Problem is now I’m going to fit it and then I’m going to have to start with the rest of the engine bay!!
Going to make a composite mounting plate for the injectors as well I think, one that mounts under the 4 main intake manifold bolts. Might as well go all out while I’m motivated and while we have a pile of offcuts at work I know will be got rid of soon enough!
Take lots of pics, especially the injector side, if I remember correctly, Marty tried the injectors under the bananas, but went back to up on top, I don’t know about all injectors, but mine have a screw on the end which I presume is some sort of adjustment, I’m looking at doing the lower injector point, I’ve adapted a upper manifold already, I hydro cleaned, looks like new, don’t know if I want to paint,,
I wasn’t sure about painting it, but then the guys had some left over ceramic paint that I couldn’t turn down, and it’s black so it just makes it look like a more modern plastic one. Didn’t really do it for the insulation properties as the rest of the tract won’t be done.
I used a 90 degree drill and put the injectors in under the banas at the Joining point of the upper and lower manifold leaving 10mm land to retain some strength.
I was going to put them in the lower manifold but TT said if I can’t mount the injectors close there is not any difference between having the LPG hoses longer or intake tract longer if that makes sense?
Plus they said with this way means you can remove the upper inlet as normal and leave the entire LPG system intake and sealed if maintenance is due. With no need to disturb any components in the LPG system
And if they do need moving I can just stick 8M6 bolts in them and re-drill the lower without it being to obvious that I screwed up! Ha
Redraptor141 wrote:
I wasn’t sure about painting it, but then the guys had some left over ceramic paint that I couldn’t turn down, and it’s black so it just makes it look like a more modern plastic one. Didn’t really do it for the insulation properties as the rest of the tract won’t be done.
I used a 90 degree drill and put the injectors in under the banas at the Joining point of the upper and lower manifold leaving 10mm land to retain some strength.
I was going to put them in the lower manifold but TT said if I can’t mount the injectors close there is not any difference between having the LPG hoses longer or intake tract longer if that makes sense?
Plus they said with this way means you can remove the upper inlet as normal and leave the entire LPG system intake and sealed if maintenance is due. With no need to disturb any components in the LPG system
What they say is true yes, but you can get the hoses down to less than 20cm by drilling though the manifold, plus the piping in the upper manifold isn't as simple as you think as some of the cylinders cross over, so you need to take a good look and work out what injector cut goes to each cylinder and match that on your wiring (not major, but could be a headache).
Closer they can be the better though, and the inlet manifold does have quite a length to it.
Only hassle I see with where I’m putting mine, is that I have to insert nozzles after refitting the inlet, ( bolts will foul them ) I’m going within inches of the petrol injectors.
I’d like to put the injectors under the bananas, but after reading I couldn’t get the correct angle safely ( slightly downwards minimum ) .
I’m looking at replacing my system as I’ve got a problem with mine ( switches back to petrol after 15sec ) I’ve replaced various parts with no luck, I get map as a fault, but I don’t have a map hose, and sensor is new ( pressure) last chance is I’m checking wiring once I find a wiring diagram. Lol
I think I am going to reposition them as well, tbh it’s only a couple of clips if I do need to take the manifold off. So I’ll just fill the holes with M6 bolts cut to length and seal them in for the holes I have already drilled. Not happy with them as they are only 90 degrees to the flow at best where as I would like the optimum slightly down angle. No harm done as the holes are out of sight anyway!
Fitted the vaporiser today and hooked up the water lines just to check for leaks and placement really. Came out alright, tucked nicely behind the battery and used the preexisting holes on the suspension tower, just needed to bend up the supplied brakes with a hammer and a large bit of timber. All the lines left to go in have tons of room and good bend radius around so it’s perfect.
Typicaly I caught my brand new and re-routed airlines with a pair of snips! So I had to fit the crappy repair portion again! Doubled up on O-Rings though!
Just blanked off the exposed lines with some tape for now. Think I will tackle the back end tomorrow. Just need to go buy a pipe cutter for the copper fill line. And work out where to run the main line and rear harness.
I’m thinking on the outside of the drivers side (UK) chassis rail. Keeps it well clear of the exhaust for the Code11
Your doing a neat job, pity about the air line, but Sod’s law something was gonna happen, bet you’ve got a mini cutter somewhere, think I’ve got 3 now as can never find them when needed.
Looking good so far.
There is quite a difference between pipe length (between injectors and manifold nozzles) and manifold nozzle distance from inlet ports, nothing that's going to effect P38 drive-ability much but out of the two it's still better to have long pipes than manifold nozzles far from inlet ports.
I now run feed pipe up outside of drivers side chassis rail on P38s, avoid running pipe inside the wheel arch and be careful with routing near the steering shaft.
There isn't really a general max pipe length or max nozzle distance from port, in both respects the max that will still deliver good results depends on aspects of the engine... A 10 inch pipe or nozzles a few inches from petrol injectors won't make much difference on an engine with big cylinders that runs normal Otto cycle but the same length / distance might make for poor drive-ability if engine cylinders are small or engine effectively runs Atkinson cycle due to variable cam timing. Becomes clearer to see if we imagine extremes of engine such as a 30cc model engine versus an engine with cylinders over a litre in capacity each... wouldn't want even a 3 inch length of 6mm internal diameter injector hose, or nozzles even an inch from ports on such a small engine, in fact we'd struggle to get injectors small/fast/accurate enough for the small engine but no problem for the big engine.
Not been online much lately, took my new (to me) big caravan to a local camp site just to set it up and check things over, make sure the awning bought separately fits etc. Seller told me everything worked, I ended up having to fix loads of things and still bringing some bits away from it to fix later.. after I've changed finished changing suspension (all 4 corners) and a wheel bearing on the car. So much for a week off!
hah, a week off just means you're working on your own list!
Going to tackle the wiring harness this weekend, anyone got a good suggestion as where is best to pick up the RPM sense wire? I’m mounting the ECU in the battery box in the void space where I believe the old GEMS ecu was placed?
I’d like to keep the wiring as short and as neat as possible if there is somewhere on the battery side of the car to splice in.
Same question for the lambda probe wires to. (I know there not strictly required but I would like everything hooked up just for fault diagnosis)
Power and ground I’m fine with, going to hook up to the main power and ground for the fuse box, keeps the run nice and short.
Void left by lack of Gems ECU is a no-brainer for the LPG ECU on Thor models.
You don't need to connect the rpm wire, no advantage in connecting it on a P38
It may be best not to connect lambda wires, when AEB ECU's get old they tend to pull voltage on the lambda connection. If you don't have an OBD2 live data scanner you might as well connect them, if you do have a scanner I'd advise leaving them disconnected.
no10chris wrote:
Take lots of pics, especially the injector side, if I remember correctly, Marty tried the injectors under the bananas, but went back to up on top, I don’t know about all injectors, but mine have a screw on the end which I presume is some sort of adjustment, I’m looking at doing the lower injector point, I’ve adapted a upper manifold already, I hydro cleaned, looks like new, don’t know if I want to paint,,
I ended up going with injectors under the bananas. I used the rails of 4 Hana Gold injectors, but had to modify the wiring side of things to get them to fit, as the plugs stuck up too high. I cut the plugs off with a dremel, and soldered wiring on, and back to another connector, which I then put on the LPG loom side aswell. Saving the 15mm - 20mm odd from cutting the plugs off and not having the loom plugged in there meant that the injector rails fit under the bananas, and the hoses to the lower inlet were no longer than about 100mm long (probably shorter)
I've got some pictures of it somewhere - I'll try and dig them out and post up what I did.
If I were doing it again, and hadn't spent the money on injectors, then I'd probably go with a matrix injector.
If I were putting injectors under the plenum, after trying various types in various positions under the plenum I think I'd probably end up fitting these http://www.lpgshop.co.uk/magic-jet-fx-single-injector-lpg-cng-spare/ or the same (MJFX) on rails of 4.
Yeah, the magic of hindsight...
Because I was always away for work at the time, and trying to get it all done in the various times I'd had at home, and sometimes purchasing parts, but then not being able to work on fitting for months, by the time I went to make a start on fitting everything, and then finding just how tight it is under there, I was at the point where I couldn't return the injectors I'd bought, and would have made a fair loss on selling them second hand (even though they were as new)... so decided to just make it work!
If I were doing it again, I'd go for exactly what you've posted up! Would make life far easier!
Ahh well you've got it done and all is well.. But could've avoided hindsight regrets by asking me earlier lol ;-)
I had all the bits bought to do it a few years ago, and it's been fitted and running for well over a year now.
I'm not regretting it - it works, the injectors seem to do the job.. well, far better than the cheap Valteks I had before anyway! And other than feeling a little bit more sluggish that petrol when pulling away at speed (like in the 50-70mph range) the map is now pretty good, and I don't get the fuel trims being dragged out of line and messing with my idle!!
Ahh I see! I was thinking you'd bought the Hana's with a view to fitting them underneath, now makes moire sense that you had them fitted above for a long time and shifted them to underneath later.
Pffft that took far too long, just to run the lines and set up the tank and rear end!! Thought it was only going to be a couple of hours work!
Forgot about the 14 stops to my sink to wash out my eyes! And a whole pack of plasters to stop my hands bleeding. Blood does help slip the pipes on a though! Haha. Anyway , as you can see busy day fitting the main rear to front lines as neatly as I could, fitted the P Clips to the body not the chassis in the end as my drill bit was blunt and not having it with the steel chassis!
Main run down the outside of the chassis, ignore the rust and dust, POR-15 is the next job after the LPG is up and running! (Can’t wait for that job.......)
Rear drivers wheel well, this is the best I could do getting the pipe safely out of the way of the exhaust and moving parts of the suspension.
Almost...... but limits are limits I suppose! Think I’m going to wrap this section in BDR tape (metal tape) for a bit of a safety margin.
Looking up from the rear arch, snaked the line behind the wheel arch liner. Looks out in the open from the picture but it’s well protected from any stones flight up from the tyre.
That was all the easy bit! Getting the line up past the steering column and avoiding getting closer than the 100mm to an exhaust was a dog!
Took me about an hour and a half of weaving the line through every conceivable way! Not helped by the fact the previous owner (an enthusiast apparently) has araldite’d the wheel arch liner in ...... brilliant, even though all the clips are serviceable......
But anyway. For anyone else running the lines this way, there are the rear brake lines running down the bulkhead, they way they are positioned leaves a perfect LPG hose size behind it! So with a few broken fingers and clambering in the gap between the engine and the suspension you can run the line up there, keeping the regulation 100mm and steering well clear of the column (excuse the pun!) then it’s jist a case of carful measurement of where to P clip everything (within 600mm of each other).
Poorly lit photo but you can see the two brake lines I mean, the gap is to the wheel arch liner side.
Handy pre-existing caprice bolt for the brake splitter (or what ever it is!) for the P clip.
Finally for today, ran the start of the main fuel rail line, simple enough, but the routing came out quite neat for anyone that’s looking for ideas, just need a little bit of self adhesive rubber/foam to stick to the expansion tank where the filter assembly touches.
And I am running the rail behind the earthing strap, again I’ve got some thick cloth tape that I will be wrapping any pipe that is chaffing on anything, just want to get it up and running before i today everything up.
Obviously the line is taped off and tucked away for the moment.
Can I run my filler to tank line with the poly pipe and faro fittings? I’ve got enough and I’m really not happy with the way the copper pipe turned out as I had to bend it by hand. Can’t see anything in the Code11 to say no, but again it doesn’t say you can either!
Why doesn’t the P38 need the RPM sense wire? Not complaining with less wiring to do, just curious.
Regards everyone.......... time for a Beer!