerald as you probably know produce a plug compatible ECU for the Rover K

series, this operates happily in wasted spark or normal mode. Emerald have a

large library of maps for K series engines in various states of tune and

engine sizes.

 

The VVC engine has always presented a problem since tuning it heavily

immediately gives a problem since the ECU cannot be altered nor replaced. If

the airflow increases more than a certain amount then the ECU cant cope.

Since after market ECUs cant control the VVC mechanism VVC owners are left

with a stark choice, either limit the tuning to simple bolt-ons or replace

the VVC mechanism with solid cams and replace the ECU which can be very

costly.

 

Karl at Emerald is about to develop VVC control firmware for inclusion in the

M3DK, this should allow plug compatability with the existing VVC MEMS . As

well as allowing the engine to be fully re-mapped andfretaining the VVCs full

functionality it should also allow the VVC mechanism to be programmed to the

owners requirements.

 

This would allow VVC owners a easy upgrade path without having to throw away

their cams and VVC mechanism while allowing the engine to be re-mapped to

suit any modification made. "

 

Rob

[mav]

Does this mean that the spare plug under the dash is for the Stack instrument panel??

 

What is the difference between the wasted spark / other type?

 

Is this a change for better or worse?

 

Why does the Shift light not work? I was not informed of this by anyone at Caterham or my local Caterham dealer.

 

I'll try it to find out if this is true or not!!

 

cheers,

 

Mav

 

Edited by - mav on 30 Aug 2001 20:54:11

[Bob Corb]

Mav, in response to your questions...

 

Does this mean that the spare plug under the dash is for the Stack instrument panel?? No this plug is the diagnostics port to allow faults to be tracked in the engine and also allows new alarm keyfobs to be programmed.

 

What is the difference between the wasted spark / other type? Wasted spark fires the spark plug on each rev so there is a spark just at the end of the exhaust stroke. This is fairly common practice nowadays (most Fords for example) The coil is connected directly to one plug and via a short HT lead to another this allows a more powerful spark which improves combustion initiation thus lowering emmisions.

 

Is this a change for better or worse? As far as the fact that Rover can still supply us with engines it is a good thing. Most typical bolt on tuning mods will work as well as they ever did (or didn't ARE YOU LISTENING Splitfire and all you other monkeys out there!!)

 

Why does the Shift light not work? I was not informed of this by anyone at Caterham or my local Caterham dealer. The shift light capability is included in the ECD3 supersport ECU I have that on good authourity (i.e. the bloke at MG Rover that put it their). The problem is that the complexity of the new software in the ECU is an order of magnitude higher than the older cars so it requires a small bank of diodes/transistor to adapt the feed such that it drives the LED in the revcounter.

 

By the way the vehicle wiring loom on the new cars is identical to the old ones. The problem now is that you have to comprehensively rewire the engine loom and add in an extra dozen or so wires and the extra small ECU plug. I didn't fancy doing this all myself and the very nice Jez Coates arranged for my new MGF loom to be adapted by MES for a small fee, thanks again Jez if your reading this.

 

I can't wait to get my oily mits on an ECD3 VVC compatible Emerald ECU. The tuning potential of the VVC engine is fantastic and could almost eclipse the VHPD with a little optimisation!! How about 180BHP without losing out on bottom end grunt or smoothness.

 

Excited Bob

The car in front has no number plates??

[mav]

Bob,

 

Thanks for the info!

 

The rev counter shift light should work fine then?

 

Cheers

 

Mav

[oilyhands]

Bob,

 

The tuning potential of the VVC engine would be fantastic if...

 

i) the exhaust cam duration and lift were not fixed and conservative

ii) the lift on the inlet cam werent fixed

iii) the VVC mechanism was robust enough to carry the cams duration to the limits of its design and sustain itself at higher RPM

iv) The valve accleration wasnt slowed down when the duration is increased as a result of the design of the VVC mech.

 

Oily

 

[robmar]

My shift light does not work on the SS version of the EU3 engines, and I have this on authority from Caterham them selves that they don't work.

 

I asked about one of the wires on my loom as it was not connected to anything and was stripped at the end (yellow and black I think) and was told that they had not been able to get this to work on the new ECU's/EU3 engine. They did say at the time (early June)that they where looking at a bolt on kit to fit but had no info at that point.

 

Maybe this is the diodes and transistors you mention.

 

Anyway I pick the car up tomorrow so if it has been fixed I will let you know, obviously won't be checking out the shift light in practice for a few miles ;-)

 

Rob (24 hours and 45 mins to go)

[Bob Corb]

Okay the VVC isn't perfect but there is plenty more performance to be had from it.

 

I've seen an ISO corrected average of 177BHP from a std VVC on a test bed with some bolt on tweeks and optimised ignition settings. With a ported head you can expect to up the airflow considerably. I'm sure you could get 185BHP easily. I was considering upgrading on a gradual basis, ECU then ported head, throttle bodies and so on. I'm aware of the VVC mechanism durab issue which is why I've got a couple of spare units bagged up. If things get really serious then Piper Cams will be brought into the equation, but for good old oomph I'm really happy with the bottom end torque which I have. Hence I'd rather keep the VVC and plenum based induction system.

 

Bob

[oilyhands]

Spare VVC units aren't the whole answer, I've got a box of them under the bench, if the VVC fails there is a good chance of engine destruction. The VVC head responds well to porting since it is badly engineered to start with, for mild tweaks I'd say the VVC mech. is worth persevering with, for anything more serious solid cams is the way to go.

 

Having done 25 or so VVC heads with solid cam conversions I can testify to the qualities of the resulting engines. The milder ones give over 200BHP and still have a wall of torque at all sensible crank speeds which is high enough to embarass a VVC, put simply the volumetric efficiency is higher than you will get retaining the VVC mechs.

 

Solid cams properly timed with correct mapping will do a lot better power wise than a VVC equipped car simply because you can sustain a higher RPM ceiling without the valve gear self destructing. The legendary flat torque curve from the VVC engine is not as clear as you might think, having been involved with at least a dozen VVC equipped cars run repeatedly on the rolling road I have seen mildly modifed K's exceed the VVCs torque output at *all* crank speeds.

 

The VVCs main potential is for a middle of the road engine, plenty of slugging ability but with some extra vim at the top end with minimal engine mods. Mappability of the VVC mechanism and the fuel/ignition maps is a great thing to have and opens the door to very effective bolt-on mods hence the Emerald development.

 

Oily

[Peter Carmichael]

Agreeing with Oily here. Porting isn't really the problem with the VVC. Mike Bees 1.6 made 200bhp with an almost standard VVC port shape and solid cams of appropriate profile.

 

The VVC mechanism is the problem and a constraint on ultimate power delivery. The cam lift is the same at high and low revs and is modest. There is the problem that Oily has pointed out about valve opening ramps being slowed down as well when running the long duration. Only the duration is changed. Compare it with Honda's VTEC, which admittedly does not allow continuous variation of timing, but which allows you to run a top end cam with radical lift and duration and can be arranged just to take away the off cam and idle nastiness associated with it and keep the emissions and fuel economy in check for normal running.

 

However, if you take a VVC head as a starting point and do a good porting and solid cams job on it, you can get 250bhp thumbsup.gif and have to upgrade every other component in the engine to prevent them falling apart thumbsdown.gif.