Fred's FreeEMS Powered 89 Ford Courier w/ Holset fed FE-DOHC

[Fred]

Hello DIYEFIers!

This thread is a summary of my FreeEMS truck build.

This vehicle is the first in the world to run a Puma board (as designed by Marcos/nitrousnrg) and the second to run FreeEMS! It's the first to run FreeEMS with ignition, first with COP, first with boost, first in New Zealand, etc etc. It's pretty special to me for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that I learned to drive in it. It's been with me for 2/3 of my life and i've had a lot of good times, and bad, and fond memories in, on, and around this truck.

The truck used to run a moderately modified ms2e/V3 with various short falls and flaws with the original design fixed or patched. Hence the db37 connector, during development I wanted to keep it mobile and plug and play compatible with my custom ms box. I'm happy to say that I will never run MegaSquirt on any of my vehicles again. Man it felt good to type that! :-) If you've got the time, skill, and desire, you should get involved in testing FreeEMS and helping it mature and grow too.

on with the pics :

my customised Puma board, running 4cyl COP using the built in XOR driver chip to control the ignitors.

the back of it with the fuel/batt box clearly visible behind the hinged number plate

front view nearly ready to go with my mate mops standing working on something

four stock fe3 coils, four stock fe3 ignitors, chinese fpr, modified fuel rail, 550cc rx7 injectors (maxxed out for approx 385bench crank hp)

rivetted intercooler plumbing with a pair of nissan skyline gtr blow off valves in a stock housing with 50mm inlet and twin 38mm outlets

intake side of the engine bay

custom plenum with 1uzfe 70mm throttle body from the lexus/toyota 4l 280hp v8

one of the biggest simota air filters you can get with 6" to 4" toilet plumbing to the turbo

the inside of that plenum showing the totally smooth path that the air has to flow through to get into the engine

where 3" end of downpipe meets 3" exhaust

exhaust side from above with manifold, turbo, wastegate, downpipe and coolant plumbing all visible

and from its prettiest angle

hand crafted 4" to 3" downpipe with hand turned on lathe vband flange for turbo and flexi for the wastegate



TBC in the next post.

...

[Fred]

...

continued here

the nearly perfectly straight 3" exhaust with two straight through mufflers, also showing the 130 s/s m8 csk screws holding down the 17mm plywood deck

where the battery lives with 4 fused 5ag outlets and one 100ampere circuit breaker with 50mmsq cable going to block and starter and 8ga going to ms and another to alternator and a speperate vref to alternator and a sperate fuse for lighting and the last one for the pumps. also 2 8ga local grounds to the ally panels.

the rear ally panel from inside showing the two relays for the two fuel pumps, the brake,tail,reverse light relays, and the ground lift all rear lights off the cops are coming relay

044 910 raycar and surge tank. all happy to supply 400+hp of fuel, and peak of about 700-800 through the 3/8 line straight from the 044 to the rail.

ex mani on the Persian rug in the lounge just after completion.

just after painting

holset just fits, mounted with begginings of beautiful hand made merger above.

36-1 crank trigger with bracket and sensor

winged lidded sump for zero oil surge under extreme driving (i'm crazy incase you are wondering and pull a G daily everywhere)

f2t flywheel with fe smaller ring gear and ligtened and smoothed and shrunk to fit the 240mm clutch in the small 225mm bell housing.

about to go in. you can see the coolant plumbing. the periscope one got changed twice after that. type 3/r box visible in background

2 pack laquer paint job on diff housing looking sweet on a warm summers day.


hopefully that illustrates my ability to complete a large project largely single handed by putting in massive amounts of work and thought. I am 100% serious about the FreeEMS project, and am working on it full time until either A I find a job, or B i get it finished. In either case I wont stop working on it, but hours will be reduced.

Thank you for your time :-)

Fred.

[LostSoulMiata]

My favorite Ute. I may have to emulate this after the Roadster is complete

[SleepyKeys]

AWESOME SETUP!

I wanted to use a small piece of flex hose on my down pipe before it reaches the "cat back/muffler" to help prevent unnecessary vibration from reaching the turbo/header. Is that flexible exhaust tube flexible enough to prevent transferring vibration? I wish a parts store carried that stuff locally so I could see for myself.



-sean

[Fred]

Thanks :-) I hope FreeEMS comes out just as awesome!

I'm keen to add a 3" flexi at the bottom of the downpipe. They aren't usually needed on RWD setups though. Especially not for me with my motor mounted so solidly. My turbo is also braced heavily to the block, so it's under no real stress from anything except the bracket to the gearbox which is bad and I need to change.

The only flexi I used is on the wastegate so that it can move a little etc and is a lot easier to fit.

Fred.

[SleepyKeys]

I'm curious, why use remote mount resistors with the MS v3pcb?

[Fred]

Simply because I could not get the obscure value of flat pack ones in the BOM in New Zealand. Plus, I love overkill :-)

As it turns out I have them shorted out so that I could quickly get in and out of the case. Now that this project is here, future engine management options for the ute are up in the air completely :-)

Fred.

[26chevute]

Thats a nice ute. I thought it was funny when I saw the first photo of a ute with semi race rubber , then you scoll down and see why!

Did you do all the fab work yourself? It looks great. I hope that tray is heavy as you will need all the weight you can get over the rear wheels.

[Fred]

Thanks :-)

Yeah, those Toyo R888 tyres are a must have. I was amazed, about 1/4 of the time they would stick through 3rd in the wet! of course, the other 3/4 they wouldn't. But a LOT better than the ordinary tyres I took off which would spin in the wet in any gear over 4krpm thats about 140kph in 5th, not so fun with the wastegate hooked up wrong and NO throttle response... (longish story, but as it sits, its too dangerous to drive really, but i just had to do it, and i didn't know there was a problem at the time)

Yes, I did all the fab myself, and I did most of it between about 6pm and 2am while working full time! some of it is pretty rough... the manifold I finished at 1:30am and was going for speed. It would be my luck that the ugliest weld is the one that is right on top that also shouldn't have existed at all...

The bare frame for the tray weighed 102kg, so that, plus plywood and 140 s/s csk fastners + battery, fuel system, diff, etc, its not too bad, esp with some weight taken out of the front. I'll measure it when I get home, and then set about trying to make it 50/50 for evo/wrx arse kicking circuit work ;-)

Fred.

[midnightcamaro]

wow fred thats a nice truck man. ill have to give it to you, you definetly have a lot of time and thought and planning in it. thats the first time ive saw any good pics of it other than the back end. but good work and thanks for the inspiration.