Monthly Archives: August 2015

Mounting the ECU

Posted by jjludemann on
ECU Mount

Finished ECU mount

I was lucky enough to find some 7075-T651 aircraft aluminum plate, still with the Martin Marietta markings on it. Very useful for miscellaneous parts like this ECU mount. That stuff is strong! Almost as hard to bend as steel, but it makes for a very stiff end result. So I just cut this blank out of the aluminum plate, bent it in my hydraulic press, and added lightness using the milling machine. It mounts to the frame with aluminum clamshell mounts purchased on Ebay.

Fabricating the Fuel System

Posted by jjludemann on
Swirl Pot

Fuel swirl pot view from right rear

The car uses an OEM Suzuki GSX-R1000 fuel pump mounted in an external swirl pot. The swirl pot is fed by another electric fuel pump that draws from the fuel cell, with excess fuel returned to the fuel cell. The swirl pot will generally be full, providing a buffer in case the pickup in the fuel cell temporarily sucks air during hard cornering or braking. The shape of the swirl pot is tall and narrow, with the fuel drawn from the bottom so that the engine should never experience fuel starvation.

The swirl pot was fabricated from 1/4″ thick aluminum plate and tube stock just big enough to fit the OEM fuel pump inside. Welding was done by an outside professional welder. An interesting fact about the Suzuki fuel pump, discovered a bit late, is that the five bolts appear to be evenly spaced but aren’t. One of them is off by a bit, probably so the pump can only be installed in a single orientation. This necessitated welding one of the holes closed and re-drilling it.

The OEM fuel pump has a large appendage for fuel level sensing which clearly won’t fit into a small swirl pot, so I cut it off. it would be nice to have a level sensor in the swirl pot so I can watch fuel starvation and get enough warning to get back to the pits before I run out of fuel, but I haven’t figured a way to do this yet.

Plumbing the Oil Cooler

Posted by jjludemann on
Oil Cooler

Setrab oil cooler plumbing.

The Suzuki GSX-R1000 engine comes with an oil cooler, but has short hoses as the cooler is mounted right in front of the engine. I cut off the flexible hose section from the tube and flange that mounts to the engine on each OEM hose assembly. I then purchased stainless steel AN-10 bung fittings and turned them on the lathe to fit over the OEM pipes. These were then welded together. The welding was smooth as butter because the metal types matched well. I then made up a pair of hoses to run from those fittings over to the oil cooler and back.

Youtube Update 9: Debugging the Engine & Electrical System

Posted by jjludemann on

OK, time to get caught up on blog posts. Experience the agony of defeat and the joy of victory along with me as I debug the electrical system one fault at a time, prepare the engine for starting, and debug the engine. GSX-R1000 engines have a sensor that looks for the original ignition switch, and won’t start without it. This had to be worked around, followed by a determination that all the fuel injectors were clogged. I then made a device to clean and test the fuel injectors…

Click the photo to watch the video on Youtube.

Oil Filling

Ready to fill the engine with oil, coolant, and gasoline.