Tuning the K10

[BlueNeon]

A quick look round, produced... Nothing! is there nothing that can be done to squeeze a few more gee gees from this engine?

any thoughts would be great thank you

T

 

[quickdraw]

which engine. ma10 (1ltr) ma12 (1.2)
and what kind of mods are you looking at.
u can get yuprated pistons. boring out the hed another 0.2, not much an improvement but overall it is an improvement. a good CAI setup.
and a perfectly conditioned engine itself. a nice engine runs nice.
look after it. it will treat u well.

not really ne thing great unfortunatly.
there is a webber carb that some people say is better but this aint proven. and is rarer than some..

wayne

 

[kev_mono72]

Can the MA10 be bored out .2L? Are there any problems that might happen and roughly what will it cost? Are the new pistons easy enough to come by? and if dont right, will this stop the car burning oil? Mine burns a bit and its just annoying coz i hav to keep a close eye on it...

 

[Ed]

WAYNE where do you get this info from???? You cannot bore out a MA block, other than very slightly to make them true. The gain in CC is not worth it for loss of strength. The MA09 is the perfect example where its CC was DECREASED to increase strength, and over all its far more capable.

People listen, if you want power you need to get in more air and fuel. The restrictions on the K10 are the inlet manifold and exhaust. The inlet is more restrictive. If you somhow remove this restriction power will be greatly increased.

 

[Ed]

Just spoken to Wayne he ment 0.2mm not 0.2L increase.. so no point!

 

[quickdraw]

yus as ED says.
it may be true at the fact it is only 0.2mm is very insignificant i was just simply pointing it out that it is possible.
but as ED says main priorities are exhaust and inlet manifold.

mainly everything possible to do unfortunatly as it aint classed as a "oyracer" car ,and thankfully may i add, in cases with performance companies they dont see th point in bringing out anything performnce for the car

 

[kev_mono72]

Bad assumtion on my part! U shud hav put in units! Cant u get a K+N direct replacement filter? Then drill holes round the intake manifold to get more air to it, theres a guide to dat in the K10 guides section of the forums. As the the exhaust, wudnt u hav to change the manifold for a larger one then get a straight through pipe? No point in gettin a larger straight-through with the standard manifold, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link!

 

[Ed]

And the weakest link is the intake manifold

 

[omigulay]

someone make a custom manifold so we can have turbo k10!

 

[kev_mono72]

I know sum1 who knows sum1 in sum mad foreign country who takes ur original manifold and alters it to take a turbo! I havnt talked to him in a while, but he cud get it dun im sure!

 

[DoomPixie]

which manifold do you mean? exhaust manifold is easy, i have one sat in my shed that has been modified to take a T3. Just cut the cast manifold, make up a box around the end and weld a turbo flange to the end of the box, wel the box to the manifold. done. just need to preheat the manifold and use an arc welder because its cast. the hard bit with turboing a K10 is geting the fuel and ignition advance curve sorted out, the rest is childs play. i know for a fact if i ever atempt it again i will be converting to a full efi / ignition management system so much easier to make changes too than massing around with the jets in a carb.
Owen

 

[kev_mono72]

Cool, wana come over to ireland sometime and do dat for me? Not anytime soon tho! No monies!

 

[quickdraw]

i ahve both of these matters in hand also

even though im going to ga16 soon :s

but had them in pipeline before so will carry on for others

 

[RaptorRVL]

Another idea that came up with me not too long ago is trying to use a supercharger.
a.f.a.i.k. a supercharger is more smooth in power and more easy to adjust.

Sure there is another belt involved and it has to come from somewhere, but I think it might be easier than a turbo.
Only question is... where to get a supercharger
And I dont think the hitachi carb is built for it, so would need other carb as well.
Haven't seen the idea of a supercharger around very much (I havent seen it once, but might just missed it).
Sure it has been discussed earlier or something? I must be missing a key thing in this supercharging story that will make it impossible on a micra <- which is really :down:


ps:
For those who dont know the difference between supercharger and turbocharger (leave the forums, j/k) clicky clicky

 

[DoomPixie]

the reason is a decent condition secondhand supercharger would have cost me about £200+ whereas i could get a decent condition secondhand turbo for about £50. Supercharger always seemed like a great idea to me too though. the hitachi carb would still need to be replaced. or you could do what i did on the last K10 i attempted this on and change the throttle cable for a sealed marine grade one and build a plenum chamber around the carb. that way the carb cant leak as the pressures around it are the same as inside it. you still need a fuel pressure regulator to keep the fuel pressure roughly 3psi over the boost pressure at all times but thats fairly easy to sort out.
Owen

 

[micra man]

I have a custom exhaust manifold, air filter and powerflow full through exhuast. At the moment it is pushing abut 60BHP, (MA10) but with a custom inlet manifold (which I am planning on getting), and a new carb this would greatly increase I'm sure.

 

[DoomPixie]

you might be better off geting some work done to the head before bothering changeing inlet manifold and carbs. bigger valves modified for low flow resistance and a little big of tidying up on the casting is pretty much all it needs though. or atleast thats all i did to the cylinder head on my mates and acordign to the dyno we were pushing 72bhp ( i think it was 72, might have been more) and that was with standard carb and inlet manifold. might be worth giveing paul ivey a call and seeing how much it would cost to have him make you up a set of valves for it. i used valves from what looked like a VW cylinder head but they needed modding to fit and also needed modding to improve their flow characteristics. even just modifying hte valves that are in there and giveign the head 3 angle valve seats would be a good start ;-) anyone with a valve seat cuttign tool can do the seats and the valves you can get modified at a local engineering place that has a lathe, they are pretty easy job aswell.
Owen

 

[Ed]

RE: RE: Tuning the K10

which manifold do you mean? exhaust manifold is easy, i have one sat in my shed that has been modified to take a T3. Just cut the cast manifold, make up a box around the end and weld a turbo flange to the end of the box, wel the box to the manifold. done. just need to preheat the manifold and use an arc welder because its cast. the hard bit with turboing a K10 is geting the fuel and ignition advance curve sorted out, the rest is childs play. i know for a fact if i ever atempt it again i will be converting to a full efi / ignition management system so much easier to make changes too than massing around with the jets in a carb.
Owen

T3 on a micra is far far too large. T2 will be much better suited. Mig welder will be fine if it has enough current infact it can be better as it does not leave residue. Stick a R5 carb on. It is almost that easy. you will have to modify the distributor, but that is not as hard as it sounds. I done similar in the past.

 

[Ed]

RE: RE: Tuning the K10

you might be better off geting some work done to the head before bothering changeing inlet manifold and carbs.

Its the inlet manifold that is so restritive. In actual fact the valve area on a K10 is large for the engine capacity.

Bigger valves modified for low flow resistance and a little big of tidying up on the casting is pretty much all it needs though.

To even make any attempts worth while you would need to put it on a flow bench.

or atleast thats all i did to the cylinder head on my mates and acordign to the dyno we were pushing 72bhp ( i think it was 72, might have been more) and that was with standard carb and inlet manifold. might be worth giveing paul ivey a call and seeing how much it would cost to have him make you up a set of valves for it.

Seriously. I have it from very very respectable head builder (one of the best in my eyes) that the K10 valves are large as it is. Its a REAL waste of time to do what your suggesting.

i used valves from what looked like a VW cylinder head but they needed modding to fit and also needed modding to improve their flow characteristics. even just modifying hte valves that are in there and giveign the head 3 angle valve seats would be a good start ;-) anyone with a valve seat cuttign tool can do the seats and the valves you can get modified at a local engineering place that has a lathe, they are pretty easy job aswell.
Owen

Its all for so little. Change the inlet manifold put good carbs on it. Before you do ANYTHING else.

 

[DoomPixie]

the valves may be large to start with, but as with any standard valves they arent built for high flow. Inlet manifold isnt easy to make, modifying the valves is fairly easy and does show increases in power from my experience. Problem is im just guessing that the increase was down to the head work, It could just as easily have been down to the exhaust manifold (modified 4-2-1 rover metro manifold) or a combination of everythign even. When i did the head for my mate i spoke to paul ivey about getting some performance valves made for it but the cost was goign to be too high and he suggested the modifications i did to the valves, all i did that he hadnt suggested was swap the valves for slightly larger ones, and that wasnt the main reason i did that either, the exhaust valves i put in were in better condition and were stainless steel.
Your right, if you have a high power mig welder then that is better than an arc welder for doing the exhaust manifold but you will still need to preheat it because the original manifold is cast and the turbo flanges you can buy are made from steel (or atleast the ones i found were).
I know a standard T3 is too big, but the BB T3 i had worked very well. spun up at about 3 - 3.5Krpm.

 

[quickdraw]

ok can i just throw in to this convo as some of you may well be able to input on it..

rx7 intake
holly carb.
take it as u may i wont describe how i have this planned but they are the 2 youe inputs and ideas etc wecome as this will all be good impuit as to my furthering this project.

wayne

 

[DoomPixie]

just looked for some piccies of the RX7's inlet manifold. it looks to me like it will work with a little modification (assumeign the ports are roughly in the right place on the micra's engines) BUT the RX7 manifold is slightly angled to make the carb sit flat. (or it looks like it in the pics anyway) so to use it on a K10 you would have to make a shim or modify the manifold to make the carb sit level again.

resizeing the pics now

looks promising though i must say. depends on what size carbs you can get, if they are stupidly oversize then you can actually start looseing power because of it. or so ive been told, personally im not sure.
Owen

 

[DoomPixie]

S*** i didnt realise the pic's were THAT big :S fixed now though

you do realise the carb would be stickign up through the bonnet though dont you? .o0(mmmm.. power bulge)

 

[quickdraw]

not actually suing an rx7 i said look at rx7 intakes not their inlet manifolds

http://toyotaperformance.com/intake.htm

 

[quickdraw]

H-obviously also with out the injectors and using a flange for carb instead of throttle body

 

[DoomPixie]

gotcha i misunderstood what you were trying to achieve, i take it you plan to fabricate your own out of steel? for a carb obviously without the plenum chamber though?

 

[Ed]

RE: RE: Tuning the K10

the valves may be large to start with, but as with any standard valves they arent built for high flow.

To an extent I agree, but its not the valves, its the cams that are not designed for the high flow. The valves are still valves.

Inlet manifold isnt easy to make, modifying the valves is fairly easy and does show increases in power from my experience. Problem is im just guessing that the increase was down to the head work,

A well flowed head will make a massive difference, but fitting larger valves alone will not always do anything - especialy in this situation where the restriction is not the valves, its everything else around it. They can infact make it worse as the air velocity can become too low and that causes poor atomisation of fuel.

It could just as easily have been down to the exhaust manifold (modified 4-2-1 rover metro manifold) or a combination of everythign even.

Thats much more likely.

When i did the head for my mate i spoke to paul ivey about getting some performance valves made for it but the cost was goign to be too high and he suggested the modifications i did to the valves, all i did that he hadnt suggested was swap the valves for slightly larger ones, and that wasnt the main reason i did that either, the exhaust valves i put in were in better condition and were stainless steel.
Your right, if you have a high power mig welder then that is better than an arc welder for doing the exhaust manifold but you will still need to preheat it because the original manifold is cast and the turbo flanges you can buy are made from steel (or atleast the ones i found were).
I know a standard T3 is too big, but the BB T3 i had worked very well. spun up at about 3 - 3.5Krpm.

What was the turbo (specs) and what engine? I'd like to view the efficiency map of this.

I stand by however its the inlet manifold that kills the K10, I will soon have something that I hope to prove this with.

Ed

 

[Ed]

RE: RE: Tuning the K10

looks promising though i must say. depends on what size carbs you can get, if they are stupidly oversize then you can actually start looseing power because of it. or so ive been told, personally im not sure.
Owen

Totally correct. Large carbs small engine = small airflow and poor fuel atmoisation = poor running and very poor emissions. As always carbs have to be suited to the application.

 

[miticman]

get a K&N induction kit i got that and it friggen makes a huge difference. I also ripped out most of the emmission things this also makes the car sound better at high rpm and wen u are on the accelerator you can hear the intake breath in! ahaha

 

[oxygen]

What about using Alfa 33 1.3 carburators?
And how difficult is to make custom inlet and exhaust manifolds? I asked some friends and all of them say its very, very expensive. And is it important to calculate right dimensions and shape and s.o. or just find a welder to make it