The Photography of Dr. Jeffrey P. Harper

On Saturday night (Nov. 28, 2009) we thrashed the little HEMI to get it running so we could race.  But it was not to be:  my 1UZ would not start and run properly - so no tuning map yet. We chased what we believed to be a coil wiring flaw, but ended the evening suspecting the fuel injectors (more than one) were hanging open causing the starting and idling problems: we were drowning the plugs.  We did accomplish something: the 7 pound blow off valve sprng arrived and it was installed. There was a large crowd on hand to see the first NITRO funny car in Thailand (it smacked the wall right off the starting line), and this crowd eventually filtered around to my shop to stop in and admire my race car and the new V8.  Oh well . . . "if you can't go fast, at least look good." I hope that is not going to be the theme of this race car.  I am sure it will not be . . . I may have pop for NEW, and expensive injectors.  Oh well.

I spent another frustrating evening not getting my 1UZ to run.  It popped, banged, and threw burning fuel out the header and onto the floor!  Now that the injectors have been checked out as OK, it looks like I am back to the "coils are wired wrong" theory.  I will have to get my tuner and the electrician at the car at the same time to sort this one out.  I hope we didn't hydraulic the motor in the process. I had some time to take some nice pics though.

Details, details, details

High Tech air filter - designed to strain birds and large debris out of the high speed intake air column.

Looks good -- won't start, I got dem ol' new car blues!

Cutting edge air filtration technology pioneered by my friend John, a.k.a. 'The High Road Skulker'. It also doubles as handy track-side food strainer.  Helpful hint: tell your wife prior to borrowing kitchen appliances lest she sees photos on your web page. Yes Dear, I'll take that trash out right now.

To test the theory about the injectors (perhaps some have become 'grounded' causing them to stay open all the time), they were sent to the injector shop for testing and made right, then they were mounted on another supercharged 1UZ, along with loading my race car AEM ECU map into the other 1UZ's AEM ECU -- low and behold, the other 1UZ ran perfectly!  It revved just fine.  So, the problems we are experiencing are electrical.  We will next try plugging in the AEM ECU from my race car into the other supercharged 1UZ's plugs to see if it works (to test that my ECU is not at fault). If my ECU is functional on the other 1UZ, then the problem is wiring . . .  most likely a grounding of the injector wires somewhere . . . . . Of course, there could still be some wiring problems with the coils . . . just to add to the fun. We will sort it out . . . if I can get my tuner together with the wiring guy at the race car with some test equipment.

Last night we all thrashed the little 1UZ. The electrician tested every wire, every connection, and every plug on the coils and injection. We traced everything from ECU to terminus - all O. K. The cams are installed in the right places. We swapped in another AEM ECU (with same map) - and had the exact same result/symptoms. One last suggestion by the electrician: check the senders for accurate pulses/waves. Eureka! The camshaft position sender was sending intermittent signals (only one out of five or six) which confused the ECU (and made the symptoms appear that the cams were out of sync). We tested the sender and the sender wires (in and out of the car), and even closed the gap between cam sender and pulley bump (and, yes, sanded the bump too). Unfortunately we didn't have another 1UZ sender on hand. We will go at it again tomorrow evening.

Why/how do senders fail? 

We were trashing late last night.

I had a lot of help from both my tuner's (Art) shop and the wiring guy's (George) shop.

The night air was very nice (for Bangkok) for working, in the low 80s (f).

Another night spent sorting out the new combination, with the same results: it doesn't start and it doesn't run.  Another electrician was found, and there are new theories, but they have yet to be tested.  Meanwhile, time marches on.

No progress lately: I just got back from a fantastic 9-day, 1000 mile road trip around Northern Thailand with some visiting good old friends. I will get going on my race truck project in a week or so. 

Happy New Year!

Jan 2, 2010.  Still no progress: I just got back from four days at the beach (Hua Hin).  I will tow my race truck  back to Voodoo Racing in Pattaya on Monday to sort out the wiring and build a new ECU map.  The drag strips in Thaiand are closed for a month, so I am in no hurry.



The Bangkok Drag Avenue will open for the new season this coming week-end (Jan. 22 & 23).  I will tow my racer to the track on Saturday for some initial strip tuning, now that all the wiring and other issues have been sorted.  I am crossing my fingers.

Well . . . all is good in Thailand. My race truck is completely sorted now, and only needs a strip tune to get it ready for the dyno. I like to race a few week-ends with a somewhat 'rich' strip tune before I go on the dyno to be sure the mechanicals are tip top. I will strip tune this Saturday night. The problems I have been chasing were electrical in nature: some wiring was done 'correctly', but was not plugged into the AEM ECU in the right holes. Also, there was an issue with the cam position sender wire not being shielded, and the AEM 3.5 bar MAP sensor being wired the wrong way. In a 'free rev' at the shop, the little motor made 6.5 pounds of boost at 6500 . . . through a lot of piping and a large intercooler. I am fine with that. I plan to program the PCS to shift at 7000 for the fast brackets, and 5500 for the slower brackets. We will see what it does under a load this Saturday night (Jan. 23, 2010). I am still trying to secure an AEM Twin Fire CDI to boost the spark -- they have been unavailable for many months now while AEM 'redesigns' the product -- but I will run without one in the meantime. I will wait to dyno it until I have the CDI, however. Remember, my project is not to see how much horsepower I can make from this engine combination: I am a bracket racer, and what is important to me is reliability, tunability, and repeatability. I need ONLY to 'run (and accurately predict) my number' in back-to-back-to-back quarter mile passes. I was doing that just fine with my old turbo 1.5JZ . . . but the lure of an uncorked all-aluminum V-8 was just too much to resist! Wish me luck.

So . . . .  I go all the way down to Pattaya to tow my little racer back to the track for some serious 'test & tune", and perhaps to race, last Saturday . . . only to discover that  the PCS trans controller had not been wired correctly . . . so it would not go into gear: there was no power to the trans solenoids. I felt pretty foolish not to have thought to have checked to see if the trans worked before now.  Oh well.  I am off to Los Angeles, California for a week, then when I get back, I go to Northern Italy for the following 10 days, for a total of three (racing) week-ends out of Thailand.  Oh well, I will try and make the best of it by picking up an MSD 'DIS-4" CDI unit in The States . . .  since thre is no chance of sourcing an AEM unit any time soon.

Progress Report: After  Los Angeles for six days, then home in Bangkok for only three days (and some surgery), I was off to Italy for eight days. I am finally back home and trying to get into a routine that includes 1UZ race car stuff! Sheesh! The news: The MSD DIS-4 was installed and the engine started right up . . . there are no problems with the motor running now. All previous problems were caused by the wiring guy "wiring the car correctly" but plugging the wires into some wrong pins on the AEM ECU -- which resulted in trying to tune the beast based on spurious input sensor data. Sheesh! Somehow I think this qualifies as "Not wiring the car correctly." Next, the same wiring guy "wired the PCS trans controller correctly" but plugged some wires into the PCS box in the wrong pins. These "errors" were either caused by the inattentativeness of the wiring guy, or mis-communication between my shop guys and the wiring guy.  I don't care which . . .  I just want it done right.  After two new wiring guys refused to touch the PCS ("Too complicated" they said . . . and I appreciated their honesty).   The new, new, new wiring guy figured it out and tested it. Perfect. Sooooo . . . next week-end I test and tune . . . . IF, and it's a big IF . . . they don't shut down the local drag strip again for running a nude dancing show in the track side bar . Only in Bangkok! Sheesh! 

Well, every project needs a major miscalculation, and I have had mine.  Nobody to blame but myself . . . .  sort of.  My builder/shop guys 'could have' caught it, but I'm the guy who supplied what were suppose to be the "right" parts.  The part in question is the 1UZ bell housing which is "suppose to" be able to mount the 1JZ automatic transmission "perfectly".  Well, the mounting surfaces and bolt pattern of the 1UZ bell housing are identical, the only problem is that they are not the same DEPTH!  No Good!  Of course this means that the splines of the trans input shaft do not engage the torque converter or ride in the pilot bushing.  No good!  I made various inquires on the Internet with experts, visited a ton of sites, and even called up legitimate, big name experts on the subject at reputable transmission shops and was assured by all that the 1UZ bell housing would mate the 1JZ automatic trans.  Nope.  I am guessing that there are more than one 1UZ bell and more than one 1JZ auto box involved here and that I have the novel combination.  My fault was not measuring (let that be a lesson to us all!) or simply placing the bell housings side by side.

Yes Virginia, the 1UZ and the 1JZ automatic trans bell housings have the same mounting . . . . .

. . . . they just are not the same DEPTH.

So, what to do.  There are two possibilities: one -- (best, but not what I am going to do) is to disassemble my 1JZ built racing trans and install the input shaft (and pump) from a 1UZ of the correct length (assuming that they fit . . . . and I do not know that they do); or two -- make a spacer ring (with a pilot bushing allowance) between the current flywheel (ring gear) to ANOTHER flywheel which will have the torque converter bolted to it, and bolt it all onto the crankshaft. The length of the "spacer ring" is about 2 inches.  It will work, and only adds the weight of the spacer ring and the additional flywheel.  I will do this at the machine shop using a dummy block for measurement.

Lesson: A 1UZ automatic transmission bell housing will not "perfectly mate" a 1JZ torque converter and transmission to a 1UZ engine.  What to do?  Extend the mounting "tabs" on the ring gear/flex plate (shown below), then add 45 degree gussets (not shown) in both directions of acceleration and de-accelaration. Also note the extended "pilot bushing" that registers the front of the input shaft to the end of the crankshaft flange.

It was great to see the race truck again.  It is very close to completion now.  It starts, runs, sounds very healthy.  If all goes well with the torque converter mounting fix, I will try to dyno it next week-end.

UPDATE: Because these torque converter mounting "stands" (above) looked like they were too long, we welded on "gussets" in the direction of loading and unloading for strength. They look like this:

The new torque converter mounts now strengthened.

The race truck is still not on the race track . . . and now I am travelling for the next three week-ends.  Oh well.

Still under construction.  It is essentially finished . . . just a few small details . . . and surprises, I'm sure.

Only in Thailand: a supercharged Toyota 1UZ V-8 going into a fairly new model BMW 325i!  This is at the shop where my truck is getting worked on.

The state of the race truck: a video tour.