This Saturday I did a final days work at MAC#1 ahead of the SVA test on Tuesday the 9th.
I was delighted to see that the car had come on a fair way for the past week or so with Colin having cut a transmission tunnel top and rear boot cover. But there was still a fair bit to be done.
The first job of the day was to extend the front indicators. For SVA, the indicators need to only closer to the outside of the vehicle and further apart than the small front indicators I originally fitted. The answer is to fit some extenders to the indicators for the test. I may remove them again at a later date.
Once I had taken off the original indicators, I discovered that I needed to enlarge the holes as the new extended indicators are a little wider.
Once that was done, I cut the original wiring loom and soldered in the new indicators.
The result does not look pretty but it should at least pass the SVA requirement.
While I was doing this, Mark and Colin started work on tuning the engine to pass the strict SVA emission requirements. But before they could run the engine for any period of time, the wanted to move the return fuel pipe.
I had originally routed the return fuel pipe round the passenger side of the engine and at the time it was OK but I did not consider that the exhaust would be directly below it and as the fuel line is rubber, it had to be moved to avoid a potentially very dangerous situation.
So as you can see, the fuel return pipe now routes around the front of the engine which is much safer!
While doing this however, Mark had a bit of a bad 5 minutes where he managed to bash his head, hurt his back and really slice his finger open. I was actually worried that we might have to take a trip to casualty but Mark decided to make do with a bit of toilet roll taped in place with ‘sparky’ tape.
The it was on with the business of devising an engine map that would satisfy the SVA tester.
This is the kind of thing that can only be done with the correct equipment and a good deal of experience. Basically, the put a sensor in to the exhaust so they could measure the emissions, Colin then changed the engine map so that the emissions were controlled throughout the rev range.
In a normal fireblade installation, this would not be possible as the ECU controls the air/fuel mix and it does not allow the user to alter it. That is why a DynoJet Power Commander USB is fitted as this sits inline and allows you to manually adjust the air/fuel ratio for different areas of the rev band. This effectively allows you to maximise, tune the engine for car use or (as in this case) minimise emissions. In order to pass the SVA test, the Power Commander is mapped to reduce the emissions which when combined with a catalytic converter, should keep the car on the right side of the emission curve.
It was great to hear the car roar through the whole rev range from idol to screaming red-line. I should have video’d it but I was too busy watching what they were doing.
After the SVA test has been safely pasted, we may revisit this process to squeeze a little more power from the system!
Once all the engine revving excitement was over it was back to more mundane (but equally important) task of preparing the car for SVA, which means adding a fair but of trim to edges in the car to make them nice, round and child face friendly.
I started with the underside of the dashboard.
The ‘U’ trim just pushes on to the bottom of the dash and is self gripping.
Should keep the SVA tester happy.
Next I turned my attention to the front cycle wings which are now fitted to the car.
Once again, ‘U’ trim was used to blunt the edges around the cycle wings.
And that was just about all I had time for on Saturday. When I left, there was still more to do but I will need to leave this to MAC#1 to finish now as the next time I see the car is on the morning of the test.
But to recap, here is the list of things that needed to happen prior to SVA.
Fix engineBuild and fit exhaust- Bleed and test brakes
- Fit handbrake saddle and test handbrake
Put water inCut and fit transmission tunnel panelsFit ‘hockey stick’ trim to transmission tunnel and sides- Fit mirrors for SVA
- Finalise Digidash configuration
Fit magnets to prop shaftFit ‘U’ trim around underside of dash- Adjust steering and wheel geometry
- Fit fuel filler pipe and filler nozzle
Finish top of rear (above diff and fuel tank) with a panelFit front cycle wingsAdd ‘U’ trim to front cycle wings
As you can see, there is nothing major left to be done.
Next stop, SVA!!!
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