Project Grover
- Thread starter Demannu
- Start date
Unfortunately the slow postage system at the moment is holding me up, so I still haven't been able to finish the transmission controller.
Nevertheless, I took it for drive to the end of my street (about 3kms return, gravel road, very steep ascent one way and steep descent on the way back). Even in 4th gear in low range (equivalent to about 2nd gear in high range), it powered up the hill easily. I popped it back into high range for the return trip.
No real issues encountered on the short drive. I still need to finish the water side of the intercooler, so it didn't have as much power as it should, but nonetheless it was more than adequate. Definitely more vibration in the cabin at idle than with the V8, but certainly not offensive, but once you're moving it's very smooth and quiet.
I'm calling it a success!
I am impressed that's an achievement a French English partnership that works well.
On Friday the postman finally delivered the last components I've been waiting for to build my transmission controller. I assembled it on Friday night, and plugged it in on Saturday morning.
It worked! I could manually select all four gears, and when placed into auto it would select first. I did a quick trip up and down the street, and everything behaved as it should. Unfortunately the alternator that was on the engine was dead, and I've been waiting for the replacement to arrive, so I couldn't go far.
Today I fitted the replacement alternator, and after confirming that everything was good, I worked up the courage to take it for a drive around the block (around here, the 'block' is about 6km, and phone reception is patchy). The engine was warmed up, everything was behaving itself, so I hit the road.
The drive starts with a very steep ascent for about 600 metres. The car had plenty of power to accelerate up the hill, and I soon shifted to second gear. It continued to accelerate. I shifted into third gear, and it maintained about 40km/h up the hill. My concern was that the small diesel wouldn't have the power to shift the weight of the P38, but that has proven to be completely unfounded - it easily matches the V8 for low RPM performance.
After that, the drive is much more sedate, a few undulations and just one significant uphill section. The car cruises effortlessly in fourth gear at speeds as low as 40km/h, and pulls away smartly. Gear shifts are smooth and prompt. Coolant temperature remained steady.
I encountered my first issue at a stop sign. I have to revisit my code in the transmission microprocessor - the torque converter failed to unlock, so the car stalled when I brought the car to a stop. However, the car restarted immediately after placing it in neutral, and the rest of the drive home from there was uneventful.
I'm really happy! Definitely some improvements to be made to the transmission code, but other than that, it felt great. There are some vibrations through the body at idle, but when you're moving along they're not noticeable. There is less engine noise in the cabin than in my 406 with the same engine, although with the bonnet open the engine in the Range Rover is a little more 'diesel-y'. I suspect I haven't got the crankshaft position sensor in exactly the right spot. But the engine doesn't seem to mind, it pulls great.
The only other thing that there is left to do is to plumb up the water side of the water-air intercooler, to achieve the maximum potential of the engine, and tidy up some wiring in the engine bay. Down the track I will re-instate a cruise control, but I haven't decided yet whether I'll recomission the cable-operated Range Rover system, or rewire the switches directly to the engine ECU, which has a cruise control system inbuilt.
I will also get a torque converter rebuilt, as the splines on the one I have fitted at the moment are very, very worn, and I feel that the torque of the diesel - being significantly higher than the torque converter donor vehicle - will cause the splines to fail quickly.
I will sleep well tonight
It worked! I could manually select all four gears, and when placed into auto it would select first. I did a quick trip up and down the street, and everything behaved as it should. Unfortunately the alternator that was on the engine was dead, and I've been waiting for the replacement to arrive, so I couldn't go far.
Today I fitted the replacement alternator, and after confirming that everything was good, I worked up the courage to take it for a drive around the block (around here, the 'block' is about 6km, and phone reception is patchy). The engine was warmed up, everything was behaving itself, so I hit the road.
The drive starts with a very steep ascent for about 600 metres. The car had plenty of power to accelerate up the hill, and I soon shifted to second gear. It continued to accelerate. I shifted into third gear, and it maintained about 40km/h up the hill. My concern was that the small diesel wouldn't have the power to shift the weight of the P38, but that has proven to be completely unfounded - it easily matches the V8 for low RPM performance.
After that, the drive is much more sedate, a few undulations and just one significant uphill section. The car cruises effortlessly in fourth gear at speeds as low as 40km/h, and pulls away smartly. Gear shifts are smooth and prompt. Coolant temperature remained steady.
I encountered my first issue at a stop sign. I have to revisit my code in the transmission microprocessor - the torque converter failed to unlock, so the car stalled when I brought the car to a stop. However, the car restarted immediately after placing it in neutral, and the rest of the drive home from there was uneventful.
I'm really happy! Definitely some improvements to be made to the transmission code, but other than that, it felt great. There are some vibrations through the body at idle, but when you're moving along they're not noticeable. There is less engine noise in the cabin than in my 406 with the same engine, although with the bonnet open the engine in the Range Rover is a little more 'diesel-y'. I suspect I haven't got the crankshaft position sensor in exactly the right spot. But the engine doesn't seem to mind, it pulls great.
The only other thing that there is left to do is to plumb up the water side of the water-air intercooler, to achieve the maximum potential of the engine, and tidy up some wiring in the engine bay. Down the track I will re-instate a cruise control, but I haven't decided yet whether I'll recomission the cable-operated Range Rover system, or rewire the switches directly to the engine ECU, which has a cruise control system inbuilt.
I will also get a torque converter rebuilt, as the splines on the one I have fitted at the moment are very, very worn, and I feel that the torque of the diesel - being significantly higher than the torque converter donor vehicle - will cause the splines to fail quickly.
I will sleep well tonight
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If anyone is wrecking, or knows someone who is wrecking a Peugeot or Citroen with the 2 litre 8v HDi engine, I need a fuel pressure regulator (from the back of the injection pump) to get this thing on the road properly. I sacrificed mine to get a friend's car running, and haven't replaced it yet, so my engine is just not behaving.
Ha!
To bring it slightly back towards on-topic, I have this evening ordered a new fuel pressure regulator.
The old one was worse than I anticipated. The person who put the bad regulator back onto the pump (not me!) only used one of the two screws. These things run at about 2000bar, and the pressure had pushed the unsecured side of the regulator out of the injection pump body, bent and finally broken off the control pin. It's a wonder it ran at all!
I swapped the regulator in from my daily driver 406 HDi, and wow - the Range Rover is transformed! Smoother, quieter idle, better throttle response and more power! First gear is basically redundant now.
The carnage:
To bring it slightly back towards on-topic, I have this evening ordered a new fuel pressure regulator.
The old one was worse than I anticipated. The person who put the bad regulator back onto the pump (not me!) only used one of the two screws. These things run at about 2000bar, and the pressure had pushed the unsecured side of the regulator out of the injection pump body, bent and finally broken off the control pin. It's a wonder it ran at all!
I swapped the regulator in from my daily driver 406 HDi, and wow - the Range Rover is transformed! Smoother, quieter idle, better throttle response and more power! First gear is basically redundant now.
The carnage:
Getting creative now.
I decided that I needed more driver info, and since I have the data available, why not display it?
I bought an LCD display for the Arduino, and used the transmission controller to drive it.
I've got it showing me all sorts of useful information, as well as alerts in case of faults such as engine overheating and notifications that the cooling fan is running or the torque converter is locked, but it is pretty straightforward to include anything I want to.
I just need to mount it somewhere useful in the centre console.
I decided that I needed more driver info, and since I have the data available, why not display it?
I bought an LCD display for the Arduino, and used the transmission controller to drive it.
I've got it showing me all sorts of useful information, as well as alerts in case of faults such as engine overheating and notifications that the cooling fan is running or the torque converter is locked, but it is pretty straightforward to include anything I want to.
I just need to mount it somewhere useful in the centre console.
I'd consider using a 320 x 240 TFT display . They are much easier to read.
Some include a touchscreen which opens up more possibilities.
And he would have to both learn how to drive it and mount it, nice idea though, would love fuel meter in the 205, keep at it, nice owrk and I have already thought well over things like this, where did you get the CAN addresses?
Perhaps down the track I will upgrade to a TFT display. In the meantime, this is easy to program (remember this is my first foray into Arduino!) and is actually a lot clearer to read than it looks in the photo. It's electronically dimmable, and has enough characters to display everything that I need.
This photo gives you a better idea.
The instant fuel tells your your fuel consumption in L/100km, but if you are stationary it changes to L/hour. It sits between 1.0-1.3L/hour at idle.
The gear selection indication tells you both what gear and mode you have selected, but also what set of cogs is currently engaged in the transmission.
This photo gives you a better idea.
The instant fuel tells your your fuel consumption in L/100km, but if you are stationary it changes to L/hour. It sits between 1.0-1.3L/hour at idle.
The gear selection indication tells you both what gear and mode you have selected, but also what set of cogs is currently engaged in the transmission.
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I made a sniffer, and spent many hours interpreting the data! The only thing that I haven't pinned down yet (which I would like to display) is boost pressure. I know it's in there somewhere, but it's sofar eluding me!
Thanks mate, I do have a PP2000 interface and a factory car, but it has not really proven to be very useful in sniffing out the various messages on the canbus.
It's basically been a process of 'watching' the data stream as I change engine parameters - moving the throttle, unplugging the coolant temp sensor, changing engine RPM (including having the engine off/on), inducing errors to find the MIL light, etc, etc.
I just need to dedicate a bit more time to it.
If anyone wants to see what the data stream looks like, I'm happy to post an excel file here that contains about 6 seconds worth of data (52,000 lines).
It's basically been a process of 'watching' the data stream as I change engine parameters - moving the throttle, unplugging the coolant temp sensor, changing engine RPM (including having the engine off/on), inducing errors to find the MIL light, etc, etc.
I just need to dedicate a bit more time to it.
If anyone wants to see what the data stream looks like, I'm happy to post an excel file here that contains about 6 seconds worth of data (52,000 lines).
I read it, but they didn't give any of the data packets away!!
L/hour! The dream!!! I wish I could demand that be the standard for all dash info. L/km is so silly as the only option for an instantaneous usage!!
Is the L/hr measurement called specific consumption?
Thanks Dan, I appreciate the vote of confidence!
Since I don't have such confidence in my abilities, the backup plans is to just fit a MAP sensor under the engine bay and read it directly. Problem solved.
I've got it set so that it displays litres/hour when you're stationary, and litres/100km while you're moving. I feel these are most useful to me.
I believe the term 'specific consumption' refers to the fuel used for a given period of time for a given power output, for example liters per hour per horsepower. Which interestingly, since the ECU does provide calculated torque output, I could also display - or at least use to determine the most efficient cruising RPM/speed/gearing etc.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand - I've broken it.
I started getting a ticking noise from the back of the engine. A little bit of investigation with a stethoscope (read: piece of garden hose stuck in my ear) indicated that the sound was originating from the back of the crankshaft extension where it joins the flex plate.
It occurred to me that I didn't put a dowel in between the flex plate and the crankshaft extension (but the crankshaft extension is doweled to the crankshaft itself). I hypothesised that what I was hearing was movement between the extension and flex plate. So the engine would have to come out.
Engine out took about 35 minutes. It is so easy, and I am really happy with my intentional 'modularisation' of the powerplant.
Once it was out, the problem became very obvious. The flex plate had cracked all the way around the perimeter of the extension!
I immediately panicked - am I dealing with a misalignment somewhere that is causing more stress than necessary on the flex plate? So I set about measuring everything and I have confirmed that everything is in fact perfectly aligned and centered. So I needed to look elsewhere.
If you look closely at the nuts that hold the flex plate on, you can see on some of them that they have been rubbing. Matching marks also showed on the front face of the torque converter. Apparently, when it is all bolted together, there is some interference between these items, and that has been stressing the flex plate.
The flex plate itself was only made from 1.6mm mild steel, which was a bad choice to start with. It's just not strong enough.
So - the solution! I started by sourcing a replacement torque converter, as the existing one had very badly worn splines where it joins the transmission input shaft. The new TC is from a TD5 Land Rover. It is longer than the Peugeot unit, and has a different mounting configuration and pilot spigot size. However, this unit has been fully rebuilt with heavy-duty components.
The new TC uses a three-bolt mounting pattern to the flex plate, instead of four. This allows more 'flex' in the flex plate should it be needed. I also sourced the Land Rover flex plate, which has a remarkably similar bolt pattern to the Peugeot crankshaft. The flex plate is made from 4mm spring steel - so much, much stronger than what I originally fabricated.
I just need to modify the crankshaft extension by shortening it to accommodate the longer TC, and the different spigot sizes.
Hopefully this will make for a much more durable solution!
I started getting a ticking noise from the back of the engine. A little bit of investigation with a stethoscope (read: piece of garden hose stuck in my ear) indicated that the sound was originating from the back of the crankshaft extension where it joins the flex plate.
It occurred to me that I didn't put a dowel in between the flex plate and the crankshaft extension (but the crankshaft extension is doweled to the crankshaft itself). I hypothesised that what I was hearing was movement between the extension and flex plate. So the engine would have to come out.
Engine out took about 35 minutes. It is so easy, and I am really happy with my intentional 'modularisation' of the powerplant.
Once it was out, the problem became very obvious. The flex plate had cracked all the way around the perimeter of the extension!
I immediately panicked - am I dealing with a misalignment somewhere that is causing more stress than necessary on the flex plate? So I set about measuring everything and I have confirmed that everything is in fact perfectly aligned and centered. So I needed to look elsewhere.
If you look closely at the nuts that hold the flex plate on, you can see on some of them that they have been rubbing. Matching marks also showed on the front face of the torque converter. Apparently, when it is all bolted together, there is some interference between these items, and that has been stressing the flex plate.
The flex plate itself was only made from 1.6mm mild steel, which was a bad choice to start with. It's just not strong enough.
So - the solution! I started by sourcing a replacement torque converter, as the existing one had very badly worn splines where it joins the transmission input shaft. The new TC is from a TD5 Land Rover. It is longer than the Peugeot unit, and has a different mounting configuration and pilot spigot size. However, this unit has been fully rebuilt with heavy-duty components.
The new TC uses a three-bolt mounting pattern to the flex plate, instead of four. This allows more 'flex' in the flex plate should it be needed. I also sourced the Land Rover flex plate, which has a remarkably similar bolt pattern to the Peugeot crankshaft. The flex plate is made from 4mm spring steel - so much, much stronger than what I originally fabricated.
I just need to modify the crankshaft extension by shortening it to accommodate the longer TC, and the different spigot sizes.
Hopefully this will make for a much more durable solution!