Gripless

My spare engine was sold as head or piston failure. When opened the factory hashing was still on the bore and everything was within spec, The real issue was a cheap nasty external wastegate that when closed had a 1mm gap. There are some special mechanics out there. Or they just want the big dollar repairs to do engine swaps.

Finished a pcb design for the audio section and ordered yesterday. It should arrive in a week. No time to make a nice case etc but should have something usable in a day or so after it arrives. I spent a few days working on a spreadsheet to work out what the management/control over canbus looks like for these projects. eg any packet with the first byte as 0xFF will be a command, next byte is is which command eg test or reply with current status. Initial setup to give it a canbus address will be via the web page. But after that the ecu can send a canbus packet to change the ID, so if you are in the ecu software or want to change it you don’t have to go back to speed setup. PCBWay has 24 hour turnaround after they check the design. So far other than the first order it’s been under an hour to be checked and approved. I tried JLC PCB, which is part of LCSC which is a huge parts/components supplier. If they had a better way of combining shipping or parts and pcbs id likely use them more. Other than a few cheap bulk parts every chip and part has come from LCSC.

Maybe add a brake switch as well. If you’re going to contort yourself into the foot well may as well swap all the old electromechanical parts.

Updated code to latest canbus v5.5 functions. These are a little more complex up front but way easier and consistent once working. Not sure yet how well it’ll work for dual canbus networking but that’s not needed for these projects. I was thinking of building some bridges to allow canbus translation between different generations or ecu to body control modules etc. Second biggest things was I found a small solder blob that had been stopping canbus working on one of the boards. Which was a test one, so likely wasted a bunch of time trying some can stuff on a board that wouldn’t have worked. tried a new library for led display that doesn’t require a commercial licence if you sell anything based on it. This is a real issue when they want thousands of USD for a single licence. Accidentally stumbled onto a LIN chip for the older K or L line pre canbus that cost 50c US. Makes it cost effective to make stuff for the older cars especially since it’s still in production. Spent a day getting some parts and building a NAS and making a single storage point for all the work. I was spreading work across a fast desktop, an old slow 2014 laptop (it has all the can bus test rig attached) and a modern laptop.

Could have been one of those quick fixes on a trip that never got properly fixed.

Try a multimeter on the plug to the pedal. Maybe the switch failed and someone just bypassed it to save $

Between heating the metal weights and applying ice to the case I now have 3 more cases to use for prototypes. the resin glue still has higher melting point than the ABS plastic case, so I tears a thin layer off from the inside. Spent time rewriting all the storage and variables to use #define names not random numbers. Everything now makes sense and sits in arrays. Found a bug that stopped the wifi from being set to always on or off. The button on startup to activate wifi had always worked, but the default is now wifi on so initial config can be done. That required wifi on/off to work so it can startup off and the shiftlight started. Was halfway through swapping the led display to use a timer and interrupts rather than the dodgy timing hack I made up (It’s simple and fast, but I have no idea how it works or how I came up with it). But the hack can stay as too much effort to fix with the new canbus upadates. Espressif that make the esp32 these are all based on released v5.5 which redoes the canbus system almost completely. There are no examples outside the Espressif ones, so it’s all new code. While searching for some fixes to the newer code AI keeps offering code snippets. The code is all old. If you say that and ask for updates using new library names it just swaps those names and keeps the old data. It’s a mess and hallucinates the changes between the old and new system and makes a list that isn’t real. AI coding is pretty poor and keeping up with changes, it likes old examples that everyone repost. All examples it gives for canbus are version 1, that’s very old as few examples even use version 2. That lastest release replaces v2 with a whole new design.

Well the dinosaur board with custom tiny LEDs got assembled then other things for in the way. All parts arrived for another project after a typically painful aliexpress not accepting returns for mislabelled products. the first of a series of 10 moisture sensor on leads with a central temperature, pressure and humidity combo for plant monitoring. Which connects to apple HomeKit so can be used in automation and remote monitoring. So far nothing seems to remove the glue for the metal blocks. Acetone, glue remover etc all do ore damage to the case than the glue. The plan is still to have the shift lights by the end of November along with another ECU canbus expansion. But that might not be on a custom pcb by then just early prototype multi board. But the main code will be done which will make it fully functional.

AVCS only moves the outer sprocket rotation slightly compared to the camshaft. Even if it’s dead the cam should still spin as freely as the others. And if turning using the cam removal tool or turning from the camshaft bolt the AVCS part is irrelevant. The AVCS has a position sensor and solenoid so the ecu knows its position if it was lagging or failed. Even then I’m not sure it’d hit a valve if fully out, plus the ecu would have been in limp mode. Any resistance is bad bearings or bend valve etc. The chance of belt snap for a hard to turn by hand cam seems low. it is possible but unlikely there was oiling issue. That could cause a belt to snap but then the cams are usually rock solid stuck and hand turning them you’d notice then crack like a stuck bolt before they turned more freely. Much more likely it’s from post belt snap and valve to piston. As @boon said any valve contact should show on the piston. if there is any then no chance it was avcs. Don’t all Gates belts have their logo on them so if it didn’t then it’s was likely a cheap copy.

https://www.romraider.com/Documentation/GettingStarted#toc8 older cars can use the older 1.3 cables which maybe easier to find.

What model car as the early cable work fine in many cases. Are you going to just read the ecu or do you want to write new rooms to it?

Yeah I was with 2 rally drivers in a Land Cruiser so zero f***s were given on the way home. Others had 4-5 hour longer journey,

Only if your looking at leadfoot, the lower highway has been one way during road works before and backs up for hours with just normal local traffic.

You could ring the council out that way and check if they have any big events or road work projects planned.

Sorry if you have thought of this already. Before you approach anyone make sure you have a good written presentation. With cost breakdown and what sponsors get for the money. I know some companies get dozens of applications a week for sponsors and having seen some, most are utter s***. Like I’m great, give me money and they haven’t got better in decades. There are good ones in a few pages but the best are a dozen or more with easy summary first then details broken down. Its a what we can do for your sponsorship dollar sales brochure really. For race teams they have driver page with history of racing events even if it’s a kart racer getting into real cars etc. list of social media accounts or platforms they are active on. Good excuse the rework a history topic or create a dedicated sub forum for sponsors to see without login. If you want track day etc don’t forget to have a map with areas of signage and named location. The banner sizes they can display in each etc. Tent areas if they wish to bring and setup a stand etc. Anything like a PA system and MC can then use the sponsor name when talking about eg the LINK panic area bbq is now serving… Can you have cars on track require a big sticker on a window etc so the at every photo helps promote the sponsor long after the event. That also includes things like sending the top sponsors little awards or framed certificates thanking them. For them to display in their showroom or meeting areas etc. Oh and a timetable for setup and breakdown if you have need for them. More generic sponsorship like tires etc maybe and option. Then there’s just generic like spark who did early lead foot sponsorship with extra cell towers etc since cell coverage was non existent. If you are at any events before go ask the people at sponsor booths etc what they lie and dislike about the event.