The engine was re-built over the winter of 2011-2012, after several race seasons on its stock block with way over 100k miles of road use in a 1990 Passat. The head had been reworked for improved flow during 2010-2011 winter. The head features porting, including ports matched to a 50mm intake and a TT 4-1 Swain coated race header, with the bore smoothed and enlarged to the valve seats and TT 268/276 cams. The fresh in 2012 bottom end uses 11:1 Wiseco pistons with Swain ceramic coating, the block is decked to optimize squish, and all moving parts are is fully balanced. The ignition and fuel have been managed by a Bosch KE-Jet from a 1.8 16V, with fuel enrichment at WOT driven by an Innovate LM-1 wideband feeding the CTS input on the Bosch ECU. Performance (Lambda and ignition final advance for max WOT power) was optimized for 100 octane fuel on a dyno in 2012. On that dyno it delivered just under 200 crank HP. About the second event of this past race season I came into a quantity of VP 109E fuel for a good price and began using it. It is highly oxygenated fuel so the amount of fuel being delivered at WOT by my enrichment increased automatically to maintain the required Lambda, but once it was clear I was running on just the 109 rather than a 109/100 mix, I found the Lambda was increasing (leaning out) at high RPM and the fuel delivery was maxed out from the fuel distributor. Several years ago I told myself that if and when I ran into a problem with the KE-Jet system that was not easily corrected I would switch to Megaqsuirt. Well, this was it. Sure, there are ways to get more fuel thru the CIS fuel distributor - but they are all hacks of sorts, involving questionable used parts from other engine types, and lets face it, despite Myth Busters proving it can be done...a polished turd is still a turd.
I decided to take this opportunity to do a few other things the car needed as well. The wiring harness was a mishmash of 27 year old stock wiring, various owner additions, hacks and deletions. The dashboard was ergonomically impossible as a race dash - everything was too far away to be reached while strapped in, contained a lot us useless stuff (the instrument cluster itself included) had no place for things I wanted and needed, and with my lower further back seating - the steering wheel blocked the instruments. The rules of the class I run permit removal of almost everything that is not directly associated with making the car go, turn and stop, except the requirement for a working horn (as an audible distress signal). And a lot of racers do remove everything - but based on the past 10 years of experience I wanted to retain brake lights, wipers and a defroster. So this was a good time to strip out and rebuild the entire electrical system, a new lightweight dashboard and modify the instrument cluster so the useless among the idiot lights became valuable to me.
Once I decided what all I needed and where everything would go, I drew up wiring diagrams for the power distribution, and the sense and control signals for the Megasquirt, and designed the dashboard.
A LOT of hours later this is what I have:
Maybe the most time spent on one component was with the trigger wheel and sensor (theDIYAutotune 36-1 wheel and flange mount sensor). (Sorry its so dark - almost everything is black)
I spent a huge amount of time getting the trigger wheel to run true - bolted to the harmonic balancer - and chasing what turned out to be a very insensitive hall sensor. The flange mount Hamlin from DIYAT I am using now sits a comfortable distance from the toothed wheel and is rock solid.
The engine bay cleaned up real nice:
I reused the stock Bosch/VW fuel pump/filter/pressure accumulator and added a 3 bar regulator to a BBM fuel rail to feed the 380cc high impedance twin spray pattern injectors. I am looking forward to altering the fuel pressure control from a shunt regulator to a PWM controlled closed end system when MS3 supports dynamic control of such a configuration. I modified the original (ported and polished) throttle body to use a VW TPS. I reused the distributor to function as a cam position sensor for sequential injection and installed a dual coil for semi-wasted spark. I added oil pressure, fuel pressure, EGT and IAT sensors. In addition I have a magnetic reed switch on the clutch pedal along with a dash mounted toggle switch and latching relay for Launch activation and control input.
The dashboard with new homes for the MS3 and LM-1:
This was taken before I was 100% done connecting the new wiring harness to everything so a few wires are still dangling.
The dash is flocked to cut windshield reflections and while the new dash is larger and moves the control panels closer to me it is actually 3 pounds lighter than what came out. It retains the defroster and floor heater as racing up New England mountains can sometimes mean dealing with cold and damp conditions. 2011 Mt Washington was a great example...t-shirts at the bottom, waterproof parkas at the top. I have a RAM mount in the upper right corner of the control panel part of the dash for options like a GPS (actually handy at Mt Washington) or a future Android tablet (running Shadow Dash), some toggle switches for Launch control, Data Logging, Table switch, and TBD, plus 2 permanent digital gauges. The Instrument cluster center section which is dominated by warning LEDs was modified to give me a shift light, Lambda, and EGT warnings, and Launch active in addition to the original oil pressure and alternator warning lights. The LEDS have been swapped out for much brighter and appropriately colored versions as the originals were dim (27 year old specimens) and/or just the wrong color choices for the information, caution and warning indicators I chose.